2008 — 23 July: Wednesday
Tonight's picture of Christa? Back in 1974, and several weeks after I'd first met her, I finally thought I'd better let her take me home to meet the folks one weekend. This was actually the first time I'd done this, but then it was also the first time I'd fallen in love with the girl I was determined to marry... Christa and Dad got on well, and he had fun trying out his not-entirely-rudimentary command of German on her.1 I should have warned her but, somehow, I forgot.
Dad was himself, at this point, undergoing a course of radio-therapy aimed at knocking out the bronchial cancer he was suffering from. Sadly, he was to succumb to secondaries in his brain within a year from the date of this photo. God, how I hate this loathsome disease!
Christa and her future father-in-law, 1974
I'm predicting, by the way, a visit to a Post Office depot after the mushroom hunting walk since my little parcel is obviously destined to show up while I'm out. I don't really mind — it will be more fun than the two hours or so which I've been spending wrestling with a set of HP printer drivers to get duplex printing working from both my main PCs rather than just one of them. As the directly-connected PC works and the networked one doesn't, I'm pointing a suspicious finger at some aspect of the network. I even dropped the driver back to PCL5 in case that was the problem. No chance. (The HP web site is rather sub-optimal, too.)
G'night at 00:17 or thereabouts.
Pinpointing my "sauces"... dept.
The first email this morning tells me that the quintuple pun about "transporting gulls across staid lions for immortal porpoises" was originally by Ogden Nash.2 Now all I have to do is remember when I quoted it! It's 09:22, the sun is shining, the letterbox is so far untroubled, and as soon as I've finished breakfast I must assemble a packed lunch. Not my turn to drive today, though.
It's mid-afternoon...
... and I am freshly showered following a not very mushroom-packed walk. I have made a new friend who is indeed a "fungi" to chat to. The predicted invitation to the Post Office depot was indeed waiting for me on the doorstep. I can't be sure it's the HDFury, but I do know it needs a signature, so here's hoping. It's 15:50, so I have just over an hour to wait — I hate waiting! You can stick "deferred gratification". I shall do the laundry and let the rendezvous sneak up on me. (As a child, I figured the earlier I went to sleep on Christmas Eve, the sooner I'd wake up to a pile of goodies the following morning. Ever the optimist, I'd also hang the stocking up the following evening, too, just in case.)
Just back, at 17:39 and will make a cuppa to sup while I try out the HDFury. Then the evening meal demands my attention. The porch thermometer was reading 41C in direct sunlight a couple of minutes ago, but a swig of water has dropped it to 28C (it only goes up to 50C and I don't relish driving over to Germany if I have to replace it — it's a very old friend of the family, too). Right, where's that kettle? And, just as important, surely I've got more than one pair of summer shorts knocking around somewhere? I would ask Christa, but she seems to have popped out for quite some time, alas. Ho hum.
I'm in urgent need of culinary input to compensate for the total failure to persuade a signal I can use out of the HDFury and into the Pioneer plasma screen. It insists the incoming signal is "Out of range" while tantalisingly showing the picture I want behind this modal dialogue box. Very frustrating, but I can always revert to RGB and component analogue, of course. "Bother", said Pooh. But at 19:24 it's definitely time to feed the inner man again.
Bliss...
... of the strictly analogue video sort is now restored. You were wrong, Carol. I admit defeat. Furthermore, I hereby renounce and abjure any further contact with the inner demon which has been tempting me to (try to) wheedle my way around the horror foisted upon us by Hollywood execs (whose greed exceeds their grasp) that is HDCP, and I just hope my present plasma screen lasts me for a goodly time to come. Good grief, it's 21:22 already. There must be easier hobbies...