Dear Mr. President:
Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known. Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him.
Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency.
– William McRaven, former commander of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, in today’s Washington Post. Damn. (thx to Jen for sending this to me)
The greenhouse seems to have reached equilibrium. I’m up to six dead mice and two dead chipmunks but the traps have been empty for the last couple of days and the tomatoes have been left alone; after success with the 5-gallon pail traps the first couple of days they’ve been empty. I’m going to add a couple of regular mouse traps out there but we need to stock up on peanut butter and I need to rig the big black traps with something harder to get out (one trap is sensitive and the other isn’t). Meanwhile the cherry tomatoes are doing excellent; the red plant is producing multiples, the yellow plant has a handful that are turning color, and the black plant has a few that are beginning to turn as well. Meanwhile the heirlooms are all still growing steadily, but everything is still green. Most of the fruit is at the top of the plants, so hopefully the little fuckers won’t get to it when it starts turning color.
I’m finally able to view my class roster for the fall semester, and I’ve got 16 students with two on the waitlist (sorry, kids, but I won’t be taking you on). 16 is at the outside limit of manageable for a class–the last one I taught was 16, and that was after I took two hard-luck stories off the waitlist–and it’s a handful for the time allotted. Again, I’m not reinventing the syllabus, so it should be an easier lift than my last couple of semesters.
After my post about the critters eating my tomatoes, Renie and Mom both texted me within a half an hour of each other to tell me of a homemade method: fill a 5-gallon bucket 2/3 with water, sprinkle sunflower seeds over the top of the water, and add a ramp for the varmints to get in. Once they fall in they can’t get out.
Last night the two homemade bucket traps did not yield any corpses but I got another field mouse in the black commercial trap. It looks like one of the black traps is more sensitive than the other, because I’m consistently yielding one dead varmint per two traps. However, no tomatoes gave their lives overnight, which is good because two of the Paul Robesons are nearing ripeness.
I happened to glance at a post on Kinja Deals that said General Tire is running a $100 rebate this month on a set of 4 tires. Checking Tirerack.com for the ones I wanted, they said availability was limited, so I went ahead and pulled the trigger ahead of schedule to take advantage of the savings, which will offset the cost of installation. I’m having them shipped to an NTB out on Rt. 40 who can install them for me. I went ahead and bought five so that I can finally have a matched spare, and I’ll stick that on one of the steelie rims I’ve got under the porch.
When I get the Mud Terrains off the rims, I’ll sell those on Craigslist and see if I can get about half my money back. For their age (the DOT stamp on the side claims they’re circa 2000) they are in fantastic shape, with no dry rot or cracking anywhere. The fronts have a lot more wear than the rears (which still look brand new) so I can’t command top dollar for them, but I’m sure they’ll get bought.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Cool! the Colombia bikesharing video I shot and produced is live and available for viewing:
Overall, I’m really happy with the way this one turned out, even if the footage we got from India sucked ass (the audio of the interview is shit and they only gave us about 5 usable minutes of B-roll). I’ve even got a cameo at 3:07–that’s my leg!
I had an idea a few months back for a T-shirt design and while I was in the hospital I knocked together the design. It’s basically a reproduction of the IH sticker found on the transfer case shift knob. Brian and I have tentative plans to go out to Ohio for the Scout Nationals at the end of August, the first time I’ve ever planned going in 20+ years of ownership. I figured what better time to screen an IH specific shirt design? I’ve got all the supplies ready to go. And I need to print Finn an updated FRD shirt as well. Come to think of it, Scout needs a new shirt too.
Mama got taken down by a migraine yesterday so Finn and I were a team. I made a big pile of mashed potatoes before I had to pick her up at camp so that was dinner. Then she and I walked down to the ice cream shop and got some dessert. I always forget how hard it is to suck the chocolate in a mint chocolate chip shake through a straw.
So, Bill 1, Chipmunks, 1.
Both Renie and Mom got in touch with me inside one hour of the previous post about a dastardly way to kill chipmunks: Fill a 5 gallon bucket 2/3 full of water, and scatter sunflower seeds across the top of the water. Add a board up to the lip like a ramp: they jump in but can’t get out. Finley and I will be making a Home Depot run on the way home from camp to set two of these up this evening.
I found a black pair of Ray-Ban 4115’s on Amazon this afternoon and ordered them after making sure my local optometrist could cut lenses for them (which they are now doing). I’d really prefer the tortoiseshell but they have stopped production of those frames altogether, so I guess I’m lucky to get what I’m getting. Either way, I can’t survive without sunglasses and my old pair hasn’t turned up anywhere. Now I’ve got to find some replacement eyeglasses.
This song is actually a year old, but who cares: Royal Blood, With The Lights Out. I’ve talked about this band before, and I just can’t get enough of them. It’s just two guys playing drums and a bass that’s modified to sound like a distorted guitar, but they sound huge. Everything they’ve done is melodic and beat-heavy, which is right up my alley.
It’s official: The Scout is now insured through Hagerty, a specialty insurance company that caters to classic vehicles. What this means is that there’s excellent injury and damage coverage, as well as a guaranteed replacement price for the Scout in case something catastrophic happens. I insured her for the average going price for a Scout in Good condition (this is the East Coast, after all) so if the unthinkable happens they will cut me a Big Fat Check, I can find another one in roughly the same condition, and buy it outright.
The critters have realized there’s food in the greenhouse, even if it’s stuff they don’t like. I’ve noticed chipmunks darting through the corners when I walk in, and there’s a new hole in the dirt someone has made for quick escapes. As usual, they will climb up to the ripest tomato and chomp a few bites out of it before realizing, hey, I don’t like this. Then they will move on to the next ripest tomato and do the same thing. Incensed, I went out and bought a couple of rat traps (because size matters) and some of those electronic high-frequency emitters. After installing those I used a couple of Giant Destroyers to nuke the hole. I’ll have to order more and just keep smoking them out.
I’m officially signed up to teach a class this fall at UMBC, which makes me happy. It’s not one of the senior-level courses I had the last two semesters but it’s one I’ve taught before and should be pretty easy to pick up. At one point I was interested in updating the syllabus for this class but given that it starts at the end of August and I’m otherwise occupied with getting healthy I think I’ll just roll with the 10-year-old syllabus they’ve been using.
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I stopped in to a new Harbor Freight store here in town to look over the merchandise and immediately felt overwhelmed. It’s a bigger store than the one I used to go to in Glen Burnie, and the people working there were all friendly and helpful. The shelves were neat and tidy and the place was clean as a whistle. In other words, I didn’t recognize it. I’m looking at sandblasting equipment to start working on my car parts, and after looking over all of the available options I decided I needed to do a lot more research before I made a purchase. Not that I can carry the equipment, or a 50-lb. bag of blasting media right now anyway.
In the initial days of our vacation I started reading Barbarian Days, a memoir written by William Finnegan, a staff reporter for the New Yorker. It’s a book about surfing, how the author started early when his family moved to Hawaii, and how it shaped the course of his life as he followed waves from California across the ocean to Fiji and Australia. What sets it apart from an average column in Surfer magazine is his prose, which earned the book a Pulitzer in 2016. It’s the kind of writing that reads effortlessly but is obviously the product of decades of craft, and it was a pleasure to finally finish the book this morning.