It's the longest day of the year. Today around Nashua the sun rises at 5:09AM and sets at 8:26PM. That's 15 hours 17 minutes of daylight. It will be in the upper 80s and a bit humid. It's days like these when Abby wants to know why she has to go to bed. “But it's still light out...” I remember saying the same thing to my mom when I was very young. I remember my mom saying that the sun stay up longer in summer and thinking she was trying to pull one over on me.
The house in Nashua is pretty empty. Michelle is going over there today because the pest control folks are installing a system as requested by the buyers. Also this afternoon Maria comes by to clean the house one last time. Boy! It looked filthy after the furniture was removed!
Yesterday morning Claire arrived in Chicago safe and sound. She went on a train downtown with the Tarpeys. She got to ride to the observation deck of the Sears Tower and eat at a local downtown restaurant.
Adelphia (the cable company) came by the new house yesterday (a day early) and wired up television and broadband internet. I met a neighbor yesterday who also has the service. He says it's pretty inconsistent service. When it works, it's great, but when it's down, it can be down for days. Supposedly DirecTVDSL service is covering our block. I'll wait a bit and see how our service is and how things go for him when he gets hooked up in a few weeks. Certainly last night things seemed fine.
When I came home yesterday, the lawn looked silly. The sprinkler system guys are still at work. There are flags all over the lawn, tubes sticking out here and there, and a bunch of tunnels that make it seem like a family of moles took over underground. In a few more days things should return back to normal... I hope.
When we moved in on Wednesday, the downstairs bathroom, where we had just installed the washer and dryer, smelled like propane. We closed the door and opened it's window. The installer came back yesterday and confirmed there was a slight leak. He secured the propane connection and things seem better now. Last night Michelle did her first load of laundry on the new units. They are much quieter. The controls seem a bit intimidating though. It's not your typical dial and push button setup. It's all digital controls and sensors. Once you look it over a bit, it is pretty easy and makes sense. It's just different.
Last night I setup the TiVo again. It needed to be re-oriented for the new cable provider. The unit had to make a few calls to know what new channels are now provided and what the lineup is on them for the next two weeks. I let it run overnight and all seemed well this morning. The girls are just too used to the service TiVo provides. I wanted to get it back up for them as soon as possible.
I had a dentist appointment this morning. Our dentist is a couple of blocks from Claire's old school, IJS. It was “just like old times” when I headed back to work: same streets and such. Only now the traffic was lighter. With school out for the summer there weren't a bunch of soccer moms going up and down those streets.
Still a lot of things to do this weekend but certainly the stress level is going down...
One last item, it's the gift every couch potato needs: the watch with built in remote control!! I know what to get Chris as a wedding gift, eh Chris? No more spousal fights over the remote control. According to this press release, it may even control a TiVo. Cool!