OK, so I did it. It was totally crazy, absolutely insane, and uncalled for, but I did it. I am the high bidder for a 400Mhz PowerBook with a 12 gig drive, firewire, DVD, 64MB of RAM, and the cool black case. I paid a total of $834 with shipping (UPS Ground). Technically I don’t have the money for this, but my thinking is like this: I need a Mac for the house and I need one for work. I wanted another PowerBook. I have 128MB of spare RAM sitting in my toybox for this machine. This machine has everything the new iBooks have plus DVD and a larger screen, and it’s at least $400 cheaper than an iBook outfitted roughly the same. And it’s a fantastic deal. Now I am hoping that it arrives clean and undamaged.

This is a beautiful site; I need to look it over when I have time.

10:32 PM Well, I got a bunch of things done today that I was looking forward to accomplishing. Firstly, the concrete lip in my backyard (a holdover from the days when there was a corrugated steel garage there) is gone; there was about a three-inch ledge which conveniently tripped you as you took the garbage out. It’s now gone, which is step two for beginning work back there. The reason I got it done today is that the back alley is a warzone and the guys working on it will remove the concrete free, which is a big consideration around here (Baltimore City recycling does not accept concrete or brick.)

I’m exhausted, though. I borrowed a 12-lb maul from the contractors and swung that for about 2 hours- that’ll put some muscles on you. I think I’m just drained more than sore. It’s kind of a shocker to get older- I’m not springing back like I was at 25, and no amount of couch time has motivated me to get moving again.

Before the hard labor, though, I got the patch up on the ceiling above the couch and cleaned it up; with a good sanding and coat of paint, there will be no trace of the old ugly track lighting. And there’s drywall around the other ares that have been bugging me as well; we’ll sand them and clean it all up maybe tomorrow night.