"is $5000 enough?"

thanks, nana.

i'm actually going to put that money to good use. i'm counter-intuitive: the more money you give me, the more responsible i am about it. and, i have a number of projects to deal with. this is going to take a while and will be the focus of the rest of the summer, but things will be better when it gets done.

1) i need a new hard drive for my media/tv pc. i'm not yet ready to retire it altogether. this will be very cheap, if i can even find an ide drive at all.
2) my 90s laptop is still humming, with no reasons to mod it.
3) but i should fix up my vista laptop, which might mean upgrading past vista, to start with. i want to eventually convert this into a music processor. it will need a new hard drive, a new dvd and 2 gb of ram. that should be around $100.
4) my windows 7 laptop will, in fact, be converted into an editing station. i'm going to get at least 4 gb of ram for it. that's actually good enough for now, beyond getting some better software.
5) i'm going to get some kind of phone so that she can call me. i'll have to research this. it may be an ip phone, or may be an unlocked smart phone.
6) i'm going to finally get my strat fixed.
7) i'm also going to look into a starter tablet. i mean a tablet, specifically: a device i can write onto with a pen. remember, kids: i have a math degree.
8) i'm going to get a new primary laptop, for sure. i'm mostly going to be focusing on a machine with high ram capabilities. i need to do a huge amount of research into this, as well. how bad is windows 10? should i stick with 7? i'm ok with 7. should i even finally focus on linux? and, no, i do not want a mac.
9) i should also get my bicycle fixed.
10) anything remaining can be reasonably focused on furniture.

$5000 is a ridiculous sum, for me. it's probably 5x what i need. but, i'll take my good fortune with the proper responsibility and make sure i put it to good use.

i need to do a lot of research...