Do you see a photo of my field repair on the Nikon? It should look like a shelf bracket clamping the battery compartment shut. Because that is what it is. If so, that means I bought myself that new Canon Sureshot I’ve wanted for nearly a year. Ah, there it is, a little blurry I suppose because the first feature I turn off is the auto-focus. That is my Xmas and birthday present combined this year. See, I even do that to myself. It’s only a rotten trick when you team up birthday and Christmas gifts on other people, see? Glad we got that straightened out between us.
Nope. I trade one for one. I learn one of yours for every one you learn of mine. What? Ah, but that was several years ago when I hit a bad patch. Now I don’t need the money. Now my old rule book is back in force. And that is why Jag is back in the loop. I’m going to surprise him by learning a few of the tunes his current band plays. If I know teenage bands, he doesn’t suspect his music can be done right without a drummer and lead guitar. Be patient, he’s got finals this week.
Look at the band I’m in now. Taking on a new vocalist is always a shift in musical styles. The rest of the band is now learning maybe eight new tunes. But this overlooks the fact that the poor bass player had just finished learning sixty of the old tunes. This incredible burden will go unnoticed. After all, I’m just the bass player. And “bass is easy”. At least to those who have never tried to do it right.
Remember my home-made ROM device? The prototype was successfully tested and shelved. Why? The company that was interested in helping me develop it into a kit went kaput in the few months it took me to produce a working model. Like most greenhorns, I underestimated the time and complexity. In that maddening aspect of invention I probably had to take it apart and reassemble it fifteen times. (If you just got here, in the end, it functioned 100% perfectly as it was designed to do.)
It still exists but it is no longer a priority. It remains to be miniaturized, which entails a printed circuit board. I lack the technology to line up the copper traces with enough precision to drill the 52 diode lead-holes lined up on both sides. As usual, since this requires input of real knowledge and isn’t shallow beginner's nonsense, the Internet is no help whatsoever.
Y’days photo of the round circuit board was no coincidence. I examined that object under magnification and suspect some pilot holes were drilled first. Or some manner of template was produced. The traces must be wide enough for me to hand solder my switches. Watching a documentary later, I noticed said switches are the identical design used in the cockpit of a 1944 Me-262. I had been looking at the Typhoon, that British fighter you seen firing rockets at German trains on D-Day. What a beastly piece of crap that airplane was.
The engine was started by firing a shotgun shell into the combustion chamber, which often enveloped the cockpit in a sheet of smoke and flame. That must have been fun. It was really two engines which would asphyxiate the pilot unless he wore an oxygen mask. Nor were the rockets that effective. Examination on the ground showed only 1.2% hit their targets and the pilots reported four times as much damage as actually occurred. (Note that the RP-3 rocket was the same weapon fired by land and sea mattress, and by calliope.)
I had something I needed tonight as in a slap-face back to reality. A conversation with a Canadian. Always remember that if a Canadian hasn’t heard of it, it can’t be. You must be wrong or lying, them’s your two choices. It does not matter what you’ve seen with your own two eyes. If you need to know if anything is true, just ask a Canadian. They don’t even need to know any facts to imply you are nothing but a gullible fool.
