If You Want my Contribution, Don’t send me EIGHT Letters
Entry For Tuesday, 6 January 2009
[Rant On]
Sigh - I’m not sure how other folks make their yearly contributions to organizations that need money. In our house we usually spend New Year’s Eve looking through the letters we’ve received all year and select those we endorse to send money to. There are some folks that are on my list because they send a letter a month asking for money. We NEVER send them any and we’re not sure why they think we will. We’re not even associated with them and have never been to anything that they do. Really.
One group sent us a “Special Gift” this year in the seventh of eight solicitations. The Special Gift was a coin. Their Special Gift will be the reason that I return their self-addressed envelopes. The coin managed to jam the paper shredder. I was not aware that there was a piece of junk metal deemed Special in any way. They could have sent me a washer for all the value the gift provided.
SO - (I typed a naughty plural word that I also deleted)
Here’s my special gift to you: I’ll return your self addressed franked envelope filled with junk mail from other folks that I don’t want to ever hear from again.
AND
You’re welcome.
[Rant Off]
Meanwhile, back on the farm:
The livestock watering device that self-destructed late last week by melting everything that was not metal now has all new meltable things within. It works. The horses are once again very happy to drink water that doesn’t require a hoof-shot to break the ice. I am pretty sure that I could take the whole thing apart and reassemble it in the dark. I had to resort to a headlamp to finish the repair/replacement operation.
The manure bunker is half empty (also half full) but that’s down from a nearly full existence earlier today. We stopped because I became too cold to drive the big tractor. Daughter was as happy as I’ve seen her lately. She got to drive the small tractor with bucket loader. She became very skilled at filling the spreader. Practice is a good thing. The bucket loader is also much more fun to operate. We make a good Manure-Mover team.
The barn now has eight new pulleys and ropes to haul wet horse blankets up to the rafters to dry. They are also out of the way and actually DO dry as opposed to crumpled up on a rod where they tend to NOT dry out between storms. We’re all happier persons for this accomplishment.
The eviscerated generator is back in action. I went to pick it up at the repair place and when I asked them to fire it up just to show me that it worked, they were perplexed that there was no starter Pull-rope.
Um, let’s see. I just paid a LOT of money to have the wiring harness replaced and you want me to believe that it works without starting it. AND
You couldn’t have started it without the pull-rope. That means that you haven’t tested it before calling me to come over to pick it up (45 minute drive one way). Hrmm.
They found a new handle and once I showed them how to attach it and wind the take-up spring, I pulled the rope, and - guess what. It started. AND it worked.
I was happily surprised.
Contra dancing requires a tempo of 112 to 125 beats per minute. This means that I’ve a LOT of practicing to do in order to keep up with the fiddle speed-demons in the band for the gig we have on the 30th.
That is about all the farm revelations of late.
Authorial topics:
I’ve moved the novel-in-a-month from MS word into “Notebook” by Circus Ponies. The program is much better for me to work with. It has an outline feature and a format that lets me see the outline while writing the chapter.
It keeps track of characters and their attributes so that I don’t have a blue-eyed character show up with brown eyes two pages later.
I can cut and paste all manner of Internet data into another section and - well - it’s easier to work with than MS word. I’ll report tribulations as they occur, but so far, it seems to meet my particular needs.
That’s about all from the author life side.
More later,
Doc
[Rant On]
Sigh - I’m not sure how other folks make their yearly contributions to organizations that need money. In our house we usually spend New Year’s Eve looking through the letters we’ve received all year and select those we endorse to send money to. There are some folks that are on my list because they send a letter a month asking for money. We NEVER send them any and we’re not sure why they think we will. We’re not even associated with them and have never been to anything that they do. Really.
One group sent us a “Special Gift” this year in the seventh of eight solicitations. The Special Gift was a coin. Their Special Gift will be the reason that I return their self-addressed envelopes. The coin managed to jam the paper shredder. I was not aware that there was a piece of junk metal deemed Special in any way. They could have sent me a washer for all the value the gift provided.
SO - (I typed a naughty plural word that I also deleted)
Here’s my special gift to you: I’ll return your self addressed franked envelope filled with junk mail from other folks that I don’t want to ever hear from again.
AND
You’re welcome.
[Rant Off]
Meanwhile, back on the farm:
The livestock watering device that self-destructed late last week by melting everything that was not metal now has all new meltable things within. It works. The horses are once again very happy to drink water that doesn’t require a hoof-shot to break the ice. I am pretty sure that I could take the whole thing apart and reassemble it in the dark. I had to resort to a headlamp to finish the repair/replacement operation.
The manure bunker is half empty (also half full) but that’s down from a nearly full existence earlier today. We stopped because I became too cold to drive the big tractor. Daughter was as happy as I’ve seen her lately. She got to drive the small tractor with bucket loader. She became very skilled at filling the spreader. Practice is a good thing. The bucket loader is also much more fun to operate. We make a good Manure-Mover team.
The barn now has eight new pulleys and ropes to haul wet horse blankets up to the rafters to dry. They are also out of the way and actually DO dry as opposed to crumpled up on a rod where they tend to NOT dry out between storms. We’re all happier persons for this accomplishment.
The eviscerated generator is back in action. I went to pick it up at the repair place and when I asked them to fire it up just to show me that it worked, they were perplexed that there was no starter Pull-rope.
Um, let’s see. I just paid a LOT of money to have the wiring harness replaced and you want me to believe that it works without starting it. AND
You couldn’t have started it without the pull-rope. That means that you haven’t tested it before calling me to come over to pick it up (45 minute drive one way). Hrmm.
They found a new handle and once I showed them how to attach it and wind the take-up spring, I pulled the rope, and - guess what. It started. AND it worked.
I was happily surprised.
Contra dancing requires a tempo of 112 to 125 beats per minute. This means that I’ve a LOT of practicing to do in order to keep up with the fiddle speed-demons in the band for the gig we have on the 30th.
That is about all the farm revelations of late.
Authorial topics:
I’ve moved the novel-in-a-month from MS word into “Notebook” by Circus Ponies. The program is much better for me to work with. It has an outline feature and a format that lets me see the outline while writing the chapter.
It keeps track of characters and their attributes so that I don’t have a blue-eyed character show up with brown eyes two pages later.
I can cut and paste all manner of Internet data into another section and - well - it’s easier to work with than MS word. I’ll report tribulations as they occur, but so far, it seems to meet my particular needs.
That’s about all from the author life side.
More later,
Doc