I picked up another book I thought was easy reading Wrong, it is very well-written to the point of at first being difficult to follow. It is just a novel so I’ll finish it but I can’t put it down. It will never be a best-seller in Japan due to the ceaseless comments that the Asians can only copy, never innovate and as a people, can only stand back and gape in wonderment when things are done right. Note the change in title from “Bridge Over the River Kwai” in the book to “Bridge On the River Kwai” in the movie.
The book is not like the movie, and it has a different ending, which I won’t tell you. In the movie, the wounded soldier falls on the plunger just as the Japanese train is almost across the bridge. This does not happen in the book. It has been raining since dawn. Good, gave us the chance to check out the new frying pan. Grilled cheese sandwiches with home made bread, coffee, hash browns, eggs. The “committee” here reports that the fry pan works just great, but will require more testing.
On to the shop, where I worked most of the day getting the system up and running to the point the staff will find it easy to use. It is unfortunately not that easy. Certain steps have to be made, including ensuring each computer is at the “Screen Sheild” position before the master computer can control it. None of these quirks are mentioned in the instructions. That’s more verification that programmers do not like to document their work—it makes it too obvious when they make a mistake.
Another dead battery on the Taurus. The headlight alarm has long since been disconnected and I forget why. When it is connected, it causes some other alarm to ring incessantly. I have to get used to getting a boost a few times a year. Of course I blame Ford company for that. Such problems should have been corrected decades ago. I had to walk the battery over to Firestone in the heavy rain.
Then the storm really started. This is not a hurricane. Wallace asked how to tell the difference. Easy, in a storm the rain falls down. In a hurricane, the rain falls sideways. The storm is only unusual in that it has lasted so long, around a few days now. It is not steady rain but the overcast is always there.
I’m halfway through the famine book. The immigration to America is better known, but there was another immigration eastward to England. In typical British thinking, the Irish were being punished for being Catholics and such. The worst conditions were in Liverpool, where hundreds of thousands of Irish landed. They had been given freighter passage by their landlords (who were English) to vacate their farms. The English wanted to use the land for raising sheep. There are some pretty sad tales from that era as well, as the local population began to prey on the Irish newcomers.
Due to the rain, the dinner at Peggy’s place is not yet scheduled. I’ve been asking bachelor I know about their favorite recipes. So far I’ve got fried chicken livers and (get this) peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. That last one is from Jackie, whose father’s job was to make sure the dinners leaving the hotel kitchen looked pretty for the customers. You know, puts the little orange twist or something on the plate. That job has a name, I’ll try to find out more.
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