A Month and a Day in Florida

We are 32 days in Florida as of today, and so far it's been a marvelous experience.

All three boys are thriving in school. I haven't seen so many A's since my mother's book club read The Scarlet Letter. * Good on you, boys!

Connectivity in the home office is stable and strong, the result of a two day effort that first saw it take 45 minutes to get an answer to the simple question, "where is the cell tower closest to my house?" Fortunately, the customer service rep on the other end of the phone was even more perplexed than I that the question was so hard to answer, so the time passed quickly.

Step two was to have Jim Apel of Argo Technology Systems (the guy who installed our TV and Internet satellites) come out and finish the installation. He took down the obsolete satellite (yes, Mission Control is down to two satellites now) and cannibalized its base to mount the Yagi antenna on the back roof, in an ideal location to pick up the cell tower by the Interstate (well less than 10 miles from here).

Jim mentioned that we could've used the bowl from the satellite dish as a collector for the cellular antenna. That would've been majorly cool, but given that we bought a 50 mile antenna and the tower is so close, it struck us as overkill. If you're out even further in the middle of nowhere than we are now, though, you might want to make note.

I'll update this post with pictures when I get some taken (I was under the weather with a migraine headache this afternoon while most of this was going on, so I'm simply reaping the benefits rather than documenting at this point).

Living in a rural environment is continuing to have a great impact on the entire family, both two- and four-legged members. There have been a few flies in the ointment, of course; nothing can be perfect. The most significant among them have been dealt with, and those that remain will also be in time.

Working at home is a great benefit; better even than walking to work. On a level, it will be very strange to be back in the office next week. What a blessing that is..

-wp

* My mother didn't have a book club, unless you count the League of Women Voters. I just couldn't resist the pun.