We picked up Mercurial Girl from camp on Thursday, and the weekend was ... okay. The cats were happy to see her, and frankly it was nice to have her home. Most of the time. We had to have a little teen drama, or it wouldn't be a weekend with Mercurial Girl.
She's back at camp for another month. She has some pretty funny pictures, which I will scan and post once we get our office re-organized.
Most Paitent Wife and I are doing some household stuff. It's been almost two years since we bought this house, and it feels like we're just now getting a good feel for the place.
The outside of Casa de Sawin is getting a facelift. We're putting up new siding and windows, and we are also going to do some landscaping. It's too late for flowers this year, but I can still make the beds and do the hard work so that next spring we can turn ground and plant. I can't do any of that stuff until the windows and siding guys are done, which will be in a few weeks.
The good news is that the harsh part of summer will be over. The bad news is that my opportunity to do yard work will merge with my return to school. It would be easy for me to just put it all off to next year, but I really want the yard done. I want our house to look its best, and if that's going to happen, I'm going to have to go out there and sweat.
On the inside of the house, we're adding a new workstation to our home office. We picked up a nice used desk for me, and we're in the process of getting the computers to work together with the printer. Once we get the furniture set up the way we want to and the rest of the physical stuff figured out, networking the computers won't take long at all.
We're also redoing the living room. We had the piano moved upstairs, and it has made a huge difference with the look of the room. Had I been thinking, I would have taken a few "before" pictures. We're having the last piece of furniture delivered on Wednesday, and I'll be posting some photos of the end result. I can't wait until we get it all done.
We switched to DISH network satellite service, because our cable company just wasn't doing its job. We got a pretty good deal that includes free DVR, and let me just say this for the benefit of those of you who haven't tried DVR yet:
It will change the way you watch TV. It's not just the fact that you can pause the show for whatever reason, or go back if you missed something. It's not that you can program the system to record your favorite shows so you can watch them whenever you want -- on your schedule. DVR is all that and more. (It's a floor wax and a dessert topping!) Remember when VCR's hit the big time? A DVR is a quantum leap over that. It's simpler to use, stores more stuff and offers more options.
We're also going to switch our ISP. The one we have now is ... okay. The local customer service folks are nice, but for the most part I have had little satisfaction with this company in the past two years. Until recently, they were the only option in town if you wanted broadband -- and it showed in their service.
In other news, I'm thinking of getting off of Tripod. The comments haven't been working for a few weeks now, and I have experienced some other glitches as well -- pages taking forever to load, entries getting eaten, that sort of thing. While I don't pay for this service, I don't demand much of it, either. And there are times when the inconvenience of the technical difficulties outweighs the "free" aspect of it. I've been with Tripod for over ten years, and I am someone who usually stays put. But with the new ISP and the other new stuff going on ... maybe it's a time for change.
But then again ...
We'll see. There's only so much change a guy can take!
