To Do List

Today promises to be one of those "Payment for Pleasure" days. I have a number of things on my To-Do-List that are due to pay the gods back for my wonderful vacation.

The first is to correct the electrician's enthusiasm as evidenced by the photo. A little creative stapling, taping, mudding, and sanding ought to take care of that.

Second on my list is to keep the Jeep happy by giving it a total transfusion. It's time to flush the radiator, change the oil in the engine, transmission, and transfer case, top off the dope in the axles, and grease the 374 fittings on the chassis. If I've got enough energy left after that, I might rotate the tires again, since I put over 5000 miles on them in the last 3 weeks.

The last bit of maintenance on the Jeep will have to wait until tomorrow morning, when it's finally legal to turn on a hose outside the house. It really needs a bath. I know there are bugs from Ohio crammed into some crevices in the front of the thing. After the bath, I get to grab some polish and remove the trail rash from the bodywork. Pushing through to some of those alpine lakes last week left some rub marks on the paint that really need to go. I know that a clean Jeep is a sign of a sick mind, but the Rubicon deserves pampering for staying with me through 3 weeks of abuse.

You can skip the next paragraph if you don't want to hear me rant about government stupidity.

The watering restrictions we've been saddled with for the past year or so are the result of a couple of things. Rainfall for the last 2 years has been below average and intelligence in our government officials for the last 2 zillion years has been abysmally below average. These folks are put into positions of authority to look out for the collective interest of the people in their various constituencies. To say that they've failed might be a bit of an understatement. The various county commissions have been allowing issuance of unlimited building permits without any attempt to ensure adequate water supply. After all, it's not their job to consider the effects of their actions, only to increase the tax base, and there is Lake Lanier which should provide enough water for another 40 years of growth. Unfortunately, the lake (more specifically, the dam) is administered by the Army Corps of Engineers, who take their orders from some place in a swamp north of here. Part of their mandate is to maintain adequate flow in the Chattahoochee River to keep some sort of brackish water mussel happy in Appalachee Bay in Florida. The result is a primary reservoir for 4 million people that is 15 feet below full. Somebody needs to apply a tattoo to the foreheads of everybody who works at that dam dam. It should read (with apologies to Mr. Spock) "THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE OUTWEIGH THE NEEDS OF THE CLAMS!". Send a load of refugees from Massachusetts down there with clam rakes and steamers, and solve the problem. At any rate, since the Governor didn't have the stones to take over the dam, we got watering restrictions to enforce conservation. Ultimately, it turned into a total prohibition on outdoor water use. Now, the restrictions (and attendant $1,000 fines in some places) got the results they wanted. Water use went way down. Unfortunately, as usage goes down, so does revenue to the local water authorities. Since the only thing governments apparently know about conservation is how to mandate it, this was intolerable. Thus, we are back to "It's OK to water between midnight and 10 AM on alternate days (except Fridays)". Sheesh.

Now that I've got that off my chest, back to the Drudge List. The final thing on my list is to increase my carbon footprint by running the mower, trimmer, and edger to get the yard back in shape after nearly a month of neglect. Thanks, Bob, for dropping by and mowing the lawn while I was gone.

Time to go take my blood pressure medication.

Make it a great day.