Still Here

With the death of my computer’s hard drive, my blog updates probably will be sporadic for a while. I should find out today whether the local technician I gave it to was able to recover any data from it. If he couldn’t, I’ll find out what it’ll cost to send it off to a company that specializes in recovering data from totally hosed hard drives. The Ontrack web site boasts they were able to recover data from a burned and mangled hard drive from the space shuttle Columbia, so I’m sure my problem is solvable. The question is, how many $$$?

Other things:

• I think I’ll go ahead and write up my blog entries for the rest of the Japan trip, even without the pictures. I figure I better do it before I start forgetting everything. I’ve dusted off Maria’s old laptop, but it was so unstable it needed a full re-installation of the OS. I’m almost done doing that, and then I’ll have a place to write.
• We’ll be in Newport RI this weekend visiting my family. Maria and Kai will stay there the rest of the week, and I’ll come back to Philly since I have to work. Then I’ll go back again next weekend. Southwest just started flying out of Philly, and we got round-trip fares to Providence for $60, so it’s not too hard on the wallet.
• While they’re in Newport next week, I’ll start on our next house project: remodeling the 3rd floor guest room. The plan is to turn that into Kai’s room, and then make the other room up there our room. We discovered this past winter that the 3rd floor is much warmer than the rest of the house when it’s cold outside, so we want our bedrooms up there (the 3rd floor is the only floor that’s insulated, and heat rises). They’re also the only rooms with a southern exposure, so they get nice sunlight during the day.