Ringing in the New We are in the home stretch of the modern world’s annus horribilis. While we will soon be at the start of another year that will undoubtedly begin as badly as this one will end, we are all hopeful that over the course of the twelve months of its duration, 2021 will somehow work its way out of this malaise and resolve itself into a fine year. For that to be the…
The Moment of Truth Tonight I am watching the Netflix series The Crown, a series I have watched off and on for most of this year. I am not sure what attracts me to watching the story of the Windsor clan over the course of the Twentieth Century, but it does interest me for some reason. I think that I have taken up the series again at this point because of the controversy over the…
A Wave to The Promised Land Of all the personal entertainment activities I could have during a pandemic, I suspect that motorcycling is one of the best under the circumstances. Yes I like riding with my pals of the AFMC and I like it when Kim chooses to ride pillion with me, but I have always been content with riding solo and just enjoying the road and the ride. I imagine that comes from my…
Irresponsibility On Friday, I was in the second day of the administratively enforced blackout (as in total grid shut-down) from our local utility. The cause (excuse?) was the Santa Ana wind and its harsh dry gusts that could easily induce a wildfire that could quickly get out of control and create a liability for said utility. I had had the foresight to anticipate the possibility of this situation earlier in the year and put my…
Stop and Listen to the Wind This is a strange day in a constantly strange year. What is making this day so much more strange is that I was awoken at 6am, somewhat earlier than normal given that I was up until 11:45pm watching Brian Williams trying to once again recap the strangeness of the day yesterday in the news. The reason I woke up early was that I heard a strange sound that I…
Occupying the Suitcase We are on our first road trip (or any trip for that matter) since July. That was four months ago. For years during my active working life, I had a private view that it was important to plan some sort of getaway every two months. Of course, that was in addition to weekends in Ithaca, business trips to here or there and nights out. I mean I would plan something “special” to…
The Holiday Spirit I am not sure that A Christmas Carol, the Dickensian story of the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge makes my top five favorite holiday movie list (It’s A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, White Christmas, Love Actually and a tie between Four Christmases and The Holiday…and maybe Elf), but it is a very memorable tale that I suspect any one of us could recite with ease. It all revolves around the spirit…
The Heirarchy of the Jungle The lion sleeps tonight, but the boss man is ever-vigilant. Despite yesterday being Thanksgiving, that’s a distant memory on this particular hilltop. Strangely enough, I am not talking about myself as the boss man. I have delegated boss man status to Handy Brad and wasn’t altogether certain he would assume the mantle of responsibility, but he has done so and more. We are at full strength today with Handy Brad,…
Deck The Halls and Haul The Deck Did I mention that I am playing contractor on my deck renovation? Even if I did, I need to howl at the moon over this and so this story is what comes out. Long ago I thought I wanted to be an architect. That morphed into wanting to be a structural engineer, which evolved into an engineer more broadly, and that drifted based on a nasty run-in with…
A Visit to TeslaLand When I was a kid in grade school, there were two things we spent all summer anxiously awaiting in September, and neither one involved the start of school. One was the new network TV show line-up from ABC, CBS and NBC. TV Guide would dutifully construct and publish a two-page weekly schedule. We would pour over that schedule and curse the network scheduling executives that purposefully matched up head-to-head the shows…