Saturdays can be good

I helped deliver some beds to a poor family and then picked up a sofa and a refrigerator from some people who are looking for tax deductions. This was on behalf of CHO. ("CHO?" you ask. I'll tell you about it in another post. Maybe tomorrow.)

Then, a long drive out to Purcellville to bike the W&OD trail to Leesburg and back (18 miles round trip).

Back home, a package from Amazon had arrived: new video software (Adobe Premiere Elements). I'm happy enough with the el cheapo (that is, free) software I've been using, except that it doesn't allow me to control the audio (or at least I haven't been able to figure out how to do it) and the videos I've been making come out very blurry. If the new software can make the movies sharp, it'll be worth much more than the $59 I spent.

Before getting a chance to experiment with the new software, I got sidetracked into trying to figure out what podcasts are and whether they are something that a person without an ipod might be interested in. They are. You can burn them onto CDs and listen to them in your car. On our trip to the beach next week, I expect we'll be listening to lots of news from Lake Woebegone and several installments of "This American Life."

If, that is, we're not listening to Alice in Wonderland or The Wonderful Wizardof Oz, which it occurred to me, could be downloaded from librivox.com and burned onto CD.

An excellent day, to say the least. I won't mention that I then sat down to a delicious dinner of mushrooms stuffed with cheese and spinach, shrimp etoufee, fresh corn off the cob, charlotte cake, and a glass or four (I should say a fine crystal glass or four) of Shiraz.

Saturdays can be good.

And I'm retired. I get six Saturdays every week.

PS: You've read Alice, right? It's fabulous! Here are the first 3 paragraphs:

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so VERY much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually TOOK A WATCH OUT OF ITS WAISTCOAT-POCKET, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.