One year ago today: July 31, 2014, the then-new Europa.
Five years ago today: July 31, 2010, another false start.
Six years ago today: July 31, 2009, an old photo trick.
MORNING
Looking back on this summer month, I’d say it rates as one of the more successful this year. I had been noting on my calendar I had planned to take the rebuilt camper pod on a thousand mile jaunt through Georgia and southeastern Tennessee. But I’m not taking into account the fantastic trips to the auctions and the excitement of that entire episode. To buy in a moment what the other guy spent his life paying for, to retire in the country overnight instead of at age 65 or more. And all of this is within budget.
Peanuts. That is the ticket to minimizing absenteeism at your club meetings. Big bags of jumbo, roasted in the shell peanuts. Cost is only around $1.50 per person and it can get messy, but the lowly peanut gets them off cable TV and into the clubhouse. This morning, we have another meeting at El Senor concerning the shopping trip to Radio Shack. Folks, I may not have had the most meteoric of careers, but this is the way retirement was meant to be.
I can defend even that. You see, due to my late start, a career could not be planned with any accuracy. Too many circumstances. But retirement can be planned and this is the results. I know inflation is punching holes in everybody’s lifestyle and it’s going to get worse since the yuppies, in their cocoons, allowed the federal government to take over the country. And to repay their voters with dollars printed up just this morning.
And another thing I’m weary of hearing is that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was unprovoked. That is nonsense. America had been interfering with politics in east Asia for decades. And Roosevelt had frozen Japanese assets in America. I’d say when somebody steals your money, that is plenty of provocation. But, America is full of people who think it is not Germans, but England, that has a right to rule the world. After all, over in England, we can understand what they are saying.
Yes, but Hitler had a low growling voice, like the sadistic animal we have been practically forced to believe he was. Listen to those recordings as he bellows out the crude, rasping and guttural sounds of the German language, as he brainwashes the audience. Boy, are those people stupid. All to Hitler’s hoarse voice. I wonder if that voice has anything to do with the fact that the Allies had gassed him nearly to death in the war? Oh, I forgot. We are supposed to believe the Germans started that war, and lost it to the Brits. Because the Brits are good and the Germans are bad. Only a Nazi would think otherwise, right? Like the people who would watch this video. (Video was blocked by Google in 2017.)
All they really wanted was peanuts. But nobody asked me.
[Author's note 2023: Recent evidence confirms that Hitler was actually quite soft-spoken. The harsh rasping of his voice is confined to a few newsreels that have been doctored by the British wartime propaganda office. They took snippets of his radio speeches which sounded harsh in the day, plus the quality of microphones lent to the effect. Apparently the Brits used the electronics of the day to add the "buzzsaw" effect. A recording of Hitler's natural voice from a recording device left on in a Finnish radio station indicates Hitler's voice was quite normal.]
NOON
I would point out that this table is not available for any work, no matter who asks. It is exactly as square as 10,000 toothpicks standing on end, which is 9-1/4 inches if anyone must know. Maybe slightly over. This table is designed to do one thing only, and at 20,000 drill holes per day, the task will still take 50 working days. Like counting to a million, I have no way of knowing whether these figures are even realistic. Yet. (This project was never completed.)
AFTERNOON
So I made it to the Radio Shack in Miami Gardens and spent $200. One item on sale was the “BASIC Stamp”, one of the first microcontrollers that I would never have spent $80 on, but for $29, I’ll take a look. What a can of worms. If you think the documentation for Arduino sucks (that’s what most people think), don’t even look at the Stamp. The on-line manual does not even mention the version I have, the “HomeWork Board USB”. Instead, it gives useless page after page of what looks like operating temperatures.
From what I’ve seen, this microcontroller does not use any Basic language layout, so that is a misleading title. I cannot find it in the manual, at least not at the beginning where it should be, but I think you have to use a version called Basic 2.5.
Now, I will likely do some kind of programming on the Stamp so I can say I did. But everything about the Stamp so far, right down to the editor (which for some strange reason displays the hidden files in your Win directory) says this thing stinks to high heaven. For example, the instructions say the first thing I must do is enter a “Stamp directive”—without any explanation of what that is.
So, I have reverted to the most primitive of brute force computer tactics. Drop every menu choice and test every item on every list until you find something that works. I hit it on the third try, I seem to have a board version Stamp B2 and a software version called PBASIC 2.5 – it doesn’t tell you that although the USB cable is plugged in, it does not supply power to the microcontroller. You must install a separate battery or it just sits there. For about twenty minutes until you figure it out on your own. If you see a picture that says “Tales From The Trailer Court”, you’ll know I was eventually successful.
Much as I hate storing user generated files in a Win system directory, the Stamp takes it upon itself to do just that, at least by default. Scary. I have seen this kind of idiot Basic before, in some weird MicroSoft window like VBASIC. Idiotic, because it is not Basic. May I live long enough to see the end of that company so the world can get on with new systems that work.
EVENING
I thought of heading downtown, but stayed in to play my bass list. I’ve long known I don’t care for the type of women that go out on Fridays. While a lot of times that means they have a job, it also brings out the ones who know it is payday for the type of men who, well, spend a lot on payday. Debauchery isn’t my bag. I found an independent source of Stamp Basic commands and had the exciting time of reading that.
And if that isn’t thrilling, I experimented with ways of fastening 80-lb fishing line into loops. It isn’t easy. Then baked chicken while I looked at those video cams that use your smart phone as a viewing screen. Neat idea, but the thought of a videocam with no viewscreen takes me some getting used to. Yes, I’d love to be out on stage tonight working on some fancy lady, but there are none left. For the past two decades, whenever I had a woman I had a great time with, it was because I supplied it. So don’t go calling me old. My kingdom for a woman who can keep me interested.
If that sounds easy, let me tell you, before I was thirty, I was keen enough on doing the wild thing that I never cared if a woman had an enduring personality. About that age, I met my first honestly interesting woman. It was only then that I looked back and saw how, personality-wise, dull my former women really were. Until then, I thought that monotony was part of what you put up with for a steady supply. (Don’t laugh, most married men think that is normal.)
Alas, the one I met was happily married, but she raised the bar for me. I still enjoy a fling, but once I knew women like that existed, I could never settle for the tedium of the average woman. I’ve known for years that had I not met her, I would probably have picked the prettiest one and been content with dull routine, only suspecting there could be a dynamic woman that I would still dream and compare years later. Not an exact comparison, but on the big issue. Is she thrilling to me? Then, within that same year, I met my wife, now ex-wife.
Now if you asked me what made my wife so enduringly interesting, I’d be stuck. But I could list the major items. Like how she was not into gossip, when she spoke, it was about ideas, places, and not people. She also did things on her own time that benefited the relationship. Not like baking cookies, I mean I could leave Judy alone for a week and nothing would change. She’d get bored. But my ex, in that time, would have read two books, learned to solder, and figured out a way to invest in a gravel pit. That’s in addition to being good company 99% of the time. Really good company. She often told me she had picked me because other men didn’t like her learning things. Since her, I’ve never even met a woman who both could and did write.
When I say I’d give anything to meet Taylor Swift, no, it is not because she is young and pretty. It is because she is making it on her own and has no trouble throwing weak men (like Millennials and Hipsters) rapidly onto the garbage heap. I see no evidence she clings to her parents. She’d rather go it alone than waste time with weak and characterless men. She’s a thousand times more attractive than Miley Cyrus. I could go on, but I’ve made my point.
That explains, in a sense, about why I took a chance on such a loser like Theres. It’s because we met in a computer shop. For a brief moment there, I thought she really wanted to learn computers. Duh. Out in the real world, I would not have given her a second look. You see, I must now have a dynamic woman, and there aren’t any available. The pundits will tell us they are everywhere except where I look. Such people can’t imagine anything being a woman’s fault. The way a Liberal can’t imagine an illegal committing a crime.
ADDENDUM
I was up late last evening refining the drill table. Inventing is hard enough when one has a skill set, boy, you should try it with my resources. I either have to learn every iota myself or rely on others who rarely have the same motives. Let me bore you with some details and the reason for that is to emphasize that you never get to the stage where you know so much that there are no problems. Kind of like marriage, I suppose. Not mine, yours I mean.
The metal rods I chose for the drive rail appeared uniform, all shiny and new. I could easily twirl a nut from one end to the other. But this characteristic changes when a lateral load, such as the weight of the drill platform, is placed on that same nut. If your brain just said, “I never thought of that”, then you are experiencing the same as I did. Logic says this drive rail must only be supported on by the ends unless some complicated support mechanism is designed to follow the nut across the working path.
So I spent an hour taking perfectly good and new (unused) threaded rod (a.k.a “allthread”) and running it on pass after pass with my old toothpick rod cutting dies. Is this why real “lead screws” are so expensive? The drive rods have to be so perfect I’m afraid to handle them afterward. Next unexpected problem was the shaft coupler. This is the garden hose and two hose clamps I rigged up. It tests rigid, but there is a very slight flex in the rubber that gets worse with testing. It would not last in actual usage.
This ensues a study of couplers which are not cheap, but are also overkill for my needs. I could compensate for the hose flex in the programming, but that would mean a study of the change over time or some sensor to monitor the variable flex. Metal is better than wood, but wood is more fun to work with. So I watched the video link above and said, I can do that because he is using wood. Famous last words.
Last Laugh
Here’s something my ex would found on her own,
and called me over to look. It’s nothing, but I miss such nothings.
