Day 1089: A bunch of cheery updates

[eve_prime]

(1) The most important update is that J's parents are doing just fine. They've both tested negative, and his mom's been on a walk around the block, while his dad has resumed swimming at the pool.

(2) The most trivial update is that my dishwasher is doing a much better job now.

(3) The most interesting update is about the cats, Azalyn and Ambrose. They were much too bored staying inside all the time, so now J lets them out when he gets up for the day, and one of us brings them in before dark. Also, having jingly balls to play with has helped immensely, and they both took to the new scratching post right away. Azalyn is quite comfortable indoors, and yesterday she chose to stay indoors all day, as it was raining heavily. She likes to visit with each of us, and likes to nap on a chair next to J's big comfy chair, where she can keep an eye on him. She's not very fond of Ambrose, though, and both yesterday and today (when she stayed inside until mid-afternoon) he seemed to want to come back in after getting let out, but she discouraged him. He mostly stays in a particular chair in the dining area; since he's obviously not hiding from us (he's quite happy to have one of us go say hello), maybe he's just staying out of his sister's way. So far, then, it's definitely an improvement in their safety, but not entirely in their quality of life.

(4) The most unexpected update was my impulsive decision today to buy a new desktop computer. For a great many years, I've had a series of them supplied by my employer, but they're pretty pathetic. The current one, for example, has only 4 MB of RAM and its "capacity" of 111 GB is nearly full, although my own files add up to only ~28GB. I can't use a browser on it without freezing up everything else - all I use it for is MS Office (and Spider Solitaire, which it came with). However, it's now insisting it needs an updated activation code for MS Office, which may not even exist anymore since Microsoft no longer supports my version (2010). Oh, also, the computer has no audio functionality and can't connect to my printer since it's set up for my employer's network printers (and for whatever reason doesn't seem able to learn about anything local).

So, instead of having them set me up with another, slightly larger computer that can't print and can't make sound and may fill up right away with junk, today I thought, hey, why not just buy one? So I ordered one from Amazon that should arrive on Friday. It has 12 GB of RAM and the hard drive size is 512 GB, and it's SSD so it'll boot up faster. I can then set it up with Office 365, through my employer, and get back to work. I'll miss Windows 7, but surely I don't actually need a 14-year-old operating system.

Comments

[kaishin108]

What a huge relief that his parents are doing better! :) :)

Wow, that is going to be fantastic for you - a new computer. Congratulations! I hope the set up is easy-peasy. :)

Happy the kitties are getting used to being indoors, so much safer. ;)

I am sure you are relieved your DW is performing better.

Have a lovely day. :)

[eve_prime]

Thanks!

(It's good that I noticed that J. had forgotten to spread his bubble wrap sheets across his comfy chair before I left last night, because they did decide to pee there. Naughty cats.)

[heleninwales]

I think having your own computer for your own things will work much better. We've always had to buy our own computers because the college provided computers on their premises. If we wanted to work at home, we needed to buy our own. My only regret at the last computer upgrade was not longer being able to install MS Office 2010. I'd bought it on some special deal for education, but of course I could no longer register it. To be honest, Libre Office is fine for my needs now I'm retired, but I knew so many keyboard shortcuts for Word and they don't work in Libre Office. :-(

[eve_prime]

Way, way back in about 1987, I was sent to the software store to choose a word processing program for my small employer, because they'd decided to switch away from the silly one they were using (Benchmark). There were two choices: MS Word and Word Perfect. I chose Word Perfect because it was more intuitive and because the "reveal codes" function made it possible to fix any problem easily. I stayed faithful to Word Perfect for a very long time, at least 20 years, but eventually my current employer stopped supporting it. (Even then, I bought my own updates and kept using it for a while.) I had Open Office on some of my earlier laptops, but no longer. I guess I'll be using Word from here on out, but it's a nuisance that I can't keep 2010 even though it works perfectly well! I hope this 365 installation goes smoothly...

[claidheamhmor]

O365 works just fine, and there are some nice improvements over 2010. I do still miss WordPerfect too, even though I haven't used it in about a decade.

[claidheamhmor]

Glad J's parents are doing better.

The new laptop sounds great, I'm sure it'll be a huge improvement!

[eve_prime]

It's a new desktop - I still need a new laptop too! I probably won't buy one quite as impulsively, though.

[claidheamhmor]

Missed that, but even better. I like my desktop.

[eve_prime]

Any day now I'll have time to get the new one out of its box! Ha!