Learned a life lesson this week, and I’m thinking it will change the way I approach this topic in the future.

My car insurance just went through the damn roof with my latest policy renewal. Having been covered under my folks’ policy for longer than most people, and only ever having had one company for auto insurance, I never thought a bit of what the rate was. I’d get a new policy renewal in the mail, file it, and watch the money fly out of my checking account once a month.

It never changed that much, but this month, the difference was to the tune of 20 bucks. Over six months, that’s a bit o’ cash. So, I went shopping a little, found a better rate, and I think I’ll be switching sooner than later. It seems too bad, though, having been with one place ever since I could drive a car…

Anyway, in the future, I’ll be watching that rate with every renewal, and I’ll be ready to switch at a moment’s notice.

Thinking of heading out to LaCrosse? for the weekend. They’ve got Ocktoberfest wrapping up, and Michelle has a friend who lives near the downtown area and enjoys the… debauchery. I also want to visit Grandma & Grandpa’s grave stone, and pop in to Uncle Jim’s, too. It occurred to me that I haven’t been out there since Grandma’s funeral.

In unrelated news, I was in the throes of more computer modification last night, and did two things:
– I installed a copy of Windows Vista, and it’s quite pretty. I don’t know if it’s any better than anything I have now, but aesthetically, it’s definitely an improvement.
– I somehow managed to break my TV box. I’ve done this (sort of) before, and one day it just magically fixed itself. I have to tinker with it a little bit more, but I might end up doing a cost-analysis to see if it would be cheaper to try to find a new motherboard that would fit the chip that’s in there, or try to do a whole different setup. I was going to put Linux on there in order to run Freevo, but then I ended up with some error or problem where the mother won’t boot.

At work, the speed is considerably lower, and I’m even online for the IMs periodically. Maybe I’ll see ya.

Oh, and I thought this was funny from yesterday – I re-registered to vote, what with having moved a couple months ago, and my new polling place is actually closer to my old apartment than the place I used to go. I dunno, maybe you had to be there.