Oy........

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Been busy since Saturday. First was Little Man's B-Day, then was Father's Day, then was "Let's Upgrade The Computers" Day (Monday). The Birthday Party was way fun.

Father's Day we went to the Del Mar Fair (officials changed the name to the San Diego County Fair... it's been the DMF since I was little, and that's what everyone knows it as). We viewed the various wares that vendors had there, were extolled on the virtues of some miracle remedies by Jamaican Sales-women, I was in a Kung-Fu fight that I lost / won (Chinese Back Massage - HIGHLY recommended), rode the Carousel with Little Man (twice!), went on a Virtual Adventure (LM barely made height reqs on that one), purchased over-priced food, and generally had a Good Time (tm).

Then there was yesterday. Finally figured out what the extra money in our account was... It was a partial repayment by the Government of that Interest Free Loan that I funded them all of last year, minus what they stole. Hooray for my generousity!

So The Wife and I decided that now would be a good time to upgrade the compys. We had talked about it for a while before this, and done some research. I was all set to order things online; however, we decided to run down to Fry's and see what they had in stock and what their pricing was. Ended up being pretty close to what I found online, and they had almost all of the components that I wanted. I compromised (in the wrong direction... went higher quality) on the video card and the RAM, but it all worked out.

And to top it all off, we ran into The Wife's Ex... who just happens to work there.

Awk-ward.

We survived that encounter with no incident, payed for everything and left before commen sense / buyer's remorse could set in. I have not spent that much money in one shot (wedding / engagement ring doesn't count) since '97. Ouch.

Stayed up all friggin' night getting The Wife's system up and running. Only original parts from her old system was the Power supply, Case, and LCD Monitor. COMPLETE rebuild. MoBo was a bit tricky, it had a certain way it wanted to be set up for the first time, and it took a while combing the message boards to figure it out.

So her system is now up and runnin', and tonight's mission is to rebuild my system. Hooray Computers!! ('Tis a Love / Hate relationship that I have with them... pays my bills, but they cause me no end of grief)


In other news, FrankJ. reports that there is some criticism of the way The Alliance handles linking... I wonder if that concept really works as well as they are indicating that it does.

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