Big, black clouds

I know blogging has been light of late; I have excuses. Let's see what's been going on since I last posted.

First, there was the bathroom renovation. Builder Bob does beautiful work, but he doesn't like to rush ANYTHING. Hence, every day he'd show up and tell me what all he had planned for that day, but when I'd get home it'd look like nothing had been done. I'm no expert, but he always had plausible excuses for the lack of progress. He was waiting for the subflooring to dry completely before doing putting anything on top. He was waiting for the mud to dry completely before trying to sand and paint. He was waiting for ... Eventually, though, things began to take shape and I could recognize a bathroom. Last Friday, after taking Thanksgiving off, I thought we'd reached the end. It turned out, though, Builder Bob wasn't happy with one little detail and he wanted to come back Saturday and finish that off. Honestly, I could see the little "problem" he was talking about, but I'd never have complained if he'd left it as it was. Still, I appreciated the attention to detail.

Saturday arrived and, by the end of the day, they'd finished -- almost. They'd put up two extra pieces of trim and Bob thought they needed one more coat of paint, yet the initial coat wasn't dry. I had to go to TN, but I left the back door open for Bob so he could come back once it'd dried and put on the final touches. When I got home Saturday night, I thought everything was finished.

Sunday morning I got up and eagerly went to take my first shower in my "gold plated" bathroom. The shower itself was fine, but after getting out of the shower I heard a noise from the laundry room. Upon investigation, I found the floor of the laundry room covered in water! At first I suspected my hot water heater, though that seemed a big coincidence, but I soon figured out it was indeed connected to the recent renovations. It was Sunday morning, but I called Builder Bob and he was very apologetic. He even got the old man plumber he uses to come over to the house with him and they quickly identified and fixed the problem. Of course they did have to cut a hole in the sheetrock from the laundry room to access the problem so now Bob has to come back one more time to patch that -- he's waiting AGAIN for things to dry. Regardless, I (sort of) now have my new bathroom. I hate to say it, but it is nice.

Anyway, I went through all that -- and the various family functions over the holiday -- so I was almost relieved to come back to work yesterday. When I got here, though, I discovered that my computer would not turn on. The light would come on, but that was it. I longed to hear the familiar whir as the computer boots up, but it just wasn't happening. At wit's end, I called the IT department and they assured me they'd take care of it. When I came back from class, my computer was gone and there was no note or anything from IT. I called this morning and I was assured they were on top of it, but I'm still nervous about it. I'd never done it before, and I don't know why I did then, but last week -- the day before Thanksgiving -- I decided it'd be a good idea to back up my current semester files on my jump drive just in case something happened. So even if my computer is destroyed, I've at least got my current grades and such. If not for that, I'd really be in a panic. As it is, though, if I don't get my data back, I'm going to have a heck of a lot of work to do in preparing for final exams and such. Still, it's better than losing my grades. Besides, I have no reason to doubt IT will be able to fix my machine. They say it's most likely just the power supply (my thoughts) or the mother board. In either case, I shouldn't lose anything. I'm waiting on a call from them now.

So anyway, that's what I've been up to. Oh, there was a decent review of Haruki Murakami's latest book in the Daily Sunday. I have it on good authority the review was rushed, but it's not too bad.

Hopefully all my dark clouds are out of the way for a while. Now if I can just make it through the semester!