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21 And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.
22 And God's anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.
23 And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.
24 But the angel of the LORD stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side.
25 And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall: and he smote her again.
26 And the angel of the LORD went further, and stood in a narrow place, where was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.
27 And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.
28 And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?
29 And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.
30 And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? and he said, Nay.
31 Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.

THE HOT WATER HEATER

For many years I have grown used to sleeping inside and eating regular. After a recent experience, I have to add hot water to that list.

See, my hot water heater went out about 2 weeks ago. It was a great hot water heater. It had a 15-year warranty, so 15 years, 1 month, and 4 days, it finally rusted through.

The bishop across the street promised that he can get me a good price on a new one. I wait, and wait, and wait for him to come up with the good price.

After being in Viet Nam many years ago, I promised that I would never take a cold shower again. I told my wife at that time that there were four things I wanted when I came home. Today, (and considering the audience) I will not discuss one of them, but the other three were, a hot bath, a cigar, and a Playboy magazine, all at the same time. You can see how passionate I was about the cold showers.

Anyway, I tried to take a bath by heating up water on the stove and carrying it to the tub. That didn’t work very well, because by the time I got to the fourth pan of water, the others had cooled. off. So now, I decide to just wash in the kitchen instead of the tub. So I warm water on my stove, and wash really well in the kitchen.

My poor dog doesn’t understand why I’m standing naked, in the kitchen, and washing too. She has never understood the whole principal of taking showers, anyway. I can see it in her eyes. I take off my clothes (she wonders how I can take off my outer covering, and she can not take off her fur) and climb into the shower, purposefully getting wet. It is a concept that is completely foreign to her. Almost daily, I remind her that if she had opposable thumbs like humans do, she could do a lot of things.

The Bishop had forgotten he was going to check on the price, so I reminded him.

The Bishop picked it up for me, put it into the back of his truck, and delivered it. This thing must weigh 125 pounds. We lift it out of the truck and put it in the front yard until I can get the old one out.

We disconnect the pipes from the old one, and with much grunting and heaving, get it to the top of the stairs and eventually, outside. After I got it outside, I decided to empty it of all the water. The Bishop, at that point, reminded me that it would have been 350 pounds lighter if I had drained it before we carried it up the stairs.

I won’t go into installing the heater, because it was pretty much straight forward. A couple of pipes were cut, fittings were used, and it popped right in.

Got the heater in and fired up. It is making hot water, I can see that. Flames under the heater; big, warm flames. Now I’m anxious to take a shower. I go upstairs, take off all my clothes, sit at the computer buck naked, decide to check my e-mail, then get to the shower. I had forgotten something.

Water in my hometown comes direct from the mountains. It is cold, just a few degrees above freezing. At times I think ice cubes come out of the tap, it is that cold. I had no concept how long it takes 50 gallons of really cold water to warm up to something that might pass for a showering temperature.

Here I am, sitting naked at the computer, checking my e-mail, and checking the water coming out of the tap every 5 minutes, for two and one half-hours, waiting.

I decided to go down stairs and check that the water heater is working. It is going great guns. Spot my old racing helmet and decided to take it up stairs, but my hands were full, so I put the helmet on my head. I’m going up the stairs as the Bishop comes into the house, wanting to check my progress. He takes one look at me, naked, wearing a racing helmet, and says “having an exciting weekend, Bob?”

Now I have hot water, I have caught up on my showers, and don’t have to go through this again for another 15 years, 1 month and 4 days. That is August 7, 2021, I have marked my calendar.

Morning sully!

40 reasons to get drunk tonight!

1. If you don’t drink that booze, by God, someone else will.

2. The brewing industry alone employs 1.7 million people and that’s a lot of mouths to feed.

3. Bad ass nicknames like “Chuggybear,” “The Alabama Hamma,” “Pukey McPukerson” are not awarded to people who stay home to do laundry.

4. Your favorite bar stool needs just one more sitting to break it in.

5. This is the one and only night your soul mate will wander into the bar. Seriously.

6. Word on the street is the booze has been trash talking you all day.

7. Without your brilliant wit and charm all those poor bartenders will be so dreadfully bored.

8. Dude, after what you did last time, you gotta go back out there and explain yourself.

9. It’s far better to have a good time you won’t remember than a dull one you will.

10. Remember that English high school teacher you and your pals used to call “Mr. McTightass?” You are so starting to remind me of him.

11. You can bet something really important and worthy of celebration happened on this day at sometime or another.

12. How the hell can you walk around sober when you’re an insignificant speck in an infinite and uncaring universe?

13. Churchill and FDR got drunk, Hitler didn’t. So what are you, some kind of Nazi?

14. If you don’t you’ll wake up in the morning all bright eyed and bushy tailed, and who the hell wants to go through life acting like a damn squirrel?

15. Your friends can’t have a good time without you.

16. Your friends might have a good time without you.

17. The Man says you shouldn’t and you don’t want to upset the Man, eh slavebot?

18. There is a 1000 percent better chance you will land a starring role in the upcoming Paris Hilton video Vegas Orgy.

19. Your lawn is so much more comfortable when you’re loaded.

20. You’re much less likely to remember doing all that embarrassing stuff.

21. That feisty barmaid might finally, you know, pick up on what you’re laying down.

22. Listen, are we down on this goddamn rock to have a good time or watch other people have a good time on TV?

23. Your girlfriend has rented a bunch of chick flicks you can snuggle to.

24. You’re under a lot of stress and if you don’t get crazy drunk you might do something crazy sober.

25. You gotta figure the odds of getting thrown in the drunk tank twice in one month are practically negligible.

26. If you don’t hunt the booze, the booze will surely hunt you.

27. When you write your memoirs you won’t have to go through the hassle of making up a bunch of decadent adventures.

28. Al-Qaeda forbids drinking and since when did you start taking orders from Al-Qaeda?

29. Let’s face it: modern life is a shit storm and booze is the only umbrella without any holes in it.

30. 7-11 nachos with extra cheese substitute and chili only taste good when you can’t remember eating them.

31. You did your damn monkey dance for the Man and now you get your monkey treat.

32. God hates the sight of you.

33. God won’t stop staring at you.

34. Your boss gets all weirded out when you get drunk during the day.

35. Three Stooges episodes you’ve watched a hundred times are suddenly hilarious again.

36. The day will come when you will have to single-handedly face death, and there isn’t a person alive who can tell you what will happen next.

37. Hemingway shot himself after being sober for two months.

38. When your coworkers ask “What did you get up to last night?” you can smile all cool like and say “Maaaaaan, you don’t wanna know,” instead of chirping “I alphabetized my DVD collection and found out I have two copies of The Truth About Cats and Dogs! Two!”

39. Remember your childhood dream of meeting a brewery heiress and jet-setting around the world on her dime? You think that’s going to happen while sitting in your damn apartment watching Captain Picard surrender the Enterprise for the tenth straight episode?

40. It’s so much easier to ring up those old flames and explain exactly where they went wrong. —Frank Kelly Rich

THINGS YOU probably don't KNOW BUT PROBABLY have no need to know, but might find interesting.

1. Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.

2. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.

3. The dot over the letter I is called a "tittle".

4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
(75% OF YOU WILL TEST THIS ONE)

5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.

6. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.

7. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.

8. The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was albino.

9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily.

10. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister

11. Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system--a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.

12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

13. Most lipstick contains fish scales (eeww).

14. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.

15. Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as medicine. (Some of us doctor-up eggs with Catsup even today)

16. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.

17. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time ... hence, multi-tasking was invented.

18. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

19. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

20. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!

21. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!

22. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.

23. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

24. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk mask painted white.

25. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar (good to know.)

26. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand ( and you thought this list was completely useless.)

27. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

28. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

29. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples!

30. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!

31. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

32. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries.

33. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it.