Wow, this is the first entry for this month? But it seems like so much of it has gone by already.
But I guess that's true. Since the annals, they do not lie.

I have had a busy and expensive time this past weekend.  This means I spent lots of money but I got lots for it to.
To start with I bought a new desktop computer.  The old one was just on the limit of being able to cut it and I found a deal I could just not turn down.

For example what I had was a P II - 266 and what I ended up buying is a Celeron 1.2 Ghz. Really nowhere near being top of the line but I got the entire system with decent innards for $409 plus tax.  I tell you, I love the city I live in, many thing sare more expensive but you will have a hard time finding anywhere that has cheaper Computer equipment and/or CD's.  Originally I was just going to upgrade what I had to this level of performance or so but it was going to cost me more to do this than to simply get a new system.  

So of course much of my weekend was spent dicking around with the new system, installing software, installing hardware from the old system that I want to keep and etc. I have also found a buyer for the old system.  Someone is going to give me $100 for it.  So if you think about it this way, since I have no use for the old system, I am really getting the new system for $309.  How can you go wrong with this?

It might seem at this point that I am justifying my purchase.  Really I am not, my old system has been old and out of date for quite a while now and I have just been coaxing it along rather than spending the money to replace/upgrade it.  Eventually though, this step had to be taken. I am just speaking from a sense of amazement at the level of deal that I did get.

I addition I finally broke down and bought a CD burner and am in the process of ripping many of my CD's, which I will then burn to CD on MP3. The purpose behind this is to give myself a ready library of mp3 songs so that I can load them onto my MP3 player at will.  Would you believe i have yet to ever download an MP3 file from the net?  i haven't decided yet if i am for or against it (and this decision becomes easier and easier to make as i continue to be charged a levy for doing this without any proof that i am) but for now i have loads of music of my own that i can convert. 

so i am pretty happy with all of this. 
annoyed at times with the problems but happy overall.

It's my friend shawn's 30th birthday today. Happy birthday shawn. 
you're not old, you just look like you are. 
or something. 

one other thing i guess i didn't tell you. 
i got promoted last week. 
it was what you would call a hard fought battle. 
for 3 years i have been trying to get them to admit what it is i do there and what i should be recognized as for doing it.  and they have now. my title and payment group level has been increased.  my salary hasn't, but that will come as well, eventually.  now it will come easier with the different group that i am a member of. 
so, nothing at work has changed, i am still doing the same work and pretty much no one has been told, and i don't even know if they will be but at least i know and that is all that is important to me.  well, a pay increase as well would have been nice but i don't think that i would ask for everything all at once. 

oh yeah....tonight was the first night that i got to bring things home from pottery. the first time that things are actually done with glazing and everything. 
they aren't really anything special but they are nice enough and they are mine. I made them. 
they are so very cool because of it. 

ok. now it is late. 
i am going to sleep.