Bought a Laptop!

Around midnight this morning, after 3.5 days of research I ordered a Dell Inspiron 15 laptop. This has been one of the quickest decisions I've ever made on a big ticket item, but after days of being frustrated by random, frequent freeze-ups on a used laptop, plus the fact I can't really use my 9 year old Dell desktop with only 256 MB of RAM for anything other than email, blogging (I'm using my old Dell for this right now), etc, and other wimpy, older applications, Hal decided it was time to put me out of his suffering. I guess I complained a little. Okay, a lot, but not without reason.

The final decision was between a Dell and a Lenovo. I sort of regret not getting the Lenovo because it has a high definition display and Dolby surround sound speakers, but the Dell allowed me to change the processor for a better one and in the end there was only a $40 difference. Except for taxes, I met Hal's requirement of keeping it below $600. This old desktop cost me $1069 back in 2001 and the power of the new one is far superior. Four (4!!) GB of RAM, a fast processor, wide screen display, dvd/cd burner, web cam and a 320 GB hard drive. I can hardly wait. But I'll have to since they said August 7th was the estimated delivery date. That's the problem when you don't buy off the shelf. They have to build this one for me.

In other news it's raining. A torrential downpour and we need it. I've been watering the veggie garden at Hal's camp with a water barrel on his tractor. Not very effective and only enough to keep the little plants form completely shriveling up. This will help tremendously. It may be a week or more before I have to resort to manual labor. The zucchini, cucumbers and pumpkins will survive. It's probably too late for the beans though.

With all this rain the dogs escaped early to Uncle Butch's so they can stay there for now. I may read my book after this, another Harry Dresden by Jim Butcher, "Turncoat". It's due at the library tomorrow, I shouldn't have any trouble finishing tonight.