From my email...

One hundred five years ago last Saturday, someone tried to assassinate Theodore Roosevelt as he set out from his hotel to deliver a speech, and the assassin's .38 caliber round actually lodged in Roosevelt's chest after having been slowed down by the text of his speech and the eyeglass case that had been in Roosevelt's overcoat pocket. When his staff suggested he be rushed to a hospital, Roosevelt scoffed and insisted on delivering the speech, which he did, opening with "I've just been shot—but it takes more than that to stop a Bull Moose."

And so an email I received this morning suggested the following:

When something goes wrong, don’t be cowed by it. Don’t quit. Say to yourself, “It’s going to take a lot more than ______ to stop me.” Say to yourself: Amor fati. I love this. I am glad it happened. And I am going to turn this into an incredible moment that people are going to remember forever. (Maybe they will, maybe they won’t—but you’ll be better for thinking that way).

Words to think about.

Cheers...

Coin insanity...

Some time ago, this one financial institution where I had a checking account had a great service where you could bring in a bucketful of coins tghat would be dumped into a machine that proceeded to sort and calculate the value of the coins, which would be returned to me in less bulky form, i.e., paper bills and less than a dollar's worth of change.

They don't do that any more, requiring instead that customers show up with their accumulated "spare change" already done up in rolls (and they'll be happy to supply the little paper cylinders for that purpose).

This state of affairs has naturally created a market for walk-up machines that do this, and I have typically found them at Wal-Marts and Kroger stores. Naturally, you'd expect that a percentage of what passes through the hopper is retained by the machine as a service charge, but there was a time when the machine at the Kroger on Highway 146 had an option to issue a voucher that could be used only in the store to pay for groceries, with no "vigorish" paid to the machine's owner.

Well, I stopped by this morning intending to take advantage of that option, only to find that it no longer exists. If I wanted cash back from the machine, the "vig" was going to be 11.9%! I returned to my car and put the can of coins in the trunk before going back to the store to shop.

It occurred to me later that this to-me-rather-high rate might be worth it for a collection of pennies, nickels, and dimes—as it takes some time to make up rolls of such coins—but certainly not for quarters or (gasp!) dollar coins.

But I'm in no hurry to get rid of the coins, so it's something of a moot point.

Cheers...

In other news...

I started a batch of apple cider, about 3-1/2 gallons worth. And I also made a batch of "artisan" bread dough.

I'll have to get up early tomorrow, as I have to meet the floor guy at the Webster house at 8 am (or was it 9 am? I forget).

's gonna be an interesting day.

Cheers...