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DISCLAIMER: if you are not a geek, you will probably not fully understand any of this. And also you need to be a little ADD to stay with my thought process. /end disclaimer

So not sure if ya’ll know? But if you are a student (or still have a student e-mail like I still have one) you can get windows 7 home/pro, 32/64bit for $30. Well……. That is a great price for windows 7 but boy does it come with complication for me. So I went ahead and bought it because I have no clue when my school email will go byebye. Well it is a promotion thing through digital river. It is an online download of a 3 separate files that total 2.9 gigs. Which shoot that aint nothin. Only took about 40 minutes to download I think. But I couldn’t get it downloaded as an iso. Meaning I couldn’t just burn it to a dvd and then clean install windows. What I bought is a upgrade, which you need to have windows vista to upgrade or windows xp. Well I have windows xp because I didn’t want to go into the vista nasty world. But I figured I might as well get into the windows 7 I figure that is where windows is going, and I don’t wanna get left behind on knowledge of an OS. Where was I… oh yeah well I have windows xp but I still want to keep it while I get accustomed to windows 7. ( for now on I’m just going to call windows 7 …”7” cause i’m lazy. Also here is the link for the offer http://windows7.digitalriver.com/store/mswpus/en_US/DisplayHomePage?resid=dQJxNwoBAiMAAFa2YYUAAAAK&rests=1256329835913 Well I went to the land of google to try and see if I could find an iso of this version of windows, since theoretically I just payed for the serial key. If I can find the iso no pirating is happening. Well I (when I say I, I really mean my friend matt!!) found a site that showed how to make the three files into an iso after you kinda extracted them. Now you have to use a terminal.. or in windows it is called a command window I think. Omg !!! oh no not the terminal you mean I have to like type out directories!?!?!11 well it is practically copy and paste (ctrl-c…ctrl-v). oh here is the website for the how to make it into an iso. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/how_burn_your_student_copy_windows_7_dvd so I extract one of the 3 files but it crashes with an error.. I’m like well crap.. now I have to redownload 3 gig of info. Well I went back to trusty ol google… which makes me think of this picture.. here

So back to the extraction. I searched on google about the error. ( by the way if you don’t know how to do something or you get an error.. just copy and paste to google.) Well it seems a lot of people are having trouble with that error. I found out it doesn’t matter to me, because that is all about doing the install within windows[which is not what I want]. So when it did extract I got all I needed from it and followed the how to. Awesome I’m that much closer to my goal of breaking my computer with 7. well when I say break I mean software not physically.

Let me tell you a little more about my story and worries. The reason I’m so nervous is the fact that I’m dual booting Ubuntu 64bit(linux) and windows xp. Well I have GRUB as my bootloader. It is the default bootloader that comes with ubuntu. Well a little more to this. I have 4 partitions on my main OS hard drive. The first being a partition for ubuntu 32 bit version. ( that was back when I was skeptical about 64 bits and compatibility issues.), the second partition goes to windows xp. The third partition went to a stuff drive as I call it. Well I was feeling frisky and I partitioned that stuff drive later on to get a partition for ubuntu 64.. well let me tell ya… I have no problems with 64 bit ubuntu.. frikin uses all of my ram.. another issue with 32bit *sigh*. So anyways once you go 64 bit you can’t go back.. who says size doesn’t matter?!?!11 ok well I have a 32 bit ubuntu partition that I haven’t touched in months. Well that was /dev/sda5 and my 64 bit partition was /dev/sda7. I formated my 32 bit partition and then deleted the logical drive so windows 7 would just see it as unallocated space. Well as soon as I rebooted.. grub is already complaining.. and by complaining I mean it isn’t showing anything to boot at all. No windows xp or ubuntu.. head ache has begun. So I’m like screw it I know that there is is formated partition so I put in my 7.iso dvd into the drive and start the death of the life, aka 7 install. Well it is taking for ever and nervous at the same time that I don’t accidentally miss the unallocated space wording and format my other partition or something. Well I finally feel confident about it and then boom error it can’t read a file. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!111111. This is where the e-mail I sent to anthony came from which is this: (his reply to my email was “You should blog about this. Just cut and paste this in, it’s teh awesome.” and now look what you gone and made me do)

*hahha well get this.. my dvd burner is old.. i was even having problems installing ubuntu.. says it couldn’t read a file.. but there is a retry button.. so it finally would read the file.  (i think my burner is just dirty, which would surprise me.. i’ve had thru out college)  well windows 7 is like .. if i can’t read one file  your screwed!@!!11111 so i thought.. dude i can just boot off usb.. i have a newer board.. like i don’t even think the board is over a year old yet.. sooo i get the install on a usb harddrive.. and then boot into bios.. looking.. only options are harddrive, cd rom,, or frikin FLOPPY!!! who uses a floppy these days… so i’m go to my friend google.. and find out my mother board can use a usb stick to flash bios.. frikin bios!!! so i askmyself why in the world can ASUS not have usb bootable.. tell me that anthony WHYYY!  so I yeah.. that is my story of the day. *

So I can’t get 7 installed because my dvd burner doesn’t work. Well I’m living at the rivas and I was thinking surly andrew has to have a computer or dvd rom around here somewhere? Well he did.. but my computer wouldn’t even recognize the dvd rom in bios. So that is a no bueno. So my motherboard can’t boot a simple usb, which I know motherboards like 4 years old that could… I can’t read the dvd itself. Well I guess I’ll just go back to my linux until I find someone with a dvd drive. Anthony is hopefully gonna pull through for me. It is a external usb dvd rom though.. little nervous.. Ok so back to me going back and relaxing in my linux.. ohhhh nooo grub is all like.. what! You want to boot into a OS.. heck no! I’ll give you an error 17! well guess who I went to for help.. no not my foot in the screen.. it was my pal google (remember him?) yeah here is a link for what I just copied pasted. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351 OMGZ0RS!!!11 more terminal and now your throwing in a live cd.. whaaaaa!?!?! .. well I had to use the ubuntu live cd to get to a terminal in root and reinstall to the mbr (master boot record). And noww I just wait more .. for what I know is to come.. more headaches!!..

But have no fear! Raid 5 is here!! You might be thinking through all of this, this guy needs to be backing up all his stuff if he is messing around with formating and master boot records and what not.. well let me just say I have a raid 5 setup with all my personal stuff on there. But it still sucks losing your OS to something stupid like a format or rm /*.. haha don’t ever do that one.. Well I’ve spent a lot of time configuring my ubuntu to get it that way I want.. But oh yeah! I just remembered.. 9.10 is coming in 6 days!!!! can’t wait for it http://www.ubuntu.com/

what is raid ? or even radi 5?  http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/06/11/understanding_raid/1

So, for the last week I have not been feeling well, but I still kept going to work, and taking loads of dayquill/nyquill. Then this morning I decided that I have had enough and need to go to the doctors. Grant and I are working on getting health insurance, so we weren’t excited about paying some ridiculous fees since it is all out of pocket. So, I found a medical clinic down the road where they always had walk ins. We went there, were the only ones in the waiting room (maybe because it was a holiday,but not sure), and only had 1 piece of paper to fill out which was incredible.
The nurse took Grant and I to our room as she did the typical question and answer session about family history etc. Then she did this new way to check fever… all she did was run this weird wand thing along my forehead and already had my temperature. Well, after that she checked my throat and was like hmm (not a good sounding hmm) … I was nervose. She decided that she would test me for strep throat since my throat was red… testing = more money so we weren’t too excited about that.
Then we waited for the doctor, when he came in he was a funny nice man asking the typical question, “How are you doing?” Such a duh no brainer… obviously NOT good, but I played nice. He did the typical examination to also say… hmm… in a not good way to my throat, and then left to check the lab work. Grant had Mono two years ago, and so anytime I am sick he ALWAYS claims that I have mono… even though I have not had it yet. When the doctor came back in, he asked me who I had been kissing with a huge grin on his face!!! I was like wait what?! Then he started laughing and told me that I had Strep Throat.
Strep throat has never been fun, but he threw me for a loop thinking I had mono even though he didn’t even know that Grant had ever had mono. He just meant that I had been contagious with Strep for the last week and just encase he checked Grant’s throat to make sure he didn’t have it. So, so far so good Grant doesn’t have it, lets hope that he won’t get it later. Also, the doctor ended up lowering his typical office fee for us, and we received 25% off because we paid upfront which was a huge happy surprise! Strep throat is not fun, but it is awesome to see God bless us in such crazy and unexpected ways. Also, I am not happy to be sick,but I am happy that I had something that I actually did need a perscription for, because I would have felt very bad to have gone and paid a lot of money for a viral infection that I can’t do anything about. I have only been taking antibiotics for one day now, but I am noticing a little bit of a difference so WOOOT!

So, this month Grant and I decided to try the Angel Food Ministries. Since we are trying to live on a very limited budget, we decided to participate. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it is an organization that wants to help keep families healthy with a more balanced diet. This organization makes foods more affordable for anyone. They buy in Bulk and non name brand items which they then sell to families frozen. You can order online and you chose a host site, and once a month you go pick it up from there. Grant and I got the regular box, and it is supposed to feed a family of 4 for one week. It costs $30. So it feeds Grant and I for a little bit over2 weeks, but I planned the meals so they will be spread out over a month.

As you can see in the picture above, most of their food comes frozen which makes it easy because you can either use it right away or use it as a base for a month and just add whatever other things you need. I know that some people say it still isn’t as cheap as coupons,but I honestly haven’t been able to find very many meat coupons.

Here is their Menu for the Next Month which I think Grant and I are going to sign up for again. We think it is really cool especially for the price. Also, one could also pay with food stamps if they needed.

If your interested, or for more information go to:
http://www.angelfoodministries.com/

So every once in a while I get a huge chocolate craving, now I am not a huge plain chocolate eater, so most of the time that means that I don’t just want a Hersey bar. The problem with this is that most of the chocolate that I like is not that cheap.

Toffifay has to be one of the all time favorites that I grew up with. I know that they sell it at Walgreen’s, but I am not sure which other sites also sell it. Well, the other week, they were selling it for

But anyway, I have always been a sucker for peanut butter cups mainly Reese. Well, last year I branched out with these great value peanut butter cups. They are soo great you have no idea. They are not the least bit healthy, but they taste Great!! Well, the other day I really needed chocolate! Grant and I had groceries to buy, so we took a longer drive to Wal-mart just to make sure that we got these chocolates too. We get there get all of the groceries, then we go to the candy aisle to get my yummy goodness, and they don’t have them!?!!?! I was sooooo disappointed! We looked again, I was almost on the verge of tears because I had expectations of being able to have them. There wasn’t anything else I wanted, so we decided to go check out. I was definitely feeling sorry for myself and moping while we were in line, and then as I was helping grant unload the cart onto the conveyor belt, I saw TWO bags of my peanut butter cups!!! Grant had found two bags and hadn’t said anything. At first I was a little annoyed that he didn’t tell me at first, but then I was just happy to have my chocolate! ;p

Mia and Ally are two of the coolest kids that I know.. I might be a little bit biased,but who cares!?! Since I don’t know any that age I can’t help it. Anyway, one of the coolest things about living with Tanya and Wilson has been getting to know the girls more than just seeing them once or twice a year. I tried to hang out with them, but sometimes I was glad that I wasn’t their parent because all kids can get annoying at times.

So, I don’t know if many of you have watched the movie Blood Diamond that came out in 2006. It is a great, but gorey movie. In this movie, they show truths about the diamond market, and all about blood diamonds which basically means that in some places in Africa, there are still slaves working in diamond mines. In these mines, they mine diamond which are then smuggled into the system.

One of the great lines that Leonardo Decarpio says in this movie is that the only reason that these people are dying is because of the demand for these stones. The demands that mainly Americans make. Most people in other countries, are not expecting diamonds as our culture seems to.

So, don’t get me wrong… I wanted a diamond too!!! But I couldn’t live with the fact that someone might have died for a dumb rock… so, i decided to do some research. Now, there is no way that every diamond is a blood diamond, but I wanted to be sure that mine was not one. I found a few online websites that sold different diamonds, but a lot of them looked really shady.

Finally, I stumbled upon engineered diamonds. Most people don’t know about them yet, but they are grown in a lab, meaning that they are perfect and don’t have the flaws that all natural diamonds have. They are not quiet as strong as natural diamonds but there is a .9 difference in strength. The nice thing about them, is making them in a lab is a lot cheaper, so that made me feel a lot better knowing that my engagement ring with wedding band that is over 1 carat was under $1000.00. I have had my ring for over a year and am very satisfied, and the best thing is that you don’t need ring insurance!! They will replace your diamond if it falls out, is messed up, etc.
So, here is one of my favorite eternity bands that they sell, now I won’t get it for years most likely,but I can dream! ;p

But their website has some beautiful jewelry on it, they do any custom stuff as long as you can draw or explain what you want. Now, obviously that makes it more expensive, but in jewelry terms, I would see them as pretty inexpensive. Also, their diamonds are considered green, and that is why this company made this years Miss Universe 2009 Crown.

So here is their website if you are interested!!!

http://www.diamondnexuslabs.com/