Is it Just Me?

New E-mail Address

We continue to move operations from one place to another.  The cable connection to the internet is reliable enough now for me to be moving my e-mail address.  It has been khackney@direcway.com.

My new e-mail address is kuhackney@cox.net.  both will be active for a while.

What You Don't See Is What You Don't Get

It's 7 PM and I'm killing time in evening clinic.  We had 6 patients come in between 5 PM and 6:30 PM  and nobody after that.  I had gone to work with a bag containing several pounds of candy left over from Halloween.  We had enough sweets to flatten a regiment of diabetics, but only a handful of trick-or-treaters.  I suspect that the thunderstorm and hail that swept through yesterday afternoon dampened the ardor a little.  We don't have a sidewalk in front of our house, although there is one on the other side of the street.  I would wonder if the typical volume of traffic on Glade (a Lot) and absence of a sidewalk after a rain had something to do with the paucity of juvenile goblins.  Nobody showed up at the door until 7 PM when 3 small children appeared.  Jack, the Doberman, was watching through the small window beside the front door when a little boy in head-to-foot green fur stepped forward.  Jack reacted as though he had been attacked by a 4 foot frog...barking and back-peddling.  After that we kept Jack away from the door. 

As I was getting ready to go to work this morning Mary announced that she could not find her glasses.  We looked everywhere and tore things in the bedroom completely apart.  No glasses.  I won't say Mary is blind without the glasses...but she was planning to stay in bed rather than risk doing anything without them.  As I was walking out to my car I doubled back through the garage and looked in her vehicle to see if they had fallen out there.  No.  Only her wallet was on the floorboards.

I gathered that up and was heading back through the kitchen when I noted her glasses on the floor of the breakfast room, under a chair.  The only other notable thing was a handful of candies sitting on the breakfast table.  I had not put them there.  Mary believes she was "sleep-snacking".  Apparently she got up in the middle of the night and poured out a small box of gumdrop candies...probably eating one and dropping her glasses on the floor before staggering back to bed.  Of course, it might be a poltergeist who swiped a candy and hid her glasses. 

Just Like They Were Made For It...A Swamp By Any Other Name

My own "room" at Glade House now smells like linseed oil.  That's because a shipment of bookcases arrived yesterday.  I had done some calculations that indicate that I would need as many as 5 bookcases to hold my current DVD collection which teeters at the brink of 1500 items.  This overflowed my old shelves many years ago.  In fact, those shelves were subsequently overflowed by everything that accumulated in the living room and despite being 7 feet tall have been inaccessible and darned near invisible for the last year.  The glass fronted cabinet that sits next to it is more accessible, but has acted as a magnet for insects who love it's dark corners.  I have not yet recovered the DVDs that are stored in these places because they will require extensive cleaning before they can take their place in the collection.  In the meantime I managed to recover the stacks of DVDs that were in the guest bedroom in The Swamp, those that were piled around in "my room" in The Swamp, and those that had been hiding in my bedroom in The Swamp.  They currently take up about half the floor space in the closet of my room at Glade House.  I have a better computer table coming that will fit in a corner of that room eventually.  Until now I have been making do with a small compact computer desk and an 8 foot table tucked under some wooden shelves against one wall of "my room" in The Swamp, which I am about to rechristen with the grand name of "The Lake House".  It is a more hopeful name and descriptive of it's location within 1000 feet of the largest recreational lake in this area.  Of course, the fact that one cannot see the lake at any time, and the fact that the presence of a lake this close means a water table that can be just under the surface resulting in crawdads in the yard when it rains regularly is the reason that until now I have referred to it as "The Swamp".  The fact that there is no concrete within 2000 feet of the house...except for 100 stepping stone that I scattered around the back yard at great cost to my lumbar muscles...means that my castle in the swamp might well follow that of King Roderick from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  King Roderick built his castle in the swamp.  It sank into the swamp.  He rebuilt it.  That one sank into the swamp.  He rebuilt it again.  That one burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp.  He rebuilt it one more time and that one stood up.  He is looking for a daughter-in-law with huge.....tracts of land, because he lives in a bloody swamp!

Rather than marry my daughters off for a dowery of dry land, I have elected to consider The Swamp as recreational property...until I can someone who is a bigger moron than I who will buy it.  In the meantime I'm waiting to see if it burns down, falls over, and sinks into the swamp.

Back to Glade House and my room...

At the moment, my PC sits on the floor in one corner of the room...waiting it's proper place.  I have selected an L-shaped desk that has space for two computers...so there will be room for my iMac G5.  This is the twin to my wife's iMac which I've never had room to set up until now...or at least when the last of the furniture arrives. 

There is a cable connection in my room and a cable box that will feed my Sharp Aquos 32" TV...however, that TV is currently in the master bedroom.  I have not figured out how to move the 42" Maxent EDTV from my bedroom in The Swamp, er...The Lake House...to Glade House.  It is fairly heavy and cannot be laid on it's side.  It must stand on edge in it's normal operational position. 

It's simple, you say.  Just hire someone to help move it.  The standing rule that human beings are not allowed in the swamp is still in effect.  Perhaps I will have time at some point in the future to clean up the mine field in the back yard but it's been growing for 2 years and no change in sight.  Then there's the challenge of walking through the house.  Stuff has become stacked along every hallway and movement is restricted to corridors through rooms.  I had hopes that moving belongings would reduce the clutter and gradually provide greater access.  The truth is that most of the clutter does not deserve to be moved...except to the midden heap in the upper yard.  I still have plans for a giant bonfire one day to dispose of the accumulations of several years where no trash truck can pass down the driveway.  In fact, it was the presence of those huge machines which started the deterioration of the driveway into the impassible ruts that make up it's first 1000 feet.  When it rains a vehicle hitting a pot hole pushed the clay and gravel of the driveway deeper into the underlying sand that makes up the soil in that area.  Since the clay of the driveway is waterproof, it begins to act like a series of small stock tanks on a farm...you know, clay lined, man made ponds.  Only when it has been rainless for a couple of weeks does all the mud dry up enough to make the driveway passable.  But years of driving through those sink holes when it rains have gradually made each one longer than a car and axel deep when filled with water.  One one ocassion when the mud was just drying out after a rain it became so slippery that I was afraid I would not get the rather low-slung Chrysler Pacifica out again.  It scrapes and grinds abysmally when exiting The Lake House with my wife and I and a full load of stuff.  Had I known the future, I probably would have held on that that pickup truck for longer.  However, it was a gas guzzling hog and I console myself that it does not cost $100 to refill the Pacifica's tank...even in these days of hyperinflated fuel prices.

When I get a chance I will go home and start moving DVDs out of the closet and finally getting them organized in alphabetical order.  For a collector like me, that's as much fun as actually watching the d**ned things!

Progress

Since I last posted there has been some progress.  They delivered the TV(s), got the cable installed, delivered the den furniture, the recliners for the living room and the breakfast room furniture.  Mary has been working all night packing and moving things from one kitchen to the other.  I got my hair cut.

Yes, I admit it.  I'm a slacker.  All I've done is go to work and go home.  Generally that means going to Glade House.  I have not slept in The Swamp this week.  I did manage to get the queen sized air mattress inflated and it works quite well as a bed.  It works for two people as Mary spent the last couple of nights at Glade House...last night however, she was up all night working.  She looked worn out as I left for work.

I contacted Mother and advised her I'm coming to pick her up for a visit and to come see the house.  She rather assumed I'd pick her up on Saturday and take her back on Sunday.  I really cannot do that.  She has adjusted to the idea of staying a week, but seemed disappointed that she will have to tell her new home health people (who come out and scrub her back for her) that she will be gone for a while.  I suspect that she would be relatively happy to stay at home and have strangers come by and check on her periodically.  It is still not the best thing for her and I hope she will see the logic of a move.  The closer she gets to such a commitment, the more I expect her to drag her feet.  It's human nature.

We got a lawn mower.  I have not put oil and gas into it yet, but I'm ready to proceed as soon as I get time.

Some Days You Get The Elevator...Today I Just Got The Shaft

As I type they are carrying the dining room furniture in from the delivery truck.  We had expected that the living room set would be delivered as well...but it's not on the truck.  So much for "he would take care of it" from the salesman there.  We still have no word on when the bed will arrive...but it ain't gonna be today.  The delivery man says he has 18 deliveries yet to do today and won't make it back to the warehouse until 8 PM, so there does not seem to be any way to fix the screw-up today.  I'm sure it's the first of many.

The furniture place just called back indicating that they don't have our furniture.  It was ordered in the middle of August and Matt, another salesman there, called in September indicating that the order came in.  Now they're not so sure.  While I was going to Tuesday Morning to get an AereoBed they apparently called back to the house and said the sofas, etc. will be delivered on Monday...2 days from now.

Walking into Tuesday Morning the place seemed deserted.  Using instructions from Mary I found the little stack of AeroBeds but was confused by the fact that everything I saw was a "single bed" mattress.  Then I saw a couple of "full bed" mattresses.  THEN I saw a Queensize mattress!  I had forgoten my cell phone and while I was calling Mary via landline to see if she did not really want a Queensize, two old ladies wandered up and took the Queensize.  I never did get through to Mary...she could not figure out how to get my phone out of the "holster" that I routinely clip on my belt.  So we have a full size inflatable bed for now.  When I got back, Circuit City was delivering the TVs.  As I was walking intothe house the Cox Cable installers arrived.  Wonderful!  Good timing, right?  Not so fast there, Sport!  The house is 30 years old and the cabling in it is not much younger.  The signal stinks.  The digital receiver does not get enough signal to work with the "convenient" cable on the wall where the TV sits.  Fortunately, there's another cable in the opposite wall and it has enough signal to at least show up on screen...but not enough to look good.  The installers tell me that the house will probably need to be rewired with newer cable system.  That, of course, will need to be scheduled and done at our expense.  The Circuit City guys were very nice.  They offered to move the recliner left in the den into the living room where the Sony TV actually is set up and running.  That sucker (the chair) is too heavy and bulky for me to pick up alone and too cumbersome for Mary to help me move.  The Circuit City guys moved it for us.  So I sat down in the chair and plugged my laptop into the adjacent wall outlet.  It promptly blew the ground-fault circuit breaker built into it.  The TV immediately went out.  That entire wall is on the same circuit.  It was not until I managed to get the ground fault button pushed properly and the breaker reset that the TV started working again.  This did not help the cable guys in their efforts because the tv is not "instant on" and the digital cable box, which has a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) built in is particularly slow to warm up.  Eventually they got a signal of sorts on screen and went into the other room to see if they can get the cable modem set up on schedule.  At some point they noted a signal splitter near the pole outside and decided it might be a reason the signal was weak.  Unfortunately, when they disconnected it...I think...was when the tv lost it's signal again.  They are in the other room right now doing something.  I can hear cables being pulled through the wall...it sounds like...but they don't have time to drill holes through the wall and directly wire from the outside as has been done at other houses we've lived in. 

It's now 4:23 and I've been out and around to go to Tuesday Morning.  I made the mistake of turning toward the college and got into the traffic going to the TAMU football game.  I ended up going right by the stadium.  Getting past that accursed intersection of George Bush Drive and Welborn Road, where the stadium sits, was what took 20 minutes.  Then I got lost a couple of times because I never drive through Bryan from the direction that this led me, so it took at least 35 minutes or more to get across to where Tuesday Morning is located.  It was just enough time to put me behind the little old ladies instead of ahead.  By the time I decided to buy the Queen Size airbed on my own, it was too late.  Yes, I know I'm perseverating, but let me recap the various ways things have not gone right today.  Let's face it, some days you get the elevator and some days you get the shaft.  We got the elevator yesterday, but today is something else. 

I had hoped to be able to watch football as I sat here waiting for the last efforts of the various workmen who have been through today, but pulling the plug on my cable connection did that thought in.  Since I was never sure about having a TV to watch when preparing to come over here this morning, I brought my laptop and some DVDs to play on it.  As I was typing the last sentence they gave up and reconnected the signal splitter, bringing back my grainy picture just in time to see the Houston Astros score on a two run homer in the 4th inning.  Alas, the cable guys then walked away and I don't even know if the cable modem works.  They never said.  Then I started trying to change channels using this cable box remote control that has 57 buttons on it and the picture went away again.  The cable box flashed Std/Init for a while then showed the time.  When I tried to change channels it said to hit the "power" button.  The channel information came on but no sound or signal.  This was where the cable guys were initially, and I'm not sure They ever figured out what they did that actually produced video and audio.  So at the moment nothing works again on the TV, but Mary says it looks like the cable modem is running.  Maybe I will take the laptop in there and see if I can screw THAT up as well.

Sure enough...it's Not running.  If you are reading this, it's because I carried the laptop back to The Swamp and and got online through satellite connection.  I called the Cox Cable service guy who said that the cable modem takes more bandwidth than the digital video connection and that if our system will not support video...and it won't...then it will not support the modem...and it doesn't.  The tech reset our digital cable box and there was still no video.  He says he sees no connection to the modem at all.  He did suggest disconnecting the cable box from the system and plugging cable directly into the TV.  It works.  There is an analog signal from about 50 channels.  Quality is fair to good except for a few channels which are truly abysmal picture quality.  At least there is something to watch.  I saw the end of the USC vs Notre Dame football game this way.  I even took a picture of the tv with Mary in her used recliner as the game was winding down and will post it along with the other pictures I took of the house and the neighborhood today.