New stuff in da house -- old stuff's gotta go!

It's been a busy weekend. Friday, I arrived home to my new Dell laptop (wOO!) and I spent some time setting it up and starting to migrate data. Kiddo will be inheriting my slightly busted laptop, so there is no big rush.

Meantime, I tackled moving stuff out of the room/closet that contains our water heater, the cat litter box, our overflow of kitchenware, and assorted craft supplies. I wanted to remove two shelves so that I could fit in some rolling storage, thus allowing easier and quicker access to the hot water tank. As much as we have been denying it, it seems to be on its last legs -- again (we replaced it less than 5 years ago). We are still getting hot water, but only enough for a very short shower and not enough for a full tub for Kiddo. We are hoping to get it dealt with over the next week during or around the time of the bathroom renos.

Which brings me to the other new stuff in da house: bathroom fixtures. After some consideration, we are trying to salvage our tub, rather than replace it. Everything else is getting replaced -- new basin, faucet and vanity, new medicine cabinet, new light fixture, new low-consumption toilet, new tub and shower faucet set, and new tile floor. We stuffed the van full today and now all the bits are stacked in our living room. We have yet to bring home the new tub surround, but that will be new too.

Hubby and I are on vacation for a little over a week starting on the 15th. The plan is to start demolition on the Friday and drop Kiddo off at her Granny's for the weekend since part of the renos will leave us without a toilet in the house (we can use the one in the common room but that means going outside to get there). Hopefully we can get it all done by Sunday afternoon. I promise lots of before and after shots.

After the bathroom reno, we have a few other loose ends to tidy up and then we can start earnestly looking for a new house and sell this one as soon as we find something suitable!

Now... I have some more packing to do...

ZZZZAP!!! -- doh!

For some reason, I tend to generate a lot of static electricity. At work, I touch one corner of one of the privacy panels to "discharge" any built-up static. Sometimes this is enough to trigger the barcode readers.... which is a little weird.

This afternoon, I reached out to open and turn on my laptop and ---- ZZZAP! It fired up OK, but when I tried to move the mouse (it sits on my graphics tablet), nada. After using the touchpad for a while, I realized I missed the mouse and went looking for an alternate... which is when I found that it wasn't my tablet that had died but all my USB ports. They are now zombies... they appear to be alive -- they both give power to connected items and also are seen to be active by Windows -- but they no longer function.

While I could adjust to not having the mouse and I would accept not having the graphics tablet, it also means I can't transfer any music or images... and that just.won't.do.

After a web search for "acer usb not responding" I found that this is not an uncommon occurrence among laptops... the USB ports sometimes just randomly die (and likely my static zap was only a coincidence and not a trigger).

The most frequent suggested fix is to buy a PCMCIA USB expansion card (about $65) which would return two of my three ports. Of course it would also mean I would lose my wireless card... though that is not too critical right now (since the battery only holds a charge for about 8 minutes, I leave it on the desk, plugged in; adding an ethernet cable wouldn't matter).

Since my laptop will be 3 years old in March, we had slated it for replacement soon anyway... we may just have to go shopping a little earlier than planned.

Sigh.