#58 - New Broken Computer & Some Pictures

Motto: One man’s trash is another man’s trash

I just got my new computer. It is a refurbished ASUS that I got a great deal on. It is sleek looking. It is light. It is also completely and totally useless. The thing started up for the first time alright. I installed Chrome on it. I uninstalled useless frivolities like "ASUS WebStorage". After finishing that, I right clicked on the desktop to change the background and the computer BLUE SCREENED. This brand new computer with a fresh operating system threw up all over me. I thought, "no, there's no way". I restarted the computer - only to find that the HDD is no longer being recognized. It, by the way, is where the operating system is located. So, again, my new computer is nothing other than an expensive paperweight.
Not the right context for this picture, but otherwise it fits perfectly
Ron Swanson is a man.


 ASUS is having me send it in to them (on my dime) to fix the problem. I am irate that I had this problem to begin with. When you "refurbish" something, it shouldn't die permanently within a half hour when I turn it on.

 Anyway. I started my New Year’s resolution last Monday. As you may recall, I resolved to live a more structured, consistent life. This involved intentional sleep and rise times, workouts, and dietary and monetary constraints. During this week, a couple of things happened. One, I realized just how hopelessly unstructured I had been living. I found I hard to start cold turkey (can you start something cold turkey?). I frequently stayed up later than expected, slept in, and ate out. I only worked out 3 of the 5 days, and one of those “workouts” was a 10 minute stretching routine before a shower. The other thing that happened: I had the best, most productive week I’ve had since I started keeping score with the Demetri List. I hypothesized that increased structure would show results in the Demetri List and, from what I can tell so far, signs seem to be pointing that way. This week, so far, I’ve held up all of my contractual resolutionatory (made up word) obligations to myself. On a related note: It’s only Monday... and I've stayed up too late already. This week at work I learned a semi-low-level-but-not-entirely-technical view of how cell phones and the network behind them work. It was amazing, confusing, frustrating, enlightening, and, most of all, very humbling. It makes me respect even more the phone companies, the many many people who created these systems, and the many many people who work every day to maintain them. Allow me to summarize everything I learned into one easy-to-digest paragraph: It’s magic. Technically, that’s a whole paragraph. I know because I looked it up. Online (that was my subtle movie quote for this column. I’m still doing those, btw).

I watched KU beat West Virginia at Power and Light in KC. I took this photosphere:

Looks better if you make it bigger
Alright. It's past my bed time.

Top 5: Things from a while back (oldest to newest) that make me happy, no matter what
5. These guys
Awesometown
From left to right: Jon, Aaron, Joe
4. The fact that these pictures still exist
...and we lost that game Evidence that I wasn't terrible!

3. This guy
The albino squirrel
Someone was probably karate chopped in half shortly after this photo was taken

 2. This chick
First day of RA training - "DIBBS"
Taken at Big Mac front desk, circa 2009

1. This GIF
(for internet points)
The only reason I'd ever get a cat

 Quoted Dialog:
“I just caught a wiff of perfume or cologne, I’m not sure which” – Me “I don’t smell anything” – Ricki “Yeah, it was a while back. I was trying to determine if it was interesting enough to say out loud” – Me “…...” – Ricki “I think I went the wrong way with that” - Me

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