White Lightning Axiom: Redux

The last few days have been some-what uneventful. I've been focusing on work before I cut out for the year and my daily activities have kept me from posting in the evening. I did manage to skulk about the neighborhood and deliver goodies to my neighbors under the cloak of darkness. Since nearly all of subjects neighbors are of the jewish persuasion, I tried to stick to fairly non-denominational type gifts. No gold foil chocolate coins or dreidls ... how tacky would that be! I also deposited gifts and cards at the DayCare/ReEducation Facility so that the DayCareProfessionals will feel a bit more appreciated. And, of course, cards from the Tyrants for all their subjects, targets classmates. Gifts and cards are just flowing out of the Manor in these last waning days before the big day. My hope is that we can get it all done before we evacuate to the FOB this weekend.

Yesterday, shortly after I got to work, the Mrs called me. This is not the norm for her so I believed that some matter was amiss. After a brief conversation, she established that we were without power at the Manor and she had called PECO. Just a FYI. Later on in the day I called the home trunk line and the answering PBX picked up so I assumed that the power was back again. I called the Mrs to let her know that we are good to go. Usually, we loose power once a year due to a poor transformer installation. It's the same deal every time. It rains, the transformer settles a bit and the power lines become disconnected and require repair. This involves digging up the pastoral expanse in front of the Manor. When I got the Mrs on the line, she told me that the power was back before she had left in the morning. Apparently, she went out to talk to the new neighbors who have a child that rides the school bus. The bus driver told the neighbor that an errant vehicle had taken out a utility pole and the power lines were lying in the street. This also created traffic hazards: Downed lines, nonfunctional traffic signals. So, no giant pits in the front yard. It's a good thing I got out of there with the Tyrants before all this came to pass. It would be nice to be trapped at home but without power, there would be little 'work from home' ability. I need to get a beta release multi-node MySQL server installation set up for evaluation and smoke-signals will just not do it.

Once again, I was set up for a new experience at TSD practice. Today was the day for me to be exposed to sparring. And yes, I'm sore in all sorts of places today. This is how it works. Once you are exhausted enough, the Master will break out some classic 1970 vintage gear and tell you to suit up. It's like playing Pro Football with a leather helmet. So there I was, mixing it up with the PreBlack belts. Oddly enough, they were impressed by my aggressiveness and my ability to block blows that should have landed. Little did they know I was just plain terrified. One thing I have learned is that if you put you opponent on the defensive, they are not looking to land blows, just block them. Just keep moving forward. Or, as BrainCheese's friend says; 'Lean into it'. That worked pretty good for me and I got to pick my shots. When the session was over and I extracted myself from the full metal plate armor, the head-gear had established a pretty good vacuume on my skull and when removed, it sounded like someone opening a jar of pasta sauce. Yes, I'll need to get my own set of gear. Preferably made of ballistic ablative ceramic.

Got up late this morning. It was fairly chilly and I was less than interested in getting into work early on my last day of the year. Something about the multitude of aches and pains and the soothing warmth of two quilts pushed me a concrete decision to turn off the alarm at 0600 and let life slide a bit. Then I got an early morning surprise. As I slid back under the covers, I got a 'push-back' from my bed-mate. The Mrs usually doesn't push from more space since I sleep on the edge ... on my side. I take up about 6-8 inches of space. This event inspired me to roll over and interrogate the usurper of my warm spot. Much to my shock, it was Jovial Jake, lazily snoozing away. I'm not sure when he crawled in between the Mrs and I, but he usually crawls over my head and that tends to wake me up. I can only surmise that I must have really slept deeply last night to have let that pass. A little later, Alexis totters in and fills the remaining space left and we are all huddled under the covers. The Mrs peeks out and notices that the one digital clock I reset reads "0800". Well, sleeping in 2 hours is not normal on a Wednesday, but I guess you just have to slow down every so often and watch the world spin. Its quite a show.

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