One year ago today: April 23, 2013, carefully posed.
Five years ago today: April 23, 2009, stranded in Savannah.
Food again, this time the famous fries from Five Guys. They put a sign on the wall naming the guy that sold them the potatoes. These totally unhealthy calories are my consolation prize for my annual checkup. Not shown is the malt vinegar. The good news is I don’t have gout. Good, I don’t even like the way that sounds. Some tests are scheduled in two weeks, so maybe we’ll know more by then. The reason these fries get top spot was the distance they traveled. Even if the crows delivered them, these taters are from 2,870 miles away in Idaho. Potatoes travel more than most Americans. Let's review the day, shall we?
This confirms my suspicions about the flowery ads and lack of local web pages since the years when I last looked there. Oz says the economy there is bad with lots of “dingy-looking” characters trying to lure you into a conversation. Sounds like East L.A. I’ve already warned that other than a couple of high spots to avoid being sued, cruise ships stop where the port fees are lowest, figure it out. (The places I would live in Belize are nowhere near the downtowns of these trouble-spot cities.)
The realization the world was heading this way was one of the reasons I did so much major travel in the 80s. Half the world back then was being propped up by the boomers and their credit cards. I even have a theory on that. The boomers came in waves. The first wave, 1946 to 1956, had it all their own way, moving through a system that, while strained, could still accommodate them in style. The second wave, 1956 to 1966, got the shaft. There wasn’t enough of anything. Thirty at a time were crammed into classrooms.
The system saw the first wave taking advantages and enacted laws to prevent the second wave from doing the same. If you think, you’ll spot the pattern yourself because it is still on-going to this day. Example, the first wave ran their own businesses without ever paying much into the system. When they started turning 60, they quickly got a super-paying job for the required five years to qualify for a fat social security checks. But the second wave found when they tried the same, the rules had changed to one’s life income, not just the best five years. That’s what I’m talking about.
War is a popular topic, I see from y’day’s ratings. What I know about it, I learned from books, so yes, I do talk about war in abstract terms. Here’s some trivia which lets you know my opinion about Americans fighting other people’s wars. Take the Normandy a.k.a. D-Day. The archives record 210,000 casualties, but only 40,000 were killed in action. Does that mean the other 170,000 got evaporated? Define “in action”. The highest ranking US dead soldier of the war was a Lieutenant-General (McNair) where said “action” was a US bombing raid. I rate the top commander of the war not as Patton or Montgomery, but Nimitz. After the war, he returned to the States and, well, that’s about all he did after the war.
I stopped at the Barn (Barnes & Noble) to review some of the more recent Arduino publications. I’m glad to report there are now books available by more responsible writers than a year ago. Plus, these authors addressed a lot of the shortcomings I noticed myself, undoubtedly another coincidence. I may purchase the edition by Jeremy Blum. My purpose [of studying today] was to test how well I had studied the Arduino for the robotics meeting tomorrow, even if I choose not to attend. How did I do today? Well, for a hobbyist, I guess I do know a lot about microcontrollers after all. Return tomorrow to see if I went [to the meeting].
Another note on apple cider vinegar. I’m not a doctor or a lawyer, you are responsible for your own actions. Food or not, vinegar is still an acid and to be treated as such. As for the rumors that 5% vinegar destroys tooth enamel, I do not know what controls, if any, were in place to determine that. Sounds to me like one of those accounts where some old lady forgot her dentures soaking in the stuff over Advent and phoned it in. The bloom is called mother of vinegar because you can take a spoon of it and start a new batch. Health benefits, other than zero calories, are lost when vinegar is heated and filtered say most nutritionists, one of which I am not.
The idea is to set my soldering iron for an hour and let this puppy turn it off. Much safer. I also found four magnetic door alarms in perfect condition, even the batteries were fresh, for $6.00. That’s the little reed switch magnetic models you can clip on a motel door knob. I will disassemble one and see what makes it tick. If I can bypass the magnet, the alarm becomes just another sensor and I can connect sensors to the Arduino. As the gears begin to mesh.
Speaking of gears, it was April 3 last year that I replaced the scooter drive belt. Meaning I go less than 2,700 miles on it. Man, I was ripped off.
I promised to get back to you with the long-term effects of my weight-loss program last year. The one with the injections. I have slowly (very slowly) gained back all the weight lost from the injection program. This clearly shows that my diet is not the culprit. I simply do not consume enough calories to explain that, so I’m back in two weeks for another round of tests—and this time they are listening. Is that good news? It depends. They may be listening because I’m nowhere near as fat as the bills they’ve been sending my insurance company, meaning they don't want to lose me now. True, over the years I’ve gotten to know my doctors but the bottom line is my top-notch coverage has paid off more than a few mortgages over there. And here's the sign where the potatoes came from:
