Fluffy is an adorable, one-year-old female Abyssinian guinea pig looking for a loving guardian.

Fluffy was turned into Friends of Petraits Rescue after being purchased at a pet store with a male pig. She soon gave birth to babies and separated from the males.

Guinea pigs are happiest in pairs, and we’d love to see Fluffy find another female guinea pig to bond with.

Guinea pigs eat a diet of unlimited Timothy and Orchard hays, pellets and although I’ve been offering fresh vegetables including romaine, red leaf and green leaf lettuces, cilantro, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, etc. She’s starting to nibble the greens that she’s unfamiliar with. Guinea pigs, just like humans, can’t manufacture their own vitamin C, so they need to supplement with red pepper and many other vitamin C-rich foods.

Please read up on guinea pig care and diet before adopting by visiting this excellent web site http://www.guinealynx.info/.

She would love a home with people who will handle her daily, keep her well fed, and keep her habitat nice and clean.

If you’re interested in possibly adopting Fluffy, please contact [email protected] for an adoption application.

She is being fostered in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood.

Her adoption fee of $35 benefits the Friends of Petraits Rescue. For an additional $100, we’ll include a package of absolutely everything you need to care for her including a large cage, pellets, hay, litter, hidey hut and water bottle.

And, yes … Friends of Petraits is handling masked, minimum contact, socially distant adoptions.

Earlier this year, I was looking forward to working with my Linux-powered writing laptop. After discussing how I revived several laptops with Linux distros, I managed to be highly productive with thirteen-year-old hardware. Even taking on paid work wasn’t an issue; my Windows laptop focused on work product (some software I use is proprietary to Windows), while my Linux laptop focused on creative endeavors…at least, until June.

My Linux laptop began overheating (it was an older model) and one of the screen/cover hinges fell apart, making it unusable. So my mission because finding – and converting – a new laptop for both writing and creative efforts. My overall goal was still the same: a writing/self-publishing machine that would allow me to craft articles and fiction as well as regular blog posts. Thanks to COVID-19, my normal backup plan of purchasing a machine through Free Geek Chicago was out of the question. (They were closed at the time; they have reopened since then). So I did what anyone else would do: purchase a refurbished laptop.

(You may be wondering why I did not just use my Windows laptop for writing and work. Since I am often working with client materials that are not for public consumption, distinguishing between the two helps me stay focused and productive. Plus, my work laptop, a low budget model purchased at Walmart, has a keyboard that doesn’t quite respond to my fast typing speed – I have to wait about forty-five seconds before I see typed text appear on my keyboard).

My laptop of choice, after considering various models, was a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad T530. It helped that I was already looking for a Linux-friendly model, but found a great deal via eBay. With a quad-core processor and 12 gigabytes of RAM, this machine was more powerful than I expected. (My last Linux laptop was a dual-core with 4 gigabytes of RAM). Although it has been upgraded to version 20, I chose to reinstall Linux Mint 19.3 – it hasn’t given me any problems and runs very smoothly. Although there are some deficiencies in my Thinkpad (which lacks a Bluetooth card and requires a dongle for connectivity), it works well…especially the keyboard. Many laptop users claim that typing on a Thinkpad is like driving a race car.

I’m writing this blog post on my Thinkpad, and the hype is true. It’s refreshing to see my words appear as I type…but I digress.

Photo by Gordon Dymowski

Having used my Linux laptop regularly for writing in the past two months, I’m finding Linux to be an extremely reliable daily driver. Working with Windows can be frustrating even after “debloating” the operating system. (Many of the privacy concerns around Windows 10 do not make it easier.) However, I have to acknowledge that several software packages that I rely on are Windows-only and do not have any open source equivalents. However. using a separate laptop for work may seem like a luxury (especially in current time), but there is comfort in moving from one laptop to another as a way of indicating that “work” is over. Plus, the Lenovo Thinkpad is a business laptop designed to be sturdier and more customizable, making it ideal for writing and self-publishing.

It would be impractical for everyone to switch over to Linux-based operating systems, but it makes a great way to revive older hardware and extend the life of a given machine. My previous Linux laptop had been initially released in 2008, purchased (refurbished) in 2013, converted to Linux in 2016, and fell apart (to be recycled) in 2020. My Linux-powered Thinkpad model was initially released in 2013 and purchased refurbished in 2020. At a time when recycling and repurposing older hardware is becoming more economically feasible, Linux provides a great opportunity to not only save money but also stay productive and learn about hardware functions.

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And as always, thanks for reading!

Divorce ain’t easy.

For the average family, it’s hard to maintain one household. Even with two adults working, normal everyday life is a constant struggle. What happens when divorce enters the picture? Besides the emotional pain, you now have to try to manage two homes on the same salary?

For folks with lots of money, their issues are different.

Meet Andre Young. You know him better as a business mogul and music legend Dr. Dre. Between his rap group N.W.A., producing other music artists, endorsements with Coors Light, Dr. Pepper, and Chrysler and mostly from his ownership and the sale of his headphone company Beats, to Apple, Dre’s estimated net worth is more than eight hundred million dollars. That’s right, $800,000,000. In the rap world, only Jay Z is worth more cash.

For the last twenty-four years, Dr. Dre/Andre has been married to Nicole. They’re now separated and headed for a divorce. Nicole has asked for almost two million dollars in support…A MONTH!!! You’re probably asking yourself why she needs that much money? I know I did….and then I saw her detailed list of needs. According to TMZ, this is what Nicole needs to function every single month. Let me break it down for you:

Laundry and cleaning-$10,000
Clothes-$135,000
Education (tuition and living expenses)-$60,000
Charitable contributions-$125,000
Telephone, cell phone and email-$20,000
Mortgage-$100,000
Entertainment-$900,000

Hmmm…let’s see if can make any sense of this:

We’ll start with the clothes. I’m not sure what kind of outfits costs more than 100K each month, but if you’re really spending that kind of money on threads, then I guess the ten thousand bucks to keep them clean makes some sense. We’ll give her a pass on this one.
The mortgage is next. The Dre family has a forty million dollar mansion in Brentwood, California. The home formerly belonged to Tom Brady and Giselle Bundchen. The house is almost 10,000 square feet and among its amenities are a moat, multiple terraces and an infinity pool. Okay, I guess if your crib cost forty million, a one hundred thousand dollar mortgage might be right.

But, let’s tackle the items that sound a bit much:

Twenty thousand each month for a phone and email? C’mon Nicole! My cell phone is less than $50 for unlimited everything…even data! And Nicole, did you know e-mail can be found for free?!! Seriously, try G-Mail, Yahoo, or even old school it with AOL. I know the dude is worth 800 million, but don’t nickel and dime him over e-mail.

Here’s the one that gets me….almost one million dollars each month for entertainment. Seriously, what do you do for fun that can possibly cost that much? Private planes to Vegas every night and while staying in a top of the line suite? Vacations at the most exotic locations in the world? Season tickets to every sports teams in Los Angeles? I haven’t done the math, but I think doing all of these things in a month would cost under a million dollars.

I can’t say for sure, but you think Nicole might be a little spoiled?

Like I said at the top, divorce ain’t easy, but a two million dollar a month settlement makes it a little easier.

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