Whenever

I have a story to (re?)tell, or something nobody gaf about, I always know I can come here and post to the void. Hello bots and bumblers.

I’m too late to the convo, but I’ll share my little story anyway. Lots of folks buy “gaming” laptops. And someone made a joke about just taking a small computer. Well, I did just that when I deployed to Saudi Arabia. I took along my small footprint ATX desktop, which was about the size of a shoe box.

Of course I took along a LCD monitor and keyboard and my Kensington trackball, as well.

I remember the sound of my LCD monitor sliding off the top of the trunk while I was pulling it down from a locker unit. I was able to break it’s fall a tiny bit with the “maybe I can catch it with my foot but also may end up booting it out the window” maneuver but it wasn’t enough to save the screen.

IN the end it was mostly still usable but one of the perks of working as a communications computer guy for the government is that it was pretty easy for me to simply use another one. Which technically is misuse of government equipment for personal use but so was leaving the I-don’t-want-to-think-about-how-much-this-equipment-was-worth computer and network equipment behind when we left; of course that decision was made by someone else. And it made a positive and lasting impact on my own, as well as all my co-working members of the consolidated network operations somethingorother which somehow reflects great upon myself, and a bunch of other stuff, elsewhere … maybe, or not … if one cares about such things (which, let me tell you, it appears most do not).

Anyway … I’m not saying I’ve never bought a laptop. I’m saying I’ve never tried to convince myself that a *good* desktop gaming system crammed into the form factor of the largest, most expensive lap warmer ever to exist is worth the premium costs. So I took along a shoebox instead of a binder, and it worked out very well for me.

I wonder how much longer I’ll have access to a computer.