The Weekend Past

What a weekend that was. It started Thursday night when Garrett, our oldest friend, flew in from Tampa to get away from his work turf for a while and relax. Harry and I have known Garrett since High School, and the girls called him "Uncle Garrett" until they were 12 or so. At that time they realized he was a big (although really, really smart)kid himself, and he became their friend, too.

So, he works with computers for a living - and he plays with computers for fun. The list of computer related hijinks this weekend was quite long, but the hi-lights include: wiping and reconfiguring a lap-top that had been corrupted by excessive neglect - and then getting rid of all the factory installed crap ware and adding some 'cute, useful little programs', attempting one more software rehab on an elderly Gateway lap-top, shredding two other dead lap-tops for fun and parts, attempting to get Harry's phone and lap-top to talk over blue-tooth, finding a way to make a reluctant computer print over our house wireless, decrapulating Hannah's desk-top box, and finally attempting to burn through 2 old hard drives with molten iron slag - from a thermite reaction. There was some other stuff going on requiring several external hard drives, "Acronis", and overnight downloads - but I lost track. Since I'm not the computer person here, I concentrated on feeding geeks, fetching stuff, and keeping out of the way.

Saturday, we had a cook out at Inner-City mission with our Sunday School group. We fed grilled chicken and unlistable amounts of other good stuff to about 45 or so residents and staffers, and about 15 of us. It was a lot of work, but very satisfying once done. Everyone there was so enthusiastic about the 'party' - even though we didn't really do any entertaining. (The guys at the grills were fun to watch, so you might count that...) we packed in enough left-overs to feed them for lunch the next day, and some of the little kids asked if we would be back 'next week?" If I head up a project like this again, I'm going to insist on a more equitable division of labor. Harry and I worked all day Saturday and spent quite a lot of money to make this class project work. I'd like to see more people better invested in the project - actually for their own good.

Sent Garrett off to FL this morning, so it's time to get this week started. It's the last full week of Hannah's regular school year, so we're finishing up a two year American History study, and getting Chemistry and Advanced Writing to stopping points. She will continue Advanced Math (Trig and advanced geometry), and Spanish on a lighter schedule for the summer, and work on a test prep program for the PSAT which she has to take in the fall.

Cheers! ~M.E.