I started the day by going to the bank and being an idiot.

Sometimes we wait until my first paycheck of the month to pay the mortgage.  On Saturday Amanda told me she’d need the checkbook during the week so, since I was planning on paying the mortgage on Monday, I went ahead and wrote out the check for that and filled out a slip that I’m supposed to submit along with it.  On the slip is a bit of information that says “If paying after (date) please pay $XXXX.XX” with the X’s standing for about $50 more than the regular mortgage payment.

Well I was writing it out and noticed that the date, which is usually the fifteenth of the month, said the eighth, which was perplexing to me.  Why would that suddenly change?  So this morning I went to the bank (it’s nearby so I generally save myself the price of a stamp and just drop it off) and I asked a lady about it.  As I was asking I noticed the stupid mistake I’d made- it said 15 Aug 08.  In my haste when writing it out I hadn’t noticed (and I guess has forgotten) that they did the date all European style, which threw me off today for some reason.

I (humbly) left the bank and drove by Best Buy.  I figured in light of the computer problems I’m having that I needed to pick up a new router, and since we’re a little tight on money and I had some Best Buy gift cards, I’d get it from there.  They weren’t open yet so I went to The Connection Internet Cafe for a little bit to work then went back by Best Buy a little later and selected a brand new router.

While I was out I also picked up NCAA Hoops 2K7.  A guy on the Duke message board had been talking about it, and I could get it used for $4.99, so I figured why not?

I spent a good chunk of the day working on the router. After quite a bit of tinkering around, I discovered that the old router indeed worked and the problem was with the network card in my laptop.  Apparently the network card on the HP Pavilion dv6000 series eventually just craps out and there’s nothing you can do short of replacing the motherboard.  WTF!?!  I’ve had this laptop for just over a year, a year and a week in fact, and while it’s served me well, it just now decides to do this?  Some people online (I connected to the internet by plugging the laptop straight into the cable modem) said that in some cases the whole computer goes down shortly thereafter.  Great!

So I took a surfing break today.  I was still a bit sore, but mainly a friend of Amanda’s from Richlands, Jarrett, was in town and we went out to eat with him at Olive Garden.  I’ve met Jarrett once or twice before.  He’s about to start his final year of law school at Campbell.  Mostly he and Amanda talked about people from high school, but I did get to have some conversation as well.

After we ate we just went home and watched some Olympics.  After Amanda went to bed I started a dynasty game on NCAA Hoops 2k7 (it’s the one with JJ Redick on the cover, by the way).  I had a couple schools from North Carolina to choose from and I ended up choosing NC A&T since I went to UNC Greensboro and A&T is right down the road from it.

Zach Dotsey