Farewell to the old laptop

Back in 2008, I was a graduate student and completed my degree through distance education. It was the first year in which our chats went from an instant-messaging, text-only discussion to an online video format. 

I had a Mac mini at the time that was one of the earlier models, which could not handle streaming video. So, I was one of the lucky ones who didn't have to turn on the video camera, but could simply participate through the voice chat.

Eventually, for one of my courses, I needed to run software that was Windows-specific. I couldn't run it on a virtual machine on my Mac mini. I caved and bought a laptop that was on sale at Staples.

Well, this laptop finally died on me last week. I ended up with a system error. I didn't even get a glorious blue screen of death. I just kept looking at my black screen of horror.

Okay, it wasn't really a horror. It was more like an inconvenience. I was at a crossroads. Should I attempt to salvage all data on my hard drive and throw out the laptop, or should I save it by getting a new hard drive and reinstalling Windows?

I opted with the former. These days, I can get a faster, more powerful laptop than spending hours trying to fix old technology.

I am not your average technical writing gal. My undergraduate degree was computer science, which was my major. I had friends during those days call me a techie because I fiddled with my computers over the years. I swapped out and upgraded hard disks. I changed sound cards and CD-ROM drives. I upgraded motherboards and added more RAM. 

To this day, I still like doing all these things, but I haven't needed to do it because I became a Mac user at home. I am lucky that I haven't had any issues with it. At work, I have a Windows-based laptop and don't have the luxury of tearing it apart, whether I want to out of frustration or not!

So, last Saturday, I went to my local computer store. I walked through the main doors and was immediately greeted by a helpful male staff member.

"Can I help find something for you?"
"Yes, I'm looking for a hard drive enclosure," I stated.
"This way," he replied, leading me over to the proper aisle. "Computer or laptop?"
"Laptop," I replied. "I need a 2.5" enclosure."

I go to this store because I am not treated like a woman who knows nothing about computers. I get that often. However, after talking to me for a bit, you can tell that I know a decent amount to get by.

He was helpful. I bought my new enclosure, went home, took my laptop apart, and seated my laptop hard drive into the enclosure. I now have a new external hard disk drive with a USB 3.0 connection. All my files are there.

So, my next debate is whether I truly need a replacement laptop. I could use my work laptop, but there is so much encryption on it that it's just sluggish to do fun stuff on it. Fortunately, I am not under any pressure.

After I was done with graduate school, I bought a new Mac mini. It is my main computer at home ever since. The majority of my blog post are written from it and I have yet to complain about its performance.

I will miss my old laptop. My guy and I have spent many fine times talking on Skype. Lately, we both noticed that when I was using Skype on this laptop now and again that the connection would drop because Skype would hang. I do have fond memories of my conversations with him using this laptop. I should stick to using Skype from my phone or my tablet.

Slapping before drinking

I was just looking at some past posts that I had written. If you look at my archived posts, I didn't write anything in 2010. That year was hectic. I was wrapping up my graduate degree. I was going through a divorce. I simply didn't have anything interesting to say because spanking was on hold in my life.

Well, in 2011, I attended my graduation by flying to Atlanta, and then driving 1.5 hours south to get to the university campus. I stayed at my fellow graduate's home for the entire weekend. It was wonderful.

I was the oddball out of the entire group. I was the only straight person out of all of us. I didn't feel weird or anything -- just an observation.

We had been friends for three years. Graduate school brought us a lot closer. I remember the three of us (one guy, who just got married a few weeks ago) sitting on her couch and saying that if we all lived in the same city, that we would hang out often. I would have to agree. Thankfully, Facebook keeps us in touch.

Anyway, during our graduation weekend, we were all drinking. My friend was saying that it was a custom for her to slap a woman's butt before a drinking session, but she wasn't sure whether I would like that. I was exempted from this ritual. Little did she know what a huge turn-on that was for me then and still is!

She did land a few hard smacks across her girlfriend's bottom. I loved observing. I was secretly getting wet and aroused.

I should visit them again. Perhaps I should be a participant on the receiving end this time around.

Two months later...

I am just horrible at updating here. In a nutshell, I'll outline what I have been up to since I last wrote.

I successfully completed my first semester of grad school at the end of April. I did well and am quite pleased! I was so thrilled that I had to find an excuse for G to spank me. So, I suggested that getting an A in a graduate course means that it's essentially a perfect mark (that is, 100 percent), so I should get a hundred smacks. I went on to reason that I had taken two courses, got A's in both, and should really get two hundred smacks on my bottom.

Cutting to the chase, G agreed with me. Over his knee I went. My pajama bottoms were pulled down and the first one hundred smacks were administered over my panties, which didn't completely cover my backside. So, my bottom was starting to smart halfway through the count. The next set were administered on my bare bottom, with G casually pulling my panties down and continuing to spank away. He didn't seem fatigued at all. I was, though. Let's just say that I could feel the heat generated from my spanking and that I had to rub my cheeks afterwards. No complains from me, though... well, other than my playful whining about how G had hurt my bottom in an unfair way. =)

On Friday, I submitted my letter of resignation at work. By the time I leave, I will have been employed there for nearly seven months. The job isn't a good fit for me, particularly working with someone who has been there for nearly thirty years, does not believe in hearing other people's opinions (his are correct and mine are always wrong), and that he likes to work in "criticize mode," which "works well" for him, as he explained to me and my colleague on Wednesday.

I saw the light at long last on Thursday, when he wanted to use his measurements for a Word table that I had created (he liked 6.5" as the table width, whereas I had 6.25"). Wow. Huge difference. His pickiness, along with his liking to criticize a lot of what I do, was not the healthiest environment in which to work.  Frankly, I am probably not as confident as I was before I joined the company as far as the quality of my work goes.

So, out of the blue, a human resources person from my soon-to-be employer saw my resume on monster.ca and asked if I was interested in a job posting she wanted to fill. One thing led to another. I did well in both the phone and in-person interviews. I got the happy call on Wednesday. I accepted the job offer.

I do like where I currently work. The company is terrific. I just don't like picky guy and the job itself. Averaging four hours of meetings a day is unproductive. I'm not passionate about what I do there. The new job seems like a better fit, so I'm taking this risk and am trying something new. I hope everything works out. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm having a panic attack.

Changing the topic again, G's birthday is next month. I'm once again planning out his birthday spanking. My birthday is a week after his. I'm thinking of a different spin this year. Perhaps he should spank me on his birthday and I should return the favour on mine. I still have over a month to think this through, but it would be different. I'd also like to use a slipper as a spanking implement for our spankings.