The weather today has been strange. This morning, the sun came out and beat down on us until well past 1PM, driving the temperature up near 90. Then, around 2PM, as I drove back from Radio Shack (Slogan: “You’ve got questions? We’ve got no clue.”) a real humdinger of a storm rolled through the area. It dropped pea-sized hail, rattled windows with its thunder, and dropped more water than I’ve ever seen come down in 20 minutes. I’ve been in car washes that hit me with less water. Wipers, even on high speed, were useless and I had to pull over and wait a bit until it settled down.

Life here at the office has been strange. Our lack of an internet connection has made even the most ordinary tasks a real chore. The fellow is supposed to be here tomorrow afternoon to finish the installation of our T-1, and at that point we’ll be able to say goodbye to this horrible dial-up purgatory for good.

I saw something this weekend that has got me rather excited. There was a program on a cable channel called “DIY” about radio-controlled airplanes. I used to mess around with those when I lived in Virginia, about 15 years ago, and it used to be a godawfully expensive hobby, both in terms of money and time. You had to build these things from balsa and monocote and glue, and it took FOREVER. The engines were liquid-fueled internal-combustion things with enough torque to slice your fingers off. They made enough noise to deafen you if you didn’t wear earplugs, and they were as heavy as bricks. The radios alone cost thousands.

On this show, they were showcasing a new type of RC plane called the “park flyer”. These are pre-built, ready-to-fly, lightweight airplanes that fly at a nice slow pace on electric power. Made possible by the advent of the new NiMH and Li-ion batteries, these little planes can fly for about 10 minutes on a charge, and are agile and slow enough to fly INDOORS (well, not in your living room, but in a convention hall!) One look at one of these, buzzing around in a hotel ballroom and doing loops and rolls, had me convinced that I need one.

Unfortunately, while they’re less expensive, they’re not free. To get anything decent would cost $200 or so … and we have an air conditioner that needs fixing and bills to pay and a kid to feed and blah blah blah. Right. I have to keep thinking that someday I’ll catch up with all the little emergencies and get to have a bit of a life. Maybe. Something like that sure would relieve a lot of stress.

I discovered today that a friend here in the office has been a Nick Drake fan for years. Why’d it take me so long to hear of him? 🙂