• Crash the Combat Kitten might not be as much of a kitten as we thought.
  • When the vet took a look at his mouth on Saturday, she announced that he had all of his adult teeth.
  • That doesn’t normally happen until 6 to 7 months of age.
  • He only weights 5 pounds, so he’s either early for getting his teeth or he’s going to be teeny compared to Koshka.
• Boo and I picked 8 more quarts worth of tomatoes out of the garden on Saturday.  I’m hoping that the ton of still-green tomatoes ripen over the next few days.
  • We can bring them in and ripen them on the window sills, but vine ripened just tastes so much better.
• Irish Woman and I built her a new work desk in the bedroom.
  • Basically, it was two oak kitchen cabinets from BIGGRAYBOXHOMEIMPROVEMENT, placed on the floor and screwed into the wall, with a piece of cabinet-quality 1×20 screwed into the top of them.
  • This replaces a plastic folding table and a small computer desk that was holding her iMac, her work laptop, two monitors, two printers, and several scanners.
• Irish Woman has been apologizing to me for having to work in the middle of the night for the past few nights, complete with conference call.
  • I had to tell her the story of my barracks room in Misawa that was across from the jet engine test stands and my barracks in PLDC down the street from the artillery unit that liked to pull 20 feet out of the motor pool to do night live fire training.
  • Among the few sounds that wake me up are breaking glass, doors slamming open or shut, and children crying.  Other than that, I sleep like a baby.
• I love it when a plan comes together.
  • Wasn’t thrilled about working on Sunday evening, but it was quick and easy and uncomplicated.

The leaves are starting to turn and fall.  My garden is starting to die back.  It’s 20 degrees cooler and a lot less humid than it was 48 hours ago.  It’s time to call this one.

• The saga of Boo’s school has ended, at least for now.
  • Now we just have to pay for it.
  • One good side of all this is that he will be in class with one of his buddies from pre-school.  We’ve warned his new teacher about the ramifications of that.
  • His new teacher has the nickname “Drill Sergeant”.  This does my heart good.
• It took me a week to burn up half a tank of gas in the new truck, but only one day to burn up a quarter of a tank after I gassed up last night.  I guess I’ve done quite a bit of driving today.
• Of course Boo’s new school doesn’t use the same color polo shirts as his old one.  What was I thinking?
• Girlie Bear got excellent grades on her first German tests this week.  Now if I can convince her that “ich” is not pronounced “ick”.
• Crash the Combat Kitten has developed a habit of ravaging the fresh fruit that we keep in a bowl on the kitchen table with his claws and fangs.  Going to have to break that habit.
• The weather yesterday was hot, muggy, and oppressive.  Tonight it’s decidedly crisp and refreshing.  I think I can live with this for a month or two.
• To the asshat in the semi truck who drove up the shoulder during a traffic backup, thereby cutting me off from taking the exit I needed and condemning me to 20 more minutes of stop and go traffic until I got to the next exit, I hope your truck rearends a tanker from a septic system cleaning company at high speed on “Take Your Daughter To Work” day.

• The FNRA dinner on Saturday night went very well.
  • I am proud to say that I sold out the chances on the drawing I was working in an hour and a half.  Someone paid $20 for $2000 worth of guns, and was quite happy when his ticket number was called out.
  • I also had a good discussion with one of the members of the staff at the venue, and he was excited to learn how to purchase a gun and where he could get some training.  I suggested a couple of places in Louisville, and wished him luck.  Hopefully I brought someone new into the tribe.
  • I was going to wear my Remington  1911 as a barbecue gun for the dinner, but as I was taking it out of the safe, one of the decorative buttons on the grips came off.  Oh well, wearing a S+W Model 13 as a barbecue gun is nothing to be ashamed of either.
• The new truck is very comfortable, and I’m very glad to have the air conditioning these past few days.  I have even learned how to back the darned thing into a parking spot without trading paint with other cars or other obstacles.
  • I’m not looking forward to filling that 26 gallon gas tank in a couple of days, though.
• Moonshine the Wonder Lab and Crash the Combat Kitten have come to some kind of understanding.  Moonshine now only tries to play with Crash during hours in which the entire family is either asleep or trying to quietly read, and Crash no longer puffs up to three times his real size and tries to slash Moonshine across the jugular.
  • I have dubbed the normal Siamese kitten freak outs as “Combat Parkour”.
• I need to remember to do something very special for Girlie Bear.  The past few weeks have been really chaotic for the family, and Irish Woman and I have had to lean on her a lot to keep things running.  I’m thinking a day out at the range dedicated to her needs to happen in the near future.
• I’d like to say that things at Boo’s school have been getting better for him, but I can’t.
  • Irish Woman and I are looking for a solution that fits Boo’s needs and personality a little better.
  • The school he’s at right now is an excellent place, it just doesn’t seem to work for our son.
  • Public school is still out of the question.  Even considering that the schools close to our home are pretty good, there’s just too great a chance that he’d end up on a long bus ride across town to satisfy someone’s idea of social justice.
• To my garbage man:  I’m so sorry, but Irish Woman and I have been on a “Get it out of the house” kick, and this week most everything we looked at that needed to go wasn’t worth donating.
• Spending an evening alternating between having in-depth, life changing discussions with your wife and chatting with two teenage girls is kind of disorienting.

• Bad – Clutch acting wonky on your 13 year old truck.
• Worse – Truck barely getting home after a long day of work.
• Even Worse – Truck won’t go into gear under any circumstances the next morning.
• Horrible:  I just bought a new car for Irish Woman and wasn’t planning on replacing the truck for a few more months.
• Estimate costs to fix the truck:
  • Parts to fix clutch – at least $500.
  • Labor to replace clutch parts will require pulling the engine out.
  • Total cost was going to be at least $1000.
• Truck is 13 years old, needs the front and rear suspension replaced, has no air conditioning, and has a multitude of minor, annoying issues.
• I’d like to announce the addition of a 2013 Ford F-150 XL to the family.
  • Unlike the old truck, Irish Woman can drive this one.
  • I’m going to have to get used to parking a truck with an 8 foot bed.
• Pushing the old truck back up in the driveway, alone, and with a separated shoulder might have been the second dumbest thing I did today.  The dumbest thing I did today was letting it coast down the drive way a piece to see if movement would do something to correct the issue with the clutch.
• The sound of joy in a salesperson’s voice when you tell her that you will be purchasing your second vehicle of the week from her is rather annoying.
  • I  called two sales people at competing dealerships to see who could make me the best deal, and she won.

• Apparently we missed being in the middle of a small tornado by about half a mile when we went out to the dealership to buy the new car.
  • The storm was about an 8 on my scale, but not hard to drive through.
  • We got to the dealership about 5 minutes after it stopped hailing.  Luckily, our saleslady had thought to pull our car in under cover before the storm.
  • Lights flickered twice, and the main printer for the dealership went kablooey, but other than that, no big whoop.
  • Some of our friends weren’t so lucky.  No damage to property, but losing electricity in August just after a heavy rain really sucks.
• While we were waiting on the paperwork and all that to be finalized, we looked around the dealership.  They had a brand new Shelby Cobra for $67,000 and an F-150 Raptor for $56,000.
  • I guess I can finally say I’ve been domesticated.  I could find no way to justify purchasing either vehicle, even if I were to have the disposable income to do so.
• Note to teenage girls – It might be fun and cute to use a hot pink marking stamp to leave little bears all over your friend’s neck while you’re out and about, but her father is going to want to speak to you when it looks like she’s got hickies.
  • Of course, tomorrow is school picture day, why do you ask?
  • Luckily, it looks like they are washing off.  We weren’t sure if the stamp was permanent or not when I picked up Girlie Bear.
• Speaking of school pictures, if you want to talk about price gouging and monopoly power, all you have to do is discuss the cost of getting a child’s picture taken at school.  I don’t think the dinner I bought Irish Woman the night I proposed cost as much as the small portrait package I ordered tonight.
• A friend of Irish Woman’s is a child psychologist.  He suggested that, in addition to the other therapies we have him in, we introduce regular exercise into his morning routine.  So I’m purchasing an exercise ball, have a child’s bicycle in my living room, and am contemplating purchasing an indoor trampoline.

• I started to write a Minivandian story called “Dinner with the Eloi“, but erased it when it seemed to be getting more and more bitter and spiteful.
• I bought four more pints of dry blueberry wine at the farmer’s market this morning.  Some might call this a lot, but I look at it as an occasional anti-oxidant fortification.
• The quest for a new vehicle is over.  Now I just have to turn in the rental car and finish physical therapy and all of this will be behind me.
  • There probably won’t be any lawsuit.  The guy who hit me didn’t have insurance and was out on parole.  Something tells me it wouldn’t be worth the time.
• Giving Boo cotton candy might have been a slight mistake.
• Tomorrow I’m going to make my final batch of pickles for the year and probably harvest enough tomatoes to do a batch of chili fixings.
• Girlie Bear learned today that wearing sun screen means you should use sun screen to cover every square centimeter of exposed skin.  It looks like she has some weird red tattoo on her neck after spending six hours out at a car wash today.

• The search for a new car for Irish Woman appears to be over.  I was getting to the point that I would have bought a gold-plated Mercedes coupe just to end it.
• Had an excellent dinner with Lazy Bike Commuter and Suburban Ninja.  It was great to see them again, and I got to introduce Irish Woman to more of my tribe.
• I can officially report that my class on how not to drive trucks into airplanes went well today.  I’m so proud of the people I trained for not getting me fired and/or arrested.
• I’d like to say that I’m going to have a relaxing, do-nothing Labor Day weekend, but I was taught never to lie.
  • One of these days I’m going to rediscover the phenomenon of “sleeping in”.  I understand that I used to do it a lot.
• Whoever put the dreams in my head last night:  Not cool, man, not cool.
• Nothing starts the day off right like having the grade school principal give you a call and request a meeting.
• I either need to build more book shelves or get rid of some books.
  • Anyone need anything while I’m at the lumber yard?
• Remember, to the kitten you are both the bringer of food and a prey animal.

• Don’t lie to me.  Don’t tap dance.  Tell me the truth.
  • If you tell me something’s going to take 24 to 48 hours, and I ask for a status after 48 hours, a nebulous “I hope it’s done soon” isn’t going to cut it.
  • A simple “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” will actually take you very far.
• Planning meetings are much less productive when half the people don’t show up, but for some reason they don’t end any sooner.
• Irish Woman and I have been looking at so many cars on-line that we are officially sick of automobiles.
  • They all start to blend together after a while.  I realized after trying to figure out the difference between two VW’s for 15 minutes that I was looking at the same car on two different web sites.
• It is mind numbing to try to find a particular picture out of a collection of almost 10,000.  I really need to organize that folder on my laptop.