Blogus Interruptus

I was about to wrap up a blog-story when the weather changed. My workshop is easier to heat when it’s (relatively) warm out; so I seized the moment. I put away my computer and happily fabricated random shit in my shop. (I made slow but sure progress on a project I’ve been avoiding forever.)

The weather briefly got so warm some of the snow melted! This turned the dial to eleven. I hauled wood for the stove, hauled garbage to the dump, and hauled ass to get everything done. Ya’ gotta make hay while the sun shines.

There was even some water pooled over top of the ice in the driveway! (Very slippery!) This happens but it’s not common and I wasn’t concerned. Unlike Al Gore’s army of PowerPoint sniffers: I’m not foolish enough to think minor weather variation is the harbinger of global catastrophe. It’s just a warm break.

[Warning: RANT FOLLOWS] Of all the things one can panic over, “warm weather” is among the least inspiring. You gotta’ live a life very removed from nature for piddling shit like weather to freak you out! Attention marketing gurus for the “put the government in charge of everything because we’re all gonna’ die” crowd; if you want to get this particular Curmudgeon worried you gotta’ think differently. Talk about Ebola, ICBMs, meteor strikes, or a shortage of good beer. Weather won’t do it. I live in nature. I don’t view the environment as a strange alien threat. Weather isn’t ever going to freak me out. It’s just something that happens. But I digress…  [/RANT]

This morning the temperature is back to “normal”. Remember the melt-water that pooled up on the driveway ice? Well it froze my workshop door something fierce. Rather than bust my back taking a pickaxe to the ice I put out a generous amount of salt. Not on the whole area, mind you, that would be like pissing into the wind. I put down a strategic line sufficient to thaw a mini-canyon in key areas. I’ll let chemistry do the heavy lifting.

Salt takes time. What to do while I wait? Oh yeah, I have a blog…