July 30 - update

Stef, Aaron & Lauren arrived mid afternoon ... Abby was very excited ! People !!

My internet connection was down from late Saturday evening until this afternoon. Some problem at Hughes / Xplornet triggered the outage and then when I tried to reconnect with a rep on the line my signal was not strong enough to "pass" the transmitter pointing test. They "said" that they were going to schedule the installer to come out and that I should have a call early this morning ... well, I know better and called my satelite guy myself, leaving a message this a.m. He returned my call around dinnertime today and had not yet heard from Xplornet ... figures.

Anyway, I experimented with the dish myself, pushing against it to increase my signal. Sandy stood outside on the deck and read off the signal values and then when we were getting a strong enough signal, ran the test and it passed. I still have a weak signal, but at least I'm connected at this point. Tony (the installer) will come out later this week and improve the alignment. He suggested that I do it myself, but "if it ain't broke" -- you get the idea. I don't want to mess things up and really be disconnected. I'll let him do that !

I got the baseboard installed this afternoon at the base of the stairs and the downstairs pantry along with the pantry shelves. Tomorrow I'll install the already-painted baseboard in the downstairs bedroom. I don't expect to get a lot of work done with everyone here but will pick away at some minor items.

oh -- and minor stuff in the scheme of things, but very time consuming -- towel bars, hand towel rings, towel rack, toilet paper holder, etc. in the downstairs bathroom; 5 towel bars upstairs in the bedroom closets -- mission accomplished.

That's it for today.