Sunday Salon - Ramblings

As I write this, I am basically playing on my new laptop (it's an Acer Aspire R 14) and getting used to it.  For most people it probably wouldn't be much of a challenge getting used to a new computer, but for me, it has proven to been a bit of a challenge in that when I got it, I had hoped that the transition would have been a bit smother than it has been.  While I have worked on Windows before, this is a whole different experience, in that I have to customize it to what I would like it to do and it doesn't help that I have had Macs for the past 15-20 years.  The past week has been a bit of a struggle and hence my reading has suffered.

I have also been watching the first 13 episodes of House of Cards and find that Kevin Spacey's deliciously nasty; his character reminds me of the person that he portrayed in the movie version of In the Midnight of Good and Evil.

I have been trying to read during this past week or two, but it has been difficult.  But what I have been reading is Ru by Kim Thúy and the final Harry Potter book.  I hope to be starting To Kill a Mockingbird sometime this week.  I hope that this is going to be a much more productive week in regards to my blogging and my reading.

Happy Sunday.

Saying goodbye to a dear friend

Tonight I am starting to say goodbye to a dear friend.  A friend that has endured my wrath at times, has my fingerprints all over it, has a hole in it (no clue how that happened), has a few pieces of duct tape on it, has been yelled at and spat on, etc.  I am talking about a friend that I have taken to Alberta on a few occasions, took to Whitehorse a few years ago, went to Arizona a few years back and discovered The Office while in a darkened bedroom one morning when I had ran out of shows to watch, and has spent a lot of time going back and forth between my home in Abbotsford and my vacation time at Sun Peaks.  It has been there when I couldn't sleep at 2 am and when I had been banished to my bedroom and has even been hidden underneath my bed at times.  It even was taken with me one time to work one day when the fire alarm went off as I was leaving for work.  I have played many games on it for many hours and has given me countless hours of entertainment by watching videos and listening to music and podcast.  I even experienced the Olympics on four different occasions with this friend.  It saw my growth as a blogger and has been with me when my favourite team lost in the 2011 Stanley Cup finals.

I don't know when this friend will be replaced, probably in the next day or two, but it will be a sad moment when I go to pick up its replacement.  I had hoped to bring it to Europe in about a year and a half, but that won't be happening and only experienced Europe through the photos of my parents.  I have downloaded countless hours of podcasts through this friend and have enjoyed every minute of them and it was able to experience 4 different devices (2 iPods and 2 iPhones).  A number of the parts have been replaced and are starting to break down.

I realize that my friend isn't human, but when you get a laptop in May 2008 and its the first computer you pay for, you become attached to it and it does become a friend.

So hopefully the computer below will become just as dear to me as the one above.

Many trails, MacBook; you gave me lots of happiness and joy, especially when I watched Matthew propose to Mary back in 2012 and may you find happiness in computer heaven...

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (Feb. 16)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a fun weekly meme that is hosted by Shelia at Book Journey, in which we share what we've read and reviewed and what we plan on reading in the coming week.

Books finished this month:

• The Silver Chair
• The Last Battle
• Station Eleven
• The Miniaturist
• Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography
• Ella Enchanted
• Madame Picasso
• Fall on Your Knees
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Books reviewed this month:

•  Daisy Miller by Henry James
• Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
• Christmas Carol, A by Charles Dickens

Books I hope to finish this week:

• The Book of Strange New Things
• After the War is Over

Books I hope to work on this week:

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• While We're Far Apart

Mailbox Monday (February 16)

Mailbox Monday is a place for readers to share the books that came into their homes during the past week.  After being hosted at a number of blogs over the past few years, it has gone back to its home base, the aptly named, Mailbox Monday.

I had a good haul over the last week and here is what I received:

• Pioneer Girl was a birthday gift from my parents that was a few weeks belated (I have already the book)
• The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches was something I was looking at for a few months before the trade paperback came out (I only get the trade for this series so it means a delay in getting the book and probably will read it in the summer)
• Such a Pretty Face is a bookclub read that I probably should read in the next few weeks.