Tuesday 5th September
Yes, go ahead all of you, laugh while you can. The current top descriptions for me in this picture are, "arrestable", "soulful", and "like the picture you might have printed on the back of a novel". If you can think of any better ones, please mail me and let me know (Thankyou, Masa, for that piece of code!) Be polite though!
I would like to say, again, a big THANKS to everyone who keeps coming back to read about me, to all the people who stumble across my site daily and send me emails saying, "Weird but cool - are you sure you want your diary to be online?" (YES!) and to just about everyone, since today my little site clocked in at over 5000 hits and that makes me very, very happy. I guess it's not that many compared to a lot of sites but it's really nice to know that I have a following, no matter how small. This site has now been online for about 3 years, and some of it is very old and outdated, and there's an awful lot more to it that isn't open for public speculation yet, and still more that's stuck on my head waiting for me to have days and days for lounging and writing stuff - this may be soon, hehe. So please keep an eye out for new things, and your feedback is always welcome - in fact, it's greeted with whoops of joy from me. In return, I promise the following -
Enough of that earnest stuff, anyway, and onto trivia. I have really, honestly, and truly finished work now. I know I've said this about 6000 times now but I really have. I did my last shift today, in the company of Kasi and her moving bump. She wound me up no end about My Favourite Supervisor and she insists she's going to declare my undying love for him once I am safely out of the country. I think she's going a bit over the top with the undying love thing but I'll be gone so I suppose it doesn't matter. He is nice, mind. I left him a note in his tray saying that if he wanted to marry someone English for a visa then I would marry him when I got back because I'll be needing a place to live anyway. Last time we discussed this (well, we discussed a lot of things - we worked a bunch of night shifts just the two of us, and you have to talk about something!) he said, "Yes, but if you do that, you have to live as husband and wife for a year, and they come and check, and stuff", to which I almost responded, "GOOD! WONDERFUL! I'LL GET THE MARRIAGE LICENSE TOMORROW!" but stopped myself just in time. Today, he said he didn't know why I kept coming back to work (he was finishing a night shift as I was starting a day shift) and I said, "I'm only coming back here to see you, that's the only reason I'm working these extra shifts" - which is true! (although the money is a very close second) - and he thought I was joking! Possibly because Tricia cracked up laughing....Kasi looked at me like I had grown an extra head or something, and My Favourite Supervisor just went, "Really? hum...hummmm..." And that was that.
So ends another episode in Sally's Hall of Hormones.
My room is not my room anymore. It's depressing being in it - it's a pit of boxes and old magazines and bags of clothes for the chairty shop and about the only oasis of calm in it (other than the bed, natch) is my computer, which crashes a few times a day just to make my life easier. My photographs are all down from the wall and in a box waiting to be whisked off to foreign climes. My favourite CDs are all neatly MP3d onto 5 CDs and are awaiting a 6th with all my programs on it to take to install on Father Hand's computer. My books are packed up; my stuffed animals are all looking a bit forlorn, perhaps they know I am leaving and they're being relegated to a dark box for a year. My Dasterdley and Muttley picture has just fallen off the wall, maybe that too knows it is soon to be packed up. There is nothing left in my kitchen except dirt and Bailey's Haagen-Dazs, since Mother Hand transported all that stuff to various locations on Saturday. She also took my plants - the unnamed spider plants, and the 4 voodoo avocadoes. More on voodoo avocadoes on a day when I don't have anything to write. *Sigh* I hate moving at the best of times - I mean, really hate it - but it's even worse now that I'm not actually moving *to* anywhere. I'm trying to be ruthless and throw out as much stuff as possible, since now I can horde electronically and that's more fun than hording materially. With any luck, I'll hone down my mountains of junk to a few boxes, all of which will fit neatly onto my bookcase for easy storage.
KSHMSP update - having terrorised my colleagues for a few days - apparently he was running all over the place and wreaking havoc - Kasi informed me today that he turned up on her bathroom wall, malevolently glaring at her and her friends, and her flatmate, until one of them had the guts to vaccuum him up. So, this may be the end. Apprently, she left the vaccuum cleaner on for half an hour afterwards to make sure he wasn't clinging onto a foothold inside the pipe, so it looks like RIP KSHMSP. But I don't want to speak too soon. I fear he may still be out there, even now making his way to Gatwick airport, where he will stow away on my plane and smuggle himself to Las Vegas to stalk me there. Anything is possible.
Paranoid? No! Which one of my enemies told you that?!
Spoke to Gitboy for quite some time on the phone last week, and then again online on Sunday. He has actually broken up with New Girlfriend, and is, I think, a bit low and feeling sorry for himself in that typically male way, and blaming himself in that typically Gitboy way. Feel a bit guilty for slagging him off now, but then, it was just some more of that inadvisable honesty. He's coming out for drinks tomorrow anyway. We realised, freakily enough, that today is actually 3 years to the day since we officially got together. And it must only be a few days off a year to the day since we last saw each other. It's strange how things turn out, innit, but then I suppose it's all for the best in the long run.
Thursday 7th September
This here be the last entry I make into this diary from 15 Ajax Avenue! Yes, I can publish the address since I am leaving, hehe. I move out this weekend, but everything else moves out tomorrow, including the bed, and Penelope Pitstop, my long suffering machine. I am even as we speak pillaging her hard drive for my most-used files, which I am taking with me. I toyed with the idea of actually copying the entire contents of my hard drive onto a CD and taking it with me, since without the swp file it will actually almost fit onto a single disc....pretty sad, huh (smile) But in the end I decided against it, so the CD I am making only has 200meg of stuff on it. I barely use most of the stuff on my machine anyway, my long-suffering computer adviser (wave Dru) must be getting totally fed up with me emailing him and saying, "do I need this? do I need that? what is this? what does this do? what sort of file is a file ending in such-and-such? I found this huge file on D drive which is over 100meg ending in .swp - can I delete it?" (I'm not joking. I didn't know what it was. For those not in the know about these things, apparently that's my swap file. I don't know what it does, but if I delete it things will break. A lot.) The problem, you see, is that I have inherited an old hard drive. Gitboy's, actually, and he left a lot of stuff on there which I "might want at some point". The other day, I came across a rather fetching porno picture of a woman wearing long stripy socks and nothing else, in a rather compromising position with a man. Obviously, this counts as something I "might want at some point". Not that I'm ungrateful or anything, but I have no idea what half of this stuff is. I suppose I could delete it all and start again with Windows 98 but it's such a drag and anyway I'm not that clever. The other day I deleted my desktop. The whole screen went grey and I had no icons left (and I love my icons - I have lots and lots of them because I'm too lazy to use the Start button). I panicked uncontrollably for about a minute until it mysteriously reappeared. That'll teach me to think, "Pah, I never use that!" and hit delete. These days, I follow advice and rename all files I think I don't need and then delete them 2 weeks later if nothing's broken, just in case. Today I found my temporary internet files - all 40 meg of them! - how incriminating - so they're all gone now too.
The reason I'm going on a bit about this is because it was pointed out to me in the pub with my geek friends last night that I think I'm getting a bit technically minded. I think I've improved in leaps and bounds, having been left with a computer that crashes 3 times a day and nobody close enough to demand help from. I know my way around my hard drive; I know what most things do; I can do my own trouble shooting and although it might not seem like it to those I cry HELP at, I do try and fix things by myself (think the hour-long-how-do-I-get-this-icon-into-the-task-bar saga which ended in tears until I finally worked it out). In addition to this, I started using ICQ way before them; and Napster; and I know a lot about modems and ADSL and the like because I discuss these things with people in the know. If we count Phil, I went out with a comms engineer for a year (and yes, we did actually talk sometimes!) - and of course Girlie Richard knows about these things. This doesn't make me a tehnical whizz kid, as Neil pointed out to me, but when my computer broke, I fixed it myself, just like he fixed his himself. The difference is, I don't have a computer science degree, and I'm a girl - I think these things mean I have to be some dizzy nut who thinks she can delete her swap file to free up some space on her hard drive without any repercussions (ummm.....).
My number one example is this. We were talking, Neil, Steve, Stu, Gitboy and I, about ADSL. I know about ADSL, more than your average girlie anyway, because Richard had it on trial, and Jen uses it as his house, and we were going to get it when we moved in together, and just because I don't walk around with my eyes closed and I do know what goes on in the world (especially the world of faster net connections, heh). So, I was trying to explain why Richard's trial ADSL line, which he paid 35 quid a month for, was suddenly going to cost 200 (it's to do with the number of users) and I happened to use the word bandwidth. And they laughed at me. As though I really had no idea what I was going on about and was just trying to use big words to impress them. Well, only one of them laughed - Gitboy, actually, which is why I'm calling him Gitboy again, because I'm really upset by that. I don't understand what's so amusing about me knowing what I'm talking about. I'm not a computer science graduate, but I keep a regularly updated web page, and I spend a lot of time talking to computer bods, and when it comes to the web I (mostly) know what I'm doing, I really do. Better than them, maybe, in some cases. This isn't because I'm cleverer - it's simply because I have been online a lot more and I've had more time to find my way around, and more help because I knew a lot of people online already from my BBS days. I don't appreciate being disparaged. Please don't do it. I have confidence problems enough with my computer knowledge and it often takes days for people to talk me into making changes or upgrading things, and it doesn't help to be laughed at.
That was horribly rambly, but I think I got my point across in the end. Grrr. I'm going to learn to program on the sly when I'm in America and come back and shock you even more. Only I'll pick something old like assembler (coincidentally Father Hand's fave) so I don't ever actually have to use it *grin*
Things have gone terribly wrong with the landlady, she thinks I'm going to skip the country and lumber her with the bills. I can't think why - I'm totally shocked she actually thinks I'm the sort of person who would do this. She told Jen today that (a) she's contacted her solicitor and is going to stop me from leaving the country until she has proof that the bills are paid, and (b) she won't give Jen back her deposit until she has said proof. The former doesn't worry me - because (a) my official lease expired in February, so she has no proof I was ever here since then, (b) it would cost her a bundle to get a court order to stop me and she's tight, (c) she isn't liable for any of the bills anyway because they're all in my name, and (d) her "solicitor" is her daughter who I suspect did a law GCSE or something and has been spouting out important-sounding bollocks ever since. Jen's deposit is another matter. I wrote the old witch (the landlady, not Jen) a long letter tonight stating the exact state of affairs - which is that the bills are in my name, so she can't be touched for them; that I've told everyone I'm moving out so there will be no repercussions involving the property; that I cannot yet pay the bills because I haven't had them - I'm waiting for the closing bills; and that I'm appalled she thinks I'm such a devious witch. If she doesn't see reason and still makes a big fuss, I will have no choice but to threaten to shop her to the benefits agency (who pay her a bundle and don't know she's got our rent coming in) and the council tax people (to whom she owes 800 pounds for the last year, since according to the terms of our leases, she is liable for it and we are not - I haven't made a fuss before because I don't have to pay cos I'm a student). I don't want to have to do that, because it does rather leave things on a sour note. But needs must.
Watch this space! I'm sure you'll all wait with baited breath to find out what happens *smiles*
In some good news - I get all my tax back from work, and very soon. I have a "Leaving the Country" form to fill in and I have earned 4330 quid so far this year. The limit is - get this - 4380. Jammy bird. I'm relieved to say the least, since I can use that for the deposit on my next residence. I craftily reclaimed the deposit from this place by not paying my last month's rent, which might be why she is so suspicious. But Emilia had to argue with her for ages before she got hers back and I'm not good in situations like that - I'd have just given in to keep the peace. But anyway, it just means I don't have any money to come from her. Maybe I will come back as a best-selling novelist and buy a flat.
I'm thinking of dying my hair blonde while I am out there, since I won't know anybody and if I hate it I can dye it back, and if I don't I can grow it out before I come back anyway. People are always telling me what they think I should do with my hair and I'm a bit sick of it. If Mother Hand had her way I'd have the same waist-length-with-a-fringe-in-"hazelblonde" (whatever THAT is!! she reckons it's my natural colour, but I think it's just a nice way of saying "totally nondescript and really quite boring brown with the occasional random blondish strand if I've been in the sun a lot") until the day I die. I'll admit, the long hair wasn't all bad. It meant that my general description was "that fat girl with the long hair" - whereas now it's probably just "that fat girl" - or maybe "that awful fat girl with the loud voice" - or "bitch whore from the seventh layer of hell" (Keef, I've never decided if your flatmate really typed that or if it was you in disguise *ponder*). But it was a bitch to wash without a shower. The only problem with the shorter look - apart from everyone saying it makes me look older - is that everyone says it makes me look just like Mother Hand. Not that I'm sorry - Mother Hand has aged very well, I hope I look as good as her when I'm 40, let alone as old as she is (older than 40). But people keep mistaking us for sisters. And anyway, I've always looked more like Father Hand. I've got his eyes, and his scowl, and his build. Now, I suppose, his hair is longer than mine and almost white, and he has that diamond studded, cowboy booted, just-a-gigolo look going on, which I might not want to emulate. But....*whinge*
What a totally pointless entry this has been. But it will be my last for a while, so it will have to last you guys. I fly on the 19th, I might get something uploaded then - but I need to transfer the whole page to its new home before I can do that so don't hold your collective breaths. Anyway, when Father Hand picks me up from the airport I'm going to demand that he takes me out for a pint, since it's the first time we've been legally allowed to drink together, at least in America. Start as you mean to go on and all that. Don't want him thinking I'm going to be a tee-total nun while I'm living under his roof (cackle)
My Favourite Supervisor wrote in my leaving card, "Be Good!" to which I might reply that I'm not going to become a totally new person once I get there, and also, that as far as I am aware, I always am 
Hasta Luego, England, my England!
Friday 22nd September
Yes it's ME! I'M BAAAACCCKKKKK! Took me long enough, though, didn't it. I have been going nuts without my diary for 2 whole weeks, I was just itching to write about the petrol crisis but instead I had to cosy up in an arm chair at my gran's house and read Christian literature (her house is full of it - and only it - but it's actually pretty good). Then on Thursday I went back to Mother Hand's and nearly got arrested on the train for not having a ticket. Well, I always buy my ticket on the train, and I was totally weighed down with baggage, but the witch checking tickets unfortunately had a differing opinion to me...
Me: (big smiles) I'd like a return to Portsmouth with a Young Person's Rail Card please
Inspector: You can't buy a ticket with that on here
Me: (smile fading) But...er....I have a ticket right here I purchased on a train just 4 days ago, with a card, what's the problem?
Inspector: You should have bought your ticket from the guard when you got on the train
Me: (stands up) Oh OK, I didn't realise, I'll go now then
Inspector: Oh it's too late for that now, you'll have to pay full fare
(small argument ensues)
Me: Fine, look, I'm not paying full fare, take my name and address and send me a penalty notice so I can write and complain
Inspector: (after some argument, does so)
Me: (mumble mumble) It must just depend on which inspector you get
Inspector: (turns back to me) What would you have done if I hadn't have asked you for a ticket?
Me: Well, I'm always asked for a ticket, I always buy one
Inspector: But suppoing you hadn't been asked, what then?
Me: (thinks) Well...I suppose I owuldn't have bought one
(Thunder clap)
Inspector: You do not have to say anything at this time but it may harm your case if you do not say now something you later rely on in a court of law
Me: (incredulous) Am I being arrested?
Inspector: Please come with me
Nosey commuters: (nose, nose)
She then said I'd be prosecuted for fare evasion. The problem was - and I know I'm stupid to have done it - but I'd given her Mother Hand's old Portsmouth address and I knew anything she sent me would not get to me, and I didn't want to come back to a county court judgement in absentia. So the next day, when I came back to London for the graduation party, I went and sorted it out and gave them my right address. The man behind the counter found it amusing that I was told I'd be prosecuted, he said they would just ask for their money and that would be that. But I think it sucks - she really scared me - and you can't have one rule for one inspector and another for another - it should be a rule, not discretionary. Grrrrr.
And to piss me off a little bit more, I realised that I could have lived with Mother Hand and travelled to London for all my classes and for another day of private study for less money than I was spending on rent. Mind you...moving back in with Mother Hand? I don't think so.
Father Hand and I are getting along swimmingly, on the other hand (oh sorry, terrible and unintentional pun). His apartment feels like home even though I have never been here before. The place is strewn with programming and geology books, and fag ash, and computer parts and slot machine parts. The dining room table is occupied by a computer with no case, hooked up to a monitor with no case, with Xtree as its OS - no Windows in sight. I have a fruit machine next to my bed and a celing fan and my own sink area. There's a sickly looking potted cactus in one corner of the living room, which has a poster I bought Father Hand in Venice on one of its walls. The freezer has a cow in it, my dad being extremely fond of meat - typical shopping list, "meat, meat, meat, cheese, blue cheese dressing, uh, meat, Ben&Jerry's (I said we'd get along fiiiiine), meat, and, oh yeah, some butter for basting the meat with". That's cool - I haven't eaten meat regularly since I lived in Halls, and I'm not sure that passed for meat. The fridge door boasts a horrendous picture of me, asged 12, which was my ski-lift pass when I went ski-ing with school. There's a fax machine on the kitchen counter. There are 480 cigarettes in the top of the corner cupboard - and they are Camel Lights - freak out, we both changed from Marlboro Lights to Camel Lights from opposite sides of the Atlantic. I'm trying not to smoke until it's dark, to avoid getting addicted. I have been here for 3 days and left the apartment twice - once to go out for steak and once to take a picture of the sunset. There are 5 pools, 2 hot tubs and 3 tennis courts, and apparently a sauna, somewhere, in this apartment complex. I have not been out in the hours of daylight yet though, it's 85 degrees outside. Last night it dropped to a chilly 74 at 2am, *brrrrr*
The journey over was something of a nightmare, first of all Zoe never bothered to show at the airport, whether she overslept or just blew me out I don't know. Then I was nursing my final pint of cider in the bar with Beccy for so long that I had a last call put out for me throughout the airport. Then when I got on the plane, the wind picked up and they had to take 25 passengers off because the plane was too heavy (I was sweating - I checked too much baggage). I wished I had volunteered to fly out the next day - a night in a hotel and a $500 flight voucher, it would have paid for my ticket home. But they had too many volunteers anyway. So, we were delayed by 4 hours while they dug out the baggage belonging to these people, which meant I missed my connecting flight, and that by the time I disembarked in Detroit, I had been on the plane for 12 hours (luckily nobody was sitting by me so I had leg room but the movie choices were terrible) and was thoroughly ratty and lacking in composure. The woman at immigration shone a bright light in my eyes and screeched, "WE HAVE WAYS OF MAKING YOU TALK!" at me. OK, that's a lie. But she was rather Spanish Inquisition and I kept saying to wrong things because I was so tired. I told her I had my own flat and then I remembered I didn't and had to backtrack. After a brief episode with the thumb screws she stamped my passport - and as I suspected, the stamp expires on March 18th 2001. More on that in a minute. So then I had to get a different flight and put up with a couple of extremely rude Americans pushing in front of me in the queue (I was the only member of said queue) and I resisted the urge to sneak into the bar and buy my first legal beer in this country, mainly because I hate beer, and went and had a Burger King instead and got chatted up by an airport translator who spoke fluent Italian and French but was originally from Morocco, go figure. I had to wait 2 hours for my onward flight and then the guy sitting in front of me took it upon himself to stand in the aisle and chat to his missus for the entire 4 hour jounrey. Oh, I tell a lie, he occasionally paused to tread on my foot. Then I had to wait an hour for my luggage, by which time I had been awake for 24 hours straight. It was....not an experience I would care to repeat (grin)
As for the visa, I can get another 6 months at the discretion of the immigration people but I have to leave the country first, so I might come back to England for good at that point, or at least for a week. Mexico is a possibility, but if they don't let me back into the country....oh dear. Father Hand reckons my chances of finding eomployment are slim to none, so maybe I'll be set to come back in 6 months. He also says there is a big cheque coming this way and he will give me some to go and bus around the States with....but we'll see.
That's probably about everything. I have been incredibly lazy since I got here, sleeping a lot, watching videos, watching Olympic gymnastics, reading books. Last night we sat up until 2am looking at pictures of Death Valley and discussing what I might do while I'm here - I might get in touch with the Russian prof at UNLV again and see if he wants a volunteer research assistant. But firstly, I really should get around to uploading everything to my new webspace. If you're reading this...I have done that (grin)
Monday 25th September
No, I don't have a tan yet, nobody ask me. It was 95 degrees outside today but I stayed indoors and made CDs. With any luck I might return to England paler than I started out. Well, maybe tomorrow I'll go swimming, exercise would be a good thing to counteract all these peanut butter M&Ms that have been jumping into my mouth at an astonishing rate.
Sitting on the dining room table now - replacing the caseless machine with the caseless monitor - is a Pentium III with my name on it. This one is a little better - it is just missing the cover for its case (and so matches the other 2 lidless computers scattered around the apartment). We went to a computer fair (ha! different country, same....) and picked it up at the weekend, along with a nifty little digital camera that not only stores up to 500 images but is also capable of acting as a webcam, and of holding 4.5 minutes of video. Father Hand insists he never makes impulse purchases and it must be my bad influence, since I have never seen him *not* make impulse purchases. But anyway, I had kind of figured this new motherboard and CPU would sit around for a while until Father Hand got sick of me cluttering up his machine with my files. However, I found exactly the right kind of prodding stick on Sunday morning, when I played him my selection of Britney Spears parodies, from Napster. "Where did you get these?!" he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. "Aaaaah, from the evil Napster, which you won't run on your machine for fear of people robbing you of other things," I replied (or words to that effect). "Ha....can you get me "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood?" "Sure, when I get to use Napster again." "Ha...." (five minutes pass) "Well, Sal, time to get this machine working so you can install all your stuff on it...."
Candy from a baby.
The machine and I got off to a great start this afternoon when I tried to install something and it immediately made me feel right at home by crashing, and in fact, went one further and refused to respond to its on/off switch. We're going to get along famously. The best part is the keyboard, which I bought and has lurid purple keys. I told Father Hand it would be coming with me when I left, and something in his eyes told me he was hoping I would be leaving soon if that thing is coming with me. I bought it with the proceeds of my first gambling spree on Friday night. I won 17.50. Father Hand lost a couple of hundred. Then he yelled at me for not getting 4 aces on the video poker and letting him and Frankie (Father Hand's woman) down. I was quite happy - 17.50 in 5 cent pieces feels like true wealth. The waitresses at the casino we went to - the Orleans - have these outfits consisting of thong leotards with plunging necklines, black fishnets and high heels. It is easy to see why this is the favourite casino of Father Hand and Uncle Hand.
Uncle Hand flew in on Saturday. No, that doesn't work, there are two Uncle Hands...Uncle Hand is also in Southampton rewiring his conservatory...I suppose we'd better call the current Vegas resident Uncle Dave ("founder of Wendy's?") Uncle Dave is a Kiwi, earning this title after upping sticks from the motherland when he was 18, marrying a Kiwi, having 2 kids who speak like Kiwis, and developing a fondness for rugby. He is struggling to come to terms with his newfound bachelorhood...or maybe his newly released hormones, I get confused. Anyway, the new girlie is Molly, and he is strangely protective of her, threatening to hand my website address over to Granny and Grandpa Hand if I am not nice to her. Well, Uncle Dave, the thing is, I had no intention of being anything but, and I'm quite put out by being threatened in such a way, so how about this: I include the transcripts of the weekend's bachelor babble in a forthcoming diary, if you hand over the address to Granny and Grandpa Hand? What, no cigar? Good Just kidding, Uncle Dave. I know I'm your favourite neice, even if the options are pretty lame (I am his only neice). He hadn't actually discovered the diary when I asked, mind you.
I digress. The weekend was spent in the company of Uncle Dave and Molly, and Father Hand and Frankie, and if I say, it was like spending a weekend with Kez and LER, hopefully everybody will know what I mean. But, well, I guess it was like Kez and LER: 6 months, not Kez and LER: one month. Kez and LER: I love you guys, it's not an insult, merely a benchmark. I was beginning to feel rather round and green with lots of hairs and good stewed with sugar in a pie, until Father Hand walked in this evening brandishing a pretty flower which had been languishing in the sun on the doorstep all day (they turned up at 10am - PLEASE! you think I'm going to hear them knock?!), and lo and behold, it was for ME! Of course, they spelled my name wrong, S-A-R-A instead of S-A-L-L-Y but, well, nobody has sent me flowers in 6 years (apart from the Queen, last spring, but that doesn't count) so I'm willing to overlook it. The gift was from my computer guru, and very well received, although it exposed me to some merciless teasing.
Father Hand: Dave, Molly, did you see the pretty flower Sally got?
Molly: That's really pretty (sniff sniff)
Me: (glare) (glare)
Father Hand: (smirk) it's from one of her suitors in England...
Me: (Hand scowl) (©) it most certainly is not
Molly: That's very romantic
Me: I don't think it was intended....oh never mind
Well, that's OK, anything to practice my "being teased" skills. Somebody-sent-me-flooowwwwww-errrrrrssss...la la la. Now I must try picking my chin up off of the floor where it has been since their arrival and go and wrestle with the Crosswinds web editor, which is being a total bitch (scowl) Browsers will forgive the sort of bittiness of this site at the moment - but it's just like real moving - stuff in boxes for weeks. I have hundreds of files left to upload and a problem with FTP - it doesn't work. Woe is me.