Where have I been?

Just in case you've been wondering: I've been running all around chasing my tail. No, not really. But it feels that way. I spent four days at the Bolt Hole cutting grass, chipping and clearing brush and just sitting around reading when the rains came. I got two more game cameras out in the woods, checked their cards (lots of photos of raccoon, fox, and deer), and got back to the cabin without running into either of the bears Mark has seen. (Mark ran into one of them--the smaller one--the day I headed back to PA and they sorta faced off from about 30 yards.)

Back in PA I went over to Wellsboro to search for a replacement blade for the lawnmower, while there bought a window fan (and then had to return it--40 mile round trip--when it was discovered to be broken), finally arranged to get the truck serviced, took my Toshiba laptop back to Best Buy in Elmira to get the corrupted CD drive driver reinstalled (they saw we were from 50 miles away and were nice enough to do the work while Terry and I went shopping at the nearby mall so we didn't have to make a return trip to pick it up), and generally got ready to return to the Bolt Hole and from there head to Quebec to go fishing. In all the shuffle of cursing the computer's CD drive and everything else, I've just been following the Senate action on the Immigration Bill and the blankety-blank NY Mets loosing streak. (Yeah, the Bill went down but so did the Mets for three straight games against the Phils. The former is good for the USA while the latter eats at my soul.)

The one really bad thing about the Bolt Hole is the dial-up service. being at the end of the line--literally--means any breaks and/or bad splices along the line translate as snap-crackle-and-pop when the signal gets to me. And, trust me on this, that means the computer can not stay on line. I did manage to get one period of about three hours in the five days I was here when the wind died enough so as not to shake the wires and let me surf the net for a while. And forget about trying to upload/download any pictures. Even without the static on the line that task takes forever! *sigh* Expect things to get spotty again when I head back to the Bolt Hole Sunday afternoon.

I'm really, really spoiled by the wireless high speed hookup I've got at the Aerie.