laundry day

Hello everyone. Life is going pretty well at the moment. Yesterday, I went out to Best Buy with my father to help him get a new computer. He thought it was time to take that big step and get his own rather than just using the laptop provided by the company he recently retired from. I've steered him towards getting an HP Pavilion which came with a good sised lcd monitor. Computers and monitors certainly aren't the heavy things they once were. We had no trouble carrying anything. They pack that stuff very well to the point where it took time just to get everything out and assembled. Once all the cables were plugged in, the startup and installation was quite simple. The only snag happened with the N wifi adaptor which wouldn't link up with the router without some extra prompting which shouldn't have been necessary. There are some differences with how Windows7 does things but most major elements like the control panel seem to be the same as with XP. We downloaded and installed Microsoft Security Essentials. I figure that this software combined with the firewall built into Windows ought to be plenty of protection. In fact, after reading numerous favorable reviews, I've decided to uninstall the security package I've paid for to start using the free Security Essentials on my netbook. So far, I've been quite impressed. It takes up a lot less memory. The interface is very accessible. We'll see how things go over time there.

I got a call about my long awaited furnature at the Brick. Apparently, most of it will arrive at the store on the 12th. I'll be getting a call to set up an appointment for delivery soon. Two tubchairs will take a while longer to get here. Having the futon here will certainly make the place feel more complete. I can start to have more than one or two people over and feel like I can properly accomodate them. The futon should seet three people comfortably when in couch form.

On tuesday, dad took me out for a walk. It was wonderful weather and I was actually hot when we got back. Getting to the Meadowvale Town Centre will be easier than it was from my parents' house. I'll only have to cross one small street. There are a few branches on the path which I'll have to avoid accidentally taking but nothing dangerous. Also, there were a lot of people out there and plenty of benches and areas for outdoor activities. I expect I'll spend a lot of time out there this Summer. The Trekker Breeze is working quite well. I still await the release of an update for it which ought to be out fairly soon along with the Blio Reader.

I had a great deal of fun on Sunday. The church service was excellent as always. It was followed by what is becoming a fairly regular but deeply appreciated ocurrance of having lunch with Shane and his family. After that, we attended the games night event held each month. It was a good thing Shane brought his computer. Something had gone wrong with my copy of Jim Kitchen's Monopoly version. Later on, I figured out that re-installing the game fixed the problem quite simply. It looks like Shane's in to games as well so I imagine we'll be attending more of them together. Hopefully, Joseph will also be able to join us. Life has definitely taken on a far more social aspect since I've moved here. I'm can't express how deeply grateful I am for this. There are still many moments when I keenly feel the lack of a special lady. However, barring some catastrophic change, I can be more than merely content here. There are enough friendly people around that I can picture things becoming even more fulfilling over time as I meet more of them.

Saturday evening was an unexpected interesting experience. I went out to lend my knowledge of trivia to a table attending the Mississauga MS Society's trivia fundraising event. I had a lot of fun, got to know some very good people and even came up with some answers in timely fashion. Earlier on Saturday, I finally bit the bullet and removed my outdated copy of Jaws from my desktop computer. I'm strictly using System Access and NVDA on the desktop. That let me install a long overdue update to my graphics card drivers which ought to make gaming with Adam here more palitable to him. It has also greatly sped up my computer's boot speed and made things generally more snappy. I won't be able to play some treasured games on it anymore. However, I plan to keep Jaws on my netbook for occasions when its strengths are needed. So far, System Access has done quite well. The major exception was the day before yesterday when I was ordering my groceries.

Today is a laundry day put off nearly to the last moment. It's been a tad over two weeks. I'll definitely be getting my laundry money's worth this time around. I wonder if the nicer weather we've been having will have any impact on how busy the machines are. While I ate breakfast, I heard an excellent BBC Radio4 Choice podcast about the large hadron colider. I remember how excited I was when that massive and complex machine went online around a year ago. It looks like they're finally ready to continue with experiments. Hearing the people involved discussing what things have been like at the LHC was absolutely fascinating. Even more was hearing about their hopes and speculations on what might be uncovered by the machine. I have the same sense of how intrinsically worth-while such exploration is as I do about our ventures in space. I've learned first hand how utterly empty life can get if there's nothing new to experience or contemplate. Hopefully, that sort of stagnation is at last behind me for good.

The laundry is half done now. There was absolutely nobody in that room today although at least one machine was running. Pretty soon, everything will be back up here and hung or stashed in its proper place. I always feel better when that's the case when it comes to laundry. I prefer my disorganisation to be in other areas of life. After the laundry's all squared away, things ought to be pretty relaxed. I have leftovers from yesterday for dinner although I may throw some green pepper on the grill to add to them. I've been accidentally neglecting those lately. My new order of groceries will come tomorrow. I don't think I'm going to over-spend on groceries this month. Keeping supplied with fresh fruit and vegetables takes some consideration. Online shopping can be quite economical once you get into a good rhythm and learn to space things out properly. I ought to have that more in hand in another month or two. Things are certainly moving in a nice direction in that area. I'm getting the hang of things like that again fairly quickly.