Shoemaker's Children: Prepare For New Shoes

It's often said the shoemaker's children have no shoes. The phenomenon was proving true for me, so I finally took action.

My main office systems are over four years old. As most all statistics reveal, the costs of supporting a PC beyond four years exceeds the expense of a new computer.

So, the antiquated Sony Vaio Pentium 4 3.2GHz CPU (with an incredible -- at least for the day when it was bought -- 2MB of L2 cache, 1GB of RAM and 100GB hard disk) will be relegated to test system duty, exclusively. In its place will sit a Dell Vostro. Powered by a simple but fast Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz CPU (with 6MB of L2 cache and a 1,333MHz FSB) and 4GB of RAM, I've spec'd the new box out with two disks (one for backup) and a terabyte of storage (to house the dozens of disk images and ISOs I keep on hand for clients).

Next I'll replace my aging laptop. If it didn't get so beat up in the field, I'd be tempted to order an Apple Mac Book Pro. Due to the extensive usage (and subsequent beating) the laptop experiences each day, though, I may opt for a MacBook. But that'll have to wait for another day (the old G4 is still plenty fast).

Notes On My Hometown

A few weeks ago I came across an Internet photograph of a historic building in my hometown. Incidentally, I grew up across the street from the house in that photo.

Since then, I've spent some time searching out other items of interest regarding Perrysburg, Ohio.

Here's a nifty one: Perrysburg is one of only two cities in the United States planned by the federal government. Care to guess the other?

The Reading List

I almost started reading Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow tonight. But I've been working on Neal Stephenson's Anathem for awhile, and I guess I should stick with it. I like it well enough, but as a work of experimental fiction, it sometimes requires a little effort.

I'm also halfway through Steal This Computer Book 4.0. And Jack Wallen's passed me his copy of Battle Royale, which looks very intriguing. My brain's tired, though, and I'm not sure I could keep the characters straight tonight.

Oh well.

So far this year I've only read two books: Douglas Coupland's The Gum Thief (it was OK, but no comparison to Microserfs) and an abridged version of Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage. I so enjoyed Undaunted Courage (the story of Lewis and Clark) that I'm now working on the complete book (19 CDs) in the car.

Some 13 texts currently sit on my on-deck bookshelf. Highlights include Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, Isaacson's Einstein, McCullough's Mornings on Horseback and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.