Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 5:30 a.m. in "The City."

The current temperature is 33° under cloudy skies. Today's high is forecast to reach 36°, also under cloudy skies, with a 50% possibility of snow-showers in the forecast for this evening. The sun will rise today @ 8:13 a.m. and set later @ 5:34 p.m.

A River Flood Warning remains in effect until 1:00 p.m. Monday, January 20, 2020.

A Gale Watch will be in effect from 7:00 p.m. this evening until 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Northwest winds of 20 to 30 knots with gusts up to 35 knots and waves 5 to 8 feet are expected from Holland to Pentwater.

Although the Small Craft Advisory  has been canceled, mariners should consider altering plans to avoid possible hazardous conditions due to that Gale Watch. They should remain in port, seek safe harbor, alter course, and/or secure their vessels to prepare for severe wind and waves.

I spent some time in the kitchen yesterday making vegan bratwursts from that old family recipe that I downloaded from the internet several months ago. The making of the wursts was facilitated by the ready availability of some leftover cannellini beans that had been part of our luncheon salad yesterday.

Since we had dropped Ginger off for her grooming appointment, it was also time to wash the bedspread too. We recently purchased some Woolzies™ dryer balls for use when drying anything. Our local electric utility, the Grand Haven Board of Light and Power (GHBLP), sends out a monthly news letter via the internet that had recommended the use of dryer balls as an energy-saving strategy. They were right, as the drying process has been sped up and the clothes and things come out softer. To use that old axiom, it turned out to be a Win-Win.

We had also taken STWD to the groomers for a quick pawdicure and then she returned home with me. Once the bedspread was done drying, I wrestled two out of three falls with it and won the battle of putting it back in place on the bed. I'd say that both Mary and I shared equally, because while I slaved over a hot steamer waiting for the bratwursts to be done and I was wrestling with that aforementioned bedspread, Mary braved the wilds of that local big-box nearly everything store and purchased some groceries. In this case, it appears that Tuesday afternoon before the kids are out of school apparently made the trip a neutral experience, not good and not bad. Like me, Mary would avoid any store if she could.

Later, we traveled to the big-box electronics store in Norton Shores to purchase a new WiFi router. That stop took all of five minutes and the associate at the store was very helpful, knowledgeable, and easy to work with. The current router we are using does not work well in our two-story house. Later today, while Mary is at her weekly "Tad" session at the library, I get to install the new one and program the numerous devices in our house that use the WiFi. At last count, that was three radios, two TVs, two computers, one tablet, and one Smart Phone. Oh, I am hoping that the WiFi printer also doesn't need to be reprogrammed and that it will just "tune-in" to the new router. If not, I'll have to carry the printer into my office and hook it directly into the router to let it "learn" the new system.

We also made a stop in Spring Lake @ Ace Hardware™ and that stop also went very smoothly, another pair of Win-Wins.

I'd be remiss if I didn't profess a certain amount of sadness at the firing of field-manager Alex Cora of my beloved Red Sox, the latest firing in the fallout from the cheating scandal that involved the 2017 MLB™ World Series™ champion Houston Astros. Cora had been the bench-coach for the Astros and was apparently heavily involved in the sign-stealing that may or may not have helped the Astros win that series.

Current NY Mets field-manager, Carlos Beltran, was a player for the Astros during that series, but no players were disciplined. Some pundits believe that Beltran should come clean about his involvement, as some of the Astros players banged on garbage cans to relay to the batters what the signs from the Red Sox catcher to the Red Sox pitcher were, which may have helped the Astros' batters. The Astros apparently used their center-field camera to steal those signs.

The Astros had fired their GM, Jeff Luhnow, and their field-manager A.J. Hinch, who had already been suspended by Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, for the entire 2020 MLB™ season. The Astros took it one step farther and fired both men.

This scandal may not be as bad as the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, when nine players from the Chicago White Sox were banned from baseball for life by then Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis for conspiring to throw the 1919 World Series™. That scandal was chronicled in the 1963 book, Eight Men Out, by Eliot Asinof, which was later made into a movie by the same title.

So my day today will be busy to say the least. I have nothing but time, but it still will be a pain in the posterior to set up a new WiFi system. Ciao.