More coffee. The high-end stuff.

After my last post, Old NFO sent me a pound in two packages of Kona coffee. I reiterate: NOT "Kona Blend", but 100% Kona.

I have been making it in the French Press, with filtered water. I have shared it with my family but little.

My wife tilted her head and squinted and asked "Why are people sending you coffee?" I smiled and told her that it was because I'm such a big deal, which made her roll her eyes. In truth, I don't know why I'm blessed to receive such blessings, and I know that I don't really deserve such friends and friendly gestures.

[Raised cup] Here is to you, Old NFO. Until the next time that we can share a pot of coffee on the range or at our friends' place.

For all these things, we give thanks.

Too much food. A genuine feast.
9 people around a long table, telling stories.
An olive tray.
Deviled eggs.
A well-baked turkey.
HUGE salad tossed by my brother.
A second pan of rebaked potatoes, with too much butter and sour cream and bacon and cheese and chives.
Rolls and bread baked by The 11 Year Old In The House, with guests fighting to take some of the few remainders home.
Dressing. Gravy.
Cider. Coffee.
Green bean casserole.
Pie, pie, cake, muffins, bars, pie.... I'm missing something, but that's 6 deserts, and the muffins actually stole the show, strangely. Mini pecan muffins with too much butter.

All with a broken oven in our house.

I'm missing some stuff.

I got a call from a good friend at the end of dinner.

It's tempting to feel sorry for those who don't have what we had. But today, I just give thanks for the blessing of riches. I have a family. I have friends that I think of like family. Even my kids have friends that I think of like family. If that's not a thing to give thanks for, I don't know what is.

I've got to start taking in Thanksgiving orphans. We had too much. But it was wonderful.

11/11/13 - Veteran's Day.

Most of you didn't have to sign up, but volunteered instead. Others, you were called, and you came.

And after you signed up, you had to go.

You had to go, but you didn't have to come back.

Most of you did come back, though.

And this nation is better off for the going, and the coming back both.

Thanks.

I remember.

Observed.

I was out of town and away from a computer until late last night, but Veteran's Day still happened.

People still wore uniforms in my nation's service, and others still dealt with life with disabilities that they got wearing those uniforms, and others carried the less-visible marks of their service to my country.

11/11 came on a Sunday this year, so we close the banks on a Monday, and what that means to a veteran, I don't know. But what it means to me is that it might make a citizen who might not otherwise think about such things remember that there is a whole class of people who signed up to do such things, and that our people have set up a national holiday to remind them of that fact.

I almost forgot. But I remembered. Please join me in thanking a veteran or three or four this week, for their service.

Memorial Day, 2012.

I remember why we're off today (or would be, if our jobs permitted it). I am so very thankful that we have men and women willing to sign up to be put into harm's way. My family is without fear because of such people, past, present, and future.

Thank you.

We remember.

Air conditioning project.

Supposedly, the hardest part of the project is behind us. I ran the ridiculously-expensive 7/8" copper freon lines ($259 plus tax) and a3/8" partner (~$60), which I coated in the best insulation that I could buy (~$120 worth), through the attic last night. They barely reach the utility closet without an inch to spare, which is good, because they only sell the copper A/C lines in 50 foot lengths at my local A/C supply house. This was particularly arduous because the attic was very warm, and I had about 24" of blown-in insulation covering the joists that I was trying to walk on so as not to fall through the ceiling, while directing a very delicate pipe through the attic around ducts and trusses and such. Whot phun.

Today, I need to build out the ducting from the coils to the plenum, reconnect the stovepipe to the heater (need more stove pipe. Why do the sections keep coming apart? It's not supposed to be this hard.), connect the copper to the outside compressor and the inside evaporator, and connect the electrical, and see if it turns on. We shall see.

Total price tag thus far for a new 5 tonne gas furnace and 5 tonne a/c unit is about $1900, but I reckon with the cost of incidentals like fuel to and from the store, some tools, and such, I'll be well over $2k.

By the way, the Shark Bite water connection devices, which simply push onto the pipe to connect copper to copper, or even copper to PVC, are pretty nifty. They made the re-installation of the hot water heater take less time than it took to even cut one of the copper pipes that originally connected it to the house water system.

My partner's dad needs a special thank-you when this is done. The guy is working like a dog for me, for free, because he apparently just wants to. I can't express my gratitude to the guy enough.

Damn.

If you haven't thought about our boys in Afghanistan lately, take a second to read and watch the video, and appreciate what a hard job they're tasked with doing.

6 miles away.

Five years ago today, on a Saturday morning, I finished up some paperwork at the P.D. at 0800 CST.

It was quiet. The radio was dead. I toiled on.

I hadn't paid any attention to the fact that the oldest space shuttle in our fleet was landing that morning. If I had, I would certainly have been outside watching for it, as it came across my sky. Stupidly, I still wish that I had, if only to see it for the last time it was to be seen. If I had been outside, I probably would have heard and seen the disintegration of the Columbia.

Why the hell didn't I? As I sat in a tiny little patrol office doing some inconsequential paperwork, seven men and women died, about 200,000 feet above my head.

I've never seen a spacecraft, beyond the satellites that scram across the sky (more and more you see the Iridium satellite flares), but those aren't craft, so much as cargo that got parked. I would have been happy to have watched a 22 year old stopgap spacecraft pass by.

I'm one of those who will someday pay to go stand on some ground 6 miles away from the launch pad of some other spacecraft in eastern Florida. I don't reckon that I'll ever get to go up in one, but at least I can hope to watch one go.

And if it's half as exciting as it looks through my little monitor, as I watch the the event through the lens of someone's handheld video camera, then I'm all in. Take a second and watch the launching of Columbia's last successful mission. Watch the exhaust as it passes above the terminator on its pre-dawn flight, into the the coming day.

Listen to how happy the crowd is when the SRB separation is successful. Hell, I was cheering, too, over 5 years and 1300 miles later. By that time, they were about 30 miles away from the shuttle, but they're just so happy to see that it made it.

Raise your cup to the memory of those who have gone, but don't mourn. Rather, give thanks for the hope that others may --will-- go also.

"When the ship lifts, all bills are paid. No regrets."


_ _ _
Edit: Fixed the link in the middle to show the launch of the last successful round trip of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

So fine....

42 degrees this morning with a light wind from the north, and dry sapphire skies with just the occasional cloud catching the rays of the rising sun this morning to fluoresce almost exactly like gold pyrite flecks in a large piece of lapis lazuli.

The coffee came out perfect this morning (scientific method or not, the quality varies from pot to pot, dammit.), and I fried up slices of my leftover cornbread alongside some farm-fresh eggs brought from my in-laws' chickens in my giant iron skillet. Butter the fried corn bread and drizzle some blackstrap molasses over it on a plate with a couple of fried eggs next to it, with a tall glass of cold milk, and you are guaren-damned-teed to make your 5 year-old and 9 year-old girls scowl at their breakfasts and proclaim "I don't want that!"

Philistines. They have no. Idea. How good....

So after I threatened them with bodily injury, they each took bites of the corn bread and of the whites of the eggs (they also don't appreciate the glory that is cornbread sopped in egg yolk. Where did I fail them, so? How do I right this wrong? ), and downed their milks. So, you know-- it'd be a sin to waste their breakfasts....

Dropped them off at school with their full-sized pumpkins. Yes, my girls' schools actually recognize Halloween. They ain't skeered. As I pulled out from my elder daughter's school, someone actually stopped to let me into traffic.

I sipped my coffee laced with a half teaspoon of molasses as I idled on home, and thought: "I made it through. This is what I wait all year for."

Damn, but I love October in North Texas. This is the antithesis of May.

Thanks, Billy!

I'd just finished an email to Billy Sparks today, when I heard the postal lady drop something off on my porch and jump back into her truck. (Remember when they used to knock? When they used to make sure the package, if it wouldn't fit in your box, made it inside and safe?) I checked the porch, and there was a box from Billy himself, contiaining the very topic of my email: 100 feet of good rope.

Constant readers will recall my post of about 4 weeks ago, in which I voiced my appreciation of good rope. My mama actually gave me a length of it and some snaplinks for Father's Day. It's massive, thick twisted white rope, and it was a really nice (if different) Father's Day gift.

Billy, who works in the first responder field, mentioned that he might have some extra rope lying around. I figured that he had some old rope that was ready to retire. In fact, he had some static line that had never been used, but had been shipped in the wrong color. Different colors are often assigned different tasks. Life-saving climbing rope usually has a built-in 7 to 12% stretch, which can save your bacon when you hit the end of it after a lengthy fall. It's expensive, and has to be disposed of after a couple of falls-- one should never use good climbing rope for general purpose chores like towing or hauling. It also should be kept as clean as possible, as sand and grit will cut and fray the fibers in it, reducing its strength and ductility. So when you order it, you get it in a specific color -- say, neon orange or yellow, and you make your utility ropes another color, preferably a contrasting color. So the general purpose rope that Billy sent me is brand-spanking-new rope that's never been used. Since I don't carry climbing rope or the like with me, the fact that it's Emergency Orange is not a problem-- it could be purple with pink flecks in it. Billy threw in a locking carabiner as well.

As soon as I figure out where my absent wife stashed the checkbook, Billy, your costs for postage will be in the mail, buddy.

I went out to a medium-velocity high-water rescue the other night with our fire department. A lady had driven into a puddle in the road that turned out to be a rising creek, and her car began floating right down the road. The firemen waded carefully out toward her, but stopped several times-- they didn't have a rope!! My new one was still in the trunk of my P.O.V., not yet transferred to my patrol car, so I was of little help. I will, tonight, though.

Thanks, Billy.