To-Done List

* Mow lawn and get yard in shape for next Sunday's party.
* Make serious headway on this week's housecleaning checklist so that I'm ahead of the game. (Especially including getting all the in-progress sewing projects put away. No actual sewing is allowed today.)
* Draw up menu and shopping list for party.
* Optional: Install Leopard on the Macs. (Yeah, I know, I've tried this one before.)
* Optional: Go see Iron Man.
* Optional: List next batch of Freecycle items [**]

Ok, so I've actually only installed Leopard on the desktop at this point. I want to run it through its paces and make sure I have all the bugs located and identified before committing the laptop as well. So far the only annoyance was that when I plugged in the Time Machine wireless backup drive, the computer stopped talking to my existing wireless network. But since the Time Machine is intended to function as your main wireless base station as well as being the backup drive, I went ahead and swapped the DSL connection over to it then set it up as the base station. This seems to work (and still fulfills my requirement that the Time Machine drive be "invisible" to the casual observer, reducing its chances of being noticed by burglars ... not that I expect burglars again). No doubt this means that all my friends and relations who have their laptops configured to automatically sign on to my wireless network will now need to set them up again next time they visit. At this point the desktop has started to perform the initial backup process (which is likely to take half the night).

In addition to the above, kbhjs came over for a few hours to raid my library and scan some articles to pdf. I had this sudden Tom Sawyerish vision of getting all my article scanning done by other parties who want copies of things .... Which reminds me, I must update the card catalog with the relevant file names.

In further addition, I tried out the rotisserie on the new gas grill on a game hen, marinated in ... hmm, what did I toss in that marinade? Random stuff from the fridge: I think it was minced garlic, lingonberry drink syrup, a couple glops of dijon mustard, and a dash of date molassass. Whatever it was, it worked. I turned on two of the burners and spun the bird with the lid closed for about an hour and a half total. For the last half hour, I added some bell pepper, eggplant, and portobello mushroom to the grill, also brushed with the same marinade. The bird was done to a turn: very moist and falling-apart cooked and the skin almost "candied" in effect. The menu plan called for only eating half today and saving half for later in the week, but it was so good I devoured the whole thing. (Ah well, that's what weekly averaging is for.) For something the size of a game hen I didn't have to remove any of the grill racks, although if it were a full-sized chicken I would. For the veggies on the grill, I was surprised by how uneven the heat was on different parts. The front of the grill was much hotter than the back -- unfortunately the peppers were at the back and still almost raw while the mushrooms were at the front and decidedly overdone. The eggplant in the middle was just right. The real take-home lesson is to keep a closer eye on things on the grill and not wander off to get other work done.

And in finalest addition, the cleaning of the living room turned up the notebooks in which my current writing project reside, which led me to discover that I only had half a dozen pages of the Christmas-time writing left to transcribe. So that's done, and now I need to get back to fresh writing.

Brief further to-done

* Draw up menu and shopping list for party.
* Optional: Go see Iron Man.
* Optional: List next batch of Freecycle items (Postponed for the nonce -- at the moment I can't deal with arranging for pickups.)

Iron Man was immense fun. Can't say as I'm up to a more in-depth review than that. The updated setting/context worked very well for me. Nice characterization (for comic-book characters). Nice effects. 'Nuff said.