Wounded TiVo

One of my TiVos took a hit last night. During an intense thunderstorm, our neighbor's tree lost a limb, which took out the powerline behind our house. After the friendly CFU folks came out and fixed it, we powered everything back up, only to find that the Toshiba TiVo/DVD player in our bedroom stutters during playback and emits an occasional KA-CHUNK noise from the hard drive. My laziness has paid off, however, as I hadn't gotten around to selling my old 60 hour Series 2 TiVo yet, so I was able to swap it back in to service. Tonight, I get to try to coax Toshiba to live up to their warranty, since the unit is only 4 months old. Update: Toshiba turned out to be quite reasonable, and if I ship the wounded TiVo back to them, they're going to send me a brand new one. I can't complain about that, considering their warranty says that after 90 days I'm supposed to pay labor.

Amy Wenger

Just got word that the best friend of Emily, one of my college girlfriends, was struck and killed by lightning while volunteering at a camp for the disabled yesterday. According to Emily:

"Amy was delivering medications to some campers in a remote part of the camp. It was raining, but not storming at the time. She got out of her truck and the lightning hit her directly. Two counselors saw it happen and tried CPR; they also used the defibrulator at the camp. They took her to the hospital when they couldn't revive her."

How horrible, that's the kind of thing that makes even religious people question the notion of a just and fair God. Emily said that Amy had just finished her Master's degree in May, and had just e-mailed a few days ago, excited about moving to Virginia to start a new job. My condolences to her friends and family. :(

The Village

Holly & I went to see The Village today, which was decent. Not as good as The Sixth Sense, or Signs, my two favorites by the director, but it certainly isn't the bomb that Ebert made it out to be in his review.

Back from the North Woods

I'm back in Iowa, and connected to the world once again, albeit via dial-up until I get home on Monday. I had 287 messages in my inbox today, which caused Thunderbird some consternation at first, but I finally got most of them read and/or deleted. Now to figure out what I missed out on during the communcations blackout that results from being in a remote cabin. While setting down my luggage, I noticed the new Newsweek on my grandparents' table, and realized that it was showcasing a brand new iPod, so I immediately grabbed it to get up to date. Now to download that 10MB iPod software update that my PowerBook is urging me to get, maybe it'll update something on my iPod Mini?

Gone Fishin'

We're packing up and heading north to Minnesota today, to do some fishing. My parents, sister, and paternal grandparents will be joining us at the Maple Leaf Resort on Leech Lake for a week of fishing and relaxing. I'll probably be cut off from internet access for a week, unless I'm lucky enough to find a local dial up number for MSN or AOL up there. Holly will be coming back in a couple of days, as she can't tolerate a week of fishing, or being with her in-laws, but I'm looking forward to the break. It'll give me a chance to work on Bill Clinton's book, which is very very long...