Sara

What a wonderful weekend! My son, our daughter-in-law and our GRANDDAUGHTER spent the first half of the weekend with his mother, and came to us late Friday afternoon. We hadn't seen Sara in about 6 months (she's 2-1/2) but she knew us immediately! She's amazing and adorable.





Cathy talked Alan and Alisa into leaving Sara here overnight both Friday and Saturday, and it was just great. She had no problem in staying with grandma and grandpa, and A & A enjoyed the free time.

Wow, does it take a lot of energy to keep up with a toddler! Cathy and I are both ready for naps at 1PM on Sunday!

Thanksgiving

I can't possibly list all the things I am thankful for -- just too, too many. I've very fortunate to be married to the woman who's my wife, to have the people who are my kids and their "significant others", for my granddaughter, for health, for having few worries about money, etc. I read the newspaper and watch TV and get RSS news feeds and realize, wow! I am soooo lucky.

I was sick last week -- nothing serious but enough to lay me out for about 5 days. I guess it's my age catching up with me; a few years ago, I'd have been up and around in a day or so.

Cathy is of course working today. The soup kitchen never closes (except Sat and Sun)! She has a new colleague, Robyn, who is doing half of what Cathy was doing before, and she seems to be a real gem. I'm looking forward to Cathy not getting sick over the holidays and even playing bridge again on weekday evenings! :-)

I feel a little frustrated. I tried to copy a DVD a neighbor made and neither PC DVD burner recognized it! And then it wouldn't play in one TV DVD player! Also, I tried copying a VCR tape to a second VCR and that didn't work either. And I'm not interested in playing with the VCRs to see if the second one really works. My curiosity these days seems to be limited to what I can do at a keyboard.

Smiling again

The refridge guy came out as promised and replaced a $35 relay (not under warranty) so it cost me only $150.00. But, foodwise, we're back to normal -- or will be after food shopping tomorrow.

We're going to TASK to put the finishing touches on stuff for Robyn, the new person who starts tomorrow. TASK's IT person was not able to finish the computer stuff so I'll do it. And Cathy has a few last minute things she wants to prepare. Also, a neighbor called to donate a turkey so we'll bring that with us.

The Willy Nelson show was enjoyable. I don't know enought about his style but I thought that he usually sang the melodies pretty faithfully. Not last night. He was into "imaginative phraseology" and non-melodic singing and it spoiled it for me. He did sing for about 90 minutes which is more than Al Green did last month. People went wild when he would whip off his bandanna and fling it into the $150 seats. He has a great harmonica player who didn't get to solo much at all. But Willie's a legend and we're glad we went.

Huh! My neighbor with the AOL-DSL called me the other day to say that he ran the Verizon CD again and everything is working! Can you beat that?? I think I'll refund some of his money.

I'm installing a DVD drive for another neighbor this week. Busy, busy, busy!

No word yet on the solar panel dispute (see next posting).

What the f#$%?

Where did the time go?

What happened to my AC? My furnace? And now my refrigerator????

Monday we discovered that the fridge had up and quit! Both refrigerator and freezer sections stop producing cold air. I called a few authorized repair companies (we're still under warranty) and the soonest anyone could get here was Thursday!!! Did we throw out food? Cathy was able to grill someof the meat and we put that and as much as we could in the garage refrig but there was still lots of waste. Oh, she did take stuff to the soup kitchen.

I've spent parts of two days getting a new computer set up for the new person who starts Monday at TASK. XP is annoying! But getting that new person will be great for Cathy!!

My committee is involved in an "alternate dispute resolution procedure (ADRP)" run by our Judicary Committee on the behest of a family who didn't like the idea that the ACC turned down their request for solar panels on their roof. We stated that they broke up the "visual harmony" of the community. They took four of the committee to see an actual installation and it wasn't half-bad, but the panels are very dark and these folks have a very light roof. Further, the panels would go on the front of the house, so we stuck to our guns.

At the ADRP, I think they made too big a deal about what a personal financial boon solar panels would be to them, and not enough on the environmental impact. Haven't heard what the JD is going to recommend to the board yet. If they are brave (or chicken!), they will rule for the residents, who may sue otherwise! The environmental impact is significant and there should probably be more people who do this.

Today, I spent some time with a neighbor trying to get DSL installed. He's a dial-up-AOL user and there's some deal that Verizon offers in concert with AOL, and that's what he got. But first of all, he bought an $8 NIC from Walmart for his Win98SE computer and it didn't work. He went to Staples and bought a Linksys and that installed easily. Because of the AOLness of the setup, I didn't try to telnet to the DSL modem (can you telnet to a DSL modem???) and set it up manually, so we suffered through all the steps of the installation CD. At the end, it had a laundry list of successes and failures, including the failure to connect to Verizon. We tried to get Tech Spt on the line but the wait was > 30 minutes and he didn't want to pay me to be on hold, so I made a few suggestions and told him to call me later. He did and said that he ran the installation CD from the beginning and got further thanhe and I did, but there's a big red X there and he's had it. I think they're going away for a long weekend. Rats. The other DSL installs I've done have taken no time at all and have worked immediately, but they were on XP computers and were no involved with AOL.

Tomorrow the fridge guy is supposed to be here between 8-11AM. And I have to call the HVAC people and find out where the darned part they ordered is!!

We're going to see Willy Nelson Saturday night. ;-)

The exterminator decided that the critters are mice-critters so he did what they do when there are mice. Two weeks should tell.

Next week should be quieter.