"My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor." - Phyllis Diller

I spent the morning working on my sermon. Not thrilled with it, but it's only Wednesday.

This afternoon I worked on the brakes, making lines, fabricating brackets, and drilling holes in the frame for line clamps. I have one more flair fitting to make and then I can attach that last line.
No one who does this for a living should watch me trying to fabricate an entire set of brake lines. And if I had to do this for a living I'd starve inside a week.
I'm about an hour shy of bench bleeding the master cylinder and then bleeding the lines. If any of these two dozen connections leak I'm going to be very, very upset.

It's cold here by Phoenix standards. Overnight lows are in the high 40's and I wore a light windbreaker out the door this morning. At the coffee shop a gal came in wearing a cable knit sweater. I'd forgotten how much I like those. Growing up in a Scandinavian neighborhood in Seattle they were a staple of everyone's wardrobe, but they're not common now, especially in Phoenix. Some day I'll own another one, and saddle shoes to go with it.

"A first year law student would have did a better job of cross examining the killer of an unarmed person than the prosecutor's office did." - Benjamin Crump, attorney for Michael Brown's parents.
Do you think a first year law student would know the proper conjugation of the verb done?
And why has there been no press coverage of the package of cigars that Michael Brown had in his possession when Officer Wilson stopped him? The same kind of package that was stolen from a store a few minutes earlier.

Two nights ago I wrote about Helen. A year or so after her husband died our car died. (There was no funeral in this case.) We were strapped financially and had no idea how we were going to replace it. Helen found out about our predicament and asked if I was interested in an old car she had sitting in front of her house. Her maiden sister who taught math at a college in L.A. had died about a year earlier and left Helen this car for which she had no use whatsoever. It was just sitting there at the curb and hadn't been driven since she got it. Helen didn't know if it ran, didn't want it, and would sell it to us for a dollar.
One dollar.
I figured if it ran when it was parked I could get it running again. Turns out it ran just enough for me to get it the 10 miles to our house where I parked it and went to work. The carb was a mess, but once I got it rebuilt and a general tune-up done the car ran well. Then I put a lot of elbow grease into the body: rubbing compound, wax, chrome polish. Cleaned up the interior, too.

Best car I ever owned. Not the fastest, easiest to drive, or most reliable. But if I could have any car back it would be Helen's. It was hands down the most unique, beautiful, and noticeable car I've possessed. On more than one occasion I had people follow me for miles until I stopped so they could ask if it was for sale.
For one dollar.
Bless you, Helen

1959 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88, 2-door hardtop