The UPS man just rang the bell, delivering my new DSL modem. This will offer some much needed relief. Once I post this I'll turn off the system and install the modem.

Don, have you been here in my house? You described exactly the piles of magazines I haven't read yet (or cut out The New Yorker cartoons). And the funny pages from the newspapers, piled in a bin next to the recycling. And the . . . well, anyway, you were right. And it's time to get out a shovel and the recycle bin, I think.

On another thread Geoff the Duck reminded me that DVDs hold a lot more data than CDs, and Don, I saw a brand-name DVD burner last week at Fry's Electronics for $99. It did the - and + and double layer stuff and all of the permutations of these. If I didn't have one already in the new computer (bought on Monday) I'd go get one of those. I'll be using Ghost (and as we discussed on yet another thread, will be testing it after I run a backup, not just assuming it worked) and the DVD-R and hopefully cut down on the number of disks needed for a backup like that. And I'll be replacing the external hard drive.

Meanwhile, it is occuring to me just how much must be documented in this claim. I had to pick up a cable to install the floppy since the new computer doesn't come with one (but I still have a lot of those around and will be putting them onto CDs ASAP) and I realized that I also needed to replace a printer cable. The fact that I had a spare USB cable in a drawer to connect the printer (USB or parallel) which might have meant that I didn't ask for the $20 to replace the parallel cable that I was using with the other printer. Since they're going to try to nickle and dime me, I have to mention every single old bit and furbellow, and every single software program and even the multiple versions I lost (that's a lot). For example, I bought Endnote several years ago, and then I upgraded it for the same price. Both disks were in the box that dispeared, so in effect, two Endnote programs are now gone (what's worse, I lost several hundred bibliographic entries from the last 10 years--with this realization I am as depressed as can be at the thought of reproducing that work.) The insurance company has placed an arbitrary upper limit of $2500 on what they will replace on my computer since I use it for work (the bastards!) so it is extremely fortunate that I had installed some of this software on my children's computer for their use. The cost will have to be recovered from what was on their machine. In this instance, I can count my blessings that I have bright, inquisitive children, and it was easier to install my software on their machine for them to practice web design and flash programming and such than to let them tie up my machine with the practice.

SRS