Have I got a deal for you!

After two repairs, it appears the motherboard on our two year old laptop is completely shot.  Maybe it's just me, but I really think they should last longer than that...  We thought we were still going to be okay and just have our local trusty repair shop take care of replacing the motherboard, but when I called to get an estimate of when they thought it would be ready, they said it would take 6 weeks to get the new motherboard in.  6 WEEKS! 

Since I'm taking online classes and we have our country brief to Josh's classmates coming up, it wasn't terribly realistic to think we could go that long without the laptop working.  And so, I made several trips to the ATM to withdraw enough cash to go purchase a new laptop.

My early inquiries about prices were met with the standard party line of a randomly high price (less than the price tag, but still high) followed by several lower offers.  But since each store in the mall sells the same products, they know they're competing against eachother essentially and whoever is willing to quote the lowest price gets the sale. 

Funny thing about laptops here in Bangladesh.  They don't come with software.  Like any software.  We're talking no operating system here.  So while I could purchase a fairly decent computer, if I wanted to actually use it, I was told to purchase pirated software (pirated Windows 7 and Microsoft Office were available for a small fee).  Do I have anything against using pirated software?  No.  Not really.  But we went through all that when we built computers while living in Korea where pirated software is also very common.  It worked fine for a while, and then we started getting all kids of messages from Microsoft about how they "thought" we "might" be using an unofficial copy and eventually it stopped working altogether.  If we just stayed in Korea, it probably wouldn't have been a problem.  We just would have stopped by our local computer software store and picked up a new copy of the pirated software and all would have been fine.  But since we eventually had to return to the states, we decided it would just be easier in the long run to purchase a real copy of an operating system (at the time, Windows XP) and be done with it.  Considering that same computer (built 8 years ago) is still my backup computer and sitting upstairs in my office right now, I consider it a good investment. 

Regardless, no one seemed to understand why I would object to having a pirated copy of software.  It's apparently just the way it's done here.  They sell you essentially a blank computer, and you load whatever you want.  And strangely, it you go to the Toshiba-Asia website, they even show that each model of computer can be purchased without software if you so desire.  I was starting to be concerned that buying a new laptop would not actually solve any of our problems.

But then, I remembered that I was still carrying around the hard drive from my old computer (which worked just fine) because I needed to pick up my computer from the repair shop as we were not getting it fixed.  Once I produced this hard drive that had an authentic copy of Windows 7 on it, there was much excited discussion after which they told me that "of course" they could just copy the operating system from my old hard drive and put it on my new one.

So, then the guy from the store walked me downstairs to another store (this one appeared to actually be a Toshiba outlet of some sort) and left me there telling me to call him when I was ready to go.  The Toshiba people loaded the drivers I needed onto the laptop, but essentially just left my old hard drive in my new laptop rather than copying anything.  I guess it's a long and involved process (kind of like buying a computer?) and as I'd already been wandering around the computer mall for over 2 hours, I was ready to just let it go.  He told me to come back another day if I wanted them to transfer everything to the new hard drive and then the new laptop would be much faster since my old hard drive is over half full.

As business over here is all about relationships, I have no doubt that I could walk in some time next week and they would remember me and know why I was there.  So, after 3 hours, I left the computer market with a brand new laptop with my old hard drive and the promise of maybe having something more.  At least we have what we need to make it through the next few weeks.

If I was in the US, I could have a better laptop fully loaded with software (and an operating system...) for less than I paid, but considering where I live, and considering that USPS still has their lithium battery shipping issue, I'll be happy enough with our outcome.

A Schedule Emerges

Now that school has been in full swing for over a month, we have developed a definite pattern to our life - in a good way.  B has made some friends and enjoys a fairly active social life.  K has been out with Suchona quite a bit recently delving into the ayah-run play group world.  I've gotten out a bit myself and find that I now have people I can hang out with as well.  It's only taken... well... 7 1/2 months.  Every place I go, I learn something new.  Here, I have learned that I just need to jump in and get involved.  It's funny, because I thought I learned that lesson when we lived in California, but apparently it didn't stick and I needed to learn it all over again here.

But all of this is good.  I'm feeling very happy with our lifestyle here.  My classes are going relatively well - halfway through the semester already and only 4 more big homework projects to go.  Josh has been super-busy since his return from India.  We haven't really seen all that much of him at all.  Many nights, he makes it home just in time to go to sleep and then heads back to school first thing in the morning.  The current exercise will end soon though (this week!) and then I think he'll actually be on a normal schedule for a whole week :)  It would be really nice if he didn't actually have to work this weekend, but we'll see.

I purchased tickets for the upcoming Marine Corps Ball yesterday, and I have to admit to being really excited to get all dressed up (western style) for a fun evening.  Josh will actually get a chance to wear his mess dress for the first time (making the cost per wear still fairly high...) and I've got a dress on its way from eBay as we speak.  Online shopping really takes on a whole new life over here.  Everything has to be planned out weeks in advance to deal with shipping delays.  I've already started our Christmas shopping just because I know it will take forever for the packages to get here, and I need to have time to figure out what I've got and what I still need to get.  Good thing Josh and I have generally favored a "less is more" approach for Christmas so the kids won't be expecting to find a room full of presents...

Well, that's about it from here.  The protests have almost completely died down (thankfully) and the weather is really starting to be beautiful outside.  It's funny because we spent over a year in Monterey - which is admittedly a beautiful place - and got used to cloudy, cool weather year round.  Now, here we are wearing pants in 90 degree heat every day.  But there's really something beautiful about this place.  And can I even begin to mention how nice it is to live near the Equator and not have to worry about daylights savings time???  It's so refreshing that when I get out of bed, the sun is up.  Year round.  I could absolutely get used to that.