Whoops, missed a few days there. I suppose one can expect that, in this The Period of Great Transition in the Ditchman family abode, as I work to move everything over to (your attention please) THE NEW MAC! (applause)

Okay, so it hasn't really been delivered yet.

Spent an extended weekend up in Silicon Valley, staying with some friends and visiting with some extended family after an extended drive. Seems nearly everyone up there works for either Apple or Microsoft, so there was much ado about my new Mac purchase. Seated around the table at the Los Gatos Brewery, half the folks pulled out their iPhones and cued up the Apple website to see what kind of Friends & Family discount I could get, which was awesome. By the end of the weekend, decisions were made, the money spent, and buyer's remorse would kick in -reminding Mrs. Ditchman that there's an actual mortgage to pay for, so here I am back down south, rushing off to deliver the longest single piece of aluminum in American metallurgic history.

I would have mentioned the trip on the blog, but I don't see any reason to alert the OBG (Oceanside Burglars Guild) to our absence, especially while the time is wrong on the alarm system. (It's all caught up now, burglars do not have to arrive an hour early.) Minutes after we arrived home yesterday, there was a knock on the door and LO AND BEHOLD! the Fedex guy was standing there with my new monitor! My heart soared immediately, and then I watched as the delivery man got in his truck and drove away. It was like having a pizza box delivery, pizza to follow. So I sit here, hungry as ever, staring at a blank screen on my desk, next to my crooked and miniscule old screen with the glaring red pixel that will never disappear. It's like looking at a broken digital watch while waiting for a movie to start at the Cinerama. And a thousand other pedestrian metaphors, too, while-u-wait... For example: I know there's a metaphor in here somewhere, I just can't find it.

But it was a nice weekend. Got to see my cousins and their new kids, and a few friends and theirs. The Little Ditchman had the time of her life and it was a joy to watch, as this holiday season unfolds. There are parties and engagements galore for the next few months, so it will be a challenge to blog about. You can only say "Went to ***'s house -had a great time with ***" so many times and in so many different ways. Add that to the fifty jobs I have to do before the end of the year and the calendar runs out of space fairly quick.

Still, life is good. And when the MacPro arrives, life will be digitized and disseminated to the nether environs of the Ditchman Matrix forthwith -accessible by Internet. It will be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ditchman World, alongside the Eastview Water Feature and the piece of aluminum to be delivered moments from now. Why, one can almost hear the rolling up of the cargo bay doors of the Spruce Goose as they load it up at the plant.

P.S. Missed the news over the weekend, but it looks like there's hope for the world after all: "One can be a friend of America, and yet win elections in France."