One year ago today: March 5, 2016, the single-mother type.
Five years ago today: March 5, 2012, you know, like photographers.
Nine years ago today: March 5, 2008, my first Cash solo.
Random years ago today: March 5, 2001, Churchill’s pub, Miami.
Good morning from the central Florida Bible belt, where there is not one decent radio station on the air on the Sabbath. See, there’s another first word in this blog, “Sabbath”. I doubt I’ve ever said that word out loud, so hang on a second. Okay, I’m back. As near as I can tell today, it’s work on the bedroom, getting east wall ready for drywall. Lets’ see how far we get. I’ve calculated a plan to grab anything I can from Radio Shack. After examining the few parts I got y’day for 60% off, that is actually the price they should have been charging. Anybody who’s ever thought to splice a broken garden hose is aware of the scam that the parts cost nearly as much as a new hose. Well, Radio Shack has become a store full of those pricey parts, when you can find them.
I spent late Saturday in the library. One of the topics covered was my flower garden. And that searching question of why only weeds will grow there. When you think about it, every plant was at some point a weed. I’ve decided to attempt transplanting rather than seeding. And two of my remaining twelve sunflower plants are showing signs of insect or snail attack, so out comes the dusting powder. I’ve arbitrarily chosen these black-eyed Susans and chrysanthemums, mainly (here we go again) I suspect because I always wanted to use the word chrysanthemum in this blog. I opted the technology where the individual seeds are encased in a pellet of starter clay, making the seeds far easier to handle.
From my accounting days of doing the books for west coast agriculturalists, I have an excellent idea of what equipment is best for getting plants started indoors. And a very keen sense of how long this propagation is supposed to take. Toward the end, why I could tell you when it was harvest time just by how often the phone rang. Be advised, dear reader, that I personally have never taken part in any farming activity since I was in grade school.
So let’s follow along the secondary theme of these “Susans” to break up the next while. It’s that or pictures of me stuffing insulation. Here’s a picture of the starter tray, no Ken, those are not hash brownies. They are 36 neat little plants-to-be. I gotta chortle when I hear the claim that anybody can plant seeds and grow the flora. Not so, there is such a thing as the old green thumb. I know because I don’t have it. What I do have now is the other requirement: ideal starter conditions and knowledge of precisely how to treat the newborns. If you try this at home, my advice is you get the best equipment available. Oh, and don’t start with “little” plants. Get something that grows at least a foot tall so you can see the progress and not be tempted to over-water. What you see here is an excellent way to get started.
The rest of the morning, other than dusting the plants, was tarpaper. It seems an easy task but I found out that it’s only easy on new construction. Existing studwork has plenty of obstructions, mostly phone, cable, and electrical wiring. I’m around half done the one wall but this real progress. There are still electrical wires to staple in place and each piece of tarpaper has to be custom sliced. Having the electric fully operational is a grand convenience. It’s hard work and when I took a mid-day break, I ate a ploughman’s lunch. And is he going to be pissed off when he finds out. Howie was over and he was more than impressed by the windows, more like astonished. And remember the blue box from the attic? It was full of his daughter’s dolls and other priceless mementos.
Dawn, at Cape Canaveral.
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It’s now 7-1/2 hours after I got underway and all that was accomplished was to tarpaper and insulate that east wall. The one with the new bedroom picture window. I’ll think twice before undertaking that chore ever again—it is dull work that proceeds at one dreary pace no matter how good you get at it. This was a warm day so I worked with the insulation bare-back. I kept going until the wall was finished and stopped right there. I would not have made money doing today’s work as a contractor.
I can’t really drywall the entire room next, as the west part needs to be specially leveled due to the termite damage in the bathroom. But I have a temp partition in the room anyway, and once I move it, the finished part will be 8 x 12 foot. I’ve lived out of smaller places than that more than once in my career. That was about the size of my room at the Ariston in Caracas back in the early 90s, so we’re not talking just my college days. Mind you, that room was only $12 per week.
Several sources have said to really keep the room soundproof, put two layers of drywall. I’ve looked at this before and this could be an opportunity to practice working with the material. They say plan it so the seams don’t match up, meaning the first layer doesn’t have to be a work of art. Give me two weeks to learn it better than Wallace. I want that room finished so I can get a work counter or desk happening for my hobby. I’ve got some projects I’d like to try, and one item I’m wanting to tinker with is the grid.
We are all familiar with electricity running down a wire, but the ROM circuit I built was a specially wired grid. There is not enough study material available on this topic. But I can conceive of a working basic computer using three grids, one each for input, processing, and output. It’s just an idea right now, don’t quote me or anything. But the keyboard is type of grid and so are the coordinates when the mouse moves. Do you see where I’m going with this?
The ROM was a grid controlled by a pattern of diodes, you saw the contraption I designed before, so no pictures. But if I replaced the diodes with transistors, that pattern becomes controllable. To the computer, numbers are patterns of zeros and ones, so even the easy configuration I have in mind would constitute a valid computer. That’s one wheel I’d love to reinvent.
“I saw an ad for burial plots but I figured
that’s the last thing I’ll ever need.”
Magazine prices have put a dent in my coffee budget. Isn’t it quizzical how magazines are now $12 - $15 per edition, yet the advent of work processing equipment and lower labor costs should spell the opposite. The articles certainly aren’t getting any better. Even PopSci has geared down their material to near Millennial level. I figure the prices may have gone up due to the Internet, but isn’t competition supposed to work the other way? I now buy three or four magazines a year where formerly it was at least that per month. You don’t get my business by doubling the price and then writing half-baked editorials, like that article on how to pick a lock. Publish an article on how the average user could appear located on Bouvet Island, and I might buy a copy.
What, you didn’t know that uninhabited Bouvet Island has a web suffix? It’s “.bv” and if you know anything about Bouvet Island, well, that in itself would be quite a surprise. It’s where Elvis and Hoffa are hiding out. Don’t believe me? Find it on a map and tell me why that place has a net address--what do they know that we don’t? The island has six endemic forms of life, of which three are “lichenized”, and I just named two of them. I read that last sentence back and I know when I’m too tired to write. Adios.
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