Paleck.com

I’ve had my laptop for about 3 years now and have had almost component replaced in it replaced. For them most part it’s been a good little laptop and I am definitely glad that I paid for the 4 year on site guarantee!!!. Well recently the motherboard went out on it and that had to be replaced. It took almost two weeks before they actually came out and replaced it. Me arguing with them(Politely, of course), before they would even think about doing anything they assumed it was a battery problem. Nothing could dissuade them of that even though I had just purchased a replacement battery a few months earlier. Finally they replaced the motherboard and everything worked….until now.

Just recently I had another problem with my laptop, it still works, but the sound card is apparently dying. When I say dying, I mean a very slowwww death. When it works I get to hear any noise coming from it warping in and out. It interferes with shutting down Windows and sometimes the driver can’t even start the card at all. Before attempting to contact Dell I replaced the driver, removed the driver(to make windows reinstall it), completey unpowered the laptop(attempted to turn it on with no battery or power. Don’t try to tell Dell that though. I decided instead of waiting on hold for 3 hours only to not understand a word of what the support representative was saying, I used the online hardware support chat. Before you ask yes, yes I did it from a different computer. Give me just a little bit of credit.

See for yourself how well the conversation didn’t go. The names have been changed to protect the guilty and any sensitive information has been removed. Other than that nothing in the conversation has been changed in order to make myself look better or Dell look worse.

Go to any major city and whenever there is an accident as much as possible traffic still moves smoothly. Not that I don’t feel bad for those that are in an accident. BUT, there is no reason that an accident that has been fully moved into the shoulder of the freeway should still cause FIVE lanes of traffic to come to a standstill.

In Utah right now we have an epidemic of rubber-neckers! For each and every accident, no matter how small expect traffic on I-15 to slow to a crawl. Once for all thr rubber-neckers that must slow down to get a full view of the accident. Second they just caused another accident because they were paying attention to the accident and not the car in front of them that decided to stop.

I promise to find something other than Utah drivers to write about for my next post!

Anyone from Utah will surely know what a MAV is, but for those that don’t:

Another term for a station wagon, mini-van, or any other kind of vehicle that is targeted at the “family” demographic(also M.A.V.) and Any vehicle whose express purpose is carrying 8 or more children at the same time, with groceries.

Many Utahns have large families or are planning on large families so they have acquired these large vehicles, which I can fully understand. What I can’t understand is why they can’t learn to drive them accordingly. They still think they are driving their old beat-up little Civic, Corolla, Focus and Metro.

What does that mean to the rest of us? Expect close encounters when you are in the right lane and a MAV come barrelling in from the side along the shoulder to turn right. This may have been okay when they were driving a Small car that could fight almost anywhere, but now they have the ability to take out all the smaller cars without even noticing it. Be wary of shopping centers that have small parking places, because if you park in a spot where your small car can fit, but just barely. There is a good chance when you get back you will have at least one MAV wedged in next to your car. If you know gymnastics or yoga be prepared to use it in order to gain access to your car.

If your car is a MAV please, please forget about parallel parking. Unless there is room for two cars in that parking space, there is a good chance you will hit one of the other cars. Or hold up traffic for 15 minutes while you attempt to come into the parking spot from all angles. Just because your car is a MAV does not give you the right to force your way into a lane on the freeway. See all the other cars piling up behind you, it was caused by you forcing your way into a lane where the driver of the Metro had no chance. Last but not least, if you would have hesitated doing something in your old car don’t even think about it now! This includes tight parking spaces, driving on the shoulder, pulling a U-turn in the middle of ANY street.

Thank you in advance for following any of these guidelines. You may have just kept from flattening me and my Civic.

P.S. If you are in front of any of us smaller cars at a stoplight, please remember we most likely cannot see when the light is going to change, this is especially true of the left hand turning lane. Find some way to let us know the light is completely red that you are turning left on. Just because you can make it through doesn’t mean that we would survive the onslaught of cars that are now barrelling towards us.

So today at my mom’s house for Mother’s Day dinner I went over there knowing that there was some things that my mom needed me to help out with. Nothing hard just vacuuming, moving some small furniture, etc. I am more than happy to help out especially since my mom just had surgery 2 weeks ago and is somewhat limited in her movements. Anyways back to the story, I went over there with my laundry as I usually do (and NO she doesn’t do it for me). Get my laundry going and show my mom the DVD that I am helping my sister make for a class. I wait, check my laundry, wait, check my laundry, have dinner, wait, finish laundry (2 loads = 3-4 hours on this washer/dryer). Once I am done and ready to go then my mom starts having me do what she had said she wanted me to do. Not that I mind helping out, but I prefer to use my mind more wisely, instead of waiting around, watching TV I could have been doing all the things that she needed done. I’m Done. Happy Mother’s Day Mom!