Random Happenings Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day

          Over the Christmas holidays  my abs hurt so much I almost went to the doctor. It was a combination of muscle strain from exercise, straining, and irregularity (for lack of a better word). I must be getting old because I now have to eat Activia and take probiotic supplements to regulate myself.

I installed 8 gigabytes of memory on my laptop and it now works blazingly fast. I remember my first laptop with 640k of memory and two floppy disk drives, and what about my first desktop which was an IBM PC jr. with 128 kb?

Some people don’t like laptops because they don’t have expansion slots and others just because they want a bigger screen. I hazard to guess that the ones who mostly just use a computer to surf the internet fall in the latter category. My solution: just connect a bigger monitor to the laptop and use that at home while you still have the option of using the laptop on the road too. You can buy an 18 to 20 inch monitor for less than a $100 nowadays. That is exactly what I did and for some reason, my browser is more responsive with the external monitor. When I was just using the laptop screen, sometimes the browser would lag.

Speaking of monitors, if you want to shop for a new computer, monitor, or tablet in California, you might as well do it over the internet from an out of state store. There are too many fees and taxes  in CA. Consider this: as of the end of last year, if you bought a 15 to 35 inch TV or monitor, you would have had to pay an extra $16.00  for the electronic waste recycling fee on top of the 9. 75% sales tax.

I haven’t had a thick jacket since the 1980’s when I bought a Windbreaker brand jacket which I think was made in the Philippines. I always wanted a puffer jacket since they first came out about 10 years ago, I just don’t have a reason why I didn’t get one earlier. Basically it’s a sleeping bag in jacket form. With the attached hood, it becomes a mummy type sleeping bag. So in December I finally bought one from Walmart (wait for it…)  from the children’s department. Children’s size XL fits me just nicely. I now look like poppin fresh dough or the Michelin man when I wear the jacket.

I haven’t checked my blood pressure at home in a month and I was surprised that not only my reading was normal but that my resting pulse rate hasn’t changed from my hard running days. It was 45 beats per minute which has been ongoing for the last 30 years, plus or minus a couple of beats.

My mother had an opportunity to visit my brother in Quezon City, Philippines, thanks to my cousin Rica who gave her a plane ticket. With that, mom finally experienced video chat via Skype, first with just me, then with a few of our relatives during our Christmas Eve dinner party.

This one is a subject of another blog – I got a refurbished TomTom GPS after Thanksgiving Day and will be writing my comparison between that and my equally refurbished Magellan from two years ago.

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