Off to Australia

In a few hours we're heading for Australia to spend two weeks with Josh, Gwen, and Gwen's mum. Norfolk to Dallas to Sydney to Melbourne, arriving April 2 at 11:35am Melbourne time (which is 15 hours ahead of US Eastern time).

On April 17, we depart Melbourne at 9:35am Melbourne time, get to Los Angeles at 6:55am California time that same day (yes, "we get there before we leave"), through Charlotte to Norfolk, flight landing at at 9:20pm, probably getting back to the house at 10:30pm or so.

Kiribati

We were looking at Kiribati as a nice halfway point between Australia and the US. Buy a little property there and just chill. Except it turns out that Kiribati may be about to go underwater; their government is negotiating to move the entire population to Fiji, or perhaps Australia.

Home repair

As we're getting ready to make a trip, it is of course a wonderful opportunity for our house to spring little surprises on it. It's not enough that the west and north sides are torn open and being rebuilt; yesterday we discovered that there was water on the floor of the kitchen sink cabinet. A little investigation led to the discovery of a hole in the side of the garbage disposal. This in turn led to me laying on my back, wrapped around a couple of pieces of pipe, trying to wedge my arm into a better position to shove the new machine into place where all three tabs of the lock ring would fit. I seriously considered getting the auto jack to lift the thing into position.

Not the height of fun, but it's done and it works. Yay.

Slave Trade

On this day in 1807 the Slave Trade Act was passed, outlawing the trade in the British Empire.

Cleaning the Fridge

We hadn't giving the fridge a good cleaning since before Josh left in October (no speculation on exactly how much before Josh left), and it was getting time to do that. Something glowing red had spilled down the back and collected in a little radioactive pool under the bottom drawer; clearly something had to be done.

So I got out the sponge and spatula and bleach, put the lettuce, eggs and bacon on the counter, and disassembled the inside of the fridge. When I got to the back of the bottom, I discovered the luminescent red stuff had coated a colony of pulsing yellow sludge, mixed with some black threads and a couple of things with tentacles. The evil glup had been feeding on a continuous trickle of forty watts from an empty light socket, which hadn't helped.

But with a white-hilted knife, and a cold chisel, and bergamot-scented napalm (note to self: use mint jelly flavor next time), and a 1872 copy of the secret Admiralty orders for ships on the South Pacific station, and a few other implements and chemicals, I managed to exorcise, purge, scrape, and cleanse the fridge, and reassemble the components. No major injuries, but I don't think I'll ever use that putty knife for eating again.

Droid 3

Got the new phone, got it plugged in, charged, and activated. Got the Kindle application on it, plus some other less important things.

Apollenclypse

'Tis Spring, and the clouds of pollen are seen across the land. I had to use the wipers on my windshield this morning to clear it off, and again at lunchtime. There's a haze on the water, and the bulwarks and pilings in the river are greenish yellow up to the high water mark.