{"id":2235,"date":"2017-07-27T00:37:46","date_gmt":"2017-07-27T00:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/?p=2235"},"modified":"2017-07-27T00:37:46","modified_gmt":"2017-07-27T00:37:46","slug":"excited-birthday-girl-haunted-computer-noise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/27\/excited-birthday-girl-haunted-computer-noise\/","title":{"rendered":"excited birthday girl, haunted computer, noise"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past weekend I headed to my sister\u2019s house for my youngest niece\u2019s birthday. \u00a0She\u2019s turning 5 – my niece, not my sister – and was dressed up in wild and colorful birthday skirt and shirt. \u00a0Again, my niece, not my sister. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We took a trip to the library, the farmer\u2019s market, and the craft store before going to wendy\u2019s for lunch. \u00a0By then it was time to start getting ready for the party and I kept the girls entertained with some lego building before the guests arrived. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My sister always does a great job with party planning and we did tie dye shirts and had a rousing indoor snowball fight (with crumpled paper) before pizza for dinner. \u00a0They then moved on to press on nails for all the little girls and I opted to skip that one.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a good trip and I had fun, but I\u2019m really not a good traveler. \u00a0\u00a0It was worth it, though, to hold both my nieces\u2019 hands when we crossed a street. \u00a0So much love and trust there – it was really special.<\/span><\/p>\n

————————<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing this post from my new laptop and there\u2019s a story in the purchase.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was the Fourth of July and I was on the hunt for a computer. \u00a0Best Buy was having a big sale and I was jonesing for a chromebook. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I scoped out the various laptops and strongly resisted correcting a best buy salesman as he gave bad information to a customer. \u00a0(Well, not bad, just a little scarier than it needed to be).<\/span><\/p>\n

To my surprise, they had a fairly good selection of chromebooks and I found one that I liked. \u00a0Even better, they had an open box of that one for another $50 less. \u00a0Sweet! \u00a0It was Geek Squad certified and while I had a slight twinge, I went along with it. <\/span><\/p>\n

I made my purchase, took it home to charge up, and got it on my network easy as pie.<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until I opened it up a second time that I found a problem. \u00a0The chromebook has a touch screen and something had gone terribly wrong with the connection. \u00a0Instead of sitting patiently for me, the screen went crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Windows appeared and disappeared. \u00a0Things zoomed in and out so rapidly it was a blur. Confirmation boxes leaped in and out of focus. <\/span><\/p>\n

It was possessed. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I closed it and reopened \u00a0– and got it under control enough to use for a bit before shutting it down. \u00a0It was an intermittent problem – the worst kind to try and diagnose – but I was able to get it to repeat enough to record a short video in case I needed proof.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then, receipt in hand, I headed back to Best Buy. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The clerk at the counter was sympathetic and didn\u2019t need the video to get a return started. \u00a0We found the \u201cpowerwash\u201d function to clear me out of the machine and I went back to the laptop area to find a new one. \u00a0I took it back to the counter, paid the difference, and was on my way.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yes, I know I said I didn\u2019t need a laptop – but oh my gosh this is so damn shiny. \u00a0Did I tell you it had a touch screen? \u00a0And a built in pen! \u00a0And it\u2019s a Chromebook! \u00a0And it\u2019s so SHINY!!!!<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahem.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, I\u2019m now able to blog from my first floor or my front porch. \u00a0Or anywhere with a wi-fi connection, for that matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so shiny. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

————————<\/span><\/p>\n

Jim and I went to PizzaFire for dinner tonight. \u00a0The pizza was excellent, but the experience was a little rough. \u00a0Terrible acoustics, disruptive\/unsupervised children, a loud kitchen, etc. \u00a0\u00a0We opted to eat outside where cars idled with terrible music and motorcycles charged down the street. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I ate quickly as I usually do and tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep my cool. \u00a0I don\u2019t get noisy. \u00a0I would vastly prefer the quiet and still. \u00a0So I sit here with my laptop and listen to deadmau5 on low in the background. \u00a0There\u2019s a warm cup of tea at my side and a cat doing his best to not chase the one mosquito that managed to sneak into my house – thanks, Thunder(cat). \u00a0\u00a0And I wonder at the human impetus to make as much noise as we can. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m tired from my swim and an already a long week of work – I suspect there\u2019s an early night ahead of me.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past weekend I headed to my sister\u2019s house for my youngest niece\u2019s birthday. \u00a0She\u2019s turning 5 – my niece, not my sister – and was dressed up in wild and colorful birthday skirt and shirt. \u00a0Again, my niece, not my sister. \u00a0 We took a trip to the library, the farmer\u2019s market, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2236,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions\/2236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}