Ceased on a Thursday

Good morning! Right now here in northern New Jersey the temperature is 23 degrees F. Happy Yankee spring to Stroock's Books reader(s), you frigid few. 

Yesterday we had a cigar, our first in 30 days. It was glorious. That's four this year, we're well behind last year's pace. We' had ten by July 1st, according to this blog. Keep it up. 

Well, the new AC compressor and coils are installed. After replacing the furnace last December we have a brand new HVAC system [Congratulations-Ed]. We have a new condenser pump to. The old one worked perfectly but was a decade old. We haven't heard the pump going off yet, we find this mildly concerning. There aren't any puddles of water in the utility room so we guess things are fine. 

The leader of this blog's Confederate Contingent* warned against getting a heat pump, saying people he knows with a heat pump report problems. Exactly. New tech, man. Another example, the technicians  were warned that the system uses a new kind of refrigerant which is, 'slightly flammable'. What was wrong with the old refrigerant?  

So Israel delivered a massive parting (or Parthian if you know your history) shot upon Hezbollah. Did this derail the ceasefire? Maybe. Was there ever really a ceasefire? We dunno. We do know we held off on extoling Trump's virtues yesterday, didn't we? Smart of us, no? [Excuse me while I slow clap-Ed]. Hormuz remains closed. Most of the Israeli press is severely down on the Iran war. 

Doge Report.

We wrote another scene in World War 1990: The Managua Campaign. So we did a little research and it turns out that we need to take the Honduran Army seriously. So noted. 

We read through the Soviet cosmonaut story and are generally pleased. But we still don't know how it ends. We've written now four short stories, pithy, of about 3,000 words, which is fine. Maybe we should be thinking of a 10,000 word tent pole story. Upon this idea, we shall dwell. 

*Heh, Happy Appomattox Day (southern ladies will dress in black as etiquette dictates). You people may win the College Football National Championship, but we won the war.