I learned by way of our own Phil Wade that Bethany House has made J. Mark Bertrand’s novel Back on Murder (which we both reviewed very favorably, here and here) free in Kindle form for a limited time. We’re Bertrand boosters around here, and this book has the coveted Brandywine Books imprimatur.
Another vacation day for me. Today I took on a project I’d been dreading on general principles, replacing one of the leather handles on my Viking chest. You can see this chest in the right background in this old photo, from a Boy Scout event back in 2010:

When I built the chest, I made the decision to use leather handles, for two reasons. One, it’s cheaper than getting period iron ones, and I cheated on all the hardware on that project. But also I’ve seen an old immigrant trunk from one of our ancestors that came over from Norway with leather handles, and I always thought that was kind of cool. Easy on the hands. (Except not really. The flexible handles tend to squeeze your fingers when the chest is heavy, which this one is).
The very handle you behold in that photograph broke on me a little while back, and I dreaded the process of replacing it. But I took it on today, replacing it with a sturdy piece of belt blank I acquired a while back for tooling and never got around to using. It came out well.
Also I mowed the lawn, which was as exciting as you imagine.
But the big deal was that I got my official score for the Miller Analogies Test in the mail. After having to take it twice and beating myself up at getting a score of 475 out of a possible 600, I learn now that 475 puts me in the 99th percentile, which even I can’t find a way to disparage. Why anyone would design a test with a 200 to 600 scoring range, where the top 100 points are almost never used, I can’t imagine. No doubt they have their reasons, just as I insist on putting leather handles on chests.