July 17, 2014

Yesterday the manager wasn't at the theater when I got there, and he hadn't unlocked projection yet, so for the second time this summer I had to go into one of the theaters and climb through the window leading up to projection. Last time I had to check two theaters to find a window that wasn't latched so I could slide it open. After that I made sure not to close the window all the way so yesterday I was able to go straight to that theater and get right in. I also left my stuff on the stairs leading up to projection which made it a lot easier to climb through the window. Today, the door was open so I did not need to enter my place of work like a cat burglar.

The kid show this morning was The LEGO Movie and it was the most popular show of the summer so far. Normally we just show it in one theater. I think the only time we have opened up a second theater was for people who had arrived a little late. Today I ended up showing in in three theaters. The first two weren't completely full and the third probably wasn't even half full, but that is still more than a decent turnout. I also saw a couple kids from school who were there with Boys & Girls Club. They remembered me.

Today I finished reading Fish by Gregory Mone. It is one of my Book Fair books and I really enjoyed it. I seem to be on a mini-seafaring kick because I also recently finished S, which also involves sailing the oceans in a ship. Fish is about a young Irish boy who is sent from the farm to work as a messenger for his uncle in the city because his family needs money. He has one of his deliveries stolen and he swims after and eventually climbs onto a pirate ship in order to get the package back. Long story short, he ends up becoming part of the crew, reluctantly at first, and goes on a grand adventure in search of treasure. Thoroughly enjoyable. I also continued reading The Best Of McSweeney's and I practiced my left-handed writing.

Tonight I didn't have a visit with the new volunteer kid because he said he was going to be with his grandpa. This ended up working out because after eating the second half of my delicious Chipotle burrito for dinner, I went with my mom to look at the house she is thinking about buying. The place was locked up but were were able to walk around and look in the windows. It is still being built, along with all the houses around it, but it is supposed to be done by September. It looked like a nice house, at least externally and peering through the windows, and my mom really likes it. There is also a Home Owner's Associate that would prevent a lot of the stuff that my mom currently dislikes about the neighbors. I think the plan is to present an offer tomorrow so fingers crossed.

In other news, my laptop arrived today. Today at work I made a list of the programs I wanted to install. I got about halfway through those when I got a pop-up about the computer needing to restart to install a driver. But then I couldn't move the mouse or use the keyboard. I manually shutdown the computer several times but shortly after getting to the desktop the pop-up would appear and the computer would freeze. I did some searching and it seemed to be related to the hotkey driver. I found a driver and put it on the desktop while in Safe Mode but had to log in normally to install it. And I could get it done before the computer froze. I got tired of messing with it so I just decided to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Which I did and was then able to reinstall all the drivers and install all the programs I wanted to without incident. At the very end I got the pop-up again but it didn't freeze my computer and I was able to click out of it. Part of me thinks it might have been do to the Comodo firewall I installed. When the pop-up happened after reinstalling Windows the Comodo pop-up appeared asking what I wanted to do about the program and I was able to click Allow. So fingers crossed that will do the trick.

Other than that minor hiccup, I am liking the laptop. It has a 13” screen and it is just the right size. I didn't want a tiny screen but I also didn't need a huge one. I already have a beast of a desktop with three monitors so the idea of a big laptop designed to be a desktop replacement wasn't appealing. I wanted something easily portable that I could take with on the weekends when my grad classes meet. I also thought it would be good to take it to school when I want to work on a project that I would normally have to work on at home when I was off the clock. I can also take it to the theater with me to work on stuff. Or just play games. I think I'll end up taking it tomorrow and maybe try to edit more of my old journal entries. All around it is just a good looking laptop, and as long as that pop-up thing is resolved, I will be entirely satisfied with my purchase. At least as long as the honeymoon period lasts. Now I just need to get a laptop cooler. It would be nice to get something that could work as a stand for a desk as well as when I want to have it on my lap. I looked at few a little while ago but now I will be a bit more serious about my search.

Somehow it is already one o'clock in the morning. I'm going to go to bed. Tomorrow before work I would like to figure out my haircut conflict next week, cancel my XM radio so I don't have to pay full price (actually getting rid of it this time unless they offer me another good deal), and get my oil changed. We'll see how all that goes.