Nine One One

     On this day, I am supposed to wax patriotic, philosophical, grimly determined-- 

     Because a lousy bunch of religious whackos decided to turn Western technology on the West.

     Well, I'm not going to give you the standard Ritual Grimaces.  There are always barbarians at the gates; sometimes we have been lucky enough to live in times when the gates are good long slog from where we are, is all.  Those days are gone; they've been gone since the jetliner displaced the steamship.

     Barbarians of one stripe or another had been after blowing up highly-visible stuff in the States for a good long while -- a Federal building in Oklahoma City, a van-bomb at the World Trade center, and so on back to the 1886 Haymarket bombing in Chicago.  There's no shortage of fools who think blowing up innocent people is a suitable method to effect change.

     It's not.  It's been shown to produce nothing but death, injury and anger.  And we've now got the TSA bringing miniature, audience-participation versions of the Stanford Prison Experiment to every passenger airport in the country.

     Here's what I can tell you: when violent people initiate force against the innocent, more people step up to stop them (Flight 93), to help the victims (police and firefighters at the World Trade Center and Pentagon), and they do not count the personal cost; they step up.  Civilization is stronger than barbarism.  It is not destroyed from the outside.

     So remember the heroes, probably none of whom felt especially heroic in the moment.  Remember the people who do what needs doing.  And don't kid yourself that it won't happen again.

     The television pundits will cry Real Tears today and so will the usual job lot of politicians.  It won't mean anything.  They weren't there.  Some of them think they were -- after all, they saw the smoke from their office window -- but they weren't, and they won't be the next time, either.  It's up to you.

Air Freezeditioning

     Yesterday afternoon Tam and I were busy at various, divergent tasks.  She had been folding laundry in the basement and when she returned to the surface, she told me, "You might want to check that condensation leak all around the furnace...."

     Uh-oh.  The drain line from the drip pan under the A-coil* is ludicrously large for the amount of water: Roseholme Cottage is not a very large house.  "Was there water on the top of the furnace?" I was hoping not.  The furnace sits in a slightly-lower spot. Maybe it was just seepage from recent rain that hadn't evaporated.

     "I think so."

     Drat.  Damme.  Shit-oh-dear..

     Investigation found a little water on top of the furnace, dripping down the outside to the floor; there was condensation on the outside of the section of duct where the A-coil lives.  Frozen up?  Probably.  I killed the cooling, set the fan on continuous run, and used my wet/dry vac to force-drain the condensate line and pan. It's just a PVC pipe run to the the floor drain, so that's easy.  In a few hours, the A-coil enclosure was down to room temperature and I wasn't getting any more water, so I opened up the furnace.

     Either I missed the last filter change or the cats really stepped up their shedding: the filter was pretty well blocked.

     I put in a new filter and ran the system on air-only for as long as Tam and I could stand it -- quite late, really -- then put the cooling back on with a higher set point.  So far, so good, it's producing cool air in some volume, but I'm not going to push it until we get into the week and I can ring up our furnace guys to check refrigerant level.  The forecast is for cooler temperatures and lower humidity, so here's hoping....
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* What's an A-coil and why do they call it that?  It's the inside-cold part of the cooling, where compressed gas from the compressor/heat exchanger outside expands and cools down as it does so, and then cools the air passing through the A-coil.  In a central air-conditioning system, it typically lives in the ductwork at the output of the furnace, downstream of the fan and heating element.  In order to get the maximum surface air to cool the air in the space available, the coil -- like a car radiator -- is usually arranged in two sections that form an inverted V or lambda in cross-section; or, in fact, an A shape.  They can get clogged and do need to be cleaned occasionally, but are fragile and often hard to get to.  They are one reason why your furnace has a filter -- and why you should change that filter more often than I did.  So where's the water come from?  It condenses on the A-coil just as it does on the outside of a cold glass.  It drips off, is caught in the condensate tray, and drains down a pipe (or in case of a window unit, it just drips) -- unless your fan is running too fast, in which case it gets blown off the coil into the output air and you've got trouble.  This stuff isn't as easy as it might look, nor as simple. 

Sunset Yesterday

     A line of heavy rain came through yesterday afternoon and left a lengthy, spectacular sunset in its wake.  I managed a few snapshots on the way home and from the back yard:

     The phone camera is struggling with this -- HDR might've picked up the sky better.

     Could this be kewler?  The Moe & Johnny's building is one of the more unusual survivals along College Avenue.

Commander In What?

     I must admit that I have trouble picturing either Ms. Clinton or Mr. Trump leading an army.  Either one of them at the head of a howling mob, certainly, but an army?  Nope.

     But that's beside the point and last night, service members had a chance to ask them both some questions.  Early polling is mixed but it appears Mr. Trump did a little better at it.

     A larger story -- and a pity that it is -- is NBC's unusual choice to put fuzzy-warm morning show host Matt Lauer in the moderator's* seat.  The network has no shortage of wonks -- Chuck Todd, who gives every sign of living, breathing and probably bathing with Washington and world politics is oen and the network's long-time political reporter Andrea Mitchell is another.  Neither is without biases (and Mr. Trump is anything but a media darling) but they are professionals.  Mr. Lauer, and whoever prepped him for the gig, did not impress.  From "softball" questions to Mr. Trump to an extended (and apparently rambling) discussion of Ms. Clinton's e-mail mess, it was reportedly a suboptimal performance.

     I'd tell you first-hand, but I didn't watch.  Bombastic and snide or evasive and snide?  This is supposedly the choice?  Both contenders look to me to have anger-management problems; and this is the best their parties can find.

     Still voting for Mr. Johnson.  Maybe he can't win but he's still the only one running I can vote for without gagging.   If "shaddup and choke it down" is the flavor of the day, count me out.
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* Since it wasn't really a debate, is the position that or a moderator, or what?  This is quite aside from the ability of the selected talking head to actually fulfill the duties thereof, whatever they were supposed to be.

So, I Asked Tam

     "Gary Johnson is extremely popular with the troops -- why won't he be in the Commander-in-Chief Q&A thing on TeeVee tonight?"

     "Because he's not going to be President."

     Killjoy.  Also, this is a prime chance for the Giant Meteor of Doom* to do its thing.  But will it?  Probably not.  Oh, L. Neil Smith, they're worse than ever.
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* Yes, yes, I know the kids use a different D-word.  I'm not using that one in a posting that discusses Presidential candidates and uses the phrase "Commander-in-Chief," because we live in a day and age of people with no sense of humor or proportion or even just plain sense and I do not propose to get body-slammed or even interviewed vigorously by witlings on the gummint payroll because I made a funny that sailed over their tiny, tiny heads.  YMMV.

Tuesday? Hmpf.

     Here's the drill: slept insufficiently Sunday-Monday; went into work in the middle of the wee small hours Monday, worked ten hours, came home, stayed up as long as I dared, slept twelve hours -- fitfully at times -- and woke up with my back feeling like a rusted-stiff roller chain that had been stuffed into a microwave oven set on "high."

     Soaked in hot, Epsom-salted water for an hour and I'm better now.  Why, I feel as spry as any centenarian!  Or most of 'em, at least.

Labor Day?

     Every day is Labor Day, unless you're a lazy slug.  But you know why we get the official, gummint-approved Labor Day at the end of summer instead of late Spring?

     It's 'cos we're not commies.  (The Canuckiphalistanians took the same approach, by the way.) And/or because you don't want to get the chaps down at the mill all riled up just as the weather's getting nice; better you should wait until autumn looms, with winter not far behind.  They'll come back to the forge when the snow flies, won't they?

     I guess that worked when we still had forges in this country.  Kind of.

Various Things

     Up early again, enjoying a not-quite-Full-Bobbi breakfast[1] ahead of a ten-hour day[2]: a small steak, a couple slices of pepper bacon[3], home fries (with scallions!)[4], a fried egg, V-8 juice and coffee.  Yum!  So good, Tam had to be given her own small steak (half-filets mignon, cooked in the pepper bacon fat), just so I only had the cats to fight off during breakfast -- Huck believes his ability to stand on the floor and get an entire foreleg on the tabletop entitles him to anything within his reach. He may have lived in a 19th-Century boarding house in a prior life.  Or been a Marine, though their table manners are generally better.

      Speaking of the Marines, a poll back in July that showed Gary Johnson to be the preferred Presidential candidate of  every Service branch but one put him ahead by the widest margin among the USMC, while the Navy only preferred Johnson a bit more than the Army (though of course they really don't like the Army, but that's not what I meant).  The Army liked Mr. Trump a bit better than Mr. Johnson (and presumably way more than the Navy), and Ms. Clinton did not fare so well among serving troops.  I am heartened to learn the Marines are every bit as cross-grained as tradition says they are.
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1. It would require the addition of tomatoes and mushrooms at minimum to qualify as a Full Bobbi.  Possibly toast or such as well.

2. Holidays at my work do not Walk Away From Omelas.[PDF]  Quite the reverse. Most get the day off.  A few get the day.

3. They were out of the wonderful applewood-smoked bacon.  The pepper bacon is a good second choice.
 
4. Note that if you are completely out of hot sauce, a little horseradish, well mixed in, will do.

Early, Early

     So I'm up enjoying sausage hash with eggs and green onions, which is how I like it, and thanks to Tam for making a grocery run while I was fiddling with my ham antenna Saturday.

     We started the day enjoying breakfast Open Society Public House,* disconcertingly located where my veterinarian's office used to be.

See the brick pillar or chimney in the wall at the left?  That was in an exam room when my vet's office was in this space.  It's about the only recognizable part left after the makeover.

     Tam and I both had the Bisteca, which is what happens when you put down an herb salad and then add layers consisting of a little steak, some crumbled feta cheese, a poached egg, chipotle hollandaise sauce (!) and a couple of strips of very good bacon, with first-rate home fried potatoes and some cherry tomatoes on the side.  Tastes even better than it sounds.

     Bicycled home after that -- I picked up donuts on the way, one for there and then, another for later -- and did laundry, ham antenna work (me), writing and grocery-shopping (Tam), then reconvened to attack the lawn.  I wrestled the electric mower almost everywhere (there's a tiny stretch in the alley that really needs the string trimmer), including the long-overdue back yard, and Tam did all the trim mowing and edging.  So our lawn is civilized for the first time since before the heavy rains.

     That was enough work to leave me tired enough to get some sleep before today's early-early shift.  Enough sleep?  I hope so.
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* Not, in fact, connected to George Soros -- although to the extent he'd concentrate his efforts on keeping governments from creeping around behind closed doors where citizens can't see what's going on, he'd be tolerable.  Alas, he cannot.  Oh, George

Insight, Hindsight

     Moving pictures were better before they added sound.

     Seriously, think how much that would improve present-day TV news.

Urgh, Blurble, Spam

     Wish I had more for you.  Politicians -- and more so, candidates -- are still insane and/or evil.  I used to think mostly evil, but evil would do a better job of it, get the weirdos running on time and streamline the infrastructure or at least wear interesting uniforms, so I'm increasingly leaning towards insane.  Unmoored from reality and it works for them, so why not impose it on everyone?  Who needs Morlocks and techies and persons from Porelock when lotus-dreams beckon, anyway? Don't the power plants and water treatment centers run themselves?  If you squint, you can see Flint, Michigan from there.

     I sat through a talk awhile back by an "industry leader" and to the extent I even understood what he was talking about, it appeared to be collusion in restraint of trade, a way of mass-negotiating favorable (for the buyer) rates for the actual product my employer sells, yet the big boss appeared to think the speaker was the very greatest thing since individually-wrapped cheese slices.  So either I missed something, or the guy is the best salesman in the entire history of selling, despite being, in fact, a buyer.

     As summer turns to autumn, the weather suddenly couldn't be nicer.  Of course this is wreaking havoc on my sinuses and my face has felt like it might explode for the last several days.  The more salubrious the weather, the worse it feels.

     A closing thought from the from the spam filters:

     I once tried to shave is not the machine, and the blade of the knife, which bought here [deleted URL].

     Go home, Skynet.  You're drunk.

So, Food?

     Don't wanna blog about political stuff again,  haven't been shooting for a few weeks, so, food:

     Tam's pal Mike dropped off a loaf of artisanal semolina bread yesterday and we were resolved to find out how well it toasted.

     It toasts remarkably well, in fact.  But you can't just have toast; it makes Kafka sad.* So I hard-boiled an egg and sliced a nice tomato.  Butter on the toast, sliced hard-boiled egg atop that with a little salt and pepper, sliced tomato on the side with "Italian seasoning," and there you have as good a breakfast as you can turn out with very little effort.

     Also, if you haven't got a serrated bread knife, get one.  It'll make your life better.
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* Yes, he said it first: "The washing up from breakfast lay on the table; there was so much of it because, for Gregor's father, breakfast was the most important meal of the day and he would stretch it out for several hours as he sat reading a number of different newspapers." The Metamorphosis, emphasis mine.