02.27.09
Computer Upgrade
Ran out of room on my laptop drive. Between pictures and karaoke, it ate ti all up. I need to have the karaoke on the laptop so I don’t have to carry extra drives, power supplies, and back up power supplies. Swapped out the original drive 120gb drive in my laptop for a 500 gb unit. Spent the last few days putting things like my mail accounts back in order. It’s been traumatic switching everything over: passwords, serial numbers, eMail files, bookmarks, signatures, working files, authorizations— phew. I really needed the larger drive, but underestimated the scope of the changeover. A pleasant surprise was how much the cost of the drives has come down! The one I bought was $0.24/gb delivered!
Weather
In the 70s yesterday. Today 60° and we are waiting on a snow storm.
Car Troubles
An unpleasant surprise came last week when my car went kaputnik on the way back from Sam’s in Fayetteville. The chip I thought was bad in fact tested bad, but replacing it didn’t get ‘er going again. Hmmm. Don’t want to fix stuff that isn’t broken. When it warms up the end of the week, I’ll start at the fuse box and go through it with a meter and a ‘hot-or-not’.
Meanwhile, I’m driving my little 4 cylinder diesel pick up truck. It isn’t as comfortable as the car, but the mileage it gets more than makes up for the differences in fuel prices.
Losing Friends
I hear of a friend passing now and then, but mostly I learn about deaths when I return to Ypsi and the longer I’m gone, the more likely it is this time I’ve been absent a year. It’s weird going back because sometimes the blows are big, so I end up grieving, but it’s all old news to everyone else. I guess the price of longevity is ever more frequent heartache as our friends and family go on before us…
Depression
Seems like no one wants to say it, but it looks from here like the U.S. is in an economic depression. They happen. It’s part of man’s boom and bust nature. Someday our civilization will go the same way all before have. Anyway, credit was at the heart of the 1929 bust. In 1999, the veto proof republican congress was lobbied to repeal the 1933 Glass-Steagal act that prevented banks from commingling their activities with insurance and investments. At that time, they also deregulated the banks (remember? It was unregulated margin selling that brought the financial system down in 1929). In 1999, there were credible warnings that what was being done would lead to another crash. Well, it only took 9 years. The actual instrument that brought down investment banking (an illegal combination before 99′) is called a ‘credit default swap’. Now, all those giant unregulated investment banks are out of business but the laws that created them haven’t changed.
In the bigger world, as long as the gasoline and electricity stay on, and there is some food in the stores, I think our civilization will get through the current phase more or less in tack. And some good changes can come of it all.
