Jon, I was looking at the various types of switches and decided 8 was plenty, and I looked at some of the TP-Link models, weighing the features, cost, etc. There are five places where the data ports can be installed (in addition to where the four I have now), and I wanted a little extra capacity in case I add something more, so the switch I got will do that. I had a 66-block in place to run the phone lines because a friend had it and said it would be easy to use. It was, but it was big and clunky so I picked up a smaller switch that I used for a while until I recently took it down to move the shelf and everything in the hall cupboard where all of this lives. All of these wires run up through the closet ceiling into the attic and is a "star" pattern (versus a "home run" circular arrangement that old phone installations used to favor).

I have a couple of amplified antennas on the roof, serving three different rooms right now. One to the computer (that has a receiver so I use it like a DVR), one to the living room, and one to the kitchen. The coaxial cable that runs from the big antenna used to run from the satellite dish when I was paying for that service. I got rid of them, took the dish off of the arm supporting it from my chimney, and ran the same cables from the new omni-directional antenna.

This afternoon I started an experiment, using boiling water with some white vinegar added for extra killing power to use on weeds in the garden. I can't find 10% acidity pickling vinegar for a reasonable price (it can be found, but in feed stores at 3 to 4 times the supermarket price when supermarkets used to carry this stuff). So I'm shifting from straight vinegar to hot water with some vinegar. Hot water might be enough, but this is the way I'm trying it now. I'm also thinking about trying out a steam cleaner, simply hosing down the weeds with steam. This is an experiment, as I said, only conducted in one part of the yard for now.

Susan, you'd think that the postal folks would know better than to set parcels in puddles. I may have to put a raised bin of some sort on the porch that isn't in view from the street but that is clearly marked for packages.