I wasn't referring to a parabolic antenna, merely a reflector. You could make one yourself by cutting a coffee can (ain't this stuff fun?). For some nice ideas, check out http://osiris.urbanna.net/antenna_designs/projects/template.

and for less money I could simply dig a trench  between the two buildings and drop in a Cat 5 cable and run at 100 Mbps.   It would be less than half the price and 10 times the speed...  Why not?  Don't need the speed for  the application  I have and I'm now fascinated with WiFi...  :-)

I'm not looking to increase bandwidth (you'd need 802.11a or g, at this point), just try to make up the signal loss for you.