Dysmey Post Archive > Pages for 2002 > 7th August 2002 Edition
My sister the freelance editor celebrates her birthday: A birthday that involves black balloons (I will not reveal why) and a Sunday dinner with chocolate cake.
Part of her birthday present (I haven't decided yet on the other half) involved helping her escape from the wilderness of Interland into the blessed land of Hostway.
A heat wave that broiled the area where I live for the past two weeks has finally broken. Then I did not want to go outside in the sun, although one Monday I forced myself to help my sister put up drywall supports.
The weather has been miserable this year. The wet spring following by the broiling but relatively rainless summer has hurt the local crops. Even assuming a normal harvest, expect your food bills to go up, folks.
At work the broiling fortnight coincided with my boss' two-weeks-a-year in the Army Reserve. The two weeks passed uneventfully, except for a chewing-out when I went out to install workstations while some big meeting was going on.
Actually the two weeks were good inasmuch as I got a program working for one of the departments. The program is basically a mail-merge, melding addresses with appropriate form letters. At one time the department used a complex series of steps involving WordPerfect to produce the letters; now all they do is push a button, and the letters appear in Word, ready for printing.
The new version also lets the department edit the form letters without going into Word (the only editor they know) and thereby ruin the forms.
My other sister (the science teacher) has been working hard on her house, which I will care for while she is in Bloomington on a one-year assistantship.
She has finished putting new acoustic tiles on the ceiling of the living room, and had an electrician put up a new light. The white tiles and light brighten up a room, which otherwise has all the charm of a hunting shack in the middle of nowhere. That is not my sister's fault, for the fools who owned the house before saw fit to put up dark wood paneling to a room with poor interior lighting.
Next my sister worked on the bathroom. I put in two hours last night helping her put up studs for the drywall on two walls. It's a tricky job nailing wood and trying not to damage pipes, walls or yourself as well. Then came the idea of drilling guide holes for the nails. Then came myself snapping the drill bit. D'oh!
After that my sister (with help from her daughters) put up the drywall and marked the wires for the electrician (whoever she can find). Next comes some decent paneling. The sink and its supporting "vanity" will be set up next after my sister gives it a new paint job to match the paneling.
Yes, it is early August and I am still not in there. But I will be soon. My sister has been slowly moving to her new conveniently located apartment. By the end of next week (after which school starts for my niece) most of her stuph will be there or in storage.
Most of my own furniture will be going to the new house, where there will be more room to spread it around. I have a lot of books to take there, too; I may have to do the college thing and buy some cinder blocks and lumber for makeshift book shelving.
Most of the items on my list in the early June issue still hold. And now for the update:
Administrivia. The change of address forms will go to most of the places on my list. I am not sure about New Architect. I want to read over the most recent issues, but I am thinking about canceling it. I do not like the changes that have come about since it stopped being Web Techniques. (My opinion on the changes it implies for the Web—a two-tier Web with Microsoft and big business at the top and the rest of us at the bottom—are beyond the scope of this page.)
Cats. No change there, except that the cats like fresh (as in running) water. They drink from the sink; they drink from the bathtub. They will not touch a water bowl, no matter how regularly I change the water.
Food. My sister gets her food off a Schwann's (prepared food delivery) route. Sounds like a good thing; let's see if Tina can get me put on his delivery list.
Furniture. Madre got me some small kitchen appliances and some pots and pans. I got a Black & Decker toaster-oven (which, for some reason, my sister thinks is 'cute'). I plan to get a bunch of twenty-watt 'twister' fluorescent bulbs to replace the incandescent ones in all the ceiling lamps outside the living room.
Some of my sister's furniture apart from the waterbed, couch and big kitchen stuff is also staying, mostly bookshelves.
Neighbors. It turns out Tina does not deal with her neighbors too much, so I probably won't, either.
Utilities. I am keeping the DSL at home, for myself and the folks. I've already set up a computer to use with it, complete with firewall and anti-virus software. The folks will contribute part of the cost.
Yard. I will have to move the firewood around, but I think I can make room for one of those compost bins. It will be near the one in the neighbor's yard. I can use that to process yard waste, cat business, and other organic litter.
I can't get rid of that stupid swing set. My sister put a hugh wooden yard swing on it, so I can't put it away.
Ever since WBST-FM (NPR/eastern Indiana) took Hearts of Space (HOS) off the air at the beginning of this year, I have looked elsewhere to listen to this program. WBAA-FM (Purdue U.) broadcasts HOS every Saturday evening over the Internet, so I gave it a try. Everything else comes over the stream, but not HOS. I even connected an hour before and listened to the previous program. It comes through fine, but when it comes time for HOS, the stream fell silent. The techies at WBAA do not know why.