Each as if my own
My goal of $9,000 is not arbitrary. It is to set up a trust that continues to provide the food should anything happen to me.
Tales From The Trailer Court™
Monday, July 27, 2026
July 27, 2026
A first. Today I ask for charitable donations, the first time in my life. The fact is, the premium doggie chow has doubled (in some case tripled) in price and gotten out of my range. I have donated for years, and try to provide the best I can afford. For many of the doggies, this could be the best meal they have ever had. Please take a look at my GoFundMe, entering the search criteria:
My goal of $9,000 is not arbitrary. It is to set up a trust that continues to provide the food should anything happen to me.
My goal of $9,000 is not arbitrary. It is to set up a trust that continues to provide the food should anything happen to me.
THIS IS A HEADER - scroll down one page to begin blog--->
VIDEO HAS NO SOUND.
===============================================
THIS BLOG IS NOT FORMATTED FOR ANDROID.
If buying is not owning, then piracy is not stealing.
DOES NOT represent any average American life-style.
This blog GoFundMe: Each as if my own.
A reminder to the reader this is not a political blog, but commentary on human behavior. I am not for or against any political party. Liberalism is not a political party, but a social cancer. It is wrong to steal money and it is just as wrong to elect people to steal it for you. One more thing, never argue with a man who buys his printer ink by the barrel.
Here is the movie Citizen Vigilante for free.
If blocked, paste & go this link: https://old.bitchute.com/video/iLjCEmvPzHjO
Here is a cop & murder video The Kingdom (2007).
I attest the uniforms, Arabs, dialog, and portrayal of Saudi Arabia are exceedingly accurate in this movie.
Be patient, this is a tricky process.
Getting the video to play through my world-class ad-blockers.
Remember to use the back-arrow to return here.
You will forget and get hijacked by Google.
Sunday, July 26, 2026
July 26, 2026
One year ago today: July 26, 2025, it’s not real MP4.
Five years ago today: July 26, 2021, Wal*Mart on ‘tard day.
Nine years ago today: July 26, 2017, I don’t actually dissect.
Random years ago today: July 26, 2013, six dollar popcorn.
This could be another fun day of contrasts, or I could play it safe and read. I like days that sway between robotics, music, boxes, and food, but I also like energetics that last that day. You see, y'day happened. I slept for 17 hours and right now, I feel supercharged. Let me check the day count for you. Aha, day 117, meaning I’m likely heading for full recovery, but I've been tricked before. Maybe I'll write, what a boon to the blog community, some might say. The old kitty in the yard got a scrambled egg, with half & half, and a tablespoon of beef drippings. And yes, I will, later today, turn up the doggie donation site.
That wonderful aroma is grits with a hint of garlic. If you want the best, you have to wait a bit longer. We can’t record everything, so this morning’s topic is electronics theory. This photo shows two advanced components. Some recognize the Uno in this photo, the dots are a 5x7 array of LEDs called a matrix. What’s the challenge? The wiring, for the way the pins are manufactured into the array is not geometric. I’ve wired the pins to a circuit board, then over to the Arduino, and here’s why.
That pin configuration is a headache, so much so there are “driver” chips to match the various array styles. One common chip is the MAX7219 for around $3. They are just a bunch of logic gates that let you interconnect the array in a more human-logical pattern.
The latest model of the Uno, called the Robo Uno is in the hands of a few, but not available on the market yet. How did they manage that? I want one.
Figuring out these chips is not what is going on here. I feel these chips do not teach anything new. My goal is always to create the code that uses logic to operate the chips. It’s more fascinating work that forces you to think with reason, something I’m not the only one needing more practice with. There is another consideration, which is software in the Arduino, called “libraries”. This is a major reason Arduino fell out of favor with me—lack of control and standards over these files, with the attendant lack of documentation.
You could just download a library that claims to operate the array, and learn little to nothing. Also, that is placing a vast amount of trust that the author of the library knows what he is doing, follows good coding practice, and has not taken even one shortcut that deviates from Arduino protocols. Nor is there a known location to seek these libraries, no naming convention, and if anything goes wrong, you are in the dark. Often literally.
Another consideration is that, although the Arduino community has been shit-brick lucky so far, libraries are executable code off the internet, written by strangers, and downloaded into files and folders you [probably] do not monitor.
For the advanced user, be aware that there is no “reset” or “clear” function on the Arduino that restores the ATmega chip to factory defaults. You can overwrite what is there, but the overwrite only affects the memory locations which use the new incoming addresses. Fragments of these libraries can persist where you least want them. You done been told.
Slum tourism.
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Nothing for you this afternoon. Some quiet reading and hot coffee. I got some planning done and one item I would like to address is the time it takes to stain the boxes. It is done by had, with sponge brushes, as bristle types drip too much if you get them wet enough to get a good cover. The solution is to dunk the boxes and let them drip dry. But I’m short a suitable container. It must be deep enough for the Z-box and at least 12” x 9” and capable of being sealed shut or at least easily drained and refilled. Any ideas?
That’s interesting. The gang members shipped to the prison in San Salvador are suing the airlines that deported them and the US government. The claim is they knew the prison was torturing prisoners and nobody has ever come out of there alive. Imagine that, prisoners not liking the prison. Folks, that prison is for gang members and the US continues to send more. The courts have declared illegals have no rights to such protections.
At dusk I went Wal*mart for business envelopes. Not just any, they must be tinted and peel ‘n’ stick. Many an idiot thinks is makes no difference. Fools they be, if you know anybody who works at the post office, talk to them and never use an untinted envelope even for a birthday card. Gummed is also out, no Glenn, not because the government takes DNA samples. Because the smallest box of 40 envelopes is a nine-month supply. And in the Florida humidity, you are just wasting money. It’s not the paper, its making the trip there and back that costs more than the goods.
Then an hour on the phone with the Reb. Yes, there is a security breach. We cannot place the connection but I can tell you our passwords are not allowed to be written down. And the only time we would say them is in a private room where even an eavesdropper would not know they were passwords or to which account. In any case, each password has a suffix that is never spoken aloud. Everybody besides us who knows that suffix has been dead for years.
I will mull over the remaining possibilities. The one that stands out is a laptop computer. People do leave those logged on and unattended for what they think is too short a spell to pose a risk. I don’t think that way. The Reb judges people on personality where I judge by character. Seems a cute twist of words until you see us work together.
ADDENDUM
For the goFund account, I used one of my dormant e-mails. That was 18 hours ago. I have already received 6 junk-mails and they sold my addy to Sport Mazda North, who got a piece of my mind. I never do business with intrusive advertisers and neither should you. It encourages on-line delinquency. By now, I have dropped [viewed] most of the goFund menus and do not like their general attitude. Likeable people do not, repeat do not, hit up their friends and neighbors for donations. It stinks of Amway. But, as long as my surrogate doggies get a good last meal, I’ll go along with such GenX nonsense. I hope these people think they’ve invented something new.
Way down here is some math. Last day I posted a method whereby the Enigma output could be used to narrow a key search. This does not work on computer generated codes, which use unknown prime factors to scramble text. Instead, there are massive investments going into recording your data now on the premise that in the near future, quantum computers will crack all keys. It’s the SNRL “store now read later” acronym you never heard of, but you will.
So, how does quantum theory find these elusive factors? One theory begins on the principle that if you guess a small number close to the answer and keep multiplying it by itself, you will eventually find a number that, when divided by the prime itself, will have a remainder of 1. The math formula is x = mN + 1, where N is your guess (your multiplicand) and m is your multiplier. None of this will be on the exam; the point here is that a simple formula can be used to eliminate, you guessed it, millions of wrong combinations. Cubits can crunch the smaller numbers that result, this theory only works in certain cases.
This growing threat has been known for years, so what defense is available? Some of the world’s best brains are working on it. My prediction is it will be lattice technology. Lattices are fixed but equidistant points on a grid. To get from A to B, you can go, say, three steps east and two steps north. But you can also get there by many other paths. Here is where you remember once learning that computer arrays have no problem dealing in more than three dimensions. With 1,000 dimensions, even quantum computers will take too long to give meaningful results.
Saturday, July 25, 2026
July 25, 2026
One year ago today: July 25, 2025, unusual tiredness.
Five years ago today: July 25, 2021, the Netgear blues.
Nine years ago today: July 25, 2017, applied for permission . . .
Random years ago today: July 25, 2023, a nothing day.
I like a fun Saturday as much as anyone. Instead, I was up, had coffee, and fell back to sleep until 4:40PM. Today I have nothing new for you—but I do have some minor items that have stacked up over the past week. We can walk through that. Like the remote started for the van, the remote alarm trigger. It fails on two counts. One, it requires an AC power source due to the design of the solenoid. And two, that power supply must be constant, not momentary. I set it aside, it will come in handy yet.
Now the facts have emerged and tongues are wagging. The winner is the kid brother of the mostly corrupt mayor of Little Rock. I detect a pattern here. Something actually happens in Little Rock once every 60 years and it is never good.
Where is my box of Arduinos? I have at least five units but where? I still have not built a successful amp, but I have three correctly-wired breadboard circuits. This joins around five of my most useful items that have “gone missing” since January. It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. The Prez, who used ChatGPT to generate a small booklet, sent details on the process. Alas, this so-called A.I. product cannot do much better than that. I’m searching for something more capable, but so far most are the same.
That is, unless the script is tailored to the capabilities of the software, it produces only short clips of cartoon graphics. Next, the doggie chow for the pound is in peril, the prices have shot up ten bucks a bag unless you want the brands consisting of mostly floor sweepings. I don’t have a lot of options left unless I goFund something. See today’s addendum for my thinkings on that.
My motive [for looking today] was not funding, but investing. Some time back I researched small home equity loans and fractional ownership. I sidestepped that route because, although it can be done casually, to really make a return it demands lots of good, experienced and talented account monitoring and management. One might as well get a job and let others do that kind of worry. Still, I am familiar with the concept. It would be new to me, which I can explain.
Prior to 2012, most jurisdictions made it difficult to fund or form any organization with more than 25 investors. The market was dominated by an elite who knew the rulebook, and it was a sticky mess for beginners. I did not know until recently that was the origin of the term “accredited investor”.
The change in 2012 was called the JOBS act, but I never paid it much attention. All it did, from my viewpoint, was remove the 25-member cap. It was also a regulatory look at the massive pool of scams generated by the early Internet. I never did understand why existing laws did not cover these shady operations just because they were on a computer instead of a typewriter. For now, this research is a towering task, but like myself, you can simply open an account and hope for the best. The only difference is I will document the goings-on.
Something I was not expecting is that you can open an account and accept donations before you meet the requirements. That means you can set up a fund for your cat without specifying the bank account or your ID. They will still collect donations for you. It’s when you want the money out they put the screws to you. No anonymous charity antics in today’s on-line America. What’s weirder (to me) is that you can even have them send the money (with proper criteria) to somebody else’s bank account.
Abandoned Lynnewood.
(The “Titanic” mansion)
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Later, I’ve decided to go ahead with a goFund account to feed the Sheriff’s doggies. Reviewing the other (mostly self-centered) appeals, I quickly felt I could do better. From what I can tell, the minimum donation is $10 which I feel is far too much. I’m looking through the suggestion lists of how to “drive” people toward your listing, but is that the proper attitude? I’ll tell you what, let’s work together. We have this blog, the other’s do not. Tomorrow, Sunday, I have planned to announce the donation link.
I also notice others do not thank or report back, which I consider necessary. Asking for help is not something that comes natural to me, so again I’m starting from a zero knowledge base. I still think $10 is a bit hefty, but welcome anyone who wants to give. I have also noticed a 100% lack of videos. I see they have video capability, but meant for phone transmission. Ah, but it does not say that and if this blog isn’t social media, then what is? And we have some experience producing top-notch short videos, wouldn’t you say?
There was no afternoon, told ya, I slept through most of it. Even missed a planned night on the town. Instead, I read a chapter on human-computer interaction that a lot of today’s coders could benefit from. It involved the early experiments with computers that gauged how people reacted to button-presses. That remains a majority part of how such devices are used today.
It was a fascinating delve into the computer world before today’s “that’s-your-problem” menus were brought to you by thoughtless coders. Who remembers my 11-button “speed dial”, that’s what I’m talking about. The time back when computers were designed to be easy to use.
Realizing the internals of a digital gadget were alien to users, the early makers designed a system of feedback to make life easier. There’s too much to cover here, but the basic concept of the pilot light has never been improved upon. This was no chance development, I read two chapters on the speed and reaction times. Why come buttons fade, others grey out, and the technology of what happens when the timing is wrong. (Usually, if nothing apparently happens, the human will push the button again.) The point is, the activity was a wondrous and complete study that today’s thoughtless coders have chosen to ignore.
Included in the early study was menu design that put considerable emphasis on the proper and logical groupings of the commands. It is another lost art. Today’s junk menus must often be memorized for each device. Classic example is your GPS. Most just find the few features they use most often and leave the rest at the factory defaults. And ignore Brandon & Tyler who call that progress.
ADDENDUM
The concept of on-line charitable giving is noble, but a quick glance at the prime site, GoFundMe, (goFund in this blog) shows that it allows begging. Too much of it, but that is to be expected in a welfare state. There is no excuse for people to be begging for food in America. I also find some of the donation categories to be in poor taste. Can you see funding some lady’s European tour when you can’t afford one for yourself? Me neither.
You can also rule out tours to Disneyland, dream trips (final adventure stints), and you’ll not see my money helping people move to “safe neighborhoods” if you get my drift. I’m a plain-clothes redneck and I’ll not help export the problem.
Still, goFund is the largest and best designed location for this activity. I’m carefully going over the donation reports and find some of them suspicious. Many, especially gender-change and predictable adult crises just flip past. I’m after how the system works and I see right off that those with a legitimate cause are a minority. The sit is primarily donations, which is a different premise than crowdfunding. Most people lack the skill set to keep tract of dozens of investors, much less pay them back according to a contract.
The sites also report only success stories. I arbitrarily chose Kickstarter, who (in 2025) report 42% of users get at least some funding, also report 358,000 failures. There is a blurry line between investing and donating, but I’m certain when any profit is made, the SEC will make it very sharp and to the decimal point.
At best, I can only hand you an overview of my own experience here. I will set up a donation site to help with the doggie chow which will likely get swamped by the thousands. I’m skeptical how the top donor in so many sites is anonymous. As usual, just keep reading here over time and I’ll report what I find as it applies to my own goals. There are umpteen places offering “rewards-based” funding, where for $10 you get a thank you e-mail, for $20 you get a plastic pen, etc. At this time I will have nothing to do with that. Hmmm, this is something new, are you sure I'm not too old to be picking up on all this modernity?
Friday, July 24, 2026
July 24, 2026
One year ago today: July 24, 2025, finding its limitations.
Five years ago today: July 24, 2021, bleak Okeechobee.
Nine years ago today: July 24, 2017, the stench.
Random years ago today: July 24, 2012, the latest blog protocols . . .
Show of hands, how many recall that a gig-less Friday for me is a day off? Hmmm, that’s what I thought. To make amends, you get to learn lots more about boxes today. Here’s a box I’m about to cut in half because of a tiny sawing error y’day. One edge of one piece was off by a kerf width.
Another PPP, poor people do not stock up on business-size envelopes and I just ran out. I have to waste more gasoline, and because my security and scanning equipment is here, I have to return, then go back downtown to mail the letter. You watch, Wal*Mart will be out of the security tint peel & stick, so I’ll either have to drive to Winter Haven or buy a whole box of the wrong product. Florida is the leading edge of PPP, but you know, other places like Mexico and Canada are hopelessly worse.
Meanwhile here are two assembled button boxes ready to be stained. One is the “naughty box” and a “radioactive” box. Don’t be too critical, they are both prototypes and I cannot find a good font for the lettering. This view is the two logo patterns suggested by Bryne at this is the photo he will get via e-mail. Along with a reminder to get into town for a jam session, you cannot go wrong in East Texas for that.
Even if you succeed, the result is apt to be inferior. So why do I do it? May reasons which include I am not rebuilding the box, I am repurposing it entirely. I am dissecting looking for the source of the error. I’m saying until you have and experience eye, don’t bother trying to correct mistakes. Adapt, not correct.
Next was more banking and more PPP. Because everybody was “too busy” to get me the updated ATM cards, I’ve had to make the deposits by mail. The bank slow-walks mail-in transactions because they are AOLs about it. Not a problem every other month, but this month ten deposits and they have begun holding back funds. Because other people are too friggen busy to go get me that new ATM card I asked for last April. Hold it, on this account, it was last October.
I had to get downtown to verify the clearing dates, fortunately the money place had a business size envelope (for 25¢), which gave me time to get home, process, and get back downtown hopefully before last collection time. If I missed it, that is another PPP and the pieces are not even added up on that one yet. I’ve put 178 miles on the van, and tomorrow means another trip to Winter Haven.
Driving the Dolomites
(Italy)
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Another thing about data cables is they can go bad for no apparent reason. Slow Friday’s are a bit of an unofficial “test every battery in sight” day. And the blog rule to record anything unusual reports today we had 30 dead batteries. I have a load tester and the most dead were the most important. The back shed has a combination lock, and if the power goes out, trust me it is dark back there. I have dozens of those old plastic lights Harbor Freight used to give away (shown here dismantled) in excellent operating condition. Enjoy the view, that, folks, is your fancy picture for today. What other blog entertains you with dead batteries? Hey, if you like to see only the good parts of a video, there is always BitChute, har-dee-har.
By late afternoon I just sat down. Man, am I pissed off. I opened the Caltier page and the friggen password has been changed again. And not to one of our standing password keys that would let me change it back. I’m not a happy camper. Neither is Norway, on whom California is trying to copy their wealth tax. That’s where certain things (such as a speeding fine) cost, instead of a fixed amount, a percentage of your net worth. Problem, rich people don’t hang around for that bull donkey. They move away. In the case of Norway, they took $50 billion with them. Now Oslo is going bankrupt because they can’t fund their precious social programs.
Stress is something I avoid, so I sat down and put a layer of the pecan poly on a bunch of small boxes, including this morning’s. Time to think. I can’t fathom the Enigma mechanism yet but neither can most people. Did you know that after the war, the British kept the codebreaking a secret for another 30 years. Why? Because other nations like Russia began using the Enigma machines believing they were secure. I never said they weren’t, I said I find it impossible to accept that nobody anywhere suspected a thing.
News, the MSM has a new tack, putting about that America is in danger because Trump has destroyed trust in their journalism‽ Apparently one does this by pointing out they are liars over a period of ten years.
Here you go, the recycling of this morning’s box. Left frame shows the tiny lip difference in the cut, meaning the box cannot be made “square”. Middle frame shows the two small boxes resulting from the cut. Right frame is the “short bank” trays being placed into the staple box. This has to be done right before the saw cuts, or the lid won’t close. I’ve switched to a smaller but no cheaper 7/8ths staple for these smaller units. They must also be spaced properly.
In that same vein, let me mention more about the pneumatic stapler. This is the tool I drove all the way to Parrish to buy on sale for $19. It is now an essential and anybody can use it with a few moments training. However, by learning what’s going on, I’ve discovered it is possible to make the staples look much better by positioning the tool carefully. Sorry, no close-ups, I use Vivitar, but I’ll bet you can’t even see any staples here.
ADDENDUM
I began a casual look for what those casings [from y'day] might be. They were there for a while, and I found more, but doubted they were termites for the simplest reason. There was no source of water or moisture. Here is a photo of more specks, and do they not look like they could once have been ovoid, but are now dried husks.
Around 7:30PM, I scrolled through some 800 pictures until I found this one, labeling the specks as “frass”. First time I’ve heard that word, and me over 25 years in Florida. It is termite poop, in this case a “drywood termite”. The literature says they do not require open dripping water, so that explains one thing. It also means if I want to live here until the end, it means another tenting, which is conservatively priced at $1,200. But there are bait controls I will try first. Termites are year-round in subtropical places, so I will start looking tomorrow. I will hit the attic first. I have not been up there since last summer.
Thursday, July 23, 2026
July 23, 2026
One year ago today: July 23, 2025, now that’s vegetarian!
Five years ago today: July 23, 2021, twice the honking price.
Nine years ago today: July 23, 2017, descriptions and prescriptions.
Random years ago today: July 23, 2016, hula-hoop earrings?
What nonsense will I get into today instead of fixing my kitchen floor? Can’t say but how about an early peek at the options. I have that German car alarm controller that I’ve tested every way, it has remote keychain buttons that can be paired to operate the alarms. It is off on, but I have two other remotes I have not tested. The idea is to see if I can get at least one of them to work with the broken starter on the Hundy. Yes, I still operate that with the momentary switch under the grill. But that’s unpopular when it is raining.
Here is the controller and the clips, but not the keychain switches. This is kind of expensive an approach. It’s the challenge. It has become trial and error since the instructions are in German and have terms I have never seen before. What else while I’m out in the shed? There’s the dowel maker. One of my questions was how fussy is this contraction about the wood it will use? It has to be pre-cut to a list of sizes needed to fit into the assembly. The dies are in standard, the stick dimensions are metric.
This is why I have the calipers out, and notice that they do not agree on any measurement using the test stick . The difference is miniscule, but these are supposed to be precision instruments. These are meant to calibrate other tools, not need this form of adjustment to start with. I will try to save space by having the sticks correct in two dimensions each, these are meant to be placed on the saw table to space the blade. Is this too ambitious? We shall see.
I have not been satisfied with my work lately. My recuperation is fine in a big way that while relapses occur, they are never back to the helpless level of two months ago. I find myself dropping more things and bumping into furniture a big more, though that has diminished. I wrote letters to both the Reb and JZ to take it easy. I cannot commit to any visits, but there is a chance in August. The blog is experiencing a great bloom, the only bright spot for now, I will require some extra nap time. As said, I’m at a strange period of reverses that are getting progressively weaker. Hmmm, that reads funny. What I meant is I'm still getting fatigue bouts, but they are shallower and don't last--but still not any fun.
The real South Park
(Houston)
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An afternoon tired spell had me checking the news for four hours, thank the stars I picked up 32 coffee pods y’day downtown. It took the father of another gunned down knife attacker less than 14 minutes to get on TV and say his son was “no threat”. Do these people have their speeches written and ready? Trump endorsements are running at 100% this year and I first heard of Nancy Mace. The first woman to graduate from Ft. Bragg’s Cadet school, were her father was the commanding officer, no less.
What did I learn this time? Other than the zero depth of yellow shading, I did not have to alter the original. On the top left, the logo is only partially burned. There is around a ten-minute time limit running the laser below 4000 mm per minute. One does this to make the etch darker [in a single pass]. You could make multiple passes if you have all day. This one fizzed out at 3500 mm. Also, these larger logos are harder to center, or I should say differences are more apparent if you don’t get it spot on. (Later, the radiation logos take ten minutes each, so this becomes uneconomical without a commercial laser,)
In the background, I’m watching more video on the Enigma code machine, having a laugh at the sheer extent of propaganda shoveled into the facts. I mean, some of these videos were made last year and the 1940s brainwashing still works on some people. One thing mentioned in most videos that a “flaw” in the Enigma meant a letter could never represent itself. There is no explanation how this worked, so I’ll provide one.
Every message is usually a string of random letters, so you write them out in two long strings, here is one string of sample code with a second string slid one position to the right and below. The codebreaker is looking for combinations, and if you notice on this short message there are three locations where the letters match up. The codebreaker knows not to bother with those combinations.
He is going to keep sliding the bottom set of letters along until he finds a position where none of the letters match. This eliminates millions of combinations and now he begins seeking a probable known phrase, like the date or “Heil Hitler”. Another favorite was Nichts zu berichten, the German phrase for “nothing to report”. I have watched every major code-breaking video on line and not one of them explained this. I’ve seen videos of people doing it, but as far as I know this is the first place most of you will see it explained. “Spelled out”, one might say.
ADDENDUM
Next, I made a ham sandwich and watched video on casino cheating. I was hoping to see some sophisticated electronics. Most of it was nothing new. Card marking, loaded dice, hand signals, and crooked dealers. Still pretty interesting because cheaters have to keep coming up with new ways to do old tricks. I was looking for the impact of A.I. and there wasn’t any. That just tells me the casinos are using it, but not yet the players. That will change.
By watching so many videos, I gather it is almost impossible for the house to monitor the countless ways of cheating, so they don’t. They rely on a small set of telltale signs, such as somebody winning consistently as well as information exchanges on known crooks. Myself, I’m just glad I never bothered with gambling. I don’t like the people at casinos anyway.
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
July 22, 2026
One year ago today: July 22, 2025, 50% - 60% chance.
Five years ago today: July 22, 2021, two days early.
Nine years ago today: July 22, 2017, weather-dependent travel.
Random years ago today: July 22, 2008, the old Club X.
A morning with the banker to iron out a plan to squeeze my pension account dry. This is too convoluted to explain, but here’s how it works. My pension account, set up 36 years ago, was absorbed by a big bank corporation with strange rules which I certainly never agree to. The upshot is I have not been able to check my balance for years. I’ve made withdrawals only to the last known good information, but we know those pensions have been adjusted upward for inflation. The usual rate is $40 to $50 per year, and there are two accounts. Do the arithmetic; this means there could be as much as $6,000 sitting there above what my records show.
Who remembers Mitch, the Louisiana guy who moved to the Canadian moose pasture of Edmonton, Alberta. The trikke rider guy. He sends this video of little Albertan weather y’day afternoon. Or is that Albertonian, or Albertese? How should I know? I’m not an Albertic. I am scraping together some cash out of old corners, and one is my own private pension. They adjust it annually for inflation, which is a joke, but I carry the balance on my books at the historical amount. Thus, those small increases, often as little as $45 per month, have been adding up since 2017.
I had to get into see my bank about all this, it is an advantage having a commercial account. You’ll find all the staff are far more seasoned than the street-level tellers hired off Zip. However, this wipes out the gas budget and I had to pour in another $40 to end the month. Is this a PPP? Yes, part of the reason is the van needs a tuneup, it is not getting the full combined fuel economy of 19mpg. More like 16mpg, and poor people don’t maintain things, an extra few gallons of gas beats the cash outlay needed for keeping things efficient.
Then, I settled in to watch selected clips of the Enigma move, the one that portrays Alan Turing as something other than a math nerd. That fails, but the scenes are hilarious, like the Brits faced an overwhelming onslaught from every direction. In fact, Germany had no real navy, no long range bomber force, and no craft to cross the English Channel. Other than that, we are to believe they were out to conquer the world.
I have yet to see a documentary that does not portray the Germans as inept. Time and again the history people expect us to believe not one German in the entire High Command down to the telegraph clerks never once suspected the English were reading their messages. Not one German radioman ever figured out that “Station X” was a code-breaking outfit.
I’d link if I could find it again, but I found a study that showed crime went down and people were politer if there was somebody nearby wearing a Batman costume. Airbnb is reportedly excluding blacks from their platform.
Diamond cut chart.
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Here’s a view of a Ukrainian drone factory. Your tax dollars at work. This conflict has changed the face of war. That movie “Eye in the Sky” was far-fetched at one time. Today it's so real it is unreal. I’ve little else today, so here is a highlight of what the banker and I chatted about during an otherwise number-intensive meeting. He is keen on my theory that I can tell when a person is lying about certain topics by what they don’t complain about. And here is today’s example. Imagine some dude, who otherwise appears normal, saying we don’t tax the rich enough. Is he lying. Yes, but the path is very indirect. Not only is he not rich, he has never even tried.
I know precisely what it takes to rise from abject poverty to at least a lower-middle-class zone, and plainly he does not. Okay so far? Okay, that means I made sacrifices and invested and lost a lot before I learned. Another thing he has not done. Being rich can be properly defined as making money from what you own rather than physical labor. Don’t broaden that for now, because that is what most people mean by “rich”.
So, I have a savings bond. I did what was necessary to get that bond, I got no help from anyone. Taxing me amounts to some dork who contributed nothing demanding a share of my interest—and he wonders why I don’t like him and built a fence around my property. I say the same applies to the man who owns the factory. People who have never even tried are demanding a cut. So where is the lie?
To me, it is implied. The dude is pretending he knows what he is talking about, but has never deprived himself of a thing that counts. Ut-tut, I said “that counts”, because if he did, he would be whistling a different tune. The lie is play-acting he as some clue what is involved. If he did, he’d be complaining about the rich being taxed too much. This, folks, is why the rich spend so much to protect themselves. They have to.
ADDENDUM
The plan is the same, flood the market with these cheap clones until the competition collapses. Then take over. Here is the Chinese Leapmotor, heavily government subsidized to a price tag of only $22,000 US. It has a range of around 375 miles when the battery is brand new and fully charged 36 hours in advance, but you can get an 80% charge in 20 minutes using their 800V zapper—but that punishment tapers off to 30% before too long.
The Chinese factories have formed alliances with Canada, Mexico, and Europe to sweep away the competition and Volkswagen could very well disappear. What they did was called sleeping with the enemy.
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
July 21, 2026
One year ago today: July 21, 2025, Foolish.
Five years ago today: July 21, 2021, regarded as normal.
Nine years ago today: July 21, 2017, strumming at the “Bicycle Shop”.
Random years ago today: July 21, 2013, blah.
Dang, knowing that Dell will fire up, I used the early morning cool to shoot you a couple short videos. I normally trim off the start and stop footage. Today, the latest version of MovieMaker, which I do not want, clobbered my legacy version, and will not even let it open. Screw you GenX types. They lack any ability to create value is beneath disgusting. The best they can manage is to rope off an existing lot and charge for valet parking. And fancy themselves clever, how did those over-30s ever miss that one? Not one new invention or original concept in 30 years. Oh, that’s right, I keep forgetting their grandmother stole all the good ideas.
About now I’m seeing that it takes five business days for a first class letter to reach Nashville. I had fun today building the case for the dowel maker kit. Top panel shows the “dies” for different diameters, these arrived back in foam. The bottom pane shows the dies fitted into a wooden bracket of my own design. There is room in the case for other parts, plus a set of five blanks corresponding to the sizes of wood for each of the dowels.
There are two dies for each size, a slightly larger coarse cut, then a smoothing cut of exact diameter. I have not used these yet, the achievement for me is this is my finest “instrument case” so far. Built to spec rather than just allowing generous proportions that I knew would fit. Looks pretty good to me.
OK Coral, today.
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Festus walked across a desert with some old guy carrying gold We had Part 2 and no recording of Part 1, so I take it Matt and Newly were tracking him. The neighbor’s maid is now also his cook so he’s got roasts and whole chickens he don’t know what to do with. He’s noticed I’m absent from the shed a lot. From my viewpoint, I’m there quite a bit. I assemble four fake boxes after the movie and still had some energy to go for a beer. That’s been a while.
Sure enough, the joint was dead except for a couple housewives playing pool. I had a list of DR (dead reckoning) spots and decided to finally just plot so many of them that the problems solve themselves. The instructions are so contradictory the best path, was my thinking, to just do it until a system emerged that I can use. I was partially successful and now have 8 sheets of mistakes to go back and argue with badly written text.
Around 4:00PM I experienced very strong cravings for cereal. Nothing like this in my life before. I ate all that I had in the house, granola, shredded wheat, toasted oats. My system is changing, cereal is mostly harmless. The time to worry is the cheeto munchies. I have some nostalgia. It was some 35 years ago and I used to like playing the original satellite trivia game, called NTN. That is a long story, the people I met, the women I dated, and the fun of, well, knowing that just walking in could dismay players addicted to it all day.
The reason I stopped is well-told. They changed the format from real trivia to TV trivia and I moved on. I have, over time, found locations that still have it, but it is not the same game. Well, some people at the club were talking about this game app and I now know what happened to NTN. They are now called Buzztime. They folded in England but still have 3,800 locations stateside. Near by is an updated, but to me, entirely recognizable game console.
Monday, July 20, 2026
July 20, 2026
One year ago today: July 20, 2025, not a cloud.
Five years ago today: July 20, 2021, not for $135k.
Nine years ago today: July 20, 2017, politics and mushrooms.
Random years ago today: July 20, 2007, on-bicycle trespassing.
Day 171 and I did some actual work. One post hole is enough to convince me I’m on the way. Maybe not to the Olympics, but just maybe getting some work done on this building again. I would love to have a real kitchen once more. Maybe find out if my new hot water tank still works. I dug the hole, and did so without pausing or getting winded. This is a milestone, a level of endurance I was wondering if I’d see again. I never thought I’d thank a post hole. Let me recount the episode.
I must ship a box to Texas as thanks for support, though I’d rather deliver myself and crash for two months. In October next, I have not been in Texas in ten years. Bryne’s seen more pics of the box than [shown] here and likes the concept, suggesting other hobbyists might be a good market. His suggestions include a radioactive symbol and a far better than plastic first aid kit box. He overestimates my skill, but then he’s the guy who refrets guitars. Poor guy had a tooth removed and has been in pain for six days—and I mean real pain or he would not mention it.
What makes a handle right? Symmetry. Especially the folding type, so avoid the ones that are half-round just for looks. Seek the nice ones that are full size. Here’s your view of the new oak stain I like. No hint of red and look how it spiffed up these two junk boxes. One box is for my USB-B cables which are getting scarce, and the others to separate the knobs from the handles. I may be tired from digging holes, but not too tired to find something useful to do this morning. Here’s another ordinary box, this one is band cables, transformed into a thing of beauty by a coat of stain. This stain, like sex, is best when it is free.
This relates to my guitarist, who is finally out of the hospital. Those bills keep going when you don’t and the odd part is it is not a PPP (poor people problem). Put another way, if you properly keep enough buffer to pay your bills during an emergency, you will not be poor very long. You heard me. Peering just that far enough into the future will eventually turn you somewhat wealthy even without your cooperation. When one door closes, another opens. It’s a door, that’s how doors work.
Before continuing, here is a video clip of the shell of what used to be the best local lumber yard. Bought by third worlders on a government loan that was never paid back as they sold off the inventory and pocketed the money. This does not happen because foreigners are clever, but because America was once a high-trust society.
So, what happened to Ricko, the Ramone’s guitar guy? He fell in the shower and cracked ribs. He got behind on the bills, I had to assure him it was not identity theft when you run out of auto-debit money. It’s from not keeping your records in order. Mine are airtight for good reason. If my account was hacked, you’d not see me accepting the bank’s rehearsed statements that my information was stolen. If so, they stole it from the bank, not from me. And I would go to court that it was the bank’s money that got stolen, not mine.
The bottom line is Ricko is in no condition to play or move equipment. But he did keep in touch. That’s more than most in west central Florida, a musical dust bowl. The best thermometer for what’s available is Bandmix, even if you don’t use a paid account. Keep an eye on the postings and you find people there for years that go nowhere. Don’t wag fingers at me, if any half-decent guitarist came along we could be playing by this afternoon without remembering each other’s names.
Quick, find Pottawatomie.
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Negative equity, that’s where you owe more on something than it is worth. Such is the case with almost 30% of cars in the US being traded in. The average deficit is around $7,000 which adds another $20,000 in interest before the loan is paid. The solution, of course, is to not buy on credit and perform basic repair and maintenance yourself. But that is expecting too much from people who don’t know what a standard is, or a window crank.
A tiny error turned all these into fake boxes. One of the cuts has to be “sideways” and it is an easy mistake. All of these have it, making the bottom plates slightly the wrong size. That transforms them from spice boxes to fake boxes. I also had a chance to check on stain properties. The stains are made for a thin layer on smooth wood. The rough wood really soaks the stuff away. I was testing how fast it does this and under normal conditions this is impossibly costly. Ah, but there is a concept forming.
The Prez e-mails to say nothing music is happening. Too bad, plus his wife, who had the same operation as myself, is experiencing the same random recovery ills. Y’know, a better word than random would be haphazard.
The back panel has something I’ve not seen in ages, a serial port. I’ll need to re-read the chapter on how to get that working with microcontrollers. It’s a hassle, just one port, because computers can only use one at a time. And one is needed to upload to the Arduino. I’ll have to think this over since I’ve not used terminal software in at least twelve years. I have some old mouse adapters in the shed, or I’ve seen them on Amazon for twelve bucks.
This would be a boost to my studies, as I have a DOS background and I read that the highly-praised FPGA (field programmable gate arrays) are designed to use HyperTerminal, which I don’t know even a thing about anymore. But serial communication is not a priority around here, just a challege.
ADDENDUM
Social media strikes again. I detest anyone who breaks American law to defend illegals. That also means 84% of Americans agree with me on that. It was a telling revelation that most foreigners who attended the recent sports events came away with astounding stories of how they had been misled about America in their home countries. Let this post assure all that these leftists, trannies, liberals, Karens, queers, misfits, and commies are a tiny minority in the US and they are hated by everyone else. ICE (more properly I.C.E.) has been using water cannons to sweep the streets of protestors.
It is legal to protest in America, but if you want to use the streets, you must get a parade permit. These are no longer granted as automatically as under the Biden administration. So, here are my favorite comments to the question, “Should ICE be allowed to use water cannons to clear the streets?”
a) only if the temp drops below -10°TMOR, I would remind you that the press is biased. Most Americans do not like any hint of socialism or communism. It is the media’s mission to convince you there is violence and the left is a majority. I have personally never witnessed a shooting or a riot. And folks, I get around, though not often down the street with the Mexican embassy. I have an example of the American mood—and it will not match the phony “sympathetic” angle pushed by the news.
b) they get a free bath and a little ride
c) use bullets instead
d) also at home in bed at night
e) real cannons for all we care
f) use ink (also glue)
g) a case for the manure cannon
h) are we out of flamethrowers
i) waterboarding as a sport
People do not like these Mexicans and don’t want them here, that’s an 84% polled majority. So when the news announced two “Americans” were killed by Iran, everybody knew they must be Latinos a.k.a. “part of the reason the USA has not won a war since 1945”. That’s not me, that is the main public opinion. The standing joke is the missile hit the motor pool. The Democrats are reported to be pushing death certificates as acceptable voter ID.
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