Hello, dear gridhoppers! And my apologies for no one hearing from me in so long, either here at the blog or via email; for the last twelve days, in fact, my home broadband internet connection has been down, and it finally didn't click back on again until late into the evening yesterday. (See, it's actually one of my freelance clients who provides my home internet access; but they've been having some technical glitches recently, which is what caused the forced vacation.) Believe me, I missed the internet more than you missed me; I hadn't realized, in fact, how dependent I had become on instant access to weather, TV listings, news feeds and the like, until it was suddenly gone and with no idea when I was going to get it back (but see my personal blog for more on that). Anyway, I'm happy to report that the connection is now firmly back on, which means daily forays once again for me into the grid, and daily entries here at the blog about what I've found.

While I had all that offline time on my hands last week, by the way, I ended up doing just a whole messload of paper sketches regarding my new prefabricated housing business "Fabb," and the various buildings I'd like to include in the first wave of the company's catalog; I also finally taught myself Google Sketchup, the company's 3D drawing program for Google Earth, so that I could do some multi-dimensional views of my paper drawings while offline, and see whether the drawings were making inherent spatial sense when fully realized. (From above, respectively, for those who are interested: "Jalapeno," my first starter home [specifically for 512 m2 plots]; "Crescent," my first small mansion or store/club [for plots between 2,000 and 4,000 m2]; and "Crabb," my first large mansion or commercial building [for plots between 4,000 and 8,000 m2]. The eventual price of these will respectively be L$1,200 [around US$5]; L$3,600 [around US$15]; and L$6,000 [around US$25].)

(UPDATE: And here are the downloadable 3D files themselves, for fellow Sketchup users who'd like to play with them: [jalapeno.skp]; [crescent.skp]; [crabb.skp]. You'll quickly notice, by the way, that some of these files are much better than others; I'm basically teaching myself Sketchup through random discovery, which of course makes the learning curve quite unstable.)

Of course, it's bitter irony that on the exact day I get my internet access back, I catch the flu and can barely move; but I suppose that's my fault and one I don't entirely mind, in that two days ago I also finally gave up cigarettes after a 19-year habit. And you fellow former heavy smokers know what I'm going through, of course; I'm going through nicotine withdrawal this week, a very real and verifiable thing, which in the case of heavy smokers like me manifests itself the same way as a mild flu bug (fever, achy muscles, sore throat, extra phlegm, sleep problems, etc), for about four days altogether. I bring all this up, of course, because I know I'm going to be extra snarky with just about everyone over the next couple of weeks (although I'll admit that the nicotine patches I'm using for the first time help immensely with those "I'll kill you all in your sleep" moments); I just wanted to mention it, and please beg you all to show extra patience with me over the next month both here, in the grid and via email. Your understanding is appreciated!