The good news is that my boxes arrived on schedule yesterday. The bad news is that they were pretty bashed about, and a couple of seams were starting to split. However nothing seems to be lost or damaged. The contents were mostly clothes, books, DVDs, and electronic miscellania The only items I’m really worried about are three external hard disk enclosures; everything else is replaceable.
I now have high-speed internet access in the apartment. A Comcast self-installation kit appeared yesterday – coax cables, splitter, cable modem, and software. The latter was the only real problem. First, it insisted on installing Internet Explorer on my Mac. (How retro.) Most of the installation process ran fine, but right at the end it started reporting a “communication error”. Since it had been chattering away to Comcast’s backend systems quite happily, I called customer support, and a technician completed the provisioning in a couple of minutes. I haven’t tested the bandwidth yet, but Skype works beautifully.
I’ve now got to the point where this place feels like an apartment rather than a hotel: I cooked my favourite dish last night. Nothing too fancy: chicken thighs and mushrooms in white wine, lemon juice, garlic, and tarragon. It’s a checkpoint that my larder is stocked with the bare necessities.
And finally, in response to Jon’s plea, he and I will be getting together for drinks at McNenamins on Roy Street, at 5 o’clock this afternoon. If you’re in the area…..