New Laptop, Spring Days and Good Company

My cute little new baby!

Still a bit computer challenged, but let me give you an update – nearly back in business!  I bought the cutest little netbook, an LG X110 and am now in the middle of trying to round up and load all the software I need on it and to get all my settings back to what I had.  The good news is that these little net books come pre-loaded with XP, rather than Vista, so you need less memory to get reasonable performance from them.  This is particularly good since the RAM on the little PC is not upgradeable. 

 My new baby has a 10” screen and weighs in at only 3 pounds, so I can schlep it around in purse even if need be.  A perfect little travel machine and I can use it where ever I am.  One reason it is so light is that it does not have a CD drive.  I bought an external CD, which will be just as useful, I seldom use it except to load software and purchased CDs  into the computer, and so won't always need to carry it around with me.  Also, this time I purchased maintenance on the computer from Future Shop where I bought it.  Each of the last several computers I have owned have had component failures and this insurance guarantees me no more computer expenses on this machine for 3 full years and it includes a yearly maintenance and keyboard cleaning!  A good deal I thought.

I have not as yet loaded my office software however it came preloaded with a freeware suite called OpenOffice, which from reviews does a decent job and mimics all the Microsoft products well enough.  I will use the text writer product and upload to my blog when I get back home.   So far it seems close enough feature wise to Word and I am happy.  The keyboard is great – my old one had a few broken keys so it is good not to have to work around that disability any more!

Lunch on a Patio - At Last it is Spring!

Yesterday's weather was wonderful and my friend Yvonne, from work, and I had gone out to a patio for lunch.   We wandered up John St and browsed the string of patios that run north of Adelaide up to Queen.  We chose a nice sunny spot at the new Jack Asters.  It was great to be sitting in the sun eating lunch but the wind of the lake was quite cold, so they had lit up the gas patio heater to provide some warmth.  Yvonne, in a fit of weather optimism, had not worn a coat to work that day (reminds me of my school days), so this was a welcome act.  Lunch was fun as we caught up on stuff – it had been a while since Yvonne and I had been able to find time for a long chat.  

Friday night at GopherBrokeFarm

After work,  I hoofed it up to GopherBrokeFarm as soon as I could sneak away from work.  The drive up was spectacular – no traffic, window down, sun in my face and great jazz music from CBC Radio 2 playing loudly.   Johnny was cooking dinner as I arrived and we spent an easy evening with wine, food and chit chat.

Saturday and Visiting Parents at my Collingwood Shangri-La

Saturday turned out to be a great day also.  After a leisurely breakfast with Barb and John, and checking out their landscaping project in progress I headed up to my Collingwood place to check it out and catch up with my Parents, who arrived back from Florida on Friday.  They are staying at my Collingwood condo until their new Condo being built in Toronto is finished – now targetted for mid September.  This was also the first time I have been up to the place since the skier tenants moved out last weekend – so there was a certain amount of “putting stuff back” in order, as I had put a lot of stuff in my storage locker to make room for my ski season tenants.    Spent the afternoon busily getting the place in shape.

It was a good day, nice to see the folks and reassure myself that they were still in reasonable good heath and soundess of mind, something which folks of my generation with parents still alive deal with a lot.  All was well and they seemed in good  spirits as well.  Took them out to the local Rogers and got them fixed up with all the digital channels they wanted and arranged for a phone hookup.  Dad took us out to dinner – the local Swiss Chalet and we all had a great time.

At the end of the day I decided best to head home to Toronto that evening rather than the morning.  I recalled the last time I spent a night in my house after my parents moved in last fall.  They get up before the birds and they seemed oblivious to the fact that I was sleeping upstairs and were having a long and loud conversation.  My dog Bella, of course wanted to join them and somehow my door would not stay shut.  At 5:00 a.m. I gave up and went down to drink tea and chat with them.  It seemed best to head home on Saturday night and be able to sleep in on Sunday morning, if you call 7:30 a sleep in LOL.

Also, I wrecked my knee a few weeks ago, and while I thought it was healing, I threw it out again this week - and it was bothering me a lot.  So my Saturday night was spent with a heating pad and some tiger balm.  It is a bit better this morning but still somewhat sore.

I have had a lazy morning and now having uploaded the blog of yesterday, posted with yesterday's date, will continue to write Sunday's entry after I get my laundry started.  I am going to continue with my Vegas travel tale.  

  

I will finish with a picture of my daughter Tegan which I found on her facebook profile.  A lot of her personality shows through in this picture and she sure is turning into a beautiful young lady!