Erieversible

Today we probably looked around our new house.  We took the video camera with us, as past experience shows when you look at a load of houses in one day they all begin to blur into one another.  The video files are processing right now onto DVD so we can review immediately and the kids can have some input too.  Yes, we could review directly from the camera to the TV but we will undoubtedly want to revisit sections far more than once, so easier just to burn to a DVD.

On the one hand this is a very big decision, on the other hand we ideally need to move fairly fast.  Finding the right balance between those two positions is the difficult bit!  We think we’ll head back on Wednesday to take a closer look at these two properties, but there’s a lot of debating to do between now and then - starting as soon as the DVD has been burned.

The new bluetooth headset worked fine.  It did exactly what it said on the box.  Whether that was due 100% to the headset itself, or in some part to the quality of the phone it was paired with (an iPhone, of course) is debatable.  The end result is what counts, and the end result was great.

Unwillingly, I should add!  There’s a whole mass of phone calls to be made on Monday regarding the move to Buffalo, and as soon as the kids are on the school bus we’re heading along I-90 to go on a grand tour of possible houses.  We really don’t have time for me to stop somewhere and deal with all the phone business so in order to make use of the driving time today I purchased a bluetooth headset.

Personally I think many people look daft going through life with a gizmo wrapped around their ear.  I’m sure some people think it looks great / stylish / modern / etc. but no…it just doesn’t, okay?  However, to chat while driving it seemed the simplest solution.

So, needs must.  I promise, here in public, not to wear it outside the car.  I promise not to wear it walking around shops, the mall, etc.  If you see me doing any of those things, please rip it off my head, throw it to the ground and stomp on it, because it will have taken me over.

The weather is getting cooler…colder, even…and all our winter things are in storage.  We could only bring one suitcase each on the transatlantic journey and we had (rather optimistically as it turns out) hoped to be in a house by now, surrounded by all the stuff we shipped.  Instead, it sits in storage just outside of Philadelphia until we get a permanent address.  And that has to wait for a job or two to turn up. 

So today we had to do some shopping.  The good thing is that clothes are a lot cheaper here than they were on the Isle of Man.  If I had taken the same amount of money shopping over there, I might have gotten one sweater (jumper in the UK).  Here I got four new tops.  And on the Island, of course, there was always a good chance that someone else would be wearing the exact same sweater every time you wore it.  (We only had a few shops, and they didn’t stock a huge amount of stock.)  Here there are endless varieties of clothes.  Almost too much choice…but I’ve talked about that before.

On a side note, I think the newly remodelled Millcreek Mall is looking really nice these days.  I remember when it was built.  In the middle section, there were steps down into sitting areas where the smokers would congregate.  There were also tons of pay phones within these areas.  (Presumably totally obsolete now that everyone has a cell?)  They were dark and smelly and seemed to attract a rather strange group of people who apparently had no where else to go…but maybe that is just my memory playing tricks on me?  Anyone else remember them?  Were they as bad as I recall?

I hope that none of those “strange people” are reading this!  But if you are, do let us know what it was like to be strange in Millcreek Mall