The summer of 2013 is nearly over. Unlike last year, I haven't really been productive this year. Last year, I set goals for myself. One of those goals was to spend as much time with my kids, and spend them without using gadgets or TV.
I wanted to be able to interact with my kids directly, without using electronic devices. This was one of the reasons why I bought board and card games for Christmas 2011. My goal was to interact more often, face to face, with my kids.
Last year, I realized that the best time to be able to spend time with the kids was during summer, since school was out and they could sleep late. One of my goals last summer was to play board and card games with them as often as possible. I was able to do that. My other goals were hit and miss. Some were partially successful while others were not.
This year, I haven't been as productive because of the heat. I've spent almost all of my time during the summer in my airconditioned bedroom where the kids are camped out as well. They sleep here also to share the airconditioning in order to cut down on our electric bill. This is the coolest place in the house where my family can watch TV and the kids could read or play.
As the summer has gone along, I've spent less and less time in the 3rd floor of our house, which is the location of a lot of the pending work I'm supposed to do. It's just so hot to stay up there for long periods of time. Essentially, the summer heat has limited my family to just one room in the 2nd floor.
I'm looking forward to the start of the school year and the coming rainy season. I'm expecting cooler temperatures that should allow me to work longer around the house. Summer 2013 has been a wash. I hope next summer will be better.
Planned and Unplanned Storage Upgrades and Replacements for 2013
We purchased a
Compaq Presario B1200 series notebook (specific model was B1293TU) for my wife
in the middle of 2008. We finally bought a replacement laptop in December of
2011 and gave this old one to our daughter. On New Year's Eve of 2012, after
more than 4 years of heavy use, its hard drive finally failed.
We have a PC we use to store almost all our family's files, our main desktop PC which I simply named Storage. The last time this was in use was April 10, 2012. That was the day I came to the conclusion that the hard disk of our Storage PC was failing.
We have a PC we use to store almost all our family's files, our main desktop PC which I simply named Storage. The last time this was in use was April 10, 2012. That was the day I came to the conclusion that the hard disk of our Storage PC was failing.
Enjoying Anime with my Kids
I used to be so obsessed with Anime - back in the day, back before my kids were born, back when it was hot, when it was still on primetime, when all TV stations had schedules filled with them. That was just before the arrival of full time anime cable channels.
I think the last anime I really followed was Bubblegum Crisis 2040 on free TV. Oddly, after the two anime cable channels appeared, I slowly stopped following anime.
Maybe the reason was that it wasn't as rare as before. Maybe because I wasn't as starved or deprived of anime so that my hunger for it diminished. Perhaps it just wasn't as unique and novel as before. Perhaps it had become too common and readily available.
I began to doubt if my passion for it was ever real. I wondered if anime really interested me at all or if the only reason I watched anime was because of how scarce it used to be. I didn't know if I watched anime because I had to take advantage of the opportunity to watch whatever anime was available, no matter if they were good or bad.
I think the last anime I really followed was Bubblegum Crisis 2040 on free TV. Oddly, after the two anime cable channels appeared, I slowly stopped following anime.
Maybe the reason was that it wasn't as rare as before. Maybe because I wasn't as starved or deprived of anime so that my hunger for it diminished. Perhaps it just wasn't as unique and novel as before. Perhaps it had become too common and readily available.
I began to doubt if my passion for it was ever real. I wondered if anime really interested me at all or if the only reason I watched anime was because of how scarce it used to be. I didn't know if I watched anime because I had to take advantage of the opportunity to watch whatever anime was available, no matter if they were good or bad.
Dimensione All-in-One Portable iPod Shuffle and PC Speakers and AM/FM Radio
I was looking for USB powered PC speakers for quite a while since I didn't have any good speakers for my desktop PC. We were just using earphones or headphones instead. For some time, I was eyeing these $4 speakers at CDR-King, but I put off buying them until I was absolutely certain that I really needed them.
With our tough cash flow situation, it wasn't easy to justify spending for USB powered speakers over more urgent expenses, so I decided it could wait until we had enough savings or when I could no longer tolerate using earphones or headphones or going without hearing any sound.
Aside from PC speakers, I was also looking at speakers that my pair of iPod Shuffles could dock with. There are only a few to choose from and they're either small and underpowered (for portability) with low quality sound, or non-portable, or just plain expensive, so I felt that these iPod Shuffle speakers weren't worth my time and money and I could totally live without them.
Imagine my surprise when I found speakers that an iPod Shuffle could dock with. They were the right size while still maintaining portability, could run on batteries, and had good solid quality sound. Plus, it had AM/FM radio, could be used as PC speakers, and was inexpensive. To top it all off, I found out later on that the speakers could be powered via USB.
With our tough cash flow situation, it wasn't easy to justify spending for USB powered speakers over more urgent expenses, so I decided it could wait until we had enough savings or when I could no longer tolerate using earphones or headphones or going without hearing any sound.
Aside from PC speakers, I was also looking at speakers that my pair of iPod Shuffles could dock with. There are only a few to choose from and they're either small and underpowered (for portability) with low quality sound, or non-portable, or just plain expensive, so I felt that these iPod Shuffle speakers weren't worth my time and money and I could totally live without them.
Imagine my surprise when I found speakers that an iPod Shuffle could dock with. They were the right size while still maintaining portability, could run on batteries, and had good solid quality sound. Plus, it had AM/FM radio, could be used as PC speakers, and was inexpensive. To top it all off, I found out later on that the speakers could be powered via USB.