We had company Saturday night. I had originally planned homemade pizzas, but one of our guests just had her wisdom teeth taken out, so I made Chinese so she could have soup. This was sweet and sour chicken, tiny egg rolls and crab rangoon, and egg drop soup.
Brooke signed us up for Amazon Prime last year, a $79/yr service that grants you various benefits at Amazon.com. The most well-known service is free 2-day shipping on anything you purchase. As we now live, for all intents an purposes, in the middle-of-nowhere, we figured it would be a useful service to take advantage of. Typically, we can wait 2 days for an item, and now that we both have Android smartphones, we can shop for stuff in town, scan the barcode of the item with our phone, and see if we can get it cheaper from Amazon.com.
As I was shopping for components for my new web server box (which this site is now running on!), I was looking at Newegg.com, the computer company I typically buy components from. I have no problem with Newegg, of course, and they tend to provide a wealth of details on each component, something Amazon doesn’t do very well, yet I still checked with Amazon to see if I could get the same thing(s) from them instead. Turned out I could, and because we already had Amazon Prime, that meant I could get the same things for almost the same price, but not have to pay $13 in shipping. And the $13 in shipping would have been regular Ground shipping. In order to get the same, 2-day shipping through UPS, the same items would have cost $38. Through FedEx, for some reason, it would have been $59.
So yeah, almost in a single purchase, Amazon Prime justified itself.
I started assembling the system last Thursday night, inbetween various baby duties. Unfortunately, the thing wouldn’t turn on. I had the components installed in the box, tried a few things, re-seated various wires and jumpers, and couldn’t get the monitor to turn on. This, obviously, did not please me. It could have been a few different things, but I eventually tracked it down: the power supply was, likely, not working properly (as another power supply I had booted the new motherboard just fine), and the RAM seemed like it had problems (as the BIOS screen would only work with one stick in, and it was a specific stick).
I did a bit more research on Friday on the interwebs and brought my multi-meter home from work, in order to try checking the output of the power supply. Some folks online that had written in about the case I bought, which came with the power supply, had said that their power supply was “dead on arrival,” so they had to get replacements. There was one poster, however, that said they had to “turn it on and off a few times, and eventually it worked.” Therefore, I didn’t want to write off the power supply until I’d let it sit overnight. The multi-meter would tell me definitively whether it was generating any power or not for the system.
Long-story-short, I tried it again on Saturday morning. The multi-meter said that the power supply was providing power to the motherboard. I plugged it back in to the full system and the thing booted. I dunno.
The RAM, on the other hand, is still presenting problems, which brings us to the “Customer Service” part of this story. I bought two sticks of RAM for $40 from Amazon, but only one of them worked. In order to return/exchange them, both sticks have to go back. Annoying, ’cause I’d like to continue using one of them until the replacements arrive. So I log in to Amazon, go to my “Orders,” and select “Return” to go through the process of exchanging the RAM. In then end, Amazon had me print off a UPS slip that lets me return the RAM at no shipping charge to me, and I have 30 days to do it. And along with that, they’re automatically shipping me an identical replacement. The kicker to this story, though, is that they’re shipping me the identical replacement Next Day, so I’ll have it tomorrow.
So, in the end, I can wait until the replacement arrives before sending back the defective product, and they’re sending the replacement as quickly as they can at no additional charge to me, even though I used Two Day shipping the first time around.
That, I tell you, is customer service.
Good on you, Amazon.com.
Corn and potato chowder and more garlic bread made from leftover hamburger buns!
Grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches (on inside out hamburger buns), chips, and mandarin oranges. We’re in need of a trip to the grocery store, so I’m running on what’s left in the fridge!
Now we’re all caught up! I decided that this week will be SOUP WEEK, in hopes that the weather will warm up soon and we won’t want to eat soup any more until fall….keep your fingers crossed!!
Tortellini soup with Italian sausage and garlic cheese bread made with leftover hamburger buns (I’m classy that way).
I almost didn’t post this one, since a few hours after eating it, Andy and I came down with a nasty stomach bug, but it was good, so here you go:
Barbecued chicken sandwiches, mashed potatoes with cheese and bacon, and homegrown carrots.
Two weeks of trips to Missouri and illnesses made me get out of the habit of posting our meals, so I’m a little behind!
This one was scrambled eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, and strawberries and bananas. Does anyone else sing Gwen Stefani when they type B-A-N-A-N-A-S?
Thanks to our relatively hefty tax return, we have a bit of extra cash on hand for me to run an upgrade or two on the computers, upgrades that have been sorely needed for a bit now (though Brooke would probably dispute that…). For the last few years, I’ve been using laptops as my primary Windows gaming machines, and then a dedicated Linux desktop to act as the server hosting this website. This has worked out pretty well, however I’m getting to the point (and the age…) where a gaming-capable laptop is less and less necessary, while a gaming-capable desktop is more attractive. A desktop can be upgraded, while a laptop really can’t to any reasonable degree. Therefore, I can run reasonable upgrades more often if I have a gaming desktop, rather than a laptop.
My current server uses a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 3800+ with 2 GB of RAM. The system has worked just fine for the past 5 years since I built it, and has been running almost non-stop since that point. It’s honestly pretty impressive how well it has held up, considering how long it sits there running without any huge problems.
However, I’m going to use that box and put a different motherboard and processor in it, and will start to use it for gaming. My laptop (a Core 2 Duo system with a 256 MB GeForce 8600 video card) is well out of warranty and is only barely able to play anything modern, so it’s about time I did something else. That, however, will be “Part 2” of this particular upgrade.
Since I will use my current desktop computer case, I decided to go with a completely separate system for the new server. Something smaller and low-wattage was ideal, as the computer doesn’t need to be that powerful to run a web site (as this site doesn’t generate 1000s of hits per day or anything…), and since it runs almost non-stop, something that doesn’t take much power is also a big plus. The Intel Atom D525 processor fits the bill, as this is the processor found in many netbooks, amongst other devides. It’s a dual-core 1.8 GHz system, so it will more than do the job, and this particular processor and chipset can utilize DDR3 memory (the current standard). The box itself, pictured above, is somewhat tiny, only maybe 5″ tall, and will fit snugly wherever I want to stash it. I’m also going to go ahead and max out its memory with 4 GB of RAM, mostly because they’re having a good sale ($40) on it right now.
In total, this upgrade is under $170. I’m going to use one of my existing hard drives, and I’m not putting a disc drive in this particular system, so I’m saving some money there. I am grabbing a new keyboard, however, because Brooke spilled soda in my 10-year-old wireless keyboard…so we may finally get rid of it… But yeah, $170 for a new system ain’t bad, in my opinion, especially for a system that should be more than capable of running a website for the next 5+ years.
I’ll take care of Part 2 in the coming months. This upgrade had to happen first, however, to move the website off of the existing computer so I can do other things to it (like…you know…turn it off…).
So hopefully the upgrade will be relatively painless. If, however, this website is down for a few days, you can turn your ear toward Iowa and probably hear some faint grumbling…
Guess who’s one?
Happy birthday, Margaret Jean Linsenbardt. 🙂
Brooke and Meg were out of town this past weekend, so I attended church alone. We had a guest pastor in church, as our regular pastor was out of town. Her name was Pastor Arnette Pint, and she was the first Associate Pastor for Shueyville UMC back in the late-90s. Since that time, she has gone on to a few positions, but her most recent one is serving a congregation called Women at the Well, that she started at the Mitchellville, IA Women’s Correctional Facility, so she had some very interesting perspectives.
Pastor Arnette described a variety of statistics and anecdotal stories to help illustrate what she does and why it’s important. First, she told us that this is a relatively new concept, having a church within a prison. This is different than having churches visit prisons, as you end up getting a variety of groups coming through and not staying – no sense of permanence. The United Methodist Church in Iowa felt the need to appoint a pastor specifically to this prison, as the system apparently works well in other states where it’s been implemented. Pastor Arnette relayed a story of the pastor (whose name I can’t find) that started this movement and, effectively, “wrote the book” on doing this sort of thing. He had been ministering to the men of a prison in South Dakota and he got the sense that they wanted an actual, regular, church service. Something permanent. Something they could depend on. After he started a weekly service, the numbers of attendees grew, and their outlooks after prison improved.
The part of the story that hit me was that, supposedly, one inmate thanked him for starting the service, lamenting the endless parade of churches and groups coming through to preach to them. The inmate said “We was tired of gettin’ saved.” It was an interesting point to make, as these churches that were coming to the prison somehow felt as though, because they were prisoners, they must obviously not be Christians. Because they were in prison, they obviously needed “saving.”
With this framework in mind, Pastor Arnette went through some statistics, saying that 60% of inmate in her prison have been diagnosed with a mental illness, though that number is surely higher. Most of those diagnoses happened outside the prison system, as the ones that occur once you’re in the system can be difficult to interpret. There are 600 women in the prison, while 30 years ago, in the same building, there were only 40-something women there. It’s a crowded place, and there’s one psychologist to manage all of them. They communicate over the internet with a psychiatrist in order to get any medications approved. Pastor Arnette also said that, while the statistics aren’t solid on this, she thinks it’s somewhere between 80% and 90% of these women that have been abused in some fashion during their lives, and the majority of them have struggled with addiction at some time. For many of them, addiction is the reason they are in prison at all. She said that, while they have counselors at the prison to help the psychologist in their day-to-day routine, these counselors, more often than not, are prison guards that have ranked up high enough to get off the floor.
The United Methodist Church in Iowa also started a program to help provide clothing for women that are leaving prison. Apparently, the State of Iowa doesn’t provide you with a change of clothes for your bus ride home, so there are women riding from Des Moines to all points of the State in their prison uniform. Hardly the “right foot” to get started on. So, the Methodist Church started collecting clothes from women across the state, asking them to donate their lightly-used clothes so that these women have something to start fresh with. The church provides a set of casual clothes, as well as a set of clothes nice enough for “that first job interview.” Certainly a nice gesture.
One of her larger points was with regards to the cost of building and operating prisons. She pointed out that almost $180 million has been approved by the State of Iowa to help refurbish this current prison, as well as build another prison in the state (and that’s just to build, not to operate). That’s $180+ million to help deal with all these women that have been coming in (remember, 40 women increased to 600 in this one building over 30 years, largely due to influx of methamphetamine and harsher drug laws). She suggested that, maybe, that $180+ million would have been better spent on helping these women before they got into prison, by providing greater access to abuse and addiction counselors, or to even see a mental health professional.
At a time when state funding for mental health is declining drastically, our spending on new prison facilities is increasing. “How does this make sense,” she asks.
The last point I’ll leave with you are some interesting statistics on recidivism (as in, the likelihood someone within the prison will come back to the prison one or more times). The rate in Iowa is 60%, which is comparable to other states. According to her, in studies that have looked into programs like hers, with churches that are actually based within a prison, the recidivism rate drops to 15% for those individuals. If those individuals leave the prison and find a church home (as in, one they attend regularly, as opposed to “just visiting”), the rate drops to 2%.
It was an excellent sermon, and an eye-opening testament to what goes on in the prison system. Thankfully, my family isn’t known for their prison stints, so I can’t say I have any experience with what it’s like to “go through the system.” I hope I never do, but if anyone I know has to go through it, I hope they have someone like Pastor Arnette and a program like hers to help them see it through.
