Mr. Robin is in the dark...hail storm safety tips...shady airborne holy men.

Happy morning everybody, it’s Wednesday. I had a delectable blog treat for you yesterday (Tuesday), but the local electrical cooperative had other ideas. We had a bad storm move through The Compound in the wee hours of Tuesday morning leaving us without power for several hours.

And, true to form, I was outside in the early dawn prepping the emergency generator here to start. I had fueled the darn thing (important not to leave gas in the tank so it will start again when you need it) and was about to pull the cord to start it when (guess what?) the lights came back on.

Now then, I’m just paranoid enough to believe that somewhere down the road there was a line crew watching and waiting until I had fueled the generator before reconnecting the power “…wait for it, wait for it…okay, now!”

Actually, they would have gotten a show if they’d been around when the storm started. I leaped out of bed because I realized there was hail involved. I could hear the hail pounding against the windows and guttering.

Dumbass me had left his vehicle parked outside the garage because I had unloaded some stuff that evening. I knew I had to get the vehicle into the detached garage lest the hail bust out windows or dent the damned thing.

As soon as I opened the door on the north side and saw the hail coming down, I donned one of my motorcycle helmets and charged out into the vicious grip of the perfect storm – hurricane force winds, driving rain, lightning, and hail (just doesn’t get any better). Did I mention that I was barefoot and not wearing any pants? No? Well, it’s true.

Here’s thing about hail…it leaves ice on the ground. I immediately slipped and went down on my butt. Fortunately, I was wearing a safety helmet (I told myself). I got back up and made my way to the vehicle.

I get the vehicle inside the garage and then make a mad dash back into the house, the marble-sized hail bouncing off my helmet like so much hail hitting a helmet. Huh?

Once again, I slip. Note to self. When dashing about in a hail storm with little to no clothes on, be sure to wear frigging shoes.

But, I digress…

When you’re a self-inflicted victim of a rural electric cooperative (we enjoy the abuse), you suffer a lot of outages…for some reason. Of course, they try to make it up to you during the annual membership meeting in which they give everyone free grub, weak iced tea, and the chance to win a zero-turn lawnmower or side-by-side quad or something else you probably can’t use but will now have to pay taxes on the suggested retail value.

Here’s a thought…HOW ABOUT KEEPING THE F***ING LIGHTS ON…that, I can use.  

I get crap from people wanting to know why, as an adherent to compound living, I don’t just have one of those auto-start generators that kick in as soon as the lights go out. Ummmmm…well, money, or lack thereof may be a good reason. Those darned things are expensive to buy and a pain in the ass to maintain.

I have better things to spend money on like…well, never mind.

Of course, I suppose I could start my own campaign to raise money for an auto-start generator here at The Compound. Kind of like that Louisiana preacher who’s trying to raise $54,000,000 (yep that’s fifty-four million) to buy a new long-range business jet. Says he doesn’t want to have to stop for fuel wherever he goes in the world to spread the gospel.

Uh huh. You know, preacher, $54,000,000 would solve some of the world’s problems. You could feed people that are starving or start an ag program somewhere so people could feed themselves. How about vaccinating children in the third-world against diseases that have been eliminated in most of the rest of the world?

Seems to me that’s what a holy man should be doing. Am I cynical, am I bitter? Yeah, I am. Particularly considering that this holy man won’t have to pay taxes on the $54M, as he cowers behind his church’s tax-sheltered shield and holds the IRS at bay.

In his fundraising video, this holy man stopped just short of declaring himself Christ on earth when he pointed out that “IF Jesus were alive today,” he wouldn’t be riding a donkey. That may be true, but I’m sure he’d find a better use for $54M.
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That is all!
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