Jubiliation

For several reasons.

First, Eric is back. He's officially back. He wrote a post today, (probably very early this morning) and one can hope that he'll start writing them regularly again. No email yet, though.

Additionally, we're throwing a little LAN party this weekend. I'm so excited I may wet my pants, even though I haven't done that since one notable day when I was eight years old. Accidentally. Come on, you guys, don't make fun of me!

Ok, second, my Archos came back today, one day short of three weeks gone. Mike over at newmp3technology.com is a great guy. He wasn't able to do quite everything I wanted, but we worked it out and I'm a very happy customer. If you have an Archos MP3 player, I highly recommend that you GIVE HIM BUSINESS. Seriously, I don't say that about just anyone. Didn't you see my rant about Cybertron earlier in this blog? Yeah. Mike's different. Thanks Mike!

Third, today I bought a new fishing rod and reel. Yeah, that's right, I'm a geek who fishes. Nearly a year ago when we moved to this house, my rod and reel disappeared, and I've been sad about it ever since. Fixed!

Fourth, today my sister, Julianne, came to the University with me instead of going to high school. We had a busy, fun day. She's a nice person to be around. I bought her lunch, and then we did a little shopping and went to my doctor's appointment and...

(Fifth) I got new drugs. I don't know if they'll be better than the last ones yet, but if y'all are good, I'll let you know. Woo-hoo, amphetamines. Too bad my body chemistry isn't such that I can enjoy them. My body chemistry shrugs them off like sugar-free smarties. *sigh*

And that's made doubly sad by the fact that I'm a Mormon boy and I'm not allowed other fun recreational substances like doobage and booze. I drank a little when I was a teen, but I never had the good sense to get drunk. You see, I thought I liked beer for a little while. I'm glad I grew out of that.

Well my mom's Palm m100 required extensive work before it was functional again. It works now, to a degree. What I mean by that is that it seems to work fine at the moment, but there's no telling when it will heave its last dying breath.

Shall I enumerate its deficiencies? Is this blog not dedicated to things technical and otherwise? Aye, it is.

Two of the screw posts (torx 6) had popped loose of the chassis, so the unit was barely staying together.

When the HotSync cable was plugged in, the unit would turn off and then soft reset when you unplugged it. This was because the chassis was spreading apart from the outward pressure of the cable connector, causing the battery contacts to no longer touch the power points on the motherboard.

The thing needed a thorough dusting on the inside, and then I spread out the internal battery contact springs to lessen the chance of them separating any more.

I then re-screwed the two good posts together and super glued one corner of the unit shut. I know, not the most graceful of solutions, but this Palm will get played with by my kids and otherwise sit on my desk.

Don't tell my mom that it's working again, though. She won't understand that even though it's working now, another week in her purse would mean certain and permanent death to the unit. Her new Clie is much better suited to that sort of abuse.

Oh, Eric, before I forget again...I think I'll make Leon a contributor to this blog. Let me know what you think.