Let us all give thanks and praise to that friend of the working people, George W. Bush.

Yes, my U.S. Government issued bribe, er make that refund check arrived yesterday. It was tastefully emblazoned with "TAX RELIEF FOR AMERICA'S WORKERS" in large, friendly letters. And, (a nice touch, I thought) "AUSTIN, TEXAS," across the top.

I'm going to cash my check, exchange it for the equivalent pile of pounds, and spend it frivolously in London.

My month-plus funk seems to have lifted all of a sudden, for some unknown reason. It was probably the realization that August is nearly over, and the end is near for this oppressive heat.

And, I got my shiny new passport in the mail a few days ago. Who knew the Feds are hip to digital imaging these days? My picture, painstakingly procured at Kinko's (and featured, sans color, over there to the right), was scanned and printed on the ID page, then hermetically sealed behind that holographic foil plastic thingy. Yay!

Off to London in a couple of weeks to see Brian, who should hopefully be tanned, rested, and ready to show a neophyte a bit of London in 48 hours. I have no idea what to do. I'm usually not much for cheeseball touristy things, but....

Sunday sort of went down the tubes. I spent most of the day plopped in front of the PC, poking my way through PHP and MySQL arcana. But, by the end of the day, I had a cursory understanding of some new stuff. Lightbulbs were flickering on above my head. Cool.

Sometimes you just have to stop fiddling and go have a beer.

I finally got tired of that green, and the goofy picture of me hanging off the edge of the boat. Lemme know if anything is horribly broken.

An odd weekend. Jason was in Seattle for work and stayed over for the weekend. I did virtually nothing, which was sort of nice. Today will be spent cleaning the house and otherwise setting things right with the world.

He seemed to enjoy Seattle, which is cool. It is on my short list of "places I wouldn't mind living." I sense that we are both tiring of Phoenix. I'm not ready to move quite yet, but I may be in another year or so. Someplace with a more temperate climate, and near the ocean. My vote is on San Diego, but Seattle or San Francisco (again) would also do nicely.

Letter from Grandma last week, announcing her imminent arrival. Well, arrival in October. I think I will have the pleasure of my mother and my grandmother for a few days. Egad. This portends some rather dicey logistics—out to mother, not out to grandmother.

Pray for me. Send vodka.