So I'm sitting here in the lobby of the Radisson in Austin. I can't figure out why there's free wireless internet access here, yet in the room there's a ten dollar a day charge for access; that's more than I used to pay my old dial up ISP per month. Anyway, I really don't have to worry about access, since at the convention center where I've been all day has an internet room that anyone can use. So what am I doing at the convention center? Why, attending the exhibits, of course. I get a lot of free stuff that, mostly books, that make it worth the fee for the days I'll be here. I've already picked up several books that look interesting, sort of mystery/thriller, etc. I picked up a tshirt and several bags that I ususally give away to my colleagues back home. I usually pick up a bag that has cats on it (it varies every year, but there's always cats) that I give to an English teacher back home who's passionate about cats, so much so that she usually has over 20 at her house. Of course, I got pens and pencils, but not too many this years, and I haven't gotten many posters since I don't want to lug them around. The books are heavy enough, I think. One thing about these old hotels (and this is an old hotel; I remember this one years ago when it was the Shamrock Hilton): the tv selection is limited-no scifi, no WB, so I end up missing the programs I usually watch. Well, tomorrow I get to go back to the convention center and pick up some more goodies. One good thing, I picked up a few trade paperback books from DC comics, old Green Lantern stories and Sandman stories bundles up in a book. Best of all, they were free.

Last weekend we were at my sister-in-law's for Easter, and a lot of folks showed up for the bbq she had. It was actually a pretty nice gathering. We'd been there a couple of days and helped her clean up, mow, etc., in preparation for the event. But with so many people there, you'd think there'd be a lot of little kids for the Easter egg hunt and fun kiddy activities. Well, there was one baby and a couple of older kids, and that was it, so Easter was a little disappointing, I think. I remember when all our kids were small, they'd all get together and have massive Easter egg hunts and afterward massive egg cracking on everyone's head. Well, at least we avoided all that.
Anyway, to speak of something else, while I was there, somehow Windows got corrupted on my laptop, and I couldn't boot it up at all. Luckily, I had a bookable linux cd with me, Amorok Linux, and with that distro, I actually managed to get online, so I was pretty well satisfied with it. I'm considering just installing linux and going with that, but I hesitate since I don't really know how I'd get along with the rest of the community I associate with, OS speaking.
I reinstalled Windows, but decided not to install MSOffice; I went with Open Office and Abiword. I figured I didn't need Word if Abiword and Open Office Writer are both Word compliant. I like both programs fine; in fact, I think I prefer Abiword since it actually looks better on the computer than Writer or Word, I think. Anyway, both these free programs read my old Word files,so I'll be using them from now on unless for some reason I find I need to stick with Word/Office.
If I do decide to go linux, I'm going to have to decide which distro to use. There are several distros that do work just fine on my laptop though only one has recognized the built in wireless and worked, but I've found some that do boot up just as well on my computer and run just fine (testing live cds), and I have found some that are really just great, so I'll really have to think about which to use. My old favorite distro, Peanut linux, just won't run on my computer for some reason. Well, does anyone have any suggestions?