Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Of Blogs and Widgets

I'm trying something new. Google has come up with a widget, a little program that runs on the Mac as part of the Dashboard, to allow direct entry to my Blogger account.

Adn so here I am, just typing text into a little window and clicking Publish. Without navigating the Blogger menus. No muss, no fuss.

And it works! At least, if you are reading this it does.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

The Reluctant Handyman

I finally finished the plumbing project I started at the end of May. I had to solder the bit of practical copper sculpture I created into the actual plumbing. After some wrangling to shield the plastic shower stall from the heat of the torch, finally settling on a short shovel as my heat shield, I soldered the valve into place and assembled the flange that holds the valve in place on the stall.

Then I crossed my fingers and turned the water on. And nothing happened. Which didn't make sense to me, because that was what was supposed to happen. Nothing continued to happen until I turned the shaft of the valve and water sprayed out of the shower head. Curiouser and curiouser. And to this day my very first soldered plumbing project has failed to leak. Who would have thought?

The next big project is laying a new floor in the sitting room and putting the wainscoting back on the wall in preparation for the sale of this house. I've becoming way too good at this. It's scary.

The sounds of construction are emanating from the property next door, some exploratory excavation and the moving of stumps and logs so they can be hauled away. The plan is nearly locked, and then we can start getting estimates for site prep, and the construction of the basic shell. We're planning to do a lot of the finish and all the electrical ourselves. It will make for a busy year!

Meanwhile, I am not without creative outlet. I'm still directing "Refund" and I got up and sang at the annual Village Players talent show.

That, at least, is something I actually know how to do.