The Morning After ~

A good Sunday afternoon to friends and onlookers everywhere from a cloudy but still-mild Burg. I see the Nashville Allens are down almost 30 degrees from yesterday, but we're still tickling 50F. We shall not mention our LA Allen outpost, which is enjoying low-80's today. As usual, the coming polar blast will be fairly diluted by the time it gets in here mid-week. For now, things aren't bad here (except compared to Orlando and LA) and I should be jogging. And perhaps will, he says with characteristic non-committment.

Last night's Gourmet Club wine-tasting party went well; attendance was down to about 50 people due to travel and a competing Oysterfest down at The Club. Nonethless, the folks consumed 32 bottles of carefully-selected wines and brought trayfuls of delicious heavy hors d'oeuvres, which (combined with my letttuce-like resolve to diet) has done no favours for my More-Is-Not-Better 2009 Self.
I was up until 0230 Friday night messing around with Facebook; for some reason, a previous effort to get on had been blocked but this time, I succeeded and discovered a GWA-grade time-sink. We were fairly bizzy all day finalizing preps and so the nap I promised myself (and sorely needed) never happened. Thus by late eve I found myself saying in response to a departing guest, "Yes, and thank YOU so much for having us over!" Folks lingered until 2230 and it was an enjoyable evening. We'll have some folks over Friday eve for wine and hors d'oeuvres to do some catch-ups. Social

M's Wounded Knee is acting up again after five+ hours on her feet last night so she's chilling out again today. I've hung around to put things away and keep our Scooba and two Roombas humming on floor cleaning duties. To keep them happy, I also ordered some new filters and brushes for them and a new six-pack of fluid for Scooba's floor-washing efforts.

Meanwhile, my opinion of my new desktop computer has finally emerged from the swampy lowlands, due entirely to my acquisition of AOL 9.1, a version of AOL's software that resides on one's computer and is FAR superior to the on-line version I'd been saddled with until 9.1 was offered as a download. This is the version resident on the old desktop which I bequeathed to M and who hasn't always appreciated entering the office thereafter and finding my carcass parked at her workstation. In addition to giving me back the interface I know and love, using this 9.1 AOL as an Internet gateway has eliminated the all-too-frequent crashes of both Microsoft's Internet Explorer and the Safari web browser that have in the past made me wonder why I bought this thing. Some on-line commentaries suggest the problems reside in the thick layer of HP software it came with; one of these days I'll see if I can peel it away. In the meantime, I now finally gravitate to the new machine with its gorgeous monitor and lightning speed. Which was kinda the whole idea six months ago.

Rew, meanwhile, is rhapsodic about having his new iMac safely arrived and functioning in LA, and M continues to make friends with her new Apple laptop. I've messed with it and my reaction so far is "ehh." It's a gorgeous piece of design/equipment fer sure and the graphics are neat, but its browser crashes from time to time just like mine was. Guess I haven't had enough of the KoolAid yet.

I had better go jog; as I sit here and watch the winds pick up I'm coming up with more n more reasons to kick it over to tomorrow.