Robert C. Murray's Blog, page 12

Good night, sweet coffee maker

All things must come to pass, as my #coffee maker just gave me one last pot before catching fire. #RIP my friend.— Rob Murray (@lefthandrob) June 7, 2015

Got up, made my coffee, went about my business, walked back into the kitchen and noticed there was a burning plastic smell in the room. I thought something had got stuck on the coffee pot burner as I opened the freezer to get ice for that first burning-hot cup (oh the irony), but nope. It was the wiring underneath the tank, which I discovered upon opening the lid, seeing the lovely flame and hearing the crackling spark of the destroyed wiring. I unplugged the machine, pulled out the baking soda (Thank God I bought some!) and doused the flame with little fanfare. I hadn't had any coffee yet, so I was more or less sleep-walking through the process.
The now-defunct life-bringer sits on my back porch in case it decides to spontaneously re-combust, as I need to re-do the porch anyway. Funny thing is, I own 2 fire extinguishers, but I still reached for the baking soda because electrical fire.
There's a poem in this, I'm sure. An heroic epic about my triumph in the face of certain doom and the keening wail of my neurons as we are now left with but a dwindling pot of coffee and only a French Press left in the house to make do with until I purchase another coffee maker.
To everything there is a season, turn, turn, turn.

My Krups coffee maker (one side espresso, other side drip) was a gift in the Summer of 2007, and along the way I bought one of those grocery store copper discs to even out the heat from the burner and a replacement pressure-lid for the espresso tank. I cleaned it off and out periodically and used it in one of it's facets nearly every day for these past 8 years. It was my friend and constant trusted companion for all those days, even though I would often curse the carafe itself for its propensity to dribble or outright spill its contents all around if one did not hold it canted just so when pouring either cold water or steaming hot coffee. The fact that I could steam milk in my own home and make wonderful espresso drinks for my friends lodged it firmly in my heart even though the steam-nozzle was mounted just low enough to make fitting the milk to be steamed under it a chore in anything larger than your standard coffee mug. My dear friend the coffee maker was never more than a consumer device, but it was more than that to me. It was a provider of wakefulness, sanity, inspiration, and solace. Soon enough (this afternoon, I'm thinking) it will be succeeded by another coffee maker, but it can never be replaced. Rest in peace, dear friend. You served me, my friends, and my family well in this past almost-decade. It is now your turn for a coffee break.

UPDATE 08-June-2015:

The new coffee maker was acquired last night, and I was able to successfully program it so that I woke up to fresh coffee this morning:

Hello new friend. #coffee #coffeemaker #cuisinartA photo posted by Rob Murray (@lefthandrob) on Jun 7, 2015 at 3:12pm PDT

Books for Sale

A New Beginning

I am pleased to announce that I am now offering my services as a freelance graphic designer and writer. For inquiries please email me at rob@rcmstudios.net, and stay tuned for the new and improved version of RCMStudios.net!
Books for Sale

#CatMeetsBook

I recently posted a series of images to Instagram with the hashtag #CatMeetsBook as a way of spreading the word about You Got This (In Heels vol II). I have put them together in Storify, and all together they tell quite the adorable tale:

https://storify.com/lefthandrob/cat-m...
Books for Sale

Blue.

PoemsAvailable on Amazon.com December 13, 2014!

If you enjoyed “Stand Right, Walk Left,” then you will love “Blue,” Robert C. Murray’s second collection of poems. Poetry is where we turn when the world fails to make sense. Poetry is the song we all sing when the world does make sense. Poetry is there for you, as is this humble volume of some of those very poems gathered for all your moments whether you are happy, sad, or just feeling Blue.






From the Introduction:

To help orient you in your progr...

You Got This

In Heels, volume IIAvailable on Amazon on December 13, 2014!
From the back cover:

One is never enough, and so AK Moray returns yet again with another collection of stories featuring powerful and smart women who find victory in everything from the normal to the super-normal. “You Got This” revisits tales from the first volume and transports you to whole new realities. No matter where you find yourself, you can be sure that the heroine always comes out on top and she might even learn something in...

Unsealed, Signed, & Delivered

Almost 20 years ago my aunt gave me a copy of the script for the Star Trek: The Next Generation series finale "All Good Things…". Fast forward to today and my very awesome cousin returned from New York Comic Con with that same script signed by the likewise Levar Burton and Michael Dorn.The friend who stood in line said that Mr. Burton (Levar? We go back to my Reading Rainbow-watching  days in the 80's, after all #ButterflyInTheSky4Life) was impressed to see the script. It's always a thri...

In Relief

As those who track my movements via social media know, I have just completed a stint as the percussionist for the chamber orchestra for Silver Finch Arts Collective's 2014 Capitol Fringe production of the original opera "A Fire in Water." The co-composer, a good acquaintance (and now I think I can say friend, as we have bonded over a quintet of commutes to and from the theatre over such topics as men's footwear, Batman, where to get the best food and what the Hell is wrong w...