Bringing things up to date

I've been busy; except for my long, rambling 9/11 meditation I haven't posted much since Labor Day. One of the reasons was the purchase, already mentioned, of the new laptop, plus Tropical Storm Hannah's visit; it takes a while to get all the computers talking to each other (I had to network a Windows ME computer, which becomes Sarah's now (and which I hope to clean up enough to load XP), with one running XP and one running Vista; I'm rather surprised I succeeded. Those of you using Macs will, as always, wonder why we even bother. Because all our employers are PC-based. Betamax was better than VHS, too, but it didn't win.) That's mostly up to speed now (a printer or two still to install to it, but all three computers are talking nice). And Sarah of course is plunging into third grade, and I'm on deadline for the fall issue at work, and so on and so forth.

The new laptop will be good on trips, since it has a built-in webcam, and a lot of power, compared to the aging 2001 laptop (bought just before we went to China) or even to our desktop, now about two years old.

Oh, and yesterday was my birthday. I'm 61. I have no idea how this happened. Last I remember, I was about 27. Anyway it doesn't inspire the same reflections I had on turning 60, since it's not quite the same sort of marker, but I guess I should note it. And to return to the theme I first laid out in this post, Churchill turned 61 in 1935. He was very much in the political wilderness, and the following year, when he turned 62, he would burn all his bridges by supporting King Edward VIII against his own party in the abdication crisis. So obviously he was a failure, right? Oh, yeah, later he saved Western Civilization. There's hope for us Geezers yet.

I won't add much at this point to our posts on the vacation and the Labor Day weekend away, but I will note that between August 8 and September 1, less than a month, we managed to be in seven states* and the District of Columbia. While we weren't trying to carve notches in our van's hood or anything, Sarah found this interesting. (We were also within 20 miles of Pennsylvania but couldn't bring ourselves to do it: Sarah's been in Pennsylvania before anyway. The only really artificial trip in that lot was the brief foray into South Carolina, blogged about here, and we weren't really trying for some kind of record even then.

More when I can. Be merciful. I'm 61.

*Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Maryland and West Virginia, plus DC.

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