MORNING
A note from the old Nova group says there is a Mini-Maker Faire at Miami LABS this Saturday. If so, I intend to be there. If you are not familiar with the do-it-yourself movement, Maker Faire is an outfit you should take a closer look at. They went from nothing to world-wide in a few years, you may have seen them on the racks as “Makezine”. It is not just robots, if you at all have an inquiring mind, you will like these people. I drove to Miami LABS a while back but they had cancelled the event on-line.
At my age, happiness can be discovering a lady who has been standoffish for over a year now has a, surprise, “cute” younger sister coming to town for a visit on Friday. As a matter of fact, yes I do know exactly where and when they will be arriving for morning coffee. Wish me luck, I traditionally do far better with younger sisters, is what I’m sayin’.
My internal clock went wonky and I’m still off balance as to what time it is. You see, I know I should be practicing my rhythm guitar. Through it all, I am a bassist at heart and I needed to purge. So what do I do? I pick “All My Exes Live In Texas” which turns out to be one of the most difficult bass riffs, since the notes emulate the steel guitar. All guitar riffs played on bass involve substantially more “travel” and above the 12th fret, I’m working on memory and sound alone. Maybe I should consider learning the riff so Trent doesn’t have to. It’s a tall order. (Shortly after this, I did begin to develop real "lead breaks" on the bass, modeled for acoustic accompaniment.)
Does anyone besides me notice that the default color schemes of Win 8.1 renders the title bar and mapquest street diagrams the same color as the background? That is, invisible. What more proof do you want that MicroSoft has a “Moron of the Month” award. Except, more like on a daily basis. Yes, I know there are settings to fix all this, but why did MicroSoft unfix it? And every solution has one common aspect: you have to stop what you are doing. Is it coincidence that MicroSoft and moron start with the same letter?
NOON
I missed the connection to pick up my oscilloscope. It is way up on Hypoluxo and I hesitate to make that jaunt unless I know for certain the guy will be there. And the phone call never arrived. I won’t drive that stretch after dark, so it means meeting up with him at work tomorrow. Good, that’s an excellent test run for the batbike battery system. I expect it to fail. (It did not, but revealed the problem to be the recharging system. It isn't keeping up. This is normally expensive.)
All the leather on the batbike has baked in the sunlight. Not the original leather, but the strips I had replaced last year. Don’t tell me I have to become an expert on that, too, just to find something that works. The leather stays attached to the sidecar via small loops, so it has to stay supple and it didn’t. I’m considering alternatives.
Also, that replacement seat cushion has been problematic. It either has to get shipped from the Ukraine or I pay through the nose in St. Petersburg. The one in Florida, not the one in Russia. That’s from the snooty Harley dealership. This is the backrest part, not the seat cushion. So I’m going to find a waterproof lawn chair part and make it fit. As for the furniture, we, as budding roboticists, can fashion anything to fit metal frames these days.
Listen, if you think none of this is all that exciting, just you go up to Dunkin' Donuts and see what happens there in a given century. By comparison, this is the fast lane. I found out the hard way that people who do nothing all their lives, despite their big talk and big plans, do not actually start doing things once they retire.
NIGHT
By dusk, I measured out the cPod camper and I’m going to stick with the little wagon trailer frame that I have. All the woodwork is coming off and into storage for parts. I’ve mapped out the dimensions and all I need is an angle grinder to make a few cuts plus a metal drill bit to cut a ¾” bolt hole. The rest is woodwork. One thing I have not planned is how the mattress and tackle will fold up with the walls, but I’ll run into that problem when I get to it. We’ll make the sucker fit because we have camper experience and we know there is room in there somewhere.
I found some harmonica tabs on line, but so far they don’t make sense. The hole numbers are wrong or something. Wait, I got it. The numbers are absolute, not relative to the tonic. So now I can play Dylan’s “Blowing In the Wind”. And another tune called “Quick Riff”. Never heard of that one before.
ADDENDUM
I’m halfway through “Murder in Greenwich” and it is an interesting expose on corrupt police and those who indulge in paying them off. American graft, from civil servants up to the presidency, seems to be perfectly acceptable behavior via favors and gifts, as long as little actual cash changes hands. But I’m enjoying the contrast between the rich and the rest of us. But one thing the rich and I can easily agree on is that being poor is no excuse for bad behavior.
This manifests itself every day. My first girlfriend was a Norwegian redhead (sadly, she lacked ambition) and my brother’s first was a slightly retarded girl from whom he stole money. They were still together last I heard, but like I said, she was slightly retarded—and he has consistently failed to ever get a second girlfriend. My first car was a 1974 Ford, my other brother’s first car was stolen. He even stole my car. My eldest sister never had a boyfriend more than fifteen minutes. You see the pattern. I don’t believe a bad upbringing is an excuse for bad behavior where my family would at least argue the case from the angle that said bad behavior is normal. For them it probably is.
There were a lot of rich and independently wealthy people around where I grew up. Except for the local welfare cases (two or three), our family was always the "poorest" in town. This leads many to think the wrong things, because we were not short any money. I’ve already stated how my parent’s combined income was in the top 5% of the world. We were poor through their gross mismanagement of those assets. If the money was not there, all could be forgiven. Or if the money was wasted on one big roll, but it was wasted minute by minute over decades, and that is unforgivable, particularly when it is money promised to someone else. It was as simple as that, but of course, if you bog down listening to the reasons people do stupid things, you will be here all damn day.
So yes, I have definite attitudes about the habits of poor people and I generally avoid such activities. When I think of a good time, I don’t automatically think of booze, gambling, and sleazy women. I tend more toward being in love, learning new things, and playing music. I don’t generally like poor people and trust them as little as possible because I know first-hand what they are capable of. Stupidity, poverty, and stubbornness are partners as far as I’m concerned. And don’t you believe for a second that nonsense that poor honest folk not locking their doors. Around my family, you lock up everything twice, then sit back and listen to them bellow. Listen to them roar.
Yet, I am not giving "Murder in Greenwich" a recommendation. Without the dimension of my perspective as just described, it might not be all that great a novel on its own. It focuses on the lack of police investigation where it is obvious the police need to be investigated. That would pick up the pace, indeed. The author is understandably not anxious to slander any rich lawyers, but he misses a dozen opportunities to tear a strip off the whole evidentiary process. There are simply too many people in the process who are tipped off in advance what they are expected to find, right from the crime scene up to the morgue and back down to the judge’s mood on trial date.
Kudos to the guy who juxtaposed these covers.
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