Finally got around to looking into places to swim around here. Turns out there's the "Webster Aquatic Center" basically right down the street from me. And even better, the first Friday of every month is free from 4-8. A regular membership for residents is about $300 a year, way too much for me to afford now with how crappy work has been, but maybe if things keep being busy like they have the past few days I'll get the three month and see if I can at least get over there for half an hour every day or so. Because I really, really do like to swim. And being the Water Witch that I am, I really should do it more often. Of course I'm rubbish at it right now given that I haven't actually swam in, oh, fifteen years or so? That being said, I actually managed a solid half hour out there before my energy was hovering close to zero. I was hanging onto the side thinking "shall I do one more lap?" But looking at the other side, way, way over there I realized there was no exiting the pool on that side, so if I went over there I would still have to come back. So, no. Still, I was impressed to have managed that much, given my level of physical activity since I left collage is, oh, I'd estimate around zero. Amazing I'm still as thin as I am, really. But my STR and END are both crap, which swimming every day could potentially fix! (If I have the EXP for it.) Felt soooo good to do it though, can't wait to go again. 

 

It's weird, their website is all "rules this. Regulations that. To swim in the deep end you must demonstrate this this and this skill. You must show picture ID before entering" etc etc. I just walked in, signed a paper and checked a box "resident", didn't show anything, went in, got in the pool, did my thing. I was expecting to have to prove myself (which I was actually kind of worried about given the aforementioned level of physical activity, I wasn't sure I COULD tread water for a whole minute. To be perfectly honest I wasn't sure I even remembered HOW to, much less manage for sixty seconds. I am ashamed to admit I looked it up on youtube before leaving just to make sure I knew the basic technique. I'm such a dork.) Weird. 

 

Anyway, hated my job today. (at least I had something to hate) but it was with a kind of twist! I worked for the most awesome girl today. Little younger then me, super pretty, tall, long legs (thank you summer), such a cute voice and laugh, personable, wow. I so wanted to fix her machine, if no other machine that day, HER machine, but could I? No. Universe doesn't work like that, little Padawan. Her machine was hanging, you see, right as Windows started to boot. It also hung when I started it with my tools CD and physically turned off when booted from Ubuntu. I pulled out her PCI cards, reseated the RAM, checked the dust, the fan was spinning. All looked fine. She said she knew someone at staples so they looked at it for free, said she might need to reload XP? Well, I figured I'd try it, but no, didn't work. The last couple of times it gave me a message about a "thermal event" but of course the BIOS wouldn't actually report the temperature or show me the cut off, so big help there. I felt air whistling through the tines of the heatsink, so it wasn't blocked or anything, and the fan seemed to be spinning as fast as fans do. So what was I left with? Telling her I couldn't do anything to help. Yeah, that made me look good. Thanks crappy Dell 2400, you made me look stupid. Well played. 

 

Otherwise Karl couldn't articulate that he didn't know his yahoo password over the phone, but that was his problem. That took a few minutes, at most. Dropped off Office and got it running. Then over to Louie to set up his laptop. He had a wireless router for some bizarre reason, as he has no wireless devices, at least so I believe, of course no passwords written anywhere. Sigh. Anyway, I got to be a 82 year old man's hero because he was very happy with it. Yeeha.

 

Stopped at Grandma's to pick up that fence I left all over the yard and saw how the basement walls were doing. They seem paintable.

 

Over to see grandma, then Mom's to see the poor puppy and then off to swim. He had eye surgery, as I guess he poked a hole in it somewhere along the line. Ow!

 

Last night Squeaker cleaned out a nest of baby mice for me, bringing me four. One dead from the start, one died just a little while ago. They're so small, I don't even know if they can eat the seeds and things I gave Laser Mouse. I gave them some water with an eye dropper, their water is just in a jar lid but I don't know if they're using it, or even eating. Sorry little mouse family, you picked the wrong house to make a nest in.

 

No challenges tonight, well, there's one, but I guess Sean didn't think it worthwhile, as he didn't call. So I finished Chapter 8 of Carlita's Tale so she's an official Demongate High student. I'll probably end up writing the next book now, and coming back to her first year after Sean finishes book 2 so we get our story straight on what exactly happened. Year three I know all about, so I can write that easy from my notes. 

 

One appointment at 10:00 tomorrow, then 2:00 Sean's for game.