https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEN5LoH_Pwo
This is what it’s all about….a dude and a quiet guitar, a voice…(a voice!)… a fertile brain….a gentle and welcoming spirit…and….man, I could watch this all the time.
All the bombast in the world couldn’t get me to turn my head.
I’ll stop with the Jesse videos….I know that it’s been three in a row…but this guy was the real deal.
It’s a good thing he was around for a while!
Jesse! Bonnie! Emmylou!
This is the kind of music I was blessed with when I was seventeen.
Good for me!
I couldn’t find a video of the snow in Saluda, where I deliver mail in the ice and snow.
That’s just as well, I suppose.
Who would want to revisit that?
I certainly wouldn’t.
Why, I even worked on my normal day off so our sub-less office could function.
IT COULD FUNCTION BECAUSE OF MEEEEEEEEE!!
(I’m kidding. We’re down to one sub somehow….so we all have to “pitch in”. I guess that’s the way it works….)
I was supposed to have tomorrow off because I worked on my day off…but we’re still in “pitch in” mode….so I got called in.
This video is from about an hour north of us…in a town called Swannanoa.
Apparently, we got it worse in Saluda that anywhere around here….about 10″.
That makes it nice to drive around and deliver the mail.
Not.
That’s a “not” joke.
I’m glad I did my brake job yesterday.
It was too cold to do much more than ride the sled today.
I like sliding on a sled more than sliding in my car.
I wish tomorrow was over already….even if I’m not supposed to wish my life away.
I’m more pessimistic about the future now that I know that I’m going to have to work.
Awwww, what the heck? I’m just a nervous whiner.
It’ll be alright.
Right?
“The thing you have to do” is different from the “thing you want to do”.
That’s not hard to figure out, really…nothing too profound in that statement.
The thing that you have to do isn’t always very comfortable, either.
I did a brake job in the snow this afternoon.
At one point, I was picking lug nuts out of the snow, and wondered, “what the heck is making these things so sticky?” and realized that it wasn’t really anything sticky about them….they were freezing to my fingertips.
That’s too cold for doing any mechanic stuff….but it was something that I had to do.
What had happened, and the thing that made me have to do a brake job in the snow, was that one of the calipers had enough frozen dirt stuck in one side that the caliper couldn’t retract the way it was designed to do, and the shoe wore down (unevenly) to bare metal….and gouged out the rotor.
Of course, it is going to be some of the coldest part of the winter so far starting tonight, and I didn’t think that I’d get a chance to do the job later, so….it became the “thing I had to do”.
(And….it happened over a couple of months….so, in reality, I could have done the job when it was balmy and comfortable….I just waited until the brakes wouldn’t work anymore….and were making a horrible grinding noise….)
I guess that what I was thinking about all of this is this: the thing that you have to do, when you’re finally confronted with something that you have no real choice but “to do”, is often a pain in the rear.
It’s a pain in the rear, but, at the same time, is really kind of empowering.
To finish a brake job in below freezing temperatures, in the gravel driveway, when it’s the “thing you have to do”….and…..you do it….is very empowering.
Like every other person who does that thing that they don’t want to do, but has to do, I felt empowered out in the driveway when the brakes were working right again.
How mundane is that?
You do things…and you feel empowered.
No matter how uncomfortable, the end result is empowerment.
And, when I was done with the job and the tools were put away, I could come inside where it was warm and wash my hands (with some Lava soap! I am going to have to write a post about how great “Lava Soap” is….) and it all felt so good and….so sucessful.
That’s a comfortably painful lesson to learn.
It feels good to be able to stop, too.
It’s snowing and supposed to keep snowing all night.
By some kind of fluke of nature, I am working a rare Saturday tomorrow….so snow is a concern for me.
I am afraid of snow and steep mountain curves.
It bothers me some.
It’s crazy what people are capturing with drones these days.
Here’s some big snow out in Medford….Oregon?
That’s a test of both reading and geography skills to arrive at that conclusion.
Yes.
That’s right…..Medford, Oregon.
This is what I imagine it’s going to look like here in the morning.
I suppose that it will probably look more like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlZsAgfsFoc
GADS!!! THAT’S NOT THE VIDEO I WANTED!! I WANTED ONE OF INCONSEQUENTIAL AND INAPPROPRIATELY LIGHT SNOW….THE VIDEO OF THE NON-EVENT!!
HOW COME NOBODY EVER TAKES VIDEOS OF THE NON-EVENT?!
THAT’S WHAT I NEED: the non-event.
I don’t need all this snow.
The mini-van ignition key is sticking.
This may be what I have to do to fix it.
What a pain….but….what a good thing to be able to possibly fix it.
I think that the first rule of “mechanic-ing” is that it’s got to be really cold before things start to totally fall apart.
Check this video out….I just did this “spray lube fix” and it may have worked.
I squirted the heck out of it with some dry lubricant….and it turns now.
Of course, the way I’ll know if it worked or not is that maybe Jenny will call me at work when she’s stranded with the children on one of the coldest days of the year.
I hope that it worked.
We’ll see.
That “stranded with the kids” call isn’t fun for anybody.
Maybe I should have Jenny watch all of this video? She could drive whatever she wanted if she knew how to do all of this stuff.
Or….maybe, if she needed to steal a 79 Volare, she’d be in luck.
It might be kind of hard to transfer the child safety seats, though.
I better just fix her car.
I fall asleep with Nate when he’s going to bed…..and then, I get up to…. go to bed.
How wacky is that?
And it all feels like Groundhog Day….the movie where Bill Murray keeps waking up only to go through the same day, again….and…again….and again.
That’s a blessing….it would be crappy if something was upsetting the apple cart….again, and again, and again.
Repetition is a blessing when it’s something benign (and wonderful) like putting your children to bed.
I like it when nothing strange and upsetting is happening.
So….it’s 9:55…and I went to bed for the first time when it was 8:00….and I’m exhausted and disoriented and need to put on my PJs and get back into bed for a longer stretch of sleeping.
And, then, it will be time to wake up and have some coffee (with coconut oil in it….did you ever do that?) and get another day going…. again.
Lord, keep this string of days going….please.
It’s good to have a chance to be breathing.
It’s good to be tired and alive.
Somewhere…..like Norway.
Holy Smokes!
There’s some beautiful stuff in the world!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es7s5fTihjM
I read about this.
Ronda Rousey got paid 3 million dollars for this fight.
The other fighter got about 200 thousand.
It was a comeback fight for Ronda Rousey.
How about that?
You can get pounded and still get paid.
Words of wisdom to live by.
Pounded=paid…..sometimes.
Here’s the earlier fight where Nunes won her title…..prior to giving Ronda a pounding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QuQes4-KPo