Aaaarrgh!!!

Plumbing disaster number SIX has just struck our home. That's six in less than two months!! The only good news here is that we've got to run out of plumbing-related things to go down the drain soon. There just aren't that many possibilities left--everything else has already broken.

Star Trek

Went to see the new Star Trek movie this afternoon! I haven't been to a theater in a very long time--not many films can lure me into "Overpriced Discomfort World," but I've been watching Star Trek since I was five years old, and it beckons like the purr of a baby tribble, or the distress call of a Federation science outpost under attack from a Romulan Warbird. I will not bore you with my opinions about casting choices, character development, relationship twists, time travel, alternate time-lines, or the potential for exciting sequels. These are judgements every sci fi fan must make for themselves. The definite opinion I will offer, though, is that this movie is FUN! I was thoroughly entertained, and loved some of the nods to the original series. If you're in the mood for some rollicking sci fi adventure, you could do worse than to go see the latest Roddenberry spawn--a lot worse.

Fun In The Sun!

Ked's home from the office this week, and we're tackling some long-neglected and much-anticipated home improvement projects. We have been going gangbusters, and been extremely productive. The weather has been perfect for what we are doing, and even the one bout of surprisingly intense rain we had on Tuesday did not hinder us. We are cruising through our extremely lengthy to-do list. We won't get it finished this week, by any means, but the list is looking more manageable all the time. We now have working sinks and faucets in both our bathroom and our kitchen, the pipe is laid in the ditch that runs from our gutter downspout to our newly-dug dry-well, we have drywall up in the unfinished part of our basement, all of the furniture and stuff has been packed up and moved out of what used to be my sewing room (but has been unusable for the last five years--yes, the to-do list is that long), and we are ready to get to the destruction and reconstruction portion of our "vacation." I'm starting the demo on the sewing room remodel today, while Ked will be replacing the sealing around the windows and door on our travel trailer. (We have to get it ready for our trip to Yellowstone--only a month away!!) As you can see, we are getting so much done! I'm almost dizzy with the thrill of it all!!

Needless to say, there's not been a lot of time this week for recreational reading. We've been hopping, but something came into my email inbox that caught my eye, and I took a minute to follow a link to this little piece about a new tech toy that I thought was very cool. Imagine that you are working out in the hot sun, say, digging a dry-well, or, if you want to have a little fun instead, you are out hiking on a desert trail. Wouldn't some music be nice? Kind of a pain, though, since the cord to your headphones got all tangled while you were digging, and/or the batteries to your wireless set died ten minutes into your hike. Such a pain. Couldn't you use some solar-powered Bluetooth headphones for just such occasions? This fun little gadget isn't a reality yet--just a glimmer in the inventive eye of engineering student Shepeleff Stephen, but I'm sure something like it is on the way, and soon. I'm guessing you'll have such a toy on your head long before Ked and I have made it all the way through our home improvement to-do list. We're making serious progress, but these days technology gets conceived and invented so quickly that these things will probably be obsolete before I get the first coat of mud on the new sewing room drywall.

Well, I'm off to be productive. Need to make hay while the sun shines!! Maybe soon we'll be making music while the sun shines, or listening to it, anyway.