Rain, Rain, Go Away...

A truly crappy weekend weatherwise. And of course plenty more where that came from...

I spent most of the weekend reading and watching the British Open. A couple of workouts. Yesterday morning dad got about a cord-and-a-half of firewood so I spent a couple of hours hauling it in the wheelbarrow and stacking it in the woodshed. I normally enjoy (or at least don't mind) hauling and stacking wood; but the pouring down rain detracts from the firewood experience as it does most everything else. I was one wet indentured servant.

Dad believes he now has between seven and eight cords of wood on-hand and that will hold him for the winter. Based on previous experience, however, I am predicting another cord or so in September to top-off the supply. The National Weather Service is predicting continuing cooler than normal temperatures for the remainder of what the calendar assures me is summer. Of late, Dad has been burning between six and eight good sized pieces of wood a day. In the winter that rises to twelve to fifteen. That's lots of wood.

The right side of my face is still largely numb; but this morning I noticed that when I smile there are faint crows-feet by my right eye which, I suppose, is a good thing. I'm confident I will have a full recovery.

I really enjoyed the book I just finished - John Adams by David McCullough. The author is very readable (his Path Between the Seas about the building of the Panama Canal is one of my favourite books) and President Adams was a fascinating character about whom I knew very little.

Adams was intelligent, educated, extremely well read, and the quintessential eighteenth century New England farmer - puritanical, frugal, and often irascible. He was completely devoted to his wife, Abigail, and the correspondence between the two that survived is amazing in both volume and content. The relationship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was fascinating - Jefferson was both Adams' greatest rival as well as good friend.

Benjamin Franklin wrote of Adams:

"He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."

As someone who spent a good many years working the halls of the legislature dealing with individuals I would not care to invite into my own home, I found Adams' comments regarding the necessity of concealing one's dislike for persons with whom one must work very apt:

"There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation ... is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral ... that it is a duty and a virtue."

I came across a number of other passages in the book that I found appealing and have marked for future reference.

THIS JUST IN: Dougie just sent me a most amusing story from the The Sun of London - headline: "They're Britain's dogs of war." http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/article1447714.ece

"Fearless German Shepherds are being trained to jump from aircraft at 25,000 ft wearing their own oxygen masks and strapped to special forces assault teams.


Once down in hostile terrain in Iraq or Afghanistan, the dogs will be sent in first to seek out insurgents’ hideouts with tiny cameras fixed to their heads."

COMING SOON... That 70's Show: Jane's Party Pics. Here's a sample. Stay tuned...

I believe this was Jane's 19th birthday party. August 27, 1976.