Monthly Archives: December 2011

Well, it’s actually one of the words from a random list, etc. Either because of their sound or meaning or origin or the way they look when written out or just because. I think I’ll do one a week since this is long enough as is. This week’s word is:

badinage: This means light banter or joking. It came into English about 1650–60 from French,  equivalent to badin ( er ) to joke, trifle (verbal derivative of badin  joker, banterer < Old Provençal:  fool; bad ( ar ) to gape (< Vulgar Latin batāre; compare bay) + -in  < Latin -īnus -ine) + -age. (Source the 2011 Random House Dictionary)

There is a certain jargon, which, in French, I should call un Persiflage d’Affaires, that a foreign Minister ought to be perfectly master of, and may be used very advantageously at great entertainments, in mixed companies, and in all occasions where he must speak, and should say nothing. Well turned and well spoken, it seems to mean something, though in truth it means nothing. It is a kind of political badinage, which prevents or removes a thousand difficulties, to which a foreign Minister is exposed in mixed conversations.

-Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, 4th Earl <- Here’s his picture. Cute, huh?)

I know this was your thrill for the day. Go lie down or have some chocolate. Have a great weekend!

For some reason, I have been outside after dark in my yard more than usual recently. This could be because it gets dark by about 5 PM and I have been cutting tree branches to length for yardwaste pickups on Monday. I do this by my spottily placed outside lights.

Last evening I was out from about 9:30 until 10:00 putting the trash and recycling out at the curb for pickup today. We have an incredible amount of recycling–I think our primary product is paper–and at least one 30-gallon can full of trash. Anyhow, as I schlepping trash and recycling out to the curb I noticed how dark it was (duh), how quiet and how few people were around. A line from a Robert Frost poem came to mind, “I have been one acquainted with the night…” A good poem, and one worth putting here:

As part of our Christmas concert, the Manassas Chorale uses battery-powered candles since the local fire marshals frown on the immolation of a concert hall containing up to 1100 people that would likely result if we used open flames. Last year, my electric  candle literally fell apart when I went to use it and so I was the only kid without a candle during our closing song, “Silent Night.” (Sniff.) So I bought myself a better quality candle, put a couple of AA batteries in it last night, slipped it into my pocket and set off for dress rehearsal. About five minutes later, I smelled something burning and also felt a burning sensation on my leg in the location of the candle. I tried to pull it out but it was too hot to touch. I had visions of my dad’s Impala (which I drive now–someone has to) going up in a grand bonfire. I pulled over and grabbed some napkins I had in the front seat (Thank you, McDonalds) and jerked the smoking candle out of my pocket. Apparently the batteries shorted out somehow, split from the heat and burned my little leg (though not badly).

There are a couple of lessons I draw from this experience: 1) Always test your equipment beforehand in a safe environment with a fire extinguisher nearby. 2) AA batteries have more power than anyone would think and 3) Choral music is generally beneficial but can in rare cases be hazardous to your health. Be careful out there.

I had intended to write about the Chorale’s Candlelight Concert last night at Bruton Parish Church here in Williamsburg but I am too sad to write abut music this morning. Yesterday a campus policeman at Vriginia tech was shot a killed by a gunman who was also shot and killed. Then, some of our Chorale members were delayed coming down here because I-95 was totally shut down after someone shot a state trooper near Thornburg. Both people survived those shootings although the trooper has non-life-threatening injuries and the shooter life-threatening ones.

I think Virginia has prided itself on a long tradition of decorum and social order, and by and large that is the case. When these horrible things happen, perhaps they seem worse in the light of the usual way of life we enjoy. My condolences, prayers and heartfelt sympathy to the policemen involved in these incidents, to their families, and to the tech community which once again has suffered an awful tragedy. I am trying hard to find it within my heart to pray for the perpetrators of these crimes, which I know I should but am finding only anger at some people who must have been deranged.

May Christ have mercy on us all.

• Hylton Center Box Office (Wednesday through Saturday, 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM)
• Hylton Center Box Office on the night of the concert

You might remember that I went on about pruning my hollies last week. Well, I finished, and here are the results. First, a “before” picture of the big (about 35 feet tall) holly:

 

 

  

For want of a circuit breaker, a 767 lands gear up.

 The preliminary accident report came out on the Polish 767 that landed gear up in early November. The hydraulic system that powers the gear lost pressure due to a broken hose, then the electric gear release wouldn’t work. The pilots were getting low on gas, so they had to land with the gear up.

The investigators found a circuit breaker popped that controls power to the circuit breaker powering the gear release. The checklist said to check the second, but not the first. They jacked the aircraft, pulled it into a hanger, raised the gear, pushed the CB in, and the gear came down.

No doubt there will be a lot of second guessing and finger pointing. But, it seems to me that the pilots did exactly what they should have.

And people ask if I miss flying.

A popular saying with pilots is that an accident report is the result of months of study of a situation where a pilot had seconds to decide what to do.

(Today’s blog is courtesy of an email from my brother Ron who lives near Atlanta and is a retired Delta pilot with 27 years’ experience and over 17,000 hours in his logbook. That’s 5 million miles by air.)

There was a pretty good frost yesterday morning, so there was not only frost on the pumpkin, but also on our cars. Which meant that I had to start the two cars we use to go to church (we leave at different times, generally), turn on the defrosters to full blast, and start scraping.  Therein lies the rub: we’ve had a turnover in our cars in the past year and I don’t know where my good scrapers are. Having a good scraper for frost (not ice, almost anything like a rock or shingle will work to scrape ice off, but we don’t have ice on the pumpkins that much.  We do have a lot of frost, and that’s why I need a good scraper) is essential. If I use an ice scraper on frost, it leaves little cleared trails about 3/16 of an inch wide. That doesn’t clear a windshield very fast.

Everything I had that had migrated to the trunks of the cars was an ice scraper–thick blades designed to cut through up to three inches of ice.

Then there are those pitiful combination scrapers/brushes that are about 20 inches long and as ineffectual as ice scrapers for removing frost. They are too rigid to conform to the windshield and remove frost.

The best scraper I have ever had (yes, I do remember things like this) was a gas station giveaway with “Scottie’s Texaco” on it and a nice thin blade that followed the contours of the windshield and removed frost like a champ. I don’t think you can buy these any more, and mine is either in a box of car supplies in the basement or wedged in a crevice in a car seat somewhere. I hope I can find it. Nothing beats a good frost scraper like the giveaway from two decades in the past.

If I can find all the scrapers I’ll take pictures of each type and post them here for your viewing pleasure. Now, if I can only find the camera…(Later: I still haven’t found the camera. I used images from the interwebs, obviously.)