Amy - replied FINALLY to your email.

lisah - GREAT. I have a vintage clothes dryer - pics are on my flickr and I also have a vintage canister set with matching bread box and cake/pie carrier/holder. There is virtually no way I could make it to B'more before I leave, but if she could work out anyway to get them, we could work out a very low price.

I'm taking a half-day off of work so I could stop by the dry cleaners and finally pick up my cross-stitch pieces ($31 just to get them pressed flat!!) and then get to campus and do my homework. Library lower level is surprisingly busy and loud due to a Blues Symposium going on this week (before Blues Fest this weekend in the city).

Now to get my last service report typed up...

Most departments I've been in work through the summer, but I can see how it would depend on the dept and the school.

When I interviewed with a department at Chicago, they were 'open' all summer but actually closed Fridays. I've seen other depts with half-day Fridays in summer as well. I wouldn't be surprised if that crops up fairly often, but it's not something you'd assume either.

I mounted my cheap retractable clothesline just now and I did a crap job of it, too. I hooked the main body to the deck pole, crooked...and too high for me to reach it from the ground. Then the hook where the line goes didn`t seat all the way because I am a weakling. But! It is up and I am proud of myself. So now I want to hang my clothes out but a) there is no sun (one of the only days where there`s none and b) it is super windy. I still can hang clothes, right?

Have you tried disabling all your add-ons? If any of them have a Windows 7 issue then it could be causing it.

If I recall the timing of her new laptop, it was around the time that the Really Unstable Firefox version came out (because it was doing the same thing to me on XP).

Back in the mid-90s when I interviewed at the Lutheran Theological Seminary library, they told me that they closed the entire building (which was the whole school) down on Fridays in the summer to save energy costs. I was utterly horrified at what it was doing to their older volumes, but could understand their need to cut back on expenses.

$31 just to get them pressed flat!!

Are they just pressing or are they also blocking? If they are just pressing, you can do that at home by laying the cross stich, front side down, on a towel and ironing. This doesn't squish your stitches and can save you money. I haven't had good luck trying to block at home though.

My needlework pieces tend to be small - small to tiny, to be hones - so I've been able to do some blocking at home. Larger pieces would probably require a professional.

You all have bad universities. I've never had less than 20 paid holidays.

I'm happy to report that my dad is home and recovering nicely, and the surgeon doesn't think he'll need to have his gall bladder removed after all.