How Not to Kill Yourself with Electricity

 I see (after having my nose rubbed in it) that I have been remiss in mentioning my longest-time (but not oldest) friend, without whom this cabin, and likely myself too, would long since have ceased to exist. His name is Charlie ______ (redacted, to protect the guilty), and he is an expert in anything having to do with electricity, from laptops to ICBMs (really!). He’s also an expert auto mechanic, welder, machinist, systems engineer, and gunsmith– my kind of people. I’ve known him since kindergarten, where we were smart-ass little nerds together. He eventually got big, but neither of us really ever grew up. Don’t get me wrong; Charlie definitely has his faults. He’s terrible at tolerating bad cooking, bad service, bad advice, incompetence, ingratitude, and general stupidity. He also doesn’t do too well at obeying speed limits, but is VERY good at avoiding accidents and tickets.

After Aaron, our certified, but drunken electrician, left us with a house just waiting to kill us, Charlie insisted on driving out from California to spend weeks setting things to right (at his own expense, including over $1000 worth of supplies and tools). While he was at it, he also taught me a basic course on How to Not Kill Yourself with Electricity 101, which I badly needed. After our auto wreck two years ago this month, he supplied a brand new laptop so I could communicate, and has continued to act like the wonderful friend that he is. I can’t even begin to list all the great things he’s done or me, but I owe you, Charlie!

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