Bounce house

 Not to humblebrag, but my household has more cars than garage space.  Yes, the house's two car garage is spacious enough to accommodate our two vehicles and a small wooden sailboat I built myself a few years ago.  But this leaves one vehicle that must be parked outside in the elements.  When severe weather is forecast, I sometimes use my Hail Protector to shield the vehicle from damaging hail or flying debris in a storm.  It is, in essence, similar to a children's inflatable bounce house.  In other words, a fabric shell that is inflated by a constantly running electric fan.  This is designed to provide enough of a cushion to protect a vehicle from large chunks of ice falling from the sky.  It takes me about 15 minutes to install the thing, so advanced warning of severe weather is essential.  I have it set up at this moment, in advance of expected severe weather, including large hail, later this afternoon.  I've had this gizmo for a couple years, and deployed it a handful of times, as a precaution.  Haven't yet had any actual hail to be protected from.  Hope that streak continues today...  Stay tuned.

Springtime for Bham

 As we move into early Spring, we begin the most tempestuous time of the year for central Alabama.  The hints began almost a week ago as professional meteorologists began to mention the possibility of severe weather this weekend.  As data rolled in and computer models became more refined, it has developed that the forecast for tonight and tomorrow calls for especially severe weather, the type of which is seen only every few years.  And my home and nearby Birmingham seem to be right in the middle of it all.  High winds, large tornadoes, and large hail are all possibilities.  It is almost certain that some people in the state will be dealing with the loss of their homes by the time things calm down late tomorrow night.  All that can be done now is to prepare a safe place to go to when tornadoes are near, and to ensure a reliable source of weather information.  I've done that and now can only wait.  As it turns out, the waiting is the hardest part.  And as a homeowner, I worry about significant damage to my home and belongings.  Here's hoping things turn out to be less severe than predicted, and there's no loss of life in the region.  If you're interested, you can monitor my local conditions here in real time.  At least as long as the power and internet stay functional.  See you on the other side.

EDIT:  Since posting this, the risk for severe weather tomorrow has been increased to the maximum level- "5 High Risk" for central Alabama.  Somebody is going to have a really bad day tomorrow.

Magic beans

 I like coffee.  A lot.  These days, it's one of my primary remaining joys.  To have a cup of well-made espresso in the quiet early morning before a hectic day is a transcendental moment for me.  To this end, I've expended a lot of time, study, and expense in making good coffee in my home.  So when I learned that the "dumbest trade war in history" would almost certainly lead to much higher coffee prices, I decided to lay in a supply that would hopefully sustain me through the storm.  As is my custom, I placed an order with Roastmasters for a shipment of green coffee beans that I expect will keep me caffeinated through the end of this year.  The consignment left the vendor in Connecticut on February 26, 2025 and finally arrived on March 7, 2025- a journey of nine days.  This makes yet another dismal performance of the USPS Priority Mail service that promises 1-3 day service.

According to tracking information, the parcel's odyssey began as expected.  From pickup in Branford, CT it went to the distribution center in Springfield, MA.  Two days later, it was close to its final destination, in Palmetto, GA.  Then it sat there for two days before turning up... back in Springfield MA!  Like an unwilling hostage, the package "departed" and "arrived" at Springfield, MA for two days before moving on.  Then the beans became magic and achieved some sort of quantum duality when at 3:10 am on March 5, 2025 they arrived at both Springfield, MA and Palmetto, GA at the exact same moment.  Lucky for me, they recovered from this mysterious state and the next day arrived in Birmingham, AL and then were finally delivered to my home.  Fortunately, unroasted green coffee beans are not especially perishable.  They now stand ready for me to personally roast to perfection in my Hottop roaster, then brew in my Rocket R58 espresso machine.  Outside lies a troubled, turbulent world, but with good coffee I am more able to face the tempest.

New month, new book

 Earlier this week, The Trollope Society held the final online book club meeting of the novel we'd been reading since the beginning of the year, The Vicar of Bullhampton.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book, which was completely new to me.  Anthony Trollope was an especially prolific writer, so even though I've read his works for many years, there are still many that I have yet to read.  Another such novel is Dr. Wortle's School, which is the next book in the yearlong book club reading list.  This one is a bit shorter, and will be covered in two bi-weekly meetings, as opposed to the six that covered Vicar of Bullhampton.  As I dive into one of Anthony Trollope's last novels, I gather it will cover what was in Victorian times an unpardonable sin:  a man and woman living together, unmarried.  Such a condition is now commonplace, but even still, we have other issues of intolerance and bigotry that are the modern day equivalents of "living in sin".  What lessons will Trollope offer for those who judge and those who are judged by an intolerant society?

February Numbers

 Despite being a shorter month, I sent one more Postcrossing postcard in February than I did in January.  The monthly total are: 84 cards sent, 64 cards received.  I remain ranked #27 in the USA, and #1 in Alabama based on number of cards sent.  Hopefully there will be better numbers in March: after an active few days, there are many travelling cards in the pipeline that should be received soon.  Write on!

Landmark 11K

 Just moments ago, I reached another Postcrossing landmark when card number 11,000 was registered.  In just over 12 years of this hobby, I have sent 11,000 cards to 118 countries around the world.  (I've actually written and mailed many more cards, but those that become "expired" - i.e., lost in the mail or simply not registered by their recipients numbers in the hundreds) Currently, I rank 27th among 75,692 Postcrossing members in the USA in terms of sent cards.  And I rank #1 in Alabama.  I simply don't allow myself to think about what I've spent on postcards and postage stamps over these twelve years; but hey, everyone has got to have a hobby, right?  Card number 11,000 went to  Postcrossing member mailin4u, otherwise known as Cindy, in northern Virginia, USA.  Cindy is a relative Postcrossing novice, with only 1,297 sent cards.  But it's all one big happy postcard-sending family.  Write on!

Darwin Day

 On this day in 1809. Charles Darwin was born.  His life's work gave us the essential foundation principle of all biology.  Or, as the great scientist Theodosius Dobzhansky put it, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."  And yet, over 200 years after Darwin's birth, a significant number of people can't accept reality and his scientific conclusions which have been supported by steadily growing mounds of evidence.  There was a time when I tried to reason with people like that and bring them to the evidence-based conclusions that science provides.  But there is something in human nature that means that certain individuals will stubbornly reject reality in favor of their own fables.  So today I will simply celebrate the remarkable mind that pulled together disparate observations to give us the foundation of biological science.  Happy birthday Charles, and thanks.

Rare card alert

 Today's rare card alert is a truly unique event for me.  In over eleven years of Postcrossing, I've never encountered such a situation.  I received a beautiful handmade card from a sender in the USA.  But when I tried to register the card, the Postcrossing web page returned an error message that I've never seen before:

The postcard US-11035043 is one you have sent!

If you have received a postcard with that Postcard ID written on it, it might be a thank you postcard from the recipient of your postcard.

You see, when there's a problem with a card ID number- when it's missing, illegible, or wrongly transcribed- the system tells you it's not a card that was assigned to be sent to you.  The correct card ID number can almost always be found by using the Postcrossing search page, where various bits of info like the country and town of origin, sending date, name of sender, etc. will allow a database search to return the correct number so the card can be registered.  But I've never had an ID number come back as one I've already sent, myself.  Turns out this ID number was a card I sent to a member in Germany in early January of this year.  Since this card was sent from the USA, it's not likely a "thank-you" card.  There was a written message with the card, from a sender named "Seren".  (This is the Postcrossing username of a member in Japan.  So, probably also not the card's sender.)  So as it stands, I have little to go on, and no way to register this card or thank Seren, the sender.  And that's a pity, as it was such a beautiful handmade card, a collage of intricately cut shapes in many layers.  And according to the written message, Seren and I have much in common: we are both Anthony Trollope fans, homebrewers, and work in biomedical research.  If you see this, Seren, thanks so very much for the impressive postcard!

Priority update 4- fini

 The adage "better late than never" doesn't provide much comfort, but it is true enough this morning.  Late last night I received a text notification that my lost Priority Mail package was on the move again.  After languishing in Chicago for over six days, it arrived at the Kansas City, Kansas Distribution Center.  Hours later, it was at the Kansas City, Missouri Distribution Center.  And then this morning it at last arrived at the Pittsburg, Kansas Post Office, the destination for which it set out on January 15th.  If you're counting, that's 23 days for it to be delivered by USPS Priority Mail, the 2-3 day delivery service.  In probably the last tracking update, it was "Delivered to agent" at the post office, which I assume means a mail room employee from the university I sent it to now has the package and will later today hand it to the individual named on the shipping label.  What a long and convoluted journey this poor package has been through.  But just when I'd given up all hope, it belatedly arrives.  I suppose there's a life lesson there somewhere.  Besides, I mean, the obvious one that "The USPS is a poor, faint version of its former self."

Happy Birthday, Charlie!

 On this day, 213 years ago, Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England.  He would eventually become one of the greatest writers in the English language.  But before that, he had a difficult childhood.  He grew up under a spendthrift father who was perpetually in debt- at a time when that condition held great shame and often the threat of imprisonment.  Young Charles was sent to work in a factory at a very young age in order to support his family while his father was in a debtor's prison.  This had a profound effect on him.  Not only did it influence his writing, but Dickens also carried a lifelong desire to aid the poor and oppressed, even founding a shelter home for homeless women.  That's not to say, of course, that he was universally kind and benevolent.  He was a distant father to his many children, an unfaithful husband to his devoted wife, and a cantankerous client of his many publishers.  Yet, he managed to be a prolific and popular author of many novels that have a permanent place in the English literary pantheon.  And each year, his classic A Christmas Carol is read, performed, and shown as a movie (in countless iterations) to a degree hardly seen with any other piece of writing.  Thought his life ran a short 58 years, his lasting influence on the culture cannot be overstated.  So on this day, let us remember a true titan of the written word, Charles Dickens.