Potpourri for $500, Alex …

In no particular order:

1. Dropped off the Subaru for service this morning, including a recall maintenance. I’m late for the 7,500 and the 11,500, so it’s actually going to be for the 15k service. It’s unusual for us to be so late, but this summer has been hectic, and I’ve scheduled then cancelled at least four or five previous appointments. Rrg. Annoyingly, last time I brought it in it was an “hour” or so, so I was stuck in the lounge. This time I came prepped to work — and it’s going to be more like four hours, so I got the shuttle back to the office.
   The van is actually ready for service, too. Somehow, circumstances and proximity and auto brands have caused us to transition from Margie being the car service coordinator (when we had the Saturn and Acura) to me being it (now that we have a Toyota and Subaru), due to dealership proximity. She’s fiendishly clever, that one …

2. The parish profile for the search process pass its second review by the committee last night, with lots of pats on the back and head for me, which was both embarrassing and gratifying. I think it’s a pretty kick-ass document, myself, and I’ll post the URL here when it’s ready for publication. Which will be after I invest several more hours of work, get it approved by the Vestry, etc.

   In other church news, I am again one of the delegates for our parish to the diocesan convention in October — though this time I get to be the chief delegate and cat-herder. I expect it to be an interesting (or more interesting than usual) convention, due to the ongoing brouhaha. Unlike previous years, it sounds like they are trying to focus on Friday as the main convention day, rather than Saturday, though I’m not sure why. That may make for some entertaining scheduling and cat-herding.

3. Margie took the lion’s share of the cleaning last night and this morning, in prep for my parents visiting as of this afternoon. I actually got the breakfast table cleaned without too much trauma, either; the paper trays and the reserved cabinet space for them really come in handy. No clue of what we’re doing with the ‘rents, aside from dinner tonight, and golf Friday evening and Sunday afternoon (reservations courtesy Margie). I expect the zoo will show up in there at least once.

4. In other tech writing news, I’ve managed to earn myself another assignment by offering some rewriting suggestions on a “security awareness” group I’m in, distilling an intended mass e-mailing into something a lot more readable and likely-to-be-read. Which is cool, on one level, but another box on the To Do list, on another.

5. I am stuck (and not unhappily, mind you) in linking my Palm calendar to my Outlook calendar, but I’m finding using the Notes and To Do on Outlook to be a lot less satisfying (for one thing, I hate having to open the ap when at home, since it’s a hog). (I’m not thrilled about the Palm Desktop, either.) So on another To Do I have is coming up with an alternative To Do list for the PC that will sync with the Palm and not be a huge feature hog (“See how we can turn your To Do list into your Contacts, E-Mail, and Personal Self-Improvement Course!”).

6. I’ve been trying to get my POP mail and GMail account in lockstep (autoforwarding, auto-BCCing, etc.) so that I can more transparently use the latter at work and on the road. No tremendous success as of yet, but I keep hoping …

7. Memo to self: Put MozBackup on Margie’s machine to back up her Thunderbird installation on a regular basis.