Anyhow, we had water and heat and there world was a wonderful place. I even went crawling around in the basement trying to apply duct tape to sort out some of our heating issues — one of the hot air ducts wasn't even attached to a vent, so a significant fraction of last months $300 gas bill went into heating the basement floor. After the crawling around we went out, as we are prone to do in my household, for a celebratory beer (or two). Upon returning, at two in the morning, we discovered that once more we had no water. A quick trip downstairs to the basement, revealed that it was semi-flooded. My how I laughed. No really I did, it was very amusing at the time. Is it impossible for this house to stay functional for more than a couple of hours at a time? Probably.
So, just to summarise the current state of affairs with the house. The heating works, for suitably small definitions of work. The water doesn't. The kitchen sink won't drain and it's garbage disposal is broken. And we have raccoons in both the loft and the basement. It's a beautiful place. I really should get round to posting some photos. The carnage in the basement is particularly impressive. Will we have water tonight? I wish I knew. Despite chatting with his wife this morning and asking for him to call me back, I haven't heard anything from the landlord. Then again, they 'fixed' the water yesterday without telling any of us, so I still live in hope that the water will back. Regardless, I'll be showering at the gym again tonight.
On a more upbeat note, I was given a free cup of coffee today. It was very odd. Odd in a good way, but still odd. When I attempted to pay for my morning coffee at Brenen's the girl behind the counter told me it was taken care of. The gentleman sitting next to the counter had decided that he would pay for the next person who walked in's coffee. I was the next person. Being on the receiving end of a random act of generosity is a pretty good way to start the day.
Finally, I'm in love (by which I mean finally in the sense that this is the last topic in the post, not that after all this time I'm finally in love). To be exact, I'm in love with Judge John Jones. Yes, he of Intelligent Design ruling fame. I spent some time (where some is defined as most of the day) reading his 139 page ruling. A very interesting read it was to. He set about explaining how Intelligent Design (ID) was just a renaming of Creationist Science, that occurred after the Supreme Court ruled that Creationist Science could not be taught in public schools. Then he went on to rule that ID is not science, which made me smile. Then there was a severe savaging of the actual defendants in the case. A couple of my favourite lines were:
With surprising candor considering his otherwise largely inconsistent and non-credible testimony, Buckingham did admit that he made this statement.
Cleaver admittedly knew nothing about ID, including the words comprising the phrase, as she consistently referred to ID as “intelligence design” throughout her testimony.In his conclusion he had these words to say:
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.
The breathtaking inanity..., fantastic. You can download all 139 pages and enjoy it full yourselves. Me and a Republican judge, who'd have thunk it?
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