Tuesday quick bits

The Drop and Give Me Twenty challenge started yesterday. I spent over an hour messing around in the studio, but working on the boring-but-necessary task of marking, sewing and cutting continuous bias binding for the charity fleece throws.

The process is pretty simple, even if it is based in geometry.

Marking the lines, however, is tedious. I'd made the parallelogram weeks ago, then marked about five lines of bias and cut it off the main piece. That bound two of the charity quilts. I hacked off another length last week, which did two more. This is the last of what I'd originally prepared - I hope it will stretch (though not literally) to finish up the last three quilts.

Hurrah for Ted Cruz. Not sure he's my first choice, but in addition to Anyone-But-Hillary, I'm strongly behind Anyone-But-Trump. Rubio made enough of a showing to continue on, and may well have momentum on his side.

The big Midwest snowstorm this week is bypassing southeastern Wisconsin pretty much entirely. Except for a "short, strong burst" of snow around lunchtime (snow total estimates of 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches), we will be getting rain with the possibility of some sleet after the sun goes down and temperatures drop below freezing. I'm starting to feel cheated; I would have loved a snow day.

The Great Car Search of 2016 has begun. I've appointments for test drives at two places back-to-back Thursday night. There is a possibility I may cancel the one; the reviews of the model I'd try out say the pull on the gear shift knob when shifting is rather long, and the clutch pedal has a longer-than-average travel until you can actually shift. With the amount of in and out I do on the drive home every day, that extra work to shift would become a major annoyance in a hurry.

The other test is at my Honda dealer. After twenty plus years, you can certainly say I'm Honda loyal...except this particular salesman has been a bit of a pill. I'd left my phone number off an internet inquiry (deliberately - it wasn't required) and he apparently thought he was clever by looking in their records, finding out I was a customer so he could call me rather than email his response. I've already read him the riot act over that. I both don't need a new car right now and certainly don't need to buy from him. We'll see how it goes.

It is Mission Week at the university. The theme this year is "Earthjustice: Committing to Our Sacred World". Today's reflection - emailed directly to us - is by a professor who describes himself as an "environmental economist". While I'm all for good stewardship of the incredibly rich planet the good Lord created for us, there is a severe mental disconnect going on in my mind thinking about a society that can declare the earth "sacred" and at the same time make it legal to murder millions of unborn babies, mostly for convenience's sake. I doubt the university would ever theme a mission week around the plight of the unborn - it's not p.c.

A virus is making the rounds of the office. Sore throat, congestion, coughing - uncomfortable, but most people aren't looking at it as serious enough to stay home. And so, it spreads.

Enough work avoidance, I suppose. Back to it...