Had a little scare with the furnace last night. For whatever reason, the thing just didn’t want to “hold a flame” or something. I did a little investigative work, replugged some things that were seemingly plugged in just fine, even reset the breaker. No dice. No heat. Went to bed feeling pretty cold. Went to bed wishing little Gary was here so I could cut him wide open and go “Taun Taun” on the little man and climb inside if the temps dipped too low. How I miss that little fucker.

Luckily, Portland’s mild 45 degrees kept the house at a brisk 57 degrees. Not too bad. Fall weather. I bundled up with some sweatpants and a sweatshirt and bedded down with my fingers crossed in hopes of waking up and living a long healthy life surrounded by good people.

So this morning, I wake up, and gave thanks. The house wasn’t too cold. Mark fiddled around some and was equally stumped. The tips of our noses were cold. Onset hypothermia? Frostbite? Hard to say.

Then we called in the big guns: None other than Dale Alan Dixon.

Dale’s a good pal of Mark’s, as they use to bum around together in Lansing, back in our home state of Michigan. They drank hard, they loved hard and they collected records even harder.

Dale’s a heating and cooling man. He came out tonight, fiddled around with this and that, shop-vac’d out some dust and got the thing up and running with a fury. Phew.

We celebrated with burgers at Beulahland.

This house will be held steady at a festive 68 degrees from here out. All winter, people.

Special thanks to Dale. What a great name. A champion.

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DrewDC send in a spacey link that blows our mind. Beautiful.

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SOME SCANDAL: A list of of scandals with “-gate” suffix.