h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You'Re right - this house is from 1820, and nice, but nothing special - friends of ours live in one that was old in the 30 years' war!

My house was built in 1903, so it is positively ancient for this area. It's a big brick place with a turret. Very Victorian. Several big fireplaces, stained glass and fancy woodwork all over the place. When I'm out in the yard for any reason people will often stop to ask me about its history because it's such an unusual house for the neighborhood it's in. It really stands out in a place where most of the rest of the houses were built in the 1950's-70's and are typical city houses. It used to have a slate roof, but a big chunk of it got knocked off in a freak tornado about eight years ago. Of course the insurance company wouldn't pay for full replacement of a 100-year-old slate roof and I couldn't afford to replace it, so it just has regular asphalt shingles now.

Sounds really nice! This is just a half-timbered farmhouse. At Uni, I share a house with four others, it used to be a church meeting hall and has 4m ceilings!

Here's a link to a picture of my house on the web site of my local county govt. It's fairly obscured by trees and hedges which have since been trimmed WAY back, but it's generally the way it looks now.

http://www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/RealEstate/Image.asp?CurrBloLot=0070D00156000000&HouseNum=3271&Street=faronia&SingleResult=True

Your house sounds great. I love high ceilings, but it gets a bit cool in the winter. My place has 11 foot ceilings, which is, I guess, between 3 and 4 meters.

That'S a really nice house!

No pics of ours online, I'm afraid... I like my high ceiling, too, I have a big loft bed with a walk in closet, handy when living in one room!

Hey!
Sorry it's been so long since my last post. This was the opening week of school where I work, so I've been run off my feet. In fact, as I type this, it is about 22:30 on Friday night. I've been up since 3:30 this morning and at work since 5:30. Not only did I work a full day at school, then I hung around for our first home football game (high school football is like a religion in these small, rural communities). My school lost, 47-6. What a beating! After the game there's a dance, which I am ostensibly chaperoning. I can see it from my desk because there is a camera mounted in the cafeteria and I have the monitor in my office.

Hope all is well with you. I'm taking three days off now (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, which is the U.S. holiday of Labor Day) so I won't be back on-line 'til Tuesday, if then. Hope you have a great weekend.

Wayde

Sounds very busy! You have my sympathy! 3:30 is about the time I managed to get to bed, I'm preparing for exams, these are the most important ones besides the final finals!

I used to live in a very small US town, I know what you mean about the football team - the Scio Loggers - but in our town, the logging team was also important

Enjoy your long weekend at least, and don't let them irritate you too much!

Hey, Mal,

So much has happened I wouldn't even know where to begin. I'll just say that I received a huge promotion at work, but had to do two jobs for quite a while. I am now the superintendent of schools for my school district. Until we hired a new high school principal, I had to continue doing that too.

Things have calmed down a bit now.

Lots of other news (I bought a new car, for example), but way too much to type out. Life is always interesting.

How have you been?

Good for you! Glad you managed it!


I finally finished my exams, halfway to my Bachelor's now. Slowly recovering from the effort, I had times where I slept 12 hours in five days...

Thank you for your kind words. I've been working toward this for a long time and I'm in a position that I may actually like.

It's too bad you have had to work so hard. The sleep-deprivation part must be particularly hard. I wish we didn't have to do it at all (sleep, that is). If it wasn't for having to sleep, I could be SO much more productive!

Well, that's good, then! Glad you enjoy it!

Oh yeah I was having fascinating hallucinations and there were times when my mind was perfectly clear but I had no control of my body - fascinating! But I must admit I like my sleep. If we didn't have to do it, even more people would be unemployed

Out of sheer exhaustion, I took a vacation day yesterday (Thursday, that is). From the time I left work on Wednesday, 'til I came back into the office this morning, was a stretch of about 36 hours, of which I am sure I slept at least 26. I am just starting to feel normal again... whatever normal is, anyway.

I only managed 23 hours

And then at work we are getting ready for our international Symposium, I folded 600 letters and put them in envelopes yesterday!

Folding letters and stuffing envelopes... there's a good use of one's time, huh?

I recall how funny I thought it was the first time I saw a folding machine in one of the schools I worked in. But then when I saw how much work it took to get a mailing out to the entire student body, I understood why a folding machine is important to have!

Oh yeah, brilliant I had to *write* the things too, the boss merely signs em

At the moment, my coworker and I are the folding machines - we have the trick down by now!

Hi, Mal. A snowy day here in Pennsylvania, so my school is on a two-hour delay. It gives me a minute or two to relax and catch up. How goes it with you?

Our snow is gone now, but two weeks ago there was so much of it that 250 000 people were without power for five days!

But luckily I have the flu, so I don't have to go to work

Now THAT is a positive attitude... saying that it's lucky to have the flu!

Hope you don't have a lot of nasty symptoms. I usually feel so guilty when I take a day off work that I actually like the occasional minor illness because it gives me a valid excuse to stay away from the office. Am I sick, or what (mentally, that is)?

No, that's the way I see it. But today I feel not the least guilty, I'm proud of myself for even reaching the phone this morning to tell them I'll not be coming!

So does it tie up your phone line to be on-line, or do you have a high-speed connection?