Pandora is great and all, but sometimes I want to listen to EXACTLY the songs I want, right now. Since I still refuse to purchase an iPhone (mainly because I don't want to pay AT&T $30 a month for a stinkin' iPhone data plan), I bring my 2nd generation iPod Nano to work with me. I also bring my USB cable with me, but not the AC power adapter that goes with it. If the battery was low, I just plugged my iPod into my work PC using the USB cable and fired up Pandora while my iPod flashed ye olde "Do not disconnect" warning at me. Now before some ding-dong out there yells, "Why didn't you just use iTunes?", let me say something one more time: this is my work PC - I cannot install iTunes on it.



Well, that was true until today. I finally stumbled across a forum where someone answered the very question I had: how do I listen to my iPod while charging it via the USB cable on a PC? Someone slightly smarter than myself suggested that I open Windows Explorer, right-click on the disk icon representing my iPod and select "Eject". Wow, it worked! Apparently this is different than doing the "Safely remove hardware..." option that I'd been using before. Go figure.

So now here I am, music a-playin' and my iPod a-chargin'. Hope this tip helps someone else out there.

OK, so I finally broke down and purchased a new-to-me phone off eBay, the HTC Hero. My old AT&T Tilt (aka, the HTC Kaiser) started shutting itself down right in the middle of phone calls, which was utterly frustrating. I would have purchased a new phone directly from AT&T, but the only phone they currently have that is running Google's Andriod OS is the Motorola Backflip, which I think is rather ugly and it felt like it was made of the same plastic they make LEGOs out of. I had originally wanted something with a built-in QWERTY keyboard, but I eventually decided I could deal with an onscreen keyboard and cut down on the bulkiness that comes along with it.



So far, the only bad thing I can say about the HTC Hero is that I don't have it in my hands yet. According to the USPS tracking service, it's "currently in transit to the destination". Well thanks a lot...that's about as informative as a "Check Engine" light.

After a lot of internet research, several days of driving around looking at different makes/models at different dealership and a few hours of haggling with the folks at Round Rock Nissan, we finally drove home with a 2007 Nissan Murano to replace the 2000 Chevy Cavalier Selina has been driving. I know she was really wowed by the 2010 Chevy Equinox (I must admit that I was, too), but even the base model Equinox was out of our price range. In purchasing the Murano, we got pretty much everything we wanted (and more) for far less money than a comparably equipped Equinox.



So here we are, 6 days after signing on the dotted line -- and are we having second thoughts about going with the Murano? Heck no! I think we got ourselves a pretty sweet little SUV.

As noted in one of my previous postings, I purchased a 160GB hard drive ($35) and a replacement speaker ($9) for my Latitude D620 and I was on the lookout for a good deal on 4GB of RAM and a replacement battery. I was really hoping to stay under $200 -- which I succeeded in doing this weekend.

First, I found a 9-cell replacement battery on Amazon for only $40. While I'm quite aware it isn't a genuine Dell battery, the reviews seem to indicate that it is a good replacement -- and at roughly 1/3 the cost of a genuine Dell battery. When my current battery only holds a 3 minute charge, anything would be an improvement.

On to the RAM. I checked out Crucial, NewEgg and Amazon, but for 4GB (2Gx2) of RAM I was looking at spending at least $95 (not including shipping). I headed over to eBay and placed an $80 bid on some used RAM (with free shipping) on Friday evening. For the longest time I was winning the auction at $45, but as always, the bidding heated up in the waning hours. With 30 minutes on the clock, someone bid against me and bumped it up to $66.77. With 5 seconds left, someone tried sniping the RAM with a $75.88 bid -- unfortunately for him/her, it wasn't enough to overcome my previous bids and I walked away as the winner at $76.01. Take that, stupid eBay sniper-person! I really hate it when those people win.

Anyway, the grand total for all upgrades (including shipping) comes to $160, which is $40 under budget. I'd normally look for something else to spend the $40 on (like a good Targus laptop backpack), but since we're trying to save money, I'll only spend what I need.

Selina and I went to Dick's Sporting Goods on Saturday and she got a really good deal on a nice Under Armour golf shirt and some Nike golf shoes, which we promptly put to good use on Sunday when we met Rocky at the Flatonia Golf Course for Selina's first round of golf ever. Yes, yes...it was Mother's Day, but we got to the course really early and were back in Waelder with plenty of time to spare before we ate lunch and had fun with the family at my grandparents' house. But back to the golf story...



While it's true that Selina has hit golf balls at the driving range in Pflugerville with me several times before, this was her first time hitting a ball on an actual golf course. And let's face it: hitting balls at the range is completely different than hitting a ball at the golf course. Despite having some issues with the water hazards, I have to say that she completely exceeded my expectations and it looked like she had a really good time out there. And while she did lose the yellow ball in the picture above on hole #9, she didn't lose the pink ball that she played the first 8 holes with. Impressive!

I've had my Latitude D620 for a few years now and I've been contemplating whether or not I should spend the money in upgrades or purchase something newer/better from my good friends over at Discount Electronics. Seeing as they didn't have anything that caught my eye as an upgrade (like a D630), I've decided that I will just stick with what I've got and invest in a few fixes and upgrades.

First, the hard drive. Sweet Jesus, I have no idea how I've made it thus far with only 60GB of space. Maybe it's because I usually tend to dump things off onto my external drive frequently (which also needs to be upgraded, by the way), but since I've switched over to shooting in RAW format, I've been chewing through the available hard drive space like it's nothing. I don't need anything like a terabyte, but just something a little bigger. In comes the Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD1600BEVT 160GB I found on NewEgg for $35 with free shipping. How could I not buy it?

On to the speaker -- a few months ago a realized that my speaker volume was getting lower and lower and lower. After fiddling with the software settings, I determined that it had to be hardware. With my trusty precision screwdrivers, I proceeded to dissect my D620 (actual photo below) to see if maybe it was just a loose speaker wire. Thanks alot, Dell, for deciding to put the speaker under the wristpad; this meant that I had to basically pull the whole damn thing apart. Long story short, it wasn't a loose connection. I just placed my order for a replacement speaker on Machina Electronics for $6 (plus $3 shipping).



So after putting the D620 back together (I'm posting from it right now), it's time to wait for the first half of my upgrades to come in. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a good sale on 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2 5300 sticks of RAM (to max out RAM at 4GB) and a replacement battery (since my current one only lasts 5 minutes, which is useless on a laptop). I'm trying to do all this for under $200. In case you suck at math like I do, that leaves me with $156 for the RAM and battery -- wish me luck!