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End of Feb
2013-Mar-01, Friday 20:07Im back in job hunt mode. Contract ended.
I wish it had gone longer but Im grateful for what I did get.
Im actually relieved to give back that Lenovo T400.
The cursor would wander as you type and your text would end up scattered between several lines or windows.
The family PC which I use for job hunting had its BIOS battery fail a few months back and we ignored it.
We just didnt power down the machine and the clock kept its brains.
So, 2 weeks ago, the machine rebooted after an update (Family machine runs XP-Pro) and wouldnt reboot.
It was a bit annoying to Dad but I eventually picked up a new battery for the BIOS thinking BIOS was corrupt.
I wasnt so lucky. It was a drive failure. So coincidental with my contract running out, I had a dead PC at home.
I have a couple LINUX boxes, but none are really convenient to work on for job hunting and the drive had critical data on it.
And being busy, no backups either. I was in deep you know what.
The machine is a used HP desktop I got refurb for a bit over $200 several years ago.
Replacing the drive with an 80gb (twice its original size) and installing XP on it again ran me $200, not quite what I paid for it.
Right now, they are working on extracting data of the old drive which should run another $160.
YIKES!
So as of Thursday, we have a family PC for web searches and gmail, and Ive managed to fins a resume out on the cloud that I could update and store on the rebuilt machine.
When I first got the machine, I was pleasantly surprised to find it loaded with OpenOffice and several other helpful things.
This time I ended up with a pretty pure XP install.
Ive added Avast, Firefox, Chrome, Skype, and let it run all night grabbing the MS updates.
The Adobe installs were a pain. Failure after failure. Finally we have flash, shockwave and pdf players working.
I tried to install LibreOffice4 but that kept failing and finally after 4 tries got 3.65 to load.
This is almost as freaky as the 72 hours it took to get the DSL working on my home net.
The Blackberry has developed a problem that causes it to reboot randomly several times a day and its not downloading email.
I finally tried another battery and that seems to have helped.
This is interesting because this is the same battery I replaced last spring, the last time the phone went on the fritz.
It was nice to have a working smartphone this morning to verify the office I was interviewing at.
It turns out I was at the right place. They just didnt have a sign and I thought Id botched the address.
I only got my own cell in early 2011 when Id had issues like this for the umpteenth time.
In Sept 2010 I got on a ham radio repeater and asked someone to look something up for me,
and I knew right then that this had to be the last time I had to do something like that.
I searched for service and found out that Boost was about to introduce unlimited Blackberry service.
Im now getting unlimited Blackberry for $45/mo and Im cool with that.
I dont use it as a phone much any more. I use it as a mail tool and an emergency web browser.
Id like to upgrade it to do wifi.
Ive got things to do this weekend.
Im prepping up to do March Crown (Marsh Drown, it usually rains)
I found my great kilt after searching for it off and on several years.
The funny thing is that I chose a tartan that I didnt think was in use when i got it in the late 1970s.
I just looked at it. I have a funny feeling that its MacPherson.
Sven & Heather may give me a bad time as SCA.
I ordered a plain leather sporran which I need because I dont want to always wear the dress sporran all the time.
Its probably too modern for SCA but this is my 1st time in over 30 years.
Its arrived this week.
Because this is likely a once or twice a year if at all thing for me, Im working on the SCA kilt outfit slowly.
I need a liene shirt eventually but the jacobite shirt I ordered will have to do for now.
I found a candle lantern thats close to period looking and a bag of tea candles for it.
I may just skip the skein dhub dagger in the sock this time.
What I have is just too modern.
Ill wear the balmoral I have.
I need to find a belt thats long enough.
Its coming together. Ill be working in a merchant tent, so a fair amount wil be overlooked.
The bees arrive in April. 2 colonies are on order.
I need to get up to the bee yard and get things prepped.
I think its time for bed.
I wish it had gone longer but Im grateful for what I did get.
Im actually relieved to give back that Lenovo T400.
The cursor would wander as you type and your text would end up scattered between several lines or windows.
The family PC which I use for job hunting had its BIOS battery fail a few months back and we ignored it.
We just didnt power down the machine and the clock kept its brains.
So, 2 weeks ago, the machine rebooted after an update (Family machine runs XP-Pro) and wouldnt reboot.
It was a bit annoying to Dad but I eventually picked up a new battery for the BIOS thinking BIOS was corrupt.
I wasnt so lucky. It was a drive failure. So coincidental with my contract running out, I had a dead PC at home.
I have a couple LINUX boxes, but none are really convenient to work on for job hunting and the drive had critical data on it.
And being busy, no backups either. I was in deep you know what.
The machine is a used HP desktop I got refurb for a bit over $200 several years ago.
Replacing the drive with an 80gb (twice its original size) and installing XP on it again ran me $200, not quite what I paid for it.
Right now, they are working on extracting data of the old drive which should run another $160.
YIKES!
So as of Thursday, we have a family PC for web searches and gmail, and Ive managed to fins a resume out on the cloud that I could update and store on the rebuilt machine.
When I first got the machine, I was pleasantly surprised to find it loaded with OpenOffice and several other helpful things.
This time I ended up with a pretty pure XP install.
Ive added Avast, Firefox, Chrome, Skype, and let it run all night grabbing the MS updates.
The Adobe installs were a pain. Failure after failure. Finally we have flash, shockwave and pdf players working.
I tried to install LibreOffice4 but that kept failing and finally after 4 tries got 3.65 to load.
This is almost as freaky as the 72 hours it took to get the DSL working on my home net.
The Blackberry has developed a problem that causes it to reboot randomly several times a day and its not downloading email.
I finally tried another battery and that seems to have helped.
This is interesting because this is the same battery I replaced last spring, the last time the phone went on the fritz.
It was nice to have a working smartphone this morning to verify the office I was interviewing at.
It turns out I was at the right place. They just didnt have a sign and I thought Id botched the address.
I only got my own cell in early 2011 when Id had issues like this for the umpteenth time.
In Sept 2010 I got on a ham radio repeater and asked someone to look something up for me,
and I knew right then that this had to be the last time I had to do something like that.
I searched for service and found out that Boost was about to introduce unlimited Blackberry service.
Im now getting unlimited Blackberry for $45/mo and Im cool with that.
I dont use it as a phone much any more. I use it as a mail tool and an emergency web browser.
Id like to upgrade it to do wifi.
Ive got things to do this weekend.
Im prepping up to do March Crown (Marsh Drown, it usually rains)
I found my great kilt after searching for it off and on several years.
The funny thing is that I chose a tartan that I didnt think was in use when i got it in the late 1970s.
I just looked at it. I have a funny feeling that its MacPherson.
Sven & Heather may give me a bad time as SCA.
I ordered a plain leather sporran which I need because I dont want to always wear the dress sporran all the time.
Its probably too modern for SCA but this is my 1st time in over 30 years.
Its arrived this week.
Because this is likely a once or twice a year if at all thing for me, Im working on the SCA kilt outfit slowly.
I need a liene shirt eventually but the jacobite shirt I ordered will have to do for now.
I found a candle lantern thats close to period looking and a bag of tea candles for it.
I may just skip the skein dhub dagger in the sock this time.
What I have is just too modern.
Ill wear the balmoral I have.
I need to find a belt thats long enough.
Its coming together. Ill be working in a merchant tent, so a fair amount wil be overlooked.
The bees arrive in April. 2 colonies are on order.
I need to get up to the bee yard and get things prepped.
I think its time for bed.
