Morning all:

A perfect dawn, complete with a clear sky, cool temperature, and a fed dog who is now ready for a hefty hike. And hiking he will, especially after the annual, and very amazingly costly $235 veterinary visit. Healthy as a horse (is that an appropriate expression for a dog?), but a little overweight. It would appear that the occasional sneaking of cat food and a lower metabolism rate due to aging are the culprits. Not to fear, a starvation diet is here—I am joking, nevertheless the issue is being addressed. But first this post and my fresh brew, so lets get going.

Yesterday was all business. After a travel week I realized that a presentation I am giving next month needed to be with the conference organizers by the twentieth of this month, and translated into Spanish to boot. The better part was already done, but it took morning till well into the evening to tweak it into shape and combine it with an accompanying slide-show. I really don’t understand how a forty minute presentation can take hour upon hour of prep time. The meeting itself is in Cancún and Marcia, who is going with me, fails to understand any of it; after all, in Cancún isn’t it the expectation that the only thing one is required to do is laze about the beach in the hot sun?

I am a huge proponent of impulse buying. In fact, just the other day I was oh-so-close to picking up an absolutely “must have” scrolling belt buckle. Aside from being totally cool it would be such a fashion statement traipsing through, say, your average airport. See, I would absolutely never make a specific trip to a favorite scrolling belt buckle store just to wander the aisles like it was a Michaels store (see flip-flops pictured top left), but as an impulse item—perfect.

Marcia was spot-on correct this week. We finally had high-speed DSL internet service installed. The offer was made to have them, for only $100, install WiFi. I very vaguely remember the trauma at Paul’s when he and I struggled for 40 days and nights to get him squared away with a proper WiFi hookup. For some reason, with Marcia this memory is very vivid; possibly watching Paul and I crawling under tables and desks with massive “plumbers cracks” exposed is keeping this memory alive. Anyway, this is a different world. This is the world of plug-and-play. Friday, after four-hours of flying I walked in the door. An hour later had dinner, and then the race to Circuit City was on. By eight o’clock I was happily involved with the newly simplified ”plug-and-play” installation. By ten o’clock I had lost all connectivity to the internet. By midnight I did manage to get Marcia’s home computer back on line. Crawling into bed I purposely did not wake her up to happily announce this great bit of good news.

Saturday morning early my laptop was also re-connected. The WiFi router is now back in its box.

Make it a great week!
Cheers,
Dirk