Yeah, I'm alive and still around.  Postings from me should be a lot more frequent now.

The move back to the States have been anything but smooth.  Between the time lapse between receiving shipments and things we ordered taking a while, my desktop machine was damaged during packing which wasn't discovered until early January (when all the hubbub of the holidays died down and I was getting ready to hook up the network).  Thankfully my claim came in a little over a week ago and our tax return this weekend so I was able to buy my very first laptop and a mac at that.

I have been saying for years that I'm done with buying another windows machine and this time it was either going to be a mac or linux.  I don't have the patience right now to deal with a linux machine, especially as the primary machine so I went the mac route.  Now it is a case of finding software to put on it and re-acquaint myself with the OS.  It has been 14 years since I've used a mac and it's nice to know that not too much about it has changed.  Somehow I can't see myself going back.

The only bummer is that I should have installed FF2 instead of 3 but oh well, so far so good.  It's so nice to buy a new machine and not have all sorts of crap pre-loaded onto it.  If anyone has any suggestions (apart from Office for Ma... I haven't used Office in over 5 years) for good mac software I'd love to hear it.  Will catch up with postings tomorrow.  I'm going to curl up with my TiVo remote and my book.

Right now I'm a wee bit bummed out.  Yesterday I decided to take my computer into being serviced as I remember that just before I left Germany that my computer wasn't seeing any of the internal CD drives (2) much less the external ones.  As I took a good look at the machine I notice that the computer case has a huge dent into it.  How did I not notice this before? That is what happens when one unpacks at night.  Needless to say I wasn't very happy.  So I am hoping it may be just buying a new case from HP (ideally an identical one) and that will be that (apart from the CD drive issues).  So I am hoping to find out within the next day or so.

Eye test went well, I learn something new about my astigmatism everytime I go to the optometrist.  While the strength of my prescription hasn't changed, the axis that I need to focus through has.  All that simply means is that I have to get a new pair of lenses and frames (these are a wee bit too narrow).  I am hoping to pick those up this week sometime.

Christmas was lovely and quiet.  The rest of the brood arrived and for the first few days it was a bit of a confusion with respect to unloading everything and where they should go.  I think we have most of it sussed out, but the sun room still is in a state of chaos.  It's getting better but still not ideal.

The current list of things...

DirecTV installation
Putting my desk together
Home network up and running
Installation of motors for our garage doors (awaiting a call from HD)

Still yet to be delivered:

NTS from AZ
NTS from KY (should be here on the 6th)
My new dresser
Bedside tables (2)
Deep freezer

The only thing I've been doing is listening to my friend C vent.  She's having relationship issues and due to the time of the year it's been understandably hard on her.  After talking to her, I'm pretty much drained for doing much else.

On a bright note, I'm hanging out next Saturday with some ladies from a local stamping group.  My idea is to make some Christmas cards for next year and if I get back into the making of cards, then I'll be doing birthday cards along with other cards.