Rex M

The upstairs of our home is on a single A/C zone. One end of the house, master bedroom, stays quite cool. The opposite end of the house, the office, is often 6-8 degrees warmer. We've tried closing the vents in the master bedroom but that doesn't seem to have much effect on the office.

The airflow coming through the vents in the master bedroom is very strong, but the flow in the office is almost undetectable. I've checked the conduit in the attic to see if the one going to the office is pinched or leaking but I can't find anything. What else can I do to get the office regulated about the same as the rest of the upstairs?

I'm going to Gothenburg on business in a few weeks. I am interested in good food, club/electronica scene, fashion and shopping... what are some good areas to check out?

I have accepted a position with a company that has a heavy presence in the US and Sweden, so I would like to try to be at least moderately proficient in Swedish, to help my career there. However, all of the "learn Swedish" books and CDs seem to be geared towards tourist phrases, like "What is good to eat here?"

I need something that works a little better for the kinds of day-to-day conversations that occur in the workplace. I realize that involves more work than simply memorizing common phrases - I actually need to learn some of the language. Spoken is much more important than written to get started, so pronounciation and natural sentence structure is important. Any suggestions?

My wife and I are considering taking a summer trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. What are some good restaurants, attractions, techno/dance clubs, etc.? Where do most of the expats hang out on the weekends?

I have two XP machines sitting about 3 feet apart. The wireless router is in another room about 25 feet away. Normally, the signal strength on both machines is "Very good", but occasionally one machine or the other (rarely both at the same time) will suddenly show a signal strength drop to "Low" or "Very Low". Box A seems to experience it about 3 times as much as Box B. I have done some testing and it appears that when this happens, my network throughput is about 1-3kbps. It gradually gets slower until network requests simply time out, at which point I have to reboot. Rebooting immediately fixes the problem. I tried to wait it out, thinking it might be interference from a microwave or phone, but the problem never goes away on its own. Also, doing a "repair" on the network connection, or manual disable-enable does not fix the problem. It is extremely puzzling, as it has only been going on for about 4-6 weeks, and seems to be increasing in frequency.