The Eternal Nerd-Gear Struggle…

Last night I came home from work and decided to swing by the parents house in order to pick up some equipment to tack together our office desk. I did so, and in the process grabbed some additional dress clothes for work this week.

I headed back, realized that I had forgotten the wood glue, and circled back around to get it. I have no idea why, but I’ve been incredibly surly toward my parents since the wedding. I think it’s the fact that every time I head back to the house I get bombarded by “what are you taking back this time?” and “why can’t you take this, or this, or this back now? What are you waiting for?” It’s like I can’t just stop in to say hello or something without doing twenty minutes of manual labor. I’m going to try to get over that by having a cookout on Sunday or something. That might be fun.

I headed back home to find that Tasha had elected to sign us up for cable internet service along with our cable. We have elected to buck the crappy service that GallatinRiver provides and go with cell phones instead of land lines. So the package cable/internet deal eliminates a bill.

In this package we get a buttload of channels, and a free cable modem. I wanted directly addressable IP’s, and when Tasha mentioned that they “explained a lot of things I didn’t catch” and said they could do it for extra cost. They also explained that they would need us to get a router in order to make that work (this makes sense to me, so no big deal).

After that, we spent about an hour putting together the L-shaped desk that we were given by my parents. It went together relatively easy for that modular furniture stuff. About midway through, the tornado sirens went off. This nearly immediately throws Tasha into w00t w00t pan1c m0de. I called Mom to see what the story was, turns out a tornado warning until 6:30 pm. So we ate dinner while we were waiting for the warning to expire.

Then we headed up to our planned activity for last night, which was shopping at Sams, Target, Petsmart, and Best Buy. We got more food than I thought it possible to consume at Sams club, and ended up only paying $110 for all of it. At Target, we were successful at returning a few of the Wedding presents that we got duplicates of, and were able to get all of the stuff on our list using gift cards/refund vouchers. That was a GOOD thing.

At Petsmart, we were after a toy for our new rabbit, as well as some cooler digs. The cage that Ains brought him home in was smallish and dull, so we got him this little plywood shanty that he can sleep under and climb on top of. We also got him this weird clip-on bell toy, that he just occassionally noses and doesn’t really seem to notice.

Then came Best Buy. This was far and away the more difficult of the decisions that I had to make last night. We could’ve opted for TiVo. We could’ve opted for a payment against a new TV. We decided to get the most bitchin’ router ever. Takes cable input, routes to Ethernet output. And it does both wired and 802.11g wireless signals. Our gift card quailed under the load, so we had to front about $70, but it was worth it to have something that could grow with our lovely little computer farm. The best part was that it was completely Tasha’s idea! 🙂

In case you’re concerned, the TiVo will come as soon as my paychecks start rolling in, and the new TV will come as soon as is prudent after that.

We swung by Barnes and Noble since we were in that neighborhood, Tasha got something for D&D. I didn’t get anything this time around, since my Linux Magazine wasn’t in stock. I hope they didn’t discontinue it.

After the drive home and the stop for refueling, we were both pretty beat. So we put the perishable food products in the freezer and headed to bed. I even elected to sleep in a little today, so I got in at 8 am instead of 7:30 like I had been.