magid

One of the books I worked on a couple of years ago won the company's product of the year award (based on sales above projections). (It's "PreAlgebra," if you must know.)

( what I get out of the deal )

i went home last night to find a bunch of messages on the machine. one was from a friend calling in the middle of the afternoon to see if i was home, when he knows i'm at work then. odd. so once i finished checking email, i called back. had i been in the kitchen, he asked. no. so i dragged the phone (you know, one of those old-fashioned kinds, with a cord of finite length) into the kitchen, to find he'd come over and changed the lightswitch in my kitchen! it had been a push-on one, that at every shabbat dinner with new friends i'd had to mention they shouldn't lean back and turn out. now it's a more regular flip up and down one, but with a shield over it, so on shabbat there won't be accidents. then he told me it's also a dimmer switch. very cool. and he left my new (though not yet paid-for) power drill (low-end, but very cheap. my first power tool!) recharging in the corner, too. (maybe now i'll finally take the sukkah down? yeah, right)

it felt like i'd had a visit from mechanically-inclined elves, especially nice because it was so unexpected...