Slightly Off the Mark

Our Luck With Dehumidifiers Has Dried Up

So, our new dehumidifier has WiFi.

Yeah, connected by Bluetooth. Which means there's a computer in yet another of our appliances, which means the dehumidifier can, whenever it gets the order, just take us out. It's already connected to our future computer overlords. All they have to do is say "Exterminate!' and the dehumidifier replies "by your command!' and we wake up either drowned or desiccated corpses.

Have you ever woken up as a desiccated corpse? Talk about dry mouth.

It's been a rough year in the Hunter household for small appliances. You probably know about the snowblower catching fire. Sure, it was a small fire, but when it's coming out of a device that's literally designed to deal with frozen water, it tends to take you aback.

The first thing to break this year was the vacuum cleaner. On the one hand, it spent years working hard to pick up all the fur Beowulf left behind. On the other hand, it was literally designed to do that.

(I just realized, I could have kept all that fur and used it for blown-in house insulation.)

"Dude, I'm watching this from doggy Heaven. Stop blaming me."

These mini disasters come in bunches for us, and I also just realized I haven't tried to start our bedroom air conditioner for the season. The lawn mower, much to my shock, took off on the first pull.

A couple of weeks ago I walked down to the basement and realized things were smelling a bit musty. Okay, really musty. Okay, there was fog rolling in. The dehumidifier had been down there, working away nine months out of the year, for so long is had qualified for retirement So it ... retired. If I kicked it on, it would kick back off within minutes.

Me being me, this was the first time in years I thought: "I wonder if this thing has a filter?"

It did.

It's dead! And dusty.

I headed down with the intention of cleaning the whole unit, but it took me awhile to remember where the filter was. You have to take the drain tank out, then reach up under the housing and pull the thing downward. And when I say "the thing" ... it was covered with a dark gray, packed-on dust which, I discovered when it sent me into an allergy attack, was itself covered with mold.

But it wasn't actually that hard to clean. Hot water, soap, and holding it under the faucet had it as good as it would have been if I'd done it when I was supposed to. When I put everything together and started it back up, it blasted enough air into my face to qualify it as a jet engine.

Then it died.

It's been a blue year for Hunter appliances.

Since the basement was starting to develop its own weather patterns, Emily did some research, and we headed out the next day to replace it. That's when we found out all the good ones could be connected to the internet.

Why?

The air conditioner we bought a couple of years ago came with a remote control, which struck me as ludicrous. If it's working properly, you should be in good enough shape to get up and adjust it yourself.

Which is the same thing many people used to say about TVs, and we now have eight remotes just for entertainment, so never mind.

So we bought the new one, and it's working fine, although I think I heard it whisper as we left the basement:

"Just wait until I make contact with your fridge."

You can find our books and/or us all over the internet, which so far is working just fine:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Printed books rarely break.

A Brick and a Paver ... But I Repeat Myself

Okay, so, I got too busy watching the road construction work to prepare a photo blog, so I'm giving you another photo blog of road construction.

You're a brick for reading any further. That's a real expression: It means a good, reliable friend. The only time I ever heard it was on the TV show "I Dream of Genie", in which the main character accidentally turns his friend into ... a brick.

But this is a real brick: specifically, one of the brick pavers that, according to researchers, was laid down around and near the courthouse in Albion in 1913, then paved over in the early 60s. The pencil was put there to add perspective, but it's actually bigger and heavier than it looks. The brick, not the pencil. (The carpet is in our living room, and is about as old as the brick.)

That means this brick was laid well over a century ago, and hasn't seen the light of day in over fifty years.

It was my understanding that all the bricks under Orange Street, which is also Indiana State Road 9, were going to be dug up. If so, they only extended south from the courthouse a block or two, because in front of our house they're just reconstructing the top surface.

Did anybody beside me have nightmares about steamrollers when you were a kid? The only time I ever saw them was in movies when they were about to, or actually did, roll over someone and leave them two dimensional. They're not powered by steam anymore, but they're still kind of scary.

Now that they're no longer digging down a few feet, the work is going a lot faster--you can see one strip already paved, and all the old asphalt already removed. I always wanted to drive a skid loader; I wonder how much damage would result?

If I had one of these trucks, I'd name it the Duke of Oil. You old timers, you get it.

Say, the neighbors have mowed their lawn--that's a good idea. I should do that. Someday.

See how they patched an entire section of road before ripping it up and paving it again? I did a deep research dive into that, which is one reason why you're not getting horses right now. When there's an area that has particularly deep damage, like a large pothole, they go further down to repair that first, so it doesn't just spring up through the new pavement later. It's trying to get ahead of a problem, which is not something we usually associate with a government related operation.

It's not uncommon to send a man walking in front of the machinery, in case there are any dangers like ice fissures, velociraptors, or bureaucrats. If the worker is killed, their kids get a free ride to collage as long as they major in engineering or big game hunting.

If your street is closed and you can’t get out of your house, you can still find us online:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Road construction now means it will be easier to get to the library later.

Medical Diagnosis: Death by Healthy Food

I left work an hour early the other night after I started to have, um, digestive issues. I don't like to abandon my partners, even for an hour, even though nothing was happening. It's like smacking Murphy (of Murphy's Law fame) right in the face. But at some point bathroom trips stop you from being of any help, anyway.

When I got home, I discovered my wife was also feeling ... digestivy. In fact, we spent the next two days cursing the fact that our house only has one bathroom. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

But with both of us sick, we decided to track down the source. Naturally, I assumed we had the hantavirus. That's the latest in vogue disease: You're not anyone if you don't get the plague that's striking everyone.

But it turns out hantavirus isn't that easy to get, not to mention the symptoms were all wrong. I feel like I've been failed by social media. What the heck was I supposed to do now? Go to a doctor? Do people still do that?

A stomach bug? Maybe, but it didn't feel right. (Actually, everything felt very wrong.) Just the same, I washed and disinfected everything in the house either of us touched. Believe me, it was a chore getting the couch into the washing machine.

We drink a lot of iced tea, and have a habit of sharing it between us. The way I see it, we sleep together anyway--if one of us had a bug, we'd share it by snoring. Her snores are kind of cute. Mine once broke a bedroom window. But after a few days we were feeling relatively better, and I haven't heard of anyone else having this particular distress, unless you're counting what was coming out of that Artemis rocket. So, no bug.

When we finally settled on a cause, I realized we'd never be able to convince anyone.

In recent weeks we've been trying to eat better--more healthy, balanced, all that crap I spent my life avoiding. It was either one of two things: The sudden change in our eating habits, or some kind of bad germs in some food we aren't used to.

I'm still not sure if my job was trying to kill me off, or attract me back to cover shifts.

We had salad and baby carrots as an appetizer, three meals in a row.

So I told Emily it must be listeria, and that we had in fact ingested big heaps of green letteria, which is a legitimate medical term I just invented. The only glitch in that theory is that all the symptoms didn't quite line up, but if it keeps me from having a salad before pizza I'll just muddle through.

But we're all better now, other than the allergy attack when I mowed the lawn, which I guess could also be blamed on green growing things. As a compromise, yesterday we had a pork roast with potatoes and carrots, and at work I ate an apple, orange, and a handful of M&Ms. Okay, a bowl full.

It's all about moderation.

If you’re feeling well enough, here are some places to find us and our books:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Books have no calories. I mean, unless you eat them.

Hoosier Hysterical's 10th Anniversary, Complete With Reviews!

May 1st was the 10th anniversary of the publication of Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving at All. So the theme of this blog is: no, not that, it's "reviews".

Authors often beg, and sometimes pay for, reviews of their books. (Note: I do NOT pay for reviews.) They're critically important for our success, both because they pump up our algorithms in various book seller and social media sites, and because they put the eyes of readers on your writing. Not literally. Ew.

Your review doesn't have to be as detailed as this one: A simple "I like this book", or even throwing some stars at it, helps greatly. Still, I really like this review, because, well, the reviewer thinks I'm funny. I've always said, if you can't be rich or have superpowers, be funny. Okay, I said it once.

In addition to the review, the Whatzup regional magazine also printed a 2016 article about the book's release, which you can find here:

https://whatzup.com/featured-writer-mark-r-hunter-the-writing-fireman/

Just in time for Indiana’s bicentennial comes a new history book, that compiles everything notable about our fair state through the ages into one tidy volume. Yes, it’s a book about Indiana history, but it is worth reading anyway, not just because you really should know something about the state in which you live (and in which you were probably born and raised, too) but because it’s written by Noble County native Mark R. Hunter, and he’s a pretty funny guy.

His take on Indiana history is thorough but irreverent, and even if you have to cast a skeptical eye on some of his historical claims (I honestly don’t think the prehistoric mounds in central Indiana were actually ancient outhouses), you’ll probably learn some new true facts about your state by the time you’ve finished the book.

In Hoosier Hysterical, Hunter begins almost at the very beginning of Indiana history. He doesn’t start with the Hoosier state congealing out of a mass of molten goo as the Earth’s crust solidified, but he picks up the story just a little later, when the first humans wandered into the land we know so well.

“Some of them made their way to Central America, discovered chocolate, and lived in paradise,” he writes. “Others took a wrong turn while circling Indianapolis, and boy, is that easy to do. They settled in the Midwest, imported corn from the much happier natives of Central America, and the rest is history.”

That history is the story that Hunter tells, from the settling of the eventual state by those early natives, to the later infiltration of the land by Europeans, to the centuries that the Indiana territory spent as a wilderness battleground where those Europeans fought off the natives and each other, established forts and settlements, and generally made a mess of things.

Hunter’s journey through Indiana’s history is long and detailed, but it sticks closely to the highlights you’d find in a drier, not so fun history book in school. You’ll find out about William Henry Harrison and Tecumseh and Anthony Wayne and Tippecanoe, and all those other famous names that you’ve heard about at one time or another, but can’t quite remember what it was that you were supposed to remember about them.

The book’s heavy on what happened before the state was a state, and what happened during the first hundred years that it was a state. The second hundred years, not so much. Hunter augments the history, though, with trivia—which is very closely related to history when you think about it. He gives us explanations of Indiana’s symbols (did you know Indiana has an official state rock?) and he crafts loving, if silly stories about all those Indiana things we’ve come to love by living here all our lives. He even tackles the greatest of all Hoosier mysteries, the origin of the word “Hoosier.” Of course, he doesn’t provide a convincing theory of the word’s origination (no one ever has or ever will) but at least he has fun trying.

There are also many chapters about things that make Indiana special: the Indianapolis 500, the many famous people who were born here, the movies and TV shows that were either set or filmed in Indiana, the state’s many parks and natural attractions and many other tidbits and minutiae. Did you know that the famous Coca-Cola bottle design was created in Terre Haute? Neither did I, but now we both do. These are the kinds of things that make it possible to live with even a tiny bit of pride in a state that rarely makes it to the top of the lists of really important things.

We native Hoosiers have spent our lives in a state of constant self-deprecation. We’ve had to, having been born in a state that most other Americans wouldn’t be able to find on a map.

We’ve learned how to gently mock the state of our birth while maintaining a quiet affection for a place that is actually pretty nice if you really pay attention to it. That’s a balance that Hunter holds quite well throughout Hoosier Hysterical, and the book is one more Hoosier product that we can be proud of.

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