A Gift Horse

I have an Optiquest V95 19 inch CRT in my home office. It was thrown away by the shipping and receiving department of a company I used to work for 8 years ago. It had a 3 year warranty and was only 2 years old. Back then each department was responsible for their own PC equipment and they bought what they could afford. 10 years ago a 19 inch CRT was not cheap and when it was in the trash I was a bit surprised. I took it to the lab and fired it up and it worked, so I took it home. I have been using it ever since and it has been a great monitor, albeit a bit big sitting on the desk. a 19 inch CRT takes up about the same as a 20 inch TV and you can imagine how that would look sitting on your desk.

Several weeks ago, the old reliable CRT just shut off. At first I thought it was the power supply to the PC, but dismissed that when I noticed it was still on. I flipped my KVM switch over to my Linux server and I could not get video from that, so that is when I knew it was the CRT. I unhooked it and let it sit for a while, praying that it was not dead. We did not have the cash to get another monitor and if I was going to get one, I wanted to get a 19 inch LCD. The prices were dropping and I knew that a 19 inch LCD had nearly the same viewing area as a 21 inch CRT so it seemed that was the size to get if I had to.

I waited for about a half an hour and plugged it back in and turned it on. It fired up and I got video. That is the good news. The bad news is that every now and then it "pops" and while I do not smell anything burning and the picture stays on, I am nervous about using it long term. I also thought that the picture was a bit washed out so I asked my wife for her opinion and she said that is what she had noticed as well. With that in mind, we prayed that God would bless us with the money to get a new monitor. We knew that we were tight on money and with several $150-300 unexpected expenses that were incurred we have depleted a large part of our buffer. I was getting nervous.

10 days ago, we were blessed with a bonus that we had not counted on. I was told that I was eligible, but we have been told that before and the bonus never materialized or was so small that after taxes it would not even make a van payment. So when I got the bonus on my check, I was speechless. The first thing we did was tithe (gave 10%) to our church, as instructed by the Bible. We also made sure that all the bills were up to date and once we did that, we took out a couple from our church who are very dear to us. It was a blessing to us to treat them to a nice meal at "The Macaroni Grill" with appetizers and dessert. It is not often we can do that. Once we replentished what we had used we did not have a whole lot left but my wife and I agreed that we need to get a monitor when I can find a good deal on one. I went to Fry's today during lunch but the ones they had on sale did not adjust vertically and that would be a problem. They had others that would, but they cost more than I wanted to spend on an LCD. I will look around and see what I can find and then make my purchase.