Another combination...

Working at the store. Translating documents.

Actually, just the one document right now.

Citistreet was surprisingly fast at turning around my 401(k) distribution, delivering a check within about a week after I submitted the "I want out" paperwork to my former employer. Thank goodness my money is no longer under the watchful eye (and greedy hands) of the "Citi" organization.

I had my 401(k) funds invested in the money market, which was probably not a good idea (although the stock market slump didn't affect me), but it was made worse by the fact that whatever fees the Citi people charged to hold my money weren't covered by the paltry 2% annual return afforded by the money market.

That's right. My 401(k) was experiencing a "negative cash flow" that, by the time I get around to retiring, would have gutted the account (assuming whatever charges they imposed didn't get larger as time went on). Scroom.

So today, I took the distribution check over to the Wells Fargo bank.

* * *I worked in the store in the morning and went home around noon to translate. I finished all but 87 words by the time I left to go back to the store, which is where I am now. The kids are home, hopefully cooking the leg of lamb I gave them and which we'll eat tonight, on the eve of their trip to the AMPC show in California.

Normally, I'd have just finished the document with so few words left, but in the final analysis, the few minutes one way or another really didn't matter, so I let the last few words slide until later tonight.

* * *I installed Mozilla Thunderbird and uninstalled Outlook Express from the VAIO last night, figuring that enterprising virus/worm/trojan writers will prefer to target Outlook owing to the "target-rich environment" out there.

T-Bird is advertised as not allowing virus attachments to execute, which is a good thing... or maybe only as good as the effort someone expends in analyzing the source code to find a vulnerability in that area. We'll see.

In any event, it'll be the first time in a long time (over three years) that I manage mail in a "native" Windows environment. I did start up a Web account that's never failed me, but with all of the stuff that's accumulated there, it will be more convenient to have those items on a local hard drive than somewhere Out There.

I think I will go get a head start on closing the store by Z-ing out the cash registers and sorting the day's accounting debris.

Cheers...

Oh, those last 87 words...

Actually, the 87 words weren't a problem at all.

Attempting to format the miserable file once I was finished took much, much longer. At issue were footers that magically changed their content, page numbers that changed from Roman to chapter+page to I-don't-know-what seemingly at random, and a Help facility (you know, that farblegargling paper clip?) that takes a question like "how do I reformat a page number?" and responds with suggestions that make you think the algorithm for picking suggestions relies heavily on a random-number generator.

Anyway, the formatting, spell-checking, etc. is done. I'm going to sleep on it and send it off tomorrow, as I drink coffee.

Dinner at the kids' place was nice. Huntur is starting to speak in sentences, but outright refuses to repeat anything in Russian. Being older (and, theoretically, wiser), I shall not give up the struggle the way I did with my own kids when they were small and resisting the way Huntur does now. (And I should mention that I am not some kind of Simon Legree when it comes to conveying the language... but I digress.)

The kids are leaving for California tomorrow about noon. Drew is going to stop in Durango to get a replacement for his driving license, which has literally cracked in half. He says that new state regulations require people getting licenses to provide something like a birth certificate or passport even if they've been in the system for years... something to do with the perceived threat of terrorism. (Personally, I am gratified that steps are being taken to nip terrorism in the bud like this. It only stands to reason that since terrorists won't be able to get licenses, they won't be able to drive cars! How clever!)

Okay, I'll turn off the sarcasm.

It's time to enjoy what's left of the evening. Besides sending off the assignment due tomorrow, I'll have to make sure to get up early enough to write at least two invoices. Yum.

Cheers...