Here are what's happening on my end lately. 1. Have been scanning slides daily. 1 roll worth, approximately, takes 90 minutes of scanning with Nikon LS-4000, 30 minutes in Photoshop CS4 to edit, 3 minutes to generate their JPGs, constitutes about 4 GB of data to fit onto one DVD-R. Found out that scanning several rolls as a batch reduces runtime of the scanner to allow it to be off when not in use. Editing in CS4 does not require the scanner to be on. With this, I can manage to scan 8 rolls a day - if I want to. The Photograph folder in my 1 TB hard disk now exceeded 800 GB. Am thinking to dump 500 GB when it reaches about 950 GB which will be sometime toward the end of this year. 2. Replaced wiper blades of my BMW for the first time since 2003. Have no idea why, but they lasted me 7 years. 3. The blue part of RGB amplifier on my projection TV died today. Went over to the local electronic repair shop and consulted. They knew my model and its high picture quality. They said it's well worth the repair which shouldn't cost much more than $400 - excluding home visit. Maybe that's what I'm going to do…and some searching of issues related to this particular model - if there is at all. It's a high quality projection TV that shows better picture than many of today's LCD TVs even. 4. I started iTunes editing referencing Record Year Book put out by Record Geijutsu annually. I keep copy of each year since 1976 (but no 1977) to present (2010). Don't know how long it's going to take to finish, but in conjunction with slide scanning, it should keep me very busy for quite a while. So far, 1976 is done which took about 4 days. I know it sounds anal-retentive to some, but I always enjoy doing this kind of stuff: numbers……train rolling stock numbers, record original release numbers, CD original release numbers. I have many attributions on numbers. I initially began making 3x5 card on each recordings I owned since the late 70s which includes exact date and location of recording, original LP release number in several different countries (if available). Finding certain recordings not available in certain country reveals the situation / circumstances at the time thereof - not something most people are interested or even aware, but when I mention to people in record stores any place in any country, they get amazed and want to hear more. I'm a nut case? Maybe…. 5. The shower head valve in my main bathroom still does not stop leak that's ongoing for several years despite the fact I replaced all O-rings few times. Now suspecting the diverter being defective which is not made of metal. Will have to call Kohler for replacement under warranty. Anyhoo, that's what's happening in general in my life. Thanks for listening / reading. Koichi Yasutani - a.k.a. Steve + MP Lakewood, WA U.S.A. BCC: RB, BM, TF, NM, F4F 2010 / 11 / 11 21:21 PDT