Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Putting Bessie out to Pasture

We bought a new laptop this week and it came in yesterday. I have been scarce in the blogosphere because I have a lot going on at work and trying to set up a new computer has become a full time job in itself.

Why did we get a new laptop? Here are some good reasons. My old laptop (affectionately named Bessie) is 4 1/2 years old. She's already had a longer life than many laptops. Bessie and her accessories weigh in excess of 15 pounds. She earned her name at the last APS conference when I made the boys lug her around half the time. When I went to give my talk, I found out the hard way that Bessie no longer cared to speak with a projector. She also turns off periodically when she's feeling cranky. A couple weeks ago, the little latch that holds in various modules one can plug in (floppy drive, CD write drive, extra battery, etc) broke off, so if one wants to use any of these features, one must physically maintain electrical contact by firmly pressing in the drive. With Bessie letting me know that she wishes to enter into retirement and with some of our wedding money, we decided this was a smart purchase. Recently I'd been having nightmares of being hysterical while someone from the Geek Squad tries to recover bits and pieces of my Ph.D. dissertation from Bessie's hard drive. This way, Bessie is still completely functional but can pass away quietly knowing her job is done.

The biggest reason of all for getting a new laptop? So far the majority of our marital spats have consisted of who gets to surf on the internet while we are both watching TV. Apparently it is not enough to have the TV on and only one of us surfing the net. Dean needs to check basketball stats for his fantasy league while flipping between several games. I need to blog at the drop of a hat when inspiration strikes. Now, we are listening to the Magic game on TV, each sitting at a computer (me at the new one of course), occasionally exchanging a wink over the monitor.

3 comments:

Runner Girl FL said...

How Romantic!! :)

Jackie said...

too cute!

Scott said...

Sounds like you two could use a second computer. Call me whacky, call me nutty, call me silly. It doesn't take much of a machine to connect with the internet...