Got back from Louisiana last night, after a 2.5-hour delay due to weather problems up here at Newark. Spent the “day off” dealing with a plumber and running yet more errands.
One of these errands involved stopping by my office and picking up a new 13.3″ MacBook to try out for a few days. We ordered a bunch of refurbished models for editors’ use during travel, and I was interested in seeing how they feel. My G4 PowerBook (12″) is getting kinda long in the tooth, although it’s still fine for travel and all. Still, it’d be nice to have another laptop in the house, so the official VM wife (who’ll likely make me the official MI husband) and I can blog away in the living room, sneaking sidelong glances at each other’s posts.
Or not. I’ll see how the holiday bonus looks, since most of our money’s going into plans for fixing up the house in 2007 (starting with that aforementioned plumber’s visit today).
The holiday trip went alright. On Christmas afternoon, I was deluged by presents. I can’t fault Amy’s parents for using my Amazon wish list to guide their purchases, but I wish they’d pay a little more attention to the size & weight of some of the items. For example, while I was quite happy to receive the four-volume, hardcover, slipcased edition of Samuel Beckett’s works, I wasn’t so happy about lugging it home in my suitcase.
Still, it’s a minor complaint, considering I could’ve shipped it home Tuesday morning.
Anyway, its nowhere near as interesting a gift as the small wooden case they gave me. It has a slide-off lid, and it’s nowhere near long enough for a pen, prompting me to ask, “Am I supposed to hide weed in this?”
That’s the Christmas spirit, I guess. I’ll process my pix from the trip this evening, and try to get those posted.
what are you planning on fixing up in the house? What did you need the plumber for? Just curious….
Did you get a hotel room yet?
Hey the book thing is karma from the NZ trip. The books you gave me tipped my baggage weight over the edge and I ended up paying an excess fee of $60! (That being said, American Gods and Gould’s Book of Fish were welcome additions to my bookshelf and I’m glad I have them)
Tina: I remember you and Julie showed up with the world’s largest suitcases, that morning in Auckland when we boarded the bus! I, on the other hand, had the world’s largest backpack, for what that was worth.
Bo: The plumber was for the backup (kitchen sink backing into the washroom & downstairs bathroom sinks). He took out some drywall behind the dryer, cut out a portion of the 3″ pipe, snaked as best he could, and said it was no surprise that we had such a terrible backup, and that the $1,200 I spent on the septic work a few months ago was for naught. Keep your fingers crossed that this solves the problem, and doesn’t lead to us having to rip up the concrete downstairs to rebuild the pipes.
Down the line, we want to replace the windows and siding, paint the interior after removing the floor-to-ceiling smoked mirrors in the living room, replace all the mirrored closet-doors, redo the kitchen and upstairs bathroom, put a patio in the backyard in that area that I cleared out last summer, and maybe put in a carport to cover the second car. Or build a second garage and put in a new room beside the master bedroom & home office.
So you can see why we’d like to have the plumbing situation squared away first.
And we’re staying at the Best Western in Kirkwood. I figure we gotta make a Tuvia’s run before we come out to St. Louis. . .
that’s true….never again! Now that I think of it “Stroking the Python” wasn’t the smallest book either…..