The Ice Cream Social

My black water tank is still half full; the sensor must be nonlinear—or stuck. In either case I'm not going to worry about it any more. It'll last as long as I'm here. (Judie says that she and Gary have boondocked for as long as a week without dumping.)

Using Gertie's table to work on the PowerBook is less than ideal, because the table puts the keyboard too high and the couch puts me too far away. The latter is fairly easy to remedy: I'm using a couple of cushions as a backrest. But the height is annoying—it tires my wrists and makes my typing even less accurate than usual—and I'm not sure what to do about it. The only solution I've come up with so far is to sit on a cushion...but I don't have enough cushions here to do that, and besides, it makes it very awkward to slide in behind the table. It would be theoretically possible to lower the table, but I'm very reluctant to contemplate that kind of major surgery.

Another possibility just occurred to me: an under-table keyboard drawer and separate keyboard. That might be a good way to go, since it would put the keyboard both closer and lower (solving both of the abovementioned problems)...and would also let me use a full-sized keyboard that will be much more comfortable than the PowerBook's small, short-travel keyboard. I think that's my best bet. Another item to add to the Gertie shopping list, along with an air compressor and a chair mat (to cover the kitchen floor).

Gertie's DC power seems fairly dirty, at least in this location (running from city power, which may be the real culprit). When I tried to power the amplified speaker system on 12V DC, I got the most godawful buzz, and trying to run the PowerBook from its DC adapter resulted in the Power Manager getting confused and not being able to charge the battery fully or consistently. I ended up going to AC power for both devices. The CD player and cell phone, on the other hand, seem perfectly happy on DC. I'd love to put an oscilloscope on the DC line...but I'm willing to bet I'd see a waveform ugly enough to curl anybody's whiskers.

In addition to the CDs I brought, I picked up three used CDs pretty cheaply at a local bookstore this morning: Lionel Hampton and Oscar Petersen; Bobby McFerrin and Yo Yo Ma; and the Chieftains in an album dedicated to the Celtic harp. At an average of seven bucks apiece I figured I couldn't go too far wrong, and in fact all three are excellent.

Today I slept late, then spent most of the morning bringing this journal up to date. In the early afternoon Judie collected me and took me along to the post office and then to the home of Gary's late parents on Cottonwood Street. Nice place, but currently almost every room is stacked with boxes of Gary's and Judie's possessions. Gary uses one room as an office, with Macs and a PC set up there; that's where he works, rather than in Tessie.

Judie keeps her still at the Cottonwood house—she and Gary drink only distilled water, which they make themselves. The first night I was here I asked for a glass of water. Judie drew it from the tap, then caught herself in horror just before handing it to me. She acted almost as if city water would have poisoned me. Me, I can't tell the difference, so I just nod and smile when people talk about different-tasting waters. I figure that if I can taste water, it's probably too polluted to drink. But then I don't normally drink water anyway, so what do I know?

The rest home

We went over to the convalescent facility where their friend and neighbor Allen is staying. He's the one who had the quintuple bypass surgery (four on his heart, one in his abdomen) a couple of weeks ago and then very nearly died this weekend from internal bleeding—would have, if Judie and Gary had not persisted until they got him into the hospital. Allen is looking a lot better now, thank goodness. He was able to come out into the courtyard with us in his wheelchair and sit while we all chatted. A slender, white-bearded man, he has a wonderfully deep, resonant voice.

The center was supposedly having an ice cream social today, but in truth there were only a couple of people there besides ourselves. (David and Lisa came along too, as well as Pauline.) We sat outside and ate our little cups of ice cream while a plump black rabbit who is a tame resident there scampered around our feet. Lisa fed it a nibble from her ice cream cone. After awhile Allen began to get chilled by the breeze, and we went back in.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Judie in Tessie, talking about printers and sending a little email through the EarthLink "WebMail" site. Awkward, to say the least—and slow!--but better than nothing. About printers: I had been thinking of trying to pick up a low-cost (around $100) portable inkjet printer—the kind specifically designed for travel—to carry on the road. But the few such printers I've seen on the market have been in the $350 range, far more than I can justify spending.

Judie said that they just carry their Stylus Photo 700 with them in Gertie. Looking at the thing, I could see that it's not much bigger than the "portable" printers, and the SP 700 is a true photo quality printer (unlike the little portables, which are designed primarily for text). Well, refurbished SP 700s were selling for $125 just a few months ago, which is certainly in my price range. So I think if I can find one, that sounds like a good bet for both text and pictures. And if not...well, there are oodles of low-cost inkjet printers in that price range (e.g., Epson's Stylus Color 740) that will do a fine job with text and will print half-decent pictures in a pinch. And the Trenton Computer Festival is coming up in two months, which is always a good place to pick up a bargain on something like a printer. So I think I'll be able to find what I want one way or another.

This evening we had pork chops (which I didn't eat), rice and lentils with some delicious curry sauce of Gary's, and asparagus. It was a light meal for me, but then I didn't want to eat anything heavy—tomorrow's going to be a strenuous day as we drive to Tucson and try to cover two museums in one day. As it is, it's already 23:00 (1:00 a.m. in New Jersey!) and I think I had better turn in if I'm going to be up at a decent hour tomorrow. I've been on a very late schedule all the time I've been here, and I fear it's going to be tough when I get home and have to readjust to getting up four hours earlier. Also, I keep having the feeling that I'm missing out on all the best photographic opportunities by not getting up at or before dawn. But given Judie and Gary's evening schedule (they eat dinner about two hours later than I normally do), I just seem to keep staying up late and getting up late.