Computer Fail 2011

My luck with computers sucks! In late 2008, I had this feeling that something was wrong with my computer, it just seemed wrong. Hubby kept saying it was fine, and we could wait to "fix" whatever it was until tax time (Feb 2009). Sadly he was wrong and it wasn't fine, it died in late November 20008, just died, completely fried. (I don't think the graham crackers Seamus put in it helped matters much) It sucked but luckily the hard drive was still good (mother board and power supply went) so we didn't loose anything.

Fastforward to the end of January 2010, and we buy me a new computer(so ya dh and I "fought" over his desktop like a bunch of kids after school, for over a year lol). We stupidly went with HP even though we knew better, we knew they had issues with their power cords breaking and such. We got one of the newest models out at the time and paid just over $800 after taxes for it. It did pretty well till around November 2010, then the battery started having issues, and I'd have to keep it plugged in all the time or it would die. Then we had to pawn it for a month in early January 2011 due to having to pay off a lawsuit from old medical bills. We got the computer back early this month, and it "seemed" to be ok. But it didn't last long.

The warranty went up on January 29th, 2011, and exactly 2 weeks later the hard drive completely fails and dies, out of no where. We had no warning, and I had a 500gb hard drive more then half full with digital scrap booking stuff and pictures. Luckily most of my pictures were uploaded to facebook or photobucket so I didn't loose too many. Most of the pictures I lost were from the last 2 months, which sucks but at least it wasn't all of Kieran's first birthday pictures (most but not all are gone).

We then buy a new hard drive for the computer, only to remember that computers these days don't come with Microsoft disc's, so we have no way to install Windows 7 back on the computer. We do have Windows Vista from another computer we got for the kids (cheap $30 one for them to play around on) so we ended up putting that on the laptop. Huge fail Windows! Vista Sucks. My video card won't work, the drivers won't match up, Vista doesn't recognize it. We did order our Windows 7 backup disc from HP but it won't be here for a few more days.

Hubby's so ticked off with HP, and their horrid customer service, that he's trying to sell my laptop. He's done with HP and doesn't want this computer any more. We have 1 person looking at buying it (not back, $200 less then we paid a year ago), and if he does we're getting a new one. We debated whether or not to build another desktop for me. I'm planning on going back to school (if all works out) in the Fall so I wanted a laptop to take with me, plus I got spoiled with being able to lay down in bed with it, or watch a show on Netflix while taking a bath (lol). So we're going to get another laptop. We have our choices narrowed down to an Asus and a Toshiba. There's pros and cons of both so we aren't sure. Both of them have worse video cards then my current laptop which sucks (especially with my WoW withdraws from Vista not reading my video card right, right now), but the processor is better. The Asus has an Intel i5 processor which hubby likes, its just a tad better then mine so it will run a little better. But if we get the Asus I'll loose my BluRay and Lightscribe (even, though we hardly use them, it stinks)and my buttons on the laptop for easy volume and such will be gone, the Toshiba has those but the Asus doesn't. Both the Asus and Toshiba are between $550-620 so if we sell mine for $600 (asking $650, with a new hard drive in it) then we wouldnt' pay much out of pocket. Now we just have to decide which one to get.

But thats why I've been MIA so much this month. First I don't have a computer, then it super fails, and now that I have one I can't stand Vista so it drives me bonkers being on it. Oh ya and I'll be MIA again in just under 3 weeks with the move >.< lol

Moving

We are finally moving! When we moved into this place in August 2008 we signed a 6month lease, and our plan was to move in Feb. 2009...well we found out a few days after we signed the lease that I was pregnant with Kieran and moving just 2 months prior to her being born probably wasn't a good idea. We decided to wait till Feb. 2010 to move, but it didn't work out right. Since November I've been watching Craigslist trying to find a place for us to move once February came. We had 3 different places in mind at the beginning of this month, each with pro's and con's and we couldn't decide which one. Once we finally decided and went to apply the people said that they had other apps and we had to wait, so we went with our second choice, same thing happened. After that we thought we wouldn't find anything, it was already 1.5weeks into Feb, and we had told our landlord we'd be moved out by Feb. 21st.

As I was looking through some rental companies around here I found one place that was similar looking outside as the current place we live. I had hubby call the rental place to see about it (and it was only 2 blocks up the road from us), but they mentioned that they had another place that was slighty bigger, and only $50/mo more. The place they mentioned was a duplex, rather then the triplex we called on, and is newer built. They had A side open but were holding it for someone who applied already. We got to go look at A side, because its the exact same as B side and B side would be the side we would get if we decided we liked it, just had to wait for the current tenants to move out. We really liked the place, a 3bd 2.5ba (opposed to our 2bd 1ba) with a fenced back yard (we have no fenced yard now and are on a fairly busy street), and the other nice thing is that its only $125 more then we pay now. One thing I realllllllly didn't like is that its the same exact layout as our current place. The front door opens to the living room then the kitchen straight back, you cannot see from the kitchen to the living room, I really wanted an open kitchen, and the laundry is in the kitchen again. All 3 beds are upstairs, along with 2 baths (one in the master one for the kids). We decided to go with this place because it had more pro's then con's. We put our deposit down on it on Friday the 11th, but we can't move till March 19th (haha lucky me on my birthday! >.<). The current tenants move out Feb. 28th but then the rental company has a 2 week period for inspection and cleaning/fixing things. So we'll have another month to move, luckily our current landlord is nice about waiting. So next month I'll probably be MIA for 2 weeks while we move and wait for Time Warner to come and hook up internet at the new place

Bright Starts Winner!

The winner of the Brights Starts giveaway is #51 Jessica.






Winner has been emailed and has 48hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen :)