Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
Pardon the irrelevance of the column this week, but Dennis is taking some time off, and Brad is on tour with his band, so I’ve got to get some stuff in the can before things get crazy.
Let’s do some catch up. In the latter part of summer, I built two hoophouses. One on my property (more of a rebuild than anything), and another on a friend’s. My plan is to plant carrots, beets, garlic, onions, spinach and lettuce this weekend. We’ll see. I wish I’d gotten the seeds and bulbs in the ground already, but I’ve been pretty involved in my other projects.
One of those projects was Bank Transfer Day, which was the national effort to take money out of big banks, which tend, percentage-wise, to invest less in local communities. Not that it’s a giant disclosure, but I have had troubles with my bank, Bank of America—for example, they incorrectly reported a late payment on a mortgage, which still affects my credit score—so this move isn’t altogether painful for me.
Last week, I opened two accounts at one of the local credit unions. I set up my auto-deposit payment from the university for the class I teach to go into checking. It’ll be two months before the first check is auto-deposited. That’s about it. Kind of anti-climactic. I haven’t closed a single account at my current bank because every account has solitary threads that must be cut and knotted before I can move on. For example, my son’s prepaid college tuition is the only thing that comes out of one account, which by the way, the bank recently began charging $25 a month for the privilege of maintaining the account. OK, patience, patience. Rome wasn’t burned in a day.
Earlier this morning, I was shopping for a new laptop. I always buy refurbished computers because they’re generally about 30 percent off with the exact same warranty. I hate to sound so old or unaware or something, but when did laptops get so cheap? Four hundred gig hard drive boxes for barely over $300? I should have upgraded long ago. It’ll make my online seed shopping and internet banking go that much quicker.