In the middle of the middle of winter

Conventional wisdom has it that we should have at least half of our wood supply left by the end of January. Thanks to the warm weather, we're conventionally wise and can stay warm for the rest of the heating season. Today a light freezing rain is making for slippery passage, but it will warm soon and then the way will be just wet.

Some things shouldn't have to be illegal to make you not do them. Not doing them ought to be obvious. Ah, well, live free or die.

Although the Constitution says that, from time to time, the President must report to Congress regarding the state of the union, there is no requirement that the address be given in person. Presidents during most of the 19th century sent letters. Wouldn't it be nice if our current president did the same? I, for one, could do without the hour or two of his smirks on broadcast TV. If he's going to tell us that everything is getting better and that we should just keep shopping, we could learn about that in a letter.

Here's one explanation of why we don't get much work done at work.

We installed a couple of CO detectors this past weekend and found that the batteries had gone stale. The detector in the MacGregors' apartment started chirping during the night. They wound hiding it under a blanket until morning. Something such these self-charging smoke detectors would be handy.