October 25, 2000

miss my books, most of all. I've got a few of them, collected over the years. I started buying them back in High School, when I started going to Science Fiction Conventions. You could walk into the "huckster" room and buy them used for 15 to 35 cents each. I filled out several important collections that way, Bob Heinlein, Andre Norton, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke. This was back before science fiction had become as mainstream as it is now, in the dark years before Star Wars (which isn't science fiction at all, but whats the point of arguing?) My parents were kind enough to have a friend create a bookcase similar to the ones they'd had for years, a simple board and post construction, easily taken down and moved, yet large enough to handle my bourgening collection. In Virginia, in my condo, I had enough space to put them all against a wall in my bedroom. When I moved to Mooville, I put the bookcase up in the basement of the house I was living in. Since I've moved to the apartment, however, they've been stored away in boxes (kindly held in Suz's basement). I'm sure they are grumbling in there, anxious to get aired out and see the light of day, to be held kindly in someone's hands, to be read, each page lovingly turned as the story reaches its denoument. ::sigh:: I wish I could afford a larger apartment. Just an extra bedroom is all I need, and I could liberate those books and give them air to breathe!

The reason this came to mind last night is that I spent another 2 hours on the phone holding for AT&T's @home people. When I got home, web pages were taking 30 to 45 minutes to load. This time, I got to someone who actually listened, and he set up an appointment to have someone come out and check all the local equipment on November 2 before work. The weird thing is, 15 minutes after I finished the phone call (shortly after midnight) the problem cleared up, and my speed was back to normal. In any case, there are only so many non-intrusive games you can play while waiting on hold, and I wanted to grab a book and read it while I was waiting....

Suz was kind enough to give me the opportunity to play with her camera yesterday. I have to admit, I am impressed. It seems to be extremely intuitive, and very much like a simple point & shoot 35mm camera. The image quality is impressive, although I still want to try a 5x7 print, but all in all, it seems to be just about perfect. Now, I need to roust her out of her house one of these weekends and go somewhere where we can take pictures.

I think this is a quiet week for me... I've got my head buried in numbers, working on a proposal for a new phone system, trying to save a little money. We'll see. In any case, I've got a couple of things to do before work this morning. Ta!