Howdy Folks,

It is a beautiful August morning here in Flagstaff. Part of this fine morning I spent sitting on my deck reading. I am now moved into my new condo and really "digging it" (so far).

It was an arduous week of moving. On Tuesday Jamie Griffin and his truck assisted me in the most rigorous move, three loads of the heaviest stuff. Jamie is an older student (mid-20s) at NAU and an afternoon denizen of Barnes & Noble like myself. In all, so far I have moved about 14 loads in my Subaru, have a partial one left from the storage room at the old apartment

My hope is that this it for moving in my life. That is unless someone moves me to the "home" in a few years. It was kind of funny when the beautiful Hispanic lady at the title company was having me sign my papers. She said that my mortgage would run for 30 years. My response was that I doubted I'd be in existence for that long. But it is nice to have my own place, especially one with a spare bedroom and bathroom for guests. 800 square feet is just about right for me.

Yesterday morning I spent a couple of hours cleaning the old "flat." I did not do more than an ordinary job on it as I am paying for the whole month (and not staying there) and have a very large "breaking the lease" fee due at the end of the month. I did not do as some suggested, in light of the amount I am paying to get out, and not clean it at all. It is not in my make-up to leave a place filthy (not that it was that bad, after all I'm a very neat person).

\Daughter Natasha and I went to the cinema yesterday afternoon. We saw Julie & Julia, the film that parallels parts of chef Julia Child's life along with that of a fledgling writer's attempt to make all of Child's recipes within 365 days and chronicle them on a blog. Both actors Meryl Streep and Amy Adams do a wonderful job in their respective roles. I remember watching Julia Child's humorous cooking show back in the late 1960s on PBS (not that I am a good cook or fan of this genre of programing but she was so damn entertaining). Streep, with her very good since of dialects and acting ability, does Child perfectly. She very aptly depicts her sense of humor which brought laughter to me as well as the rest of the audience. Amy Adams, who like very much, does another great job in her role as well. The two stories play off of each other well. The movie works. If I were using the five star form of rating, I would give it four.

That is about it from West Flagstaff.

And so it goes . . .