In Praise Of Chemex

     Chemex is a good company.  I have used their coffeemaker for years and find it makes excellent coffee -- and their customer service is great!

     Awhile back, I set up a coffee-making corner in my department at work.  The vending machine coffee is expensive and not all that great and other departments have their own coffeemakers, so why not?

     It's a copy of my home method, with an electric water boiler, a Chemex (my spare from home) and a thermal carafe.  My supervisor chipped in with official endorsement and a nice little counter-height table and the whole thing runs on beneficence* and the notion that people can contribute in kind if they feel it's worthwhile.  We don't charge for coffee -- that would be competing with the vending people -- but users bring in coffee and filters and so on, and leave it there for others to use.  What do they and I get out of it?  Decent coffee, any time we can spare a couple of minutes to brew it.  So far, it's working well; with a half-dozen coffee drinkers in the department, the user pool is small enough that everyone feels like a stakeholder.  (You have to let go to make this work, and you can't have too many people involved; some of my peers are sloppier about coffeemaking than others, some prefer stronger or weaker coffee and it's vital to treat all these things as ordinary foibles and not dire offenses against How Things Should Be.  Don't like what's in the carafe?  Make more!)

     Gathering the initial supplies, I needed some filters and ordered them (along with some swag) directly from Chemex.  The box duly arrived...with a small forklifty fork-looking hole punched in it (and one of the boxes of filters) and missing the cork coasters.  I e-mailed them, they asked for a photo of the damage and I sent a couple of snapshots in reply.  Replacement filters and coasters arrived a couple of days later -- no quibbles, no fussing over details past establishing the damage.  They made it right.

     I'm impressed.  Chemex is first-rate.
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* Beneficence is, roughly, the notion that "I've got mine and there's plenty left for others."  My neighbors on each side and I chipped in to add gravel to our short driveways and about a third of our shared alley, from the farthest contributing house to the paved city street.  There are several other houses along that third and yes, they got fresh gravel on the alley for free.  So what?  My neighbors and I got what we wanted and the additional traffic just helps pack down the gravel .  That's beneficence.  Some potholes showed up over the winter and I noticed someone added clay (Indiana dirt often has a lot of it) and when a couple of rains turned that into mud, someone filled the holes with fresh gravel.  That's beneficence, too.  There's no central authority, nobody is obliged to participate; people fix stuff because it benefits them and don't worry that other people might get some good from it, too.  There are situations where this stuff works.

Wow

     Sat down at the keyboard and...I don't have much to say.  Time goes on and some verities endure.  As a society, we learn little and learn it slowly.

     The derp rolls on.  "Point shooting" keeps showing up as some wonderful new idea, instead of a discredited notion two or three generations old.  Yeah, look, okay -- if you're fighting at grappling distance, at knife-fight distance, you're liable to be wielding a firearm in a way not too different to a knife or a fist (and with all the risk that entails); but you have that firearm and it has sights so that fights can be waged at a much greater distance whenever possible.  Run away!  --And get enough distance use your sights if you have to engage.

     U. S. politics is, has been and will continue to be a sideshow crossed with a soap opera.  It's nothing new -- Jefferson and Hamilton started spatting as Cabinet members during George Washington's first term as President.  Come to think of it, each man, one time or another, expressed concern that the other would be the end of this country, and subsequent politicians and their followers have kept up the chorus.  Oh, do be concerned; do support causes, parties and politicians you think will be best, and do keep watch on and protest those that worry you.  But don't fall for the apocalyptic rhetoric; the closest this country has come to that end was the Late Civil Unpleasantness Between The States, and look at how it lined up: the breakaway States promptly formed their own federal government and the wider socioeconomic issues map without much effort into a conflict between Jeffersonian South and Hamiltonian North.  There's a necessary tension in our system of government.  It's not broken, that's how it works.

     The media is in the business of selling your attention and will do nearly anything to get it.  Cross this with politics and you get a Mencken quote:
      "Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."
     Understand this, and don't let yourself be herded.

"Three Reps Of Fifteen"

     Yes, back to physical therapy.  It seems to be working.

Not A Big Truck?

     Tam says it's a Toyota Hilux in a party dress: the Toyota 4Runner. 

     Looking for Lexus RX-series crossover/SUVs and vehicles like them landed me on a 4Runner, one with the manufacture's better interior -- leather seats and all! -- and I can pay cash.  Runs well, looks good, drives nice.  Predictably, it's not as luxurious as the Lexus; on the other hand, it's a little bit more serious, with all-wheel drive and a built-in receiver for a trailer hitch.  (I'm not expecting to do much trailering, but better to have it an not need it than the opposite!)  Interior room is about the same, ride is slightly more truck-like and the climate controls appear to have been designed by Martians.  (The RX300 spoiled me, with clever controls that could be auto'd, set to a desired temperature, and ignored from then on.)

     It does need to go back to Toyota for a replacement side-impact air-bag controller -- a few of them seem to have gone off unexpectedly and the manufacturer issued a recall to replace the thing.  So I'll be checking on the price of that before proceeding.

Grilling!

     Tam returned from a trip to one of her writing spots bearing gifts: two steaks, "spring mix" salad, asparagus tips and oyster mushrooms.

TAMARA KEEL PHOTO

     I think it worked out.

     The asparagus got the "popcorn" treatment, which I think I have described here before. 
The mushroom dish is interesting; last summer, I bought a little "grill saucepan" at Meijer, just a heavy, nonstick pan with "screen-door" handles, about 6" across and 3" high.  Just loaded it with oyster mushrooms, a tablespoon of truffle butter, a sliced clove of garlic and some dehydrated onions and chives, and set it on the upper level of the grill before I started the steaks, By the time they were done, so were the mushrooms and they were wonderful!

     When I bought that pan, I wasn't even sure I'd use it on the grill but it is handy as can be.

A Possible Misallocation Of Vertical Time

     (I have been reading Iain M. Banks's novels of "The Culture," a post-scarcity society dominated by AIs that have a slight tendency to meddling; many take the form of starships with quirky names and it tends to...rub off.  The stories mainly look at exciting part: the meddling, which means readers get an OSS/CIA-level look at the society he dreamed up, but he's done an honest job of approaching how a post-scarcity society might work.)

     Had a very fine writing class yesterday, then met up with Tam and the Data Viking for lunch.  Planned to look at cars afterward, but instead, stopped off at home and ran out of steam.  I had eight-plus hours of sleep the night before, and even more the night before that, but nevertheless, I was definitely not tracking.  I was horizontal by five and pretending to watch TV, but mostly I dozed off and on until bedtime at nine, slept through to cat-feeding time at six, and went back to sleep until half-past eight once the cats were fed and reunited.

     Hoping it's just the knee healing and post-accident stress.

The Search! The Search!

     Managed to go look at a car yesterday.  Lacking cash-in-hand and with actual (as opposed to notional) other buyers looking at the car at the same time, I didn't purchase it, but at least a used RX330 seems not out of reach and offers a driving experience very similar to my dear, totalled RX300.

     It appears more (all?) of the later models have all-wheel drive; the one I looked at had an electrically-operated rear hatch (!) and plentiful 12-Volt outlets.  That was nice.  A rather gadgety electrically-controlled double-door opening for the center console storage compartment left me cold: when I was growing up, gussied-up minor items failed first and were more trouble to repair than they were worth.*  Overall, though, it's a wonderfully-nice car and the example I looked at was nicer with nearly 150k miles on it than the only new I car ever bought† was the day I drove it off the lot.

     The rental car won't cost too much to keep for another week.  It's a nimble little Kia Soul, which would be on my list of cars to look at if only it were a little larger; as it is, I have a bit of trouble getting in and out (bad knee and all), and it probably can't carry 8-foot lengths of lumber.

     Tam's on deadline and I have a writing class this morning.  Hoping to meet the Data Viking for lunch and an update on his adventures this afternoon.
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* Unless you had mechanically- and artistically-inclined youngsters to put on the job, which my Dad did: my siblings and me.  I do not.  On the other hand, having been exposed early and often to the idea that if somebody made thing in the first place, someone else -- me -- could fix it, I'm not terribly put off by the idea of doing minor repairs myself.

† A 1982 Chevy Cavalier, built to a price, possibly without looking too closely.  Certainly I didn't look too closely; it was shiny and pretty and for the first time in my life, I was within financing distance of buying a brand new car!  The cost to fix subsequent interesting problems, not all of them endemic to the vehicle, pretty well cured me of buying new cars: you get a lot better value for money buying gently-used ones.  My Dad knew this very well, but, wanting the lesson to stick, let me learn it for myself. I don't think he expected me to go buy an MGB in need of attention when clogged oilways and a warped head sidelined the Cavalier for months, but I could not have kept the thing running without having learned how to approach the job when I was too young to drive.  He was a source of good advice and slightly-exasperated pride the whole time I had one MGB or another as my daily driver.  As for me, having driven a car that handled nicely, I eventually sold the Chevy and kept an MG!  Despite needing looked after like a light airplane, it was more reliable and fun to drive.

Orwell Called It "Physical Jerks"

     But my physical therapy people are much nicer than that.  Anyway, I'm off early and then maybe I'll look at cars and later, go do something interesting. 

     The downtown visits I have wanted to make -- the Kurt Vonnegut Library and the Ray Bradbury Museum -- have not happened.  Traffic is very heavy downtown and it scares the dickens out of me!  But I've got to get over it.  After the wreck, I managed to take the freeway back to work from the car-rental company, leaving via the same ramp as the person who hit my car.

     Walks much longer than a block wear me out.  It's the bad knee.  I can do it but I end up napping on the couch afterward.

Still Shopping

     But mostly sleeping.  I'm leaning towards an RX350.

Car Shopping

     With the old Lexus totalled, I'm looking for another RX300 or one of the newer models and somewhat constrained by a lack of funds.  There will be plenty when the insurance comes through, but that will take awhile and until then, it's cash on hand, which would just about buy me another high-mileage 2000 RX300 and leave nothing for groceries.

     Some people are not a fan of Lexus.  The tow-truck guy had lots of complaints about, "Those darned Japanese imports."  Well....  He's not wrong; Toyota's certainly a Japanese company and the RX300 (etc.) isn't made in the United States.  But he's not that right, either: they're built in Ontario and only a quarter of the parts come from Japan.

     Still looking. 

A Little Hope

     My car -- a 2000 Lexus RX300 luxy sort-of SUV -- is officially totalled.  If the insurance company isn't funning me, the settlement will pay about $5090, or ninety dollars more than I paid for the car in November of 2014.  In nearly four years, all that car has cost me is gas, oil and a set of brakes.

     Pretty impressive and it predisposes me to look for another used Lexus of the same general style.

I Sleep Easy

     Ninety percent of the world's nuclear weapons are controlled by two men who are on TV right now.  I think of them's a clod with a gift for PR and the other's a sneaky spymaster .  And yet I sleep pretty well, because one of them is also a Republican President the Press finds particularly loathsome; he can't so much as scratch his backside without some network, wire service, website or newspaper pointing out in bold type how the man is disrespecting the National Pants.

     Is our President Up To Something, with or without the assistance of ol' KGB Vlad?  Probably.  We stick Presidents and the top Russian muckety-muck of the moment, Czar or Party Secretary or however you spell "El Capo" in Cyrillic, into these summits in the somewhat forlorn hope they'll remember all their kewl stuff is on this planet and therefore conspire to promote and promulgate peace.  And if we are very fortunate, they are watched by the Press as narrowly as a bird of prey watches a mouse and with greater suspicion.

     The Press will ask good questions.  They'll ask stupid questions.  They'll investigate, speculate, and some of them will make things up.  In the end, the truth will come out. 

     Governments rule with the consent -- tacit or overt -- of the governed.  The Russian government and people know it better than many, having had two entire systems of government fall apart twice in the span of single long lifetime.  The U. S. FedGov and Us, The People know it, too; we throw the old bums out and install a new set with remarkable regularity -- and occasionally hound sufficiently unpopular elected officials out of office, or at least away from re-election.

     Yes, it's a proper sack of bastards who rule the world.  But they're less inbred than ever, far less "Divinely entitled" than ever, and far more removable than ever.  Don't like some of the present crop?  Bide a wee, vote as hard as you can, and there will be a new set.