Morning all:

I am back in sync again. Traveling it is the three hour time shifts that I find are most difficult to adjust to. More or fewer hour differences I find easier to acclimate to. This morning I found myself sleeping a full night, and so now my first coffee is both timely and wonderful. Cheers!

We still have a lot of wood hanging about the back yard. Like sixteen sections of tree trunk averaging nearly thirty inches in diameter each. Last Saturday I placed an ad in the Cincinnati Freecycle web site which allows people to place “offer” or “wanted” ads and where any item is offered for free. I wrote a great and very appealing ad. Within an hour I had my first response. “Shawn” wrote that the ad was so well written that he was almost tempted to race over and pick up some of the wood. His problem was that he had no fireplace. That was the only response I had. Anyone need some low cost winter heating?

Leave for a few days and life and sanity part ways in the old home town. I returned to another tempest in a teapot. Most quotable was the headline dealing with our successful (this season anyway) Bengals. For you who are not in the know the NFL has sent out an edict that all fans entering the stadium will have to be subjected to a physical pat-down. This got the normally staid Germans of this city’s dander up. Once the threat that the fans would, en masse, clench their tickets between their teeth and strip down completely prior to heading for Paul Brown stadium became public knowledge the sheriff sprung into the action. Remember the old rock song “I fought the sheriff”? In this town you would automatically lose. Sheriff Leis placed the Prosecuting Attorney in his corner as well as Stan Chesley, one of the nations foremost defense attorneys—the NFL has relented.

We’ll see what will happen next week.

While wandering in the bowels of the Las Vegas convention center my cell went off. It was Kirstin in Florida asking about an electric problem in their house. Actually it was a bit more than that; one that was finally resolved by three fire engines, an ambulance, and the chief of police. Bottom line, the house lost the ground to their electric service causing massive spikes. All is fine (except for the AC unit and several appliances), but it did bring up the issue of safety in the home.

Here is where I am heading with all of this. Once home I asked Marcia if she knew where the main breaker switch and the water shut off valve were—she did not. Oh sure there was some mumbling about where the meter reader gets his information but I could detect a fake answer immediately. However, Marcia, who is no fool, immediately upon realizing that I had her cornered turned the argument on me. Something about having little knowledge about what to do short and long term should my airplane make a short-strip landing (think crater). She has a point, and since she does extremely well with “cheat sheets” I have committed to put one of these together.

All this made for very light Friday evening discussion. Now, where did I place that PIN number? I best get started.

To everyone, make it a great week.
Cheers,
Dirk