Fair warning: Clicking on this link will take you to a UK view of the intersection of hate, fear and intimidation in American public discourse. There is more on this here.

It's sad and a little troubling.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:52 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Thursday I was laid up with a terrible cold. I stayed in my room all through the 4th trying to heal up for work Friday night. Well, I got up and felt terrible but one does NOT call in the day after a holiday at UPS, so I hustled outside and....cold snap.

It was 40 degrees in July! So I ran back in put on a heavy workshirt and a hoodie and hurried off to work.

Ghaah! The heater in the van was broken!

I got to work and noticed that a bunch of crazy people were coming to work in shorts in 40 degree weather.

...oh wait.

It wasn't the weather...it was me.

Well, I lasted about 3 hrs before I broke morale and asked to go home. Fortunately I looked horrible enough that management gave me no grief, but rather encouraged me to leave.

I was MUCH better by Saturday evening.

This afternoon I was well enough to notice that I hadn't actually published this post.

So all is well I suppose.

_{The following picture is unrelated to the text concerning my weekend. I am very grateful for that.}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Saturday night I made the trek out to Virginia Beach where a friend and I went to Gus and George's, one of that cities few remaining old fashioned steakhouses. The purpose of this journey was to partake of their Romanian Steak...which defies mot attempts to adequately convey its awesomeness.  In this our mission was successful and we delighted in our consumption of the marinated flesh of the cowbeast.

Unfortunately, as the night became morning, the brakes on my car began to feel progressively more and more ..."odd". I was able to brake...with effort...but something was wrong. I had brake fluid, it didn't feel like the master cylinder had gone, there was no grinding..so after dropping my friend off at his house and convincing him to watch Gargantia, I headed home...wherapon the brakes became basically useless, so I decided to head towards the repair shop.

At this point I should mention that the sound of a safety brake cable snapping when the lever is pulled up violently is that of a loud chirp and is accompanied by a loss of all resistance in the brake lever. In my limited experience it is also accompanied by profanity, evasive maneuvers and downshifting....which in an automatic involves unpleasant and expensive sounding noises.

Anyway, the car is still in the shop as I type this...which is why i could not find my normal set of keys at 03:30 this morning when I went to work and why I had so much trouble finding where I'd parked.

Now as I ponder the lessons learned today, I look with some satisfaction upon the front door key that now graces my spare set of car keys.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:15 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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