Slowly and securely...

The key that's been sticking in the back door's double-sided deadbolt finally gave up the ghost the other day and snapped off cleanly just inside the key slot, allowing me just enough purchase to turn the cylinder to move the bolt in and out, but not enough to avoid purchasing a new lock (and a new lock for the front door as well, as the exterior "brass" of the hardware has a certain scrofulous aspect, not to mention that we only have one key for the lock in the knob and no key for the deadbolt).

So, while waiting for an assignment to land, I spent a bit of time replacing upgrading the locks on the doors.

I also undertook a cleanup of the other half of the office (which degenerated into a "where do I hide this junk" exercise after a while). I'll have to go back and take care of those little messes, but not tonight.

One short translation arrived today, along with an assignment for a telecon tomorrow morning. I'm not too nervous... at least not yet, although my billings so far this year (a whole 8 days!) are lagging where they should be. Still, there are a number of things to be done in the meantime, and I am sure things will get back on track soon.

Today, for example, I finally got off my dead duff and canceled my NetZero account and an account with an ISP for a domain that no longer exists. The only time my eyebrows went up was during the obligatory rundown of menu options upon calling the former, when the automated voice informed me that I should press "1" if, and I quote, "you wish to check the status of a previous cancellation request."

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot? I had this momentary impression of some functionary sitting there and deciding whether to grant "requests" to cancel accounts, a process that - naturally - takes time... months, sometimes.

I suppose the rubber will meet the road when I get my next Amex bill.

Cheers...