I’ve been having some technical difficulties the past few days. It really started Saturday when I dropped my Handspring Visor Prism on the carpeted floor at work for the first time. I checked my poor baby for any damage, but nothing seemed to be wrong. I vowed to be more careful from then on, and to never let another jolt or jar happen to the PDA again.
Fast forward to Sunday as I’m walking out to my car in the Gold’s Gym parking lot. I’d stopped in impulsively to get 30 minutes of cardio done, and because I was still wavering between the recumbent bike, walking at 3.5 mph and 10% incline, and actually running some HIIT when I pulled into the lot, I took my PDA sans leather slip cover inside with me. (I have both Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle and The Leanness Lifestyle stored on my CF expansion card to read while hamstering along on a cardio machine.)
Just as I reached my car after 30 minutes of HIIT and incline walking, the Prism slipped right out of my left hand again and landed face down on the rough tarmac.
I had a mini-heart attack right there.
Once again I picked up my Prism and checked for damage. This time I wasn’t so lucky. The casing on the left side seemed to be cracked open slightly although the screen was fine. The unit turned on, but the graffiti pad wouldn’t register any of the numbers I tried to enter. ARGH.
Playing around, I figured out that squeezing the lower left corner of the unit so the casing closed completely seemed to fix the problem. I tried to tighten the screws in back to tighten up the casing, but I think the internal plastic posts in the casing on the left side were snapped in the two falls, so a screwdriver didn’t help. :grumpy:
I was pissed.
Sure it’s an old, clunky PDA, one of the first color offerings in fact, but I have a bunch of Springboard modules and a fantastic Targus Stowaway keyboard that work with it. That’s why I got the refurbed Prism instead of a newer Palm or Clie when my Visor Neo started to drop data (due to the fact that I’d somehow lost the stupid battery cover, and the batteries kept getting loose from the metal contacts in the compartment); I didn’t want to spend another $100 or more on extra accessories when I had a bunch of perfectly good ones already for the Visor line.
Besides, except for the need to hold the casing together in order to get the unit to recognize the stylus, everything still worked. I love gadgets, but once I buy one, I do NOT upgrade until the old one is dead or beyond all repair and salvage. I don’t like to buy things just because they are new and shiny. I buy when I have a valid need and the old one is fit for nothing but spare parts for a piece of mixed media modern art.
The partial failure of the Graffiti pad was pretty bad, though, and I admit I started to look around eBay, Amazon and PalmOne for some alternatives.
Then I thought about my credit card repayment plan, condo fund, and annual budget and decided that I was being a typical profligate American consumer instead of the practical “Repair, Restore, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” tightwad I claimed to be. I immediately cleared out the Clie and Tungsten entries in my eBay Watch List and drove over to CVS during lunch for the $1.97 solution to my Prism problem.
A tube of CVS brand super glue.
The Prism is working fine now, and barring a teeny bit of scarring from the super glue around the edges, you’d never know that I’d played dropsies with the unit twice this weekend.
I tried to be super cheap and asked my co-workers if THEY had any super glue before I bought some of my own, but luck wasn’t with me. 
My blog has also been giving me some grief. I approved some comments yesterday and immediately found that my “Main” page links had disappeared into a skinny little olive drab line. I hadn’t modified the Wordpress theme or any of the core WP files, so it had something to do with the comments or recent comments plugin. After fiddling with things for 2 hours, I discovered that moving the Main links above the recent comments in the side bar fixed the problem. I still don’t know WHY the plugin is so problematic, though.
I foresee some digging into the mysteries of CSS and PHP in my near future. Pfft. Well, I’ve been meaning to change the default green color scheme anyhow.
One nice tech-related item to report: If you use coupon code A88857C7 during checkout at Handango.com, an online seller of software for handheld computers, you save 20% off your purchase through June 30, 2005. This code is valid only once per person.
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5/9/05 P&P Challenge Report
Consecutive Perfect Days = 9 :prop:
Total Perfect Days = 9/62
- 1630 calories eaten / -651 deficit
- 48.6% carb, 35.6% protein, 17.6% fat
- No unauthorized meals
- All supplements taken
- 16 cups water
- All planned workouts performed
Weekly Weigh-In: 135.0 lbs on 5/6/05 (Start weight on 5/1/05: 135.4)
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Nutrition: 1600-1700 calorie low zig zag day
1: 3×1 omelette, 1 c. spinach, 1 large navel orange
2: Turkey sloppy joe, 3/4 c. rice, 1 c. broccoli in oyster sauce
3: BFL banana bread
4: Sara Lake’s chocolate cake
5: Turkey chili, 1 c. broccoli in oyster sauce
6: 3/4 c. FF cottage cheese and large navel orange
Total: 1662 calories, 48.6% carb, 33.8% protein, 19.3% fat
Daily Supplements: multivitamin with iron, calcium 500 + D, 1 T. flaxseed oil
Water: 16 cups minimum
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Workout:
10:30 PM Cardio - Stationary bike LISS
11:00 PM P90X Plyometrics
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The Awful Truth:
1. Nada!
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Brownie Points:
1. Got a lot of sleep last night.
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Short-term Goals:
1. Create P90X HanDbase module.
2. Work on paper doll project.
3. Start full sketches for new Oasis prints.
4. Finish fairy girl print.
