Category Archives: Fallen Warriors

Toilets and Sewing Machines

By | | ,
Comments Off on Toilets and Sewing Machines

A toilet, and a sewing machine: these are both things I worked on repairing today. I was successful in repairing the toilet.  However, I don’t have the specialized knowledge I need to safely work on Marcia’s quilting machine. If I could have fixed this, it’d save us 50 or a hundred bucks. But I can do ever so much more damage than that … so I tried, and then I stopped.

I also had a fair amount of outside-of-business-hours work this week; Some yesterday, and more of that starting around 0645 this morning and going on for a couple of hours. That’s my excuse for not doing any yardwork at all. But since I can rarely talk about work, it’s boring here as a topic.

*      *      *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Capt. Matthew D. Roland, 27, of Lexington, Kentucky, died of wounds suffered Aug. 26 when the vehicle he was traveling in was attacked near Camp Antonik, Afghanistan.
  • Staff Sgt. Forrest B. Sibley, 31, of Pensacola, Florida, died of wounds suffered Aug. 26 when the vehicle he was traveling in was attacked near Camp Antonik, Afghanistan.

Kerfuffle, Past and Future

By | | ,
Comments Off on Kerfuffle, Past and Future

The Hugo Awards were last night.

First off, congrats to the winners. I’m happy for them. I enjoyed the winning work in each category that had a winner. Well, except Guardians of the Galaxy, through no fault of its own. I don’t go to movies, and rarely watch them.

Five categories went to No Award. To me, that seems a bit harsh. I read everything that came in the Hugo packet, and dug up everything I could that wasn’t in the packet. For me, only four or five works out of dozens rated below No Award. The people who annoy me on all the sides of this kerfuffle are the ones willing to vote on the person or the politics, damn the writing. I don’t ask that my authors be sane, or kind, or pleasant. I ask that their writing entertain me. I’ll admit that the authors from the Sad|Rabid side of the aisle mostly floated my boat less than some of the others. But not all of them.

And from all the sides, I find myself in general less entertained by hot-button current issues in the guise of SpecFic. If your characters are interesting, compelling, worth caring about, then it doesn’t matter to me about gender, race, etc. If the character exists only to be the gender or the race or whatever … then that character doesn’t advance the story.

For the coming years, I can only see the Puppies continuing to get their authors into contention. That’s unless the anti-Puppies also start block-nominating. That defeats the purpose of a bunch of people reading and nominating a bunch of stuff, and the best of the best bubbles to the top.

Is there a way around the conundrum? Sure. Get everyone to vote. EVERYONE. If every purchase of a SpecFic book (online, print, whatever) came with a token for a Hugo nomination, then people who read LOTS of SpecFic would get more nomination power. But everyone who just buys ONE book also gets a nomination token. Some tokens will go unused. Others will be sold on a darknet market somewhere. But getting more fans into the process will bring it closer to where I think it needs to be – representative of the likes and dislikes of the readership. There are ways to make it relatively honest, though there will still be a dead (zombie?) vote.

Would this put more voting power into the hands of people who buy popular work, instead of less popular but more “literary” work? Sure. But if I purchase and read 17 works next year (especially easy, since I ought to get a token for every month of Clarkesworld, for example), I can apply all 17 of those tokens to the one literary work I read. Of course, no one of consequence will see this idea, and it wouldn’t happen anyway, because herding cats. But I’ve had fun with the thought experiment.

Also from WorldCon: Sigh. I don’t think I can make it to Helsinki in 2017. That’s a deal, because I was hoping that DC in 17, my local WorldCon bid, would succeed.

*      *      *

DoD announced no new casualties in the last week. Ciao!

Returns with a Vengeance

By | | , , ,
Comments Off on Returns with a Vengeance

Summer, that is. We’re in a pattern of high heat and humidity right now, which makes working outside (and walking the dog) less than utterly pleasant activities. I strive, however, to not let that stop me. Today, after shopping and such, I managed a 3-gallon harvest out of the garden, much of which turned into the contents of these jars:

Mmmmm. Salsa.

Mmmmm. Salsa.

Yep, there’s still salsa coming out of the garden. It’s been winding down for a week or more, but there may be one more batch before the year’s production is done.

*      *      *

My dance card was full last week because Marcia was travelling. She did an eight day trip to Michigan, spending time with family and going to a quilt show in Grand Rapids. She tells me she had a good time. I won’t know how good a time until I’ve seen the credit card bill, however (grin).

*      *      *

DoD has reported no new casualties in the last few days. Ciao!

Belated Busy

By | | ,
Comments Off on Belated Busy

For reasons yet to be explained, I’ve been very, very busy. So here’s a picture of a new neighbor – a 10-week old shiba inu named Roxy:

New neighbor dog

New neighbor dog

*      *      *

Our condolences to the family and friends of Master Sgt. Peter A. McKenna Jr., 35, of Bristol, Rhode Island, who died on Aug. 8, in Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds when he was attacked by enemy small arms fire.

A Princess and her Pea

By | | , , , ,
Comments Off on A Princess and her Pea
Lexi, protected from peas

Lexi, protected from peas

There’s better be a pea under there…

*      *      *

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

Last night, when all was quiet, I finally got a around to putting together the Metal Earth Dragonfly model that I picked up from Amazon weeks ago on a whim, inspired by Jenny’s 1000 Ferris Wheels post. It’s good to have a focused distraction from time to time. The work took me away from myself for a double handful of minutes, and reminded me that I can focus when I make the effort. There’s been so much going on that I’m spending more time putting out fires than planning and tending what is needed, long term. But all will come right again.

*      *      *

Yesterday: more plumbing – I replaced the last of the original faucets in the house. The master bathroom was the sole holdout with a builder-grade piece of crap. But now I’ve got a shiny new two-handle Kohler in its place, and I replaced the drain as well, since that was past due, too. Today: shopping, harvesting tomatoes, making salsa, and attending a birthday barbequeue for a friend was the fullness of the day.

*     *      *

DoD announced no new casualties in the last week. Ciao!

Tiring

By | | , ,
Comments Off on Tiring

It was a good week. I pulled out another five gallons of mostly tomatoes on Tuesday, and made a pot of red sauce with most of them. Others I took to work and assorted other Friends of Tomatoes. Then there was Saturday…

Saturday started off with Marcia having decided that since she had terrible luck fishing at Centennial  Lake, nearby, we should BOTH go, early on a Saturday. Early, in my case, meant waking up not before seven – it was a long week. So, out of the house before eight, and at the water’s edge casting by about 0830. This, however, pissed Marcia off righteously:

A small bass on my second cast

A small bass on my second cast

Yeah. Marcia still has caught nothing but weeds at Centennial, but now at least we know there’s fish there.

Once back home, a bit before noon, I got out into the back yard and pulled in TWO bloody five gallon buckets of mostly tomatoes. Here’s what the haul looked like after I’d washed it up:

Ten gallons of veggies

Ten gallons of veggies

The pyramid of larger tomatoes on the left has already been rendered into another full pot of red sauce, including sage, rosemary, and thyme (also from the garden). The only other ingredients in the pot of sauce are a couple of diced yellow onions and a head of garlic, minced, some olive oil, and about a teaspoon of salt. The whole house smells of delicious right now.

Last night was work: about five hours of supporting onsite network upgrades that got me home about 0245 this morning. But the work was, in the end, successful. So we’ve got that going for us.

Today: shopping, replacing a broken faucet, working on that red sauce, and still to come: a haircut.

*      *      *

DoD announced no new casualties in the last week. Ciao!

Summer’s Back

By | | ,
Comments Off on Summer’s Back

After a couple of unusually cool weeks to start out July, we’re into Summer normal for the DC ‘burbs: 90’s for heat and humidity. Yesterday, silly me, I did yardwork anyway. That broke me, but I did get in another 5 gallon bucket of (mostly) tomatoes:

5 gallons of tomatoes, etc.

5 gallons of tomatoes, etc.

I think that’s going to end up being a red sauce. Time will tell.

*      *      *

DoD announced no new casualties in the last week. Ciao!

Midsummer fun

By | | , ,
Comments Off on Midsummer fun
Five Gallons of Veggies

Five Gallons of Veggies

That’s the big fun: I pulled a five gallon bucket of veggies out of the garden today. But … that’s the only fun. Busy bloody weekend is over, thankfully. Fixed a leaking fridge water feed, which now looks like this:

New fridge water feed

New fridge water feed

A ball valve and a copper feed pipe is much better than a vampire tap, a needle valve, and a plastic feed line. I got the leak stopped and water back on in the house by about 8:30 Friday evening. The water to the fridge was restored by Saturday mid-morning.

Thereafter, yard work on both days. I’m exhausted and ready to get back to work so that I can relax and recharge.

In other, most excellent news, it seems that Bloom County is returning to life. Huzzah!

*      *      *

DoD reported no new casualties in the last week. Ciao!

In the Dark

By | |
Comments Off on In the Dark

Well. Dark-ish, sort of. Metaphorically. We still had electricity. But no phone, no Internet (well, except the cell phones), no TV. Our FiOS connection went down on Friday, and stayed down until a tech got here today and replaced some of the equipment. I used the enforced ludditic interlude to do some work in the woodshop, including sanding and finishing:

Finishing the new side table

Finishing the new side table

Sanding and some finish applied on Friday (when it rained). More finish applied with intermediate sanding on Saturday (when it rained), and final assembly today (when it didn’t rain, but I was waiting for a FiOS tech). The final product is a new side table for the living room that lives between the sofa and the easy chair:

New living room table

New living room table

Most of the evenings on Friday and Saturday was spent comforting the mutt against the trials and tribulations of many booms from all directions (fireworks of variable legal status).

*      *      *

Our condolences to the family and friends of Senior Chief Petty Officer Jason P. May, 38, of Chesterfield, Michigan, who died on June 29, on board USS Essex (LHD 2), of non-combat related causes while the ship was at sea.

More Rain

By | | ,
Comments Off on More Rain

Well, not today, exactly. Nor yesterday, as such. But we had a pretty good storm roll through on Saturday. Sunday … (yes, yes, the day I forgot to post on, again. Sigh.) Sunday, I was talking to my folks, and realized that since we returned home from California in the waning days of May, some 31 days past, we’ve had 11.7 inches of rain. Our weather has been positively tropical. I’m looking for mahogany and teak trees to start growing before my very eyes!

We got a few more tomatoes out of the garden, about twenty HUGE FREAKING cucumbers, and what looks like the last of the zucchini. Weirdly, all of the zucchini plants look like they’re dying … and dying differently than prior years. Hmmm. I do expect to be making some salsa by the Fourth, however.

*      *      *

No new casualties have been announced by DoD in the last eight days. Ciao!