Or Maybe Not

Here I am, typing away on my broken, dead computer. It's been tooling along quite nicely - all the more amazing 'cuz now, I'm pretty much trying to get it to crash 'cuz I ordered a new computer and it will be here any day!

Never underestimate the power of Google. After the crash that I thought was the final crash (since it went straight to blue screen), J. did a little Google research and got it back into 'safe mode'. This PC uses Windows XP - so he logged on using his user ID. And the PC was totally fine. Email, Internet - everything working perfectly. So we ran a Norton system check - it took all night last night. But this morning, I carefully booted up. And it was fine. I left for the day leaving my iPod here and J. ensured all my purchased songs were moved off the PC and onto my iPod. I was most worried about the iTunes library, documents (Word, Excel, etc.) and the Quicken files - everything else, I figured when it seized up again, we'd just consider it done.

But here it is close to 8PM and since shortly after 5, it's been all systems go - using my ID and meandering the Internets with wild abandon.

So you see my dilemma...I have a very expensive, very nice, very, VERY FAST PC on it's way to me any day - and this one is back to working fine.

Considering taking a seasonal job as a WalMart greeter to buy myself a little Christmas present.

Truth is, we will probably keep the new laptop 'cuz Murphy's law will probably kick in and immediately upon returning the shiny, new lightening speed lap top, this one will die again. And I'll be back to sad, depressed, pissed off, irritated Majah instead of sunny, bright, happy, cyber-farming, cyber-banking Majah. J. likes all the me(s) there could possibly be but he likes the sunny, bright, happy cyberly-connected me the best. Right, J.? (Just agree, Sweets - it's so much easier.) :-)

And another funny story re: our TV saga. So we've been in the 'discussion' phase of TV negotiations for weeks. I've been hemming and hawing. Insisting that we can just shift things around and 'make do' with a used TV from J.'s brother for the kid's media room and move their newer TV down here. But I finally agreed to purchase a 42 inch flat screen for down here. And unlike the $3,000 TV we had (purchased years ago - HD had come 'down' a lot then but still was hugely expensive - but we have a 'surround sound theater' set up in our family room and a nice TV is a part of it - and the TV we replaced was a 2nd hand 'from a friend' TV)....anyway, this new TV was flat screen, weighed only 35 pounds, cost a mere fraction of our previous TV and was awesome.

For about one hour.

See, we have a built in TV 'nook' in our family room wall. Without a TV, it's a giant albatross of a gaping hole that serves no purpose other than to irritate your spatial orientation. So the 42 inch was OK - but there was a lot of gaping hole visible on all sides. And I don't like that. I don't want gaps. I want that sucker plugged up entirely - housing what it's intended to house - a large TV.

47" flat screen, to be exact.

Which was on sale at Costco (sale ended yesterday), was 'older' packaging so it's being discontinued and therefore, not available everywhere - but J. located one in Livermore yesterday and had them put it on hold for us. Which meant that after a hugely long day - because it was the first day back after a week off and honestly, it was the hardest thing I've done in a long time to get myself up and out of my warm, toasty bed at the 'late' hour of 5AM - I got to drive my little SUV to Livermore to meet J. and pick up the 45" TV that won't fit in his car. For $173 more than we spent, we filled up the gaping hole. Everyone's happy. Our bank account $173 less happy, but it's OK. It will rally - I'll make sure it will.

Livermore sounds familiar, right? So I did a spur of the moment call to my friend and amazingly, she was able to go to dinner - so in addition to getting a bigger TV, I had a terrific dinner with my sweet friend. And she's recently found out she's going to be a mommy for the first time so we had a lot to catch up on. It was tons of fun and was really a good lesson in 'seize the moment'. The 'old' me (the 30 year old me) would have been too tired to be out late. But the new me - the one who's 50 and just feels like life is getting shorter and shorter by each ticking second - wants to make time to be with people I enjoy being with. So I did. It was a blast.

The new TV is installed and fits beautifully. No gaps! We just have to box up the old and return it (love Costco's return policy) - and viola! We are HD and flat screen and it's awesome!

So, old working PC, new soon-to-be delivered new PC, old dead TV, old too small TV and new awesome big TV are all co-existing nicely. For now. Dead TV will be eWasted as soon as possible. Old PC is TBD. Too small new TV will be returned ASAP.

It's just an 'average' two days in a mundane life.....

(Successfully about to post a blog post - yet another confirmation that this old piece of $%#@ PC is still holding it together). I need to create a hugely complicated Excel spreadsheet, full of macros and formulas and web links [and lots of circular references just so I can really keep the PC working away] - and then attach that spreadsheet to an email, include a Word document attachment to explain it all and send THAT email into cyberspace to see what happens....I'd better get busy.