First, I got a new laptop! Yay!!!
It's a 15" Dell AMD Inspiron and the story behind me getting it is kinda... well, drama filled (a little) so I won't get into all that, but let's just say, I'm glad I have awesome credit!I really don't like laptops smaller than 15 inches as they just seem too small with everything squished together on the keyboard - I like having a little bit of room when working on a laptop! Also, I like Dell's - my first computer of my own was a Dell and I used it for well over 5 years before I started using my Powerbook for everything as my Dell's drivers were so out of date. The Dell monitor that came with it though is what we're currently using for our desktop monitor until we can get another flatscreen one.
Before I could go pick my new laptop up though (I ordered it online through Best Buy and did the in-store pickup option) I had to hole up with Tiger in our bathroom as the local tornado sirens started going off around 3pm this afternoon!
Yeah, that's right - tornadoes in Northern Illinois near the end of November!
Talk about crazy weather we've been having! It was somewhat "normal" near the end of last week and over the weekend, however the past few days been in the upper 50s and 60s! Tornado weather seemed inevitable!
We only had to hide out in the bathroom (the innermost room in our apartment with no windows) for like 20 minutes, although Tiger was not amused and I think she peed on me at one point (in her defense though, she was a little scared and I was holding her pretty tight when I went out to check the news and see if the warning had expired or been extended). There were a few that touched down though - one just north of here overturned a school bus full of kids (only 3 had minor injuries though!) and another in the next county over that did some major damage, tearing through homes and grain silos! A few of my friends that live across town on the North side lost power because of the tornadoes too.Anyways, after watching the news for a bit to find out what all happened and if we were in the clear, I headed out to pick up my new laptop and I've been spending most of the evening getting it all set up and downloading/installing stuff on it.
I'm really liking it so far - it's shiny and new and FAST! We got it hooked up on our home network so I don't need to pull everything on it as I can just access all our music, photos and videos on the Desktop's external HD via the network (sweet!).
It also has a webcam on it too, which is kinda neat as I've never really used a webcam before and half my family Skype's so I can do that with them now. It's got Windows 7 on it too, which I'm starting to get used to as our desktop is running Vista.
It seems pretty snazzy though and I figure since we'll probably still be here at the apartment for at least part of March (as even if we get pre-approved and really lucky with finding a house right away in January, it could still take some time to get everything finalized and us moved in), it'll be good to have as I can put Jay down for a nap in the bedroom and then use the laptop out here so I'm not keeping him up or anything using the desktop in there. Plus when we get a house, we can keep the laptop on the main floor while we'll have a separate computer room, which will be nice when Jay's a little older so he can watch his movies or shows in one room and I can be in the same room on the laptop doing stuff too. And he can use it too when he's a little older for any learning PC games he'll have.
Nice laptop! Yeah, 15 inches is good... I think my home laptop may be 14 inches, but 13 is definitely way too small :) And 17 inches is huge and heavy. So what's the video card on the laptop? Haha, always have to check that.
ReplyDeleteWow, I would be so afraid of a tornado. I guess every place has its own natural disasters--earthquakes, blizzards, hurricanes, tsunamis--but tornadoes seem like one of the scariest to me. I mean, you can go to the inner rooms in the house with no windows, but if the tornado goes right over the house, what can you do then? Eek.
Oh yeah, 17 inches just feels too big for me too! I think 15" (and sometimes 14") feels just right =D
ReplyDeleteHere's all the info:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell+-+Inspiron+Laptop+/+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+3GB+Memory+/+320GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/1179872.p?id=1218231017163&skuId=1179872
Tornadoes seem scary but it's pretty common around here to have them hit nearby so I've just always grown up knowing the procedure and not really getting too worried about it the older I get.
I remember in 1st grade we spent an entire afternoon huddled up against the hallway outside the classroom with our head between our legs and hands over our heads as one was passing by. Then once it passed a teacher read us books until we got all the clear and could go home. That was a little scary!
Normally if you have a basement you go hang out under the basement stairs (which most people around here usually have a closet put in just for such occasions so it's a little more secluded. I remember at our old house when I was little I used to stockpile all my toys and stuffed animals - mom would get annoyed cuz there would barely be any room for us to stand in there, lol...
But here, with our apartment we don't have a basement but we are on the bottom floor so our "safe spot" is the bathroom.