Busy month.

--The Sophomore In The House has to raise money for a band trip. I've bought cars on several occasions for less. This means raffles, and fund raisers and volunteering to work at the booster club food booths at football games, and frankly, I'm almost ready to just say "take the damn money."

--I've been going to court a lot, lately. It never fails: work days, and you go a year between trips to wood-paneled rooms presided over by attorneys wearing black gowns. Go to deep nights, and you're suddenly testifying more often the Paul Drake did.

--I did some fire training on Friday night. I started by doing the agility test for new firefighters, while in full bunker gear. I passed it, but damned if I didn't have a lot taken out of me. Then, for the past several days, I've been having a couple of vertebrae out of alignment, probably just from the unequal tightness that I put on my back. I think that I'm going to the chiropractor. That's a shame, too, because I've spent up my Flex Spend medical account with voluntary eye surgery, back in June.  But I can't do much good like this.

--A senior asked the Sophomore In The House out to a school dance, in a pretty cool fashion. My daughter had not planned to go to the dance, but could not turn down such a sweet invitation. Uh huh. Very nice. And that's all the effective persuading that you're going to be doing, sport.

--This weekend promises to be excellent. No clouds. No wind. High of 74. PERFECT. But I have to work it.

--A bunch of work that I've done at work has borne some fruit (that in no way benefitted me, of course).

--Being an effective cop is not without its repercussions.

--I start EMT classes this month.

--I'm rolling my eyes at the sides-taking on the issue of the current government shutdown. The Republicans are saying "We don't need Obamacare! It's still more government on top of the enormous amount of government that WE want!" The Democrats are saying "The obstructionist Republicans have stopped government!" But we Libertarians are saying, "Notice how, when the federal government shuts down, life doesn't end?  Anyone else want to try some more of not paying for what  we apparently can survive without?"

--I've said it before and I'll say it again: You want to stop the out-of-control spiraling cost of medical care? Mandate that all medical providers and insurance companies give a definitive price of what a procedure or treatment costs before it is done. No more "we'll just have to submit the claim, and find out what the insurance will pay." That's like taking a check in for $10,000 and asking "How much will this buy me?  When you do it that way, it won't buy much.  We have a flawed market that doesn't permit competitive shopping. The market has no incentive to fix itself, at the current rate.

--My friends are worked up about the play of the Texas Rangers Baseball Team and the Dallas Cowboys Football Team. They don't seem to care about the Dallas Stars Hockey Team or the Dallas Mavericks Basketball Team. Loyalty is a fickle thing, dependent upon winning. Each those players make more in a year than I have in the past 10 years of working. I just don't care.

--My wife made the finest gumbo that I've ever eaten, two nights ago. That's impressive, because I've eaten a lot of great gumbo in my life. I could point to the excellent Holmes Andouille sausage, or the chicken, or the homemade chicken stock, or the home-grown vegetables and herbs that went into it, but really, the greatness lay in the roux. My wife's grandmother grew up in New Iberia, LA, and she taught her the importance of a good home made roux to the texture and flavor of a good stew or gumbo.

--Speaking of cooking, I need to pick up a beef brisket next week. I've got to uphold the dignity of Texas barbecue in the presence of out-of-staters. I'd probably better plan on doing it twice. It's been a while.

--Note: The secret is not in the sauce*. It's in the rub, and the smoke and time that you put into it.

--I know that I said it before, but I've been watching a lot of old British Top Gear episodes, lately, and they're great. I have been watching the early episodes of the reboot from back in 2002, and it's fun seeing how the silly stuff evolved. I went to watch the American version of the show, and it really doesn't translate very well. AEPilot got me started on this show, mostly to see what they did a 1988 Toyota Hilux pickup that rests on a plinth in the Top Gear studio.

--I have zero explanation for a mild interest in owning a Ruger 77/357 rifle. I won't even try to justify it.
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*I rarely ever use barbecue sauce of any kind.