Monthly Archives: October 2016

Torpor…​

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I’m what most people would consider an early riser. I’d be hard pressed to remember the last time I slept past 6:00. More often my days, even the ones at the end of the week, start no later than 5:30. Sometimes they start much earlier. It seems the years of well before dawn alarm ringing have exacted their penalty. I don’t mind it, though. I’ve gotten to like the early morning routine, the quiet, and general lack of people.

Much as it may sound it, this isn’t my ode to the morning. I like to think I’m more subtle than that. Instead, what I’m grappling with now is how it’s possible for me to claw out of bed at 5am on a typical Saturday, Sunday, or holiday Monday, hit the ground running, and keep myself mentally engaged until it’s time to turn the light off that night. I only wonder because on the usual weekday I spend most of that time feeling nearly comatose at worst and merely addled at best. The only discernible difference between those days and today are where I’m spending the hours.

​There’s something telling about that. Now if I didn’t have a shit ton of bills to pay I could ​probably do something about it. The more likely course of action is that I’ll just go ahead and trudge through five days a week in a situationally induced torpor and feeling like a real person on the other days.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Clowns. Ok, some people have irrational fear of clowns. Got it. But I’m not entirely sure why a handful of them standing along the roadside is being covered as a national crisis. I don’t see how they’re substantively any different than anyone else just milling around. Like those other non-clown idlers, as long as they’re not standing in my back yard or at my door, I’m not sure why I should care. Here in a few weeks millions of otherwise reasonable adults are going to get dressed up for Halloween and turn themselves loose on our highways and neighborhood streets. Just because the exploding population of “evil clowns” doesn’t do it under cover of a sanctioned holiday makes very little difference in my mind.

2. The level of discourse. I generally tend to shy away from political discussion on social media. I make an occasional post that reflects my opinion and leave it be. There are a few people however, with whom I can manage to have an actual discussion without turning on one another like slobbering idiots. Today I had one of those discussions with someone who I both respect and like very much as a person. We’re miles apart on many of the big issues of the day. When it comes to politics I think she’s a bleeding heart socialist do-gooder and she probably think’s I’m a hard hearted gun-toting redneck. We still find a way to talk. We’re still friends after all these years. That’s what the discourse in this country should look like. But it doesn’t. And that’s annoying as hell.

3. Seven millions of people. Seven million is the current estimate of people who could be without power as a result of Hurricane Matthew dragging himself up the East Coast. That’s well over and above the 2 million people who have been ordered to evacuate their homes. I won’t get into a discussion about the virtue of following evacuation orders, because frankly I’m not at all sure I’d be willing to just walk away from home and hope for the best under the same circumstances. That said, I seems very unlikely that there are seven million people out there well prepared for what’s coming for them. It’s going to be a rough couple of days… and for some of them a long couple of weeks or months if we have to figure out how to turn the east coast power grid back on.

Legal opinion…

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Usually I dread the moment when I have to schlep upstairs to the vast wing of the building reserved for the legal office. That long walk almost always results in discussions that end up taking something that should be quick and simple and making it into something drawn out and complicated beyond all reason. Every now and then, though, whatever ill-tempered gods lawyers pray to throw me a bone and let me emerge from their lair more or less unscathed. I went there today fully prepared to fight tooth and nail in the hopes that common sense would prevail. I spent far more time preparing than is strictly reasonable. If I knew how to gird my loins I would have done that too.

Because this is a fair blog and I believe in giving credit where it’s due, I have to admit that today they actually made it easy. Common sense prevailed against the gathered forces of arcane policy and regulatory guidance. I get to do exactly what I want in the way I wanted to do it. I can’t actually point to another instance when I’ve had this experience… and of course that also makes me vaguely nervous because I know all gods tend to be fickle and vengeful if given half an opportunity. Knowing that, I beat a hasty retreat back to my hole as quickly as possible in hopes of escaping any further notice.

People complain that I never have anything positive to say… and I hope this post will serve to clarify that I will, indeed, sing praises… on the rare occasion when something praiseworthy actually happens… in a world that is so often stupid and bad and wrong.

I’m ok with that…

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I’m not a decider. At one time, when I was young and ambitious, I thought that’s what I wanted. It was the career goal I chased for a while.  In my analysis of the game, though, the return on investment just didn’t make it worth the effort. What can I say, I like it when my phone doesn’t ring at 7PM on a Friday because someone, somewhere did something stupid.

The problems start when someone at echelons higher than reality decides that because they have my phone number, I should be empowered to speak on behalf of the entire organization. While it’s flattering for someone to think I have that kind of power and influence, a quick reality check will show that my parameters wherein independent thought is authorized are fairly limited. More importantly, I respect those boundaries – largely because by keeping myself between them I can generally avoid having my ass handed to me. Once on the other side of them, however, it’s only a few slippery steps to getting yourself pummeled.

I’m happy to take you call. I’ll do my best to explain the official position of the organization. If you disagree I’m more than pleased to pass your concern on upwards through the chain of command. Eventually it will arrive in the office of someone who is empowered to make a decision. I’m not saying they will and if they do I’m in no way guaranteeing that it will be the decision you wanted. It’s important to note, however that I’m not now nor will I ever be that person… and I’m more than ok with that.

1000% over budget…

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The first tool I bought on my own, as opposed to scavenging away from one of the parental workbenches, was a 12 volt DeWalt power drill. For most of its life it stayed in the back corner of a closet, or later on a garage shelf. I needed it about once a month and as long as I gave it some time on the charger it fired off and did its thing admirably… or it did until this weekend when the last of its batteries finally gave up the ghost.

Now I don’t think these 17+ year old batteries owe me anything at all, but the timing couldn’t be more inconvenient. There’s a three-day weekend coming and here on the homestead that almost always means taking on some project that I can’t jam into a regularly scheduled weekend. The one I’m looking at for this weekend is definitely going to need more than a black and yellow paperweight.

The problem with power tools, as I’m finding in my research, is that half the cost seems to be in the batteries. While I could buy a pair of replacement batteries, by the time I get them here, I’m into it for half the price of buying two more powerful modern batteries, a charger, and and a new drill. Like so much of the other stuff that comes into this house, it turns out power tools are just another disposable commodity – more cost effective to replace than repair. Plus, since it use to run off the same set of batteries, I get to replace a circular saw too.

Somehow by the time it’s over, my $50 project for the garage is going to end up running about 1000% over budget. There’s got to be a lesson in there somewhere, right?