Asus eee PC Travel Computer

Today Vagabond Journey has put into motion the retirement of “Old Faithful,” my big archaic Dell Laptop, and purchased a slim and slender Asus eee PC 900. This is the new model of the eee PC, and it is more like a real computer than its “web appliance” predecessor; as it has vastly more internal storage: 12 gigs as oppose to the 4 or 2 gigs of the old model. The eee PC 900 just came out on May 14th and I made my purchase today, May 20th. It was a battle to find one. I had to fight my way to the front of the geek line to get my hands on one of these nifty little computers.

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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Upstate NY, USA- May 20, 2008
Song of the Open Road — Travel Photos
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I become very nervous about purchasing anything. Even a one dollar pair of old and raggedy jeans sends me into a cautious buyer frenzy. No kidding, I readily look over even the simplest and cheapest of purchases for long extents of time before I even think of walking up to the check-out counter. I do not carry much with me, so I want be sure that my gear is the best that it can be.

And I hate buying anything. Anything.

But today I put all of my buying insecurities aside and spent $549 on the new 900 model of the eee PC. I do not really know where this money came from. Maybe from the trees? Maybe from my $300 economic stimulus check? It is funny to me to consider that I actually did “stimulate” the USA economy with my economic stimulus check. I don’t know, but I do not have the impression that I want to stimulate anything.

I bought the eee PC 900 from buy.com, and feel like a bone head for doing so. I usually never buy anything over the internet without first calling the company and talking with a real human about what I want to purchase. I could not find a phone number for Buy.com anywhere on their site, but I purchased the computer from them anyway. I am old fashioned, I like to interact with people before giving them more than a month’s worth of income. I think this sentiment has really gone out of style. The computer is now social king, and I feel like a weirdo for my appreciation for real human contact.

Though I am not quite sure if sales people really qualify as humans anyway.

So I bought the computer without any sort of inter-personal contact and am shaky as to if everything will work out. I suppose I simply got sick and tired of reading and researching all of the specs of the new eee PC 900. I just wanted to buy it and be done with it. Forget about it. Ignore the fact that today I spent 55 days worth of travel funds on a piece of equipment that I need to continue this dream of being able to write for my food.

If all goes well, I think the eee PC 900 could be the best tool for approaching my far-flung objective. The eee PC is small and light. It is only eight or nine inches wide and weighs but two pounds. This is a far cry from “Old Faithful,” who weighs in at over eight pounds and has a 14 inch width span. In point, the eee PC is vastly smaller and lighter than what I have been traveling with, and less weight and less bulk makes for a more mobile traveler.

I like to walk on my own two feet when traveling, and I found myself slightly hindered by the weight and size of my old Dell laptop. It is simply too big and heavy to tramp with comfortably, and it just barely even fits into my backpack. So I have always had to ditch the extra pair of pants and additional shirt to enable me to carry a computer. I began thinking about the Asus eee PC some months back when Mira stumbled upon a review of it online, and I immediately recognized that it could be a way that I could travel with a computer AND a spare pair of underwear. Our eyes bulged big in awe as we pondered the possibility of retiring our old Dells for a two pound, eight inch fully operating computer. All travelers like the sound of lightening their load, and the eee PC 900 is one way to do this.

Hope it all works out.

Pensively awaiting my purchase.

So long Old Faithful, so long! You were a great traveling companion.

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