Gah. I was about to start this entry with a discussion of everything that I did this weekend, but then I heard Star give one of her combination roars and growls, and then I heard the sound of something hitting the wooden gate at the bottom of the steps with full force. My guess was that one of the cats had gone halfway down the stairs (they’re at a 90 degree angle and a closed off staircase, so someone coming downstairs would have to be halfway down and at the corner before anyone in the living room could see them), and gotten chased back upstairs when Star noticed their presence. I went downstairs to double check, and the truth was a bit more of a close call. Apparently Gus had managed to go downstairs unnoticed and was hiding under the bench in the living room. Unfortunately for him, Star finally noticed him there, and charged. Gus barely got through the gate in time. I finally found him in the room that doubles as a guest bedroom and Mom’s office. Gus was hiding under the bed, terrified as all hell. I do wish Star was cat friendly, but in the meantime… I hope this cures Gus of any curiosity regarding the downstairs in the meantime.
This weekend was a relatively uneventful one, for the most part. I met Robin for dinner at Cheesecake Factory on Friday evening. She had never been, and it was rather amusing watching her be overwhelmed by the book they have for menus there. Afterwards, we went over to Barnes and Noble to browse around. One thing they had there that was interesting was a book called Star Wars: Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn, who is probably the best of the Star Wars novelists out there. In fact, one could easily argue that Zahn was the one who brought about the long series of Star Wars novels beginning in 1991, with the novel Heir to the Empire. I digress, however… once we got finished at B&N, it was time for her to head home as she had to be up at 6 AM. From there I headed home, and actually went to bed early.
The next morning, I got up at a decent hour for a Saturday (9 AM), had breakfast and my requisite two cups of coffee, and then went to Louie’s to see if I could straighten out the mess that his Windows XP install had become. I ended up electing to copy his My Documents, MAME, and Idents (station identifications he had gotten from all over the world) folders over to the 500 GB external drive hooked up to his Powerbook, and then wiped the machine… only to find that I had left the XP license key back at my house. (He’s using an extra legal copy I have.) So, that necessitated a return trip, which I’ll discuss later. Anyway, while the file copy was going on, Dave came around with his laptop, and seeing as he FINALLY got himself net access, I went ahead and did him a favor by patching his laptop up to SP2 and the latest updates. Then, we all went to the Richmond Arms (a British pub local to Louie’s apartment) for dinner and drinks (and some good old-fashioned football between Birmingham and Tottingham). After the Richmond Arms, we went to the Slick Willies at Westheimer and Fountainview for some pool. After playing that (and with me actually winning a game for once!), we headed back to the apartment, and from there Dave and I headed home (after I finished as much as I could on Dave’s laptop and Louie’s PC).
I woke up at the usual Sunday time (9:30 AM) this morning, had breakfast and my requisite two cups of coffee, and then left the house at about noon to get to Louie’s with the XP license key (which I ended up leaving there). I finished installing Windows, installed the necessary drivers and apps, and began copying the files back from the Powerbook over to the PC. Of course, neither he nor I wanted me to be there all afternoon, so after the file copy began, I showed him what he needed to do to copy all of the other files back over, and headed back home. I’ve spent most of the rest of the day here relaxing.
Oh, well… this week is looking to be a relatively mild week, though next week I’ll have to go out to Rock Springs to finalize some work to get the new company location there completely onto our network. I’ll just need to figure out how I want to get there: take a flight to Denver and from there to Rock Springs and back, or fly out to Salt Lake City and drive to Rock Springs. I’ll likely do the latter. Either way, it should be a quiet few days other than the work that needs doing. Rock Springs is a relatively small town, so it should be a quiet few days doing work. Oh, well…
In any event, I have stuff here that needs looking at right now, so I better get that taken care of. Fun fun…