We have relatives visiting for my wife's son's graduation. I woke this morning feeling as if I might have a cold, but that isn't necessarily an indication that I'm sick, sometimes it happens and I'm fine. Well, as the day wore on, it got worse, as usually happens when I really am sick.

They are at the ball game now, my wife's sister wanted to visit the BOB in Phoenix, which is now called something else though I can't remember what. I wasn't planning on going, but I wasn't planning on feeling so shitty either. We were supposed to have a nice lunch, and I missed out on that as well.

I'm not looking for sympathy, it's just the reason I'm sitting here on the computer reading and watching things garnered from the electronic world. Earlier my wife called the house phone because I left the cell phone where I wouldn't hear it, and she always has to let me know it's her when she calls the house, because I don't answer the phone anymore. The chances are it's a telemarketer, or a fundraiser, and I don't want to talk to them. Just now the doorbell rang, and peeking out I saw it was someone I didn't know, so I just didn't answer the door.

Sometimes I am so inundated with calls for handouts that I feel violated. Even if they are trying to sell me something, basically they are still asking for a handout, because chances are good what they are selling I was not in the market for.

So what else am I thinking about? A website that may or may not be a satirical bit on the presidential candidate Brownback, a trailer for the Moore movie Sicko, Rosie O'Donnell's fight with a co-host, the Bush press conference (can't get over that one), an old video about Jerry Falwell and friends, a story about a state trooper in Tennessee that got a blow job from a porn star, and some other things I can't remember. And of course sitting here feeling like shit.

Ah, there was the phone call from the bank. The closing of the sale of the house that was mine until yesterday produced some funds that needed to be deposited into my account. Now get this. I bought the house before I met my wife, and we kept it just as it was. The lawyers insisted that my wife's name had to be on some of the paperwork, North Carolina laws required it. I'd be willing to bet we could have kept her name out of it if we really wanted to, but it was no big deal. We both thought it was kind of stupid, but it was merely an inconvenience because she had to have her signature notarized along with mine, which took all of about 15 minutes at our bank. Anyway, the bank there in NC called me today, because the lawyer tried to deposit the check into my checking account, but it is only in my name, my account that is, and the check had her name on it as well as mine. As luck would have it, we set up another account at the bank in both our names, which happens to have a branch right there in the same complex in which the lawyer's office resides. They had to verify that it was ok to deposit the check into that account, because that account matched both names on the check. No big deal, but what I thought was funny was the tone of the woman's voice, the person handling the deposit. It was as if she were expecting resistance, which I guess is understandable, because when you are talking about a lot of money, people want access to it as soon as possible. Thinking about the call after hanging up, I got the notion she may have expected a different reaction because maybe she thought I was trying to sneak something by my wife. It is North Carolina, after all. Maybe it's just my paranoid cynical self showing its ugly head. It seemed resistance was expected after she informed me there would be a hold on the funds as well. That was what got me thinking about it, she sounded disappointed. Anyway, the money will be available next week sometime because of the holiday, then I will transfer all of it to my account and do what I need to do, which is nothing much more than pay off my car and hold the rest for taxes.

Because I knew the funds were coming, I went ahead and bought a Gateway tablet PC. It is on its way, but of course it was assembled in China. I have a friend that buys lots of stuff online, lately it's been hand and power tools. He gets a lot of things from Amazon, and a lot of it comes from China. I find it all very interesting, and would be worried that things would go to shit because of it except for the fact that it used to be Japan, then Korea where everything was made. So, the computer is coming from China, Fedex, and it has since made its way from there to Alaska, then Indiana, and I assume from there it will go to Phoenix before it comes here. Technology is nice, it makes all that possible.

Speaking of technology, here I am sitting in front of the computer because I'm sick and don't feel like doing anything else. My wife is enjoying a trip to the ball park with her family, and they just arrived near the ball park. She called, on the cell phone from her car. They rerouted game traffic, and she wasn't sure if she followed the signs as she should have. I use Yahoo, Google, or Mapquest maps, and looking at Yahoo this time I saw she was on the right track, so she was reassured. Used to be she would have had to get out and ask someone, and in downtown Phoenix that might or might not be the safest thing to do.