At the beginning of the summer I roasted some coffee beans and the results were terrible. They didn't get hot enough to come to the first crack and I was trying to roast this bean into the second crack.

I tried a second batch and changed the settings.

Still bad.

Maybe they're just ugly - maybe they'll taste fine.

Nope.

They were terrible.

Darnit. I guess I need a new machine. Not surprising. I've had my roaster for fifteen years and they shouldn't last that long.

I researched machines and narrowed it down to two. Maybe three. No, I'm not going to spend that much. OK it's between these two. Then again, I drink coffee everyday so maybe ...

Anyway, I finally chose the machine I wanted and my green bean supplier was out of stock. So I reread the maintenance instructions for my current roaster. I spent three days scrubbing all of the parts. Not three solid days. I'd spend ten minutes or so every time I walked by the sink.

Three days later the machine was shiny and beautiful again.

I roasted a test batch and it came out perfectly.

Yeah, I know. There's a metaphor there.

Last week Maggie told me that the vacuum cleaner is broken and we should probably get it fixed.

She said, "It's probably just a hose or something."

She was close

The bag was full.

Just to check that that was all it was, I pulled a bunch of stuff out of the bag so it was half full and tested it out.

It worked great.

I changed out the bag and cleaned off the two filters.

It worked even better.

Wow, Daniel, this wasn't a very good post.

I know.

I'm working on it.

I'm trying to find that thing that will clean out my mind and getting it running like new the way I did with my roaster and vacuum.

I'm hoping that writing my way out of it will do the trick.

There was nothing wrong with the roaster or vacuum. I trust there's nothing really wrong with me.