OK, as you've seen I will soon have to move my little corner of the Web somewhere else. The only problem is, where?

Babson, sadly, does not have Web hosting. I've been looking at some of the free stuff, but haven't found anything I really like yet. There are some free services that are OK, but I fear that I'll somehow screw myself. There are a few others with reasonable fees, but I don't think I need all the Web services that come with it (though I suppose I could get my family all on a coen.com Web site).

So I'll figure this out at some point. My only real concerns are (a) affordability and (b) no pop-up or banner ads. A couple of the free services include a small banner on the page, which might not be so bad, but I have to take a look first.

Not much else new to report today. We were talking about Christmases past at lunch today, and it reminded me of a story my mom used to tell. When I was very small (probably no more than 3 or 4), I was all over my mom to get me "magic stairs" for Christmas. She had no idea what I meant by this, and being very small I couldn't give too much guidance. She trucked all over the North Shore trying to find this item (which she figured was some sort of toy), asking at every department, toy, and gift store she could find.

At some point after all of this searching, we were in a store one day, when I turned and pointed to a set of magic stairs. Turns out I wanted an escalator for Christmas. (Would have been a waste in a house with only 12 steps on its staircase, and the machinery would have blocked access to the basement, but what did I know?)

My mother was ready to commit some form of child abuse at that point, but managed not to. That she told this story at least once a year at holiday time leads me to think she got over it, but the Chia head gag gift I got when I first started to show some power alleys was probably related.