“Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations. You have to pay attention to money, but it shouldn’t be about the money.” –Tim O’Reilly
last night when i finished checking my email, i slid my new laptop under the bed to prevent anything falling or stepping on it. i then proceeded to lean across my bed to plug the alarm clock back in (the plug had fallen out of the wall), and my foot caught the edge of the laptop and i stepped on it.
i heard a snapping noise, i assumed it was just from lid hitting against the base, and i went to bed.
this morning i woke up late and decided to check to see if i had any work emails, and i discovered a plus-shaped crack in the upper-right of the screen with a few bleeding pixels. brand new laptop less than a month old with a beautiful 14″ screen, marred by my clumsy foot.
estimated cost for repairs: $895. just thinking about feels like having the wind knocked out of me, repeatedly.
as you can see, it looks much worse with the winxp blue background than just plain white. i count about 100 dead pixels (out of 1,470,000).
update: make that $495 of pain. after getting quoted prices like $895 for the replacement and repair from ibm, and $700+ labor from UNC, i decided to do a little searching around (ebay, google) and discovered that there are some outfits that sell just the LCD screens–you know for people like me who step on theirs.
after doing some research into the guts of my laptop, i discovered LCDS 4 LESS had the screen for my laptop at a much reduced though still painful cost of $495. they also said it only takes about 15 minutes to install. so i’m going to do it myself, and then probably put up the busted but working LCD panel on ebay.
i had a conversation with someone in my last semester about the relative merits of remaining with my current job, earning a state employee’s wage (which this person equated to a sort of voluntary carrboro hippie stoicism) versus pursuing the financial and material perks that come from earning a corporate RTP premium (which this person probably equated with real normal adult life).
money is very definitely the primary “reason” that most people work. either to pay bills from month to month, to pursue material wealth for show, status, and comfort (read: being a good american), or to move up in the salary hierarchy compared to neighbors and coworkers. none of these are wrong per se, and most everyone feels one or all of those things at one point or another.
but it bothers me that i might inadvertently fall into one of these states, that i don’t really have any plan (yet) to work towards or measure my progress.
i’m back in chapel hill. i need to find a new place to live. “need” being underscored by the fact that my lease runs out on june 31.
today i looked at what was described as an “efficiency” apartment on McCauley Street. the first thing i notice is the spacious kitchen with new appliances. then a small living room with couch, futon and closet. then bathroom. but where is the bedroom? there is no bedroom. it’s just a dorm room with a nice kitchen and shower. ugh! i want one more room. i want a place to put a couch.
drove around davie circle with melanie, found a “charming two bedroom cottage” for sale. $188,000. i think that’s a lot of money. a ten year mortgage without any interest would require monthly payments greater than $1500.
seems like 306-1 McCauley may not have been snatched up while I was in Cambodia. I definitely need to get on that.
