A Day "Off"" Blog Post

So anyway......as it turned out, I didn't really work yesterday. The daughter was sick the night before, but as teacher parents, we took her to school anyway just to see if she was over it. Turns out that she wasn't quite ready for a day of school yet (she's the dramatic child), and needed a day home with dad to finish getting over her stomach bug that's been bothering mom and I as well. So, about 9am, I got the call to come and get "it". After frantically scrambling to get things ready for a sub, taking the school bus that I drive in the morning back to the bus lot, I go and get her. Although, most of you are now probably imagining the above, it's really more like the below.....except I don't look that good!

What really ends up happening with these things is that I give her some medicine, feed her lunch and get the TV to the correct channel for her......oh yeah, lay there and listen to her read a book till she falls asleep. Therefore the reality is that I got to spend most of the day stuck in the house, BUT doing what I want! .......which in this case turned out to be the looong put-off SSD upgrade from my trusty laptop.

WAIT! When did the Mac thing happen?!? Never fear, the earth did not stop spinning and I haven't decided to "end it all" due to Mayan doom and gloom. I also spent the day negotiating a deal for one of my long time client-families for a MacBook Christmas present for their son. Did pretty well too! Less than 3 year old MacBook Pro 13" for$525 (good for a Mac that is). Anyway, back to the X300. A few months ago, I came across some Samsung SSDs in the weird 1.8" Micro-SATA spec that's used in the X300/301 (as well as a few other) notebooks. These were the 128Gb versions originally contracted for the X301, and not the 64Gb that was in mine. The price was good (sub-$100) so I bought two. One for my Z61m Ark of the Covenant project and one to upgrade the long-suffering X300. But other projects got in the way and the suffering went on, largely because the X300 kept working without complaint. Well, yesterday, that came to an end! While the daughter napped, I did the long neglected deed! 

The pay-out? Weeeellll; I can't say that there is any. The machine runs exactly as it did before the upgrade. I haven't even looked at the drive "properties" to admire my handiwork. It has simply soldiered on as before. However, what I ended up with was another thought; as I sat holding the old 64Gb SSD in my hand, and thinking......."what do I do with this"? Especially after I realized that I'd also have the Dell 50Gb temporary SSD in hand as well after Mushkin RMA's my Chronos 120Gb back to me. Two spare, "small" SSDs.....hmmmmm

At that point, it hit me! I could upgrade both the kid's computers, which still run XPP by the way. They don't store anything anyway, so all the main computers in the house would be on SSD boot drives and Windows 7. Fast Booting for everybody!!! Not bad for a day off baby-sitting a sick child.