Beware of Geeks Bearing Grits

One of the women K hobnobs with in Saskatoonia lives in a pleasant little burg and, coming home one evening a couple weeks ago happened to notice that the barbecue cooker was missing from their patio.  No, her husband hadn't loaned it out, but, shoot, with the all the neighbors being friendly and all back-and-forthish, probably someone just needed to borrow it when they weren't home to offer it.  No big deal really.  

And sure enough, the next night it was back, right where it was supposed to be.  The husband went out to check it and low and behold, whomever had borrowed it had thoughtfully left a couple tickets to the theater for that very night, inside, on the grill.

What a nice treat, they thought, wondering who they had to thank for a nice, surprise night out on the town.

They'd really like to know, now, since upon returning they found that almost everything of any value was no longer there.

Converting From Natural Gas to Propane - An Installation

The girl's in Canada and left me in charge of making sure the new stove got installed.

Chris the stove installer got here about 1:30, and with my help got done at 4:30. It was not easy. He used more of my tools than his, and between us we didn't have a '7 mm nut driver' - how can that be? - so I went out on a scavenger hunt for one, eventually finding it at Harbor Freight. Returned to the scene of the crime and the Shiny New Nut Driver's hozzle was too big to fit through the opening we were trying to replace the little nozzles through. That's a run-on sentence with a split infinitive, but most of my infinitives are pretty badly split right now.

Anyhoo, we devised a workaround, didn't scratch anything anyplace she'll ever see, stepped back and fired 'er up. Everything worked terrifical!

Except one of the five burners wouldn't light and I felt pretty sure the flames coming out of the oven door weren't going to be acceptable to the Doyenne of Din-Din. Seems like that was the primary objection for the last one. That and the explosions. And the sound like Niagara Falls leading up to the explosions and the flames coming out the oven door. Minor objections to most, maybe but . . .

So by now my co-installer and I are communicating in terse, clipped sentences. He burns his fingers picking up one of the ceramic top hats on the burners and screams like a 13 year old girl. I stifle a snicker. "Oh" he says "when you were out getting the nut driver that doesn't work, FedEx came by with a package but I didn't want to sign for it so . . . " Holy mother of pearl, those were the leases and security deposit check I promised an owner I'd have today!!

"Just kidding, it's on the floor by your chair."

Back through the instructions which by now make more sense in their original French. I'm thinking I've found yet another handyman who can't read, from the way he stares at the page, twists it back and forth, in and out, so I read it out loud for him. Ahh, he'd missed the part about turning the pressure regulator inside the oven down two and a half turns, and we re-adjusted the sparker gizmo for the non-starting burner and Voila! as we say like to say in the instructions; we gots us a working stove with no visible flames except where they're supposed to be. We agree that the time and gas I burned out shopping were worth something, even disregarding the result. I pays the man and shoos him out the door.

Oust Incumbents (2)

Most of the 535 senators and members of Congress are forced to choose, constantly, between their constituents and their own self-preservation.  Is it really so outside the bounds of human nature to expect congressmen to serve the interests of voters, even when their own re-elections are in jeopardy?  The political system is imperiled mostly because too many politicians just can't seem to imagine any worse fate than losing an election.  A lot of lawmakers still cling to their seats at any cost to conscience or to constituency, as if it were the only job they could ever see themselves holding.

Matt Bai in the Times magazine

Oust Incumbents

There are 13,740 registered lobbyists active in Washington DC.

That's more than 25 per congressman/woman.

Reefing The Granny

from today's Times -

Sometimes The Smallest Things

Lately I’ve been thinking of the things my parents taught me — all those habits that were handed over to me one by one when I was a child. These are the sorts of thoughts I always have when I’m teaching writing, which is partly the act of revealing bad habits to their surprised owners. What got me thinking this time was the discovery that I’ve been tying my shoes wrong for more than half a century.

I’ve been tying a granny knot in my laces, a lopsided knot that tends to come untied even when doubled. It’s the knot my mother taught me. But thanks to a tip on the Internet, I learned that if I wrap the lace around the first bow the opposite way, I get a reef, or square, knot, which lies evenly across the shoe and doesn’t come untied.

(You can see for yourself at http://bit.ly/92NW56.)

I believe that if my mother had known about the reef knot, she would have taught it to me. What mother wants her child’s laces to come undone?

Here’s another example. My dad taught me how to adjust the sideview mirrors on a car. In their reflection, I learned, I should be able to see the edge of the vehicle I’m driving — as though vertigo might set in if I couldn’t locate a mechanical version of myself in the mirror. But this is exactly the setting that creates a blind spot on both sides. There’s a better way (http://bit.ly/cY2dtl). I’ve been using this new setting on the freeways of Los Angeles, and I realize now that I’ve been driving with my mirrors improperly adjusted for more than 40 years.

These are small things. They’re also deeply embedded and as close to unconscious as learned acts can be. To tie a reef knot in my laces, I have to try to tie a reef knot. That means beginning to do what I’ve always done and then undoing it — reefing the granny, in other words. I’m sure my dad didn’t want me to have blind spots. He simply passed along the blind spots he’d inherited. Now I’m having to learn to trust what the mirrors show instead of what they don’t.

One of the beauties of the Internet is its ability to cough up tips like these from the collective experience of humanity. I’ll discover more, I’m sure — slight, but somehow significant adjustments to the things my parents taught me, the deep habits of a lifetime. I don’t imagine that I’m driving without blind spots in reef-knotted shoes on my way to the examined life. But something has changed, and I welcome it.

VERLYN KLINKENBORG

For age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress,

And as the evening twilight fades away

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

HWLongfellow