Way up high

Some years back I was enthralled by Henry S.F. Cooper's book A House in Space, published in 1976, about life for three successive crews aboard the early-1970s U.S. space station Skylab. Only later did I realize the book first appeared as two installments in Cooper's long, wonderful series of articles about space in The New Yorker, and only later still -- last week, actually -- did I look up the articles in the Complete New Yorker DVD set and revisit this marvelous work of science journalism, the finest piece of writing on space exploration I've read.

I'm fascinated by those cranky astronauts, their impatience with the color of the clothes NASA designed for them, their delight at floating about in the roomy interior of the station, and especially their awe at the planet earth as they gazed at it through the observation window.

Beep beep

Ereck and I differ on how best to enter the parking lot at Metcalfe's Sentry. Now that we've lived in the neighborhood a while, and visited the supermarket many times, I've concluded that it's almost always best to enter from the rear entrance at Segoe. Less congestion. But Ereck is loyal to the Midvale entrance. We may never agree. And that's okay.

Spotted in the prepared foods last night at Metcalfe's Sentry: Cranberry fluff.

Scarce resource

A couple of weeks ago, the hot water ran out.

From our taps came only warm water, and not enough of it. The water heater was on the fritz. It wasn't an utter crisis, because we did have warm water enough to bathe and shave and so forth. But we had to manage our water, and I kept thinking of that "Seinfeld" episode in which everyone is unhappy because the landlord installed low-flow showerheads. Vigorous hot showers are one of civilization's triumphs. For a sad two weeks, we might as well have been washing in a creek.

But as of yesterday, thanks to a landlordly intervention, we have a new water heater, complete with oceans of scalding water. Now excuse me while I take a four-hour shower.

This thing on

At last night's Band to Band Combat, the music contest put on by my employer Isthmus newspaper, singer Matt Allen of the Madison band the Selfish Gene tested his microphone levels with an old standby: "Check. Check. Check. Check." He may have thrown in a "one two," but I can't be sure.

In my singing career I've tested many a microphone level, and I suspect I'm not the only crooner who's gotten a little tired of check check check. I've experimented with different approaches. There was a period of about a year and a half in the early 2000s when to test levels I would sing entire verses of "Crazy Arms."

But do you know what? Eventually I came back to check check. It's simple, to the point, effective, and the alternatives I've tried are mostly distracting. Testing microphone levels is one area of artistry where originality doesn't do anybody much good.

Sign of the times

At a downtown Madison office building just now, I watched as a woman held a cup of coffee with one hand, texted on a cell phone with the other, and used both elbows to push her way through a revolving door.

Her progress was slow.

The haunted desert

The magic of cakes