Coffee, deck screws and Google

How hot was it?

It was so hot ...

Boy, I miss Johnny Carson.

But let me tell you how hot it was.

Grabbing my black-painted stainless steel travel coffee mug and a camera, I drove across town to shoot a photo.

When I got back to the office, the coffee was hotter than when I left.

Anybody who wonders why I would be drinking coffee when it's 107 degrees out isn't a true coffee drinker.

I was remiss in my last column about things I can't get along without. I should have mentioned deck screws.

While I spent one summer learning to put a framing ax to good use, building houses, I never use a hammer these days. Deck screws, usually the brass plated ones, are now an essential part of any carpentry job I take on.

Unlike projects built with nails, lumber can be unscrewed and reinstalled after it's screwed up.

Of course, the Internet is high on the list of things we wondered how we got along without; al-though we sometimes long for the old days.

One of my new, favorite uses for the Internet actually doesn't use a computer at all.

A few years back, a friend of mine said he used Google for all of his Internet searches, and how spare and efficient it was.

At the time, I was probably using Alta Vista, but now everybody's caught on to Google.

In fact, I recently discovered Google's SMS -- Short Message Service -- feature.

When my wife went mountain climbing this weekend, I just text mailed "weather Estes Park CO" to Google at 46645, it shot back a brief forecast, and I forwarded it to her cell phone.

Of course, standing on top of Long Peak, she already knew exactly what the weather was like in Estes Park, so the exercise was more for my benefit than hers.

I also enjoyed pulling up the mountain on a Web cam, so when she told me they were rained on on the way back down the trail, I already knew that as well.

Yes it is true that the Red Willow County Sheriff's Office was broken into over the weekend.

It's not true, however, that their toilet was stolen and investigators have nothing to go on.