Dateline: Indy, 4 November 2005

Strangely non-eventful day after the previous four.

Just up and fly home.

Stood this afternoon on the newly poured concrete floor of the sunroom, situated off the back of the new house. What a fantastic view this place will have. Today, the back yard was a wall of yellow leaves, complimenting the couple dozen new trees just planted along the berm that runs the back line of the property. A perfect fall day. The brickwork is almost done. Inside, this week was all insulation, first the spray-on stuff and then the thick stuff. All the rough-in plumbing and ducts and vents and wiring are completed. The interior wall work starts next week. Really amazing to watch this whole thing come together. When you actually watch it from start to finish, you end up being amazed not by how much it costs, but by how much you end up getting for all the money you put into it--so many people, so many hours, so much material.

I'm really glad we did this.

I can't wait to leave this apartment.

Here's the daily catch:

■ The positive horizontal scenario of Aceh's recovery from the vertical shock of the Asian tsunamis

■ Draining the swamp is both political (participation) and economic (jobs)

■ Good more on vaccines, bad on trimming foreign aid budget

■ Dirty Harry stays dirty--for now

■ The SysAdmin gets serious in its training

■ The next food crisis in Africa is already here

■ New Core sets the new rules: China and the (can you believe it?) environment

■ Bush's "welcome" in South America signals the rising power of China

■ Saddam's aborted plea bargain: how the A-to-Z rule set on processing politically bankrupt states could have worked in Iraq

■ The Koreas promise to make nice for Beijing 2008. Why? Won't cost much.

■ How damaged is Assad?

■ China's learning on the global power of its economic rule sets

■ When the system is flush with cash, globalization expands

■ Some common sense on Iran