10:06 – It was 54.3F (13C) when I took Colin out at 0715, with gusty winds and blowing rain. We had about 1.5″ (3.8 cm) of rain overnight. Today is supposed to be more of the same.
Barbara is volunteering this afternoon at the Friends bookstore, and I have various administrative tasks to do. Tomorrow, we’re back to making subassemblies and building more science kits. Kit sales are still okay, although they’re starting to taper off, as they always do in September.
I have two cups of coffee every morning, made in a single-cup brewer that holds about a pint of water. As I was setting up my second cup this morning, I thought to weigh the coffee I was using. It turns out, I use a scoop that weighs about 13 grams to make a pint of coffee. That means a 3-pound can of coffee is about 100 cups or 50 days’ worth, and a case is 300 days’ worth. Barbara, Frances, and Colin don’t drink coffee, and Al likes his coffee much weaker than I make mine, so two cases of coffee is a year’s worth for Al and me. Of course, I also drink tea, as does Barbara, and we have enough of that in LTS to make a few hundred gallons.
I just remarked to Barbara this morning that we’re both old enough to remember when it was a standing joke about property developers selling swamp land in Florida to rubes from out of state. Back then, Florida was a relatively small state population-wise, and for good reason. It wasn’t until the 50’s and 60’s that major development ramped up down there, and for good reason. Until then, people understood that it was a really bad idea to build in coastal areas, which are subject to frequent hurricanes. The population of Florida back then was a quarter or less what it is now, and that was too many people even then. Of course, other coastal areas like the Gulf Coast and the entire West Coast have also seen huge increases in construction and growth in population, which was just as bad an idea.