Jonn Berg

Thanks to Grandma Dorothy and Grandpa Joe. We used the money that they gave us to go towards our new laptop. I decided that I wanted to go all out this time so I can use it at Chris’ LAN parties.

My sister got an ASUS A8JS a few months ago and she let me use it for a few days to see how I liked it. I was very impressed. Impressed enough to go ahead and buy an ASUS of my own. So, by going all out, I chose the ‘G’ series, more specifically, the G2S-A1.

The specs are amazing. Far better than my desktop, even with my 22″ LCD. It’s basically a dual core (like having 2 processors, but only one chip) running at 2.2GHz. That may seem slow compared to years ago when the Pentium 4′s were reaching into the high 3GHz and 4GHz ranges, but the architecture is better on these chips. They can do more in a clock cycle, so they don’t need to have so many cycles.

I chose to stay with the standard 2GB of memory, mainly because that’s what my desktop has and I haven’t found the need to go with any more yet. It is expandable to 4GB.

The coolest, most awesomest thing though, is the 17.1″ WUXGA screen. it’s 17.1 inches on a laptop! The WUXGA means that it runs at 1920×1200 resolution. Partner that screen with the current top-of-the-line mobile video card, the GeForce 8600m GT, with 256MB of Video RAM, and we have a real winner.

I chose to buy another hard drive for it so I can have a dedicated game drive. Those of us gamers know that every day use of a computer puts all kinds of garbage on there that slow down games. Even installing Office or Acrobat Reader can leach resources. I figured that we will leave Vista on the hard drive that it came with and I will put XP on the new drive. The new drive is also 7200 RPM, so that will help with load times and whatnot. The one that came with it is 5400 RPM.

When I get XP installed, I will be getting the main staple of games that we play at LAN parties installed. Then I will compare them to my desktop and post some scores maybe.

Until then…

I was driving to work yesterday and realized that I was paying attention to a car in a different lane. I didn’t care so much about the driver or even the kind of car it was. In fact, I can’t even remember the car as I am writing this.

After driving along for a few miles I discovered the real reason that I was paying attention to the other car. It was the car that was behind me when I got on 35E from 36. I was trying to see if I made a better choice by getting into the left-most lane rather than staying in the middle or right lanes.

Did I make the right move in respect to getting through the traffic faster or should I have stayed in the same lane that the other car was in? How many times have I confused something else, the race mentality in this instance, with the need to know that I have made the right decision?

Hm…..

We just came back into town from our honeymoon. Right after the wedding, we went to the St Paul Hotel and stayed in one of the Capitol Suites. Then we went to Grand Marais for a few days, trying to go somewhere that there was no rain. It didn’t work all that well, because there was rain. While in Grand Marais, we stayed at the Best Western in a huge suite that overlooked the lake. It had a hot tub and a fireplace too!

We left on Wednesday to head for the Collova cabin on Lake Mille Lacs. When we got there, it didn’t smell too good. Evidently one of the family members that had recently used the cabin brought a bunch of dogs that aren’t yet house trained. They peed everywhere including all over the big bed. We had to sleep on a much smaller bed and with the ambient stench, we decided to leave and come home early.

Today I get to pick up my new glasses. We might go to the fair too. I don’t know yet.

Oh and when I got home I had a letter waiting from the Credit Union. It seems that someone gave us a counterfeit $20 bill. It was so good that neither the teller, nor Becca or I noticed.