College Advice (USC)

Today, I did laundry for the first time here. I couldn’t find the quarters I thought I brought, so I bought $1 of quarters from John. Then, I started the machine before putting my clothes in (I didn’t realize it started right after the type of load was selected). Luckily, it allows you to open it after it has started (opening the door stops the washer).

After coming back, I found my quarters. I also found another dirty pair of socks under my desk.

So my first point of advice for college students is:

1) Before doing a load of wash that includes socks, always check underneath your desk for additional socks to wash.

I’m running out of power outlets. I’m afraid something bad will happen because I’ve got so much powered stuff going on. Let’s see. I’ve got two outlets to work with. One has my laptop charger (with a long cable). The other connects to a UPS (via a long power cable). This UPS has three outlets. One for computer, one for one of my two monitors, and the other for a Power Squid. The PowerSquid has five outlets. One is currently used for my other monitor; #2 my printer, #3 my desk light, #4 my binary clock, #5 my Pocket PC charger. Now I have to plug in my cell phone power adapter. There’s no more outlets, but luckily, I’ve got a power strip I can use.

I’m thinking of plugging it into the UPS, replacing the monitor, and then plug the monitor into the power strip. Then I can also plug the cellphone charger into the strip.

The UPS has an amp limit. But I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know how many amps each of my components is drawing.

This brings me to tip number two:

2) Get a PowerSquid, and bring it to college. It’s amazingly convenient and useful.

I might update this post as time goes along.