September 30, 2011

           E24 and I went on-line to find information about op-amps. Don’t go to the MIT site, you’ll need a university degree to figure out what they are talking about. This was a situation that stunned me when I first attended university. I quickly learned to withdraw from classes with professors that started talking jargon like you were supposed to know what they meant. Listen, buddy, if I knew what you meant, I wouldn’t have paid so much money to go to school to learn it. Example: MIT’s beginner’s course states they cover lumped circuit abstraction, time and frequency domains, second-order networks and dependent sources. Aren’t you glad you stayed awake while they were teaching all those words in grade 10 shop class?
           Here’s the scratch pad from the club meeting y’day, mostly concerned with the operation of an H-bridge. So, I’m going to build an analog model he can experiment with. Two double throw switches, a motor and a battery. It will cost $20.00 where an IC model runs around versus $1.37 online or $7.00 from Alfa. But the IC requires all manner of fuses and control because it is a transistor. I need to get him to separate the two matters in his head, then it will make sense.
           Fred’s buddy is selling a big boat, but then, so is half of Florida. I went over there to create the craigslist ad to find out they have emplaced yet another round of security features. And are still being attacked by the flagbots. Instead of addressing the problem, they are trying to crack down on everybody. You know, like the thick-heads in DC who have developed an electricity meter that spies on you. They are arresting people who hand out Christian literature near mosques. That is an interesting bit of gabble, the police say the clerics are claiming the bible is anti-Islamic. Neither the police nor the clerics have any theory how the bible manages that considering it was written 306 years before Islam was invented.
           The problem with craigslist is that they have designed the system to give the upper hand to those who want to destroy. Whenever I post an ad for a guitarist that states what I don’t want (egos, shredders, soloists or deadheads) the ad is flagged within minutes. Craigslist doesn’t realize that the people being flagged, although a minority, are smarter than your average bear. Sooner or later, the wrong person gets flagged. For instance, I pioneered most of the gang-flagging techniques that worked for almost five years. In 2009, Craigslist had to revamp their entire system because of me. I was in there re-directing the flags to the “best of” list for six months before they caught on.
           The correct procedure is to allow one flag for one post. I used to flag four times, and post a fake listing saying anybody who flagged once would get instant results. Since they would be the fifth post, it appeared to work like magic most of the time. I also created the original clone copy where the buttons were ordinary pictures rather than hotspots. Then I’d post saying I had taken over their computer and disabled their mouse commands. Ah, the mayhem I caused that company. All because they would not target the flaggers. Owning an Internet outlet gave the advantage back to me. I have since tossed the torch to others.
           Then over to Dave-O’s, who had been calling about his recorder not working. He was at it all day. It was a tricky thing; it took me almost 4.5 minutes to find the problem. He had somehow acquired a package of blank DVDs that had a thin layer of plastic wrap on the down side. Neither of us had seen that before. He’s back in business again. Why would anyone put a layer of plastic that was hard to see on a DVD? I’d normally have charged $80 for that callout.
           I’m taking the evening off, sitting down with a good book. If I can still find one. Perogies. I had a craving for perogies, so I bought a package of twelve. Since these days I always read the ingredients, I see the box says the dozen constitutes “four servings”. Little do they know about perogies. Remember long ago I told you my record in one meal? Ah, you forgot. It was 36.
           Later, I wound up reading until 2:00AM, but ask me anything about a 555 timer circuit now. Except what that CTRL pin is for. Nobody else seems to know, either.

September 29, 2011

           How’s this for a nice ad that greets you entering the mall food court? I wouldn’t take it to mean they are targeting the kitchen staff or anything nasty like that. Maybe it was paid for by fat people who dislike diet pills. At any rate, as you settle in for your two-item special, it nice to know that help is never far away. Way to go, Pines Mall!
           Gold remains sputtering along and same with the economies of southern Europe, reminding us that although the American Empire is in decline, others are worse off. If I was Germany, I’d haul ass out of that whole European thing while the going is good. They are footing the bill for societies and nations that haven’t been able to improve themselves in over two thousand years. At least in the good old days, you could invade and put a stop to such nonsense. At least until the Englanders stuck their noses in.
           This was a quiet month as I was compelled to keep things conservative due to items like the scooter repairs. October will make up for it, you wait and see. But quiet doesn’t mean nothing happens. Dave-O came by to remind me that I am not the worst guitar player in this town. Other than that, it will be tough to find something interesting about today.
           What’s this about a volcano about to send the tidal wave across the Atlantic? If hurricane panics are any indicator of the mentality of Florida’s rank and file the only way out will be via a hot air balloon. Or an armored robot? The hardest hit areas would likely be Key West and Miami Beach. Some say that isn’t such a bad idea.
           The afternoon robotics meeting was one of the longer and tougher sessions yet. We are up against problems that seemed insurmountable, but which are now teetering a little. Now that we have expert advice arriving from outside we are better able to direct our studies. Don’t overlook this factor for we chased down a hundred blind alleys for each one that led somewhere. Our new honorary members are more advanced than we are in their respective fields. What we have to offer is excellent organization and they recognize it as such.
           But Agt. M is having difficulty learning Integrated Circuits, so up to an hour of each meeting is needed to keep the momentum. He can visualize the full size components on the workbench but cannot visualize 50 or 100 of them in a chip. As he says about the club, he is the hands, I am the brain. We are placing a large (for us, $50) order for connectors and such early in October via West Palm which will allow me to construct an IC simulator out of the full size components, all for the purpose of learning.
           Singapore says that I need to study firmware, West Palm says that a basic understanding of the topic is enough. I’ve asked both to send me a sample of the coding so I can make a decision after seeing for myself. Incidentally, Q11 (that’s the new member from Singapore) was able to troubleshoot a circuit for us without ever seeing the physical object. And us, well, we are getting better at building robot simulators than we are at building any robots.
           May I say to all the people who are now experiencing the full might of police power in New York, it serves you right. I have been the advocate of personal freedoms and privacy rights all my life and know what it is like to be called paranoid over it. You complacent sheep led your lives like lemmings and never spoke up except to criticize those who did. So don’t act surprised when the city unleashed 35,000 anti-terrorist goons on your protest and installed 3,000 surveillance cameras to keep tabs on you.
           I heard you same people insinuate anybody who wanted privacy had something to hide. Now you can’t hold a peaceful protest because you gave up your right to that same privacy. As I said decades ago, even if there was such a thing as a person with nothing to hide, he would still be a fool to give up his right to do so. Now, the authorities are recording you to get positive ID and label you as terrorists. You know very well who gave them that kind of power. When you don’t think ahead, believe me, somebody will think ahead for you.
           Oh, and I watched your protest on-line. One thing hasn’t changed. Those who were boring, misinformed, copycat children grow up to be boring, misinformed, copycat adults. If I look hard enough, I just know I’ll find my brothers in that mob.

September 28, 2011

           Here’s some Italian truffle oil for your salad. It sells for $602.35 per gallon, meaning I’m holding $16 worth of it in my hot little hand. Add a little to your mac & cheese for that continental ambience. Like that sensation you get when your tab arrives. There was no evidence of anything in the bottle except olive oil, and I suppose the folks who would know are out writing memoires on a boat deck, and that’s another thing I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.
           Houseboating isn’t going to, well, float for me unless those 1974 prices come back. Wow, has American industry turned rafting from a Finn-esque adventure to a completely regulated pastime for the leisure class! Not many hobos can spend $91,000 on a 28-foot floating shack. Or $2,495 per month for a slip. Yet I’m still reading the book for its two amusing aspects.
           First, the pictures of real women back when they still existed. You know, white, real blonde, with no tattoos, no breast implants, no crimped hair, not too skinny, not too fat. The fashions and hair styles do seem quaint, but ah, what I call the last generation of virgins, so nice to look at. (Thanks to me, the world has 13 fewer of them; how many guys get even one? I know that’s macho and chauvinistic, but answer the question.)
           The second reason for reading is the author is yet another of those air-heads who, like the previous boat book I’ve read, very carefully tiptoes around the topic of how he could afford to leave his hated “9-to-5 self-imposed wage slavery” and go live on a boat. I’m amazed because the writer, John W. Malo, is either a genius or naïve. He can do contortions worthy of a Chinese acrobat to avoid telling us where he got so much cash. I dislike his brand of hypocrisy, advocating a luxury lifestyle as if he is clever and others have, despite his good example, foolishly opted to work for a living. It is like listening to married types tout the joys of matrimony—you just know they are lying about most of it.
           Remember the guy with the expensive motorhome, my new neighbor. The guy who dragged down all the cable TV wires and clipped off the corner of the office eave. The one who was going to pay me $25 per half-hour for guitar lessons. I thought he owned an ash-tray factory, that’s how bad my French is (“machiore bucales”, ash trays, right?). He was a dentist. He’s dead. They took him to the hospital in Canada and one hour later he was a goner. I wonder if he was waiting on line for his free medical.
           The boys are knocking over vacant properties in the area next to the casino. An exterior A/C unit disappeared, so did a lady’s washer from her Florida room. Nobody has seen nothing, but our area is covered by video cams. The problem is, some crooks don’t care about cameras because they are under 18. At any rate, don’t leave your property empty for too long or you’ll be missing your fridge and stove at the least.
           Gold is regularly dipping below $1600 for the first time in months. I gave the scooter shop a spare laptop transformer in exchange for a tuneup and a brake setup. It is kind of okay to hang out there in the heat of the day but sales are not that great anywhere. There is talk of a second recession, but only from people who think there has been a recovery from the first one. Think about it, if you’d bought gold at $300 you would have only made five times your money in ten years. Even bingo pays better than that, and you get out more often.
           I was at the bookstore for the hot afternoon, but I still fatigue easy every day except in the brain department. In case anyone has forgotten, I’m operating at an estimated 45% of my former energy levels. No more marathons for me indoors or out. Dave-O has been calling for two days to come and get his DVD recorder, but has not showed. This late summer hot spell is making everyone unreliable.

September 27, 2011

           What is it? Take a few guesses, I’ll tell you at the end of today’s entry. Have you ever seen a microwave fry itself? I did, and my whole place smells like burnt toast, including my clothes. I was reheating some chicken and wondered why the bell didn’t ring. I looked up and there was my chicken being fried black and electrical smoke coming out the back of the oven. The door was jammed shut, the buttons would not work, so I went to yank the cord and it was red hot. I kicked it out of the wall. The cavity was baked brown and my chicken was ashes and cinder. Possibly I’ll have pictures tomorrow.
           The scooter repair was another $52. It is still a lot cheaper than trying to keep a car on the road. I saw a 650cc one-piston motorcycle today that a guy got for $50. Ever heard the sound of a single piston that size? That’s what I want. It looks like it could cruise at 80 mph all day.
           Singapore took a look at my experiments since January and e-mailed saying I should become a firmware programmer. I wrote back asking them what was firmware, and how would it benefit me to learn it. The reply is that I would be able to design my own microcontrollers and use the one I have (Arduino) much more effectively. Didn’t I tell you we have an honorary member in Singapore? Who is impressed by our built-it-from-scratch approach to robotics.
           Agt. M showed me how to spot bad capacitors, the kind in the can. Sure enough, within five minutes I saw why my computer speakers were distorting at high volume. I can fix that. E24 is placing an order for electronics parts and I am going to kick in $50 for connectors and such. These lack of connectors is holding up my bench tester because I am hesitant to solder anything permanent or use screw connectors. I hate having to go find my mini-screwdriver every time I have to move a jumper.
           The weather remains uncooperative, either too hot or raining. That’s why I’m reporting so many small projects getting done. Can’t start anything big. I bought a book published in 1974 titled “The Complete Guide to House-Boating”. I got to thinking about building a raft in the Dakotas and drifting down the entire navigable Mississippi River. At night, I could pole over to riverside and throw overboard a boat anchor or a MicroSoft executive, but I repeat myself. Seriously, I’ll go on line to see if anybody else wants to do the Mississippi.
           Yes, quite a few people actually. I didn’t really know it could be done, or if it was allowed. There’s a nice project for next summer. Floating down the river on a shit-house door. There may even be people looking for others to join a trip. I wonder how long it takes? Do they need a good cook? Let’s see, 2,348 miles long with 1,701 navigable. Locks and dams: 27 (no toll). Warnings about mosquitoes and wild animals. Four hundred mile stretches of nothing, no fuel, no food.
           Why fuel? Because the river locks so severely control the current that you won’t get anywhere for long stretches. De Soto or somebody made it in 1541 without a motor, but you won’t be so lucky today. Let me think on this idea a while. I found one site that advertised the trip, but it was also full of posts about whether Michael Jackson died instantaneously or not. I would not want to spend a day, much less a month, cooped up with people who waste precious brain-power on baloney like that.
           Okay, the mystery device. Nope, not a waffle maker or a fancy iron. It is a refrigerator defroster. For those of you old enough to remember when fridges were not self-defrosting, this is how you did it. Pan of water in the bottom, and shut the door with this puppy on the inside. Now you know.

September 26, 2011

[Author's note 2016: this post seems to be missing.]

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September 25, 2011

           Take a gander at these PCBs designed by E24, our honorary member from West Palm. He had them manufactured in China. Read below to discover I am barely able to produce a basic schematic drawing. I say, that’s quite a gap in skill levels. The most encouraging thing I can say is that I thoroughly understand the details of the design and production. That much I’ve learned.            In any order, the Walkabout gig got rained out, bingo was the smallest crowd yet, and the new Kevlar belt won’t fit on the scooter. How was your day? That new belt was a problem, it didn’t have enough give, so a regular belt went on to give service. You ask, how bad could the original Chinese belt have been? Well, when you were a kid did you ever play with those wind-up balsa wood airplanes? Remember the rubber bands?            I was concerned about the low rate of expenses for my band. Not any more. When I closed the annual books and added “Loss on Sale of Assets”, there was my missing 5%. I’d forgotten the wagon trailer belonged to the band, not to me personally. Here’s an expense I don’t have a category for: driving away from the house on the electric bike with the battery charger still attached. Duh. (I fixed it.)            It is early Sunday, so I’m going to investigate a schematic program called ExpressSCH. Then, I’m doing breakfast. Even a nothing bingo pays more than Peach Pie [a band I used to play in]. Lately any e-mail I send with an attachment gets a late delivery notice. Is this hotmail’s protest against net neutrality laws? Give us money or we slow things down? Or how about that “dazed” actress who was escorted off stage? If it was an actor, he’d have been escorted alright—by the police. Funny the feminists don’t complain about that. Where a man is labeled a druggie, all they get is passing mention of a “history of substance abuse”.            Well, okay. I skipped breakfast and made a gourmet meal at home. I get just as much pleasure from a good book as a good meal, so I opted for both. I admit that cooking for myself is a disincentive, but there are no women to cook for in this town. None of them want or appreciate a man who can, it seems. Unless you are a high-paid chef and hand her your paycheck; that they like. I also miss women who don’t try to own you, but you can forget that in Florida. They’ll say that money is not important, but tell them you live in a trailer and see what happens.            Ah, but what was the gourmet meal in the trailer today? Boiled potatoes with onions & gravy, baked skinless chicken breasts in Russian sauce, corn on the cob with lemon-pepper butter, peas with mint, and peach cordial. And for dessert, coffee and chocolate ice cream. Reminded me of the Reb, that’s what it did. How odd it is so difficult to find one single, decent woman to share it with, particularly when all you hear on the media is married people raving about how wonderful married life is. At least until the divorce when the truth comes out.            By mid-afternoon, I give up on ExpressSCH. It uses two-sided boards, kind of out of my league as a novice. Time is passing, so it is high time I took a serious look at the artwork involved in making a PCB. E24 reports he used Fritzing, which I found confusing so that’s where I took dead aim. At least it uses one-sided plates. Using my 4.2V supply as a model, I am reverse engineering it onto the software. The manufacturer recommends this approach for learning. Unless the gal of my dreams knocks on the door, I’ll give a progress report later.            ExpressSCH is a piece of crap. So is Fritzing, but I spent a couple hours trying to learn Fritzing. What a troop of gopher-brains. It took an hour of trial and error to change the value of a resistor, and even then, the icon colors did not change. Their help pages stink, the instructions they give don’t work, period. They’ll tell you to save your changes, but there is no save command in the modular window. Real zeeks, those people.            I’ll get it, but what a hassle. Here’s a graphic of my design work to prove I know what I am doing. This is top-notch breadboarding, something to be proud of. Yes, the wiring is tricky, but it is also very efficient. Yet Fritzing, which claims to use a breadboard metaphor, could not correctly interpret this simple circuit. Two capacitors through a voltage regulator with a red light to show when it is working. I intentionally left a small redundancy in the design to see who notices it.

September 24, 2011

           Here’s wood carvings from Asia. This is a kiosk set up in the Pines Mall. The model ships were real art. The rest of it, well, you can see. Airplanes, helicopters, cars and boats. Just the things your nephew would like to take out back to the sand pile while you busy on the phone. That’s not likely, as the cheapest items on display were around $35. Bingo was so slow I can’t afford even one.
           The scooter is ready, but I won’t pick it up until tomorrow. It was the drive belt, but let me tell you, what a cheap-ass belt it was. Cheaper than the bottom shelf stuff you can still buy for $12 at AutoZone. It was shredded into carbonized chunks. We ordered a Kevlar belt, but my confidence in the scooter is at an all time low. I was hoping it would prove durable for 10,000 miles. The reality is it just cannot be trusted except around town at low speed, and for that it is truly excellent.
           The blog rules I must report what I find remarkable. Ray-B called and we talked about some of the proposed music. I am astonished by his productivity compared to other musicians I’ve met in Florida. Ray-B is actually doing the work and listening to the tunes. He is already pointing out stylistic idiosyncrasies in what I play, noting that I prefer tunes with split chords. This is a correct observation because I’ve played the same music with others who forced me to gloss it over. Thinking it over, I agree, for I would not object to split chords (being an old piano player) and such chords would indeed give prerecorded track-makers a migraine. Hey, Ray-B, suddenly I really like split chords.
           What’s more, Ray-B went to Duffy’s, a sports bar up in Davie and spotted the rhythm guitarist in a duo was chording his way through everything. “Chording through” is a somewhat derogatory term for a bogus guitarist who hasn’t really listened to the cover. Certain analytical points that enter our conversation tell me we have evolved since our coffee house days and there is now a striking degree of commonality in our music. We need only rehearse some tunes and it’s look out Duffy’s. It makes sense because both Ray-B and I agree on a super rhythm presentation and both want to be superb at what we do. We are motivated and you cannot fake motivation around me.
           There is more to this concept than meets the ear. When I grew up, bands were more competitive in the field, as much like they now are in the recording studios. A good bad would “wipe out” a lesser band by stealing the crowd. This could happen back then because the drinking age was 21. The after-high-school teens would drive from dance hall to dance hall to pick the band that sounded the best. There was no open rivalry; rather the music spoke for itself. I see strong parallels in the Broward playground. Before you label me aggressive, have not these stocky househusband Mr. Kewl guitarists “wiped out” the rest of the music scene with their backing tracks? Gotcha!
           Another close examination of PCBs (printed circuit boards) into the wee hours last evening reveals more sources of delay in the robot timetable as we unpeel the onion. Allow me to explain. First, we cannot find any firm information about connectors, the pieces we need to connect wires to the PCB. These must be attached to the PCB at time of manufacture and it is a shame nobody spells out what is needed. We’ll find something and at the present we are trying to locate “Molex” connectors with no success at all.
           Second major problem is the lack of clear tutorial documentation. It turns out there are two distinct methods, called “photo-resist” and “thermal”. In a confusing hodgepodge of on-line posts by complete jackasses, the two (incompatible) methods are not adequately explained and often intertwined in a single set of instructions. This leads us to conclude said jackasses themselves don’t know what they are talking about, a very common occurrence on the Internet. Last week’s cancelled seminar was to single out one method, the photo-resist. This is so important we are talking of driving back and forth to West Palm to bring the instructor here personally.
           Next is the design software. Without extensive training, we have little choice but to use CAD programs for the designs. The software seems to be either too expensive or useless (take your pick) with nothing in between. Others insist it is easy, but this is a paradox I’ve encountered countless times in my life with software ranging from databases to publishing. There is always beginner’s mode used to sell the product that is easy for dummies to use, but if I try to use it, I quickly paint myself into a corner that I have to unlearn to get any real work done. I find Fritzing a joke and ExpressPCB confusing as it uses two-sided patterns, though I will opt for the latter.
           Last (for now) there is a lack of blank printed circuit boards, preferably the single-sided boards that are the logical place to get started. Anything double-sided is beyond what I can create today. If local hobby outlets have these boards, they are keeping it a secret and ordering on-line is not an option for us at this point. Untold hours have already been wasted trying to find solutions to the above, but they can’t be counted because it was all spare time. Still, what a pity that learning something like this should degenerate into a game of hide and seek.

September 23, 2011

           This is not a posed photo. I splurged and look what 25 cents bought me. Could this be another Black Friday? Markets in the far East started dumping stocks early this morning and the trend followed the dawn to Europe, then New York, where the Dow fell 5% by noon. Could this be the one we’ve been waiting for? Gold fell to just over $1600 per ounce, silver to just over $30. The dead cat bounce should pull prices back up by closing, but I’m waiting until early next week to see if there is a real plunge. Leave all those paper millionaires and home equity millionaires counting their nothings.            True, I now have a paper loss. But I have no loss unless I sell, and I have no intention of selling. I’m looking to buy when the time is right. Plus, there is no panic here; the drop was expected and unlike speculators, discipline will see me through. I’m concerned about important things, like why I didn’t get a red candy. That’s what I call a crisis.            Ah, the world of intelligence, counterintelligence and counter-counterintelligence. The local pub (I’ve never been in there) noticed the recent increase in high-speed throughput and has begun randomly changing their frequency several times per day. Rather than play cat and mouse, I monitored the waves to find another source. I did an SSID invite. He came around, our combined antenna system now covers the entire area, and he gave me a free fake video cam to point at my bicycle rack.            Here’s an item. Last year it is estimated 50,000 more American households than expected moved into mobile homes, that is, into trailer parks. I’d like to point out that 39,360 of those were from Texas. This is a reaction to the depression, and people from Texas don’t wait to see what the sheeple do. I was simply one of the first to move. Like I’ve often told my critics, where I come from it is you in the minority.            This evening, I might as well have been married. I sat around the house doing nothing because there was no fun woman to go out with. You’d think by 30 they’d figure out they have to be good company before anyone will date them, but no, they hold on to that adolescent ideal that they can find a man to mold into perfection. I have to admit, every woman I’ve dated in Florida took effort to get along with, and I don’t go for that. I did meet an interesting medical student who listened to my heart murmur, but you can’t date your physician’s assistant.            I’d love to go back to university for a year simply to meet professional women. They don’t seem to exist at any other level in Florida society. Anything less than degreed specialists seem to be a bunch of cranky losers who can’t pay their own way. That is something I totally miss about living on the west coast—meeting women who are financially independent. Out east, they seem to marry some loser, pay all his bills with their own cash, and wind up with nothing. Hell, when the Reb left me, she was $178,000 richer by taking my advice on what to invest in. She didn’t need to whine about money because she looked after her own. Good luck finding that in Florida.            The robotics club, since inception, has cost me only $196.60. Now that is an efficient hobby, considering the amount learned and the amount saved not attending courses. That’s even if you could find a school that taught what you wanted rather than channelizing you into some ridiculous curriculum full of nonsense you never use. I won’t mention Broward Community College concerning that, except to say they once told me they would just worry to death if I failed one of their evening school courses. So I’d best sign up for the whole $22,000 program. Thugs, if you ask me.            Oh, and if you want a laugh at how weak a grasp the Broward Community College has on spelling, grammar, and the English language in general, read their advertising. I mean, what is “financially burdoned”? Should you be taking college courses from people who can’t spell? I mean, if they can’t take pride in their writing. . . .

September 22, 2011

           This is a replica of a merry-go-round at a local shopping mall. Everything except the poles and gears are plastic. But I like these totally American inventions. The collection in Portland, Oregon, is something to see. I never rode on one of these until I was too old to truly enjoy the experience. I dunno, I just like merry-go-rounds, but the real ones, not the ones you get like at the DMV.
           Music. Ray-B and I were on the phone for an hour concerning the truly weird music scene of south Florida. One thing we both have tackled is how every musician wants to be his own star. Where is this coming from? Indie? Internet? Shredding guitarists, screaming singers, ballistic drummers, slapping bassists. What is behind this idiocy? A world full of single artists? Most of the examples we’ve met can play a few super-numbers, but none of them could play a four hour gig.
           Ourselves, we’ve also taken the bait for solo acts, although admittedly we aren’t really going anywhere too fast. We get roughly the same gigs for roughly the same pay year after year. Individually we’ve made good progress but that is not translating into better pay or venues. Sooner or later, we will have to face our Grendel and drop the pretenses of being individuals, that is, admit the world needs another Simon and Garfunkel, another Hall & Oates. Our selling point will be some of the strongest rhythm sections possible in a guitar-bass duo without resorting to jazz progressions.
           Monetary theory. It’s not for the masses and it is indeed complicated. None of the individual danger signals are any big deal, thus quite ignorable. For instance, the rate of savings, the real measure of national prosperity, went negative in the US in something like 1999. This type of thing can happen when people borrow to buy a savings bond, as happened in both world wars. People are naive enough to believe they are helping out when they are in fact doing the opposite.
           [Author’s note: for clarity, the “average personal savings rate” is not a dollar figure. The easy way to think of it is the percentage of each paycheck that is saved as an investment. It isn’t quite so easy since the measurement omits important issues. The point is, when it is calculated out, the average American family has less than zero net worth. When you add up what they owe against their condo, SUV, and Tim McGraw front row tickets, they are in the hole. One thing that has not changed is the average American is broke at age 65.]
           There is only one method to avoid the paper money credit trap, and it is as old as money itself. Invest only in items that have real value, like gold and silver. Mankind learned to count some 35,000 years ago and some people still can’t do it right. When prices are five times what they were twenty years ago and you aren’t making five times as much money, you lose.
           Let me calculate, what was I making in 1991. Ah, here it is. $42,600 per year. So I’d have to make $214,000 today. I still have my union website password, let’s look up what top pay is today. Engineer, first class is $104,700 per year. So, top pay is half what was needed to break even if you were an engineer. I was a technician, the type who mopped up after the type of engineers the company hired. Looks like I cleared out just in time. Funny how I am more self-sufficient now that when I was making the big bucks.
           Tummy troubles? Not me. I’ve eaten the hottest of the hot around the world, eaten in Japan, Thailand and Barbados without ever a case of indigestion, certainly never heartburn. But the doc says I am in a profile for ulcers and for the next 90 days I have to take a pill ten minutes before eating. What a hassle. I tell you after my family, I am immune to ulcers. So, I follow the regimen. I admit to a taste for hot sauces from living in the tropics, but I don’t overdo it.
           At what point does a black American become the N-word? When we video him looking under the tarp at my bicycle at 3:30 AM this morning. We caught him well before he could try anything so we let him go to tell his gang this is the wrong neighborhood. He was probably under 18 so calling the cops would have been a waste of time. He had a set of mini-bolt cutters in his back pocket. This type of crime is very rare in this district, but in Florida you are never really too far a bad area. Even if you live in a gated community, you still have to leave it to go shopping.
           What’s this? Hollywood, Florida, is claiming that Veronica Lake is from here? No way, she spent a short time here in the 1960s after her career tanked, her kids deserted, her marriages collapsed and she was a total alcoholic. However, she was a blazing success considering that almost 100% of the available females over 40 in this town have since followed her example. Not many people know she was only 4 foot 11.
           Still no word on the scooter.

September 21, 2011

           You can never go wrong, blog-wise, with puppy pictures. Here’s quadruplets on the sidewalk, ah, isn’t that something else? It seems the scooter will be a while, it requires some metric sockets they don’t keep in stock since George left last month. So I’m at home with only the electric bike. Today I’ll be watching “Stagecoach”, the original. Remember, “Do you see any savages?” with the classic reply, “If you see them, it’s too late.” The only thing scarier than the battle scenes is the acting.
           Having extra time now, I’ve begun my annual review. In another 90 days I’ll be back on my feet, financially speaking. Constraints must remain in force until early 2013. Then, if I live to 2017, shall we just say, “Hello Australia”. The books reveal that although 2010 was a rough time, that part was caused by interference and liars. The worst stretch turns out to be the last half of 2008. Folks, if you don’t have a plan, you better have incredibly good luck.
           On my birthday in 2008, I had $18.31 in the bank. Things actually got somewhat better in 2009 because Wallace initially kept his part of the bargain. The poor old man can’t admit most of his family are screwballs. (Sorry, all you keen-eyed auditor types, there is nothing here that allows you to reconstruct the dollar amounts. Remember, I’m a way better accountant than you could dream of being. But I can tell you this year on my birthday I will have $5,700 in the bank. And I’m buying a motorcycle.)
           What’s this, the brains behind Al Jazeera, known for its factual reporting, had to resign after it was learned he changed facts about the war under pressure from the US “Defense Intelligence Agency”. He was replaced by a blood relation of the network’s owners. And you wonder why the world hates us. Actually, they don’t hate us. They hate our government and nobody can blame them. Our government does not know how to mind its own business. Defense Intelligence Agency? Gimme a break.
           More bad news for the company I love to hate, Microsoft. They admit to losing $9 billion over Bing, one of the more aggravating browsers of all time. And didn’t they recently lose a chance to buy out Google? Anyway, they are being run by some crackpot reject since Gates got out. All they have to do to create a winning search engine is follow my list of suggestions. Let people permanently filter out what they don’t want, and allow the public to vote web offerings into self-policing categories. Take a lesson from craigslist and eBay, which have capped their own growth for much the same reasons—people have to look in fifteen different places to cover the bases.
           [Author’s note: my, my, it seems the few people who like Bing really like it. That tells me they are not getting much work done. I said it sucks and I only need one example to prove my point. I still use hotmail because it was the first one that was free. Yeah, well now when you log off, guess where it sends you? To Bing. So you really have to log off twice. People who even think such third-rate tactics are keen need their heads examined. Ever lived in Thailand? I have. When you say you don’t want something, they take it to mean you want something else. Aggravating. Or put another way, Bing!]
           Things are so comfortable, I decided to watch “Viva Zapata” as well. Can’t really go anywhere when the batteries are charging. Done a little music practice as well, and I am toying with the idea of playing sitting down (on a chair on stage) until I learn the new music. Remember, with the last two failures, I’ve had to learn close to twenty-five tunes I’ll likely never play and I’m a little worn out over it. Now, I need to learn another fifteen. Oh yeah, the other guitarist (forgotten his name already), I didn’t call back for a week to see how he handled it. Not very well at all.
           He was weak on music theory, didn’t understand the circle of fifths. That means he has to custom memorize every song. Such guitarists fall into predictable bad habits, and I do not like baby-sitting on stage. I expect a real musician to know the difference between the key of a song and the starting chord. But without theory, the amount of hard work becomes phenomenal; you have to play the tune until it is drilled into the other guy’s head. I’m weary of that, too, mainly because they don’t seem to have the discipline to do it on their own time and use up valuable rehearsal hours over it. You know who I’m talking about.
           One more item concerning the circle of fifths. If you don’t know it, you should not be calling yourself a musician. A few out there have made it without learning the circle, but that ain’t gonna happen to you, and that’s a fact. What’s worse, the last few people I met that did not know the rule had trouble learning it. It takes three minutes to master it, yet I’ve met people here who could not grasp the concept even when explained several different ways. Now THERE are some stupid people.
           In fact, the cirlce is so easy, I’ll teach it to you right now. You do have to know your musical scales, so we’ll pick the key of D. The notes are D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#,D. This is what you learn in Grade One piano. If you can’t learn it, you don’t get to Grade Two, look left and cough. Most, but not all, blues, country or rock music follows a definite pattern. Count to five, then count up five notes on the musical scale. That means D to A, right? That is your circle of fifths. If a song is in the key of D, the other chord is most likely to be A, that is, a fifth above D.
           By extension, if there is another chord, try the fourth, or G, and if you hear a minor chord, it is probably Bm, the sixth. Knowing these simple rules allow you to do some pretty amazing fake work on stage. Now you know why I am sick and tired of guitar players who say, “Follow me” and then play some spastic jazz progression. Like you’re supposed to know what crazy substitutions they spent all their lesson money on. Off the top of my head, I cannot name one single jazz guitarist. And I like it that way.

September 20, 2011

           Per repeated requests (don’t ask me why), here is a photo of the two for 59 cents brake lights reported last day. The burned out bulb is at the top right, costing $7.00 just for the bulb at a scooter shop, the functionally identical bulbs found a few days later at the dollar store. Head’s up, American business types, is your pricing still stuck in the 1990s?
           Kudos to Home Depot at Stirling and University. That’s where my scooter broke down and the manager let me park it under their service canopy overnight. He even told me where the security cams would give two-way coverage. Alas, blog policy is I can’t give a name, but thanks I say for a helping hand. He mentioned he goes in to work at 5:30 AM. That’s more dedication than I ever had. He had the knack for handling people, something I never learned. The Home Depot location was so secure, I did not even worry for a second about leaving the scooter outside overnight.
           Ray-B was on the line, we’ve chosen a small tentative list for the upcoming weekend, mainly so we aren’t seen as indecisive—the audience picks up on these things. At least Ray-B doesn’t kill time on stage. In another departure from the Florida norm, Ray-B is thinking about music and today he said to the effect he’s figured out the crowd just wants good old familiar tunes. Aha, that’s the exact stage I was at when I decided to focus more on country music than rock. Now he’s also noticing that bass lines are best blended into the music, not be played as loudly as possible underneath it. Another aha.
           He does like jazz bass lines, that’s one of those avenues I’ve never traveled. There was no jazz music or musicians where I grew up, and by age twenty, it was Beatles, Doors, or Steppenwolf. As I explained, I will stop and listen to any music if it is being played well and I believe as a duo, we have the exact qualities needed to become not just outstanding, but a local success. I know this business, and I’m not just talking because I don’t have any time to waste. I doubt it is my influence, but Ray-B is definitely now thinking through the music to the crowd. He will soon conclude that you always give them a little more of a show than they were expecting and you can’t do that playing the standards.
           Gold prices are dancing around, the type of behavior that happens just before a collapse. And it could be argued the current price is a bubble, though I subscribe to the Monex theory that the price of gold is 1/T, where T is the amount of trust people have in government money. I can’t say go out and buy gold because so many people are saying it is about to fall to $1200 per ounce. The one solid fact about gold is that you can never predict its price.
           In another scumbag move by Redmond, the MS asshats have removed another useful formula from Excel. They’ve trashed the “daysbetween” formula, the one that would calculate the number of days between any two dates. Thus, you could count down by using a formula like “=12/31/2015 - today()”. They’ve replaced it with a useless “days360” abortion that is based on a year with only 360 days, and the formula will not accept another formula as one of the arguments. I mean, where does Windows even find such mental defectives?
           And coffee is now $5 per package, it’s a good thing I like Maxwell House, not the cheapest but pretty close to it. A lot of research by the coffee companies went into those 11.5 ounce packages, the ones many people mistakenly call a pound. The printing says up to 90 cups, but that is near-coffee and the truth is more like 72 cups of real mud. It was a sad day in America when some jerk came up with the idea of charging extra for coffee. Yes, folks, there was a time when you ordered dinner, the price included coffee or tea, bread, butter, gravy and dessert.
           The policy of splitting the “meal” up into components is a result of “efficiency” experts who graduated during the 80s and 90s. I took several of the courses as part of my accounting program when I went back to school in my early 30s. The process is called “unbundling” but my take on it has not changed: if you remove the little extras, it is no longer really a “meal”. But, no pun intended, the students around me were eating this up. I would not mind if they kept prices reasonable, for instance, the separate cup of coffee should cost 60 cents, not $1.75.
           What? Don’t tell me you didn’t know they did this on purpose. Hell, yes. We were taught to overcharge on the liquids so as to advertise the “meal” itself at a lower price. We learned not to refer to the offering as “dinner”, since it no longer was, but to call it a “meal”. Steak meal, $4.99, breakfast meal, $2.99. The marketers had correctly guessed the average US diner would not have a clue he was being squeezed. And unless your favorite seafood restaurant is right on the dock, or your favorite steak house is right next to a ranch, folks, all the food comes from the same warehouse.
           For one of my semester projects, I “rewired” a menu so that the customer could no longer order things a la carte at a cheaper price than buying the full item. For example, a side of toast, a side of tomato, and a side of bacon could make you a cheaper bacon and tomato sandwich cheaper than the menu item, so my task was to reprice everything to prevent that. At that time, it was a complicated task because restaurants tended to offer much larger a la carte selections where now you get a section of appetizers.
           Novelty, such as I can find these days, gets mentioned and tonight I watched one strange movie. Called “Perfume”, it is about a 16th century French baby born with an incredible sense of smell. He can trace and detect even copper and glass. He accidentally smothers a girl selling apricots and becomes obsessed with the aroma of her corpse as legendary perfume ingredient and begins killing. It’s gross, he covers them with animal fat, then wraps them up, then scrapes the fat and boils it down to a few drops. It gets a little ridiculous toward the end, but still quite a departure from the ordinary.

September 19, 2011

           Today I towed the scooter to the shop. It looks like the drive belt, but also some excess leaking oil. I told you it was not going to last. The result is still that I am sold on two-wheelers and seem to be able to drive them without stress. Foreseeing the end of this Chinese clunker, I have made arrangements with a chap who has a dealer’s license, and hence can attend the CoPart auctions. What’s more, he is a seasoned bidder and can pretty much guaranty I’ll get anything I want for around the $2,000 mark, no questions asked. Yes, he is one of those experts that get all the good stuff and leaves the junk for the public auctions.
           That’s his picture outside the scooter shop. For the sharp-eyed, there is a repair truck on the railroad tracks dead center of this photo. It’s a weird vehicle that appears to glide along spraying something on the rails. Anyway, back to the motorcyle, last month one of his friends got a brand new 2009 Viper with 4 miles on the odometer for guess how much? $250.00.
           It will, however, take 73 days to get my vehicle, and between now and then, I must keep the scooter in good repair. I am still aghast at the huge number of miles put on that thing just to get around town. Since February that’s 3,450 miles, yet I’ve made very few trips to nowhere, that is, I wasn’t taking Sunday drives until yesterday. Yet I totally loved the drive, it reminds me of the open road when in fact, I only got half way to Belle Glade.
           I was talking to Shay, the heavy metal singer. He quit the old band and put one together on his own. Like he says, he’s fishing in a bigger pond. Metal guitar players are like pythons in the swamp. They are a foreign species, will eat anything, and have established a breeding population in what used to be a nice quiet neighborhood. He’s still living in Miramar and commuting to Hollywood, that’s a drive I hope I never have to make on a daily basis.
           I finished “The Fist of Allah” in enough time to warn you against it. It is not for everybody. But I do commend the author for including, as one of the first pages, a complete list and description of all the characters in the book. Mind you, I don’t credit him with the same benevolent purpose I had over the same concept. He was pretty much forced to do it because of all the Arabic words that would otherwise confuse the reader. And he has that bothersome inclination of portraying spies as nice people doing a dirty job.
           The secret services of all foreign governments (not being tainted by American excesses, you see) are superior to the arthritic CIA, and of course, they are models of efficiency. But how many lunches can these people have on the public dime? It seems to has a lot to do with dollars, and as long as we possess a printing press, spies will dine on skate, salmon, and Sunday roast beef. All prim and proper up front, as if they were born to it. And damn, those Israelis are so sneaky and underhanded if you didn’t know better you’d swear they were a bunch of Jews.
           These spies never talk secrets behind soundproof doors. They always meet up in a public restaurant full of strangers in the next booth. They always find time to have these lunch hour chats before rushing off to some terribly important meeting, and the Englishman involved is always a personal acquaintance of Margaret Thatcher. Usually an old school chum, I am taken to believe. Around 5% of “The Fist of Allah” is taken up describing these impromptu conversations and the type and quality of the food. My advice is never go writing when you are hungry.
           Today was the electric bike again. Wise move, having that as a backup. And the good weather was temporary, the heat wave has returned. In a surprise, I received another letter from the State. I had argued that when my scooter was stolen, I was out both the money for that scooter and the money I spent on the new one, and thus I should be compensated for both. I found a clause in their rule book that provides for total recompensation, rather than mere restoral as with an insurance company. I immediately went to a notary and signed an affidavit that I was “not able to recover the lost money from any other source”, their words not mine. I asked and it looks like I shall receive. Being a good boy has its rewards. I can think of a few people who should try it rather than sitting around scheming how to shaft the people who trusted them.
           One of the headlines on MSN network today was a list of things that married women “shouldn’t say” to their husbands. They include gems like:
           • You are just like my father.
           • When are you going to get a better job?
           • My mother warned me you’d do this.
Makes one admire the Musuo, a tribe in Tibet that has never invented marriage, and they seem to get along just fine. The rub here is that some women actually need to be told not to say such hurtful things. I mean, aren’t they supposed to prize nuturing acceptance above all else? Or was that just part of the lie they told to get married in the first place? I’m just askin’.
           And don't even ask me what I think of husbands who would be bothered by anything like the above.

September 18, 2011

           Another good news, bad news day. The weather was perfect so I decided to take the scooter on a highway test run. It’s never been on a long distance trip on the highway and I needed to know if it could deal with it. The answer is no. I am still in the market for a real motorcycle in late November, not that far away. I am completely sold again on long highway trips and it was exhilarating to be out there on the open road again, sailing past the scenery.
           Also on the road were bad drivers. See the truck ahead of us? That guy passed us at 70 mph in a 30 zone, then cut in front of us and slammed on his brakes to make a right turn. What the hell is my brother doing in Florida? This was on my ride back home, as I am about to explain how the scooter broke down.
           I went west to Highway 27, this is the road to Okeechobee often described here. I went on a tour through all the roadside tourist camps and campgrounds to have a look. Ray-B asked me to check out a truck stop on Griffin. It was also a huge biker jamboree. Imagine how I felt on my Chau scooter next to $50,000 custom chromed Harleys. By late afternoon, the weather turned more than perfect, so I ran the scooter at top speed up 27 for 35 miles to nowhere. Then right back again before dark. But just as I came up to University and Stirling, zing goes my drive belt.
           There is only one belt on the scooter so that was it. I pulled into the Home Depot, who let me park it overnight under the security camera and caught a lift home from Ray-B. It’s like 14 miles from here so tomorrow will be an expensive tow job back to the scooter shop. I was ready for it, in fact, had it been earlier in the day, I might have kept on going and stayed overnight somewhere up country. I had the money and time on me.
           My camera batteries also died early in the day, so no neat photos of all the things I saw. The Everglades, the canals, the Wiki and Tiki huts, even the famous fishing spots. I even saw something common in Mexico City, but not here. One car pushing another down the highway at 40 miles per hour because the driver can’t afford a tow. Well, I’m glad I turned back when I did, or I’d be walking a long ways by now. My thinking was sound in that there was no guarantee if I kept on traveling the weather tomorrow would still be nice. It is still summertime here so don’t take chances.
           I had stopped for iced tea at BK before leaving and bumped into that lady, the one who seems nice but can’t make up her mind on anything. I really miss not having a female to hang out with, but there seems to be no such women in Florida. They always want to take things to the next level, or in one recent case, back to a lower level. Another thing I miss is educated women, that is one thing that would strike you about the dozens of women I’ve dated in my life. With one exception they were very well educated. The lady at BK told me she thought the Dark Ages were called that because people only wore clothes that were black. Charming, in a rustic sort of way, but I had enough of that rubbish while growing up on the farm.
           Years back, I read the condensed book “The Fist of God”, a Forsyth work about events leading to Desert Storm. Admittedly I read the Digest version when I’m doubtful about reading the real book, but here is an instance where I went out and bought the 550 page original. Forsyth writes the way Clancy wishes he could. But Clancy picks topics that appeal to the American hero mentality, the loose cannon ex-CIA types who retain their superpowers and snappy Anglo surnames through all manner of divorce, suspensions without pay and dishonorable discharges. Clancy outsells Forsyth, but Forsyth knows how things really work.
           Although be warned, both authors tend to glamorize spying. All the Mossad and KGB have to do is watch for lunch meetings between English professors and middle-aged men who work in buildings with no windows. These sorts always swap state secrets in booths at expensive restaurants. All spies have cultured tastes in wine and food and these require an extensive description in every novel. Forsyth runs a good plot and easily outdistances Clancy with intricate knowledge of details that cannot be learned second-hand.
           That’s Desert Storm the war, not Desert Shield the line in the desert. The war has essentially been going on for ten years and bankrupted America. We lost our credit rating, the Chinese won’t lend us any more, a tax increase would doom any politician who tries it, so where is all the money coming from? That’s easy, they are printing it up round the clock. Some say when the effect reaches “the corners of the Empire”, gold will sell for $10,000 per ounce. Every civilization based on paper money has come to these same circumstances.
           Ray-B and I talked about gold and how most people don’t understand it. They never will understand it either, so don’t try to explain it to them. They’ll just say you can’t eat gold; presumably they think they can eat paper money. Try it with the Thousand Island. The inflation or collapse (which is just a drastic version of inflation) will hit the middle class, the ones who find economic theories impenetrable. They are wishfully thinking the worst won’t happen until they are retired and out of the loop, not realizing that is exactly when people like them will need a stable system worse than ever.
           If I didn’t already say, be advised that Broward County arbitrarily lopped some $35 million dollars off the retirement funds of police and firefighters. The money isn’t there. The tax base they depended on growing every year has been retracting for half a decade. All I can say is history shows us a change of leadership is due, and it will be for the worse. Make sure you have enough money stashed to survive six months. That’s how long it will take the middle class to collapse from within. Just tread water and let it happen, and you’ll come out on top. It’ll be easy, buy their house for $5 grand and rent it back to them. Myself, I have no intention of being that nice to them. Let them spend food stamps.

September 17, 2011

           Still not recovered from accidental caffeine dosage last day, I get a call from the old neighbors. Somebody has hacked down the trees in front of the old place. I’ll zip over when the sun comes up and get some photos. I do know the city had warned me about the trees jutting over the roadway, and the report so far says the trees have been butchered, as in chopped at waist level. Not a landscaping job for sure. I wonder what is going on? Was there an accident? Did Wallace find out administering that place without me wasn’t such a great idea? We shall see, I mean really see, since we are watching for out-of-state license plates to park there.
           I told how I built a working radio from a kit. But it doesn’t always pick up the good stations. This morning it locked on to some public service station funded by the school board. No music, just endless programs on tired old topics, so bland I had to listen. I can always use some assurance that the rest of the world has even crazier things to worry about than anything I could imagine.
           Do teachers have the right to discipline children who send bullying e-mails after hours? (Absolutely not, once I’m off the school grounds, privacy from teachers is absolute. And anyway, who is to determine what “bully” email is. If it is a threat, call the police, not the PTA. Otherwise, grow a pair and deal with it you snotty-nosed wimps.)
           How about that continuing research into “attention deficit”? Well, it seems the newest reports are that the problem is, indeed and after all, lack of the little brats paying attention. There you go, twenty years of expensive research because nobody had the guts to call them stupid. You heard me, a big part of stupid is not paying attention when one is supposed to be learning . Imagine the setting, these women-mother types in the background chanting “uh-hum”, “sure-sure” and the radio host droning out the party line. You see, to soccer moms, happiness isn’t enough. They want euphoria. Broward School Board, if you are looking for ways to save money, heads up.
           Did I mention I got a raise? Yep, 12.4%, which is lot better than the piddling 4% I used to get at my union job. I am now receiving $1.00 per month less than the maximum allowed. And who knows? Maybe by the time I turn 60 years old, they’ll raise the maximum. It is getting near annual review time and things are looking fine again. My austerity policies are producing a slight surplus and that includes a budget for reserves, which I’ve had in place even in the worst times, the March to November stretch of 2010. History students will recognize that as a classic case of collective peasant stupidity, that it only seems like those bastards knew when I was weakest and exactly the right moment to attack.
           So I went to the beach to jam with Ray-B and saw something new. One of his fellow music teachers has done something impressive. You know how if you bump an elbow into the cabinet of some speakers, a “thunk” comes through the cone? This guy has modified a speaker to be played like a basic drum set. He sits on the box and taps the sides for the different sounds, including cymbals. It sure beats packing around a set of dual Ludwigs. That’s good because the crowd went stingy on us. They were animated and loved the music. But no money.
           Nor did we put on the best show, however, bear in mind that the live rehearsals are not a substitute for directed practice, one thing we need at this point. I can’t blame Ray-B for preferring his own show where he is totally in charge, but I know he is listening to what people are saying about our performances. We tended to gallop on some tunes (played them too fast) and his PA isn’t great for low end frequencies. I’ve been meaning to devise a way to carry my Ampeg on the scooter. I am not a fan of loud bass, therefore, I need clear tones. It makes a real difference.
           I kick myself for two major mistakes. One, I got lost during the instrumental part of “Proud Mary”. Two, I forgot the words to the third verse of “These Boots”. This is unacceptable since I know those tunes backwards. At the same time, I recognize this to be a factor when I’m doing too many things at once, and that practice provides the answer. Practice defines roles and each musician can focus better. Ray-B and I, despite professing otherwise, play similar brands of music, but they are not identical. It was a dud audience, some said a birthday party. I’ve done livelier crossword puzzles.
           Bingo was dead but we did manage twenty-dollar pots. Nine people in the house. Bingo is the big producer these days. It is not a panic since many regulars are out of town, some are in Europe, and others were at a wedding. It was the smallest bingo to date. Still, it is a show and the show must go on. Never let down your public. I have played before to a one-person audience but I have never quit a show, never once in my life. And what do I get for it? Don’t look in the tip jar. Things have been rock bottom for a while now. Why, lately I’ve had to actually put some of my own money into the gas tank. That’s right, my own coin out of my own pocket, the pain, the pain.

September 16, 2011

           Shown here is a rare photo of actual hand-construction of robot components. Rare, because other so-called robot builders use pre-assembled parts; the reason you don’t see them do this is because they don’t. What is more unusual is telltale signs of immense progress made in the previous few months. It has been a period of amalgamation over the rapid learning days in February - May. Here you see the soldering of a 4.20 Volt power supply, something I would never have attempted a few months back. But this time, when I needed it, almost without thinking I picked up parts from my bin and soldered it under the magnifying glass as seen here. This is one of the reasons I state with confidence we will have a robot before too long. A dumb robot, but still a robot.
           Make this one topsy-turvy day so far because I’m out of kilter. The explanation is that I don’t do drugs. That is correct, and I never have. And I read every day, so there I am reading y’day and I don’t fall asleep. Next thing I know, it is 5:00 AM. Sure enough, that afternoon I had drank a bottle of diet Pepsi, but didn’t check the label. It had caffeine. My system is so intolerant of drugs I could not sleep until late afternoon today.
           Which means I was artificially awake when E24 called at the last moment to cancel the seminar. I kind of suspected that would happen. I was 24 years old myself once and I remember it like y’day, but that is only because I have a very good memory. I had wanted to pay for his trip on the Tri-rail, or we wanted to go pick him up. We’ll work something out, but Agt. M and I were momentarily out of anything to do. So we came back here and got the antenna working. Sort of.
           I was correct, it was unbelievably complicated and many of the procedures were backwards to what was stated in the manual and my years of experience. It involved a series of static IP addresses that were set to access the devices, then reset back to dynamic to make them work. Plus, the antenna had to be set in bridge mode in a situation where I know there were no bridges involved because we used to use bridged settings at the phone company when I worked there for fifteen years.
           At that point we decided to go spend the money allocated for the seminar on lunch at Aventura. My eyes were watering, but not at the food. For some reason the food court was crawling with incredibly beautiful women, I must have fell in love fifteen times in fifteen minutes. M actually likes sushi, give me a grilled hot dog with mushrooms and onion any day. Nothing at the mall, even a slice of pizza, is less than $6 these days. But Aventura is upscale so it is one of the places still packed and like they say about Yuppies, somebody has to shop retail.
           Then we went shopping ourselves at the computer store. I walked up and down every aisle to notice there is not a single really new item for sale since twenty years ago. You can fudge the formula saying that putting a computer into a telephone is new, but is it now? That is something that used to be a major cause for concern at the annual meetings when I worked there. It was a reality the company tried to suppress by quashing the competition over deregulation. They were aware with their outdated business model it was too expensive a feature to offer, but I was there and I tell you they certainly knew about it.
           What nobody foresaw was that with miniaturization and cellular service, a smaller, more nimble competitor could launch into the market. Hello, Apple. But as far as something new, as in a product or concept, I don’t see any progress. Who will invent the next spreadsheet? Now that was something new. Next thing, I find myself exhausted from lack of sleep and zonk out until past dark. So I’m back wide awake and don’t dare sleep again or I’ll throw myself off zone worse than shift work. Incidentally, the major reason I left the phone company was after I had been there nearly twelve years, they put us back on shift work. My system cannot adjust to it because I have a life. Others don’t seem t mind.
           So, I am going to do something I have almost no experience at—I’m going out on Friday night to spend some money. In this instance, it’s Dunkin Donuts over on Federal. On the electric bike. To do the crossword puzzle and wonder why I’m not back at Aventura watching the babes. M seems to like the ones who, to me, look like they’d make a good wife. Myself, I like eye candy, I like all the good-looking ones and can’t even see the ones who aren’t. Hey, it’s an affliction I’ve had since I was eight years old.
           Later, responding to demand, here is a more detailed photo set of the power supply that I was building under the magnifying glass. This is typical of the work I can do now, and this shows both sides of the component. On the left is the back of the board, and you can see the hodgepodge of wires and solder joints that lend momentum for me to learn PCB fabrication. This gadget works, and it really is a quantum leap forward in my ability to make these parts. The right side shows it is a basic power supply, without the heat sink, showing the two smoothing capacitors and the standard “on” light I tend to include in all my parts these days. The blue thingees are power connectors, in and out. The “board” is a piece of a larger brick I snapped off to make this part.
           Why will a collapse of the United States’ economy be faster and worse than the implosion of the Soviet Union? Here’s my example. Imagine a desert island with three people in business with each other. Each pays the others in gold. When the economy collapses, all three are left with their gold. Now take the USA where business is done on credit, not gold. What are they left holding here? I'll be holding the silver. . . .

September 15, 2011

           Here is the PCB board materials and safety supplies ready for tomorrow’s seminar. Note the obligatory clipboard for notes. We may not be the biggest or best robotics club (yet), but we are certainly one of the best organized. It’s a hallmark of my administration. Sure, I have a few dirty dishes in the sink, but where it counts, everything is shipshape. If you like my staff work, you should see the club financial statements. There is always a reason when things get done the right way.
           Don’t ask me why they do it, but the new antenna turns out to be one of the most complicated undertakings yet. It connects and pulls in the signals, but seems otherwise to be totally incompatible with Windows TCP/IP settings. The problem is likely Windows, but there are some 512 different combinations so trial and error is out. As usual, each individual step tests okay, but the overall structure will not function. Worse, the procedure so far has caused IRQ conflicts with my mouse and knocked out my regular wireless connection. Technically, they are both wireless, but one of the things we had to figure out that is not mentioned in the directions is the NIC card sees the incoming signal as wired. We will get it working, but right there means I cannot recommend the company EnGenius.
           Undocumented problems always get a negative from me, and a poorly written manual is off the bottom of my scale. Sorry, there Engenius, even if we fix it all, you are douchebags. These days an antenna should be plug-n-play but instead three days later we are still screwing around with the thing. The antenna itself has some 23 different options and settings which are not explained. Do I need tree stemming? Oh, and your help lines and on-line directions suck the big green hemorrhoid , too.
           So I am incommunicado with my people the day before this year’s most important seminar, the printed circuit board session scheduled tomorrow. I finally had to travel out to the turnpike to get reasonably priced safety glasses. The days are cooling off enough to make the trips enjoyable, although there is no place in eastern Florida you can actually go for a quiet drive. I’ve mentioned before how traffic here does not string itself out and travel along at the same speed. There is always some macho Cuban type trying to overtake and pass you, because as you know, they all have tiny hood ornaments.
           Upon reading many articles about in-house PCB etching, I am not so certain we will ever do much of it. But that isn’t the point. We didn’t do much with antennas or radios either, but we learned a lot. Etching involves caustic chemicals and doing it professionally requires costly equipment such as heated dunk tanks and cutting knives. I still want to acquire the skill since it is the only reasonable approach to robotics that can survive the bumps and bangs certain to be part of the situation. Plus, we get a chance to meet E24. Where he learned so much so fast is beyond me, since I know they are not teaching this material in grade school.
           You remember the robot test bench that is under construction. This difficult and somewhat expensive step is very educational. I have come to consider it like a mid-term exam. I had to build the components that didn’t exist. Most of them worked the first time, although for reasons still unknown, the performance parameters were out of whack. For example, my 7805 voltage regulator does not produce the standard 5 volts, but instead 4.2 volts. Perfectly acceptable and Arduino-compatible but not what I expected.
           The Arduino is still too new for there to be a selection of used books. The controller is selling well, I was one of the first 150,000 and I see the sales are now over 1,000,000. A lot of the standard book publishers have jumped on the bandwagon and offer their traditionally expensive and poorly written after-market manuals. Arduino could well become the standard although it will always be hobbled by using the C language, the most unfriendly computer language ever invented, and that includes Assembler which at least isn’t choked by useless, inconsistent punctuation marks.
           Ray-B was on the line, he did notice the effect we had on the crowd. For me, giving them more than they expect is standard procedure. We’ve agreed to work up a two-hour set and see if we can duplicate the results, actually, I know we can because I’ve done it before. The last time I had a band where everything clicked was with Robyn and Three Good Reasons. Like myself, he is very protective of his standing gigs, so I’ll have to see if I can shoehorn us in someplace similar. Both of our shows are geared toward tourist crowds on the beach.
           But the real money is the tourist lounges, although I’d settle for the beaches any day. The female tourists don’t wear bikinis in the lounges. Anyway, we’ve agreed to give it a try. I miss the days of fives and tens in the tip jar, I’ve played clubs so long I actually expect one dollar bills most of the time. Things have really gone downhill in that category. Then, Ray-B tells me that Ron Paul has predicted that without changes, the USA could disappear in a year just like happened to the Soviet Union, and for much the same reasons. Too many people raking off the top without putting anything back in at the bottom.
           I watched a video of a debate in which Ron Paul outlined some difficult facts about our military presence around the world. We can’t afford it, period. Then off all things, I could hear some people booing in the background. Are there really people that stupid out there that they can’t even stand to hear the truth? They didn’t argue, wisely, they just booed. It is one thing to not like the truth, and a similar thing not to agree with the truth, but to try to stifle it is a new record in how low some people’s mentality can sink. Embarrassingly, this happened in Texas.

September 14, 2011

           Here’s a sign that tells the tale. And it is prophetic for Ft. Lauderdale. Pedestrians are not stopping, not for the $19 lunch “specials”, not for the $16 pizzas, not for the $3 coffees and certainly not for the $5 bottles of domestic beer. The beer is actually $3.75, but they’ll get you for $5 anyway. And won’t serve you again for an hour if you don’t. The funny part is they think you don’t know what they are up to. The sign is right in front of a string of bars guilty of this pricing, but it is meant to stop people from standing on the railway tracks. In America, you have to tell people not to stand on railway tracks.
           I would like to unwind and purge for the day, but the system gets you anyway. Nothing works right any more. Like that black spray paint “Quick Color” from ROC Sales in Vernon Hills, IL, the paint that never dries and remains sticky forever, as in three months, without any real warning on the label. I thought to take today to describe the “easy” life that I lead, the realities of standing still without permission.
           So, what is on my mind? I’d like to split the following list into matters into groups of voluntary and government but they didn’t arrive in that order. Besides, the topics overlap for the greater part. I would like to have relaxed today so when I didn’t, here’s why.
           1. Map out the next 14 months or go broke.
           2. My legs will begin to look like a different race than my arms if I don’t buy SunBlock.
           3. Where do I find $25 for the next sewing class?
           4. I need to find $10 for the sonic turn-signal alarm on the scooter.
           5. Time to Ghost that IDE drive into a SATA drive.
           6. I am not maintaining my 1:3 ration of old blogs to new.
           7. Why have I not bought that 5,000 BTU A/C for the kitchen?
           8. I forgot the outlet box for the new bedroom A/C.
           9. Tell Florida I am not paying $42 registration for a stolen scooter.
           10. Write to EVAN for that missing document so I can file my 2010 taxes.
           11. Set up that advertising account for Fred.
           12. Contact Maryland about that Social Security report.
           13. Buy the developer trays for the seminar this Friday
           14. Purchase the positive developer, known as Sodium Hydroxide, known as Drano.
           15. Get over to Guitar Center for those new jacks.
           16. Update the lyric book, on 22 pound stock.
           17. Buy new sneakers, the ones I have are blotto.
           18. Remember to pick up a big pack of AA batteries for the label maker.
           19. Fix the odometer light on the scooter.
           20. Take a day off to visit JP.
           21. Send that 32-page letter to Harry.
           22. Refill the printer cartridges or regret it later.
           23. Finish downloading the new bingo mix.
           24. Find those drill bits nobody sells.
           25. Cost out my new eyeglasses.
           26. Renew my prescriptions
           27. Don’t forget grocery shopping.
           28. Find that drill press.
           29. Update the gold/silver charts.
           30. Practice my vocals, through a microphone, standing up.
           31. Find the problems with the new antenna.
           32. Pay that $60 electricity bill.
           33. Return the new computer for repairs.
It’s a wonder I find time for the important things in life. Like Obama’s bill that makes it illegal to discriminate against the unemployed. How does one do that? Let me see, “Well, little lady, I’d like to take you home, but you have no job, so get lost.” I mean, who else applies for jobs these days? Have politicians started to believe their own straw man arguments?
           I know less about politics than anybody, but is Ron Paul running or not running in 2012? It is scary that there are people who oppose his policies running loose in our streets. I mean, why does the US have 900 military bases in 103 countries? So I drove the scooter to the Barn in Aventura. Saw two good-looking women but the non-blonde was taken and the blonde was reading maternity literature. In that vein did you hear about the discovery of a pregnant dinosaur? So much for them laying only eggs.
           Last, I see this ad for an electric Rolls-Royce claiming 91 watt-hour batteries. Have I missed something? That’s half again the energy density of any existing rechargeable battery I know of. I think NiCad is something like 60, but I forget the units. It is something like watt-hours per kilogram, let me look that up. Okay, I’m back. Yes, watt-hours per kilogram. Conclusion: Rolls-Royce is fudging. For the record, gasoline’s energy density is something like 13,100 wH/kg. But you can’t recharge gasoline.
           I just got an elbow in the ribs about that straw man comment. Okay, I’ll explain. It is when a person in an argument doesn’t refute the topic, but changes the topic and attacks with that. That off-topic change is the straw man. Example: I say, “Two plus two equals four.” Wallace says, “Mathematicians aren’t always right, you know.” He isn’t saying my statement isn’t true; he’s creating a straw man. I use him as an example because he thinks it is normal.