It started off so well. I was leaving just a bit early so I could get some gas and other necessities. Oops, a mile from home I noticed that I forgot my boots. Important item for the play, so I had to turn around.

Back out for the second time, still early, but without as much leeway, I heard a funny noise from my truck when I turned a corner. Thinking I had something stuck, I got out and noticed that my tire was flat. ARRGH.

No problem, I have AAA…. I called my daughter to say I would not be able to pick her up and got out my AAA card to call for service. Dang it expired in November. Why don’t I remember the bill. I must have missed it.

Not to worry I can change a tire. Oops no flashlight, I couldn’t find the jack!!! I couldn’t see to change the tire. The countdown to the play was running fast. Call my daughter to pick me up!! Slowly move the truck to a safe location. And hope nobody tows the truck away before I could get the tire changed.

Show turned out well tonight. My oldest and youngest daughters were in attendance. As much as I love having friends in the audience, it is special when I get to entertain my family. Unfortunately, I was not able to spend as much time with them as I would have liked. I still had a tire to change.

Found a light, a jack and the lug wrench. A few chilly minutes later the temporary spare was in place. I was ready to go home for a cup of warm tea.

Tomorrow is another day, and I will have to see if I can find someplace to get some tires before the 2:30 show. So now I know what Santa is getting me for Christmas. I don’t recall asking for that.

There are times when I tend to have brilliant ideas during my sleep state. I then wake up only to find that I can’t find paper and pencil fast enough to get the idea down in a concrete form. So now I have a computer ready for me at a moments notice in my room. Sometimes this works, and other times not so much. I’ve made notes, sent myself emails to my work address, just to keep these ideas alive.

Now I will admit that I have a writer stuck somewhere deep in me. I keep thinking of plots and stories for murder mysteries. Not to contain myself in just 1 genre, I’ve had ideas for the old west, 30’s, current, and some in the future. Some of my ideas for stories even contain aliens and flying saucers. My problem with all of these stories, is that the background about the time period, the crime, the actual solution (if there is one) are very strong and in depth. The characters never pan out. Let’s face it they are just plain boring. After reading 1 chapter of a story, my late wife told me she didn’t care who died or even if they all did. She was right about that. I’ve written over 20 chapter 1’s. In each case, when I visit these stories again after a time, I find the characters weak and uninteresting.

I may be a bit hard on myself, but when I read books, I usually hooked by the end of chapter 1. If I don’t find enough there to catch my interest, the book is usually put aside. There are few authors, that I know through previous works that I will go past chapter 1 if my interest isn’t peaked.

What does this have to do with late night ideas? Well most of my previous ideas were for stories, problem solving at work, or how to finish some project I am working on. So now I have this idea, it doesn’t involve a story or a problem at work or home. It could be beneficial to me. A bit early to be certain, but that is how it is. No characters to develop, no computer problems to solve at work, just a plain simple idea. Hmmm, now to make sure I remember where I put it…. My documents/mylatenightidea…..

In an extensive lookup, I was finding a lot of information on electric ranges.  It seems like my range has a common failure type.  I can’t believe that the number of stoves that fail by turning on as high as they can go.  I’m going to have to do an all out search for an old style stove without any electronic stuff.   I’m going to try to find all manual controls.  This may mean not having a smooth top cook surface, which I really like.  Maybe I could find one with a safety feature that actually turns the oven off if the temp gets too high.  This is really a pain.  For now, I have to unplug the elements in the oven, so I can use the cook top.  I could probably get by with this for quite some time, but eventually I’ll need to cook a pie, cookies, or even a pizza.