the DronesClub	the smackdown	Fierce Creatures	Little Blenheim	Barmy in Wonderland	the dernier cri

The unpleasant, acrid smell of burnt poetry.
Young Men in Spats, 1936

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Jan 2009	Feb 2009	Mar 2009	Apr 2009	May 2009	June 2009
July 2009	Aug 2009	Sep 2009	Oct 2009	Nov 2009	Dec 2009

 

July 31, 2009

5:26 p.m. - I have stared in the face of Temptation, spat in it's eye, and walked away. We had Greek Islands at work, and while I might have gorged at the trough of freedom and ruined my diet on gyro meat, and spanokopita and all manner of tasties, I had the chicken santorini, which is low in purines and carbs. It is chicken stuffed with feta and spinach with a side of broccoli - and it was excellent! Afterward, we had a double chocolate cake and an ice cream cake. I declined, sniffing at the cakes with utter disdain. I had my cherries instead for dessert. I've also had my fourth full day without caffeine, consuming about 90 ounces of water thus far. I shall remain strong.

July 30, 2009

9:02 p.m. - Jennifer got home at about 5:30ish, and gave Julie a ride in the new Smart car, followed by John. Then we went for a ride, stopping by Dad and Deirdre's to show them the new nanobot. We must have got home at about 7:00, and Jennifer made herself a hotdog for dinner and I made an egg. Joe came by and we spent about 20 minutes working on the scooter, which will have to go back to the dealer's for repair. I was hoping it was the battery, but it was the idle which has come a purler. Afterward, we took another ride in the Smart car, puttering through Dundee and downtown to make the locals jealous. They were.

9:58 a.m. - I gave up caffeine on Tuesday morning. My first day was a day-long headache. My second day was a constant trip to the bathroom, as I consumed about 100 ounces of water. My body is still de-toxing after long years of caffeine abuse. I imagine it will take at least a week, if not two weeks, to get the vast amounts of Diet Coke, aspertame, and caffeine out of my system. Let's see how long this latest attempt at the caffeine free lifestyle lasts. I'm also back on the Atkins diet, doing reasonably well. We'll see if I can keep this up through the next few months, as stressful as they will be. 

July 27, 2009

Jennifer's new car. Smart. Very smart.

7:46 p.m. - Jennifer picked up her new Smart car this evening. To quote Jennifer, it's darling. It's half a car at 100% the price! But it's surprisingly roomy, could carry the dogs if necessary, and is a comfortable ride. We own a new car (again)!

7:20 a.m. - Wretchedly tired this morning. Ugh.

July 26, 2009

9:59 p.m. - It's like being married to Jack Horkheimer, but without the Member's Only jacket. Jennifer led us out to watch for the International Space Station's nightly trip overhead. Tim and John waited patiently with us, but we either missed it or it hasn't come yet. I gave up at about 9:40, and Jennifer waited another 20 minutes before giving up. She saw it yesterday while walking around downtown, and I saw it myself while taking the dogs out last night, so missing it was not a life-affirming moment having.

Otherwise, quiet Sunday evening at Chez Evans. I grilled steaks, and Jennifer sautéed green beans. I also threw on the hamburger meat that's been in the fridge for a week, and we'll take it to lunch tomorrow.

3:36 p.m. - How are weekends spent working rather than relaxing? I've spent the last 2 hours doing laundry, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning dishes, filing or recycling the massive pile of paper that accumulates. I'm sweaty and filthy! Then again, I went for a mile-long bike around around the Field Club neighborhood, which felt great. I'm so out of shape, but it felt good to bike again. Hopefully I'll bike for a mile each evening, just to get some exercise.

Look! The Smart car is smiling at us!

Yesterday, we went out to lunch at Ruby Tuesdays, and then Jennifer took us back to the auto dealers out on I-80 to look at the Smart car. What with the interest rate, the "cash-for-clunkers" program, and good timing, we may trade in Jennifer's 1997 Ford Explorer. I hate to do it, since we periodically need the cargo space (particularly since I would rather take the dogs to the groomers in Jennifer's old truck rather than my new car), but we may never get a deal this good again. Two car loans! Ah well. . . who wanted to retire comfortably anyway. In the meantime, we'll be eating baloney and cheerios. Looks like we won't be eating out, going to the movies, or spending frivolously for a long, long time!

Meanwhile. . . Jennifer is picking up goodies at Costco for lunch for work next week. Gryffindor is fast asleep, Percy is busy chewing up a stuffed toy he got ahold of, and Arabella is lying down in front of the air conditioning vent.

July 24, 2009

My new 2007 Corolla comes home.

11:04 p.m. - Picked up my "new" car today. My final drive in my old car was to the bank to get my title for '94 Corolla and then to drop it off at the dealers. I thought I'd want to sit in the car and say farewell, but I simply parked it, tossed the keys to the salesman, signed a few pieces of paper, and drove off in the new car. Still, I miss that car. We drove from Natick, MA to Omaha together. I drove it over 107,000 miles, or more than 4 times the circumference of the Earth.

Jennifer is working late tonight. Not 6:30 or 7:00 late, but midnight late. The Garden, the Zoo, the Durham are all open as part of Mutual of Omaha's 100th anniversary Wild About Omaha celebration, so she's working a good 18 hour day to accommodate the 1000s of visitors drinking wine and milling about the place. I ought to have looked in, but you know how I am with crowds. I've been relaxing at home, vegging out in front of the TV or computer with the dogs, all of whom are fast asleep.

My 2007 Toyota Corolla! And I even like the color.

7:13 a.m. - J and Self went car shopping last night. My car is starting to wind down. The tires keep losing air and two of them have at least 50,000 miles. We found the car we wanted, we knew what we wanted to pay for a down payment, we knew what we wanted for a monthly payment on a loan (yikes!), and we held to it. We scoffed at the hard sale for rust and ding protection, we turned down insurance plans that covered everything from meteorites to damage from giant radioactive, fire-breathing prehistoric lizards rampaging through town, and we ignored super extra-double-secret-probation plans that would let us pay x per month, based on y if the Dutch foreign exchange rate is at z. I think the sales agent - a very nice fellow - looked down on us as low rent customers for our choice of a used, 2007 Toyota Corolla. But when he saw sterling credit and that we had the means for a new car, he changed his attitude and tried selling us a bigger car. We said we're sticking with our choice and could not be swayed. Fortunately, we are not these idiots who take out more loan than they can afford for more car than they need because the sales agent can get them a better interest rate if they buy a bigger car RIGHT NOW. And we called him on that and stuck to the very reasonably priced Toyota Corolla. When all is said and done, we paid $1,000 more than I did in 1997 when I bought my 1994 Toyota in Boston - which means we either are getting a great deal now, or I got a really bad deal then! 

All of which gets me thinking about Ye Olden Days, when families started out with a used Packard, and as they progressed and got on a bit, might trade up to a solid Chrysler, and finally after 30 years of hard work and saving, aspired to a Cadillac. You didn't start with a Cadillac. Nowadays, of course, you can get a loan and every 20-something can have the shiniest, sleekest, newest car with all the trimmings. You don't have to aspire to the best and earn your way to it. Not anymore! You just start with the best, all rolled into one handy-dandy loan! And while you're at it, you don't need a starter house. Just simply fill out the paperwork, and get yourself that 3,000 square foot house with a pool and a deck! You can have everything when you're 24, fresh out of college, and in your first job! Why wait until you are 60! Perhaps this is why the economy is in the fix it's in. I can't deny that I don't want a Camry, but I am not prepared to hurt myself financially over a car I don't need just because they can make it affordable.

All that said, I think I just took a loan on a new car for thousands and thousands, rather than replace 4 tires for a fraction of the price! I had really hoped to keep my 1994 Toyota Corolla for another 3 years, but it's time had come. I'll miss that Toyota - my first real car!

July 22, 2009

New World makes a slow recovery.

3:00 p.m. - Rock on, True Believers! New World is above $40, for the first time since early October, 2008. Another $25 of growth, and we'll be back to our December, 2007 high of $65.23. Let's hope it doesn't take another year and a half for recovery from this recession. December, 2009 won't be too soon for a recovery.

July 19, 2009

9:57 p.m. - Another Sunday winds down, and tomorrow we're back at the old stand for another day. I've been working on digesting the power burger all afternoon. I can't do that to myself again - at least for another week. My prowess (pardon me, mad skillz) at the grill is a power I must control. I vow only to use my grilling abilities for good. That said, time to take the dogs for their final trip outside, and thence to bed.

5:11 p.m. - Yesterday was reasonably quiet. Jennifer worked from about 2:00 until 5:00ish, and then went out with friends. I went to the grocery store, and then spent the rest of the day cleaning the house. I took apart the light fixtures on the ceiling fan and washed the glass covers, replaced the bulbs, and put it back together. What a difference it makes to not be coated in dust! I tried to ride my scooter, but alas, the battery had died. I'll have to borrow someone's truck, lug it out to the dealer at 149th and L, and get it replaced.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - disappointing.

This morning we went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I was thoroughly disappointed. While I've read the books and enjoyed them, and I cheerfully sing Rowling's praises as a master storyteller, I am not a purist as far as the movies go. I realize the movie doesn't have to mimic the book frame for frame. And while it was lavishly made with awesome special effects, it took enough liberties with the story that it made no sense whatsoever. After the antagonist took so much pain to successfully put into effect his devious plans, the result just made no sense at all. So the Death Eaters get into Hogwarts and then they run away? All that effort just for that? They left out parts that will be key in the next story and put in scenes that had no major impact on the story at all.

Afterward, I grilled some of the best burgers ever - for which I will be paying for hours and hours to come. I made Jennifer and Julie plain burgers with a bit of salt and pepper. I mixed one of mine with Colby cheese right in the burger itself, and another mixed with sweet Italian sausage. They were incredible. I also made sweet potato French fries, and served the burgers with fresh guacamole, sautéed Vidalia onions, and bacon for toppers. It was very good, but I am so stuffed, I could pass out from sheer awesomeness.

Jennifer is taking a brief nap now, and we'll probably go to bed early tonight.

July 17, 2009

7:16 p.m. - Jennifer is working late tonight, so I've been holding down the fort by myself since I got home at 4:00 today. The weather today is abso-frikkin-lutely perfect, so I've spent the last hour sitting out back in the Adirondack reading and sipping on a tot of the Glenmorangie.

2:25 p.m. - This tongue-in-cheek interview with Brad Pitt in Wired magazine, quoted on CNN today, amused me:

[Brad] Pitt. . .is less understanding of people who want to answer urgent cell phone calls during movies.

"It may be a brief interruption -- just a few seconds -- but what if someone sitting near you is trying to make a decent bootleg? Did you ever think of that? Now all those street-corner copies are permanently defiled by your so-called 'emergency,' " he writes. "Don't be so damn selfish."

7:31 a.m. - After a great deal of difficulty getting to sleep, Percy decided to bark at 11:30 last night. Jennifer made me take the little beast out. Then he woke up at 5:20 this morning, though he went back to sleep after a few barks and I was effectively up. Tonight, we're having Percywurst for dinner. Arabella is doing her morning routine of chasing the squeaky rubber ball. I love watching her go feral on the toy.

July 16, 2009

Yummy sushi for dinner!

9:43 p.m. - Jennifer called me at 4:15 and invited me down to a secret location which I shall call Warehouse 13, where great wonders of Old Omaha were stored. I can say no more. But holy moly! It was amazing! I have seen extraordinary things this evening. We followed up our trip through meso-Omahan history with dinner at Blue Sushi downtown. Everyone was sitting in those 1970s egg-cup shaped chairs and sipping fancy drinks made with blue liquor. I felt very cool and, as my father says, "with it." But then the moment of utter coolness was lost when I figured that J & Self were probably the oldest people in the entire restaurant. Yikes! When did this happen? Fortunately, Jennifer never loses her cool, and I never had any cool to lose, so the problem was happily rendered moot. Never the less, dinner was incredibly good, and at happy hour, reasonably priced!

We got home at about 7:00, and fortunately the dogs had not had any major accidents in spite of nearly 12 hours alone. Good puppies! Jennifer played on the computer and went to bed, and I watched TV and trolled eBay looking for antique maps. I found a gorgeous 1780 Bonne l'Amerique Septrionale map and almost bid an extraordinary amount of discretionary income on it, but then I realized I already had it.

1:30 p.m. - Had a great lunch with old friends and new at Jazz downtown. I had the blackened tilapia with shrimp czarina, which was a spicy cream sauce filled with vegetables and shrimp. Very good. The spice had kick but did not overpower the meal. The blackened tilapia was flaky and delicious! Great to see a couple of friends I have not caught up with in quite a while, too. 

The life of a pampered dog in the Evans household is a tough one.

7:09 a.m. - I spent yesterday coughing and sniffling with allergies. I think the freshly mowed lawn caught up with me, but I sure felt miserable. With the pollen and dust settled, my sinuses feel better but I still have a small cough.

Jennifer had to get up early to be at work for an early morning meeting, which threw the house in a tizzy. I took the dogs out at 6 a.m. rather than 7:00. They had a grand time, barking and making certain the neighborhood knew they were there. I took them again at 6:45 when Jennifer left for work. Arabella spent a busy morning chasing her rubber squeaky ball all around, and now she's tuckered out and having a well-earned nap on the floor. Ahhhh, the life of a spoiled house dog is a good life indeed.

July 14, 2009

1859 Nebraska and Kansas Territory

8:38 p.m. - I just bought a really cool map of Nebraska and Kansas Territory. It's from "McNally's System of Geography" from 1859. Exciting!

Meanwhile. . . I've been feeling rotten all day. Beat tired! I took a brief nap when I got home and could have gone straight to bed. Didn't even have dinner. Jennifer has been at the Garden all evening working the Tempo of Twilight concert. I'd love to have gone - it's a bluegrass concert, and I'm sorry to miss it. On the other hand, it's about 900° outside, with 100% humidity.

Paul fuels up at the Lodge picnic

7:28 a.m. - Yesterday evening was the Florence Lodge picnic. I have to admit I had fun. Or at least, I kept myself busy enough to avoid not having fun. We grilled hotdogs, burgers, and people brought tons of food. I was disgustingly sweaty and tired by the end, and flitted around the Cooper Farm pavilion cleaning up and making certain everyone left the pavilion clean when we left. It's the same people that always attend these picnics for Florence Lodge, and I was disappointed that a few didn't show up (not that I did last month, nor may I next month). Got home by 8:30, took out the trash and finished cleaning up the kitchen after J. Went to bed by 10:00.

And woke up at 2:00 am with the worst indigestion. Ugh! I tossed about in a febrile manner all night, and must have drifted off sometime after 4:00. I am dead tired right now. Utterly exhausted!

July 13, 2009

7:23 a.m. - The Sunday nap always ruins my sleep. I didn't fall asleep until midnight, and while I slept reasonably well, I didn't sleep enough. As per my usual Monday, I'm dog tired and hankering for another 3 hours of the dreamless. No rest for the weary, though. Off to work.

Remember Jennifer's endless penchant for disaster movies? Asteroids, volcanoes, earthquakes - you name it. Last night's disaster movie featured meteors again: Meteor: Path to Destruction on ABC. This time, the twist was that instead of sending Bruce Willis to blow it up, they sent heat-seeking missiles to knock them out of the sky. Sorry Jennifer - I don't have the attention span for a movie featuring Stacy Keach (he has not aged well), Christopher Lloyd (I just can't take the Reverend Jim and Dr. Emmett Brown too seriously anymore), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters), and crappy special effects.  

July 12, 2009

Always nice to start the day with clouds like this.

Mmmm. . .funnel cake. Bad, bad, Micah. But it sure was a good funnel cake.

The monkey in front of one of the stands amused me, as monkeys so often do.

10:03 p.m. - Once again the Chronicler finds himself in the difficult situation of recreating the weekend for the avid readers. If I include too much, you can't take in all the excitement and have to lie down. If I include too little, you get bored. I shall make an effort to strike the perfect balance.

It was a laid back Friday, as I recall. Jennifer got home on the late side, and we had a quiet evening. I watched a great deal of Weeds, Season 4 on DVD. I can't believe they get away with what they do, even on cable. I'm laughing until I'm nearly crying! On Saturday, I started off with a KSA meeting, that was obscenely long with side diversions that were at times pointless. Jennifer and I both enjoyed another quiet afternoon until she went to work. I spent the rest of my time vegging in front of the television, watching an entire season of Weeds in about two days! Hurry up and get Season 5 on DVD!

At 5:30, I left for the office picnic which was a pleasant evening with co-workers. Our CEO cooks a wicked steak! I think I got home around 11:15, not more than a few minutes after Jennifer got home after she spent a fun evening with friends at an art gallery, followed by sushi downtown.

This morning, we both wound up sleeping late (or rather, I got up at 8:00 to let the dogs out and then fell asleep again until 10:30, a true rarity for me). We shamelessly wallowed away the morning with an episode of Doctor Who recorded on DVR until about noon, when we went to the street fair at "the Shops at Legacy," aka 168th and West Center. I figured we wouldn't make it - the clouds looked fierce and we got some heavy rains - but it cleared up by the time we reached 72nd Street. We started off with lunch at Blue Sushi. Jennifer ordered lunch, and chose all winners. The sushi was amazing! Jennifer ordered a crab roll thingummy that was awesome! And of course, I managed to splatter soy sauce on my shirt. We walked around the fair for a while, but it was mostly restaurant stands selling their goods with overpriced tickets. You have to admire the genius of having patrons change real money for their tickets, which can be used to buy lunch. You either spend too much for lunch, or if you don't spend all your tickets, you wind up blowing whatever is left on more stuff just to use them. It's a deviously ingenious way to part people from their hard-earned. The music was fun, but on the whole, it was not the best set up imaginable. There should have been more vendors or stalls that were not overpriced restaurants. Still, a fun afternoon and the weather was very nice.

Yes, we took a shameless nap after getting home. I grilled steaks for dinner, which were amazing, if I do say so myself. I finally got motivated to do some house cleaning around 9:00, and have been flitting about the house picking up, filing, putting away, and dusting. I never have the motivation to do my cleaning earlier, and I'm always cranky when I wind up tidying at night.

July 8, 2009

7:03 p.m. - Grilled some really good pork chops last night. I also threw some chopped carrots on the grill and an onion. A very good dinner! Afterward, Jennifer made a great deal about putting away the ketchup (blech!) and bbq sauce, and having exhausted herself in the cleanup detail, went upstairs with a popsicle to "check her e-mail," which is the adult equivalent of going to do her homework. Later that evening, she went for a walk with Julie and I took a spin around the neighborhood on the scooter. I watched a bit of Warehouse 13 on the SciFi channel (er pardon me, SyFy channel as they call themselves now, the dumbest rebranding since New Coke). Warehouse may prove to be a fun show if they keep it light, avoid ponderous sub-plots, and retain talented writers. Then again, any TV show could be fun if you had that combination.

I went to bed around 10:30, but I didn't sleep well. I had one of those sleeps that's just a shade away from being awake, and I really did something to my neck. Not only am I dragging this morning, my neck hurts something awful.

July 5, 2009

10:56 p.m. - Awesome fireworks show. Our front steps are really the best seats in town. Two blocks away from the action, and a perfect view of the Field Club fireworks! Omaha is a medium town that still has a small town flavor. We have a local neighborhood fireworks show (not your roadside stand sparklers, mind you, but the full monty!) and people come from all over town, park on the side of the road, pull out their lawn chairs, watch a great show, and go home. Same as at Rosenblatt Stadium on Friday - just watch from a convenient street corner with the family, and you're home in minutes. I love this town!

8:46 p.m. - And now as the weekend wanes, the Chronicler finds himself in the unenviable position of having to recreate the weekend for my faithful readers.

J & Self at Kennefick Park on Friday.

Float at Field Club parade on the 4th

Friday was a day off. Hooray! Instead of polishing the house, or updating the website, or taking care of the garden, I did absolutely nothing. It was everything I dreamed it could be. I mean, WTF, there was a Twilight Zone marathon on SciFi. Could I miss that? Well, perhaps that is not entirely true. I did pick up a few groceries, and an extraordinary bottle of Glenmorangie port wood finish from Spirit World. I simply lack the vocabulary to praise this particular Scotch high enough. It's tangy, and smells amazing, but not a bit peaty. In the evening, I met Jennifer at the Garden for our annual post ballgame fireworks show from Kennefick Park. This will be the last year we get the fireworks, because the game moves to the new TD Ameritrade park by the Qwest Center. Bah! At any rate, we were having fun, sitting with friends, sipping diet coke, munching on cookies, and enjoying cool weather when the rains came. Absolutely downpour! We were driven off the hill and by the time I made it to the visitor's center, I was utterly soaked. So much for the cheap poncho I was wearing! We hung out for an hour there, and I was going to head home to dry off when I saw the fireworks had resumed. I called Jennifer and the gang, but they were already heading up the hill. We go there, and pretty much had Kennefick Park to ourselves - nearly everyone else had given up and gone home. So we enjoyed a great fireworks show and drove home without the insane post-fireworks traffic!

On Saturday, we got up and went to the Field Club parade, which is a small parade around Woolworth Avenue from 34th to 36th Street. It is antique cars, kids on bikes, small floats, and neighborhood kids going around the square 2 or 3 times. But it's always fun, and we always run into friends and neighbors. I too Percy and he had a fun time. He did NOT like the pony in the parade, though. Click here for some pictures of the parade.

Afterward, we lazed about most of the afternoon. I ordered a pizza for lunch (really ought not to have), and we watched more Twilight Zone and generally were lazy. It was very relaxing. In the evening, we went to Julie's. I was drafted into grilling duty and made Italian sausages. She served them as a buffet with our choice of bowtie pasta and sauce, onions and peppers (my choice), or with Tim's famous pizza. I was too full from lunch to due myself justice at the festive trough. For dessert, she served fruit and a sorbet that was awesome! Debbie and Tom brought great watermelon, and we sat around for an hour on the porch digesting. I left around 11:30, and watched neighborhood fireworks from the window. Jennifer took a short walk and was home not long after me.

Today we were up early and had breakfast at Louis M's. Then we met Mom and Mike and went to see Transformer's II. Okay, it was horrible. It had no redeeming value at all. The value of Megan Fox as eye candy was utterly outweighed by the sheer crappiness of the movie. Bad plot, bad dialogue, bad everything. We got home around 3, relaxed for two hours, and then went back to Mom and Mike's for dinner. Mom made eggplant parm and brisket, both of which were very good, and we brought over a lemon meringue for dessert. Afterward, Mom showed us pictures from Mexico - very beautiful area in San Carlos. If it weren't for the insane commute, it would be fun to visit. I hope they get the house in Santa Fe, which we would cheerfully visit. I'd love to go to Taos with Jennifer for a week!

Now we're on the final hour of the last holiday weekend until Labor Day. In 30 minutes, we'll watch the Field Club fireworks from our front porch. Not the best view, but certainly the best seats in the house.

July 1, 2009

8:49 p.m. - Stuck my head over to Tim and John's to see where my wife was, and let the dogs in the backyard while I was over there. Gryffindor managed to wriggle his way under the fence to get to Mommy. Okay, that was adorable. Percy, on the other hand, managed to get stuck halfway under - just like Winnie the Pooh - and I (oh, to have had my camera at that moment!) had to rescue him. He was not happy to be left behind. I put two bricks in the hole under the fence, which effectively dog proofs it.

The ol' homestead looks almost presentable after a trim.

8:31 p.m. - After Jennifer got home on the late side, and I spent a few hours waiting on the fellow to do his annual inspection of the a/c unit, we had a late dinner of bacon and low carb pancakes made of flax meal and other herbs. Yum! Why do I feel compelled to clean the house until it gleams only when some stranger is going to come over to look at the basement A/C, rather than for the sake of having a clean house? I think the institution of marriage has ruined my sense of clean; when I lived in Natick, you could eat off my bathroom floor and my place was always clean. I could find anything I owned in the dark.

At any rate, Jennifer went outside to water the plants, and promptly disappeared to hang out with the neighbors while leaving me in charge of kitchen duty.

Otherwise, quiet at Casa de Evans. The lawn-wallah came by last night, and our shaggy expanse of weeds is now a perfectly coifed imitation of the greens at Saint Andrew.

6:19 p.m. - Faithful readers are dying to know: did you repair Jennifer's WiFi conection on her wee Toshiba computer? And if so, says you, how? I did, says I. And I have no idea how. I spent a good hour comparing wireless settings on my HP laptop to her laptop. That was a fundamentally worthless use of my time. And then I toggled a single switch on the HP pavilion desktop which either A) allowed other computers to share the wireless connection, B) terminated the pavilion's own wireless connection or C) put in the right password. I have no idea, really. But lo and behold, it worked, and I intend to tell Jennifer that it was due to my mad I/T skillz, innate knowledge of computers, and done at great personal cost and sacrifice.

Arabella goes to town on the rubber squeaky ball. Being a Maltese is truly the life.

8:31 a.m. - I never was able to figure out what was wrong with the WiFi connection. The computer picks up the signal, but couldn't connect. The problem may be coming from the HP desktop. There is nothing more pathetic than someone who knows just enough about computers to be a danger to friends and family trying to do something that requires an I/T surgeon. It's like giving a monkey a tool and asking him to fix the carburetor.

7:21 a.m. - It's hard to tear myself away from watching having so much fun with her rubber squeaky ball to go to work. Second half of the year is getting off to an adorable start.

Just about to head to work when Miz J asked me to have a gander at her Toshiba computer, whose WiFi connection is misbehaving. Let's have a peek under the hood, shall we?