Harbaugh or Har-Blue?

Good afternoon, Stroock's Books reader(s), such as you are. 

Another rare miss for this blog yesterday, as events overtook us. We plan and God laughs.  'Lo, thou shalt planeth, and God shalt laugheth' as one may find in the Book of Damnitall, Daminitall to Hell Another Goddamn House Problem, chapter-1, verse-1.

So about 12:30 yesterday we were running our dishwasher, already prone to electronic malfunction, when we grabbed a garbage bag from under the sink. We found water, too, and plenty of it. One need not have a tech school degree in plumbing to realize the system had sprung a leak. We found the source of the leak, the dishwasher hose running into the garbage disposal. We hoped for a quick solution and tightened the clamp. No go, it still leaked - a lot.

A man's got to know his limitations, Dirty Harry Callaghan told us lo those many years ago. After 52 years on this earth, and 20 in this home, we know ours. We called a guy we know, who removed the hose and found that the end connector had disintegrated. Removing the hose required yanking the dishwasher out and worming one's way through the dishwasher housing to find the hose latch. Indeed, we were wise to recognize our limitations. Fortunately, the guy we know can fix anything and is quite reasonably and competitively priced. If you're in our area, drop us a line for his contact info.

Let's list home mishaps these last 365 days, shall we? Sump pump line froze over. Clothes Washer died. AC motor blower died. AC fan died. AC motherboard died (must we needs revisit the AC Wars?). Thermostat glitched. Cracks developed in back of fireplace. Furnace malfunctioned. Minivan center console became wonky. And now the dishwasher hose. We shudder. What's going to break tomorrow? 

On to nicer things...So the Ravens and coach Jim Harbaugh have parted ways. Let us imagine how Harbaugh's wife should have greeted him when he got home from the office yesterday, 'Honey, there's a Mr. Mara on the line for you. He said he'd wait....Coach? John Mara. Listen, I've sent a special courier with a signed check for you. I've left the amount blank. Why don't you just write in what you think is fair? See you tomorrow.'

DOGE Report: We are 45% through World War 1990: Ireland, Or Whatever it's Called. We are ready to read the Battle of Derry [Londonderry-Ed]. Shut up, Ed. You're from Liverpool. Sigh, for some reason the editor thought an RUC Land Rover Tangi was actually called a Tango. No, it's Tangi. Look it up. 

We did some more work on the first half of Thatcher's War. The first half is really coming together. We are on the verge of being pleased.