the prognosis is not good

a while ago I mentioned that our laptop had died under strange circumstances, I have since sent it to a local computer shop. Yesterday I recieved a call, it does not look good. Either this guy was seeing dollar signs when he saw it was Alienware, or he is trying to trick us.

First thing this guy starts talking about is how hard it is to find parts for these laptops, how expensive they are, and how hard they are to work on. so I'm a bit scared that we would be saying goodbye to our laptop. as soon as I got home I went online to check the pricing of these impossible to find parts that he is not sure he'd be able to get.....THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!. Ebay has tons of motherboards for around $120, I'm seeing evidence that any laptop graphics card would work, and yes they are a bit on the pricy end, but I don't see them as being a reason to give up and trash the laptop.....I'm getting a bad feeling that this guy is going to tell me it can't be fixed then offer to "get rid of it for me". This guy came highly reccomended by people I trust on this subject, I'm really hoping this turns out ok.

In other news,

I had another interview yesterday, this would be a nice promotion for me and the job is much more entertaining than my current one. I am also waiting for a call to scheduel an interview for a job that I would call my holy grail. It would be a senior position overseeing business opperations, I meet all of the requirements, have all the necessary experience, but I'm afraid they wouldn't want me simply because the job pays almost twice what my current one does. I know they are looking for a younger person to fill the position, so that give me a bonus, (due to the hiring freeze), they are limited to hiring someone from my office, They need someone with accounting experience (check), knowladge of our databases (check), programming experience (check), and a very good education (check). actually I can only think of 6 people in my office who could fill the position, 3 of them are total tools, blind the the decission making process, and incapable of independant thought, 1 has the personality and social skills of the average cave dwelling troll, and the other poses a real threat, he is in every way my equal (except he is currently payed slightly more than me). The only things that may keep him from going for the job is 1 he may not know they are taking applications, and 2 I know he is happy in his current position. I normally don't worry about the competition at an interview, but I normally go into it knowing that I have already had "do not hire" written next to my name. Thankfully, this position is beyond the reach of my normal harrassers, in an area where my education is welcomed and not scorned or seen as a threat as it is in my current job. Just thinking about just the thoughts of leaving this petty office with it's clicks, and hundreds of unspoken rules, makes me excited.

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