• Today I had two vastly different experiences when visiting small businesses.
  • In one business, the owner was working the counter, and as far as I could tell, my friend and I were the center of his universe.
  • In the other, I’m not sure if the yutz who waited on me was the owner or an employee, but apparently it was more important to make jokes with other people in the store than to sell me something.
  • The first guy gained a new long-term customer.  The second guy may have just lost one.
• It’s not every day when I meet a gun store owner seems excited to meet someone from the local Friends of the NRA chapter.
  • Not only is he offering to let me put up signs and posters in his store, but he also says he’d be happy sell our raffle tickets.
• Script drafting rhythm:
  • Hour 1 – Stare at computer screen, trying to visualize how the procedure you wrote down on a legal pad is going to look in PERL.
  • Hour 2-3 – Wrote PERL like a boss!  Oh my gosh, this is awesome!
  • Hour 3:05 – Hit the wall like a bad actor in an over-powered Porsche. Go back to staring at computer screen.
  • Hour 4 – Go get some lunch.  Think.
  • Hour 5 – Get over issue from Hour 3:05.  Make a little more progress.
  • Hour 6 – Give up for the moment.  Realize that the solution to the problem will come to me at 3:27 AM when the antagonist in my dream will taunt me with it.
• Going to a Christmas party tonight made me realize what our home would look like if we didn’t have children.  And if we had time.  And money.
• It’s been a long time since I had good scotch.  I must do it more often.
• We took one of Irish Woman’s co-workers out to Claudia Sanders‘ the other night for real Kentucky cuisine.  It doesn’t get much more Kentucky than fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans with ham and onions.

• I’m not sure what was the low point of my day – being stuck four times to get four tubes of blood, being asked to leave the exam room while the doctor spoke to my daughter, or power-augering out the drain from our laundry room.
  • Yes, I know I have every right to be in that exam room while my child is in there, but Girlie Bear gave me that “Please!” look
• You know why plumbers are so expensive?  It’s because they’re worth it.
  • I saved a couple of hundred dollars by doing it myself, but for once I’m not sure I came out ahead.
• I got out a big bunch of tree roots from the drain, but it came along with a guest.
  • I’m not sure whether the thing that came up with the roots started life as a dryer sheet, a bleach towelette, or a baby wipe, but it was apparently the secret sauce on the clog.
  • Yeah, I don’t know how it got down there either.
• Tonight I followed a family tradition and made a dinner that my spouse doesn’t like while she went out for dinner with friends.
• I showed Girlie Bear how to make hunter’s stew out of good, high quality ingredients, which cause the meal to cost about $6 to prepare the entire meal.
  • I also discussed the cheap way of doing it, which would have brought the cost down to about $3 to feed a family.
  • She will be able to make both versions before she leaves for college.

It is never a good sign to be running a drain snake down a pipe and come back with tree roots.

That about sums up my day.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.  Remember that even after all these years, we still have young men and women far from home to defend us.  Please keep the casualties and survivors of December 7 in your prayers, and also please include those who serve now.

but Irish Woman has me tasting a new recipe for strawberry-cranberry jam, and this cartoon keeps coming to my mind.

I’d ask her to taste it first, but I wouldn’t put it past her to have built up a resistance to it over time.

• Girlie Bear says that she sometimes struggles in getting the cadets she’s been put in charge of to behave at JROTC.  She asked me for advice.
  • I wonder if Full Metal Jacket is available on Netflix?
  • Seriously, I advised her to be responsible, civil, and firm.  She can learn how to do the wide-eyed, crazy, knife-hands routine later.
• All units, be on the lookout for a male Siamese, wearing a multi-colored collar.  Answers to the name of Crash.  Under suspicion in the theft of a pound of ground beef from the kitchen sometime between 3:00 PM and 3:30 PM today.  Subject ground beef is still missing.  Suspect is known to be dangerous.  Approach with caution.
• At his therapy this evening, Boo rode the horse backwards.  I imagine that he will remember the sensation and view if he ever joins the Army.
• Ever have those days when you’re in such a foul mood that you worry about your ability to ignore the voices?  Yeah, it’s been that kind of week.
• It occurs to me that someone could be filthy rich if they were to market fortune cookies in the original Klingon.
• If I can get on the nerves of one really annoying person every day, I sleep well at night.
• Either someone was filming a zombie movie at the grocery store tonight, or it was double coupon night for the indecisive.
• Apparently the White Death will be descending upon Kentuckiana by the end of the week.
  • I’m going to stock up on bread, milk, and eggs, so that when local society collapses under the weight of the ice and snow, I will be the only source for French toast.
  • I will leverage this to rule the frozen wasteland.