Folks,
The deadline to renew your health insurance coverage via Healthcare.gov is NOT today, as I had in my head the past couple of days. But it IS one month from today. There’s no time like the present to get ‘er done, especially if you find some unfilled time. The site is improved and worked quite well.
I spent part of yesterday signing up – I’m all done, and happy to see a new competitive offering in my marketplace. I went ahead and added VSP to my 2019 plans because I will need some new glasses and I prefer the bells-and-whistles, and those options add up, now don’t they! Without David’s advice from over the months and years, I know I would have made poorer choices, so thanks David!
I also spent some time early Christmas shopping (research and online purchases) and took advantage of the early Thanksgiving Dell pricing to get a new 15″ laptop and docking station. It’s not the greatest computer for all needs, but it should suit me well. It will be nice moving on from my 7 year old, 17″, 8 pound monster laptop. Even though I just upgraded the memory and hard drives early this year, it made sense to buy new, now, before the new anti-Chinese tariffs kick in January 1st (10% goes to 25%).
I will now have a smaller, faster, better machine and can add dual 4k monitors when the time is right (i.e., when the price is right). Coupled with my other new machine (an Intel NUC and associated parts arrived today, getting it working later and tomorrow), I expect to have a much better future with technology. I expect I’ll be using approximately 30% of the power to do the same things, so it’s not just replacing older hardware, it’s wasting less money on electricity bled as heat and then paying more to cool my house in warmer months. My desktop tower – from 2010 – puts out as much heat as a person, even when just sitting on and doing nothing except awaiting an incoming network connection and otherwise being on. You can feel it in the summer months when it has been on for a few hours versus off; the room temperature in this top-floor office is much warmer. The new NUC sips power, and will do what I need performance-wise. It doesn’t have a gaming-class graphics card, but it’s sufficient to do what I need, and it takes up the space of three stacked packs of Dunhills (my old smoke, back when I was a nicotine junkie).
On that note, I hope you find good deals and neat stuff in your insurance, tech, and non-tech shopping over the next few weeks. I believe this is the first Christmas where I’m far ahead of the game. That’s a good thing as I hope to get outdoors and play a bit in December as I try to develop some better lifestyle and activity habits.
Open Thread!
oh – don’t forget, if you play Fallout 76, drop me a line (I play on Xbox) so we can connect in-game. If you play on PC, let me know so I can put you in contact with other jackal Fallout 76 PC players. Use the Contact a Frontpager form. We need to hang together, there are nasty folks out there. Having my power armor already helps a bit, but since I’m not a high-enough-level, I can’t wear anything but the frame. Ok I lied, I have two sets, but they don’t provide the protection I need, so I’m LFG.