It was 50o outside when I went to bed last night.  This morning, the fire is gone, the box is cold and there are only two sticks of wood in the rack.  Going out to get wood was miserable.  25o + 25 mph is much worse than 50o .  So, units matter.

When the house is toasty, it’s invigorating to go out in frigid weather for fire wood.  It’s like a sauna and cold plunge for poor people.  When the house and firebox are cold, it takes a good hour to get warmed up.

It’s worth it.  As Sparky waits to warm up, he looks thoughtful, noble and wise, like Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption1.  In this photo, Sparky’s screwy eyeball makes him look more like Forest Whitaker.2  Morgan Freeman and Forest Whitaker were only in one movie together.  The movie is called, Johnny Handsome.

Sparky thinks if I’m batting around new nicknames, ‘Johnny Handsome’ sounds good.  He doesn’t mind being called a ‘sausage beagle’, but it makes him think of sausage and bagels, and how come I never, ever feed him?

1 Morgan Freeman is so good, The Shawshank Redemption isn’t even one of the movies that IMDB lists as a movie he is known for.

2 Google’s AI search engine is so good, it came up with Forest Whitaker’s name based on my intentionally vague question. The prompt was, “what’s the name of that black guy with the lazy eye?”