My power supply must have blown out last night when I shut my computer off because it won’t boot up today. It’s just as well really, since Mym and I are currently sharing one office chair. An office chair that lists and teeters in a somewhat uncomfortable fashion, I might add, but I digress. Like many professions, those of us in the IT field fall into one of two categories. Either our home computer equipment is so cutting edge that you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement before being allowed to bask in its glory… or it’s packed full of scavanged parts (you’re lucky if the case is even fully on) and threatening to die on a regular basis.

I’m one of the latter types. I love my computer, but never seem to have the time to set it up exactly the way I want – only partly because I spend so much time maintaining Mym’s. My machine has been needing a rebuild for well over a year now. At long last there is no more limping along to be had. It has officially gone on strike and demanded an upgrade. Yay me!

So, let’s see. I need a new power supply for sure, and I could really use a bigger hard drive. I’ve been wanting a case with USB ports in the front for ages, which gives me an opportunity to upgrade the motherboard. This in turn provides the perfect time to finally upgrade the OS, get my wireless card working and banish those annoying bios errors that have been plaguing me for longer than I care to admit. My DvD burner may or may not be broken (I’ll keep it if I can).

In related news, I hear Dell is switching to AMD processors, which just rocks. If it weren’t so much fun building the thing myself, I’d just go buy a Dell. Their hardware isn’t always the best, but you can’t beat their support with a stick.

I always used to say that if I were a gardening tool, I’d be one of those hand rake digging fork thingies. That or a trowel because it rolls off the tongue so nicely. Usefulness is inherent in the job description of all tools, but the digging fork just screamed “fun!” and seemed like the kind of tool that would get a lot of use. After today, I have a new favorite.

A friend of mine is an avid gardener and has been helping me identify most of the mystery plants in our yard. When I asked to borrow her gloves this morning to tackle some seriously aggressive thistles trying to choke out my hosta, she brought her kit along. After handing over the gloves, she presented a rather intimidating looking knife with a careful and loving tah-dah! Realizing that the full impact of the effect was lost on this apprentice gardener, she proceeded to explain some of it’s many uses — chief among them for today’s purpose being the excising of tenacious weed roots. It took a few tries to get the hang of it but soon I was uprooting weeds like a pro.

Out, vile herbacious demon! Begone! Go back to the field from whence you came!

A very satisfying experience indeed. And now my yard looks neat and tidy again… well, except for the half-dead rose bushes in the back, but I think they’re just in shock from having recently been moved. I hope.

Today we picked up the keys to our kingdom. Ten of them, in fact. Five for the front door, two for the back, two for the garage door and one for the master bedroom (the mate to which should be on top of the kitchen cabinets). Yikes.

We did a quick run through the house right before closing to make sure everything was in order. Aside from a few bushes in the backyard that I could have sworn were in a different location two weeks ago, everything looked normal. They had done a good job cleaning up behind themselves and even left a few household items behind to make our transition a little bit easier. That’s when we found this:

Talk about your classy move! It was just the nicest welcome we could have received.

Closing on a house is actually fairly painless so long as you don’t attempt to read anything beyond your social security number and the spelling of your name. Nevertheless, we were there for an hour signing documents, so it’s no wonder they send them to you early for review. You’d never get through it otherwise.

And, it turned out I was right about the bushes. The sellers had just moved them because they were getting too much sun in their original spots. If these folks are any indication of the quality of our new neighbors, we’re going to love it here.