Friday afternoon this and that.

--I bathed a cat today. He didn't care for it. I didn't care for it. But we put up with the necessity of it, without hurting each other. Call it a win.

--My fire chief called me in for a meeting. I kind of thought that I would be receiving an ass-chewing about something that I did at the structure fire that I had gone to with him a couple of weeks ago. Instead, he just took me around to show me different types of structures and ask me what I saw about their construction that could cause problems with firefighting. He seemed pretty happy with my knowledge of construction. Thank you, high school Industrial Arts teacher.

--The fire chief loaned me a book on understanding construction for fire fighters. I believe that I'd like to get pretty good at this. Maybe, down the road, there's an arson investigator in me waiting to get out.

----T is for Tom Waits. That's good enough for me:

I will never think of Tom Waits the same again. MAYBE I can see Cookie Monster the same.

--My partner, who has become one of my dearest friends, resigned to start his career with a much larger agency. His opportunities for advancement will be rife. He will succeed. But I've mixed feelings about it. Mostly selfishly. He rode shotgun with me his last couple of shifts. Someday I'll go ride out with him, too.

--I would absolutely watch this movie. If you've never watched an entire episode or two of Dora The Explorer, this is probably going to be lost on you.

--I remember hearing this on the local public radio station about 18 years ago. It introduced me to Le Mystere De Voix Bulgares ("The Mystery Of Bulgarian Voices", the national choir of that old country), which is good cultural music. It is terrible that THIS is the song of theirs that stuck in my head. But there it is. Earworm warning!!!

When they're speaking of "Ramaya," they are referencing a 1975 hit by a Mozambiquan artist named Afric Simone, who toured in the Communist Bloc countries during that time. He was a very early beat-boxer, and it is his music that is sampled at the end of this.

--I know of no good method for selectively killing dallis grass other than digging it up. That's a shame. Oof.

--My old college roommate Bill was doing training in Colorado Springs. He ended up a refugee from the Waldo Canyon Fire. He told me to check the weather at Garden Of The Gods National Park the other day. 40 mph sustained winds, 101 degrees temperature, 2 percent relative humidity. A perfect storm for wildfires. I feel for those guys putting out the fires up there; it's a tenderbox, in an oven, packed with accelerant. And they put on protective clothing (hopefully not full bunker gear!) and climb mountains with heavy tools, to work 16 hour days, cutting, raking, and such. Thanks to them. No thanks, if I were offered the job. Not even in my prime.