druid adrift in dell

On Thanksgiving Day, hobbitt lost his furry little mind and ordered three Dell PCs with 19-inch flat-panel monitors. (This act was immediately followed by a phone call from Discover Card's fraud bureau, of course.) One each for my nephews Will and Owen, and purchased by them via their inheritance, and one for hobbitt himself, including an extra backup drive, a surround-sound speaker system, and a multi-function printer/fax/copier/valet/auto detailer/bartender/lawn mower, or something like that. A few days later, on behalf of my cousin, he ordered a fourth.

They're all here. They arrived yesterday. In my foyer, which is a rather large space (16' by 21', approximately and don't ask me why, though with the stairway to the first landing taking up some of that real estate) are 14 immense boxes completely blocking off the entry to the living room. I had hoped to have the Christmas tree up sometime this weekend, but that seems unlikely since the foyer is where it goes. Maybe we can gift-wrap the Dell boxes, though they'd never actually fit under the tree now, would they?

My cousin's PC will be delivered to him on Sunday when we go out there to set it up and transfer his considerable collection of family photos from one hard drive to the other, so that will take care of three of the boxes. My sister is having central air installed in her house at the moment, with vents being cut in the ceilings of the boys' rooms. Every room in her house has been turned upside down to accommodate the tradesmen and she will not allow the two computers to be delivered to her (and set up, with the wireless network enabled by hobbitt) until after the dirty work is done.

At least hobbitt has taken his new toy upstairs. I don't particularly care if his office looks like a warehouse. Which give me an idea - perhaps the rest of the boxes can go up there! Well, not likely. His office isn't as large as the foyer in this house. Damn.