The only thing I needed to buy was a copy of MS Office (I can't get the publisher's templates to work with OpenOffice). Being a guy in a computer T-shirt and hat [and birkenstocks] I couldn't avoid browsing a bit[2]. I picked up two USB Wifi adapters to de-wire a desktop and my X-Box. 2.5" hard drive enclosures were on sale for $8 so I bought a couple of those for some old laptop drives I have in a drawer. Finally I bought a spanky new leather laptop bag. My old bag is seven years old and held together with zip ties.

So it's back to getting some chapters into a format the publisher wants. I've been doing them in plain text on my linux laptop which has some advantages: I can use my regular editor [emacs] and I have a little script to test code blocks.

[1] I really need to do laundry. Many of my friends have never seen me in a T-shirt (or jeans!).
[2] I've never been in a Fry's but Microcenter is the best computer store I've ever been in. Tons of high end home-brew parts and a decent book selection.