For future reference: If I need any sort of fastener (screw, bolt, washer, pin, nut, whatever), it doesn’t matter that OSH is closer, and The Home Depot is bigger. They won’t have it. Go to Palo Alto Hardware. It’s my favorite hardware store; no matter what obscure screw or pin I’m looking for, they’ve always have it, and in sufficient quantity.

Friday morning, a van drove into the lobby of my building. Besides an armed driver, the van was loaded with toxic chemicals, and a package (addressed to Steve Jobs) containing a bomb. As the building was evacuated, I was asked to help, and I spent half an hour applying pressure to the wounds on the receptionist’s head and what was left of her arm, until the ambulance arrived.

Well, not really. But we did have a “mock emergency drill and building evacuation,” during which all of the above was simulated.