Why are they called "flash" lights?

In honor of April 15. But he's smiling, so that part doesn't work.

I spent most of the day working on that plumbing job. Weird; this house has been empty for almost four years but you'd swear they just left to go shopping.
Moen fixtures are nice, but they're not easy to work on and the parts are expensive. Both showers have new cassettes, both toilets have new innards and supply lines and one bathroom sink has a new faucet.
They call them "banjo counter tops." The bathroom vanity top has an extension that goes out over the top of the toilet tank and provides extra surface area for collecting junk. But way too often that extension is so close to the tank that you can't work on anything inside the tank without removing it from the toilet bowl. Barely enough room to get the tank top off. (Not going there.)
Oh yeah. Old houses have solid supply lines everywhere that almost never work with new fixtures. Which is one reason that every plumbing job requires a minimum of three trips to the store. At least one of them is to get new, flexible supply lines.
But I like working for Ralph, the realtor who called me to do this job. He always pays me immediately and then bills his customer. So I charge him less.

A Diet Coke, an apple danish and thou, my love.

Today we learned that the latest crash tests indicate micro-cars are dangerous relative to mid-size cars. Apparently even with air bags, crumple zones and ABS brakes the risk of death or serious injury is still 23% higher for the smallest cars.
What do you suppose they'd say about a car with none of those features, that weighs in at 1,700 pounds, doesn't even have power brakes but does have 12 gallons of gas 18" from your knees?

Several years ago I concluded that meaningful compliments are way too rare. I know how I feel when someone says something nice to me, so I decided to make an effort to do the same to others. I'm not as conscientious about it as I should be but I'm trying. One of the ways I stay alert to opportunities for complimenting is to note when I say something nice about someone to a third party. "X is good at _____." Or, "Y is a very ________ person." If I say that to someone else I should say it to them.
Often the recipient feels awkward and waves it off with a dismissive comment. That's OK; I do the same thing. And I'm pretty sure they also play it back for at least two days, just because we all hear compliments so rarely and feed off them when they arrive.
I had to do a difficult thing today. I had to tell someone their work product wasn't acceptable. I'm lousy at confrontation. I get all jittery in my stomach and my rate of speech speeds up even as my mind freezes up.
I'll need to pay at least 10 compliments to get the yucky taste out of my mouth.

I've been told not to believe anything I see on the internet. It's way too easy for someone with a modicum of skill to photoshop an image or even a video, and as one of the naive I will take the doctored as real.
Confession: I've altered images. Last night's pic of Gerta's speedometer was cropped and color-corrected using image editing software. No nefarious objectives, just trying to make the pic work better. Is that wrong? What if I'd glued together two images, one of the guts and one of the case? (I didn't.)

This was my profile pic on Facebook for awhile. I altered the street behind the car to get rid of the visual busyness of repaired cracks in the asphalt. Improper? (Alas, I lack the skill to do anything about the driver's visage.)
I thought about all of this Sunday evening as I used audio editing software to prepare the mp3 of my Easter message for posting on our church's site. I increased the volume and filtered out some of the electronic noise that our budget digital recorder puts in. But I also cut off the first second or two when I started with a totally embarassing "Uhm...(pause)..." A former homiletics prof I know would ding a grade BIG TIME for starting a sermon with uhm. I also clipped out the part where I told them to turn to John and then corrected myself because I really wanted Acts. All you will hear is the Acts part.
Lots more things that I could have/should have edited but I stopped there. My preaching is, and always has been conversational instead of oratorical. So a certain amount of "slippage" goes with the territory. But is it unethical for me to edit out the most eggregious flubs? Am I trying to paint myself as better than I really am? Dishonesty? Or coin of the realm in our techno culture?
I don't know. But I do know that I don't want you hearing me saying "uhm" to start a sermon!

If I start to sound like Chuck Swindoll you'll know I got a little carried away with that software.