Dishes and Cabinets

Well it's been awhile. First we finally found, at IKEA, a cabinet that more or less matched our bookcases and would hold our old TV, etc plus the dishes Margot and Jeff so kindly gave us - all seven cartons of them - and which Nancy and Jim somehow lugged up from Atlanta to our home. Anyway, the first challenge was getting all the cabinet pieces into the car and getting them home. It was a struggle and took some creative packing but we managed. Then came a 12 hour stretch of putting it all together (20 person hours over 2 days). Who ever knew assembling something as basic as a couple of cabinets could take so long. Here's a few pictures of the process and the end results.
Just getting started unpacking all the cartons.

Part way done with the TV stand and its surrounding cabinet.






Done but not loaded.








Done (Whew)















And the place settings make it all worth it. We've used the dishes for entertaining and got complements on them. Thanks Margot and Jeff.







The other happening was Mom's hospital stay. Luckily things appear to be stable and improving. She is now in the Heron Point Skilled Nursing facility and doing well.

Not a whole lot going on on the technology front. TV over the internet continues to grow slowly and Verizon finally offered a phone, the LG Dare, that could more or less compete with the iPhone.

Politically it appears to me that Obama pulled off his overseas trip without a major gaff. It gave him a short lived bounce in the polls but more importantly, I think, it will give him a good first hand and recent background in Middle East and European affairs going into the fall campaign and debates. Currently McCain leads in polls of likely voters and Obama leads in polls of all voters. Actually this is probably meaningless at this point.

A Hatteras Vacation

We finally have our internet connection back up. The satellite link was down for more than two weeks. For the middle week it was OK because we were at Hatteras with the girls and their families (see below). Down there we had good (3 Mb/s) internet access. The rest of the time we went to the library to get email and some research. It’s amazing but I really felt unconnected when we didn’t have access. Don’t remember feeling that way in the past. Guess it just shows how far we’ve progressed (or is it regressed?) in the last few years. And now we’re thinking of getting ‘smart’ cell phones so we can get email anytime, anywhere. Whew!

The weather was perfect for me in Hatteras, nice and hot. We swam almost every day, had great dinners, took naps or explored while the littles (Ella and Grace) napped in the afternoon and generally had a great time. We even got to watch the Fourth of July fireworks from our deck. Polly and Sara got some shopping in and Mark and Wes went fishing one day(the rest of us are sure they caught a huge one, maybe two or three but they fess up to only 3” to 4” catches). Wes also got a round of golf in. For those of you who have visited Hatteras, you’ll be glad to know the beaches are still great and the Orange Blossom Café still sells apple uglies (those donut like things that sit in the bottom of your stomach for hours after consuming them). Everyone got home safely including Polly and Mark who had about an 18 hour trip with Bella and Grace. From my perspective it was all well worth it. More pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/rbhawkins/Hatteras2008 (or click the Hatteras link at the bottom of this blog) which is a web album of pictures from Avon on Hatteras Island.

Things back at home moved into high gear with all the catch up work, entertaining and seeing that mom got the medical care she needed. Doesn’t look like it will slow down much in the near future.

The political situation has cooled down some now that each party has a presumed candidate. The major question now is who will be the vice presidential candidates. It probably doesn’t make a significant difference who they pick but it’s fun to speculate. For now I think Obama will pick Sam Nunn or Jim Webb (I’d love to see him pick Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius but I don’t think it will happen). On the Republican side I think McCain will go with Romney or possibly Portman. And so it goes. Probably real excitement won’t be generated until the conventions in August (if then).

On the technical front, Apple introduced its iPhone 3G. People waited in line, sometimes overnight, to get one. There were a few glitches in the rollout, mostly software and network ones. Other than the fact that in the US it runs on a faster AT&T network, the big news appears to be the new software. The phone itself has new software and Apple has opened up a store where third parties can sell or give away iPhone applications and games. I’d really be interested if we had AT&T’s high speed coverage here at Creeksedge. Since we only have Verizon’s broadband coverage, guess we’ll have to wait till Verizon offers a phone with similar capabilities or settle for less. Some of the mobile applications that are being offered by the mobile providers such as automatic calendar and email syncing, mobile banking, GPS enabled applications and phone based social networking look quite interesting. If you’ve got any experience with any of these, please add a comment.