I had to use my computer too much in the first day or so to actually pay much attention to it.  Plus, I was occasionally still having to RDP to my old slow computer, and I was still having to do a lot of waiting.  During that time, I had planned to move my old good hard drive over to my new machine, but when I opened it up, I realized that it was a different kind of hard drive interface.  At least I was able to take advantage of that time to teach Clinton a little bit about the inside of a computer.  I was very impressed with the inside of the computer.  The case is a snap to open, requiring no screwdrivers.  There is a massive, wind-tunnel sized fan that helps keep everything cool.  It looks like it is expecting more hard drives, as access to the power connectors, SATA ports, and drive bays is front-and-center.  Once I finally got my old computer turned off, I also noticed something else...nothing.  My new computer is incredibly quiet, which almost makes working seem peaceful.

Now that I've actually gotten to play around on my computer, I'm really enjoying the speed.  Visual Studio projects open up so much faster.  Also, switching back and forth between HTML and Design view is immediate now; it took way too long on my old machine.  I originally set up the computer with the supplied keyboard.  The feature of being able to open and close my cd drives from buttons on my keyboard was almost enough for me to not switch back to my wireless keyboard...almost.  I figure there's got to be some way to set that up via software.  Anybody know a keyboard shortcut for ejecting a cd?

Setting up my printer was quite simple, as this computer wants to use USB ports.  My old computer wasn't as USB friendly.  Once installed, I shared it and then went over to Jamie's computer, fully expecting to have to install it on her machine as well.  Somehow, as if by magic, when I opened up the Printers folder on her computer, before I could even do anything, the printer attached to my computer appeared before my very eyes, well, in icon-form.  No setup necessary.  Also, and this could be my fault for screwing with permissions, now Jamie can open up our Quicken data file over the network without facing a Windows logon prompt.  Which is great, because now she doesn't need me to relink stuff after her computer is rebooted.

Well, the good news is that I got a new computer.  Starting a couple months ago, I had noticed that there were some strange glitches with certain non-essential files on my hard drive.  It was annoying, so I started moving all of my non-system and non-program files on to my other hard drive.  This seemed to make the problem go away.  But then, last week, I noticed that the computer was getting slower and slower, and I knew it was just a matter of time before the thing blew out.  However, I was just going to wait it out, because I had planned to get a new computer after we moved int our new place in March.  But then that got postponed, and it got to where it took me an hour to do 5 minutes worth of work.  So, Tuesday night at 8:30 I headed to Best Buy to buy me a new computer.  Fortunately, I'd been doing a lot of research on this while helping Clinton look for his new computer.  And fortunately, Best Buy had the computer in stock.  Unfortunately, the number of people asking questions heavily outnumbered those who were there to answer them.  So, it took me 45 minutes to point to the computer I wanted, for them to pull it down off the high shelf right next to me, and to finally check out.

The next day, I had a client meeting in Vista (two hours away), and my computer needed to be up and running with all of my files and programs loaded.  So, I set to to work setting everything up, and finished the essential stuff by 6:00 a.m.  After a quick hour nap, I was up and out the door, and Clinton took me to Enterprise for me to pick up a car.  (Jamie's been working on a project down on Rodeo Drive all week.)  Here's something that I hadn't realized: Rain means no cars at rental car places.  Apparently, the cars that people have been renting, they have been wrecking, so the rental cars are in the shop.  Plus, people have been wrecking their own cars in the rain, so they need to rent one.  Anyway, I had to wait 45 minutes or so for a car, but I was really too tired to care much, and getting upset wouldn't get me a car any faster.  I made the drive, had the meeting, then drove back, except that the drive back took 4 hours because of traffic.  Boy, I slept well that night.

I spent all day Thursday copying over the rest of my files, then stayed up late again Thursday night, cleaning and reorganizing my desk and the area around it, that some might call an 'office'.  My old computer is now turned off, but has power and network attachments, in case I need to power it up and retrieve some file I forgot.  Once we move, it is destined to become a test server.  I'll blog again with my first impressions of my new computer.

For those who don't follow it, California has gotten more rain in the past two weeks than in the history of California combined.  As a result, we got a call today saying that construction has been delayed on our new place.  No new date has been set yet.  Blast!

Jamie and I spent about a week and a half down in Fallbrook over the holidays.  We did Christmas at the Siebers, Grandma Sieber's birthday the next day at the Wonders, and New Year's Eve at Thornton Winery.  I got a mixture of gift certificates and clothes, most of which were specially requested from Banana Republic.  In fact, here's a pic of us at New Year's, with me in some of said clothes.

For those of you who didn't get a Christmas card from us this year, or got one late, that's because Jamie was busy working on American Black Beauty, and I'm a Christmas card slacker.  I did eventually go out and find some that I really liked.  They were my second choice, but my first choice was ridiculously expensive.  Today, Jamie and I were doing some shopping at the Beverly Center, and we came across my first choice with the price slashed 75% off.  So, our Christmas cards are already purchased this year.  Expect to get them early!

What? It was two weeks ago?

These pictures might have been doctored, but this is hilarious.

The models at our new condo, Chatelaine, opened for a special event for owners on Saturday, so Jamie and I headed out to Playa Vista.  The lobby, waiting area, conference room, reception desk, and great room are all completed and furnished.  It looks awesome!  In the great room, there are a couple of couches, some tables and chairs, a fireplace, and a big flat-screen tv.  We didn't have time to go through all of the models, but we went through the Plan B, which is what ours is.  It was great to see it completed.  While the flooring choices for the model weren't our favorite, the appliances were in, and it was helpful to see what the rooms looked like once some stuff was added.  It's starting to become real now.  Our home presentation date is scheduled for March 8th, and we close on March 15th.  In anticipation, I've added a little countdown up in the header, just for funsies.

Jamie and I did a bunch of our Christmas shopping today.  We left Best Buy and headed down the escalator.  Coming through the doorway was none other than Topher Grace, whom I just mentioned in my Ocean's Twelve entry.  We kind of juked each other trying to figure out who would go left and who would go right.  This gave me the time I needed to decide whether I would actually try to start a conversation with him.  Once we had gotten out of each other's path, I started my conversation brilliantly with, “Do you know Steven Cooper?”  See, Cooper was best friends with a guy that Topher had roomed with in college.  Unfortunately, we couldn't remember the roommate's name, and Topher, though the name sounded familar, couldn't place Cooper.  Topher ended the conversation just as brilliantly as it had begun with, “Is Best Buy just right up here?”  Yup.

Oh, another thought, I don't typically feel sorry for celebrities who have to suffer the masses because of their fame, but I kind of felt bad for Topher knowing how freakishly long the line was that he was going to have to wait in at Best Buy, and how in that line they were selling his Win A Date With Tad Hamilton at a drastically reduced price.

We saw Ocean's Twelve this weekend.  I found it to be enjoyable, though maybe not as enjoyable as Jeff found it.  My favorite scene was the one with Topher Grace, which is all I'm going to say about that for now.  Before the movie, they played an ad from MPAA & RespectCopyrights.org.  They don't have the one I saw up on their site, but you can get the same idea from watching this ad.  It didn't strike me right away, but I realized the next day that they were trying to teach us in this 45 second ad that downloading or buying a pirated dvd is stealing, and stealing is wrong.  Then, we watched a two-hour movie which glorified stealing and never once intimated that stealing is wrong.  Now, I don't advocate downloading movies or buying pirated dvds, but I think that the people who don't want their movies stolen need to realized that they are the same people who have been teaching us through their movies that there's no such thing as right and wrong.  Am I right?