I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I can't put it down.

From a friend's Facebook page. (And too many of you don't get it.)

Some days my brain is on auto-pilot, just thinking about the specific tasks that need attention. Other days that space between my ears is a whirlwind of activity bouncing all over the walls. I don't know why that happens and can't peg it to any specific cause - caffeine, adequate sleep, full moon - it just happens. I hang on for the ride and try to decide which of the day's brain storms should go in a blog post.
Note: some days the answer is D) None of the above.
Contrary to my sons' opinion I do have a filter.

Tomorrow's sermon is one that requires more precision than most, so I went to Starbucks this morning, something I don't usually do on a Saturday, to go over it again. Ear buds in, Handel station on Pandora. Over in the corner sat a couple who were somewhere in their early 40's and clearly on a "date." He sat there smiling and listening attentively while she  t a l k e d.  For long stretches, punctuated by solo laughter. At one point she asked him what he was going to do today and he replied, "Watch football..." She broke in to tell him who was playing and which teams she thought should win.
I turned up my Handel.
She was still talking when I left.

I went from Starbucks to the metal shop with the three parts that make up the body of the truck's heater. Such as it is.
A radiator about 5"x8" sitting under the dash below the glove box takes hot water headed to the truck's radiator. A two speed fan blows air over that mini-radiator onto your feet or, if you slide a lever, up to the windshield. This three-part box holds the radiator, the lever and louvers, and the fan motor.

It was dirty, scratched, and ratty looking. This matters because it's visible below the right side of the dash.
But I know how to powder coat!
So in two hours at the metal shop I used a monster propane torch to burn the old paint off, the sand blaster to get it down to clean bare metal, and then the powder coating equipment and oven to get it looking like this:

Yes, that's a hammered gray finish, extremely close to factory original. Next comes installing it, but that requires some flexible ducting I have to find.

When I was teaching, and for a few years after, I'd take 10 days during the summer for a solo cross country trip on my motorcycle. I did two to Virginia, one to Colorado, and one to Pennsylvania. I think there was a trip to So. Missouri, too. All I needed was my one-man tent (a bivy), a rain suit, a change of clothes, and my iPod. I'd take the freeway to my destination state, then get out the map and look for the skinniest, squiggliest line I could find and go carve the curves. This really is a beautiful country once you get on the back roads.

About six years ago I sold my motorcycle to buy the first VW I restored. Several times since then I've thought how much I enjoyed those trips, but Pam now admits she agreed to me riding a motorcycle in a moment of weakness that she says I should expect to recur.

This morning while reading Yahoo News I came across an article about a small motorcycle company in Azusa, CA that makes 250cc bikes. CSC (California Scooter Company) makes 250cc motorcycles that are a cool blend of U.S. style and Asian size & efficiency. (In Asia motorcycles are ubiquitous and have a much smaller engine than here, where bigger is assumed to be better.) Last week CSC got formal permission from the Feds to import a Chinese bike that's been sold in Asia for years, but there's nothing like it available here. Well, there are several touring bikes to choose from - BMW, Yamaha, Honda - but they start at $12-14k before you've outfitted them with hard bags, engine guards, and the like. Here is a road and off-road ready bike for just slightly more than BMW gets for a set of hard bags! Those foreign tourers have four times the engine size and will do in excess of 100 mph (DAMHIK), but this is the Asian way - it's not about speed, it's about the journey. Think the two-wheel equivalent of the tiny house movement.

Oh, I am drawn to this. So drawn.
Highway 1 up the coast, Northern CA through Oregon. Maybe all the way to the Olympic Peninsula in WA.
Oh my.