So sorry. The home computer, having seen what the laptop accomplished in terms of time off the job, decided to quit. It was a slow process, beginning about two weeks ago. Just about the time I got the laptop fixed -- but still didn't (and don't yet) have an Internet connection, the desktop computer began to quit. The experience was much like looking at the slow motion film of a car crash. First a hubcap comes floating off as the car goes airborne. Then, dreamily, some parts fall off beneath the car. When the vehicle actually makes contact with some fixed object, doors swing open lazily, revealing the horror-struck occupants whose faces contort as they, too, view their imminent demise slowly.
First, we couldn't open email attachments. Then we could get on the Internet, but we couldn't go from one web page to another. And so on.
Fortunately, I found Herr Kaspar Staub in the yellow pages. He both gave and he took away. He gave me back both the laptop and the desktop, so now I can blog again. He took away my built-in excuse for being such a klutz with digital things -- my age.
Mr. Staub is 83. He walks with a cane and watches Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy black-and-white films in memory of his lost wife. And he fixes computers. He left Switzerland when he was 25 and moved to New Jersey, where a relative got him a job. He retired 17 years ago as a purchasing agent. For many years, he traveled to Asia on the job and for many years, starting in Switzerland, he was an equestrian. He was actually in the Swiss Cavalry for a while, I think before World War II. During the war, his assignment was to help out in the local hospital.
Kaspar told me, in German, an old Swiss saying which translates: If you spend your life with horses and children, you will never grow old. I guess that explains why he is digitally competent and I am not. No horses.
In any case, it's good to be back to the blog.
Robin is still in Connecticut, but Curt Michael has installed her new autopilot. A week from Monday, I'll be heading there with another friend, John Morrison. The three of us will depart CT on July 28. We hope to go east to Montauk Point and then cross a corner of the Atlantic to Cape May, NJ. The direction of the wind will have a lot to do with whether that plan works. Northerlies and easterlies would be good. Southerlies and westerlies not so good. We'll see.
In the down time during the last two weeks, I completed work on the youth novel, as I'd hoped. Now it's time to see whether anyone thinks it's worth showing to kids. I had a great time writing it, and I was treated to several surprises in the story along the way. If nothing else, writing it kept me out of most trouble for fourteen days. (I did manage to leave an entire package of skinless, boneless chicken breasts out of the freezer during the same period, and the subsequent stink in the house was enough to drive away even dead animals.)
So I guess it's time I got back on a boat.
But first, we get the pleasure of attending Dodge Morgan's Bang-and-go-Back party on Quahog Bay, Maine, next weekend. In addition to being held on Dodge's private island with its spectacular coast-of-Maine scenery, the party attracts about 140 guests, so there's no shortage of new people to meet and new victims to tell your old stories.
Now that we're back blogging, I'm hoping that I won't miss too many days.
And since this blog site is also a means by which I'm attempting to sell books, I would be grateful if you'd pass it along to potentially intersted parties. I'll do my best to find ways to entertain. You can respond to blogs, too, and take me in your own direction.
Thanks,
Doug