The Weather Hurt Yesterday

     It was a windy, lovely day.  It was shockingly warm despite the gusty breezes that shook dead branches from the trees, but I didn't spend much time out in it.

     The barometer was falling, too, you see.  Falling fast and as it fell, I had sharp. staggering pains in the left side of my skull.  Yeah, had it for years and yeah, should have expected it--  But I didn't, and it still  hurts like hell.  I got a few things done around the house (including nice from-scratch oyster & vegetable stew for dinner) but mostly I just endeavored to persevere.

Literary Engineering Critic

     One wonders how much better a book The Difference Engine might have been if Mr. Gibson and Mr. Sterling had a realistic appreciation of the size/power/fuel supply/water supply ratios of condensing and non-condensing steam engines. I love the book, I enjoy their other books, but oh! for the lack of one historically-minded collaborator from Babcock & Wilcox!

     (They do play non-condensing steam engines for a bit of a laugh and I give them much credit for that.  I also need to remember to buy a little tabletop stationary engine to use as a humidifier next winter.)

     At that, they are well ahead of most steampunk in their understanding of steam prime movers, especially external-combustion piston engines.  In such an engineering-based SF byway, why are so few bothering to run the numbers through their Babbage engines?

Why This Presidential Election Makes Me Sad

     My problem is that the Sanders and Trump campaigns are for people who enjoy replacing reason with emotion, rationality with rationalizing -- and the Clinton campaign is for people willing to replace memory with imagination (or perhaps a searing white emptiness).

     If you like any of them (or the other candidates), good for you!  I didn't say you were stupid, just indulging in one form or another or wishful thinking.   Things will surely be better if you're right and I'm wrong.

     ...But the electoriat in general is dumb and steadily getting dumber. I read Cyril Kornbluth's "Marching Morons" stories years ago; I know what it means when "performance" cars have to play engine sounds through the stereo system to keep the driver happy.  The vapid uselessness of popular culture mounts steadily and in more ways than one.  We're well past the Age Of The Common Man and entering the age of the Illiterate Techno-Peasant With A Grudge.  Better buckle in; it's going to be bumpy.  Care for a nice glass of lead-laced water for the ride?

     (And yet-- And yet!  Says right here the Flynn Effect shows we're getting less stupid, though the trend may be leveling off in the most-developed countries.  One wonders if there is a similar metric for common sense -- and if it shows an opposite trend.)

Simple Goal

Today's goal: to not be an asshole. Join me, please. Let's take it one day at a time, no big long-range goals, no thought of reward, just, "Today, I will try to not be an asshole."

Eight Hours Sleep

     Only woke up five or six times and most of them were very, very short -- up, think, "Hunh, I'm awake and I don't hurt anywhere," fiddle the electric blanket up or down, and right back out.  What a relief.

     Messages from my boss on my home and cell phones must have come in while I was asleep.  I'm sorry, what part of, "I'm going to take a prescription painkiller when I get home," was unclear?

Sleep, Blessed Sleep

      I'm home.  I felt lousy all day, though I got a lot done.  Fell once or twice, don't know why.  Home, hurting, took Vicodin (per prescription) and I hope for a deep and healing sleep.

Unscheduled Overtime? Again?

     Yes.  I worked a fill-in shift early Saturday (on twelve hours notice) and got tapped for a task no one in my department knew needed done as I was leaving at the end of that workday.

     I was on the early shift Sunday and Monday, too, which meant I didn't sleep much; it disrupts my OTC pain meds and I keep waking up with severe headaches.  Woken up by them, in fact, which is not nice.

     Then the long swing back to days -- got home Monday utterly exhausted, fell into bed, woke up about five hours later and was so shaky and spacey I just ordered pizza and sat in front of the TV until I was sleepy enough to go back to bed.  Of course, I kept waking up.

     Tuesday, I was gradually made aware that my department -- me, personally -- had been "volunteered" to do some electrical work for another department (IT), apparently by yet a third one (Building Maintenance, who usually do all small electrical work other than power to the Engineering racks).  And that it needed to be done that day.  And I learned even that much by casual remarks from people who assumed someone else had told me, and much too late to sit down, plan the job, check what parts we had and buy whatever was needed.  I had to hunt down the people placing the equipment and even they were kind of hazy on the details of their power requirements -- but oh, they needed it right now.  Or maybe just some of it...

     I worked nearly four hours over, getting the "some of it" done using salvaged and leftover parts and it's a funny thing, but those fellows who just had to have that work done that very day (including the manager of the IT department) all left, presumably for dinner, and never came back.

     My trip home was a miracle of (fuzzy) mind over (sleepy) body and I was in bed by midnight.  Only six hours of sleep but I only woke up once, so that's something.

On Your Hip Or Otherwise Secured

     These are the two (2) answers to "Where should I keep guns when they are not in use?"  I guess we could add "slung," as in "longarm."

     The idea is to prevent access by the irresponsible, ill-intentioned and/or ignorant.  I wish I could tell you that list was only criminals and children but it's not; a local retired police detective tells the story of playing card with some friends and having taken off his (personal) Browning Hi Power, holster and all, because it kept hitting the chair.  As the afternoon wore on, he made a trip to washroom -- and forgot his gun.  When he returned, the pother players had his gun out and were fiddling with it.  "We saw it had gotten cocked," they told him, "and we were trying to fix that."

     Yeah.  No damage done -- that time.  Sometimes the outcome is far worse: recently, an Indianapolis father was shot and killed when his child picked up a revolver he'd laid down.  It wasn't secured.  A safe, a locked case, a trigger lock, a locked room, even a high shelf -- hang it from the ceiling fan for all I care, as long as it is out of reach of anyone but you.  When your gun leaves your immediate control, you need to secure it.

     Safety is a habit that must be cultivated.  Tamara's sidearm is either holstered and on her belt, or securely stored (for Roseholme Cottage values of "secure.")  When not secured, mine is carried off-body due to my work (empty holsters are deemed inappropriate at my workplace) -- and Tam's caught me forgetting it in the washroom when I have been carrying it holstered.  We haven't cultivated the same habit.  In a child-free home where all visitors are vetted, it's not such a big deal -- until it is, during some time (vacation, etc.) when I'm carrying it on my belt and not at home.

     What are your habits?  Are they safe -- or deadly?  According to friends and family, the father who was shot had carried a gun nearly all of his adult life.  Habits are a garden; they must be tended, cultivated and sometimes weeded.

Hagridden?

     Over the last two nights, I have had, I don't know, five hours sleep?  Six?  Not enough.  Headaches, odd noises, sunlight (eventually), backaches, worries and that what-if-I-eat-the-stairs state of mind you reach (well, I do.  YMMV) after enough time without adequate sleep have all contributed to create a particularly abysmal amateur Hell.

     Gotta go into work but I am giving serious thought to knocking off early and taking a nice narcotic pain reliever (for which I have a prescription) to turn things off long enough to try to get my supply of Zzzs back to normal. 

     This tired and yet I still don't want to vote for Donald or Bernie or Hillary.  So much for that serendipitous experiment.

     (Also, the spell-corrector in my Surface has got to go.  The things it does to fix my typos are far worse than the typos themselves.)

Sunday, Sunday, Bad News Day

     By now, you'll have the latest news about the "spree shooter" in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  From early reports, it's another loser with a curdled brain, whose crimes will be used in the attempts to restrict everyone's access to firearms.

     I know, I know -- the proper course of action is to stand with heads bowed, somber and silent: real people with real families have been injured and killed.  Yes, they have, and you can count on the Brady Center and Mr. Bloomberg's shills to make much of it.  Me, I wish some victim or witness had had a chance to stop him but all accounts agree that he struck quickly, unexpectedly and apparently at random.  Nobody is ready for that, not even people who think they are; we expect -- and nearly always find -- that those around us are not ill-inclined, or at least will give a little warning.

     That's why these crimes are wrenching; it's a blow not just at the victims but at the normal functioning of society.  People who will undertake such actions are dangerous with anything, not just guns. 

     This killer ran of of steam when confronted by police, as so many similar malefactors do.  Hours had passed; unlike his victims, the police had some notion what they were up against.

     It's a tragedy.  It's not a blunt instrument to be wielded against the Constitution and yet-- In less than 24 hours, it will be.

Yes, Late Again

     It's a beautiful day -- sunny skies, sixty-oh-my-Heavens-degrees outside.  The wind has mostly died down and by golly, I got my motor scooter started up without too much drama.

     But I'm not riding.  Didn't go to the range, either, and I'm overdue.  About 1630 Friday, the tech who normally works 0500 - 1300 on Saturday called in sick.  There were three of us who could fill in; one was off, thanks to the rotating-overtime we all work that results in an occasional three-day weekend (preceded by a 1-day weekend, so it's no prize).  The next had an appointment.  And the third?  The third was me.

     So I cut out early, and was promised I'd only need to work until 1000.  That'd get me home in time for nice, fresh donuts and a cuppa joe, and leave a little extra to run to the range, possibly on my scooter, even after I went to the supermarket and did a load of laundry.  Yay, me, all that and OT pay, too!

     Yeah, no.  Along about 1001, I'm slouching off towards Babylon with my briefcase and lunchbox, fixin' to ride the rough beast* northward, when the center came unpinned and the falcon† spun out, deaf: a couple of Production people asked me just when I thought I would have the spare set of monitors set up, because they needed to check the lighting and such on the backup stretch of green wall.

     This was all news to me and I admitted as much, which confused them.  Did I not know the main greenscreen wall was being sanded, spackled and painted?  (This in a room with I don't know, nearly a million dollars of sensitive optics and electronics.  "Not my circus. Not my monkeys.") Nope.  I started in on that project, which took right around 2 and a half hours of high-speed motion, fixed it up and arrived home punchy and frazzled.

     But consolation, the donut place is usually open 'til 1400, so I was good, right?  Yum, tasty-- CLOSED.  Sorry, We Sold Out Early.

     Sheesh.  I did laundry while watching TV,‡ then at least started my motorscooter, warmed it up, sat in the saddle and thought happy thoughts.

     Tomorrow is predicted to be as much as twenty degrees colder.
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* This is all a series of skewed poetical references, not random tired Jabberwocky.  Well, it's that, too.

† Actually, it's an an older RX300.  Alas, metaphor!  Oops, here come Yeats and he does not look best pleased.

‡ HBO's True Detective, Season One.  This is very much not family fare but it's utterly brilliant TV -- H. P. Lovecraft and Dashiell Hammet, as filmed by the producer and crew of Homicide: Life On The Street and directed by Stanley Kubrick.  Seriously, it's that good.  But you'll need a thick skin.

Gaia Knows Best?

     Some of my friends are wondering if the Zika virus isn't simply Nature's way of adapting humanity to the apparently inevitable choice of Mr. Trump or Sen. Sanders for President of the U.S.  They may be onto something.

     I was thinking of such an election as more along the lines of having the choice of getting your car repainted by punks with rattlecans, or by winos using brooms and house paint, but I guess I was thinking too small.