test drive

Spent the last few weeks in Lake Charles for work.
Observations:
1. The drive is not that bad.
2. Casinos are fun but I'm still no good at gambling.
3. I love traveling for work (Hello Hilton Honors Gold member) but it's tiring and I feel guilty leaving kitty alone for so long.

I did not skip my birthday this year. Thirty three... I spent it in Lake Charles working but my colleagues made it special. Plus I came home to presents all over the house which I wanted to blog about but it's so much work... Snapchat got all the glory this time.

Christmas is up! Mostly. This year not all the lights went up, but a respectable amount did.
I tried a poinsettia garland on the tree this year and I really like it. A handyman came over to hang a couple of new ceiling fans and he commented on how nice it looked. Oh yeah... the fan in the living room burned up on Thanksgiving so that household upgrade got bumped to the top of the list real quick. The new ones are gorgeous and functional. I love those two things together.

I bought a new laptop/tablet thing. While looking for a new one I had two things in mind:
1. It had to have a keyboard. I really only need it to blog because I do almost everything else on my work computer or my phone.
2. It had to be inexpensive. I don't want to buy an expensive laptop just for blogging and miscellaneous internet browsing.

I looked at a few things and I figured a tablet with a removable keyboard would be the best of both worlds. The cheapest one I found was 200 bucks and this is my first time using it.

Obviously, I don't love it right off the bat because it's different than what I'm used to.
The keyboard is a little small so my hands feel slightly cramped when I'm typing.
Plus the delete key is where I'm used to having the backspace key, and the numbers at the top are shifted a little to the right than where I'm used to. So writing this post has taken a lot of fixing keyboard-related typos. Moderately disappointed, especially because I bought it specifically for the keyboard ease.

I might adapt to it easier than I expect, especially because the price was right... and basically the price goes up from here. When I bought it I made sure to ask about the return policy and I have some time. So I'll use it for a week and then decide if I'm going to return it or not.

I hope I can blog a lot in the next few days to test it out. I'm starting an install at work on Monday so things might be busy. I just got trained on this new instrumentation, and this is the first install where I'm in charge. My mentor will be there to guide me and answer questions, but this is my show. I'm a little nervous-- only because we have to use a new software for the first time and neither of us has much experience with it. Hoping it goes smoothly.