Online, at LAST!

Well, the cable guy just left. Finally... Internet. It's actually quite maddening living without the Internet. I don't know how I managed without it prior to 1993.

The drive up was uneventful, which is exactly what I wanted. It took two days and we arrived in Portland at approximately 8:30 PM pacific time on Thursday. It sure was nice to sleep in my bed again. The cats were OK with the drive... OK, but not great. Bob was very unhappy at the beginning of both days, and calmed down after about 30 minutes. Truck, on the other hand, would be OK early on, and then get progressively worse throughout the day. By hour 15 of driving, he was meowing for 20 minutes, take a 10 minute break, then start back up. It was so bad the first day that gave him "kitty Valium", which helped significantly. We were reluctant to give it to him the second day, and so we suffered. We got through Harry Potter on CD. Great book. I felt that there were some unresolved things, but all in all a good book. Trust Snape.

The house is a mess, but Molly has done an excellent job of unpacking. We still have so much more to do. My goal is to be unpacked completely in the next two weeks, but that is a huge order. My office is mostly unpacked, since I do have to start working again tomorrow. I may even start this afternoon, because I'm a little worried about the amount of vacation time I have taken with the move.

We did the Portland Annual Beer festival. Wow... lots of fun. John E. said it best when he told me "Welcome Home". I'll post some pictures soon enough.

We have a flat panel TV now. 42" hi-def (1080p). Very, very pretty. We ordered the HD-DVR with our cable, but I haven't had the chance to play with it yet. Also bought a DVD player with HD upscaling. It makes the DVDs look near high-def, and you can totally tell the difference.

I miss KC a lot. I hope that somebody will email me some pictures of Donner's party. I'm really, really sorry that I couldn't be there to see that.

One thing that keeps blowing me away about Portland... I'm so used to a Kansas summer, that I'll walk out of a store and literally be AWARE of how it isn't blisteringly hot. I just assumed that the hot is something you never get used to and that once it wasn't there anymore you wouldn't immediately notice it. But it is so *not hot* here that you notice exactly how *not hot* it really is. Amazing.

This is enough for now. Like I said, we'll post some photos of the beer fest, and of the new house soon.