NOT bad… 42 new minutes so far in 2025. We’ll be living on the back porch again before you know it.
I’m determined to get out for another night ride or two before I’m sitting in a chair with a tube in my arm. I’m told that’ll start anytime after February 1. I have to think there’s a decent chance of dry roads between now and then.
Mike Manley alleges this background scenery from a recent Phantom strip is not the bride and me, circa 1972. Uncanny if it isn’t. He does have access to her FB photos…
The image appeared on January 4, where a villain from a 2011-12 Phantom adventure, head of the Ten Tigers Gang, turns up at a London pub in drag. He’s hiding from both the Phantom and police agencies around the world. The character speaking is working an angle on a reality TV deal.
Back on the sun thing, you may find this weirdly interesting: With the sun so low in the southern sky this time of year, our neighbor’s living room windows are perfectly positioned to reflect light into our driveway, melting the trim on the kids’ travel van.
That was a new one on me.
The van’s parked in our driveway because it would mostly sit all winter in the equipment yard at Jonny’s company. Little did I know the neighbor’s windows would act as a lens, focusing sunlight like a magnifying glass; focusing light to a point hot enough to melt plastic even on a bitterly cold day.
It made a mess of the trim all along the vehicle. On a 19-degree day I took digital temperature readings of 190 degrees off the trim. It must have been quite a bit hotter when the worst of the damage was done. The van never gets parked in exactly the same spot every time I take it out to run it up to operating temp. Park it a few inches closer to or farther from the neighbor’s windows, that has to affect both the focal point and temperature.
Jonny knew what it was immediately when I sent him a few photos. Solar flare, he said.
It happens all the time to vinyl siding. When he subcontracts siding jobs, his estimator always notes whether the customer’s neighbor has south-facing windows uncovered by full screens.
Spike buck walking by my writing window before the sun was up one recent morning.
I should set out the motion-activated game camera on the other side of the fence. This is a cellphone snapshot through window screen and wire.
A few minutes later, an eight-pointer…
How good it would be, I found myself thinking, to have for breakfast this morning a big slice of Aunt Gloria’s mincemeat pie.
Tony DePaul, January 26, 2025, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
