The site isn’t quite finished yet, but I’m writing here anyway. MT 3.3 is pretty slick. I’m now only two years behind the technology curve instead of four, which will provide things like better spam filtering, a refined editing space, and better plugins. After this exercise is finished, I’m going to take a long hard look at upgrading to 4.1 now that my puzzle-solving synapses have warmed up.
Other than that, things around Idiot Central are pretty quiet. On Saturday I stopped over to the Beerfather’s house to bottle the result of our efforts: two and a half cases of wheat beer, sitting neatly in the basement fermenting on the shelf where I stored the bin full of Scout parts. He and I are hatching plans to go wrenching on the truck this coming weekend, something that leaves me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth: I’m excited for him. His enthusiasm reminds me of myself ten years ago when I had a lot more money and big plans for my new truck, but it will admittedly be hard not to feel like I failed in my efforts to keep it in shape. So I’ll be bringing a box of tissues along with my socket sets on Sunday, and try to keep the blubbering to a minimum.
I’m also signed up for some photography this weekend—the paying kind, and it will have me dusting off the panoramic rig for the tripod I was testing out last spring. I have to buy some cheap spotlights this week, and I’ll have to spring for a copy of Stitcher to process the photos, but I’m excited to finally start working on this for real, and this time it’s all paid for.
My Mom’s new MacBook showed up last Friday, and I’ve played with it only enough to update the software. It’s a really nice little machine—it feels solid, it’s quick, and she’s going to get a kick out of the built-in camera as well as a fresh battery. I got her old Pismo in the mail yesterday, so I’m going to transfer her data over and set her up with a chat account so I can use screen sharing to troubleshoot any problems with her machine. Meanwhile, I’m helping Jen’s father work through problems with his wireless printer. Troubleshooting Vista over the phone has been like doing this year’s taxes while guiding a non-english speaker through a root canal on a CB radio. He will explain what he sees on his screen, and I will frantically Google whatever he can describe to figure out what to do (I don’t own a copy, and am trying to avoid buying one). Adding to the pain is the fact that his patch cords have all vanished, leaving him with no way to directly connect to his printer. Argh!
Guitar lessons have gone reasonably well; I missed last week’s lesson but got back in the groove this Tuesday. It’s to the point now where I miss playing it if I go too long without it, which I’m taking as a good sign. I also broke down and bought an electric tuner after consistently coming in for lessons out of tune.
Add to all of this the fact that it’s half past February and I’ve only done one illustration this year. I need to clone myself.