Month: August 2016

Today EA released their latest earning report for the last financial quarter. For the first time in over a year and a half, I did not nervously await the contents of the said report and the reaction of Wall Street afterwards. I currently own zero shares in EA, so at this point the stock price only tangentially affects me as an employee. Sure, I don’t want to see the stock price drop 50% overnight but I do feel a sense of freedom not having to watch the chart the day after an earnings report.

As some of you know, I sold all my EA stock last quarter. As soon as I did that, I had no need to check the stock price every morning when I woke up. It was liberating not having to do that all the time.

Incidentally, the stock price dropped about $2 in after hours trading due to a lower than expected financial forecast. Previously, that would have caused me worry but I saw the news and shrugged.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), this is only a short reprieve. In six months, the employee stock purchase plan kicks in and I get some stock again. Then next June, the first of my stock awards vests and I get more stock. Until February though, I’m all good!

It was a long weekend in this province so I didn’t have to work on Monday. Of course, I did all the things on a long weekend that make returning to work feel really bad. I stayed up super late Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night playing video games. I will not enjoy waking up tomorrow morning as my body rejects the early morning wake-up call. Never fear though, the previously mentioned pile driving next door will ensure I awake bright and early.

I also strayed slightly off my healthy diet, which has been going so well. I ate English muffins, Pop Tarts, burgers and french fries all weekend. It was so good. On Tuesday, it’s back to boiled chicken breast and lettuce for lunch.

I also didn’t win the lottery this long weekend either, which means I definitely have to go back to work. The only solace is that this is a short week.

As some of you know, the deadline to receive a free Windows 10 upgrade was this Friday at midnight. A few months ago, I upgraded my laptop to Windows 10 as a test run to see what problems might arise before upgrading my main computer. The laptop upgrade went well, without any problems at all. I then realized that I don’t really use my laptop for anything intensive. I don’t play games on it nor do I run a media server off of it, just a few things that I actually do with my main computer. I also don’t have the same programs on my laptop that I do on my main rig, so I couldn’t even figure out if all my programs would be compatible after a theoretical upgrade. So, it wasn’t exactly a great test bed.

Of course, the deadline to upgrade caught me off guard on Friday. I guess I should have known it was coming up but I came home from work and then realized I had mere hours to take advantage. In the end, I decided not to go through with it. I’m in the middle of playing a game and if I started the upgrade, I’d have re-download the game and re-install. Since I have slow Internet, that would take at least a whole day to do the download. I also hadn’t backed up any of my data. When doing an OS upgrade, it’s always advisable to back up all your important files beforehand. I’d done none of that. Lastly, I was just lazy. As it currently stands, there’s nothing wrong with Windows 7. I think it works great. I just didn’t like being forced into an upgrade on Microsoft’s terms. I think I should upgrade when I feel like it, not when some corporate entity decides.

So when midnight rolled around, my computer stayed running on Windows 7. I was prepared to shell out over $100 to upgrade on my terms at a later date, rather than upgrade now for free. It turns out though, there is a loophole to all this anyways. According to this article, the free Windows 10 upgrade is still available to people who require assistive technologies beyond the Friday deadline. As of this writing, it appears there is no requirement to prove that you need or use such technologies. So maybe I won’t need to spend money on Windows 10 after all.