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There're a couple things coming to an end soon. Not this space, though. I'm enjoying writing in here, sporadic as my output may be.

Nope, my week-long dalliance with PGP looks like it's coming to an end. I had PGP set up to sign every letter I sent, which I thought was a good start. I had gotten the hang of entering my passphrase after every letter, and things were good. I was pleased. I was doing my bit to make the Internet more secure.

Liz came in just as I was about to send something. I asked if she'd had any problems with PGP popping up in her mail where it shouldn't, and she said no. She asked if I liked it, and what "extra" did I have to do now that I had PGP installed. So I showed her. I clicked Send, entered in my passphrase and... Eudora crashed. Hard. Liz sort of blinked and left the room.

I restarted the computer (had to punch the reset button -- the crash was bad enough that Windows didn't want to shut down), started Eudora back up, checked my mail, did about 2 more replies, still signing, everything still doing well, went to send the third letter, and it crashed. Same symptoms, looks like the same place in the program, same place in memory, etc.

So, reboot, wait through Scandisk again, start up Eudora, check my mail, and hit Eudora's web site, and start trawling through their support documentation. I find a document that includes the following sentence:

Did you install PGP? Try disabling PGP following these steps....

So, I'm not sure whose fault it is that PGP breaks Eudora, but in any case, it's graduated to the level of an acknowledged problem, but I don't know if anyone's going to try to fix it. :-P In any case, if I have to reboot Windows after every 2-3 letters, it just doesn't work well enough for me to want to keep using it.

And, of course, the house is getting close to being done. So that's another ending of sorts -- the ending of being in an apartment! However, I'm also getting close to being at the end of my rope with the builder and our realtor.

Here's the scoop: Back in January, Liz and I started the process of buying a house. We liked the development, the house did just about everything we wanted it to (and we figured the stuff it didn't do we could fairly reasonably add on in a few years or so), and interest rates were the lowest they'd been at since just about forever. We actually had a real realtor at that point. Granted, she was sort of permanently assigned from her agency to work with this builder, but still, she bent over backwards to help us in just about every way she could, and we were happy.

Skip ahead 7-8 months.

Our realtor has left the agency she worked for and has been hired by the builder. She's gotten much better about returning calls and the like, but for a while there, things couldn't get any worse.

We're 2 weeks and 2 days from closing, and the house still looks like it'll need a month of work before it's done. Well, it's probably not that bad, but to my distinctly untrained eye, when they still have to put in the furnace (heat pump, whatever), put in the insulation, put up drywall, paint all the walls, install the electrical covers, put down the linoleum, install the carpet, pour the concrete for the driveway, build the stairs for the back door, finish the stairs for the porch, install the cabinets, install the kitchen appliances, and do who-knows-what kind of finishing elements (I think there's probably a few other inspections that they have to pass, too), it seems like it'll take longer than the time they've given themselves to get it done. Especially since last week the only thing they did was correct the pantry frame (it was too shallow. Now they've gotten it right).

All I can think of is that from February through most of April, the lot just sat there. Why they couldn't have started on things early and given themselves plenty of time to get everything done, I wish I knew.

In any case, I really hope things get done on time. Liz and I started packing books last weekend, and we're still constantly in planning mode about the house. I'm always trying to think of ways to get things smoothed out a little more, how can I organize things better so the move works better, what can I pack now that I probably won't need until sometime after we move.

It doesn't help that I'm a phenomenal pack rat. I have about seven issues of Wired magazine sitting in the computer room that I haven't brought myself to throw out yet, because I look at the issues and I think "I might want those some day." They're even square-bound so I could put them on a shelf! Not that they're on a shelf, of course. They're in a sliding pile over by my gaming magazines and Star Wars books. Fortunately, most of my gaming magazines are all stuffed in boxes already, so they're pre-packed.

I've tried to be ruthless when packing, to only keep the things that I know I won't use, or I can easily find other copies of if I do ever need them again. And I guess I haven't done too bad a job... mostly.

Well, that's all for now. I have to call the cable people and get them to switch things over for us. Ta.