Umm.

Help?

Help.

Help!

Help?!

Help!

Help!

Help!!

Help.

HELLPP!

HELPPP!?!

HELP!!

HEELLPPP!!!

HELP_HELP!!

HELP!  S.O.S.  HELP!

A little assistance would be appreciated here.  Help!!

MAYDAY!  SOS!  HELP!!

Peace (Please,) Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"This stuff is breeding.  I swear that there is more of it here than before I started pitching, donating, moving, and storing it.  Maybe its found a way to sneak back in behind my back." - Doc

The good news is that I lived.  The bad news may be the same.  Number One Son, First-Mate, and First-Father-In-Law all arrived within a few minutes of each other to help me move furniture and breakables yesterday.  Why did everyone listen to my begging and piteous pleading all at once?  I appreciate it more than they can know.  I also was expecting possibly one of the group to come gather some of the stuff that I had given them or that I might possibly be able to convince them that they wanted.  I underestimated the situation. 

I had been up much of the night packing storage items and sorting more things into general categories.  I arrived home from the first trip to the storage space expecting either a call from Number One Son, or First-Mate to arrive at about 1:00 p.m. or 2:00 p.m.  I heard the doorbell from my dazed doze as the first notice of their early arrival.  #1S showed up only moments before F-M and F-F-I-L.  They had driven vehicles that were exactly the kind needed for moving the items of most concern to me; the medium sized 1920's antique floor lamp, a TV and antique table (that may have been antique TV and table,) a family antique sheet music cabinet, a faux Tiffany glass shaded table lamp, an antique hall table, and so on.  The items that I could not fit into my compact car but didn't trust the moving crew to treat with sufficient care. 

Cut to the scene about three hours later.  All items had arrived at the apartment unscathed except for my left knee (but that was to be expected.)  All were appropriately tired except for me.  I think #1S and F-M were afraid they would have to move me back to the house.  We had a short but wild celebration which included Pepsi, Ensure type nutritional drinks, and somewhat glazed smiles. 

On my part, I was glad to see such things as a weed whacker, hedge trimmer, heavy duty mil. spec. shelving, a nearly unused lawnmower, a new collapsing ladder, new clothing, other family antiques and mementos, and even the huge turtle shell find good homes.  More will be given before or after the move is completed.  When I realized how many computer carcasses, CRT's, and unused parts I still had lying around, I was able to promise #1S a working setup in a large Dell tower that can be expanded upon as I am able.  He seemed pleased !  Then again, he seemed quite pleased with the turtle shell, also.  Perhaps I can devise something totally unique and mount a monitor in the shell.

I'll shortly be back to boxing books and focusing on really important concerns such as whether the DSM-IV-R should be packed next to Mr. Wizard's Science Secrets or to 2001:  A Space Odyssey.  Meanwhile, I'm waiting till my back will bend again and reassuring The Boys.  Bittle, the black longhair, is taking no chances and has taken to sleeping in my black carry-on bag and Stinky is not getting very far away from me.  Clearly they suspect something.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"The cat is above all things, a dramatist." - Unknown

Two entries published this close together is not a normal routine for me.  I fell asleep last night before I got the previous one posted.  I suppose that's OK, though.  I have more to add to the continuing saga. 

I awoke early this afternoon in pain from the foam pads I had slept on.  It had seemed to me that if one thin layer was good, eight more would be much better.  I do not understand the physical principles involved, but nine layers of this closed cell foam had a compression factor close to that of damp concrete.  I awoke briefly on three occasions during the night to remove extremely hard objects which had somehow gotten between the foam and me.  They were pressing into my body with enough force to be very painful.  One was a seam on my jeans.  That was a very effective demonstration of reality that "awoke" me to the true properties of the foam.  It seems quite strange to me that one 3/4 inch layer of this stuff is actually more comfortable than a pile of it.  When I have less to do, I may research this phenomenon.  Tonight, however, I may try a few layers of bubble wrap.  Given the soundness of my sleep lately, the popping and snapping when I moved will be unlikely to bother me.

When I became less grumpy and the cats weren't actively avoiding me, I checked to see if the huge pile of refuse had been taken from the front yard.  It was gone!  Miracles may happen after all.  If there is any way the waste and recycling trucks have of tallying up an average of how much they take from any single property over time, I deserve this service.  There have been months that I have had so little to put out that only one pickup a month was needed.  I'll have one last pickup for them on Halloween, but then they'll be rid of me.  The new owner will immediately start remodeling and will have a construction sized dumpster in the driveway.  He has further said to just leave anything I can't get moved and it will be discarded.  I am making a strong effort to only leave him useable stuff (lawn and garden tools and chemicals, lots of unopened house paint, decorative and construction materials, driveway sealer, fencing tools, some fairly good furniture, deck furniture, a window air conditioner, and so on) but I am also aware that our definitions of "useful" may differ widely.

By the way.  I hired a moving company today.  It didn't seem too soon, so I did it.  I was very lucky to find a local company that will move my greatly reduced amount of stuff, starting at 8:00 a.m. on the morning of the 31st, my last possible day of occupancy.  Sometimes planning works well.  At other times hard work is best.  In this case, pure dumb luck played a significant role.  This also applied to my charitable donations, as the charity contacted me on a phone line that I rarely use except for faxing or the Internet, asking if I had anything to donate.  That pickup is scheduled for the morning of the 30th, a day before the move and is comprised of at least five large bags and two large boxes of clothing and other items.

Much remains to be done, but it will be manageable.  At this point in time, it is primarily packing and moving small items - computer stuff, books, bills, computer stuff, kitchen utensils and glassware, files, computer stuff, boxes of gone, candles, computer stuff, modeling materials and models, small tools, computer stuff ...

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"It isn't procrastination if you put it off right away."

Today was a day of accomplishments.  One of the ways I can tell is that I am writing while lying on nine sheets of closed cell foam of the type one might use for groundcover while backpacking, only harder.  I am doing this because my bed is gone.  I am hoping that Waste Management will remove it from the front yard without complaint so I don't have to order a special pickup.  If the mattress and box springs were the only large items there, I would not be so concerned.  There are many more, including an ornate curio case in the shape of a coffee table.  Two hinge areas of the wooden frame were broken on this all-beveled glass surface "thing."  There must be a sophisticated name for it, but Number One Son, who brought it home from a furniture store where he worked some time ago, referred to it as "Cinderella's Casket."  He was here to help move some of the larger, heavier objects this afternoon and even he agreed that nobody would ever "get a round tuit" in the repair process.  It went.

Firstborn also stopped off here after work to help me sort clothing to donate to charity.  I was happy to have her help on two levels.  First, she knew what was still reasonably close to being in style so that I wouldn't donate unusable items.  Secondly, she was less emotionally attached to them and could make those judgements more objectively.  She admitted that even she was not entirely objective and took several of her own, previously abandoned, "Hippie" garments home with her.

I'll leave again, now, to take a few more things to the apartment, check to see if an order arrived, take the rest of the boxes and bags of garbage out.  Then I think I'll collapse until I wake of my own accord.  Actually, I tend to do that anyway as no alarm in the house seems to have the power to wake me.  Panic dreams do.  Cats standing on my chest do.  Just not alarm clocks.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

Just a quick report to go with your coffee this morning.  I haven't hurt myself (yet) today in this continuing moving and storage effort.  I did, however, break my ducky.

It isn't much of a duck, really, but I like it.  It is an old decoy that might make it into the collectible category or might simply be seen as an old duck.  As I was loading the car last night for this morning's first load, I dropped the decoy on the garage floor.  It struck the ground beak first and broke such that the beak is still attached where it would normally hinge to open and close.  The bottom portion of the beak now hangs down at a surprised looking 30 degree angle from the upper part.  It resembles the AFLAC insurance company advertising character trying to get out of the way of the start of a NASCAR race.  It could be invisibly repaired with a small amount of glue.  I'm not sure I'll fix it, though.  It seems to have more character the way it looks now.  It also feels like it better fits my personality.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

" ... Body all achin' an' wracked wid pain, Tote dat barge! Lif' dat bale! ... " - OL' MAN RIVER from the Broadway Musical "Show Boat" (1927) Jerome Kern / Oscar Hammerstein II.

Saturday was spent moving "stuff," as I suspect every day between now and the first of November will be.  Progress is being made.  The oriental rug I had carted to the apartment on Thursday or Friday has not completely uncurled from the tight roll it had been stored in.  It looked a lot like a cross between a magic flying carpet and a toboggan, with one end curled up and the rest of it looking pretty much OK.  I now understand why stores hang them from racks or lay them flat, however.  I'll probably have to steam it or something to get the wrinkles and curls out, but temporarily I am simply leaving anything heavy or flat that I move on top of the end that curls up.  It now has upon it an office chair (still in its box,) two large rolls of plastic-backed, absorbent toweling material (for the cat pooping area,) and a wooden shoe shelf.  It will continue to be flattened in this manner until one of us gives up.

The car is partially loaded with clothing and more linens that I found in a closet that I had forgotten.  With a few more items added, it will be ready for another trip in the morning.  The trips back and forth are taking more time than the packing and unloading.  I wish I still had my Ranger pickup truck, but I donated it to charity just before it got to a quarter million miles.  That's another story I'll have to write about sometime.  Installing or removing the camper cap alone earned me the nickname of "The Aluminum Turtle."

After a short nap in the afternoon, I started packing things and loading the car again, but the sun set before I was able to start the last trip so I delayed it till morning.  I made a mistake, there.  That was when life turned somewhat stranger.  I had a quick meal and lay down again to "rest."  I fell asleep, of course, but awoke again when I felt the need to relieve myself.  Without feeling any need for planning, I got off the bed and started toward the bathroom.  Mistake.  My right foot wasn't there.  It was still "asleep" in the sense of no feeling or control due to lack of blood supply for some while.  I didn't expect or even realize this until I had stumbled into the dresser, caromed off a wall and caught myself at the closet door.  I did not fall down!  Instead, I somehow bumbled that far with all six or eight toes on that foot turned under and my ankle twisted.  I simply felt surprised and stupid at the moment.  It took at least a minute for me to realize that it hurt.  I quickly assessed the situation and decided that it would be safest to return to bed.  Time would tell, I thought.

The little death of sleep quickly returned.  I awoke at about 1:00 a.m. wondering whether that was metaphorical or actual.  In that "slightly above alpha" state of waking, I realized that it was very quiet.  The only "sound" I could discern was the hissing song of the tinnitus I have had for many years.  I decided to open an eye.  Eeee!  I could see nothing.   Was I dead?  No, my foot and toes still hurt.  That seemed to constitute a positive bit of information.  Was I blind or deaf?  Possibly.  I had to rule that out somehow.  No TV, no lamp, no digital clock, no light coming in the windows.  The latter could have been due to the facts that it was night and the draperies were closed.  I was somewhat reluctant to try to walk in the darkness on a foot of doubtful reliability.  Enlightenment came in the form of a text message on my cell phone from Number One Son.  The beeping and blinking were quite reassuring, and I now have the latest of his three phone numbers in a month.  The electric power had gone out while I was asleep.  When I hobbled to a window, I saw the service truck down the road, presumably working to fix it as power returned in another half hour.  I will limit further comment to the observations of how dependent I have become on electricity and what strange directions my thoughts take when it is dark, soundless, and no "entertainment" is present.

I suppose I should go pack some more stuff now, so I am ready to leap into action when the sun rises.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"Life is what happens when you can't get to sleep." - Fran Lebowitz

That is really more of a philosophical question than not knowing where I live.  For the next two weeks, I have two places that might be referred to as home.  I haven't detached from one or attached to the other yet.  I don't know how long that will take.  I think that it will happen, but I'm not certain.  I left the Chicago Title office yesterday afternoon with official checks in hand, trying to look confident and knowledgeable.  Actually, I was somewhat befuddled and I'll have to carefully read the copies of all the sales contracts several times to comprehend it completely.  As I left, I was thinking about what still needed to be done that afternoon and the way I phrased it to myself was revealing.  "OK, I have to get some groceries and then go back to 'the house' ..."  What am I to do when I get back to "the house?"  Pack more stuff to transport to "the apartment." 

Linguistically, as a reflection of my emotions, it surely doesn't seem like I can accept either as "home" at this point in time.  I suppose it partially explains why I have had such difficulty separating from "my stuff," even to such silly thoughts as not being allowed to use my drill press in the middle of the night when living in an apartment.  When was the last time that I actually used it in the wee hours?  Five years ago?  Eight?  Maybe 10.  Many of the things one may own or may do, are only the potential and not the actuality.  I suspect that it would have been in the Apartment Rental Agreement, if anyone had been strange ... enough like me to think of it, that I would not be allowed to practice Flamenco dancing in the kitchen while playing the bagpipes at 3:00 a.m.  I had never thought of doing that in my life until I tried to find a ridiculous example of what I am "losing," and I am relatively certain that it would never have occurred to me to do it, even in my own home.  Still, now that I have written it, I have made myself aware that it was something that was possible, will no longer be possible, and is therefore perceived as a loss.  Clearly, if I never thought of it, it is not very much of a loss or constraint, but I think I have depicted perceived loss in a way most are unlikely to forget.  Certainly there are real and perceived gains involved, as there are losses.

Now that this relatively complicated sale has been completed, without realtors or their fees, with a much smaller attorney's fee than I had expected, and to the apparent full satisfaction of both the buyers and the seller, I can finally say that it was worth it to go through the uncertainty and frustrations of making the transaction in this manner.  As I concentrate on the positive aspects, there are many.  There will be no more concerns about lawn mowing or keeping the neighborhood association at bay.  I will again be living within my income and be able to do and have some of life's extras that I had previously denied myself.  One fact that could go either way (or more likely both) is that the unit I leased has exactly the same floor plan as the first apartment I lived in, in that complex, when I was 22.  It is bound to dredge up memories that run the gamut of the emotions of then and now.  To give myself the best chance for enjoyment, I am trying to use family antique furniture, possessions that have been associated with happiness in the past, make a picture wall of people and events that were and are important to me, join some desired new things with old and familiar ones, and have my interior design consultant (Firstborn) tell me why what I have in mind is so out of date and what it is that I really should have.  She manages a home furnishings store and really is in an excellent position to know (not to mention her discount.)

After six months of waiting, working, and hoping for this sale, it is finally an accomplished fact.  Now all that remains is getting all the stuff I want moved and getting used to it.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain

Life has certainly moved to the left and into the fast lane over the past week, complete with a bit of road rage.  I did not know to a certainty that the sale would finally go through until last Thursday.  Since then I have spoken to lawyers six times in a 24-hour period and re-rented the apartment I had told the company I simply couldn't be sure about renting (a space of two days passing between taking my name off the list and handing over lots of deposits, cat fees, and pro-rated rent.)  I've gotten the electric service almost transferred (different companies, same volts and amps.  One simply buys power from the other.)  I'm working at changes of address, trying to determine what furniture I will be able to fit into the apartment and where, accomplishing a transfer of phone service, and possibly even getting a fast Internet connection.  Woo hoo!  I think I'm finally a believer.

Firstborn, First Mate, and First Father-In-Law came over last night to get some family antique furniture and books.  The bookcase doesn't sound too hard to move until you know it is a rustic, glass-fronted and mirrored monster, hand made from the wood of a piano destroyed in a 1917 tornado.  Lots of weight and family history there.  Also leaving was a treadle type sewing machine that the Nolan's mother had used as a seamstress to support her family after her husband drowned (and the same machine that I used to sew the interior panels for my Model A Ford hot rod.)  A first edition (second or third printing) collection of the complete works of Charles Dickens accompanied the bookcase.  I'm not sure where the set of "all the authors of the world who ever wrote anything" came from, but they got that, too.  First-Mate will be back soon to get a folding ladder, a weed whacker, several metal shelving units, and anything else I can con him into believing that he wants.

Yesterday afternoon I received a call that was absolutely meant to happen from AmVets asking if I had any donations for pickup this month.  It came in on the phone line that is usually in use for fax or dial up.  "Oh Man, did you hit the jackpot!  I certainly do!"  I hope their truck is large enough when they make the pickup on the 30th.  I have until midnight of October 31 to get out of Dodge.  All things considered, I think Halloween (The Night of the Dead) is somehow an appropriate deadline.

Tomorrow, at some time as yet unannounced to me, there will occur the official walkthrough by the buyer (possibly four generations of them as happened last time.)  According to the standard real estate contract, the premises are to be "broom clean."  Hee hee, ha ha, whoop, ho ho, snort, and cough (that is the best I can represent maniacal laughter in print.)  In certain places one cannot even see the floor, much less know if it is broom clean.  I'll have to keep at that, I suppose.

I have to get back to work at this undertaking, so I'll end with two photos; one of the very first thing I moved into the apartment and one of the first piece of furniture moved.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"First things first, but not necessarily in that order." - Doctor Who

I have not posted the vast majority of details about selling this house.  I have survived enough practical, financial, and emotional peaks and troughs in this series of events, that I have tried to inflict upon the reader only minor things such as FEMA and falling on my butt while taking old computer magazines out to the garbage.  Whining may have its place, but I don't want to drive anyone away.  I'm not particularly superstitious, but I have been actively pursuing this sale since it was first proposed to me in April and I didn't want to announce anything prematurely.  It was not a matter of advertising, getting a realtor to do their job, fixing up the fixable, or even any of the parties involved not being certain that they wanted to go through with the transaction.  My belief, when I don't understand a major situation is, "Follow the money" and you won't be too far off.  I believe that was the case here, with lending institutions being unwilling to loan money to anyone who needed it.

Please note that I was writing in the past tense in the paragraph above.  The buyers have secured their mortgage and I have a firm closing date next week.  I am now officially worried.  There is no way I will be able to finish cleaning out this house by myself in that amount of time, even though there has been great progress.  As the closing date was supposed to be at the end of the month, I feel far behind.  I shall simply have to hire large people with a truck to help. 

Several events have occurred that have convinced even the suspicious, cynical part of me that this is finally real.  I have spoken to attorneys six times in the past twenty-four hours, had the time of closing changed, and had my laptop make an electronic mortgage payment that was supposed to have been canceled.  I found that I had not entirely understood the sales contract and would get about $3000 less than I thought.  I firmly stood my ground and got that amount changed by at least $100.  The security deposit on the apartment I have leased (I was lucky enough to re-rent the one I had wanted) was $500 for me and $300 for the cats.  I found that strange, for some reason.  I am allowed to "rent" the house until the end of the month to complete my move.  This seems only fair as the buyer postponed the closing date three times and then wanted almost immediate occupancy.

Early Thursday morning I fell halfway down the basement stairs and ended up under a model railroad layout that I was trying to get to the garbage, and twice more since then.  At least I seem to have learned how to fall down reasonably well.  I am amazed that I have yet to harm myself seriously.  Black and blue polka dots, definitely, but nothing awful.  I even repaired the furnace without blowing myself up during the week.

Now that I have a storage space, a house, and an apartment, I have started my series of trips with small loads of things to and from each.  I have given up my obsessive sorting, filing, and labeling of items and gone to a much simpler form of preparation.  All the stacks of papers in the office get thrown in a box and will be sorted later.  All small tools get the same treatment, as do linens and towels, clean clothes, dirty clothes, kitchen supplies, and anything else that can be fit into a Cavalier coupe.  (The dirty clothes were bagged separately, just in case you wondered.)  I will hire large people with a truck to move anything that I can't deal with in this manner or that might seriously harm or kill me if it fell on me.

Although I have lived in the same apartment complex previously and like it, two things continue to bother me.  The apartment is clean, empty, and it will never be "mine" in the sense of using a drill press at midnight or changing anything I don't like about it.  I won't ever get the backyard certified by the National Wildlife Federation.                                          

Old Magazines

Bright shiny new life

Forty pounds of memories

Impeding movement

On the plus side of this move is the possibility that it may force me to concentrate on the positive things in my life that can actually be accomplished and give me the time, freedom, and spare cash to do so.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed." - Irene Peter

Have you noticed a recent confusion within Microsoft about the design and marketing of its software?  I think I am seeing one but I am not an expert. 

• Vista sales and installations have not been going as well as Microsoft had hoped when this operating system was introduced approximately one year ago.  Some businesses have been reluctant to adopt it due to incompatibilities with other companies' software and due to some of its own internal instabilities.  See this Google search which returns 51,200,000 responses to the search phrase - Vista problems.  A Service Pack for Vista is already due out soon, according to many sources listed in the second link.  Vista seems to be somewhat "heavy" for home computers and is not as willingly accepted as was XP, especially because the really neat features are only available in the premier business versions, and at a greatly increased cost.  Of course the Vista OS was primarily developed for business use from the start.  Several months back, there was a somewhat disparaging joke that Vista was little more than Windows XP SP3, at least as far as the home user was concerned.  Now, however, it is evidently not a joke.  Microsoft has already set a release date for XP Service Pack 3.  Further, Microsoft has twice delayed the date that all new Windows computers must be supplied with a version of Vista.  I believe the latest deadline is at the end of 2007.  Some computer manufacturers are taking advantage of this delay to continue to supply Windows XP machines.
• Microsoft has begun to compete more actively and directly with Google and Sun, its primary rivals for online services.  Other free office suites are available, such as the free, downloadable OpenOffice.org suite, the free IBM Lotus Symphony, the free web based Zoho Office Suite and others.  Since Google has affiliated with Sun Microsystems the two corporations have gone into direct competition with Microsoft.   They are offering OpenOffice, the open source office suite which Sun helped develop in 2000, and the basis upon which Sun's commercial Star Office was built.  This affiliation will provide much more than the free Docs, Spreadsheets, Gmail, Talk, Earth, etc., applications presently available from Google.  Microsoft is apparently offering a free, advertising supported version of Microsoft Works 8.  It is making Microsoft Office 2003 more functional and secure with a free download of Service Pack 3 (SP3.)  I very recently read, but cannot recall where, that the full Microsoft Office Suite will become available as an online service, but only if you already have Office installed on your computer.  Spaces Live versus Blogspot, LiveWriter versus Google's online editor, Microsoft Groups versus Google Groups.  I don't believe Google has an equivalent for X-Box and Halo-3, however.

I'm not certain that I am doing anything other than mentioning to you that there is a cyber-"competition" going on among industry giants and that it is bound to have an effect on us.  By "us" I refer to individuals, families, and tiny businesses.  Microsoft appears to be more actively pursuing small business to enterprise size business.  While Google may have aspirations in that direction planned for the future, it currently concentrates on the "small" end of the merchandising spectrum.  If Google ever officially incorporates an Operating System of its own, "Katie, bar the door."  Many of the hot links above are to searches or to summary articles.  I strongly suggest to anyone planning on buying a new computer or "upgrading" (to some, that recently has meant switching back to XP from Vista) that you follow the breadcrumb trail to the real experts and draw your own conclusions.  Given my current understanding of the situation, my personal choice is to stick with my XP-Pro OS and Office-Pro 2003 productivity suite for the foreseeable future.  Of course I will continue to use many Google applications, as they fit my needs more closely, but my overall preference stays with Microsoft.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"4:00 PM 10/04/07 : GOOG  $594.05  +15.02  +2.59%  High $596.00  Low $587.01  Vol 05,073,044

                            : MSFT  $029.84  +00.13  +0.44%  High $029.99  Low $029.73  Vol 45,016,519"    

Thursdays are garbage pickup days in the neighborhood.  Given my excellent skill set regarding procrastination, this means that I wait until well after midnight on Wednesday and then rush around trying to assemble as much of the collection of strangeness that my living circumstances have allowed me to keep (just in case.)  I gather as much of the disposable parts of my life as possible to leave at curbside before dawn.  Some things are easy decisions.  I don't even remember why or when I decided that I needed to keep every plastic pill vial, small container, or bottle that passed through the house, intercepting them before they were thrown away.  But I did.  That was an easy decision because there were no memories connected to the objects and only a certain wonderment that I had once thought I might be able to use them. 

Other things were of no practical use, but had memories connected to them.  One of those things was a relatively large, specially built shipping crate that my final Cross Country RC sailplane had arrived in from California.  I had the startup company slightly modify a prototype they were advertising as "coming soon" and send it to me.  I had to leave cash with the family to pay a C.O.D. fee of around $74.00 and that is where a small sin of omission occurred.  I lied ... neglected to mention that the fee was only the shipping cost.  I had already paid slightly more for the model prior to shipping.  Memories like that, even attached to useless objects, slow me down in the culling process.  I believe that my excuse to myself about keeping the box was that I might want to ship the model to a contest, and what better packing than the fiberboard and wood container in which it had arrived.  There may be a more general phenomenon at work, here.  The amount of potentially useful objects one keeps varies in direct proportion to the number of unfilled cubic feet in the basement.

About the falling part.  I had piled some old magazines (circa late 1970s to early 1980's) about home computers of the time such as Imsai and Altair kits, The VIC-20, and the Commodore-64.  Clearly, in my mind, they had passed the point of usefulness and entered the realm of "collectible" some while ago.  I'm not at all sure what I'll do with the Commodore-64 itself.  It worked fine the last time I used it to plot a series of wing airfoils with the pin printer.  Back to the magazines.  There were a lot of them.  Sixty to eighty pounds, at least.  I picked up about half of them and headed upstairs to the recycling bin in the garage.  I didn't make it to the stairs, however, as I tripped over another of my irreplaceable possessions and fell on my butt.  Not much more than my dignity was harmed, but I was glad the cats weren't watching.  As I lay on my back on the cement floor and tried to get up, I couldn't.  It came to my attention that I was still clutching the magazines.  I hadn't dropped a single one.  I hesitate to put a psychological label on myself for being so attached to them, so you may draw your own conclusions.  Finally it became clear to me that I was not going to be able to get up until I let loose of them.  How embarrassing is that?!

When I was again refocused on my primary goal of getting the garbage out, my course of action became clear.  I carried load after load of stuff to the curb and quit when the two major indications of quitting time displayed themselves.  My back was hurting and told me, none too subtly, "One more load and I'll mash a disc to stop you," and I noticed a strange glow in the Eastern portion of the sky.  The project had been timed relatively well, however.  After I had cleaned myself up, lay down, and ingested some pain medication the screeching, hooting, and banging of the Waste Management trucks was heard outside the bedroom window.

A somewhat unnerving admission at this point is that none of this seemed all that strange to me at the time it was happening.  It only becomes ludicrous when I try to put it into words for others to read.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents involving falling objects." - Dave Barry

Thank you all for your condolences and support.  I especially liked Cheryl's approach to housing and Ebony Dragon's solution to financing.  If they could just give me some money, I'd go away, and that would take care of it.  I think I complain too much here, because I end up grumbling to myself when The Boys won't listen.

It really was a FEMA inspection.  I live in Kane County, through which the magnificent Fox River runs.  One can walk across it here without getting their knees wet.  Due to some nasty weather about three weeks ago, apparently the whole county has been declared a disaster area.  There was flooding along the river about 20 miles north of here.  It gets stranger when you know that this house is about 10 miles west of the Fox and several hundred feet above the river's flood stage.  It becomes stranger still when I tell you that the apartment I gave up was approximately 500 feet from the banks of the Fox.

The inspection consisted of taking a few pictures of the outside of the house and of the neighborhood, presumably to prove to the lending institution that it was not in the middle of a new lake.  Having gone through plans A, B, C, ... etc., I have gotten to G or H wherein I sit relatively numbly and motionlessly, contemplating a loose key on the laptop, listening to Pink Floyd's Brain Damage, and occasionally giving the cats a treat.  I have even sunk so far as to read the "Eons" e-zine.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2007, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"A puzzle a day keeps dementia away." - Eons e-zine  (Really.  I swear it's true.)