Beautiful. It's simply beautiful outside. I wonder how much I'll truly get to enjoy it. You see, I have this full-time contract of which I've written before; I also have a couple other contracts which I have managed to secure recently, and one on the horizon I hope to get. This is fabulous as far as income goes, but doesn't do much for my availability to enjoy the sun. Another issue is that since my laptop died, I have been without computer which would allow me to *do* any of these contracts!

Consider the problem semi-solved yesterday, when I purchased a new laptop and wireless router. The laptop is pretty pimp - I went for raw horse-power and tried to keep the other expenses to a minimum, but it's still pretty nice. A Toshiba A70, if you're wondering. However, there are both positives and negatives that this brings about.

The first thing is, though I now have a laptop and can perform the contracts, I need the money those contracts generate in order to pay for the laptop. Now, if that isn't a prime case of circular logic, I don't know what is! So I need a computer especially to work on contracts 2 and 3. The full-time contract provides me with a computer, it's just that it's a piece of garbage that I couldn't possibly work on. So computer is only completely necessary for the smaller contracts. Conveniently, I believe the amount of income I should receive from those 2 should just about cover my significant cash (well, credit) outlay from yesterday.

So, at least I have a laptop that I can use for all my present and future computing needs, right? And a wireless router so that I can at least sit outside while I work on my contracts for the summer? Well, perhaps. However, the laptop's surface around the keyboard is a silvery colour. This makes it reflect the sun rather impressively, which caused me near-blindness when I came outside a few minutes ago to test things out.

I seem to have adjusted a sitting position that does not impare my vision terribly while working in the sun, with the laptop poised on my lap. There's no table out the front, and the back patio faces north so no sun there. Signal strength appears to vary between "Good", and "Very Good" as I have been checking. Whichever, it does not appear to be causing problems in my surfing or listening to Proton. It was "Low" just when I came out, but things seem to be better now (of course I have no idea what might have changed).

I'm still testing out the laptop, so no congrats or "about time"s just yet. If I'm satisfied, then I must still install WinXP Pro (it came with Home) in order to be able to do my work on it, but it's seeming pretty good. Once that's done, I'll be getting the pics off my camera where they've been piling up (thank god for the 256MB CF card), and will get them posted up here.

Wow - the keyboard and area around it is getting a little warm from the sun... Wonder how that will work out. Glad I paid for the 3-yr warranty! I'm not going to get fscked like last time. And there are about 3 ants crawling on me. Ah, summertime!

Party tonight. Oh yes, it shall be grand! Don't expect to hear from me for a few days! ;)