Blogmeat: September 7, 2013

I had the most AMAZING week this week!

For the past several weeks, I have been fighting a cold.  A Summer Cold .. which (as we all know) is the Very Worst Kind.

It started out with a cold sore on the lips, and that's not a good sign.  The cold sore went away after a week, but I still kept coughing, sneezing, and I felt like crap  ("Ague")  Yes, my nose was runny and it never seemed to stop.  Hard to get any sleep at night with all of that going on.

In fact, it lasted for six weeks!

I finally decided, in concert with my personal physician, that it might be a Allergies, rather than a cold, which was causing my distress.

Then .. Thursday .. it rained!

No more runny nose.  No more coughing, and strangely enough no more rash or red skin!

So .. okay, it's all about Allergies.  Pollen, or dust in the air?  Who knows.  The thing is, the rain knocked it all down so I could breathe (and sleep!) again.


THEN I got a call from an old Army Buddy whom I haven't seen for a while.  He's got two shot-up legs and walks 5 miles a day; I never got a scratch in Viet Nam (if you don't count Bamboo Poisoning, which took 5 years to clear up) and I love to rehash our mutual experiences.  The good part?  He had it MUCH worse than I did!  The bad part?  I spent the whole year Over There; he spend like 15 days.

Well .. but he spent a few years in the hospital, and went through a lot of operations.  Each one made it better, though, and he seems to move pretty good now, within limits.

Also, I got a recommendation from my landlord for a WiFi Router, which I got a good price on at Amazon, and I installed it today;  it works just fine, and I can use my Laptop while I'm watching TV without incurring charges on my StupidPhone.

I got to renew my vehicle registration online .. no waiting in line.  That's always A Good Thing, isn't it?  I thought so

Finally ... I taught my Introduction to USPSA class today.  Four students ( a couple didn't show, which I have come to expect .. they best know how to schedule their personal time).  Most of the folks who attended were 'savvy', had good gun-handling skills.  They were smart, personable, and nobody EVER made 'a bad move'.

Some classes, there is at least one person who is just not 'clear on the concept'.  Not today.  I tend to do faux "DQ" calls when a student violates a Safety Rule.  (I don't really send them home, but I announce it loudly, so they face the chagrin of their fellow students; it's a "difficult"  training technique, but if new students don't get a negative feedback they don't know how bad it is to be unsafe when you're "Runnin' & Gunnin'".)  It didn't happen today; everyone was entirely safe, entirely aware,  and entirely aware of where the muzzle and trigger are. 

There are classes when I feel as if the best I can do is to correct major deficiencies, and hope the accept the lessons.  This class, I didn't feel that I had to use 'superlatives' to reward them.  Simply pointing out the positives was enough to keep them going; they didn't have safety issues at ALL.

Unfortunately, one of the five students was a 17 year-old young woman who, as it turned out, didnt;' have any significant experience shooting a pistol.  I had to disallow her to take part in the Live Fire Exercise.  No choice; it would have taken too much time trying to teach her Basic Hand-gunning Skills, and this is an Advanced Class.   I wasn't aware until we all met that she didn't know how to shoot a pistol,  so I couldn't let her shoot.  Her Mom and her Mom's Boyfriend were there, but they hadn't realized that she couldn't learn gun-handling skills in a 3-hour class.  So she  patiently sat through the classroom segment, and participated; but she couldn't actually touch a gun, and I'm sure the last two hours were completely boring to her.  This is NOT a Spectator Sport!

Fortunately, she got to watch other people, with various levels of skill, try to deal with increasingly challenging tests, so perhaps she (and her mother, and the BF) got to see why the "Introduction to USPSA" class requires a basic minimum of experience that she just didn't have.

Then my Saturday was over.  I came home, showered, rested .. and then I installed my new Wi-Fi Router.  I can use my Laptop again, and don't have to worry about the slow response of the Hotspot from my Stupid phone!

Okay, that's all pretty boring for you.  But I'm jazzed that everything that happened to me this week worked out well.

Is it just me?  Am I the only one who rates my life on a week-to-week basis instead of Day-by-Day?

You get happiness where you find it.  For me, it was in the final bit of Schadenfreude I uncovered  this morning.

The local "Streets Program" has workers fixing sewers and storm drains, and repaving streets in the summer.  I'm fairly well resolved to accepting the Alternate Routes when the streets & intersections are closed for repairs .. which never last less than 3 days.

But it rained, Thursday!

When I drove through that major intersection Friday, I found it was closed.

The heavy rain Thursday had flooded the intersection.  The repairs to the storm-drain system apparently failed, as it has never failed before.  The intersection was closed .. I had to take a bypass-route.

The shovel-leaners spent 3 days 'fixing' the storm drains .. and it didn't survive the first thunderstorm?


Yes!  Score one for the folks whose taxes pay their wages!

Sometimes, you just KNOW that these guys with the shovels and the "street closed" signs are entirely clueless.

Okay, it WAS "Shadenfreude"!