Transitions

I haven't had a great deal to write in recent months but I've noticed a slowly rising tide of little changes lately.

Summer is fading into late summer and eventually fall. The weather, while still hot and humid, is now just uncomfortable instead of beastly and potentially deadly. After the Labour Day weekend, we should have a couple of months of comparative comfort before it chills enough to need jackets outdoors. I hate the peak of summer because of this horrid humidity but we're entering into something more like my comfort zone so I'm much more sociable and relaxed. No, really.

Last night, we had a surprise birthday bash to celebrate kent4str's upcoming 50th birthday. Yup, he's entering his sixth decade soon. When we met, he was younger than I am now. Where have the years gone? Anyway, it was a hugely fun dance and we had a lot of fun. If you're available, we're having a birthday open house for him and cuyahogarvr next Saturday, August 28, chez nous in Silver Spring, MD, and again at Roseland Resort at the trailer during the Labor Day weekend. Email me for details.

kent4str installed some task lighting in the basement computer room yesterday. As I spend most of my business day working in that room, I'm delighted to have better lighting for reading & writing tasks. It's also been the incentive to clean up the place. It took nearly two hours yesterday to catch up on just filing papers into the filing cabinet.

As I write this, I'm performing a final backup of an old desktop workstation so that it can be retired from service, freeing up a huge amount of desk & counter space. This 1.2 GHz box has been a good soldier: I purchased it about ten years ago when I committed to finishing my BSc and it was my reliable workstation when I carried on through my MSc. It's been through several minor upgrades over the years --larger hard drives, more RAM, etc.-- but my netbook is vastly more powerful and much smaller. It's time to let the old beast go quietly into retirement.

I'm planning to re-arrange the various electrical plugs to shuffle the equipment between UPSs for a better balance; I hadn't thought much about that until the recent series of power outages from summer storms. And there's much dusting and washing of counter space to tackle while re-arranging the toys. Ugh.

cuyahogarvr and kent4str are also entering the 21st century, at long last: they're bought/are buying smart phones. cuyahogarvr is staying with Sprint as that's where most of his extended family lurk; he's been playing with his new Samsung Moment, an Android-based device, for about a week. kent4str is leaning to the Motorola Droid X on the Verizon Wireless network but hasn't committed yet.

This afternoon, we said goodbye to bearfuz. He's been living with us on & off over the past 6-7 weeks or so while he played with the orchestra of "Mary Poppins" at the Kennedy Center but the show's run in DC ended with today's matinée and they're off to Charlotte, NC. It's been such a delight to have him and trulygrateful staying with us... they've been great low-maintenance roomies and just a great pleasure to be around. We're going to miss having them both with us in our daily lives.

Transitions

I haven't had a great deal to write in recent months but I've noticed a slowly rising tide of little changes lately.

Summer is fading into late summer and eventually fall. The weather, while still hot and humid, is now just uncomfortable instead of beastly and potentially deadly. After the Labour Day weekend, we should have a couple of months of comparative comfort before it chills enough to need jackets outdoors. I hate the peak of summer because of this horrid humidity but we're entering into something more like my comfort zone so I'm much more sociable and relaxed. No, really.

Last night, we had a surprise birthday bash to celebrate kent4str's upcoming 50th birthday. Yup, he's entering his sixth decade soon. When we met, he was younger than I am now. Where have the years gone? Anyway, it was a hugely fun dance and we had a lot of fun. If you're available, we're having a birthday open house for him and cuyahogarvr next Saturday, August 28, chez nous in Silver Spring, MD, and again at Roseland Resort at the trailer during the Labor Day weekend. Email me for details.

kent4str installed some task lighting in the basement computer room yesterday. As I spend most of my business day working in that room, I'm delighted to have better lighting for reading & writing tasks. It's also been the incentive to clean up the place. It took nearly two hours yesterday to catch up on just filing papers into the filing cabinet.

As I write this, I'm performing a final backup of an old desktop workstation so that it can be retired from service, freeing up a huge amount of desk & counter space. This 1.2 GHz box has been a good soldier: I purchased it about ten years ago when I committed to finishing my BSc and it was my reliable workstation when I carried on through my MSc. It's been through several minor upgrades over the years --larger hard drives, more RAM, etc.-- but my netbook is vastly more powerful and much smaller. It's time to let the old beast go quietly into retirement.

I'm planning to re-arrange the various electrical plugs to shuffle the equipment between UPSs for a better balance; I hadn't thought much about that until the recent series of power outages from summer storms. And there's much dusting and washing of counter space to tackle while re-arranging the toys. Ugh.

cuyahogarvr and kent4str are also entering the 21st century, at long last: they're bought/are buying smart phones. cuyahogarvr is staying with Sprint as that's where most of his extended family lurk; he's been playing with his new Samsung Moment, an Android-based device, for about a week. kent4str is leaning to the Motorola Droid X on the Verizon Wireless network but hasn't committed yet.

This afternoon, we said goodbye to bearfuz. He's been living with us on & off over the past 6-7 weeks or so while he played with the orchestra of "Mary Poppins" at the Kennedy Center but the show's run in DC ended with today's matinée and they're off to Charlotte, NC. It's been such a delight to have him and trulygrateful staying with us... they've been great low-maintenance roomies and just a great pleasure to be around. We're going to miss having them both with us in our daily lives.