08:36 – Barbara is doing well. We’ll do some driving practice over the next few days. It wasn’t an issue when she had her left knee replaced in October 2011, but a right knee replacement can affect driving. As her physical therapist said, it’s not so much the ability to press the gas or brake pedal as the ability to switch rapidly between them. So we’ll start in an empty parking lot and work our way up to residential streets and then main drags.
I see that NBC News hopes to salvage its superstar. They’ve suspended Brian Williams for six months without pay, hoping that will be long enough for viewers to forget that Williams is apparently a pathological liar. If I were NBC News management, I’d assign Williams for the next six months as an embedded reporter with ISIS forces. The worst that could happen would be ISIS beheading Williams or burning him to death. That prospect shouldn’t scare Brian “Rambo” Williams, since he’s already been a big hero everywhere from the Middle East to New Orleans during Katrina.
12:03 – There are two AT&T cherry-picker trucks parked in front of our house right now, connecting fiber. We should be able to sign up for their gigabit service in the next month or two, if we decide to do so. I may instead just bludgeon TWC into discounting our current cable Internet service on a month-to-month basis. I figure it’s actually worth about a fifth of what we’re paying for it now.
16:27 – We just got back from the doctor, who approved Barbara to drive and to return to work Monday. She’s delighted, and I’m sure the people at her office will also be delighted. We’ll practice driving over the weekend so she can get used to working the brake and gas pedals with her knee, which is still not 100%. It probably won’t get back to 100% for at least six months and possibly a year. But everyone is happy, except Colin, who’s now used to her being home all day every day.
She’ll be getting back to work just as the cold weather returns. Temperatures are forecast to fall over the next several days. Monday’s high is to be below freezing and the low 14F (-10C).