Well, I’ve said my goodbyes to Dallas. Drove down to Rayne last night. It was a perfectly pleasant trip except for two things:

1. It rained for much of the first Dallas-to-Shreveport leg. Normally that’s fine, but since my AC is broken again (did I mention that my AC is broken again?), rain means the windows have to be rolled up, which makes the heat stifling. Normally, I could just be distracted by a CD, but oops, I don’t have a CD player anymore.

Side note: I installed an old AM/FM radio into my car console — while driving. Then again, I’m also known for reading while driving.

2. On the second, Shreveport-to-Rayne leg, it stopped raining, so the windows came down. Driving along, minding my own business. All of a sudden, I hear a loud thwock and feel a sharp stinging pain in my left jaw. What the hell was that, I think.

A minute later, I look in the rear-view mirror and see two dead bees on the rear dashboard.

The nerve of some bees.

I’m giving my new computer setup the runthrough, and so far it’s worked out okay. I’m not sure I’ll be able to deal with four months of OS X on a 500mhz iBook. Like a geek version of a Fast and the Furious extra, I’ve tricked it up with a bunch of aftermarket stuff — external hard drive, external Zip drive, external floppy, external burner, SmartMedia reader, scanner, iPod, etc. As a test, I fully charged my iBook battery and plugged in a bunch of stuff to see how long it would last on maximum power drain. Four minutes is the answer. Let’s hope it lasts longer in Zambia.

Expect posting to remain sporadic for the rest of this week as I languish on dialup. I get to D.C. on Labor Day, and I hope my crabwork becomes more regular thereafter.

28 August 2003

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