Update

I apologize for my absence, but it isn't altogether without reason. The amount of time I spent in front of some sort of screen or close to some type of speaker leaves less time than I'd like to be alone with my thoughts, so I'm trying to take a break. But I miss you!

So let me bring you up to speed.

1. Bravo Floyd! I probably spent 15 to 30 hours on the couch watching OLN's tour coverage, commercial free (Thanks TIVO!). Floyd Landis' recovery from a devastating and obviously discouraging stage in the mountains was a bit of sports magic.

2. I'm building a bookshelf. It's actually mostly done, only the staining is left to complete. Now, I'm now carpenter, but I'm giving myself a little pat on the back for designing and building a (mostly straight) piece of furniture. I made it out of 5/8" thick pine plywood. The helpful fella at The Home Depot did most of the cuts for me on the saw they got there, and even though they say "no precision cuts," I took a chance, and his cuts were pretty darn precise. I borrowed my roommate's rusty old handsaw for the few remaining cuts. I can't decide how to stain it (or paint it) as I already have three different shades of wood furniture in my bedrooom right now. I'll post some pics of the final product soon. I have had little piles of books around my room for a long time and I'm looking foreward to getting them all organized in one place.

3. I had to fix my brakes. I got almost 80,000 miles on my manual Nissan Sentra, and I was getting some highly alarming scraping from the left rear brake. I took it to Midas, and decided to cough up enough cash to replace the rotors and all. I'm not sure that they all needed replacing, but they couldn't have had much life left in them. But five hundred smackers ain't an easy pill to swallow no matter how you sugarcoat it. It's annoying to me that I'm still making payments on the darn thing.

Also, the first Idlewild piece aired last week (see previous post) to high praise. In a nice gesture, the reporter gave her lowly photographer name credit in the lead, which is pretty darn rare. The boss said his wife really liked it. Part two airs tonight (Wed).