I'm at the co-op. I uploaded a picture of the front of the co-op. That has the picture windows, which are such a problem for the glare on laptops.
I gave Dave his laptop, today. Just before I turned it over to him I started downloading updates. It was going fast but there were just too many of them. It took an hour and they were only half done. Then it locked up when I tried to run Banshee, (the music player on Linux). Anyway, its working pretty well.
The Democrats are already meeting but the first hour is spent talking about school funding. That doesn't concern me, much. I'll go after I've blogged.
I got a new wifi card, today. It seems to be working well, after I loaded the driver with ndiskwrapper. I only have that on my good machine so I hope I won't need to put it on another one. I need to try this card from Alice's place. Maybe it has the range between there and Bookends. That could save her from spending money on coffee to download her email.
I wanted to talk about goals and disability, tonight.
Even people who are on disability need goals. If your pay is low enough, you might need the goal of saving money by picking up beer cans for redemption. When I was waiting for my VA pension that was how I paid for my coffee. I would bring in extra income by selling beer cans. That also supplemented my income when I was on the VA pension. I had the goal of accumulating silver coins for a safety net.
Now that I'm on a better pension I accumulate money to invest in bonds. So far, I've been concentrating on Delphi bonds. When I have 200 of them I'll branch out into others. The main thing is to set a reachable goal to work towards. I find that saving money helps me to curtail my eating as well. I'm saving money on food that I use to invest in bonds.
Having goals helps you to set priorities. My priority is to have a nice nest egg rather than spend money on eating out.

I uploaded a picture of Java John's serving area. They have reliable internet service but it's usually rather slow. I tried, this morning, to buy something on Ebay, and it took me an hour to just fail to make the purchase. When I went to Bookends and Beans, I was done in fifteen minutes.
I've been going around town, this morning, trying to get good internet connection. Usually Bookends is good but not today. Then I went to the co-op and I couldn't get on there. I even tried hooking up to a router named linksys, but it was down. Then I went to Java John's. I got hooked up but even my fast machine moved at a snail's pace. I finally brought my good machine to Bookends and it's working quite well.
That got me thinking about actually paying for home internet. The cable company wants $40 to $50 a month. I might be able to find a satellite company for less. The trouble with satellite is that they will want a year commitment. I might be moving out of the house in a few months, so the cable is the only option. I can't see getting a phone for internet and that is too slow to be worth anything, anyhow.
That brings me to the discussion of poverty and disability. How can you save money on recurring expenses?
I've found that I can do without a normal, (land line) phone. I've gotten a Trac phone. You renew your minutes when you run out. I just don't use it very often so 90 minutes can last me a couple of months or more. That normally costs $30 for every time I renew. I can also take it with me when I'm expecting a call.
I eliminated the cable tv and had satellite tv installed. I get more channels for $30/month. I also eliminated the phone on cable and the internet. I'm having doubts about eliminating the internet. Even though I use the WiFi at coffee shops, that may be more expensive than having the internet at home. I find that I go to several coffee shops to do simple things that I could have done at home. I think I'll look into getting the cable internet restarted. It might be cheaper and I know that it will be handier.

Alice entering Barnes and Noble

I uploaded a picture of Alice entering the Barnes and Noble, in La Crosse. It's our favorite hangout, but I feel guilty when I spend too much,there. Not only do they have an almost limitless supply of books but their food is good, too. I especially like the cheesecake. Key lime is my favorite. You can spend hours there just leafing through books and drinking coffee. It doesn't take much to get me to go to La Crosse. Rochester has two Barnes and Nobles. I like them all.
I went to a movie, this afternoon. It was (Paul Blart Mall Cop). I enjoyed it. The guy playing Paul Blart was in surprisingly good condition for someone with a weight problem. All the running around that he did would have wrecked me. I've been kind of avoiding this movie because I felt it would make fun of overweight people. It did to a degree. I think the most objectionable part was the drunk scene. It was where Paul got drunk and made a complete fool of himself. Of course, it could be argued that there are people with that kind of drinking problem. Anyway, it was a fun movie and I'm glad tha I went.
I bought 3 more old Gateway laptops. I had enough parts for most of one, so I figured that I could fix up a few more. I like the Thinkpads better but I have troubles with the sound on them. This will be the last time I bother with laptops so old and slow. I need to get something over 1.3 GigaHerz. for the sound and video. I'm not sure about that being fast enough.
Jim and Sherry just walked in. I'm at the co-op and they'll be stopping here after they've done their shopping.
That's it for now.

I uploaded a picture of Jim and Sherry at Bookends and Beans. Jim and I get together for coffee and conversation every Monday. Sherry is Jim's wife.
Today we talked about starting a book club with Alice and Lula as well. We'll be reading (The Left Hand of God). It has to do with how the religious Right has taken over politics and how Liberals shouldn't feel that they have to be left out.
Well all of my computers that can run, are running. I only had one Gateway to scrap out and I think all it really needs is a keyboard.
I bought 3 more Gateways. That will give me something to do, next month. I do like to keep busy with the laptops. Now, however, I've gotten into the groove and I might not need to spend as much time getting them fixed.
Maybe it's time to get serious about the garden. I've been neglecting it. The grass is overgrowing the onions. And volunteer lettuce is starting to grow.
I took my car to a Chrysler dealer, this morning. Even with the (Cash for Clunkers) program, and their rebate, I would have to come up with $10,000. If the house sell, I'll do it. I'll just turn the car around for a profit. But it's free money. I don't see how I can refuse it.
Talking about money, which is one of my favorite topics, here are some ways to reduce your outlays.
1. See about subsidized housing. There are programs that help put poor people and the disabled into nice apartments. It never hurts to look into this.
2. Don't forget food stamps. If you are poor enough, this will pay for your monthly food. If your disability is too high, you might not qualify.
3. Walk or ride a bicycle. You would be surprised at how much money goes to gasoline and car repairs.
4. Quit drinking. Boose is just too expensive. This is especially true if you go to bars. Coffee is bad enough. I combine surfing the net with coffee drinking. I found that if I cut out the cinnamon roll, first thing in the morning, I can save close to $100/month. I may still have to curtail my coffee drinking.
5. Like I mentioned yesterday, eat at home. I covered that yesterday
6. Buy at thrift shops. Charity thrift shops, like Goodwill, will save you a fortune.
7. I would avoid auctions. You have to wait for hours for your item to come up. Then someone else is likely to bid it up, anyway. It's too tempting to start bidding on things you don't really need.
8. That brings up, don't buy things you don't really have to have. We live in a consumer society. We have to fight the programing that we all have to buy and buy. Just get by with what you have.

I uploaded a picture of a band, doing it's thing at Nordic Fest.
I went to La Crosse that day. Alice and I went to Barnes and Noble and leafed through some books.
Today I've been fixing old laptops. I finally got the Gateway to work to my satisfaction. It had an intermittent monitor. and the nine key quit working. It turned out that my replacement parts were worse than the originals. The keyboard and monitor problems were both caused by my not getting them plugged in right. I also had port problems on the PCMCIA ports and the USB ports. That was caused by software. I loaded a live form of SUSE and it worked so I reloaded the operating system. Now I have a laptop that I feel I could give away. It's even got a good battery. I'm using that, now. I'm in front of the co-op, blogging away on battery power.
About poverty and disability. Unless you have another source of income like another pension or investments, you cannot afford to dine out. So stop now. Eating out can cost hundreds of dollars a month and a person on Social Security has to face the fact that he's too poor to spend money like that. Eating at home is the only way to go. I've cut back my eating out to having a banana at the co-op. That only costs 40 cents or so, and I also get to use their internet. I do have a lot of coffee at places I use for internet. A person has to spend a little money for them to justify having free internet available. But other than that forget eating out.

I got up early, today. Java John's opens at 6:30 so I went there to upgrade a computer. I uploaded a picture of Java John's front door. It's one of my favorite coffee shops. I like to go there when I wake up early and everything else is closed. They also open up at 7:30 on Sundays. I'm not a deep sleeper so, when the birds start chirping, I wake up. Nordic Fest is in full swing. The streets are crowded and 3 or 4 bands are competing with each other in making noise.
Alice and I went to La Crosse, today. She lives on the main street, here and she likes to get away from all the noise. We went to Barnes and Noble. Neither of us bought anything. I also went shopping for a nicer camera. I want one that would link up to a usb memory card. Unfortunately, they don't seem to make any. They have a lot that would hook up to a computer. I think I would have to have Windows loaded to run them. I'll keep after it. I would like one with a zoom lense as well.
I took a few pictures of Nordic Fest and Barnes and Noble but I have to put them on my Windows desktop to transfer them to a memory stick, and then to my laptop. I forgot to do that, just now.
I overate at Barnes and Noble. I had one of their turkey and cheese sandwiches. It was almost twice as much as I usually eat. So much for my diet.
I've been neglecting talking about disability lately. I've been running out of topics. Today the topic is poverty and disability. The two go hand in hand. Politicians seem to feel that it would be just terrible for disabled people to live comfortably. Therefore the system is geared towards keeping you at a low level of income.
If a person is poor enough, there are all sorts of programs to help him. If you Social Security check is low enough you might get SSI (State Supplemental Income). You can also get food stamps, heating assistance, Medicaid. If you get a decent Social Security check, you lose all of those things. That has a tendency to keep you at the same poverty level that the poorer person is in. Another thing that might happen is that you might lose you rental assistance if you get a job to supplement Social Security. It's a trap. If you can you might want to get a decent job and get out of the disability trap. For many of us there is no way out so I'll discuss things a person might do if he is in that situation later.

A rainy day in Decorah

I uploaded a picture of Magpie Coffee shop. It's been a Decorah institution for years. The internet,there, goes to a cable modem,
so most of the time it's really fast. Occasionally, I've had problems getting on line there. They are opened between 10 and 4 on Sundays. When the co-op is too slow or doesn't work, this is where I go on Sundays. Too bad, I couldn't get a picture without a car in front.
I got the last Thinkpad to working. The strange memory problem turned out to be related to a bad CMOS battery. I don't know how that can be. The problem went with the battery. Now I think I'll load SUSE on it, since I can better fix the sound card problem with SUSE.
I got the computer that I sold to Dave from WRAP, back. It had a bad hard drive. I put in another drive, and got it to work. I downloaded the updates, this morning. It's working really well. I saved the hard drive by putting it in the Thinkpad and loading Mint Linux. That partitioner worked better. It still sacrificed half of the hard drive but the other half seems to work.
It's raining on the Nordic Fest festivities. Nordic Fest is in full bloom. The downtown area is blocked off and food stands and music stations are set up there. The parade is tomorrow. Alice and I are going to LaCrosse to avoid it. I don't get many chances to get to LaCrosse, so I jump at any chance.
Tonight I'm helping to set up the float for the Democrats. It'll only take an hour or so.
I'm bidding on 3 Gateway 9300's. If I get them I should be able to get one or two good laptops out of the batch. I've got a lot of left over parts from the last batch. If one of them runs right off the bat, I'll have the ac adapter and hard drive for it. Maybe I can get a good battery out of them.
That's it for now. I gave up on the lottery.