Winter refreshed itself these last several days. I would that Mother Nature do it gently. I went outside, once to walk the beagle, who started limping at the sub-zero cold, then rallied to hunt for morsels beneath the one-foot snow cover. The walk was extended, as Skittles planned her chore-walk, delaying the movement of her bowels, thus prolonging her walk.
Snickers is the puppy, a black Scottish Terrier/Corgi mix with spunk to spare. He's 7 months old and has a lot to learn regarding the protocol and strategy of walks. He does his business quickly then jumps over snowbanks on the edge of the road, into the deep snow. Most of life is play time for him and soon his paws get cold and his eyes plead that I carry him.
Snickers had the neutering appointment at the Range Animal Clinic in forty-five minutes so I set about to warm up my pickup truck. The Ford F-150 had no energy and only groaned listlessly for two seconds. The truck was not going to start. I was shocked. I've had this truck for eight years and it has never failed to start.
I made an allowance for my big buddy: this is a different kind of winter than the last twenty or so years. the kind of winter that cancels school and various civic events. It is a psychotic winter that was so warm two weeks ago that the Sisu ski race was cancelled. Then it abruptly changed and all last night it rammed a Siberian wind through my poor truck's grille, freezing the life out of the battery and congealing the oil to resist the rotation of the crankshaft.
Nonetheless Snickers had an appointment so I put my battery charger to work and went inside because I couldn't feel my face anymore. I called the clinic and told them I'd be late by half an hour because my truck wouldn't start. The woman on the line with me said, "It's important that you get Snickers here as soon as possible."
"Yes, I realize this. I'm charging the truck battery right now. That should do it."
I bundled up again in my ski bibs and snorkel parka, put on my Sorel boots and choppers to protect my severely arthritic hands and ventured forth. The truck seat was as hard as wood. The key turned stiffly and I heard a groan, then the engine sputtered and wailed in protest. I stroked the accelerator gently and the Ford kept running. I took my foot off the pedal and said, "Thank you, Lord!"
Then my eyes gravitated to the dashboard- no charging, no oil pressure, no fuel and zero RPM. I quickly shut off the engine in alarm. Maybe if I restarted it the electronics would reset. I tried and the battery was comatose.
I put the battery charger back in business and headed for the great indoors, feeling my asthma flare. I would call the clinic to cancel, then call Lois at work to inform her.
The wood fire probably needed more fuel so I tended to my wood-fired boiler. I paused in front of the open furnace door before throwing in the chunks of maple-wood. The warmth from the glowing coals was comforting, therapeutic to arthritic hands. A quick visual inventory of my wood supply underscored the severity of the weather.
Staring into the fire I realized my need of expert mechanical help. I would call Paul, a good mechanic and trustworthy, reasonable, champion of proletarians with aged vehicles. He has doctored my sick vehicles for decades. Amazing what staring into a fire does.
I told Paul of my plight.
"Bring it down if you get it going again and I'll have a look."
After another half-hour I turned the key again and the engine groaned to life again. The gauges all worked and I resisted the idea to call Paul and tell him my truck was all right. I got my frozen F-150 into Gene's Service and popped the hood. I got out of the truck and breathed in the ancient grease and oil that had permeated the concrete floor. This is the way a service station should smell.
Paul stood on a plastic crate to examine the engine inside my high-profile truck. He applied his electrical meter to my battery and scowled.
"She's low, George- 9.6 volts." Paul's assistant hooked up their godzilla battery charger, all 100+ amps. My charger output was 6 amps.
I worried since the alternator should have charged the battery somewhat during warm-up and the drive to Gene's Service. Paul turned his attention to the alternator and instructed his assistant to 'start 'er up.'
Paul leaned so deep inside the engine area it looked as though he would fall in. He told his assistant to shut off the engine.
"No alternator output," Paul pronounced his observation so gravely that I imagined a $300 + repair bill. The dreaded, 'you need a new schitzelfritzel' popped up in my mind. Paul continued his examination of the alternator for a few minutes.
"Here's your problem-a loose field wire on the alternator, see?"
I climbed up and saw the loose wire, the schitzelfritzel fear giving way to relief.
Paul wouldn't charge me for his time and expertise so I handed him a five-dollar bill.
"I appreciate it, Paul. Have coffee and pie on me.
Several hours later I realized that God had given me grace. I usually get excited, frustrated, angry and I had been excited and frustrated but the grace kept me from losing my temper over my recalcitrant truck. I didn't pray for it. It was just there. I can't figure it out so I'll just accept it.
Thank you, Lord.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Orwellian Text Talk
We were in a restaurant enjoying a Friday night fish fry and conversation, catching up on the day's local news and discussing deep topics as our blood pressure readings. Don't snicker, blood pressure numbers are important when you realize you aren't bulletproof anymore. My wife's eye shifted to a nearby table and my eye naturally followed.
A young (younger than 50 ) couple was preoccupied, no, mesmerized by their phones. Perhaps the secrets of quantum mechanics or The Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant. More than likely it was texting, that strange new language which I feel is an abomination.
The English language is important to me. Clear communication is important and I am fearful that texting is gradually usurping the English language as we know it.
I also use the text media on my phone but I refuse to use text-talk, with it's arcane abbreviations, numbers substituted for letters, lack of sentence structure and pitiful grammar.
I hated English class as a lad but in my senior years I've developed a love for the language, the richness of adjectives and adverbs, the flow of good sentence structure and good writing. This probably came from my love of reading. Contrast the writings of any prominent author, John Steinbeck for example, in The Grapes of Wrath, "The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled broken dry grass..." with "hoo r u 4 pack or SF".
Decoded, 'Who are you for, the Packers or San Francisco?"
Orwell called it Newspeak in his visionary novel, 1984. Newspeak eliminated the descriptive depth of writing. It cancelled emotions, flavors, colors, fragrances, odors and replaced it with mere functionality. There was 'good', "plus good' for better and 'double plus good for terrific or wonderful or fantastic. The English language had become sterile, dead. Omnipresent telescreens bleated out sterilized news and production reports. Music and literature were heretical and the worst part was that anyone talking in the old English would mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again.
Advertising has eroded the language as well, with intentionally incorrect spelling, sentence structure and general disrespect of the English language. Advertising inundates our consciousness as we passively stare at a screen urging us to "By now b 4 it's too late. Hey!"
I feel like Charlie Brown, "I can't stand it."
A young (younger than 50 ) couple was preoccupied, no, mesmerized by their phones. Perhaps the secrets of quantum mechanics or The Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant. More than likely it was texting, that strange new language which I feel is an abomination.
The English language is important to me. Clear communication is important and I am fearful that texting is gradually usurping the English language as we know it.
I also use the text media on my phone but I refuse to use text-talk, with it's arcane abbreviations, numbers substituted for letters, lack of sentence structure and pitiful grammar.
I hated English class as a lad but in my senior years I've developed a love for the language, the richness of adjectives and adverbs, the flow of good sentence structure and good writing. This probably came from my love of reading. Contrast the writings of any prominent author, John Steinbeck for example, in The Grapes of Wrath, "The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled broken dry grass..." with "hoo r u 4 pack or SF".
Decoded, 'Who are you for, the Packers or San Francisco?"
Orwell called it Newspeak in his visionary novel, 1984. Newspeak eliminated the descriptive depth of writing. It cancelled emotions, flavors, colors, fragrances, odors and replaced it with mere functionality. There was 'good', "plus good' for better and 'double plus good for terrific or wonderful or fantastic. The English language had become sterile, dead. Omnipresent telescreens bleated out sterilized news and production reports. Music and literature were heretical and the worst part was that anyone talking in the old English would mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again.
Advertising has eroded the language as well, with intentionally incorrect spelling, sentence structure and general disrespect of the English language. Advertising inundates our consciousness as we passively stare at a screen urging us to "By now b 4 it's too late. Hey!"
I feel like Charlie Brown, "I can't stand it."
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Industrial Disease
I look out of my window and see the sad, dirty and minimized snow banks. The streets are bereft
of ice and snow. Even the rooftops are bare. Come on! this is Big Snow Country, the turf of rough, tough snowmobile-rs, athletic Nordic and downhill skiers, snow- shoers and kids building snow forts. (For some reason unknown to me I have not seen kids participating in snowball fights in many years..)
It is a downright dismal landscape, the likes of which I've not seen during January. A wise old fellow yooper told me these January thaws are normal. Well, I'm a yooper too, maybe not so wise, and I recall many a January thaw, but each with an ample reserve of snow.
Someone told me that the warming trend of the globe is cyclical, undulating, that this is normal and mere man could not cause it with smokestack or tailpipe emissions. The person is also a 'young-earther', but I'll only say that I believe that scientific evidence points to the contrary. I believe in undulation of the earth's temperature, but not to the extent that we are witnessing now.
Horrible storms have ravaged our country, causing a wake of billions of dollars in damages. It snows heavily in the Ohio valley and in Tennessee, Kentucky and even North Carolina. The northeast has been walloped by blizzards as well as Hurricane Sandy, dubbed as a superstorm.
Something is dead-wrong when all the major blizzards go to central and southern states.
When I was a lad we had at least three snow days a year. It snowed so furiously that I could not recognize anything across the street. Blizzard wind gusts made the house crack and creak and then when the blizzard ended the polar express roared in, chilling us to as low as minus thirty degrees.
Snow was a novelty then and blizzards exciting, seen through my youthful eyes. Until recently I groused about each storm and the hype preceding each one. Just more work to do. A nuisance until January 2013.
I would rather have had 18" of snow than the rain and the icy conditions for pedestrians. The lack of snow is crippling our fragile local economy based upon the above-mentioned sports.
My thoughts lingered on the ice core samples taken from the polar regions. Evidence of air-pollution spiked with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and has since worsened. The Greenland glaciers are melting, as well as those of the Swiss Alps. Polar sea ice is disappearing rapidly, creating an impact for wildlife with a polar habitat.
Something is dead-wrong when I pray for snow.
of ice and snow. Even the rooftops are bare. Come on! this is Big Snow Country, the turf of rough, tough snowmobile-rs, athletic Nordic and downhill skiers, snow- shoers and kids building snow forts. (For some reason unknown to me I have not seen kids participating in snowball fights in many years..)
It is a downright dismal landscape, the likes of which I've not seen during January. A wise old fellow yooper told me these January thaws are normal. Well, I'm a yooper too, maybe not so wise, and I recall many a January thaw, but each with an ample reserve of snow.
Someone told me that the warming trend of the globe is cyclical, undulating, that this is normal and mere man could not cause it with smokestack or tailpipe emissions. The person is also a 'young-earther', but I'll only say that I believe that scientific evidence points to the contrary. I believe in undulation of the earth's temperature, but not to the extent that we are witnessing now.
Horrible storms have ravaged our country, causing a wake of billions of dollars in damages. It snows heavily in the Ohio valley and in Tennessee, Kentucky and even North Carolina. The northeast has been walloped by blizzards as well as Hurricane Sandy, dubbed as a superstorm.
Something is dead-wrong when all the major blizzards go to central and southern states.
When I was a lad we had at least three snow days a year. It snowed so furiously that I could not recognize anything across the street. Blizzard wind gusts made the house crack and creak and then when the blizzard ended the polar express roared in, chilling us to as low as minus thirty degrees.
Snow was a novelty then and blizzards exciting, seen through my youthful eyes. Until recently I groused about each storm and the hype preceding each one. Just more work to do. A nuisance until January 2013.
I would rather have had 18" of snow than the rain and the icy conditions for pedestrians. The lack of snow is crippling our fragile local economy based upon the above-mentioned sports.
My thoughts lingered on the ice core samples taken from the polar regions. Evidence of air-pollution spiked with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and has since worsened. The Greenland glaciers are melting, as well as those of the Swiss Alps. Polar sea ice is disappearing rapidly, creating an impact for wildlife with a polar habitat.
Something is dead-wrong when I pray for snow.
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