Broke

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I’ve been having a bit of a battle this week, just a few too many little things not going my way …

My Epic V8 ski is sitting in my lounge room awaiting some long overdue repairs (I can hear it calling to me now saying “why are you blogging, when you could be fixing me.“).  In my defence I did do some work on it on Sunday … admittedly this was just an attempt to put a new sticker on it … but just to show how bad my luck has been lately, even the sticker was broken … it was stuck to the sticker backer thing.

My two year old phone is now working so slowly that it would be quicker for me to walk to the library and look something up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica than it would be to wait for a google search to give me an answer.

Plus the screen locks up about every third time I turn it on.

I’m still fighting with Apollo Campervans who seem to be having extreme difficulties in returning my $7,500 campervan deposit (and that’s after they pocketed the $153 mastercard charge. the f*#krs).  I cannot understand how they can put the transaction through and get my money out of my account the day I pick up the vehicle, but nearly 10 days after returning the vehicle, and them agreeing there were no problems that would require them to keep the bond, I’m still waiting for them to put the money back into my account.  Apparently that’s not so easy.  Love your work Apollo.

But, the thing that really got to me this week was when I woke up in the wee hours of the morning last week and I noticed a light on downstairs.  Thinking that this was strange, I wandered down to find my laptop (which of course is 13 months old and just out of warranty) had somehow turned itself on and was sitting there with a simple message flashing at me:

Screen re-enactment – the real screen looked different to this

Repeated attempts at resurrection have failed, and I suspect I will soon be forking out for a new laptop, which to be honest is another expense I could really do without.

Anyway, today I decided to try and start turning my luck around.

I must say, randomly choosing internet images
is a whole lot easier than taking my own.

I started by getting my butt into Telstra and getting a new iPhone which I justified on the basis that I’m thinking of looking at developing a tassietrails.org App (feel free to read that sentence again and notice how unconvincing that statement really is) – my idea though is a good one – it’s to create an App that allows you to just download the route description and route onto your iPhone out at a trailhead and go for a ride then and there – which I think would be rather cool.

I may have splashed out a bit more than necessary, buying the 64GB version rather than the more modest 8, 16or 32GB versions, but I justified this by thinking of the memory problems I had with my current phone which makes it so slow, plus I have about 20GB of music on my computer (well, OK, technically I don’t as the hard drive has just died … but if I did then the argument would hold…) and I hate having to decide which songs to sync and which ones not to sync. Truly. that is how lazy I am.

OK, so maybe now I’m getting lazy.

But to be honest, the price difference between a 32GB and 62GB phone was only $5 a month, which is the cost of my daily cup of coffee, so I figured it was a justified expenditure.

I also tried to get my computer fixed under my Gold Card Extended Warranty scheme, but surprise, surprise the fine print read that there is a $100 excess on these claims and that I had to get a written report from Toshiba stating that the repair would have been covered by warranty had the failure occurred within the first 12 months.  You can guess how that conversation went with Toshiba. 

I actually took this photo, to prove I’m not that lazy.

Suffice to say, this has led me to plan B – I’ve now found and watched a 3 minute youtube video on how to replace a Toshiba laptop battery, printed myself off a self awarded Diploma in Computer Repair, and then went and purchased a new hard drive ready for installing as soon as I get a set of recovery disks off someone.  I should note that as part of my conversation with the Toshiba man, he pointed out that hard drives only cost $109, so given the $100 excess, plus the fact I’d have to pay shipping to get it repaired, maybe self repair was a more realistic option.

Truthfully, I suspect, based on a similar experience I had with a camera repair a year or so ago, that this repair is not going to go well, but I’m currently in that euphoric “it hasn’t turned into a disaster … yet” moment and that’s a place I’m happy to be in.

Oh, I also decided that as my luck is going to turn for the better that I’d buy myself a new kayak helmet so I can go and practice rolls in the surf :).  I’m determined to force my luck to change …. or die trying.

See ya!

PS.  I apologise to all and sundry whose pictures I have used above without permission.  I blame Google – they make it too easy to find and use stuff for lazy sods like me.  Pease don’t sue me for unauthorised use as I’m trying to turn my luck around here.

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