One year ago today: December 11, 2014, the last two words.
Five years ago today: December 11, 2010, divide by 2, add 7.
Nine years ago today: December 11, 2006, jail and welfare . . .
Random years ago today: December 11, 2003, office desk electronics.
MORNING
OMG, is that what I think it is? You bet. An original Silvertone amplifier. The kind you ordered from the Sears catalog. And in near-new condition, sitting in that music store off main street in Auburndale, Florida. I have not seen one of these since we used to joke about them when I was twelve. I believe this is the “1482”, with built-in tremelo. Around $75, ten watts, 12-inch speaker. You didn’t need no stinkin’ distortion pedals since this amp did that for you on any setting above “2”.
Even more interesting to me was the availability of the Silvertone electronic schematic. You know, if I had the tubes, I think I could build one of these. That does not make me happy, saying that.
It’s a good book, the Lakeland Goodwill tale of Great Powers. $3.66 for the hardcover. And it has never been read before, in fact it appears to have never been opened. It’s an intense style, what many would call “deep reading”. I have no background in world history other than that taught at grade school. When I attended college and university, there was only tremendous pressure to take courses that resulted in a high paying job as soon as possible. That, Sparky, is the single worst reason to study anything.
So the book is like page after page of revelation. Like reading a psychology text, you keep thinking, “Wow, that happened to me on a personal level.”
The theme is always why so many big central empires (Ming, Mogul, Ottoman, etc.) fell to tiny European states. I’d be like most people and say it is because we had the guns. This book delves into why we had the guns and I keep seeing parallels with my upbringing. There was no centralized authority that could exercise dominion, and thus uniformity, upon all the tiny kingdoms and castles of Europe.
Do you see the congruence? I had to become efficient without realizing it at the time. I’ve often moaned how 30% of my youthful productivity had to go into keeping things private and locked up. (Please don’ lecture me on “sharing”, you were not there to learn that sharing mean certain destruction of your property. Certain as in 100% certain.) But that makes an interesting aside. What was it like to grow up next to somebody like me? If you are the nobody, growing up next to me is pure hell. Obviously, even to accomplish as little as I did under such duress, I must have necessarily and early on developed a remarkably efficient (for a child) system of private finance, defense, and elaborate procedures to avoid prying eyes.
And when you have such a mechanism in place, it becomes most tempting to use it, particularly against those who try to grab an unearned share. Like by breach of contract. Ask Wallace.
I was raised in a situation where any one of a thousand opportunities for interference from others could (and often enough did) wipe out [what was then, a that age] a lifetime of work. So sure, I see the likeness when this new book talks about how settlers became the “haves”, with their arrogant paved roads and libraries, and the primitive nomads became “have nots”. It is far easier to steal a surplus than to create one, so you get the nomads constantly devising new methods of attack and those pesky settlements building ever higher and thicker fortifications.
Try to follow the implications of nomad attack. Unlike an empire, which must only expand and conquer those territories that produce enough to make conquest worthwhile, a nomad has only his short-term gluttony in mind. And a person who is motivated by gluttony is, we are well aware, full of the remaining vices. Like jealousy and envy. They destroy what they cannot carry away. Yep, the likeness is amazing.
That author obviously knew my family. And I’m only on page 27.
NOON
You get editorial today, like this photo of the breakfast menu in Okeechobee, Glady’s Café. On the downtown service road. One dollar coffee with free refills, kiddos. And following that little-know OSHA rule, there is always one and only one good-looking server. But I’ve trained JZ to overtip all breakfast waitresses, a rule of Texas thumb. Even if, like me, you regard tipping as a form of piracy.
Well, son of a gun, turns out they were absolutely right!
Agt. M was up at the supermarket, we talked about Lakeland. The industrial base is broader and it is no less of a “big city” than Miami-West Palm, which is really a long string of small towns grown together. If there is a downtown, it is because some tourist council put it in as an afterthought. And let me tell you something else, when we talk in public, no matter how quietly, people stop and listen. That is how interesting we must seem compared to the rank and file. He has never gotten used to that and keeps thinking we must be in their way or something. And that is also a big reason most meetings are held indoors, where eavesdropping is obvious.
Lakeland is a better deal. He’s as dismayed as I am that you can go months on end in south Florida without even seeing a decent blond, blue-eyed babe. Now, I only saw one in Lakeland, but I was only there one day. He wants to get some people together and barbeque chicken, but I’ve still got a touch of jet lag. I’m no company, so I’m staying home on this perfect day with that 600 page history book. And making turkey turnip stew. And tea, I like tea with Stevia.
If you see a picture of my utility shelves (printer, oscilloscope, air hose, guitar) nearby, you’ll know this was successful. However, it destroys the camera for any portable use, converting it to a stationary house unit. Which we will suppose is better than throwing it out or telling Nikon what they can do with it.
As I listen to NPR, I find the reaction of Arab countries to Trump’s comments to be incredible. Why would countries containing factions that hate the USA be offended when they can’t go there? Nor do I consider immigration policy to have any bearing on freedom of religion. It was clear the authors of the Constitution, in the context of the time, meant Christian religion. And for people in England trying to ban the Donald, they are not thinking ahead, which is part of the essence of being English.
Ban the US president? That will come back to bite you in your smelly British asses. Mr. Trump, get a copy of the names on those petitions and remember them when you get into power. When anyone on that list wants to travel to America. As far as reporters getting kidnapped or killed over there, please, send Megyn. They’re a bunch of surplus Libtards anyway.
Like the one today interviewing Syrians about Donald Trump. Why not interview ISIS, too, you morans? But the Libtard was asking questions such as, “What do your friends have to say about that bigot, Nazi Trump, when you gather in the evenings in the quiet dignity of your home to share cups of tea?”
Yes, we are certain that is how Arabs discuss politics. Prop the rocket launcher at the door and drink tea.
And now a program about how it is your and my fault that other people are fat. According to NPR, it is pretty much anybody’s fault except the person who is fat. Fat people “have” obesity, they say, like one can “have” cancer or “have” athlete’s foot. We are not being sensitive and compassionate enough, see? And we must be constantly on guard about “negativity based stereotyping”. We need “increased public understanding” when other people stuff their fat faces past the point of revulsion.
I know what I had to do to lose twenty pounds. I had to regularly include that one staple that is missing from 99% of fat people's diet: the ingredient called "self-control".
AFTERNOON
It’s video time, I go the video feature working on the Nikon. The quality is fine, although it is AVI (audio video interlaced), a series of stills. I don’t mind it, as it is editable by Movie Maker, which sucks, but is still the best free app for the job. Now I have to build a custom wooden casing for what’s left of the Nikon, being I had to call in the bandsaw to get at the battery compartment. Maybe I can modify an existing box of some kind.
Tomorrow, I mean. I am still wonked from jet lag, which I do suffer from badly. Can’t sleep, can’t stay awake. Nothing to do but wait it out, with tea and because it seems to help, cough drops. That’s two lost days already at a time when every day counts for so much. I may make some bass videos later. I’d like to record my own “brain-jump-gymnastics”, which is when you move all over the bass neck. If you take lessons, this is considered an advanced technique. I do it without thinking, but then, I use if for visual effect. To show off, if you would, because others consider it difficult.
I’m playing the same notes that could be elsewhere. Example, I do a lot of this in otherwise bass-boring Freddy Fender music. Drop back later, the Frenchies are clogging the system with Skype again. They do it every year until they get the memo. Then they take turns. It’s a Canada thing.
In the background, I see this documentary of the valiant American attack to recapture the islands from the Japanese in WWII. What an idiotic campaign that was. The Japs occupy Kiska? Let them keep it, give them the headache of supplying the place. But no, we have to send 35,000 soldiers and sailors to kick out 2,600 Japs. Typical American military reasoning.
NIGHT
While looking for a map, I found a bundle of journal notes from 1977. I had long forgotten that, since I did not begin systematically keeping a journal until late 1979. So that was like finding treasure. I have no photographs from that era, I was so poverty-stricken that pictures were an unthinkable luxury. I had left home empty handed and five years later found myself not only broke, but heavily in debt.
It was a different world then, not just because it is fine to say such a thing. Computers were on the way, but all the available opportunities were being snapped up by well-funded existing operators and rich college kids. There was a housing bubble and a good education was still a guarantee of landing a good job, but it was getting tight.
Anybody could walk in a bank and get a mortgage, I had left the expensive city to go live in a small town for what I hoped would be a year or two. It was to be six long years before I got back to Missoula. And during that time prices on everything soared out of reach for everybody who didn’t have credit cards. I hated credit, it forced prices up on everything.
I’ve published some of the notes already, if only because they go back so far. Man, that is nearly 40 years. And it is interesting to find I had already developed a lot of the principles that guided me straight through to today without wasting my life toiling away at the factory like most of my contemporaries. Let me think. Yes, I know quite a few guys who are retiring about now from factories, plants, and breweries they started at after high school. What a horrendous thing to look back on.
As I’ve said, my life would have been more interesting if I’d run off with the circus. What does that say for them other guys?
Last Laugh
What arrows?
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