Howdy folks! It's another juvat Monday! But, as usual, this is getting written on Sunday.
As such, some of this post could be old news to some readers, e.g. Cletus or STxAR. Being in the same area of Heaven (AKA Texas) they may have seen some of the wonders about to be revealed to the rest of our loyal readers.
First, one may notice that the color of the font is different. Our beloved blogmaster, having decided (wisely) to make some changes to the blog, sent me some HTML to setup the approved fonts and their color. However, despite having 20+ years as a webmaster and teaching that to HS students, I could not get it to work in blogger. When I copied it into the HTML page of the post then went to the text view, blogger translated it into gibberish. Perhaps there's a supersecret HTML page for style sheet level settings? Who knows?
But, on with the show. This morning about 0400 Mrs J woke up and brought the GP's (Great Pyrenees, wonderful dogs) in from outside. Apparently a large thunderstorm was about to strike. Myself, still wrapped in the arms of Morpheus, knew nothing about this until lightning struck pretty close to Chez Juvat (e.g. the bright light and loud bang were nearly simultaneous).
That was the lower level of the storm, Cloud to Cloud lightning was pretty spectacular. |
Realizing that there was little I could do now that the torrential downpour had commenced, I rolled over and went back to sleep. Having been a tad sleep deprived recently, and frequently, by one of the other adopted dogs, a hyper Golden retriever. Seems he won't use the doggie door to exit the abode and do his business, he requires someone to arise and let him out in the back yard. He then arouses the GP's, they all do their business, spend a bit of time with them, barking at spirits of the night, or the wind, or something then after an hour or so (aka just as soon as I get back to sleep) starts pawing and howling to be let back in.
Yes, I'm tired and cranky.
In any case, due to the storm, Mrs J made the executive decision to let the GP's sleep in the garage. A compromise since it's neither outside in the wet and lightning nor inside the house where their mortal enemies, the Cats, reside.
It's still dark when the alarm goes off and I arise. It being Sunday, we regularly go to the 0730 Mass. As there's also an 0900 Mass, we choose the early one as that puts a limit on how long our long winded Priest can lecture us. Not that he doesn't push it to the limits, but it is somewhat disconcerting to him when he's not done and the doors are flung open and the next group of parishioners start making their ways into the pews.
He's learning, slowly, but learning.
Back on story, juvat!
Aye, Sarge.
As I said it's dark, it rained very hard and we have a dry creek that our access road crosses that I'm concerned is no longer dry and possibly flooded. I talk to Mrs J and say that for safety sake, maybe we should go to the later Mass. I can tell from 40+ years of being schooled on her body language that even though she said "Okay", she did not mean "Okay".
What to do?
I dress, grab my raincoat, sprint to the truck, drive to the wash and, lo and behold, no flowing water. I rush back to the house and issue Mod 1 to the Morning Op Order and off we go.
Finding an empty pew this morning was surprisingly easy, and it was the visiting Sri Lankan Priest saying Mass. Nice guy but with a strong accent that you really have to pay attention in order to understand his sermons. I suppose that's a good thing.
By lunchtime, the skies were clear blue and little wind. Quite lovely Spring day.
Onward with updates on a couple of other ongoing projects.
I really thought I was going to be finished with the Piklar triangle Saturday. The triangle itself is complete, However, late in the project, negotiations were reopened about the details. Adding a slide was agreed upon by all parties.
Said slide was constructed, mostly. A couple of attachment braces were made.
Then I decided to get a bit fancy as the slide is plastic covered particle board. The slide portion looks pretty good, but the sides reveal the ugly particle board. I cut some 2x4's to fit the sides, but forgot one other measurement, the width of the triangle it rests upon.
So....Negotiated with Mrs J for another trip to Lowes later today to find some edge banding or quarter round molding to finish it up. I'm not going to say "Shouldn't be hard", as I don't want to tempt fate, but...
Finally, I had a lot of entertainment overhead Rancho Juvat Saturday and Sunday.. Seems the Airport was hosting "Formation School" and at least 4 WWII North American T-6 Texans were in attendance. Pretty sure they used my house as a rendezvous point or a turn about a point practice reference.