Memories

     I spent some time yesterday at a radar site my employer owns.  It's haunted.  Benevolently haunted, but haunted nevertheless.

      Radar, you see, was the special province of my late co-worker Dave B. -- the main source for the character "Handsome Dave" in my Hidden Frontier stories -- and it bears his imprint through and through: notes posted on the equipment, the careful-but-not-fussy way tools and supplies are organized, odds and ends of infrastructure, labels on the less-obvious widgetry.

     I started up the stairs -- a dizzying spiral climb, 100 feet to the top -- and was reminded of the hot day the radar acted up and Dave went to the site alone, charged up the stairs, reached the top (over a hundred degrees, the thing was a chimney with no outlet before we added thermostatic vents), opened the door to the outside walkway and collapsed, only to wake a few minutes later, looking down through the grating deck at concrete and gravel far below while his cellphone buzzed with a call from the office, wondering if he was there yet.  It's a measure of the man that he told the story with a laugh -- and he disliked heights intensely.

     The equipment is crammed into a tiny space inside the base of the radar tower; two people fit but they can't pass one another.  I was taking an RF jumper apart to make a power measurement and reached over to the toolbox for an SMA connector wrench.  The wrench drawer had the usual assortment, with a flat bag of tiny "ignition wrenches." One of them was sitting next to the bag and I picked it up first, confident it would be be 5/16", the standard size for those connectors.  Yep, it was.  Thanks, Dave.

     When my co-worker and I left, we made sure tools were up and the site was in good order.  I'm not quite that organized and neither is he -- but Dave would have razzed us about it if we'd left a mess.

Texas Boob Police?

     It is claimed* that Texas state legislator Debbie Riddle wants to restrict breastfeeding by moms with breasts "larger than a C-cup."  Presumably there'd be breast-size police.  Maybe they can train with the North Carolina Washroom Patrol?

     The critical difference between Texas and North Carolina would be that in the Lone Star state, it's a legislator's notion; NC has got themselves a law.  As nearly as a websearch can tell, there's been exactly one (1) case of a male-looking male showing up in the women's locker room and that instance appears to be attention-grabbing agitation akin to the anti-gunners who circulated a petition to allow open carry at the GOPs national convention.

     Over here in the real world, publicly breastfeeding mothers are in fact feeding their offspring, people using the washroom are there to eliminate waste (with the exception of a subset of gay men who are, at least, not in the wrong loo and who society can now shame for not gettin' married to some fellow and settling down, since it's legal), and the reason you can't carry a gun at a national political convention is not because "guns're bad, mmm-kay?" but because there are plenty of guns there already, in the hands of nervous Secret Service types, who really don't want to have to shoot you when a crazed loner™ goes after a candidate and you try to be helpful.

     There's plenty of real crime and real cruelty in the world; there's no need to go dreaming up new types that are way simpler to enforce (mostly by doing nothing) and then loudly declaring victory.  If people put half as much effort into soup kitchens and job programs...well, if pigs had wings they could hover over the mud, but they wouldn't be happy.  And thus, too, legislators and the shouting mob.
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* It's a satire site -- click on "show facts" for the only marginally less goofy reality.

Mouse Babies?

     Semi-realistic stuffed "mice" are a favorite toy of both Huck and Rannie Wu.  For Huck, they're always prey, and get batted about, flipped up into the air, hurled and chased down with great verge.

     Rannie, though, can't make up her mind; sometimes she chases tem.  Sometimes she carries them around ih her mouth, making mournful-sounding cries that actually indicate she's having a fine time -- and sometimes, she collects several of them on the bed or a couch and curls up with them!   There's no reading her mind but it certainly looks as if she's playing dolls with them.

     And even bumptious Huck waits until she's left them to leap in, grab one, and slap it across the room.  We occasionally encounter Rannie looking at one or another of them on the floor, appearing perplexed.  How did that mouse-baby get clear over there after she put it on the bed?

     Rannie kept bringing them to me when I was home sick.  I thought that was nice of her.  Both cats spent a lot of time keeping me company, even as I sneezed and coughed.

Knock Wood?

     I worked Easter Sunday and I was still in bad shape.  The early-morning weekend shifts are as close to "fireman" coverage as we get and no major items of geekery-for-profit failed, so I kept myself busy in the Engineering shop and muddled through.

     I have higher hopes for today.  I slept more than twelve hours, I'm enjoying a healthy breakfast and I don't feel just awful.  It's enough, right?

     Better be!

Archer Returns!

     In the midst of horror, despair, groundless fears of reanimated New Coke and a Presidential race with less class than a bumfight, you'll be pleased to know the new season of Archer starts soon.

Festive

     Woke to persistent feelings of deep unreality -- this is all an incredibly detailed dream, right? -- and I'm still sneezing, coughing and chilled.  Oh, better, definitely better, at least physically.  I can even taste the coffee a little.  But by no means healed.

     Maybe it will be even better when I wake up for real.

Good News, Odd News?

     Good news: slept through the night, feel much better.  Still coughing/stuffy nose/sore throat, but better.

     Odd news: When I chew crunchy toast, there's an internal echo I can feel.  Yeah, that's inner-ear awfuls.

     C'mon, Z-pack,* do your stuff!
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* Azithromycin, baby, in the handy hard-to-open individual-pill blisterpack.

"I was feelin' so bad, I asked my family doctor just what I had...

     I said, "Doctor, (Doctor ) Mr. M.D., (Doctor ) Now can you tell me, tell me, tell me, What's ailin' me?"

     It turns out differently in real life to the song; what I really need is an antibiotic, cough syrup with codiene and three days of bed rest with plenty of fluids.

     Yeah, three days.  They were initially not going to let me go back until Monday but I'm scheduled for a weekend shift, so I had to ask and the answer was that it'd be okay.  I've got the start of a Z-pack down the hatch and so if you'll 'scuse me, I have a date with the sandman -- and I don't mean the guy who sells telcom stuff in Chicago.

"As Long As You Have Your Health--"

     Turns out the converse of the old saw works, too: get into health issues and other considerations drop by the wayside.  This is both good -- I have hardly even thought about the Presidential-election mudfight nor the Cuban clown show -- and bad: I gave the atrocity in Belgium short shrift.  The barbarian is at the gates but in this souped-up world, the "walls" are mere philosophical constructs and those who have no use for the many modern conveniences of 21st-century civilization can attack with impunity.  They need to start to be shot more often, and earlier in the attempts at their crimes.  It probably won't happen in Europe before the lights start going out.

     As for me, I'm off to the doc-in-a-box.  I'm better this morning but not, as it happens, all that much better.

Such A Long Way Back -- And Meanwhile

     Meanwhile, violent fanatics have blown up a whole bunch of innocents in Europe.  Short-term win for them; long-term?  The EU has been something of a self-caricature of European politics but the current wave of islamic terrorism bids fair to transform it into something closer to the warlike empires and alliances of the continent's past.

     I was pretty groggy yesterday morning when TV coverage of the horror hit full, lower-lip-quivering intensity.  It's easy to mistake this glurge for the official response, or to assume the pampered darlings on the screen somehow represent the feelings of an entire people.  Don't count on it.  Western Civilization will fight like a cornered rat once it has to -- and rarely even one second earlier.  The clock is ticking.  The ghosts of battles fought within living memory are stirring.

     (The clock is ticking on my cold, too.  I feel felt much better this morning that yesterday -- which only serves to remind me how far I have yet to go.  One step at a time!  ETA: One step back, maybe. Got in the shower -- and ran out of steam.  Sinuses overflowing, no energy, yeech.) 

Is It Over?

     I'm still not as healthy as I'd like, but after a long night with some fascinating temperature excursions (for which read "fairly miserable," I have not perspired that much from a fever in years), I think I have turned the corner and might as well get myself into work today and share the plague -- er, I mean, "I'm probably not infectious now."

     An unpaid sick day would be fine with me but it doesn't work that way and there is much to do.

    This is a cold to avoid.  The symptoms were severe and unpleasant.

Gosh, Last Night Was Fun...Not

     You've had a cold (unless you're some kinda supder-duper being, in which case no description would suffice), so I won't go into details -- couldn't sleep laying down, barely slept sitting up, awake every few hours, etc. etc.

     Feeling a little better this morning but not much.  Planning to follow my normal workday routine and see how I feel once I'm ready for work.  A nice hot shower can only help!

     ETA: Or not.  Big temperature spike, etc.  I'm going back to bed.