Monthly Archives: August 2015

Aug
10

Building a Better Beast

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About five years ago I had a really nasty run-in with a computer built by Dell, which led me to 1) Swear I would never buy another piece of crap from them again and 2) Decide to build my own computer from scratch. And by “build myself” I mean buy the parts and let my more savvy techhead coworkers put it together. It’s a win-win, really. I get to build to my specs, coworkers get the fun of putting together a fairly high end machine and off we go. Not that I can’t do most of this stuff myself – over the years I upgraded various parts like video cards, sound cards, hard drives and the like. But when it comes to CPUs and whatnot, I get a little more nervous so I’d much rather have someone who does it on a regular basis put it all together. On the… Read more
Aug
7

The New Normal

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I actually hate this phrase. I hear it all the time, usually dealing with chronic illness, and I have to admit it tends to be the last admission to myself when I realize that once again I’m afflicted with some sort of “we don’t really know how to fix this or test for it, but we can treat it. Maybe. Sorry” disease. Like everything else, a confirmed diagnosis is both good (yay, I know what I have!) and bad. (Boo! Everything hurts and nothing helps.) I guess you could call it a five stages of grief thing, as you desperately research everything you can about said issue, throwing yourself at doctors and home remedies in the off chance that maybe this particular herb will be the miracle you’re looking for. And then there’s anger/sadness/depression and all that…and eventually acceptance. The new normal, such as it is. But I’m not here… Read more