I was going to go into a long spiel about how we Americans take our independence for granted but I decided against it. No one gives a shit about freedom or independence beyond their use as buzzwords in politician's canned homilies or some other idiot's use of it to propagandize the killing this year's Designated Enemy.

So let me tell you about Ed. Ed is a tech for a mechanical engineering company here in Seattle. He's about 45, tall, thin, very calm and very good natured. I consider Ed a good aquaintance.

A couple of months ago, Ed had a heart attack at home and nearly died. The EMTs had to use the defibrillator on him once to bring him back.

He's back on the job and has been for a few weeks now. Modern medical thinking is that you need to get the hell up and move around rather than lay in bed and convalesce.

He was at my 2nd property today, hunting down a gas odor. He had come back in van from buying a couple of things he needed to finish sealing up a pipe and waved at me when I saw him. He came up and said, "How are you!" I said, "ME?! How the hell are YOU?!"

"Alive," he said, He showed me a scar on the inside of his left forearm that ran from the crook of his elbow to his wrist. That's where they got the vein to do his bypass with I guess.

He looks different. A bit more gaunt. But alive looks good and better than the alternative.

Ah, here's a good one. While I was writing this, I got a phone call from the on-call engineer. He told me that there was a leak at one of my piers on the waterfront and that he was forty-five minutes away and the back-up engineer (the boss) was an hour and a half away.

He asked if I could go down and check on the leak. Now, I'm not on call but I didn't stop for beer after shopping with Miss Significantly Other earlier tonight and, well, duty calls yanno?

So I go down and find that he gave me the wrong pier number. One company has offices on two of my piers and he gave me the wrong one. So I'm walking around the wrong offices, looking for a leak that doesn't exist...

I call the boss and ask him what the hell it is I'm supposed to be looking for and he gives me the right information.

So I go to the offices and find no one there. Who reported the leak? Oh, they close at 9PM. It's 9:30. Well, um... there's a leak in the ceiling of one of the bathrooms and the access door to the bathrooms is locked and I don't have a key. Call the boss.

While the boss is calling the leak reporter, I find the bathroom key on the front desk and use it.

OK. There is water pouring from the access panel in the ceiling of the Gents' room.

A quick check one floor above and I find no leaks in the hoity-toity architectual company offices.

Back downstairs, up on a ladder, my head in the access hole in the Gents', I find water literally running out of the air conditioning unit that's up there. Groovy! I know what this is: plugged drain line. UnGroovy. I don't know how to fix it. DoubleUnGroovy, water from the leak is transversing the edges of the access hole and dripping down the outside of both of my legs.

On the phone to the boss, I kill the power to the unit and water literally pours forth as unto the fountains of the deep. Not only are the sides of my pants soaked but...eeeeeyahhhh! Now the ass of my pants is soaked!

Did I mention that this is an air conditioning unit? Did I mention that the water currently running down the crack of my ass is COLD?!

OHHHHHHHHHHHH, SHITIT'SCOLD!

Ahem.

So, it's a "shut it off and it'll stop leaking and we'll deal with it tomorrow" thing now. I mop up a bit, set out wastecans to catch what's dripping, lock up and get in my car.

I went and bought beer.

I'm on my second one.

I'm stopping at four.

Goodnight and have a pleasant 4th of July.

Oh yeah, I'm on call starting tomorrow night...