Two days later, people (including Eddye) are still without power. The only major problem I heard of from the storm (besides a lot of tree limbs broken off) was at Tracy's house, where a tree was split by lightning, causing half of it to fall on her roof. She doesn't think there was any damage, but the tree hasn't been removed yet, so I guess she'll find out in the next couple of days.

In the household expenses department, Bob thinks we (or, more precisely, our next-door neighbor, since we share a wall, is basicallyl the same thing) have termites. He's going to have someone come out next week and inspect and give us an estimate for taking care of the problem and fixing the damage.

And sometime in the next few months we're going to have to have the back stoop torn out and re-poured, and a couple of truckloads of dirt brought in to build up the lawn against the foundation of the house. And then we'll have to re-sod. And we still haven't completely fixed the kitchen--we need to respray the ceiling and paint the kitchen, and if we're going to paint the kitchen, we really should paint the whole house, and the carpet should be replaced . . . It's never-ending.

Despite all that, I've decided to buy a new computer. A Mac. It's time. I've been talking about it for years, but this week really brought it home to me. I spent several hours one evening this week helping a friend with a website that looked great on a Mac and abyssmal on a PC, but the whole time, I felt like I was working blind, because I couldn't see my work on the other platform.

If I'm going to do this for real, and it seems that I am, I'm going to have to break down and do it.

I'm not sure yet what I'm going to get. I started out wanting an iBook, one of the reasons being that I don't have any desk space free for a desktop machine. But Bob pointed out that I could get rid of the sewing machine cabinet (and sewing machine) that sits in the dining room, and that I never use, and I could put a desk there.

So then I started thinking about an iMac, but the more I talk to people who use Macs, they're trying to discourage me from that route and talk me into getting a "real" Mac, i.e., a G4, probably.

So I guess I won't be going to Comp USA tomorrow and picking one up; I guess I'll be doing a little research first. I just don't want to lose momentum.