CafeChatNoir

I’ve actually responded to an email chain letter.

But this one I could get on board with – an *easy* recipe exchange. Send 1 recipe, add your name, take of the top person and toss out to friends who can cook. (Mazikeen, and AUTiger23 I tagged you among others.)

Anyone else that wants in on it, drop me a comment or email.

Despite the fact that it took a while to get the router setup with the cable modem last night – it *was* working just fine.

This morning, I come downstairs, fire up my laptop, and get a connection.  I can get to my email, but not anything via browser…  ??!?

So, I’m working off my aircard for the moment and will figure out later what has already gone wrong with the router.

Or, unwired as the case may be. After a couple missteps, and many, many reboots, the server is setup in the basement, and the wireless router is on the cable modem, providing wireless access to:

2 laptops
2 TiVos
1 XBox
and possibly 1 DS

and even with all that going on, it’s still zippy fast.

And it’s about damn time…  The awesome folks at Burke Automotive were able to take care of things right away and in the time it took me to walk over to the shopping center, grab some lunch and walk back, I had a repaired tire.  $35.  Nice.

Had to pop over to the vet and pick up flea & tick stuff, and met the newest member of Dr. Alt’s family – an adorable beagle/basset/cocker mix puppy named “Jill”- she had been hit by a car and her leg was broken, someone brought her in and no owners could be located.  (How you could not miss this darling pup is beyond me.)  So, she now belongs to him.  Well, the little one couldn’t have landed in better hands for a forever home.  Her leg seems to have healed up quite well and she LOVES to make new friends.  (Much to Moxley’s dismay when I returned home and smelled like another dog.)

But I swear the tires are magnets for sharp objects. Little bro pointed out yesterday that my back right tire was low – took a look this morning, and I managed to pick up a screw in it. Last time it was a huge BOLT I managed to get in the tire. This seems to happen about every 6 months, I swear.

So, time to get enough air in the tire to get over to the mechanic and get it swapped out with the spare* and find out if the tire can be plugged or if I’ll need to order a new one.

*Yeah, I can do that myself, but it’s a PITA and I’ve no problems with letting someone else handle it.

I think it’s finally here for real!! Ran up to the store yesterday and it was SO NICE to have the windows down and the sunroof open!

Seriously, I need to step up my “move south” plan so I can get spring sooner – it took WAY too long to get here for my taste.  There are places in OBX for under $300K…  Of course, to do that right now would entail selling this place and leaving little bro homeless unless he wanted to move south as well.  Probably need to put that off for a while.

One minor downside to spring – flying critters in the house, thanks to the dog going in & out constantly. This morning there was a hornet-like thing lazily flying about the living room. All was fine and well until I stood up to open the back screen to get him out – then it was, “Oh, HI! Where did YOU come from?! I didn’t see you before!” Eep. So I’m trying to get the back screen open while ducking his trying to buzz my head – he did quickly get out once he realized his escape route was clear. But I could have done without the “friendliness”, thanks.

I’m going to upgrade WordPress this weekend – be interesitng to see if it breaks all my plugins or not.

Hundreds of villagers have flocked to a remote Indian village to see a baby girl who was saved by stray dogs after she was abandoned in a mound of mud by her mother, officials said on Tuesday.

Once again, I’m more impressed with animals than people.

OK, so maybe by the end of the day we’ll know who the Democratic presidential nominee will be – or not.

What I am quite interested in (among other things) is to see how the results sync up (if at all) with the “straw poll” organized by Stephen Colbert on DonorsChoose.org – at the moment, Obama is leading $157K in donations to Clinton’s $29K.  Obviously there is no way to know if any of the folks that donated are even voting in today’s election, but it does say to me that Stephen Colbert’s viewers tend to be generous, and there are a fair amount of Obama supporters in there.

Guess we’ll see if that extends to the state of Pennsylvania tonight.

I find it amusing how many things I’ve stumbled across today saying, “Be green by buying [insert whatever here]!”

While I can’t say I live as “greenly” as I could, somehow I don’t think buying stuff is going to help.

The biggest thing I could/should do it move to a smaller place in a more temperate climate, but I have a dog that wouldn’t make a great condo/apartment dog, so I stay here with the yard.  It’s all his fault. :)

Thunderstorms all day! While it is not a fit day to go anywhere or do anything, I still love thunderstorms.

However, the dog has a slightly different opinion of them, and not as positive as mine. He’s currently down in the basement – my brother can’t even hear the thunder down there and just came up and asked, “What have you been doing to the dog?!”