09:13 – It’s a cool, drizzly morning and it’s down to about 71F (22C) in the house, about where we keep the temperature during heating season. I drink hot drinks only during cool or cold weather, and I just started making a pot of Earl Grey tea for the first time since last spring.
Kit sales are sporadic. We shipped four kits Saturday, eight kits Monday, three yesterday, and only one so far today. But there’s apparently no way of predicting. We could ship ten kits today, or we could ship just the one. Tomorrow, we might ship none at all, or we might ship half a dozen. Whatever happens, our inventory of kits is now at a comfortable level and, as always, we’re in the process of building more.
11:39 – Well, kit orders just reached five for today, so far. I’m busy building and shipping kits, but I’m still trying to devote some time to planning/designing future kits. I could spend all my time for at least a year or two doing just that.
I already know what the first two new kits for 2014 are doing to be. First, Earth Science, which I’ve been working on as I have time available. Second, I need to design a kit for the state virtual school AP chemistry course. I’ve been shipping stuff directly to the school in bulk, sufficient for them to assemble 40 AP chemistry kits. This year, the state virtual school is providing the kits to homeschool parents, but in 2014 the state is getting out of the kit business. Parents who want their students to take the virtual school AP chemistry course will need to buy the kits themselves, and we’ll ship directly to them. That raises a stocking problem for us because no one, including the virtual school staff, has any idea how many students will be taking the course next year. This year, it was 40. Next year it could be 22 or 222. And, of course, all the orders are likely to come in within the space of a week or two, and all of the customers are going to want their kits Right Now. I think what we’ll probably do is build 30 or 60 kits in anticipation of a flood of orders next May and just make sure that we can build more relatively quickly.
I also want to do a CK02 chemistry kit in 2014 for AP chemistry students, and a BK02 biology kit for AP biology students. Neither of those are likely to sell as well as the corresponding first-year kits and both will require signicant design work and time to write documentation, but both are kits that I want to have in our stable. Finally, although it probably won’t happen in 2014–even the AP Bio & Chem kits may not happen in 2014–I want to do kits for first-year physics students and AP physics students.
Obviously, I have a lot on my plate. Current jobs like building and shipping kits have to take priority, which limits how much time I can spend on new stuff. Barbara currently puts in several hours most weekends on kit stuff, but she still works full-time at the law firm. We’ve discussed her retiring from the law firm or perhaps going to flex-time and shorter hours there, but I suspect it’ll be at least the end of 2014 (when she turns 60) until we see any movement on that front. Eventually, I’d like to see Barbara working full-time for our company six or eight months a year and having the remaining four to six months a year free to travel and do other things she enjoys doing.
That means I’ll need to get Barbara up to speed on all aspects of the business other than designing kits and writing lab manuals. I’m the one who has to do that, but Barbara can do everything else. Everything from filling out sales tax and corporate reports to processing orders and shipping kits to maintaining raw-materials and finished-goods inventory and cutting purchase orders to making up solutions. Barbara is smart and sensible. She can do all this.
“…I just started making a pot of Earl Grey tea for the first time since last spring.”
Oh come on!
Earl Grey is for prancers.
I had to look up the meaning of “prancer'”. I assume you mean the Urban Dictionary definition, not the Merriam Webster definition. Captain Picard always drank Earl Grey. Was he a “prancer”?
I drink Earl Grey at work because they always have it and I prefer it to the other black teas they have. I usually order Earl Grey when I’m not at home because any place which has more than Lipton’s will usually have Earl Grey. When I’m home or at a place with a good selection, I’ll drink something stronger. I like Lapsang Souchong. It’s an acquired taste.
Rick in Portland
We’ve discussed her retiring from the law firm or perhaps going to flex-time and shorter hours there, but I suspect it’ll be at least the end of 2014 (when she turns 60) until we see any movement on that front.
But where do you get your health insurance (seems appropriate for the times)?
Hmmm. I’m of two minds about this news report:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/09/25/colorado-woman-in-custody-after-killing-suspected-pedophile/?intcmp=latestnews
A child told her the guy had sexually molested him or her. The woman beat the guy to death with a baseball bat. I wonder if she was sure beyond a reasonable doubt that the guy had done it.
On balance, I think it’d have been better if she turned him in to the cops. If his trial determined he did it, the judge could turn the guy back over to her and let her beat him to death with a baseball bat.
Speaking of pedophiles, as I’ve said before I have no problem with ephebophiles, many of whom are unjustly called pedophiles. Just imagine a guy being attracted to 15- to 19-year-old women. Leave it to the psychologists to give this sexual preference a name, “ephebophilia”, when it already had a name, “normal”.
And I see that psychologists in the UK are attempting to redefine age of majority from 18 to 25 years old.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/09/25/psychologists-in-britain-want-to-change-adulthood-from-18-to-25/?intcmp=latestnews
Actually, I think they have a point. People in that age group, particularly young men, are in fact “late adolescents”. But if they want to create this new category of late adolescence, I think they need to recognize differences between the sexes in reaching maturity. I’d buy 18 – 25 for young men, but I think late adolescence for young women should be in the 15 – 22 range.
And OFD might like this, “Privacy Opinions”:
http://xkcd.com/1269/
Me, I am the conspiracist.
Barbara would negotiate for flextime/shorter hours that still qualifed her for full benefits. It’s not all that long before we’ll qualify for Medicare. At that point, we’d just buy a really good supplement policy. Until then, there’s always ObamaCare, which I see is supposed to be Affordable.
On balance, I think it’d have been better if she turned him in to the cops. If his trial determined he did it, the judge could turn the guy back over to her and let her beat him to death with a baseball bat.
On deciding whether or not to accost somebody, the old rule of “carried out by six or judged by twelve” usually applies. In this particular case, she may be judged harshly as vigilantism is frowned upon nowadays. However, if the suspected evildoer was a repeat offender then she may be handed a pass by the jury.
I wonder if Colorado is considering a baseball bat size rule in correlation to the gun magazine size rule? And if they are considering background checks on private baseball bat transfers?
In OFD’s future world, she would have empaneled a free-market jury, prosecuted the guy herself, and killed him if the jury condemned him. Come to think of it, if he’s guilty, the jury might help beat him to death.
I’ve tried Earl Grey and English Breakfast, and like neither. EB is far too bland, suitable for little old ladies with blue rinses in their hair, and EG has all this extra refuse in it that shouldn’t be in tea. Perfectly suitable for prancers though… 🙂
My favourite is Dilmah, http://www.dilmahtea.com/
A few years back, when there was an extended discussion of dildos here, I had to be very careful when ordering my tea at the cafe across the road from work. Speaking to an attractive young woman, I had to be very careful to ask for “two Dilmahs please”, and not two of what I’d been reading about here.
I suspect you don’t like Earl Grey because you’re buying that packaged crap. As you might expect, I synthesize my own Earl Grey. I just use top quality black full-leaf tea and add a tiny amount of bergamot oil to the carafe.
In OFD’s future world, she would have empaneled a free-market jury, prosecuted the guy herself, and killed him if the jury condemned him. Come to think of it, if he’s guilty, the jury might help beat him to death.
_The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ by Robert Heinlein.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Moon-Is-Harsh-Mistress/dp/0312863551
It’s a cool, drizzly morning and it’s down to about 71F (22C) in the house
73 F here inside the office but 95 F outside here in south central Texas. Not a cloud in the sky but maybe some rain this weekend. Got both A/C units cranking.
We got three inches of rain last Friday night and dropped the home pool temperature from 87 F to 80 F. Sunday afternoon, the pool was still a chilly 82 F but I braved it anyway. The wife said I screamed like a little girl.
On the internet privacy thing I am a combination of conspiracist and nihilist so fah; that will probably change a little soon.
And Bob has me about right on the prosecution/jury organization in the future. Pretty similar to medieval Germanic tribal laws and customs and if it was good enough for our ancestors, Bob’s and mine, that is, it’s good enough to use again, with perhaps a dollop of some Roman and English common law in there, such as we used to have once upon a time in the West.
As for the science fiction; alas, it fails to float my boat anymore, not for the past forty or more years. History to me is stranger and far more interesting.
Other than coffee, the only warm beverage I drink is the steaming blood of my enemies. Sometimes I sweeten it with the tears of the stupid.
Tea and Vegemite are the two reasons Aussies punch far above their weight at the Olympics, and Yanks do so badly. We have them and you guys don’t.