Win10 and my 'new' Laptop

I bought a refurbished laptop from Amazon.
I figured for $150.00 it was worth a shot.
I don't want a tablet, I still like having a little computer.
And I really love the feel of a keyboard. I'm not ready to give that up.

But paying full retail for a machine that I only use for things that don't require a ton of memory or power seems kind of crazy to me. I'm not a gamer (unless you count  solitaire) so I'm hoping for the best.

It has a warranty and they even included an email address if I have questions.
At this point I have more questions for Microsoft than I do for the computer guys.
I don't know much about computers, but I've been studying a bit with this one.

After I managed to find all my regular stuff, my blog, Book of Face, the electric bill, trash and water, bank account information, I tried a little of this and that.

I enjoy playing solitaire now and then, have had it on the old machines forever.

But Microsoft can't just put the goddamn games on the computer anymore. Nope. Now they have ads.
And you will have PAY to play them.

No thanks.
I did a little swearing over that one.

So I did some searching online and found out where I could download the older version and play it without the bullshit.

So now I have that loaded, too.
I've also done a little swearing over all the ads and the popups.

Dumped a bunch of unnecessary apps.
I'm still going to need to figure out autoplay, seems that the card reader doesn't want to read the card, and plugging the camera directly in doesn't work, either.

I did look it up, it's a common issue. So more little fixes I need to do to get things running the way I want them to.

My printer is old, but it was still great until a few months ago when my old computer decided to no longer recognize it. I have to locate the cable so I can introduce it to my new computer. I hope there aren't any problems with it, it's really about a pain in the ass to mess with this stuff.

The way things have changed in the computer industry is interesting to me.

When we lived in Southern California, one of our neighbors had a personal computer in the little closet under the stairs in their apartment. It was 1988, I think. He paid ELEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS for that computer. I was horrified at the cost, but intrigued by the idea of having a computer. Not that I did anything about it, couldn't have afforded anything like that.

In 1994, we inherited one from my cousin's family. It was old, but it was cool to have one. The receipt came in the box with it, they paid almost five thousand for it.

Our first new one was $2500.
It ran Win95.
We all really enjoyed it.

When Lyssa still lived here, we bought her one for around $600. It was pretty nice, hence the price tag. I shipped it to her last fall.

Eric has one in the living room.

I have the laptop and a really old iPhone that a cousin gave to me. It's not being used as a phone, I just occasionally use it like a little tablet to look things up on while I'm at work.
("Susan, can you look up bats/Captain America/elephants... I want to draw one.")

I find it interesting that the price keeps getting smaller and the machines keep getting better.

And there's no way I could have imagined having my own computer back in 1988.
My great grandfather wrote a book about his eight decades on earth back in 1977. He marveled about his life going from horse and buggy to man on the moon and wondered in our conversations what I'd see in my lifetime.

Tell ya what I'd really like to see.
Teleportation.

I might even scrape up eleven grand if that would get it for me.