INDEPENDENTLY SPEAKING

I need to get some cabinets painted. So, I spent a week taking a propane furnace apart and putting it back together. Many, many times. Don’t worry, I was careful. This project involved propane gas, electricity, and fire. I’m not a fan of explosions, particularly if I’m part of them. But I live in Minnesota, it’s winter, and without heat in the shop it’d be about forty degrees too cold to paint. I won’t name the brand of furnace, because I have nothing personal against the com

I am a remarkable man. During last Friday’s blizzard, I hit myself in the face. With a garden spade. Not everyone could do that. Here’s the story. One of my outbuildings has a bifold door that we made ourselves. It doesn’t have an automatic opener – just a counterweight that’s a barrel of sand attached to the door with a cable running over a series of pulleys. There wasn’t a lot of science involved. I just kept adding sand to the barrel until I could heave the door open witho

I had a bad toothache last week and it made me think of Ulysses S. Grant. Like it does. My tooth started to ache a little just before Christmas. I tried to ignore it, because it was Christmas and then New Year’s, and, you know, it’s pretty easy to avoid going to the dentist. A couple days into January, I finally made an appointment and after some poking, my regular dentist recommended a specialist. The appointment was two weeks out, so on my way home I bought a bigger bottle

I was in the middle of an embarrassing situation last week, and I wasn’t the one embarrassed. Man, that felt good. I was headed to a meeting about 80 miles from home and stopped for a cup of coffee. I spend a lot of time on the road and I keep track of the places to get a decent cup of coffee. Not everyone does that - I understand there are many people who don’t even drink coffee, and even more people who don’t care how their coffee tastes. I am not those people. I’ve spent e

I might have discovered the secret of the universe. Or maybe my sister did. Here goes. One of my sisters has lived most of her life in France, due to falling in love with a Frenchman. While this has been a blessing for all of us, the differences in culture have caused some interesting complications. In France, there’s a test called the baccalaureate that’s given at the end of high school, which basically determines the course of your life - whether you go to college, which jo