New Things For The New Year

So we somehow ended up with a houseguest overnight. What was planned as a quiet night for Eric and I became a little party, which was ok since our guest bought dinner and brought chocolate. A little chocolate goes a long way with me.

I originally intended to spend the entire last day of 2004 in bed, getting up only to eat and freshen up, but that was spoiled a bit earlier in the week when Eric scheduled a free plumbing inspection for the day. The plumber arrived and examined the house and gave us the short-term and long-term prognostication. Short-term isn't bad, thank goodness. We need work on the kitchen sink, and a little more on the bathroom sinks. A couple of hundred dollars all told, and not so crucial that it can't wait a few months. Whew. Long-term we need to be thinking about completely re-piping the house, as it would vastly improve our water pressure... and most of the house isn't really up to code. Still, we can live with it, and the plumber saw no serious threats to our health, so it'll probably stay unfixed for the foreseeable future unless a windfall manages to come our way. Such is life in Frankenhaus. At least now we know (and now a new stove is the highest Frankenhaus priority, as the old one is a fire hazard on certain settings).

Around midday a friend called and asked if she could spend New Years with us. I agreed once she said she'd bring chocolate. Then my sister called and said she was on the way up. She stopped by on the way to my brother's house where she had a blind date waiting. I'm wondering how that went... We sent our late Christmas presents to my brother's kids up with her (a bonus from my boss allowed us to buy some presents for folks, a bit late but surely appreciated nonetheless). I tried to call her about a half-hour before the clock ticked over, but my brother lives too far out for her cell phone to work.

Our friend Jen arrived a little earlier than expected, and offered to buy us pizza for dinner. That was an easy decision to make. We then read books, watched Doctor Who and Monty Python, and talked until I told hubby to turn off the DVD for the final countdown. We barely made it, as the clock was at 17 seconds til midnight when we got the TV on a local station to watch the Space Needle explode. It was a good fireworks show.

We had the traditional "first meal" of cheese, crackers, and sparkling apple cider (not hard cider). We then stayed up another hour or so watching more Monty Python until it was time to retire. Jen crashed on our couch. Once we all woke up, Eric made some corn muffins (thank you, Jiffy mix), and we had a little breakfast.

Now it's the afternoon, and Eric has gone back to bed while Jen is working her way through a stack of my graphic novels (she's on "Superman: Red Son" now, I think I'll introduce her to "PS238: Liberty and Recess for All"). I'm just puttering around the internet.

I actually spent much of yesterday getting rid of the last vestiges of Microsoft Office from my machine. The only thing I haven't deleted is Outlook, and that only because I still want access to some of the old notes but I don't feel like importing them into Thunderbird. I may give up and do that in the end, but not quite yet.

I just started switching over to Thunderbird last week, and finally made the final move once I got Calendar working. I need my task lists. Once I got Calendar to work on my machine (there were some odd problems with installation) I found that I prefer it by a wide margin to Outlook. I've got color-coded events, an always-on task list, and a full calendar visible all the time. I haven't decided yet, but I may switch over to Sunbird, which is the same program only standalone. No matter my choice, I like this much better than the barely adequate thing Outlook provides. There are some things I want improved, but I noticed them on the Calendar/Sunbird to-do list already, so I just have to wait until they happen.

I already switched to Open Office, which is better than Word and Excel in my opinion. I finally got the nerve to completely delete Word and Excel from my machine, and I haven't missed them yet. I sure confused the poor computer, but resetting all those file associations isn't a huge task, really, compared to being partially free of MS tyranny. I'm hoping to use the database functions of Open Office some more soon, and see if they can replace Access. I didn't have a working version of Access anyway, so no loss to me if they can't.

Another advantage to moving to open source software is that I'll be slightly ahead of the game if I do choose to go Microsoft-free sometime in the future. I'm not a big fan of XP, but I tolerate it. I was frustrated when I learned that some of my favorite games from DOS wouldn't work under XP. I finally got my DOS version of Command & Conquer running on this machine under XP, I'm still not sure how it works. But I'm not complaining. I like blowing up pixels every once in awhile. I ought to get a more recent game, but I like old familiar things. If I ever rebuild my desktop machine, I'll probably put Win95 on it and run old software, just for the nostalgia factor. Heck, I might even go back to Windows 3.11, I think I still have the disks.

Let's see, as long as I'm rambling on and on, how about a status report? Eric and I are stable, but not doing particularly well financially. That should improve a bit soon, as I'm able to work more hours now and Eric has his sub certification back and is working in Lake Washington district. Hopefully Eric can find a full-time position again after the debacle in Marysville. I'm still training for the 3-Day Walk, for which I've raised $140 of my $4200 goal. Hmm. I may need to get crackin' on that one. Incidently, many thanks to "Scott M" who donated $30 right before Christmas.

I already updated you on Frankenhaus, but I never did tell about what happened with the bed. We ended up getting a different bed than the one I wanted, which is, in retrospect, just fine. The new bed has made it possible for me to sleep through the night, which has in turn made it possible for me to work longer hours. It will pay for itself in about two months. As an added bonus, it's much taller than the old bed, so we've nicknamed it "bedzilla". People who read Tom Beland's 100 Stories will get the reference.

I'm fully aware that I didn't post a Saturday Sketch ™ on Christmas, and I'm afraid I won't be posting one today either. I have only three more sketches in the pipeline, so I thought a two week break would be a good idea. For my stress levels. While I haven't hit a wall in getting permissions yet, it is beginning to get a little more difficult. I never know if I'm being obnoxious and demanding, or if my original intent is coming through.

Let's see... New Year's Resolutions. I want to clean up my room, which is currently stacked up with comic books, parts of my poor deceased desktop computer, Aquaman stuff, LEGO, and various bits and bobs. Once I have that clean, I want to finish cleaning up the fish tank I got from the Foglios (yes, those Foglios) and turn it into a proper display case for my Aquaman toys. I think that's enough for me. Jen says her New Year's Resolution is to not make any New Year's Resoltions. Eric says his is to get his career back on track.

Well, there's a new year just starting out there, I suppose I should get my eyes off the computer screen and onto something useful. I guess it's time to start dragging stacks of comic books out of my room and start sorting.