Ground Control To Major Tom....

This is ground control...

Or at least that is what our office is starting to look like. As I mentioned in my previous post, last Thursday was President's Day here at Black Cat Enterprises (my birthday). However, even though I took off about a half a day, I really didn't get to celebrate it with my wife until yesterday (7/1/06). To make a long story short: and to keep on track here, I was discussing the need for a new computer (again) with my wife, Barbara. We had stopped in Best Buy, as I had received a gift card from my mum, and thought I would just get something simple from there. I did, initially that is. I got the Mummy Trilogy (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, & The Scorpion King).

Soooooo....as long as I was in the store, I told my wife that I would like to look at the computers: more or less just to dream about getting one. As we looked, we found a couple of pretty good deals. For about $350.00, you could get a complete system, including monitor (crt) and a printer. Although that was pretty good (financially), I already have a CRT, and it is 19", as apposed to the smaller (15"?) one they bundled with the offer. Well, being the bargain hunter that my wife is; and being that we were not approved for their card: we decided to take their ad to Walmart, to see if they had the same machine. If they did, then we could get it for the same price, and put it on layaway (something Best Buy doesn't offer).

Unfortunately, when we checked back with Walmart, they didn't carry the "exact same model", and the manager said that the deal that Best Buy had was a very good deal (kind of recommending we go back to BB...go figure). And that is what we did...What was now our third trip to the store, ended up ending in the sale of a new machine. However, instead of getting the one that we initially looked at, we (I) actually upgraded (a little) to a somewhat more powerful machine, and with a 17" LCD monitor. Although not quite as big as my 19"CRT, it give sooooo much a better picture.

Now, I have both monitors sitting next to each other; one keyboard on the pull out shelf, while the other sitting on the top of the desk; on system sitting next to the monitors and the other sitting under the desk. I am still going to use the old system (I am using it now....at least for now). I will eventually dedicate this machine for only personal use; while the other machine will be for business only. As most of my computing time is for business, and because my business is all centered around computing, I decided (without much though) to use the new system for the business. My old Systemax AMD 800MHz computer, is working okay, but not great: and especially not up to the demands of my hectic business needs. My wife had offered to give me her computer, but I declined. Firstly, because it is not working right now. And although we could get it working with someone from the Geek Squad (which we still will need to do), I didn't want to deprive her from HER computer. After all, I bought it for her a little over a year-and-a-half ago. I just have a problem "taking it back".

I am going to keep this one for as long as it takes me to get a new, even more powerful one. That may take a year, but I will do it, because I already know I can pretty much out grow this one in that time. Additinally, I want to get a laptop, so that I can take my work with me when I am on the road. But that will probably be in another year as well, unless I can get it sooner: which is what my priority will be for now.