Kate Paulk

Yet again life got sufficiently crazy that updating here fell off the radar.

Meanwhile, I’ve just returned from buying a new keyboard – the third time I’ve done this in the last year. Why? I spend a lot of time typing, both at home and at work, and I’m kind of fussy about the tools I use. I’m okay with the moderately high quality standard keyboard my work system has but by far my favorite is the Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard. I like the feel of the keys, the spacing and separation, and the layout. Especially the layout.

The problem is the way the damn thing is built. It uses those bloody cheapass crappy printed on circuits that will stop working at the least little accident.  This replacement happened because the page up key was sticking – and I use that thing a lot. The last replacement happened because the cat tipped my water bottle on the keyboard. I tried – once – to dry out and keep using one of these after a water incident. No go: while you can take the thing apart, good luck putting the sodding beast back together afterwards. It ain’t happening. The end result is any gunk, gunge or liquid entry between keys is doom to the keyboard, and another $50 outlay for me.

I’m just as fussy about my mouse – I like the Logitech  performance MX series for the best shape and the most awesome scroll wheel – as well as excellent response. My big failing there is that I keep forgetting to recharge the bloody thing, so periodically I need to switch to the emergency backup mouse – your standard optical beastie with much cruddier performance. And yes, I do clean out optical mice. The supernatural ability of cat-fluff to get into the most amazing crevices does include the laser “window”. Despite the fact that I keep the cat off the mousepad.

On the writing front the work in progress approaches the 50k words mark, and I’ve got the markup pass for ConSensual edits done. I should have edits mostly sorted this weekend, barring disaster.

Meanwhile, the house-buying process grinds on. We’re still sending the mortgage people documentation of everything. Well, not each visit to the bathroom but damn near everything but. They’ve – finally – heard from the appraisal people and should have that in by Wednesday. For some odd reason it’s not possible to have a mortgage without an appraisal. Who knew?

On the realtor side, we’ve had to adjust the agreement because the stucco on the house (probably original or nearly and very elderly) needs replacing, to the tune of 8.5k. The sellers offered to split the cost with us and do their share as a seller assist, so we said “hell yes”. Amendments have been signed.

Closing is still the 16th of March (meep!), which also marks my first con of the year. Fortunately Lunacon is only 2.5 to 3 hours from here. I’ve already warned the programming people that I could be quite late Friday, so please don’t schedule me for anything then.

Now you do see why this blog keeps getting left behind? I really need to find a way to update more regularly, no matter how insane my life just got.