Once again I have found it to be so much easier to sleep than write here...

So. Random thoughts from the past week:

New computer. Does what it's supposed to, as did its predecessor, so I guess that's okay. Does not, however, have all the GIS software that was just a week or so ago installed on the old computer.

Licensing restrictions, you know. Can't just transfer proprietary software. Have to reinstall after deleting off the old machine. And apparently no one in Capitol City told the IT folks I would need the GIS. And no one told the GIS people that I (and a few other folks in the same boat) would be getting new computers. So now, I'm back at the tail end of the list of beggars waiting for the GIS installation software to rotate around the state.

"Government planning"... a classic contradiction of terms.

New printer. This is a joy, so far. Hit the PRINT button, and things actually get printed. More slowly than the old machine, oddly, but at least so far there are no glitches every fourth page or so, as with the old. Doesn't need a hard drive reboot every few dozen pages.

Answering machine. Not new. Been sitting here in a box for years. But everything was torn apart and getting rewired anyway, why not finally hook it up?

Boss will be pleased.

New camera.

This because the old Olympus finally disintegrated. Not yet thrilled with the new replacement. Suspecting I may have reached too far ahead, and gotten something too large and complicated for a field camera. Not the benefits of a true SLR, nor convenience of a point-and-shoot.

This weekend will be the first field test.

New CWD case. A deer from the middle of my north country came back positive. First deer case for dozens of miles around, but only 10 or so from last fall's dying elk. Warden and I were afraid powers that be would order us out to kill and collect 50 or so deer from the immediate area (the response to other new "loci"), but fortunately no such orders yet.

But we both know where we're going to be concentrating our efforts for the remainder of the elk seasons.

A new part or two on the outfit's truck.

Nice, since having windshield washers that actually wash the window is a good thing. But the noise in the hubs that the truck was taken to the shop for in the first place?

Unfixed. Mechanic did lots of things, but the metal on metal grinding noise? He never heard it, and therefore never fixed it. Despite that being the problem listed on the work order.

New enemy. The gal at the Ford service desk, who apparently thinks I should be nonplussed about the truck being untouched on the street at four o'clock in the afternoon, when the appointment was for 8AM. If I hadn't been trying to meet that 8 o'clock appointment, my new computer would have the GIS software on it...

At four o'clock she happily informed me my truck would be "going right in".

My response?

So I should have called at one o'clock, so it would have been in three hours earlier?

And, of course, she apparently considers me unreasonable to be perturbed that, after two and a half days, they returned a truck that is still broken, while claiming they had fixed it.

Yeah. She and her husband are new to our state. Seems this counts as "service" where they come from.

The lack of a truck did lead to a lunch in town with the wife, at the new Chinese place. Good lunch, good date. Although we shared it a friend.

Wife discovered you can't eat jello with chopsticks.

Other news... the sage grouse meeting today, naturally, produced...

Another meeting.

Oh, joy.