Tax ReFUNd

Thanks to being able to declare Mom as my dependent last year, I received nice-sized tax refunds from both the feds and the state.  I spent most of the money responsibly - I even bought a new vacuum cleaner! - and was preparing to squirrel the rest into savings when a little voice piped up about how since the new iPad4 had just been released, the older iPad2 was probably on sale. 

"Ridiculous," I told the voice firmly, "I don't need an iPad.  Serenity still goes everywhere* with me and I have my netbook connected to a monitor at home for doing homework."

But the little voice was remarkably persistent, pointing out how my work email doesn't get along with Serenity (although Yahoo! mail works just fine) and how long it takes to power up the netbook and then wait for the desktop and then wait for the browser and enter passwords, and wait.... 

The voice and I argued for several days, but in the end, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to try an iPad, would it?  I could always return it...

I did feel guilty for a few days - it was quite a bit more expensive than I had anticipated -  but the guilt is gone now.  Checking work email** now is a push, swipe, tap and no waiting.  And since I still don't have TV, it's nice to have a device that plays Netflix streaming without the pixelation that my netbook thinks is necessary.

Of course, the new tech needed a name.  Since part of my guilt came from the fact that I already have a perfectly wonderful iPod Touch and a netbook so why did I need another device, I named him JACK - Just Another Cool Know-it-all***.  Another Jack in my life - just what I needed!


* Literally - the only time Serenity's farther than arm's length is when I'm in the pool and she's safely secured in the locker.  There are worse things to be severely attached to...

** I'm not compulsive about checking work email - I only scan the subject lines - but with my wonky schedule, it's good to see if an early meeting has been cancelled or if a last-minute meeting has been
scheduled.

*** For those as geeky as me, yes, I stole the idea from Jarvis.  For those not as geeky as me, the name of Tony Stark's A.I. in the Iron Man movies is Jarvis, or Just A Rather Very Intelligent System.