I am not Charlie Hebdo

First things first, I condemn violence in any form. It is fundamentally evil. Especially in the name of religion. It’s 2015, and we don’t need to come to blows over who has the best invisible friend. The criminals who attacked the office of Charlie Hebdo are terrorists. They are cowards.

But having said that, I also have to ask why Charlie Hebdo would publish something so inflammatory. I like to say that I was brought up with enough sense to respect other peoples’ beliefs and practices be it Christian, Jew, Pagan, Muslim, Hindu, or Sikh. I condemn the violence that has occurred in France of late, but I also condemn the inflammatory cartoons that Charlie Hebdo has published.

My sympathies lie with those who lost their lives in those attacks. But I don’t see either side as being completely innocent. Charlie Hebdo has published inflammatory pictures that I myself see as offensive and I’m not Muslim). And the terrorists decided to use force of arms to force their views on everybody else.

Violence. Is. Evil. Period. But I am not Charlie Hebdo.

A lesson learned…

When I went to Full Time at my current employer last fall, I became eligible to enroll in the Company provided health care plan. At the time, I was using a health care plan that I’d purchased through the marketplace, and I decided to continue using that one. Big mistake. Because my employer had offered more than the bare minimum insurance and I didn’t enroll in it, I’m ineligible for any tax credit. So I’m paying full price for health insurance until my employer’s next open enrollment plan.

Lesson learned: when or if you convert to full-time employment and your employer offers health insurange, enroll in it! I didn’t and now I’m paying the price….

Yet another laptop….

So, last fall, my mother got a laptop. An Acer that she got through Wally World… It wasn’t that bad of a laptop. It had Windows 8.1, which is normally bad, but it also had a touchscreen (which is really the only way to deal with the metro UI). And she used for only a couple of weeks, before deciding to go with an android tablet (she also had a windows 7 tower, so she’s not hurting for a computer, and your truly is keeping up to date, patched and secure). Anyway, she wasn’t using the laptop, and so she gave it me.

It does have its drawbacks, first off it has windows 8.1 on it. But is also has a touchsreen. The processor doesn’t have quite the horsepower that I’m looking for (but it is a laptop).

On the upside, it has all the normall bells and whistles that I’d expect form a laptop. DVD Burner, Wi-Fi, USB (even has a usb 3.0 port). Added bonus: integrated bluetooth. Did I mention the touchscreen?

I shall probably use it mainly as a back up to the tower (a lesson learned from my tower’s failure last November) and for when I need to go to fix somebody’s phone/computer.

Yes, it has windows 8.1, which I absolutely detest. But then again I got it for free. And I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Thank you, Mother.