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Warning. This blog has evolved through many phases and earlier posts did not allow for links that go dead or change. I never intentionally link to sites that require memberships, accounts, or log-ins. Same with sites that don't pass my stringent filtering system. Thus, I encourage readers to NOT follow any links that attempt to redirect, use cookies, or are obvious wrong material for this publication, which is essentially PG13.

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.

October 17, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 17, 2025, a dew claw.
Five years ago today: October 17, 2021, Twenty barrel-loads.
Nine years ago today: October 17, 2017, Deb’s since disappeared.
Random years ago today: October 17, xxxx, WIP

           Here’s somebody you have not seen in a while. Two years? It’s Sheba, the 100-pound puppy. She likes to take LizJohn for a walk, it is a pity Bryne could not take her in. He’s on that acreage in Texas, but after that liver transplant he is forced to take it easy even these 15 years later. And Sheba is, I suspect, over that reported 100 pounds. She is a sweetheart. But so is her human, who I never understood why LizJohn isn’t married to a billionaire, but that’s another tale. She’s got the looks, talent, and personality. Just not my type.

           Omar remains in hiding, but is still posting on social media. Remember, in 2019 she got off on immigration charges because the Democrat-appointed investigators said there was “insufficient evidence”, which is profoundly different than “no evidence”. Note all those people no longer have government jobs. Omar is now a rat in a maze and they will run her down, and America loves the spectacle. This could cost the Democrats the Senate, but I don’t closely follow that arrangement. I remind the reader I am not a political writer, I am against liberals and those who support liberals, giving the illusion I am anti-Democrat. You are smarter than that.

           Scratch today, it started too slow and stayed that way. You get a running commentary, that’s it. I drove to the doggie place to drop off the chow. On the way, some lady blocked me from the turn lane, so I grabbed my camera and pretended to take her picture. Wish I had time to turn it on because she went ballistic, nothing we’ve not seen before but this skank was the ultimate bitchy-housewife Trump-hating Karen of the County.

           Across the way I stopped at the used paint place some twenty minutes late. Ahead of me were two more ladies who got all the good stuff. Two cartloads, they operate some kind of craft booth at the outdoor market. So, I struck up a chat and got the e-mail of somebody they know who sells things. Please, let something work out. The guy who runs the recycle joint was walking past and asked if I was a Mennonite. Stunned, I asked him back if it was that obvious. Yes, he said, from right across the parking lot.
           That brings us to noon and I’m at low ebb. My plan is to stay put, this third day in a row. Just when I was hoping I was picking up again. When I think I’m having a bad day, I just think about the economy in Iran. Shown here, some Iranians reduced to salvaging containers from cargo vessels sunk in the strait. “Fishing for iPhones.” The rioters in France are said to number 550,000. Four times the police force or something.

Picture of the day.
Finnish border fence diagram.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           No luck with my core energy. I e-mailed some box pictures to the ladies, she “knows somebody who might be interested”. We had talked around 4 or 5 minutes and had the same challenge. That is, neither of us is a born shopkeeper, yet that is the skillset needed to sell anything on-line. Unless you want your phone ringing at inconvenient times, you are tied to that on-line vendor who tells you when to ship.

           There are a number of successful variations, but none of them are convenient for the seller who does not want to stay glued to a computer waiting for the orders. Those who do sell all day want too big of a cut, usually half. It was drizzling all afternoon so I went ahead more staining, drilling, and testing. I found a great new stain called “weathered oak”, enough for ten or so boxes.

           You probably guessed and I can confirm the easiest thing to make with the laser is trinkets. They don’t need much attention, the trick is to find something already the right shape so you do not have to cut it. You see some wood biscuits, I think these are called #2. Since they are only branded in one pass, the laser can be left at 80%, that’s little danger of sparks or fire. My unit is small enough to not require “air assist”. That’s their term for a nozzle that blasts the laser contact site, cooling it and keep small particles away from the beam.
           The biscuits here are hand-made as I don’t have a fancy grid to space them. They are dunked, not painted or sprayed, a big savings in time. I am about to give these a coat of clear poly, which do not dunk well, often needed two or three dunks to form a mildly shiny finish. This size is normally destined for a key fob. The next larger size up does not fit a single key too well, and a hole must be drilled in the correct location for a standard size key-ring to spread the thickness of the wood. You could fit the rings yourself, if you have all day.

           Here’s the Yeti work in progress. On the kitchen stovetop? Yes, how many times I gotta say I am not set up to make larger boxes, even this size. The Yeti is on the left, it fits into the carcass, where I am measuring the cutout to expose the plugs. A small divider is planned to keep the two charging cables at the back once this box is laid flat.
           Why the kitchen? The space and how the height of the stove is a well thought-out match to do this sort of work. Relax, the stove has not been on since this morning. There are several cut-outs planned for this box, the major one for the charge cable that used the cigarette lighter socket. I want it usable without removing it from the case. And I want the box well-ventilated once inside this confined space.
           My provider has made some changes to the VPN settings. I’m getting my free movies blocked by country now, meaning I often have to turn it off to watch even free versions. I like my movies, so this must be solved. I’m old enough to remember when the Internet was supposed to be free.

           Somewhat sleepless I upgraded an old trickle charger from Harbor Freight. It was a $4 item that now sells for $9. It is their cheapest model, which I have now learned to avoid (get the $30 big unit and mount one per vehicle, but that is another story). This one had something wrong, in that the trickle, or some call it a float, would vary down as low as 6 volts. So, I meticulously went over the entire wiring to find short piece of insulation was cracked. Which reminds me, I can’t find my glue gun. Melted glue is great insulation.
           With enough cheap electrical take, I re-covered both the lead wires in case they had also gone brittle. Got it, the output is 14.1V steady, enough to top off the 13.7V standard 12.0V battery. This is for the Hundy, so I can leave it plugged in permanently here at the cabin. By the way, that $20 multi-meter I bought almost exactly one year ago has proven worth every penny, but they took down the on-line user manual.
           The news came alive with reports of an “incident” at the air force base in Wainwright, Alberta. I know people who live near there. As always, the government-controlled Canadian media won’t say nothing, but the satellite image shows a large smoke plume. By midnight they admit “significant casualties”. Is this the wake-up call Canada has needed for so long?

ADDENDUM
           I was up late, so I finally got around to reading some samples of Python code. It is very reminiscent of good old BASIC or Pascal, except it is cleaner than Pascal. It sure beats any C or derivatives thereof. It is still a punctuation-abuser, it tells you something that after 80 years, the coding community has never standardized a set of universal delimiters. It uses ordinary familiar arithmetic operators and some common sense like the walrus operator.
           Much of the remaining code is the ho-hum renaming of the seven commands I learned in my first computer course in the seventies. Still, it is very readable which alone makes it popular. I have no incentive to learn Python, but if I had some, I could probably learn it in a day or two. Including some of the crazy networking and data manipulation features, give me a week and I’ll be productive.

Last Laugh

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October 16, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 16, 2025, “merit-based” a year before Trump.
Five years ago today: October 16, 2021, new wiring, roof, A/C.
Nine years ago today: October 16, 2017, I owned a ’73.
Random years ago today: October 16, 2008, remember “Robert Is Here”?

           Friday, so I made sausage biscuits and now I can’t move. So, here is a tale from the trailer court that throws back to the 1970s. High school. There was a guitar player in the home room whose name I could not recall, and rare for the time and place, a hippy. Except, he wasn’t. He thought I was a pretend hippy because I liked the pretty women more than the other kind. I considered him a hypocrite because a guy with no girlfriend should not be passing judgment on those of us who did. Also, he was a pretend-hippy acting like the images presented in that time by television and Time magazine.

           Be amused by this, it is all I have for you this morning on my day off. Here is his picture August 1, 1976(?). And I’ll tell you how we clashed on most issues. He played in a band for fun and to be cool, which I now know is the stock whopper of every wannabe. It was very well-known I played in a band to make money and get hot babes.
           I already had two rotten jealous brothers and did not need a musician with the same attitude. But there was more, for in those days I did not play any Blues. You see, even though I did not like the Blues or the people that played it, I knew there was a pattern to it. I am being a bit tough on the guy, ah, I remembered his name was Jim Newfield. Because unlike me, he had been to a city and had seen real hippies and was just behaving like them. In contrast, I wanted to just look cool, be cool, and get all the babes. Which I did better than all of them, so there.

           Those knowing my background understand there was nobody in my world to ask. I did not live in a cocoon, but I was raised with very little exposure to the outside world except via reading—and I never in my entire youth or young adulthood met another person who read a lot. I knew there was a pattern to this “Blues thing” but even those who played it struggled with teaching. Jim makes the blog on two counts. One is he was the first who knew the Blues and refused to show me because I was not his brand of cool. And two, I believe this is the first time I’ve presented schoolmate solely because he was such an asshole about things. Later, Mitch confirms this picture was from 1970, long before I met the guy.

           I also made a key lime pie, setting up in the fridge. While waiting, check some non-MSM news. Omar is still on the run. This is the season of the disappearing Democrat. The irony of some who said nobody is above the law going underground to evade it. How do we know this isn’t an election stunt?

           Because the FBI confirmed it went through her dumpster before the raid. That means they are after DNA. Which in turn means she is in deeper trouble than anybody has said. Far deeper, due to the accusation that she married her brother. He’s a shifty one, trying to withdraw a government application form rather than answer questions.
           That’s the third Democrat vanishing ad this week, not counting the whereabouts of Newsom as Malibu Canyon goes up in smoke. Try telling us they just want to spend more time with their families. And that’s not even counting Fauci, who evaporated shortly after invoking the Fifth, what was it, 110 times? Yep, the Oregon shooting is for real and since they have not denied it, we can assume he’s from a single parent family. I mean, who else names their kid “Griffin”?

           The good news is no new critters have taken up residency in my repair room. That’s the room full of junk I’ll get around to repairing and yes, it is a mess. Because often throw things in there fast if it looks like rain. I may get around to finishing my lumber shed, which would have enough high up shelf space for much of this “junk”. I mean, sooner or later I must focus on those things I can finish in the time left. Why not leave it?
           Well, because that area of the shed is prime space. It is fully wired and has windows and fans. I know of too many people got left out in the rain by not having a backup plan. With a few small additions, this place is 100% inhabitable long term. Lengthwise, it is the same 18 feet long as my work area and has three separate doorways. One leads into the white shed, which has the plumbing faucets and an entire separate 200W electrical sub-panel. There’s be no Dunkirk here.

           Unable to get moving, I watched the middle part of the old movie, “Guns of the Magnificent Seven” featuring much of the worst acting of some careers. Corny is the mildest description. At the time, it was well-known that seven Texans could rout any Mexican army.
           News from Tennessee, there is some new bank rule that they will issue no duplicate ATM cards. This is likely nothing to most people, but the Reb and I have an entire system that was based on two cards for years. We’ll just work around it, part of the problem is that although we have a joint account, the bank was chosen because it was in a strip mall where we bought pet food. That has no branches in Florida. She reports when she went into the branch, they tried to hand her the story that they have never issued duplicate cards, where my card only went dead a week ago. Something funny is going on, and in any case we will soon have a workaround.
           My plan for today is to build three K-boxes, one for holding nothing but my set of jumper cables. Amazing how there is no really convenient way or space to store those things. Suzanne Somers just died, age 76. The feds are closely watching mosques in Democrat strongholds. It is illegal to preach politics and run voting campaigns from places of worship in the USA. The average IQ of the German leaders tried at Nuremburg was 128. Significantly higher then the people who prosecuted them. When America thinks of “frat, they think of White boys, and the media knows it. The MSM won’t tell you 5 out of 7 of the Cornell accused are not White.

Picture of the day.
The Moore House, Ardmore, OK.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           If I ever get it together and fire up that 3D printer, I have a potential invention to make millions. Want to hear about it? Okay, let me grab a coffee. Okay, the preamble. Have you ever had AA/AAA batteries that wear down but are not dead? My wireless mouse is terrible for this. It needs fully charged units, if they drop below around 75%, still good for many things, they have to be replaced with new ones. The result is I have a wooden box (surprise) of batteries that are still half good or better. Think of a plastic holder with a jack with a USB square end, the other end being whatever matches your equipment.

           Now this holder is carefully designed to snap together in three ways. Serial, or parallel. Or any combination thereof. In one configuration, you could clip together as many batteries as you wanted to get the amperage you want, or the voltage you want. See that? Clip them end to end for series, or side to side for parallel. I’ve made temporary wooden models that performed fine. I have several old Radio Shack battery holders that are fixed , like the one I’m holding here.

           I’m going to explain this again, so pay attention because this is not for everybody. This is not, repeat not, a backup battery supply or a reliable source, it is simply to get the last bit of juice out of batteries that you might otherwise discard early. That piece I’m holding here above an excellent example of a for-sale Fake box, is a Radio Shack 6V power supply., consisting of 4 x 1.5V AA cells. It is all or nothing, wired so all four batteries are needed to complete the circuit. How step back.

           My system would consist for four separate holders. Joined side-by-side, these would yield the same 6V, but joined end to end would provide just 1.5V, but with the combined amperage of the batteries. You still have to use your imagination. If you can’t, this is not the blog for you. Here’s another picture of a 6V holder, notice the zigzag pattern of the [negative] pole springs. If this was four separate clips that could be fitted differently, you could get either four times the voltage or four times the amperage. That clip just has to be designed right. Far easier said than done.

           Time off, all day. I can’t tell if my lethargy is a holdover from last weekend. But I took today easy, trying a lot of settings on the laser. The more I use it, the more I think what I need is just a dimensionally longer and wider version of what I’ve got. The burning wood smell does not bother me very much now. There is a snag with on-line laser videos. Every one I’ve seen is carefully edited to speed up or cut out the true time the cuts require. Overall, honesty has never been the forte of the Internet bunch.
           Lasering is fine, but so many people do it that you cannot make anything at it unless you work 15 hours a day. I got bigger than usual birds in the back yard and I’m too sapped to get up and go look. It’s to the point where I should tackle that 3D printer, but is that not taking yet another task when I already have plenty?

ADDENDUM
           For something to do, I am going to practice starting a fire with one of those Harbor Freight flint kits. I figure maybe one buyer in five hundred actually gets around to this. I advise practice because the procedure is never the same twice, and protection against wet and wind is only learned the hard way.
           Cancel that, we got a secondary off that hurricane. Weather off the Gulf [of America] often moves in to fill up the dead calm and we got a soak. It hit bad around a mile south of here, I heard the sirens within minutes after the rain started. It’s more like buckets of water pouring from right over your head, but it’s easy enough to duck—unless it lasts more than a few minutes.            All day sitting around? That depends on what you mean. I sorted a dozen boxes, always a task, and test-fit the Yeti into its casing. Looks like that is going to work very well. Most every box how has the robotics logo burned in and I cut the mortise for a 12” piano hinge on the Lucida box. Yes, I’m aware that my Last Laugh feature is more memes these days. They have replaced cartoons and posters for most messaging. And I am a great fan and reader of sarcasm.

Last Laugh

           x

October 15, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 15, 2025, keeping busy.
Five years ago today: October 15, 2021, first successful box.
Nine years ago today: October 15, 2017, not spending $6,000.
Random years ago today: October 15, 2015, the Amtrak blues.

           Y’day some of my old links were mixed up, which takes time and experience to rectify. In the process, I found October 14, 2007. See addendum. Groceries are now costing me an average of $251.14 per month, but this is approximately (in fact, almost exactly, what I’ve paid for years. The actuals, for five years, are 2021: $243.98, 2022: $318.44, 2023 : $238.90, $2024: $261.44, and 2025: $236.48. The average of all five years is $212.46. This reveals the true hidden cost of processed food. Still, my food bill is easily 20% higher this year.

           Then I get a notice my oldest and trusted Tennessee bank is merging with another. To date, this activity as never resulted in a good outcome for me. I do not use 99% of back services and tend to personally know who manages my account. I have not borrowed any money since 1974, when I had no choice, no more than I had a choice to drop out of university that year. I still hope that some day somebody in America will start a real bank, that is, one that operates like people imagine a bank should. I believe they would be swamped.

           Here is the only wildlife the past 72 hours. This area is also a nice space to spend the really hot days in the partial shade of my yard. The biggest area, enough for raccoons and cats both, is the eleven trees on the property line. Eight of them are on my land, but do not go through there, or you may unpleasantly find an old barbed wire fence. Here is an update on the little box that was a mistake, now a container for spacing cards. Don’t know what those are? If you ever had to shave 1/64” off a board, try these.

           Here is one of the oddest web pages I have ever read. But, I did read it. Cheese. Chocolate. Watch.

           The dragnet closes in on Omar, they have grabbed her phone, which is not protected by that bastard congressional law that does not belong in America. I’ve got a hunch she wishes now she had kept her mouth shut about Trump. This morning I talked to the vacuum tube guy. We’ve concluded the tube sales business is not for us unless you are moving a at least 30 tubes a day. Also, there is the youTube nonsense nobody wants to contend with.
           I contacted Orlando immediately and got the details of what they are looking for. They are very reasonable to deal with so far. If the tube is not in the original box, they have sell it as used. I have 2,876 in the boxes, although they have deteriorated a lot since moved out of the warehouse in Winter Haven. That was already two years ago. I want them out of my shed, so may this go well and fast.

           The new battery in the Hundy (4/26) is stone cold dead, parked for a month. It is on the repair charger now, but once they ever go below 11.7V, they never hold a charge again. If I did not say, all the battery repair videos on-line are bogus. All has been tried here, including the Epson salts, distilled water, and baking soda. None of it works. I know how to get around all the Flock cameras between here and Kooters, so I may stop for one or two. Yes, Virginia, the police license plate reader flags the vehicle immediately if the owner’s license is expired.
           Later, October seems to be battery trouble month. And I would like to hear from all those people with nothing to hide after the DOJ announcement this morning. The banks were discriminating against Trump supporters and they have been caught. As usual, nothing will happen, well at least not directly. But the point is, you are on the bank’s hit list. Most common reason for being targeted? Buying a MAGA hat with a credit card. The creep Jack Smith had a list of 639,000 Americans who bought even a Trump t-shirt. Nothing to hide, huh? Wait until the data centers crank up.

Picture of the day.
Texas hailstone.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           It’s a broiler and I’m sitting in my ginch beside two fans. The day just slipped away. It’s how I imagine life is for so many. I didn’t begin moving around (other than mailing letters and tending to the battery charger) until after 6:00PM. I’m moving the game camera into the messy work shed, as I see small thing that get knocked over which are too much for the breeze. They shed has plenty of natural circulation, or you will fry in there even with the fans.

           Having a choice to sit here like some damn TV-watcher, or see if I could get anything done before dark. I closely examined these switches that got wet. The discoloration is iron rust, but the iron parts are mostly the screw. I got a fine brush happening and I may be able to salvage these. They seem to flip easily and I have great (but small) boxes for drying things like this.

           Also drying are these six fence panels. Destined to become button boxes, Fake boxes and two J-boxes, here they are basking in the Florida sunlight. Seeking that perfect 11% moisture rating. These arrived at 14%, so I know we need 3 days at 1% per day. There, where can you find another non-industrial blot that gets you pictures of sun-dried lumber?
           Then, I did some touch-up staining on the Lucida drawing box. The challenge there was another custom size that is measured by the interior dimensions. For me this is a lot of back and forth, and mistakes. I finished putting the special screw into the Yeti box, to find I had made a wrong cut on the bottom panels. But, since the box will be lined, I won’t bother cutting another piece. Larger boxes also chew up a lot of lumber over most small mistakes.

           Another school shooting, this time in Bend, Oregon. I used to stop there for gas. No mention of ethnics means there is already an MSM spin on the way. The suspect is dead, plugged by a bystander. Knowing Oregon, he’ll be arrested for manslaughter. And here we go with another liberal push to treat “our” mentally ill. There is no “our”, I protest dumping these crazies on the public purse. I’ll say it again, there is plenty of evidence lunacy runs in families. Send them the bill.
           I am not saying don’t help them, I’m saying help them yourself. I got my own things to focus on. Now it’s late and what’s this? Omar has disappeared. The DOJ confirms the raid got her cell phone and passport. She needed a team of about 20 people to falsify the records like she did and I say she is hiding out with some of them. They will nab her shortly, for parasites have few resources of their own.

           One final item before signing off, I have received a message from Google that 24 of my blog videos will be removed because they are “unplayable”. All were checked and they play fine, but the automatic assumption is that Google is up to something. These are all ordinary videos produced here, often on pages with others made at the same time. The robot club follows up all such incidents. Many of the targeted videos are dated in 2020, all are MP4s.
           Some suspects are videos that used downloaded audio backing tracks, or videos produced on the same equipment. (It is known SONY MP4 is not real MP4.) No pattern has emerged yet, but I noticed Google now rejects the videos when I tried to re-upload them in case that process was the error. I doubt copyright violation because all videos here are never linked directly to any source. Any file even potentially pirated is downloaded here and re-uploaded with a different file name altogether. Hmmm, stay tuned.

ADDENDUM
           This was a very early blog entry. Although officially begun earlier, many of these posts were still hand-written or calendar notes. This one I can’t tell, but it revealed a lot. One is that blogs are persistent. Remember Professor Oz? He started a blog as a companion to learning about this one, so I had some advice that still applies today. I see that his blog remains posted some 15 or 20 years after he passed away. Quite the character, and like myself, the end will come with a thousand unfinished plans. The same could be said of many, but that disregards that in our lifetimes, we did finish at least some. Nomsayn?
           That date, October 14, 2007, is where I present one of my first arguments why a blog should have pictures. I did not say the pictures should be current, usually same day, but I would add that once I gained experience. My advice not to write like you speak still applies, unless you want to bore your people to distraction.

Last Laugh

October 14, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 14, 2025, not easy or cheap.
Five years ago today: October 14, 2021, WIP
Nine years ago today: October 14, 2017, remember $80 electricity?
Random years ago today: October 14, 2007, early blog advice.

           Grilled sandwiches and coffee, as I plan the finances for a trip to Tennessee, A combination of factors means the carefree days of hopping behind the wheel and heading out are over, probably permanently. And listened to Tampa talk radio. It’s ironic, people who cannot read, write, or tell time, show up with pierced noses demanding $25 per hour now complaining that A.I. is taking all the entry-level jobs. Gosh.

           Yet, these student protesters make sense to me. I grew up around them, and dull, unmotivated children make for dull, unmotivated adults. Most families impose a socialistic regimen that children hate—until they get into college and realize they have already wasted most of their lives. That their screwed up notion of equality does not exist out of their little cocoon. Of course they want to destroy a world that pays them only what they are worth.

           Here is a stage in the construction of the slightly larger Yeti box, a one-off. This represents around the maximum viable size to build with my system. This is the big even today, so bear with me talking about it. Compare this to what others you know did today; These are special coated screws being pre-drilled into carefully spaced pilot holes. No glue is used because these boxes are meant to be modified if needed. I found I don’t care for constructing boxes even this large.
           Other pictures sow these screw heads and the extra work this lumber requires. For instance the clamp modified into a spreader because the wood it too strong to be held in place with one hand for alignment. The bigger pieces can’t be lined up to always be worked without this extra treatment. I went back to work this afternoon on this box, it took half a day, really. And that is all that happened out of the ordinary today. To my inevitable critics, how was your October 14th this year?

           The worst part of Tampa radio is their assumption that if you are interested in current affairs, you are also a fanatic sports fan and give a shit about the condemned prisoner’s last meal. Next, I found a reference to a Pascal program I wrote in 1986, but could not find the file. Few remember the language, but I took the course and aced it. The problem was, it needed a compiler. Borland sold one, the cheapest one ever. But I did not have the $50.
           That’s another looming threat, prices again. The Reb called for 33 minutes and we talked money. One comparison was with the past, where in the 1980s I lived through a situation that is rearing up again. That’s where house prices climb faster than I can save a down payment. I realize now most other people who bought (they were all around me at the company) had fudged their down payments. Usually with money borrowed from relatives. I had no such option.

           It was easy to calculate most of them took out 30 year mortgages, the maximum at the time. Yep, 18 years later came the mass layoffs. Because of mergers and a new distinction between union and management, numbers are disguised but judging by people I knew, they axed around 6,000 people out of 15,000 when I was there. And many were tech jobs replaced by computerized switching gear. Of those left, only around 8% were infrastructure workers, the rest were the lowest paid category of clerical staffers. Most I knew were top-of-the-scale linesmen like myself. I got out in ’96. They lasted another 7 – 9 years and left empty-handed. I’ve no idea what happened to them. But as I’ve said, when times were good, I did not see them next to me in evening school preparing for the downfall.
           Here we go again with the Daylight Saving arguments. Most people against it are just too ignorant to understand what it is for. This is neat, I found my documents, because every search also turns up all kinds of things I’d forgotten. Now I’m keeping an eye out for my old MagicJack. Remember those, you could plug and bypass the hefty phone company long distance charges. Then arrived severe warnings not to even plug the older models in, which of course now I want to know why not.

Picture of the day.
Coming your way.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Three weeks to election and the doors start slamming on the Democrats. Told ya, remember how California defied mandates and sent out all those mail-in ballots? I wondered why the post office would carry out such illegal activity. Now I know. They used the data to get the home address of every illegal in the Democrat inventory. This morning they received notice to remove every bogus name from their rolls and they are furious.

           Here’s the Yeti box again, showing the bottom panels being fitted. Another quirk is how bigger boxes can simply decide, jigs or clamps bedamned, not to stay square. Such is the case here, which in turn means the bottom panels must be custom cut to fit. This is where I knocked off for the day because the project was starting to fight back.

           Below I may put together a montage of fitting the Yeti (also called the Kodiak) into a specialized container, one major purpose of which is to make the unit very difficult to move without including the chargers. I never mentioned how I went without an overnight fan for months because I could not find either charger. (One 12V one 110V.) They had fallen into the spare tire compartment.
           The neighbor checked to see I was mobile, he does go to out to bars, just not around here. So I asked where he goes and he is a fan of titty-bars. I can see it, married 40 years, dull career, there are signs. We contemplated a late-week Festus but I am honestly too tired to commit. Let me check what landed on my list.

           Ah-ha, the wider picture begins to emerge. Hours before the Omar raid, members of her family began to receive subpoenas and rumors about some are fleeing to Morocco. The big article was the announcement of a tax-payer funded exclusively Jewish township in Florida. Some 3,000 houses and 800 rentals with no job or work infrastructure. It is all paid for by your taxes. Contrary to the way the fake MSM news presents America to the world, those people are very unpopular. Yes, that is the word, 'unpopular'. Here is a sampling of the posted comments:

√ The only place in America illegal to build a mosque.
√ Pity if a wildfire moved thru.
√ Saturation bomb that motherfucker.
√ Round them up and deport them to Israel.
√ Segregation for me, but not for thee.
√ When do they start bombing their neighbors?
√ Imagine the smell.......
√ Ahhhhh yes, the ol’ “self-concentration camp” trick.
√ At least we’ll know where to send the masturbation machines and lamp making tables.
√ I hope they all get malaria.
√ Nuke it from orbit, that's the only way to be sure.
√ Build an electrified fence around the place with gun towers at the corners!
√ Now let’s talk about what happens to White people who try this.

ADDENDUM
           I found a whole file of short videos. Who remembers Jag, my guitar player from around twenty years ago? I have his old e-mail, so I fired off a note and some clips to see if he is still there. He’d be in his late 30s by now. I further sent sample of my latest bass-acoustic duo sound, which has not changed much in all this time and does not need to. It’s a great example of how everyone else crabbed about playing the “bar scene” where instead we honed it to a pitch.
           Still reading about the Colossus code-breaking computer, I stumble across many items not stressed in the commentary. One was an order form for “French glue”. Aha, that tells me they were cutting the long printout punchtapes into sections, and gluing those into a loop. Aha, again, that means they fed the loops into a reader one at a time and let the computer try every possible pattern until it found one.
           Then, an operator could walk over to a reverse-engineered copy of an Enigma or Lorenz and set the code wheels to the proper position. And that spews out the plain text. This is why since the days of RofR’s early partnership, so many of our communications had code words. Even reading them tells you nothing. For instance, his brother lived in “Little Willie”, the code for Edmonton, Alberta. This method persists to this day in many forms, such as our bank statements. All withdrawals are methodical and tell you nothing important. Here, give it a try.

           Another round of MSM fake polls are hitting the social sites, all with the same message. That Trump is failing and his popularity is tanking. Some of the pollsters are legit, the problem is they intentionally over-sample blue areas. Most under 30s today have never seen socialism and don’t fear it as much as they should. All they see is two parties that don’t work and therefore a different party that attacks them must be a solution. Danger, Will Robinson.

Last Laugh

October 13, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 13, 2025, silver finally hits $50.
Five years ago today: October 13, 2021, it was a game board.
Nine years ago today: October 13, 2017, #21 gas mantels.
Random years ago today: October 13, 2009, not quite Lex Luthor.

           That extended siesta from y’day threw off my circadian, I woke up thinking it was last night. I grabbed my bass for time zone rectification and within the hour had a pancake breakfast and my third cuppa. But I’m still wobbly, so we will kind of inch into today. I did discover if I fake the bass line, the Croce song “Car Wash Blues” is in my vocal range. For clarity, that means I can chant the melody on key while playing bass. Laugh all you want, I have not heard you sing, but I have won Karaoke contests using my style. The lyrics are actually quite snappy, I sent a copy to the Kaiser.

           Who promptly replied, meaning a get-together at Rosie’s Two Legs and time to catch up on music talk especially. I moved the old and favorite chop saw back inside the white shed where formerly the router table got little use. This is the saw I got for $15 at the church thrift in Harbor Heights. Where there is neither a harbor or any heights. It is two feet above sea level. The saw weighs about 35 pounds, so that was my therapy for the morning.

           That deep sleep recharged the battery, and I launched into the legacy filing cabinets in the shed. Texas is again getting ansty with me over some records they have that are plainly somebody else’s misfiles. I have never given them any DNA and refuse to, if only because they have shown what kind of stunts they will pull if they get it. At 11:29AM this morning I found the paperwork I need. It was locked away since 2008, but I remembered back then I had ordered several extra copies precisely for some bureaucratic bullshit of this nature.

           I’ve found three copies, which is about right and saves me a bundle of money, especially because Austin was about to insist I show up in person. Screw them, they are the ones who fouled up. There are around 16 documents in the file, which will take me a day to sift through, but I’m out of their clutches now. I remember now how they argued when I wanted five copies when they were accustomed to requests for only two.

           Soon as I sort these out, I’ll be making plans for the rest of this year, including a trip to Miami around Xmas just for a visit. However, like this past week, it depends not just on the zip I’ve got today, but what I project for myself in the upcoming stretch. My memory is very sharp over the visit to JZ was it two months ago, where I fell asleep on the sofa for two days. That is not how I visit people.
           And here is another dumb box, built to test various things, probably miter cuts, stain, or even weight. I don’t like this box, and after assembly it settled a bit off-square and will not right. Also, my box of expensive 20A switches somehow got flooded with water and wrecked about $60 worth of brand new material, including costly dimmer switches. To make things even more fun, my old hot water tank is making noise. Hey, 1946 to 2026, 80 years for a Maytag is nothing.

           What was that bank I warned against 20 some years ago? Bank of America, that’s it. Shifty as hell. They just got slapped with $1.21 billion in fines for money laundering. That’s the outfit that tried to trick me into cashing in my bonds. I found time to review more of the 20W lasers. They don’t exactly do what I want, which is cut wood. They are faster, but that isn’t a big barrier for my output. I am amused by on-line ads showing an operator sitting next to the laser on a fancy work table. With no fan or extraction apparatus, no visible cables, and no leftover pieces. Very misleading.

Picture of the day.
Each State’s most inland town.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           I managed some prep work, including the elongated box for the Lucida drawing tool, which I have not had the patience to test well and the transport box for the Yeti. This is gluing up the extra-wide boards needed for a proper casing. This is likely its last chance to prove itself. This view shows some biscuits about to be fitted into slots that my wonderful Vivitar will not show. This is the strip to be joined to a regular fence panel to give the extra height for the box.

           And that is why this test. In the past, these joints have proven weak in the long run. No way are biscuits suitable for even medium duty as shown. Forget the 8-foot planks an 26” desktops shown on the videos. Even when spaced so there is more biscuits than joint, these pieces can be bent and snapped apart by hand. On the right you can just make out the clamps squeeaint the board, the other pieces are just lateral strips to keep the surfaces flat.
           Listening close to the hot water tank, I recognized a hollow sound. Ah, it a pipe in trouble. I lifted the kitchen floor and found it right away. It’s the same shark joint that’s come loose before. A five minute fix. The point is, I lifted and replaced the plywood sheet on the floor myself. Ta-da. I know not cheer yet, let’s peek at what news gets my attention.
           Coca-Cola corporation is $43 billion in debt. The media tries to portray the riots in France as student’s protesting for better education. The largest shopping mall in the world is in Iran. And if it is only a house raid over at Omar’s, why are they using fully armed SWAT teams and arresting everybody in the building including the staff? And I heard the term “reductionist” used to insult somebody today. I looked it up. OMG, when it comes to women’s personalities, I’m a reductionist.

           A touch of sleeplessness had me finally look at the construction of a machine I knew about half a century ago. But I did not understand the mechanics of digital switching or logic until 2011 when I studied the Arduino. The machine was Colossus, the WWII code-breaking unit which I consider the first real working computer. It worked on a fascinating principle which now makes sense to me.
           Every written language, including German, has patterns that repeat. I don’t know the math but the code-breakers somehow realized the German machines Enigma and Lorenz had patterns in multiples of 41. They would take certain stock phrases known to be common in military messages (such as “nothing to report”) and compare it to the lettering of intercepted radio traffic. There are millions of such combinations, so what the Colossus did was begin stepping through the seemingly random characters and counting the number of times a pattern appeared on a ticker tape.

           Then, the Colossus would step ahead one character and read the tape again, at around 9,600 characters per second. This was formerly done by hand and took weeks. The result that had the highest number of repeated patterns now looked more orderly and were sent to another department for analysis. Colossus was mainly eliminating patterns that didn’t work. I instantly noticed in the oldest newsreels that the hardware was telephone switching gear. They had replaced switching relays with vacuum tubes, which could burn out.
           But some of the employees had worked at the post office, where phone exchanges were often located and noticed the tubes lasted a lot longer if you left them on all the time. Rather than switch the tubes off and on, I saw banks of “Strowger” switches. At this point, the operation was over my head but I watched in fascination. The documentaries are still laced with wartime propaganda.
           Apparently twelve of the Colossus design were ordered. Only seven were built, and four of them were fully occupied finding the German daily wheel settings, leaving only three to do the pattern searches. Other accounts say ten were built. While I’m still not convinced the Allies could read all the code, even parts of it gave them an immense advantage. I do not at all buy the story that the Germans never suspected a thing.

Last Laugh

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October 12, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 12, 2025, the original trailer.
Five years ago today: October 12, 2021, I ate steak.
Nine years ago today: October 12, 2017, no eyebrows.
Random years ago today: October 12, 2006, the sub-contractor blues.

           This country has gone downhill. I could not reconcile my bank statements for September. I found the problem. On September 9, our business account decided to record daily deposits as one lump sum. That is bastard-rat think but goes to show how unsophisticated most bank clientele is these days. Each deposit on a business account is a separate transaction. What happened was the retards at the post office (despite higher prices and lower volume due to e-mail) now take up to five days for first class mail to reach Tennessee.

           This resulted in two mail-ins and one ATM deposit all landing there on the same day. So the bank bastards recorded it as one transaction. a sum that appears nowhere on our books. The good news is this resulted in finding $64.09 unspent weekend travel money, so I’m going shopping at the Treasure barn this morning just for something to do. Maybe buy some of those nothing-fluff cookies at the Mexican mart in the same plaza.

           No sir, no cookies. Lately this town has turned into a pack of super-broke skinflints and the stop at the market was just that. Everybody is clinging on my their fingernails. Mind you, I did find a brand new Magnavox portable cassette player for $15 bucks. These rare finds are treated like gold around here because of my backlog of murder mysteries. Both vans have AUX jacks and most anything beats the local radio stations.
           Ouch! I forgot a lot of this legacy equipment, in this case the Magavox AQ6511, was built before those sissy European decibel laws. The package came with a pair of the original “bass boost” headphones and holy cow, those are loud. Like when you crank it full to see if it works. It also has superb FM reception as long as the headphones are plugged in. Later, confirmed the stereo jack is the off/on switch and this has no external power supply jack.

                      Big events this morning? Other than finding my contact at the barn went out of business, I paid bills and send the Reb some extra spending money. A stop at the lumber yard and that was my limit. Barely crawling in the door, I’m down for the day. Not before catching the headlines. The Feds raided Omar’s place. Some smart aleck commented that nobody but nobody sniffed her panties.
           Unlike the very public Trump raids where MSM news cameras were on the scene, we are only told that the raid on Omar is a “criminal investigation”. The next in a long string of recent incidents that bring serious negative opinions on the leftists right before what should be a quiet mid-term election. But hundreds of millions are being spent and Trump is hosting massive rallies across the swing states. Something big is cooking.
           Plus, doing it on Columbus Day is symbolic. Since the media will conveniently forget how they cheered when it happened to Trump, there must be outrage. Good, because the mood is that this raid is part of a bigger scenario.

Picture of the day.
China’s aging labor force.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Nothing to report. I zonked. News items that caught my eye are that half Saudi Arabia’s population are immigrants. The US Democrat party keeps all its bank accounts in Canada. Once again I forgot it was Columbus Day. I picked up nine new pickets, in case my energy remains low ebb. For the first time since April, I turned my air conditioner on low. Since February, I’ve lived in two rooms of the house. But I can’t even contemplate moving to a smaller place.
           I believe the independent polls that show over 80% of Americans want public hangings for current and former Democrat kingpins. It’s easy to read the stats and think they are ranting or overstating their positions. Nope, if the government did what they were elected for, the anti-communist revolution has already occurred. Keep me out of it, though I might change if it ever arrives at my back door.

           The Temporary Protection Status of Haitians has not been renewed, meaning over 10,000 of them are going back. It will be curious to see what happens in Springfield, OH, when a quarter of their population disappears. Remind me to watch house prices and which businesses start failing, considering all but around 400 of the aliens are on welfare. Talk about funny, there has been an increase in pictures of Trump protesters, but is it intentional or just representative. All of the pictures now show only fat boys, ugly women, and the obviously mentally deranged. Clever.
           And in crime-ridden Northern Territory, teen girls over 16 only are allowed to carry pepper spray but only has a defense against rape. Presumably under-16s don’t get raped. Illegals, immigrants, and aboriginals are screaming the move is “racist”. Most other forms of White self-defense have already been outlawed in Australia. Trump has put all the fake women back into men’s prison where they belong. Sadly, he did not fire the prison staff that created this problem.

Last Laugh

October 11, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 11, 2025, the one-click dream.
Five years ago today: October 11, 2021, then the drummer died.
Nine years ago today: October 11, 2017, down the tubes.
Random years ago today: October 11, 2020, Sparkie is aging.

           Dead calm, high humidity, this is a day for lasers. I wrote letters while looking over the latest offerings. Thanks to nobody, I can now read the lingo and know what to look for. And I am very partial to Wainlux products, my K10 has never let me down. New features I like are how once a pattern is loaded, the unit can be disconnected from any device and operated separately. For more detail, see addendum.

           Another MSM “whoops”. They’ve been awful smug about being immune from reporting lies and hoaxes, but this latest investigation is something they had not anticipated. By collectively agreeing to not broadcast White House press news (to protest the banning of fake news reporters), the big stations may have run afoul of anti-trust laws. Relax, it is DOJ pretending to work. There will be investigation but no charges or arrests.

           Here’s a shot of the Yeti subject to yet another test. Yes, it is a nice compact unit, but designed by a millennial. It weighs around ten pounds without the power cables. But without those cables it is ten pounds of dead weight. And those cables are designed to be lost, stepped on, broken, and left behind. The solution is to make a special wooden box which negates all the advantages of the weight saved by using separate charging cables. It fits almost exactly in a Z-box, without the chargers. A whole new box has to be built for just that.
           Noon approaches with no wind. But also no news the storm is moving north and away, so I’ll slate today for taking a much close look at costs. An F-box uses less than half the materials as a Z-box, but sells for 60% of the projected cost. But those materials are harder to procure and can be a struggle to work with. It’s an unglamorous study of the sort that one overlooks at one’s own financial peril.

           I avoid tuna. Maybe once or twice every five years. I laughed to hear all those who spent extra to get tuna packed in olive oil wasted their money. The labels are misleading but not illegal, there is almost no olive oil in the cans. Is this a good time to mention the news out of Tampa is the Democrats are not just out of money and begging, they are demanding people give money, sending potential donors a memo they must give before October 22.
           More talk radio out of Tampa, but I’ll give them credit for avoiding hurricane-talk this morning. I have some advice for men considering dating older or divorced women. They will talk about why they broke up, but avoid telling you why she chose such a loser in the first place. You might want to find that out before you dive in too deep. The water is pretty goddam shallow.
           My word puzzle this morning did not go well. It’s not beating the champs, it’s how many I beat. Today is was only 36. These are British English phrases and they have lately been full of sports terms I would not be expected to know. So test yourself. Am I dumb for not knowing what a match point is, or did it require 37 champions before one beat me.

Picture of the day.
Bavarian schoolgirls.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           The smallest box, that is the button box, would be the easiest to ship. It used brad nails, which are cheap enough. With that dang hurricane just over the horizon, I used the day to run some numbers. And to locate some 1” crown staples, the correct length for the Fake box. But also the hardest to find and most expensive. This is the strangest phenomenon in capitalism, that the most common and in demand be the hardest to get. Yet, over the past five or so years, there are always stockouts.

           It ranges from 100W light bulbs to the 2-lb bags of rice. In a true free market, there would be no recurring shortages. Here is a box of the 1” size which passed the 1ȼ each barrier. A box of 1,000 is $12.26. They are $8 for a similar box at Harbor Freight, but you have to add in the time wasted going there when they don’t have any. DeWalt is Home Depot, a quality brand, but you pay for it.
           An F-box requires 26 staples. The 7/8 won’t hold and the 1-1/4 will poke through. Total materials, which are wood, glue, and staples, are less than 50ȼ per unit, but it’s a fool who doesn’t know exactly. For any non-accountant types out there, every manufactured article has three inputs. Materials, labor, and overhead. GAAP says you cannot charge for your own time, so the unknown is the time spent. That includes the time to do these calculations, and to write to you about it.

           By mid-afternoon, the storm has gone without once hearing Tampa radio call it a torrent. Wow, lucky me. I must get to emptying ashes from the burn barrel, which I meant to sift. I’m careful to not throw any boards with nails into the fire, but shown here is a small handful from the top showing all kinds of hardware finds its way in there. I never got around to building the sifter. I often wondered if an old paper shredder could be used to grind up larger pieces of ash. Note to myself, this is the number of nails from a single gallon of the ashes. And that 55 gallon drum is almost full. The ashed must be ground up or cannot be spread. I am planning to experiment on a portion of the front yard where nothing grows but kudzoo.

           Before I let you go, my spell of extra energy is over, dwindling back to the same level as last month. That’s around 45%. One, and the only one, consolation is that we now know it can happen. Over the past few days I watched some the A.I. documentaries that have taken over youTube. I chose several on topics I know something about, like naval battles, metals, and aircraft. It’s freaky. The A,I is methodical and never misses a single important point. Some layer of society is in for it.

           Next, it took just twenty minutes reading to figure out MicroSoft’w next move. I’m not the only one noticing the lack of “new” Window releases. What is Redmond up to? My guess all along is to switch all computers over to user-pay subscription services. But, that cuts them off from a sizeable market share who (like myself), who shun any software that requires identification. That is just plain stupid. So, the MicroSoft plan requires enforcement, which they do not have. Until A.I. appeared.
           The Democrats are beyond desperate. Now they are trying to block public announcements that portray Trump in a favorable light. The claim is the ads (around $20 million worth) were paid for by misallocated border patrol funds. Nobody doubts that Democrats know such funny stuff when they see it. I can’t tell what specific material they are shouting over, they could be political ads. I don’t know, I’m not tuned to that channel. The important part is they are only picking on the pro-Trump ads. Not a great idea at this point. No election platform, just “get Trump”.

ADDENDUM
           I am very aware a good laser would replace the four saws I now use. They also scorch the wood. A 20W laser, around $1,000, will cut 12mm of plywood. But that does not tell me how that compares with fence panel wood. And that’s the small pickets, the larger pickets are 16mm thick. Some features I like are the autofocus and internal camera. Right now, I eyeball everything and some of the mistakes are hilarious. I have no honeycomb table and my desk pullout has the scars of many burn-throughs.
           The compromise appears best with the 20W, you are only interested the speed and accuracy. Above 20W you get a “fuzzier” cut which appears to be from way the mirrors or prisms focus the beam. The depth of cut seems limited to 1/4 inch, above which most videos switch to something I don’t have. A CNC router. I may try a fine-tooth plywood blade to get a better cut.

           The newest units have a built-in flame detector, but I would still not leave the machine unattended. It is not that easy to find on-line demos that actually show a 20W beam cutting a long, narrow slice of wood. Such gems are not omissions in XYZville, the douchebags are hiding something. It’s how they roll.
           Once again be awed at the ease I can ask the mighty Internet minions a valid question that stumps the lot of them. Try this. I don’t want a laser that cuts fancy shapes. Is there a laser that just cuts the end off a piece of lumber? Fingers on your buzzers. I heard data centers compared to being digitally strip-searched. Good, maybe they will learn.

Last Laugh