Well . . .

. . . where have you been, you might be asking yourself if you're one of my nine or ten regular readers. I have two reasons to report, one more or less unavoidable, the other avoidable, but not really. You know about it already. I just finished telling you all about the Great American Fantasy League on Thursday. Well, yesterday, Saturday, virtually all day long was taken up with this game. I didn't really have a grasp of the scope of its complexities until I spent all those hours to play a nine-inning game. True enough, it was a wild game (which the Rangers lost, of course, 11-7 in the ninth because pitching fell apart), but my instructor was thorough, and, I have to confess, sometimes  . . . well, a bit too thorough. Plus he tended to editorialize, so the lesson probably stretched out longer than it might have. Worse, I still don't think I've got a real great handle on how to play yet.

The second problem was with technology. The other day being at my most careful to transfer my wife's printer from the top of the dryer where it spent Christmas season, I dropped it to the floor. So long faithful printer. The replacement, a spiffy new wireless printer from HP, arrived last Thursday, way before I thought it would get here, and I spent 4-plus hours trying to get the damn thing configured for this computer. My frustration level was high, and of course I stewed about the problem even when I wasn't in the same room with it. It did not get to working properly till late this afternoon when my son-in-law, an expert in these matters, came over and worked very fast magic on it. I'm happy to report that everything seems to be fine now. The new printer is an HP Photosmart Plus B209. It's slick. Wireless--that's a miracle right there. Plus printer and scanner. Amazes me the kind of sophisticated stuff you can buy for $150. Hi tech stuff for computers and including computers is about all that's gotten better and cheaper over the years. Everything else has gone the other way on both counts.