Three Things on a Monday

1) My oldest son really likes juice. He's almost fifteen but I bet if he came across a juice trap in the middle of the forest he would have a difficult time not going for it. Fortunately he rarely ventures out of his room, let alone into a forest, so for now he's safe.




2) Our coffee machine here at work was either designed by a committee, members of management at my work, imbeciles, or the anti-coffee lobby. Or possibly a combination of all of the above. I only drink one cup a day but the experience is so horribly scarring that I'm considering giving it up.

Three or four years ago, before we were part of a massive corporate entity, we bought a coffee maker online and had it installed. Two burners, hot water tap - worked great. About a year after we got bought out they decided that this wasn't good enough for the coffee service they signed up for (where previously we just bought a few giant tubs of coffee and scooped it out as needed) so this very nicely working machine was replaced with a very similar model... which stopped working in a couple of months. This was replaced with an odd bird machine that had the second warmer on top, which made the coffee perilously prone to being knocked over if you opened a cupboard. This machine was replaced by a side-by-side machine that worked fine... until it started going haywire and either pumped so much water through the grounds that the pot overflowed or made half a pot of extremely potent joe.

The downward spiral has led to what is possibly the most ineptly designed coffee maker in the history of mankind. It's a one-pot design so if you want regular AND decaf, too bad. There is no warmer, which isn't a problem in the morning because there is a continuously running flow of new bean juice but in the afternoon... But the worst part is the pot. It is not glass, which would easily allow you to see how much coffee is left (imagine!) but rather brushed aluminum. Is there enough coffee in there to fill my cup? Spin the wheel and take a chance! Now go ahead and try to pour yourself a cup. Go on.... See? If the pot is nearly empty you really, honestly, truly have to turn the pot UPSIDE DOWN! Or even further. Did I mention that the pot is heavy even when empty? Oh, and the hot water spigot is in a deep recess.

Sure, it's a little thing and it's still free coffee but in the morning when you stumble into work why should it have to be so painfully difficult just to eek out a single cup?

3) Tomorrow are the primary elections. VOTE! The primaries are where things are really decided. Ever wonder why in November you're having to choose the lesser of two evils? It's because when people had a real choice of candidates, in May, they all sat home and tried to figure out their coffee machines. GO! VOTE! And once again I'll bring up my idea that if you vote in the primaries you should be a Fast Pass ticket that allows you to move to the front of the line in November, should there be a line.

And if you're in Indiana and lean conservative, I strongly urge you to vote for whichever candidate has the highest rating that reflects most of your values. At the moment Carpetbagger Coats is in the lead for Senate. The conservative vote is spread out among a handful of good candidates. Sure, there is one in particular I really like but I most certainly like nearly ANY of them over Washington-insider Coats. Therefore I would urge you that if your chosen candidate is at six percent or eight percent and has been the entire election, just admit that they aren't going to win and vote for whoever is in the #2 spot. Yes, principles are exceedingly important but the principle at stake here is whether our choice in November will be for Coats, someone who is so far away from your beliefs that he's almost a RHINO, or someone who reflects *most* of your beliefs. Right now it looks like that candidate is Hostetler. He's not my first choice but he's the one that's going to get my vote tomorrow.