Day 89 of 1000
When it rains it pours. Between Kelly and Christian, there are five research papers that need to be written between now and November 30. That means most of Thanksgiving break will be spent at the computer typing. In addition to that, there is math and physics quiz, test, and lab preparation. Now, when I was in college (I cannot believe I said that), we did all of our studying out of books. The kids still have their books, but they rarely even use their math or physics books as reference. They do their homework at online services like WebAssign. If they get stuck, they visit places like PatrickJMT and Khan Academy for tutoring and examples (they like PatrickJMT best).
So, earlier this week, Christian tells me his computer power cable is broken. Again. He plans to order a very nice computer between now and the end of the year and asks if he should just wait until then. I say NO, NO, NO!!! We are in the middle of the hardest part of a very hard semester and we cannot survive without one computer per person–Christian, Kelly, and Lorena for school and me for work. In the meantime, Kelly’s cheapo Dell computer starts manifesting a line through the middle of her screen. The computer is an absolute work of art but wildly not robust. Christian takes it apart to fix it and now we need to buy another computer for Kelly now instead of in time for next semester.
Christian and I put our heads together and decided to buy something a little more robust than the cheapo (but very colorful) Dell girly computers. We got here a factory refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad E520 for $384.01 — a smokin’ hot deal. It will be here before Thanksgiving. Kelly will HATE the color (black), but it is a WAY sturdier computer and has that cool ThinkPad logo embedded in the rubberized top of the computer that gives immediate seriousness cred–much better the foo-fooness cred that derived from her previous pink computer. Christian’s cable should be here any day now. In the meantime, we have to survive the weekend with a need for four computers and only two on hand.