• 1:00pm: I receive a call from Julie at the Catskill Animal Sanctuary. She says the barn was hit by lightning and a computer wasn't functioning. I'd planned to go to Saugerties, so I say I'll stop there on the way to see what I can do.
• 1:30pm: Buy ceiling fan extender rods for today's cowboy electrician gig.
• 2:30pm: The CAS computer doesn't respond to a replacement power supply (it's a Dell that apparently uses a standard ATX power supply), so I decide to take it with me.
• 2:45pm: Kathy (the CAS director) gives me lemonade and tells me that one of the guys in the barn was sitting on a metal chair when the lightning hit and felt the juice flow through his body.
• 3:00pm: I inspect a cowboy electrician gig in Saugerties. Ceiling fans needed at a common house in a hippie commune. Determine I can't do it today because of unexpected complications. Rescheduled for Friday.
• 3:40pm: Passing the State Police barracks on US 209 just north of downtown Hurley, I see smoke pouring from a spot in an empty field. Since it is raining at the time, I determine that the field must have just been struck by lightning.
• 4:00pm: I fill out two forms to claim rebates for purchases made from Tiger Direct. Usual cursing because of slow, crash-prone Adobe Acrobat.
• 4:45pm: By fax, I receive a contract for a new full-time remote transatlantic-transcontinental web development job I'm being hired to undertake. Sign and fax back.
• 5:00pm: Walk dogs in the woods. Remove large fallen tree from side trail using my bare hands.
• 6:00pm: Drive to Riverside Park (within the broadcast area of WGUS) and replace a motherboard in a computer running Windows XP.
• 6:30pm: Windows XP fails to boot with new motherboard. Forced to reinstall Windows.
• 7:00pm: I watch Hardball With Chris Matthews with client, who says she actually knows Chris Matthews. She also fixes me a gin and tonic and we shout anti-Bush epithets at the television.
• 7:40pm: Windows installation fails three quarters of the way through, and I am forced to reboot computer. It resumes installation gracefully, but at a point 20 minutes prior to the point at which it had crashed.
• 8:00pm: Bush gives his address to the Army War College. This time epithets can be hurled at the man himself, paper cutout though he may be.
• 8:15pm: Windows XP installation completes successfully. I collect money (cash) and go home.
• 10:20pm: Too tired to stay up, I go to bed. I put off all my Spanish homework for tomorrow. Gretchen coerces me into studying Spanish a little before I fall asleep.

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