Sorry for such a turd entry yesterday but it was super nice out and I really didn't feel like spending too much time inside. Brian and I for the first time worked in just shorts it was so warm out. Awesome. As Brian says "Sun's out gun's out" Right. My right shoulder has now become perpetually sore. I hope I'm getting buff although I doubt it.

So there wasn't a bus to Derry in time for the half-marathon, so I missed it. Damn. Brian and I moved the ancient heavy corn thrasher (like a primitive combine for all my Iowa friends) away from the front door area to its more permanent establishment, greeter at the driveway's end. In the future it will hold the man made out of beer cans that acts as our post box.

We also finished spreading the gravel (and ordered more) and finished digging the drainage trenches around the house. We will be putting in the plastic drainage pipes today and filling the trenches with gravel to complete the drainage system. We also did quite a bit of landscaping the other day and opened up the front yard a ton. Some of the large sycamore trees surrounding the front of the house are diseased, we aren't sure what to do with them. We are waiting til Brian's father (who is a baller when it comes to botany) will tell us his opinion. It's raining today however and well. Rain sorta sucks.

I finished Dune last night and I'm tempted to get another novel from the library, but I know this inhibits work. I am trying. What else can I relay?

I took my second hot shower since being here thanks to a generous neighbor and today is the second laundry day since being here. Not much has happened over the past few days, Brian and I have stayed in most the nights and been reading etc. Today is the Rugby World Cup kick-off with Ireland playing Namibia. And the Gaelic Football Finals are coming up. Just so you all know. Watching rugby again makes me think of my dear Scotty P and how much I'd love to see him bustin' skulls again.

Well sadly I haven't any funny stories to tell and I've pretty much caught you all up on news and as for philosophical musings or weird quirky characteristics, I pretty much have got nothin'.

Except that! I love science fiction books because I wish they were real. It's pretty dorky, buttt for those of you familiar with Dune the novel etc, I would love to actually have Bene Gesserit and Mentats exist. Sigh. It'd be great. I think I am going to pick up Ender's Game if they have it (doubt it) which spells disaster because there are four books in the series and once I get started I can't stop. They are heaven. I also had a great conversation yesterday about the safety and privacy and advancements in technology. Can you believe that technology is moving so quickly that even I would become a resistant 'old timer' backwards fashioned person in this day and age? Maybe yeah, but still. I don't know about more than half the stuff out there. Am fairly computer illiterate and well, there are large social issues related to our current technological fascination, I wonder how it will all play out. The privacy issue is one of the scariest I believe. Now I already have some tendencies to give conspiracy theories the benefit of the doubt, but I am extremely worried that GMail scans the content of your email and picks up keywords to guide their sidebar advertisements. And there's a sneaking suspicion that the Facebook will eventually be commandeered or controlled in a way that thousands of people's profiles will be in dossiers. The sad thing is, that one wouldn't have to worry thinking that much of things posted on the internet about a person, searches, email, facebook especially, are all choice patterns (looked at and viewed as such because of the economic bent on their use (adverts)) but due to the direction the society has taken in eliminating true freedoms from the individual and swapping them for things such as personal choice (what color is your cell phone, stone washed or traditional blue jeans, are you one of these types or the other etc) become more important and all encompassing definitions of who we are. The freedom to choose should not be limited to the freedom to choose amongst 7 manifestations of 3 multi-national's mobile phone brands. That's not freedom. The solution? I don't know I haven't thought that far. There's a rant for you. Ok laters.