Laptop rant

Less than 2 years ago I purchased a new Dell Inspiron laptop, from which I have been blogging to you, dear readers.

Earlier this year, the Dell suffered a hard drive failure. I tried reformatting the disc and reinstalling everything, to no avail. She needed new hardware. "No worries!" I thought to myself. Hard drives are easy to replace.

So the Dell got a new hard drive.

Then on Sunday she spontaneously shut down and would not turn back on. The symptoms pointed to a power supply meltdown. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say: we did the best we could, but the Dell is dead.

I blog to you now, dear readers, from my shiny, new laptop. (From which I've spent the last hour deleting factory-installed bloatware like quick-links to eBay, and other assorted useless garbage. But that's another rant for another blog...)

I have a shiny new laptop. Hooray!

But I have a beef. And that beef is: I cannot understand why it is at least as expensive to replace components or repair a laptop (or cell phone, or any other gadget) as it is to BUY A NEW ONE. This boggles the mind. How can replacing one simple, little power supply cost as much as a brand new laptop? And, I might add, the repair expense does not guarantee that the repaired laptop will be fully functional after said repairs. Because there might be other problems. And those will cost even more money to fix.

This makes me angry. Angry enough to want to reenact the "fax machine" scene from Office Space:


But since that won't solve anything, and I still have photos to rescue from the dead Dell hard drive... I'll just go run instead.

Do you think it's wrong that it's more expensive to repair than to replace our gadgets? Or do you think there's a benefit to "buy new?"

Yoga for free (seriously)

Thanks to Girl in the Pink, I just tried a free yoga podcast from Dave Farmar.

I've been practicing yoga for years... with more or less regularity. I am a firm believer that yoga makes my running better. (My IT band issues went away when I added low lunge and pigeon pose to my routine!) But I tend to be a practice-at-home girl, because, really, how many of us can afford to go several times a week at $10-20 per class?

Do you practice yoga regularly?

For most of this year I was lucky enough to have a free class available to me once a week. (Score!) But the teacher moved out of town in June, so I have been in a bit of a yoga slump. I tried other teachers, but haven't yet found one that "fits."

That is... until GITP posted about the podcasts.

There are a couple of wonderful things about Dave's yoga "classes"

1. They're 100 percent free.
   
2. There are dozens of classes of 60, 75, or 90 minutes each that are labeled beginner, intermediate, and "all levels," so you have a wide range of options.
   
3. You can download to iTunes OR stream live (follow the liberated syndication link).
   
4. There are no gimmicks. No place to enter your email address and get bombarded with spam. I heard no ads. I am not getting paid to rave about the podcasts. As best I can tell, Dave is just one really generous yoga instructor.
   
5. Did I mention FREE?
   

To try the yoga downloads yourself, visit: http://www.davefarmar.com/podcasts.php

If you try, stop back and let me know what you thought!

Ouch! That really hurt!

Earlier today I suggested that I had a successful running day, logging 6 miles on the treadmill, and that I was contemplating another run to blow off some first-day-of-class stress.

Well, I solved the problem of pre-teaching jitters all right.

My husband and I decided to take an evening walk on the beach. Beautiful white sand. A nice breeze. The perfect way to relax before a hectic week begins. And walking is an excellent form of active recovery.

But just when all was going well, a jellyfish attacked! (My apologies for the grainy cell-phone photo. It's the best I could do under the circumstances.)

The worst part of the whole incident is that in high-tailing it back across the sand to the showers, my calf started cramping. I get muscle spasms all the time, but this is like nothing I've ever felt before. Part of me wants to think it's just because I ran this morning, and my legs aren't used to a half mile sprint across soft sand... The other part of me wants to think I'm tougher than that, and that it's an effect of the sting.

Which one is worse, I wonder: Cramping up after a walk to the point where my left leg doesn't want to hold my weight? Or cramping up from jellyfish venom? The former implies that I'm becoming a wuss, the latter that a jellyfish is trying to kill me.

Well, no matter what happens in class tomorrow, it's likely to be a lot more pleasant than this!

Short but sweet

I am pleased to report that the Friday Fail was only a one-day occurrence. I spent Saturday resting. After all, when my body yells, who am I to ignore it?

Today 6 miles on the treadmill were a piece of cake.

And that run was a much-needed brain break.

Tomorrow I start a new job teaching at a community college. (I've had my current job since 2001... So this is my first new job in ten years.) Much like the night before a race, I am looking forward to the big day but also have what feels like race-day anxiety. (Cue pacing around the room, anxiously tapping pen against desk, and double checking my gear bag for the 15th time.)

Maybe I should stop stressing about my lecture notes and go out for another run?