Day Fifty Two...

THE TWENTY FIRST OF TWENTY EIGHT THINGS I SEE BETWEEN MY HOUSE AND THE HIGHWAY...in no particular order...

When I was a little kid, I must have been 14 or 15 years old, I delivered the Detroit Free Press in the mornings. I always had a paper route. My first route was when I was about 8 years old, and I had about 15 customers in the sparsely populated little area that we lived. But as the area grew, so did my route, and for a couple years, I delivered both the Detroit Free Press in the mornings, and the Detroit News in the afternoons. Sundays were a real problem. But I digress... At one point, I had the chance to buy a used Nash Rambler convertible. Maybe it wasn't a Nash Rambler, but it was a Nash convertible, it was square looking, it was a convertible and it could be mine for $50. I had paid $80 (a fortune back then) for a Schwinn Varsity ten speed bicycle, and this was a car, and it was only $50. I am guessing that the year this was happening was about 1966, so that would have made this particular car about a 1955 or 1956 model, but it was a car, and I was going to be getting my license in a couple years, and there was not that much wrong with the car. But my dad did not think it was a very good idea, and that was the end of that discussion. But every day when I delivered the papers, I would go past that car and think about it. My love with automobiles began early. That story has actually nothing to do with the photo in today's post, but when I look at this old beat-up camping trailer, I think about that old car that I wanted to buy. Weird, huh? I think it is interesting how the brain works, but then again, I enjoy thinking back about that old car, and the way things were when I was a kid. I must be getting really old!

The black cat had a visit inside the house last night, and things worked pretty well. The QUEEN CAT did not even know she was inside, but after we put the black cat back outside, she woke up and started hissing and howling by the window. The QUEEN CAT was a foundling as well, and she needs to remember from whence she came, and she should try to do a good deed for the black cat. Right now, the black cat is outside the office window, and if I an hearing correctly, he/she/it is trying to climb up the window screens. That is the real downside to this whole proposition, the black cat has little sharp kitty nails, and those will need to be controlled somehow. We shall see...

The day went very nicely, traffic to and from Austin was calm and cool, no major wrecks or slow-downs to report. The TAR Winter meeting programs that I was interest in attending were very informative and well worth the time to go and learn about the challenges and opportunities we will face in the coming year. Lots of opportunities, lots of challenges.

When I got home, the HVAC guy was here finishing up, and hopefully now we will only be cooling and heating the house...not the attic and the surrounding environs. Hopefully we will have a good energy savings from this work, and our home will be much more comfortable as well. The next thing we want to do is to blow some more insulation in the attic. To do this, we first have to protect all the can lights in the house that stick through the attic. I was told there is a product that is sold that looks like an upside down small trash can made of Styrofoam. You put those over the can lights where they protrude into the attic, and then you can blow in the insulation around them...Can lights are a big source of heat and cool that escape from the house into the attic. We will be more energy efficient and more comfortable in this house if it kills us both! It is not really that bad, I just hate to waste energy and resources.

Jody and I went into Taylor after the HVAC guys left, and did a little bit of shopping. We also stopped at the Dairy Queen and had a blizzard. Yummy. Jody had mint chocolate chip and I had some kind of cherry and chocolate kind of thing. Again, yummy!

How are the good deeds coming? I know it takes some practice, but I think you can really get the hang of it if you just practice. I am getting better all the time, but I do catch myself lapsing into my normal self every now and then. Being nice to people makes you suspicious to other people, and they just do not know what to make of you. Tackiness and unfriendliness are much easier accepted. So, just go on out there into the world and try to make people suspicious of you. Who knows, maybe we can get his trend going and it will not stop until it makes it to Afghanistan. We shall see...