January 2006


Aunt Lauren in Town

I was at home all day today. Although I don’t really remember much of what happened today, there was one event of circumstance. Aunty Lauren and Arien arrived in New Orleans this afternoon. They’ll be staying with us for a couple days while Aunt Lauren tries to decide if she wants to return to New Orleans. They’re currently residing in Virginia Beach because of a job opportunity with Aunt Lauren’s employer. We had boiled crabs and shrimp for dinner.

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Another Moving Day

With the U-Haul truck still in our driveway after yesterday’s empty-the-garage operation, there was obviously more moving to be done. Dad and I left the house in the truck at about 11 this morning. With renovation at what will be Dad’s new Metairie office, we had a place to move the contents of the old Mid-City office. So we did that today. The Russell Building, where the old Mid-City office is, the first one he opened, was flooded with about five feet of water. Luckily, the clinic occupied the second floor, which received no water damage. Dad had been to the office previously to retrieve some things, but most of the office’s contents remained, including all the furniture. Since there was no electricity in the deserted building, the elevator and lights didn’t work. Having no electric light in a windowless office was a significant inconvenience. Dad bought a lantern and we had a few flashlights on hard, but it was still quite dark. Having no elevator was also unfortunate, as all the furniture and dozens of file boxes had to be carried down a narrow stairwell with only the help of a hand truck. We were lucky, however, with the climate inside. It was cool and not unpleasant and there was no prevailing smell. Before we could start loading the truck, Dad had to force a door on the ground level, which was nailed shut. I started by emptying the contents of the desks into a couple boxes. Eventually I got around to the Hydrocollator, which was full of rather rancid water. I wasn’t able to drain it with a hose because the drain was clogged and I didn’t feel like sticking my arm in that water so I had dad help me tip it over into the tub in the bathroom, which was considerably quicker than my usual routine. Not long after that, Don arrived. He helped with some things, sort of. He provided more melodrama than assistance, quite honestly. Eventually we got around to the furniture. We started with the six treatment tables. It was quite an ordeal getting them down the steps. Once we got the hang of it, we were out of tables. We also used the hand truck to more a couple of desks and a metal bookshelf. We also carried down about a dozen various chairs. By around three we had the 20 foot truck loaded. We drove out to the new office in Metairie off Veterans. This was my first time seeing the inside of what will be the new clinic. It’s certainly the nicest facility we’ll have. Unloading the truck was considerably easier and quicker than the loading part. There were lights in the new place and there were no stairs to worry about. We put the treatment tables in various rooms but most of the stuff was put in one large room to the left. I guess we’ll sort it all out next week. We were finished sometime just before five. Having gone without any food all day, I insisted on a stop and McDonalds. We did stop but they just closed so I was out of luck. We took the transit lane across the river as traffic was pretty had on the highway. We drove the truck back to U-Haul. Mom met us there to take us home. I don’t remember really doing anything after getting home, as I was rather tired anyway. I do remember a bit of unrest in the house because Dad couldn’t find his car keys. The next day Dad found them in the truck.

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Garage Liberation

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The Weekend

I don’t remember Saturday, but I’m sure computer use and TV watching was involved. On Sunday, later in the afternoon after church, we all went over to see Chris Rouselle and his mother, both friends of Dad. The trip was part social call and part tech support. Chris needed help setting up a cable high speed internet connection and new digital cable TV boxes, both pretty simple matters. Before getting into any of that work, we sat around for a while and talked, mostly about the events of the past few months. After that, I got to fooling with the internet thing. I got all the hardware hooked up without any trouble, but after quite a while, I couldn’t get the modem’s cable light to come up. The only answer phone tech support could give us was that the signal was too weak or there was some sort of filter on the line. It wasn’t something we could fix and Chris had to schedule a visit for a cable guy. I think we got home before five although I’m not quite sure. Nothing of particular circumstance took place this evening. I think I watched some TV for a while and late in the evening I spoke to Ami on the phone for an hour or so.

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Week of January First

Yet again, I haven’t been motivated to post each day at the beginning of this new year. Not much has been going on anyway. Dad made the ‘traditional’ white beans and cabbage rolls for dinner on the first. I worked for a little while on Tuesday. This week I’ve been watching Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes which I missed while I was at Tech. I’ve also watched a number of Battlestar Galactica episodes again, in ‘preparation’ for the show’s return. One thing that’s had my attention this week is the Consumer Electronics Show. I’m obviously not lucky enough to be in Las Vegas for this, although I’m sure I will be someday, I’ve been following the online coverage pretty enthusiastically. I watched the Bill Gates keynote webcast on Wednesday night some interesting stuff. Overall there’s been lots of cool stuff announced. Of particular interest to me are new PMP’s with Windows Media Center Edition and 300 gigabyte holographic versatile discs. Ofcourse CES wouldn’t be complete without big-ass TVs too, like Matsushita’s 103 inch plasma. In the end though, there are just two kinds of products shown at CES: really cool ones and really cool ones nobody will buy. I guess the whole Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD thing is newsworthy too. I think HD-DVD is gonna come out on top though. Simply being backed by Microsoft is pretty insurmountable in my opinion. It’s also cheaper, region-free and there’s less DRM bullshit (no AACS). On Thurday, we had a high-definition satellite system from Dish Network installed in the house. Technically, the service technician from an independent contractor. He was here from about four until about eight. I guess that wasn’t too long considering the work involved. The dish had to be mounted from a pole for some reason rather than bolted onside the house probably some legal crap, because I can’t believe the dish is that heavy. The pole was put in the middle of the back yard, which I’m sure mom is non-too-pleased about. He also had to dig a trench to bury the cable to the edge of the house. Judging from the work after-the-fact, he didn’t have the right kind of shovel for the job. A small switch box had to be mounted on the side of the house and coaxial cable had to be run to three rooms in the house. Lines were run to each of our houses three bedrooms. While I’d love to believe I now have satellite TV in my bedroom at no personal expense due to my parent’s generosity, I tend to think the cost was the same for just one room. The way it’s set up, there is no actual box in my room. I have an radio frequency remote that operates off the DVR in my parent’s room with some sort of dual TV mode. There’s a generic receiver box in Andrew’s room. It’s nice not to have any more hardware cluttering my room, but having just a coax cable coming into my room prevents me from using my stereo for audio since I don’t have audio out jacks on my TV. In any event, I hope to eventually have this hooked up to my eventually HDTV capable computer. SciFi Friday returned this evening, a big deal in my universe. There were new episodes of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and most importantly, Battlestar Galactica. Each show ended with a cliffhanger a few months ago. While both Stargate shows were pretty decent, and I’m a fan of both, they now seem like mere pre-game shows for BSG. I’m not in the habit of reviewing TV shows in my log and I’m too tired to start now, so I’ll let it suffice to say tonight’s episode was fantastic. There was plenty of action and tension to spare. I think I can safely say the show is going to get even better and by better I don’t mean things are looking up for the characters. Judging by the large size of this post, I guess I better get back to daily entries.

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