Monday, August 12, 2013

Out of Gas

As I was on my dog walk this morning I passed by an apartment complex. I hear a screeching noise coming from an open window on the second floor of one of the units. Boo stopped and strained her ears. It was a familiar sound but it took me a minute to place where I had heard such a sound before.
City Nights
It was the staccato reverberation of a dot matrix printer.  It used to be the sound of anyone printing out a computer page, today with ink jet printers the sound of computing has changed.
Another THINK...
We had friends over for a dinner party last night. It was great fun, lots of laughs and wonderful show business stories. There was only one glitch.
Due to poor planning of my propane ration, my grilling was cut short by a lack of fuel. Three tanks all empty.  The party did not get to experience my grilling expertise as we had to quickly move the cooking in doors.  
I have never had a sense of how long a full propane tank lasts.  When we lived in Sherman Oaks I was on a television series which meant a carpenter practically lived at our house for a couple of years helping us fix it up. That was when I got my first propane barbecue grill.  Before that I was a charcoal and lighter fluid guy. The propane grill was like driving a car after only riding a bicycle.  For three years I never changed the tank on the grill and we used it a lot. After a year and a half I bought a gage that would tell me how much gas was left in the tank.  It never seemed to get much lower than half empty and I never ran out of gas.  It was only after the carpenter had moved on that I realized he had been filling up my tank every few weeks. He lived in a camper and used propane for his little kitchen. When he got more propane for his camper he would fill my tank as well.  Mystery solved but lesson not learned.
But the party was not slowed by my lack of propane proficiency. I have been blessed in many ways but one of my greatest blessings is friends. Sandi and I have a wonderful array of friends who are interesting, talented, funny and obviously great to be around. I know not to take this blessing for granted, it is a gift and I am grateful. So to my friends who are reading this right now... Thanks for being in my life.
As you were,
Jay 


3 comments:

Pete Biro said...

I keep a spare tank handy....

Anonymous said...

;))

Anonymous said...

Plenty of gas my friend, plenty of gas...love you, F&M