Home away from home

I technically live in Florida, but DC still feels like home. It has been utterly delightful to spend the last two weeks with my friends here. In fact, I might even squeeze in one more visit before I leave the country. Since I stay with friends, I am trying hard to make sure I don´t wear out my welcome. My techniques for this are (1) leave the house a lot to visit other friends, (2) do the dishes whenever I can, and (3) bake or cook a lot of delicious food for them when I visit. So far, it seems to be working, but I´ll watch for any anonymous letters telling me stay in Florida.

So, how does a middle-aged retired physicist spend her time while on "vacation"? First, I helped some friends with a rental house they are renovating. They tore everything out down to the exterior brick walls and subfloors, and are framing the walls. I love this kind of work, even thought it was 0C/ 32F the day we were there. I have recently learned how to use a nail gun, and as they say, when you have a nail gun, everything looks like a 2"x4" that needs to be attached. 

I also enjoyed a very find bottle of Cardassian kanar with some of the Star Trek group. Obviously, only a few people in the world would be excited about such a thing, but luckily, I am one of them. 

Lastly, I fixed my computer! I dripped the tiniest amount of water on my laptop last month and fried the keyboard. I decided to try repairing it, but only once I was in DC, where my computer savvy friends R and N stood by with the correct tools and advice when I got stuck. I learned that my computer was really not designed to be taken apart - it took me three hours and a large part of that was shaving off tiny pieces of plastic that glued parts together. 

But eventually it looked like this, and (even better) it now looks like a laptop again. And I can recognize a heat sink or a motherboard, which will presumably be very useful information later in life.