Sleep in! Play racquetball! Run the treadmill Get food delivered to the room! Turn the a/c up as high as it goes! Ah, what fantasy!
Reality: Go to a 7am Scout leaders meeting. Rush home and clean the garage for the a/c repairman. Help a friend move. Shop for Tommy’s birthday party. Celebrate Tommy’s birthday. Catch up on two days missed work. Do other personal work, paperwork and financial stuff. Remember to eat. I’ve missed something.
Thanks to Les Jones making me aware of the new cut of beef called a flat iron steak, we are trying this supposedly tender piece of meat tonight. I had seen this cut in the store, but prior to his review, had given it a jaded eye considering its lower price. Tonight we shall see!
Update: They lived up to Les’ report. Tender and tasty!
I have bemoaned that we could get the United States onto the metric system if we started using it. You know.. put up speed limit signs that show both metric and English measurements. Of course if both the metric and English measurement appeared on the same sign, people may continue to ignore the metric. What if the English measurement sign was a half a mile before the metric. Confusion? We don’t confuse a yield sign with a speed limit sign. I think this could be worked out. Make metric the prominent measurement on all things and the English measurement the smaller. Right now my speedometer shows English measurements very large and shows metric speeds in a smaller, darker print.
What can I do? I am going to commitment myself to using metric as often as possible. I will find a thermostat for the house that displays in centigrade. When I give distances to the Scouts, they will be stated metrically first. And so forth. I know I can do this! I already drink out of two liter bottles.
Update: What is a meter?
Break my heart! Evan needs his afternoon naps! But when I put him into the crib and he protests it makes me cringe. Right now he is sweetly (with increase aggravation) crying out, "Daaaaa Daaaaa DAAAAA!" He wants me, the bad guy that caged him in the first place, to rescue him. You know, if it wasn’t 90°F in this house, he might just go to sleep.
There are more than 30 events planned in Knoxville for a National Night Out against crime. [Source]
Tommy, exasperated, after playing all day in our heat: "My PS/2 is overheating!" Then stares at me like he wants me to do something…
I’ve been sweating so badly in this shirt that it has started to smell like a moldy tent.
The repair man’s supplier finally came through. We will be upgraded from a 10 SEER unit to a 13 SEER.
Today, it is rare to see systems rated below SEER 9 in the United States because aging, existing units are being replaced with new, higher efficiency units. The United States now requires that residential systems manufactured after 2005 have a minimum SEER rating of 13… [Source]
I rush the estimate to our very kind insurance agent who ala Brazil cannot find my record at first then finds it offering me a Coke and, along with his Oscar winning smile, utters, "uh oh. Bad news." Hold it! When a guy has been in deadly heat for over two weeks and you have just exclaimed, "you’ve been without air for two weeks!" do not follow it with "bad news." Turns out he wrote his last check yesterday. He thought he had another checkbook but said the local claims office will have to get in touch with me and that I should hear from them within the next 24 hours. Yes, story of my life! None-the-less, I am thrilled!
Being a Boy Scout leader makes me happy. I enjoy helping some young men define their character and learn new skills. Tonight I demonstrated a Whisper Lite cooking stove and engaged the scouts in a discussion about backpack cooking. Two other leaders demonstrated different types of stoves. The boys mostly enjoyed seeing fire.
I resent statements like:
To anyone over the age of 25 Twitter is inherently abhorrent — author Clive Thompson called it “blogging taken to a supremely banal extreme” in a recent Wired article… [Source]
What is that mantra I repeat to the children? Oh yes. "Sometimes you just have to do something even if you don’t want to. Just get it over with." I have a task ahead that scares me and I can delay it no longer. It now has the highest priority. Breathe. Move on!
