Of course I talk like an idiot. How else could you understand me?

The Amaryllis grew an inch and a quarter during the 24 hours that ended this morning. Pam walked in last night, saw it on the table, and said, "That thing grew while I was at work!" I'm keeping a record, measuring it each morning.
And the Paperwhites have buds that will open very soon.

"I'm hoping for an epiphanette overnight." (last night's post about the carb)
I got it!!!

Seriously. I don't sleep well, mostly because I wake up, my brain kicks in, and I can't get it to shut down so I can get back to sleep. But I do some of my best mental work in the wee hours of the morning.

Instead of a vapor lock...a stuck float!
A carb is a lot like a toilet, with a section inside that holds gas like the tank on the back of a toilet holds water. The gas an old car runs on doesn't come from the fuel pump anymore than a toilet uses water from the pipes to flush. Both draw from a bowl (carb) or tank (toilet). And both have a float inside that controls how much fuel/water is allowed into that bowl/tank from it's supply source. The fuel pump or water line only replenishes the supply as it drops (you flushed the toilet). The function of the float is to fall as the supply drops, and in dropping open up a valve. The supply of fuel or water comes in through the valve, the the gas or water rises carrying the float with it, until the valve is shut off at the appropriate level.
So imagine that for some reason the float in your toilet tank got caught in the "high" position. You flush the toilet, but because the float doesn't drop the valve doesn't open and no water comes in to fill the tank for the next flush. That's going to be a problem!
So if, when I shut off the Rambler, the float inside the carb gets stuck in the upper position the car will run at restart just long enough to use up the fuel in the bowl, and then....nada.
Why would the float get stuck only when the car is shut off after getting up to temp, and then restart just fine only after the car has cooled down?
Aha! Here's the genius of ideas that come at 2 a.m.!
Because when the car heats up, as it does when it's shut off and the cooling system no longer functions, things expand. Including the walls of the carb and the float inside. Stuck float! But let the car cool down over the next hour, and things contract, the float drops, and everything is back to normal.
So my job this weekend is to very, very carefully take the carb apart...again...and see if I can spot a place where the float is hanging up, even though the carb will be cold.
"Carefully" because rebuild kits with new gaskets cots $70, so I need to reuse these.

We stayed up late (for us) last night to watch "Elementary," the CBS crime drama that's a modern - and rather adulterated - version of Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Watson is an Asian female. I realized in the middle of the night, just before my Rambler epiphanette, that I'm done with the show. This episode was the tipping point.

I like the actors and the show's tone, which is understated and subtle. No car chases or shootouts. Crimes are solved through the application of mental skill, attentive deduction.
But they're cheating.

By definition a literary mystery, and a TV show which pretends to be one, contains basic elements: a crime, a detective who often has a sidekick (how many pairings can you name?), and clues. Here's where the rules kick in. As the story unfolds the detective AND the readers get the same clues at the same time. The detective isn't allowed any information the reader doesn't get and visa versa. The point is that we're given the same opportunity to solve the crime. So when we get to the end of the book and can't figure it out, the author has the detective solve it and then explain how he/she arrived at that conclusion. The reveal. Then we think back through the narrative and say, "Ah, I see it now." That's the dynamic that makes mysteries so engaging, entertaining. We're participating in the plot, trying to do the same thing the detective is doing. If you've read any of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries you know that's what makes them fun.

(Batman & Robin, Perry Mason & Paul Drake, Ellery Queen & his father....)

I don't expect a TV show to follow literary rules unless it is clearly a knockoff of perhaps the best known mystery series of all time. Then you can't do what they did over and over last night. Early in the show Sherlock picked up random pieces of paper and told us the bomb must have been in place for the last four years because of the date on those little pieces. More of that kind of cheating, and then at the end he explained who committed the crime and why, using data we'd never heard and had no way of knowing. She was a prostitute during her college years? And you know that how??? That little piece of information created the motive for her actions (the murder was designed to silence someone who knew). Sherlock used that information to solve the crime, a solution any one of us could have come up with if we'd known it.
Sorry, sir. Facts not in evidence.
Show dismissed!