February 27, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: February 27. 2015, farm-raised?
Five years ago today: February 27. 2011, coffee & lemon cake.
Nine years ago today: February 27. 2007, pedal to the metal rescue.
Random years ago today: February 27. xxxx, WIP

MORNING
           Another generic sick day. So you can compare to what happens on your days off. But try not to forget, there will be a point in your own life after which every day is precious enough to write down.
           Nothing could be simpler. The supplier finally got back to us saying they could not locate the replacement throttle cable for my Goldwing. So, I remove the old cable, take it to the shop, where we match up a cable that is too long and make a replacement. I said that funny, but you get the drift, we can always cut a cable shorter to match. But, can I take the right cable off the Honda? Apparently not.

           I surely did disconnect the wrong cable, shown here. It was the only other spring loaded cable on the carburetor, and it moved when I wiggled the throttle, so I thought I had it. As soon as I heard the little retention bracket fall, I knew it was the wrong friggen cable. And now I cannot find that bracket, but I will. Of course, it was a bitterly cold morning to work on metal parts.
           It gave all the Frenchies a chance to come over to say goodbye. I thought they were supposed to bid adieu, but all of them just said goodbye. Between my two trips to the motorcycle shop, I didn’t get my morning coffee until 11:30AM. I would have fixed this cable myself, but I do not know the technology of getting the correct bead on both ends. Try it, you’ll see what I mean. The cable has a small plug on each end, meaning it must be clamped on at the correct length after it is fed through the sheath, not before.

           And while you are admiring my handiwork, remember the drill bit sculpture? That’s my little collection of broken and built drill bits that I was just starting around this time last year. Well, lucky you, I have an update on that. See how it is coming along? This is a true original, I’ll have to enter it in the next Americana art show I stumble across.
           I’m trying to get the cPod camper finished for the upcoming motorcycle season. The best method to finish the rear “clamshell” doors appears to be the one major item I am not equipped for. Metal working. I can cut metal, but it is tedious. And the welder is still over at the clubhouse because I’m chicken to use it when alone. Actually, my fear is not unfounded, as the directions say not to work alone.

Wiki picture of the day.
Mona Lisa of the North
NOON
           Along with filling the propane bottles, I’ve investigated a series of security measures to keep people away from the tanks when mounted on the camper. The only logical spot to keep a tank is over the hitch itself, which is precisely where I want to place my bicycle mount. So the refilling the smaller cylinders is a must and I sure don’t want to store six of them inside the sarcophagus. I haven’t used propane much since I moved into this place, but I’m hardly going to forget those several months FPL left us without electric in 2005, was it.

           The canisters will be stored outside and the best security measure seems to be a rapid ticking noise that is audible when standing near the bracket. This is easy for an Arduino, maybe ten lines of code. I could probably tap it off the Arduino planned to monitor the actual output of the solar panels. If they are doing as bad a job as I suspect, then propane appliances are my second choice. I do not trust noisy, smelly, electrical generators.

           It warmed up enough to get the yard work done in the afternoon, which included laundry, trimming back the jungle, and even time for toast and coffee at the Senor, where it turns out I am practically the only one in my crowd that likes the place. Then again, I’ve lived in Venezuela, where certain culinary fussities are not an option. Oh boy, did I just coin another word. By mid-afternoon it was so pleasant, I crawled under the Goldwing and poked around until I found that clip or bracket thingee I accidentally dropped this morning.
           Whoa, one of the Frenchies has his unmarried daughter wondering around the pool. I’d place her in mid-30s, but totally Anglophobe. You get a certain amount of that in Canada. They still consider themselves part of the old French Empire. So I’ve decided to contact Trent to schedule a meetup at the coffeehouse this upcoming Wednesday. Maybe get him to bring some gals from the office on a “normal date”. I can afford normal-dating at the coffeehouse, but not the local night clubs. That’s a simple enough formula.

AFTERNOON
           Aw, lookit this little guy. He’s taken up residence against my back yard concrete wall. Or maybe it’s a she, I can’t find my insect book. Let’s have a race to see who can find the species or this spider first. I’ve seen them before over at Wally’s Folly, shown here snapped with my poor man’s macro lens. The only other clue is the web is around six feet across, though the working part is more like two square feet in the round. Got that, Patsie? I didn’t think so, but anyway.

           Hang on while I sent Trent that e-mail. I’ll leave it up to him to invite some ladies, since he’s the one who still works in an office. What? Now hold on, I said I didn’t date women where I worked if it could be avoided. But Trent seems to have no such rule and I’m okay with ladies that work in somebody else’s office. It’s up to him since it was his idea.
           Then again, I don’t usually take women to coffee shops. I go to the open mics to meet women, though I have to confess this has never been an effective tactic since I moved to Florida. The clientele at these places, once you are over 35-ish, tapers off to the, the, oh boy, what’s the standard term for age-appropriate women of limited intellect who are hopelessly stuck in the past? Anyone? You can’t say old-fashioned, although that’s a great descriptive.
           Ah, I got it. They are “New Age”. It just seems they are backward-thinking because they failed to conquer many of the cerebral challenges that constitute adult reality. Like math, physics, self-reliance, ambition, and future planning. They’ve substituted their own seat-of-the-pants outlook on life, not realizing how droll and predictable it makes them. Same with men who take that route, right Glen?

EVENING
           Ah, I just pulled some baked chicken out of the microwave. That’s baked in a sauce of what I had available. Wish I’d kept track, but it was mainly tomato sauce, skim milk, organic corn starch, flour, chicken bouillon, spices (Italian, with a hint of curry and garlic). I eat pretty well since I got off the Monsanto/Cargill pseudo-food, though probably not as well as anyone on food stamps who actually spends it on things to cook.
           At the foreign cinema, I watched “Rams” and I was only partially right about the plot. There was no government secret agenda involved, just a sheep disease called “scrapies”. Akin to mad cow disease, it also seems to be English in origin and infected animals develop severe itching that causes them to scrape against objects for relief, eventually scraping off their wool to the bare skin.
           Introduced to Iceland by imported English sheep in the 1800s, the disease is poorly understood and untreatable. The plot involves two estranged brothers with a prize breed caught between bankruptcy and the authorities. I won’t tell you the ending of the movie, because it doesn’t actually have one. Either that, it isn’t the first movie that ends when the producers run out of money.

ADDENDUM
           Meet the newest bone-head who has made my idiot list, Mundane Matt. The fat boy is such a moran (that’s m-o-r-a-n, the correct Internet spelling of “moron”) that I had to watch it once I started. That guy has to lay off the late night pizza and take a beginner’s course in civil law. No, you do not have to prove “malice” when you are defamed, you only have to prove that you suffered harm (it means financial harm) because of it.

           And the American media has been guilty of that for decades. The mainstream media has abused freedom of the press laws since the 1920s. They no longer report news, they create it and manipulate it. I’m a Libertarian, I say if a person is wrongly convicted in court, he should be able to sue the Judge, Jury, and entire prosecution team, so don’t try to convince me the big news operations didn’t have it coming.
           Freedom of the press is not the right to publish anything you please and get away with it. The intent of this protection was to ensure that (at that time) newspapers could not be sued for printing the news, which carries with it the obligation to stick to facts and truth. Interpreting the facts is not part of their job unless clear labeled as editorial, in which case, libel laws are even stricter. This is so mainly because the average journalist is neither trained nor mentally equipped to deal with complicated issues. There are shining exceptions, but according to Ann Coulter, none of them work for the New York Times.

           Anyway, if you want to see idiocy in action, watch the video. Never once does Trump actually say any of the things Matt the Moran insists he said. Trump merely says that newspapers that publish “hit articles” had better watch out. Actually, that has always been the case, but their victims have been unable to get the legal support and precedents established to seek damages. If Trump actually isn’t advocating any changes, merely the stricter application of existing law.
           I like the German system where the accused’s name cannot be published unless he is convicted, and the Bulgarian(?) system where anyone who is named is granted free equal space or time in the newspaper or television to present their counterargument. Only a Liberal thinks “free speech” grants anyone a right to broadcast lies. It is hypocritical of people like Moran Matt to go on about their freedom of speech while blasting Trump for exercising his own.

           For now, I concerned that the establishment is going to do a Kennedy on Trump. He is championing the greatest upset of an established order since the French Revolution. I suspect the only reason they have not tried to stop him that way is because for their own nefarious purposes, they co-opted all privacy in America. Now they can’t do a 1963 over again and remain anonymous. Anything they try will backfire and politicians are by nature all cowards. They are afraid to try anything on Trump because he is not a politician and he might shoot back.
           If anything happens to Trump, there will be hell to pay in this country. I can tell you which side most people would join. And this time, they mean it. This is not your 1960s college campus.


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