Kid and Caboodle

I’ve been very busy redesigning the AAJA-D.C. website lately. Here are some screenshots of the latest version of the index page:

Yesterday Chris and I went downtown to the Rally to Restore Sanity/Keep Fear Alive, organized by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart of the Daily Show and Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report. I was surprised and very encouraged to see how many other people were there. I think CBS has estimated there were roughly 215,000 people at the rally, many with great signs. Here were some I saw:

Go, moderates!

Some of the things taxes pay for

More things taxes pay for

The guest performances were great — Father Guido Sarducci gave an entertaining “benediction,” the Mythbusters did some crowd experiments, Yusuf (better known as Cat Stevens) and Ozzy Osborne had a musical battle, and much more. But my favorite part was Jon Stewart’s closing speech, which you can watch below:

Incidentally, we did have A.J. with us, but he basically played with his DSi and ate snacks throughout the whole rally. Ah well; at least he was well-behaved. Perhaps he’ll appreciate these events more when he’s older.

Due to some sort of inventory overhaul, my office has asked that when I return to work on Tuesday I turn in the government laptop I’ve been using for the past few years. This means I am now shopping for a new laptop so I can continue telecommuting on Thursdays. Arrgghhh!

We do have another machine in the house, but I don’t like using it because it takes a very long time to boot up and is starting to fall apart. The touch pad and one of the USB ports don’t work properly, for example. The machine also is configured to my husband’s preferences since he is one who uses it the most. This means that even when I go into “my” profile, the browser tries to load all kinds of bookmarks I don’t want and the virtual desktop is cluttered with all kinds of software I don’t use. I think it would be cleaner for us to have separate machines altogether; we can transfer files between machines as emergency backups, but in general each one of us should be able to set things up as we like on our machines. Having two machines in the house also will enable both of us to telecommute at the same time, or let our son play on one machine while we do some work or play something else on the other.

I glanced at a few Web sites selling computers this evening and was fairly bewildered by the wide array of choices at my disposal. I know three things I absolutely need: wireless Internet capability, video-playing capability and the longest-lasting battery power available. I know I don’t want to spend more than a certain amount of money, and I assume a speedy processor and a lot of hard drive space are important. Pretty much everything looks the same after that point, though.

While I was shopping, one thing did catch my eye: Dell is selling a number of machines under the (PRODUCT) RED campaign, in which companies donate a percentage of the sales of specified products to help fight AIDS and other diseases in Africa. I had read about this campaign from an article one of my co-workers wrote recently, but had not realized computers were one of the things one could buy. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of going with a (PRODUCT) RED laptop. As I have written before, I regularly shop at places like The Hunger Site or Ten Thousand Villages so I can contribute to good causes while shopping. Since I’m going to buy something anyway, why not buy it at a place that also is helping the less fortunate?