morrowlife

Here’s James Monroe – well, at least it’s a statue of Monroe outside of his old house near Charlottesville, Virginia. Maybe it’s time to clean the statue. I hope he looked better than this in life. It looks like he has leprosy.

No post yesterday. This getting ready to move stuff is really time-consuming. I’ll keep trying to stay on schedule, though.

Loyal Reader Number One talked his mom into buying a dual-layer DVD burner at Staples yesterday. It was only thirty bucks, and it appears to be a really good one. It’s an “internal” drive, but we’re going to use it with my Mac, so we need to buy an enclosure soon – probably a firewire one. LRNO thinks he can find one for about twenty-five dollars, which will result in our having gotten this thing for a very attractive price. He hooked it up to my machine using his test cable, and the Mini recognized it right out of the box. He burned a DVD, which works perfectly, so we’re in business! I’ve really regretted not getting a burner in my Mac ever since I got my video camera, so now the self-recrimination can end. Our long national nightmare is over.

We’ve been selling a bunch of stuff on eBay. Reader Number Two is our agent, for which service he gets to keep all the money, if any. So far, he’s sold two books and made about fifty bucks. Not too shabby. We’re also getting to be much better eBayers. We’ll be selling the whole house full of stuff before long. In fact, Reader Number One has been posting model railroad stuff all evening. He’ll probably make a few dollars.

The new countertops come tomorrow! Reader Number Four has wanted granite for quite a long time, and now she’ll have it – for about three weeks. We will really need to get it in California.

It’s way too late again, so I’m quitting. See you tomorrow.

We went to James Monroe’s house, Ash Lawn-Highland, over the Christmas holidays. It’s in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is very close to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s house, and Montpelier, James Madison’s house. Monroe, Madison, and Jefferson were not only neighbors, they were good friends. Monroe seems to have gotten the worst of it among the three, as he never really had much money, and his house wasn’t all that great. Still, he was the president, so they have the place open to the public.

My favorite part of the tour was when we visited the part of the house Madison himself built. The floor was so crooked you could hardly stand up straight. I guess he was a better politician than a builder. Everybody has to be good at something. He did give us the Monroe Doctrine, which basically promised Europeans we would stay out of their hair and warned them to stay out of ours. It served us well for quite a long time. He also worked out the Lousiana Purchase when he was Secretary of State. Not a bad legacy there. So, I can forgive him for having a lousy house. He gave a lot of service and didn’t get much of this world’s goods in return.

Still, his statue is in pretty bad shape.

I took this picture at the Mercer Museum on Tuesday evening, while the barbershop chorus was singing Christmas songs. It was wonderful, and the Mercer is one of the coolest little museums I have ever seen. It’s a fascinating concrete building that looks like a castle, and it’s packed full of everyday tools from early America. It’s right in downtown Doylestown, across the street from the Michener Museum (not my favorite, but worth a visit on a free day) and around the corner from both the public library (worst service in America – I’ll have to write a few words about it one day soon) and the Scout shop (small but nice, and very friendly people). I highly recommend a visit to the Mercer Museum.

Got back from Denver late last night; I pulled into the driveway shortly before 2:00 in the morning. It was raining hard. Fortunately, it warmed up a bunch during the day and was in the upper 40’s by the time I hit the road. There was lots of flooding, but no ice, for which I was grateful. I passed an SUV on its side on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, with stuff strewn all over the road. I hope the people inside it were buckled up and thus not strewn all over the road. It looked pretty bad, although certainly survivable for seat-buckled occupants.

The trip to Denver was pretty good, by the way. My meeting was over in half a day with very good results and I went to the temple on Wednesday evening and saw several people there I know. The weather was sunny and cold – kind of like it was in Gardenville. My hotel room was comfortable, the sushi was good, and the flights were comfortable. I got first-class upgrades in both directions, so I can’t complain. Except about the airline food. Yuck. First class doesn’t mean what it used to, I guess.

Apologies to my reader for missing a couple of days. I was busy.

Busy weekend ahead, too. See you Monday.