Well, well! (posted by Lani)

Well well, you are alive, after all. I'm glad to hear it! I know the working-two-jobs thing must really suck and I hope it'll be over for you soon; the new position, with only Western Hemisphere travel, sounds a little less stressful than what you've been doing (and a lot less stressful than what you're doing now). When things calm down, post some pictures of your knitting progress. I'd love to see that petal sweater! And -- given your new hectic schedule, are you still thinking you and yours may come college-hunting this way in February?

I checked out Don's Velocity-building site but ran out of patience with my dialup while trying to leave him a comment. I'm fascinated by the whole thing though and I'll be keeping track of his progress. I have to say too that I was so touched by what he put on his "about me" page. When life gets overly frustrating, go read that to yourself a few times. You're a lucky woman, Annie.

Here on The Frozen Mountaintop, we're still fighting for a decent internet connection. Currently we're on dialup, and not just dialup but slow dialup. If we're really, really lucky we get a 26.4 connection; usually it's more like 21.6. Painful is not even the word. Steve and Mike, one of our neighbors, spent over 5 hours yesterday trying to get us a decent connection to the local wireless coop. Results? Well. Wireless depends highly on line of sight, and we just don't have a good one. The guys spent many hours on a ladder fiddling with the angle and orientation of the antenna, and still were only able to get reception to about the same as the modem ... scratch that idea. At this point what remains is satellite; I'll talk to the folks at WildBlue on Monday and we'll see. Satellite is expensive and I've never known anyone who was happy with it, but at this point it's any port in a storm. It HAS to be better than 26.4, right?

And onwards to a few more pictures. First of all, I realized that Jasmine has been slighted since we moved; we've had pictures of Pip, and of the other cats, but none of her. She's quite happy here; she's found her preferred spot in the window in the upper stairwell, which has a nice wide ledge perfect for observing the world and supervising the household.

And more views here. I'm trying to get a good morning and evening view from the living room or bedroom, and these are the best I've managed so far. I'll keep trying, but at least these give you a bit of a feel for what we see first thing in the morning, and last thing at night.

It's kinda pretty. We kinda like it.