Details, details. As I mentioned in the last volume, my vacation began with a visit from my parents, who will, from this point forward, be referred to as the "anti-hurricane." Of course, with parental visitation, Teresa and I began our normal cleaning procedures, which improved the state of things in the house, but, shortly after their arrival, my father informed Teresa and I that we should whip up some kind of list, as he was to commence, as he stated in his own inimitable style, "fixing shit." Suddenly, a VCR that has quite an appetite (and 10 years of service under its belt) works, a TV/VCR combo that made Baywatch look as though it was filmed in the Arctic has a picture clear as a bell, and a recalcitrant turntable is now behaving nicely. Teresa and I, sleeping in one fine morning, awoke to both of my parents weeding our backyard. The balance of their time here was spent doing moderately touristy things and seeing how the half that Teresa and I belong to lives. Oh, yes, one other thing: in celebration of my personal odometer kicking over on August 23rd, they also replaced the aformentioned 13" TV/VCR combo with a spiffy new 27 inch television. And there was much rejoicing...

Not that I'm any kind of a materialist. I see the family twice a year, on average, and not for any protracted period of time. I know it's not anything I can file for hardship over, but I must admit to being happy to see the Folks an extra time during the year. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Aside from that, I'll call the vacation a success, generally speaking. Teresa's work situation (she was...er, is...handling benefits for my employer at the moment) in combination with some car troubles prevented me from wandering across the continent with the second half of my vacation. Which is just as well -- it's quite nice not to have to deal with an avalanche of household projects when getting home from work. Doing the at-home vacation thing certainly afforded me the opportunity to get some of those things done without stress or strain. Even enjoyed it all, for the most part. Granted, there was a seed of doubt in my mind as to whether my car (which really oughta be called "The Warhorse" officially) was going to see it's 128,000th mile, but that fear seems to have subsided and everything else wound up going off swimmingly.

Of course, I promised that I would do some work on the site over vacation. I haven't lied. There is a grand total of one new page on the site, a review of Dar Williams' latest record. And this, of course. Otherwise, I updated a few pages (I did eventually pay Dave for the memory in my machine, which is now reflected on the Tech Page) and did a little more maintenance. Mostly, I turned quarter-finished projects into half-finished ones, half-finished projects into three-quarters-finished ones. Eventually there will be additions that have some beef to them on the site. Unfortunately, that day isn't today.