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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.

March 8, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 8, 2025, Palm City, FL.
Five years ago today: March 8, 2021, no big discoveries.
Nine years ago today: March 8, 2017, a pilot light.
Random years ago today: March 8, 2001, studying tax law.

           Alert, today has some hospital talk and pics. Skip what you don’t like. So much for having nothing to hide, GenX. I saw this one coming years ago and have two bank accounts which I move some money between each month for no particular reason. It establishes a long-term record of steady deposits. Sure enough, rentals now have a right to go into your bank account and check that you deposit three times the amount of your rent, and the banks are only too glad to hand them this information. After talking with the Reb, I have doubled the amount of the monthly transfer.

           I don’t think anyone in their right mind would have agreed to let strangers access their bank account, but like I warned twenty years ago, this “computer generation” set themselves up for this. This was a bad day, healthwise, though with a small uptick. I awoke tired, but it is now more confined to the chest area. The weakness slows everything, but my limbs no longer feel it directly. I did some shopping, including a lot of ice cream. And made it home moments before a tropical downpour.

           Five minutes later. There you have it. Like a shock wave, I’m back where I was a week ago. Exhausted, barely a able to walk. I’m home in the easy chair, and knowing these feeling well by now, I’m out for the rest of the day. That is how this works and it is an especially cruel ordeal for me. A full reversion, appetite gone, can’t focus, feel like shit. Trust me, I’m avoiding hospital pictures, but here is a system I devised to counter the drainage on my right leg.

           The hospital just covered it, but the bandage gets saturated quickly, make this a never ending process. Here, the gauze acts as a wick. As the fluid travels down by gravity and capillary force, the fluid is completely evaporated before it reaches the bottom. This is not frivolous as without such a system, there is enough wet to cause a patch on my clothes. By far, this is the worst medical recovery of my life. The average male lives to 76. For me, that will soon be just around the corner.
           What about the other picture? That came out later. It was a surprise to see a Dollar Store bubble level on the wall. I did not see it while I was there or I might have found a use for it.

Picture of the day.
Stiletto City Hat & Glove Society.
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           Rarely have I spent such time just sitting, so I thought to watch the 2013 Disney flop “Loan Ranger.” Except, they still want money for it. I kept digging and am watching a pirated copy. Pretty crappy so far, not much better than the hospital connection. You know that big tray of electronics parts that I’ve wanted to sort through for years? I may do that. Stumbling around and hour ago, I knocked it over.

           I have quite the collection of parts that never got used. Over time, they got shelved here and there. No that my enforced idleness could use them, I don’t know where everything is. I trapped myself there. Here is part of the pile, I know there are valuable diodes. Of course, it fell on the colorful carpet to make the smaller pieced even harder to locate.
           Vacuum tubes. The critters knocked over a few of the boxes while I was gone. That’s a chore soon. The white flecks in the photo are deteriorated plastic pouches that Radio Shack parts used to sell in. Yep, one of the things that sold me on this cabin was the location of a Radio Shack just over in Bartow. It closed shop the month after I moved.

           And if you are new here and wonder why I would pirate content? That is a long story, but consider the following:

a) the Internet was designed for the free spread of information
b) the Internet was supposed to lower prices
c) if you don’t want it copied, don’t make it copy-able
d) devise a payment method that does not intrude on privacy

           And, of course, there is the totally false concept in some people’s mind that those who watch something for free would otherwise go out and buy the media at full retail price. So far, the movie sucks so bad they should pay me to look at it.

Last Laugh

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March 7, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 7, 2025, that problem corner.
Five years ago today: March 7, 2021, not far left.
Nine years ago today: March 7, 2017, first/last whole chicken.
Random years ago today: March 7, 2001, no tips.

           Grits and an egg (over medium) for breakfast. And coffee. Maybe I’m back. A solid seven hours in the sack and I awoke with appetite. Who could ask for anything more? Teachers, that’s who. Remember that teacher’s union who supported the African for New York mayor. He just raided their pension fund and it serves them right. I’ve got some surplus energy this morning, so let’s go fill the birdfeeders, to see if today is putter or sputter.

           Here’s later, I got two of the boxes framed and talked to the neighbor. We plan an extra Festus or movie for later. These are the custom boxes intended for gifts, you can just make out the laser decoration. These are not done, the bottom panels are pending, arguably the hardest part of the job. I’ve got six or so boxes at any time all missing one final slat, so I could ramp up production if I ever get around to it.
           There should be a view of the wind-damaged fence here I could not affect that repair because it would entail lifting the battery drill above shoulder height. There are two fences in this pic, the one in the foreground on the right, and the virtually identical build on the left. The thing here is why did one fence lose pickets in the same wind the other was not? This, folks, is the core of discovery. I have no way of measuring wind force. Yet.

           That was the Reb phoning and Caltier is forcing a password change. And, they took $21 out of my account, so I am on the warpath. So we are clear on this, I expect a monthly capital gains payout. The fund is expired, but I also expect a monthly share of the rental operations that should average 7.1%. Caltier made a big deal the properties were all good areas and mostly rented long term. I want my cut of the rent and I want my share of any profits from sales of the buildings. That’s the how and why I invested.

           We also talked politics, and on a level you won’t get otherwise. I say you don’t work you don’t eat. But I’m no redneck because I would never stop others from helping with their own money. We’ve gone over this and today’s topic was medical. I say it would be very affordable if they quit giving it away free to non-citizens. History has shown the only system that works is user-pay. I carried the lazy off my paycheck from the day I turned 18 until I retired and I’m done listening to any more sob stories. The Reb and I were talking about her medical, something I can’t influence in any way.
           One point we do not see eye to eye is she feels these people on welfare cannot just be cut off. I disagree, saying they can and should be cut off—of welfare. Turn them over to the church. The point of contention is whether the sharp intense pain of these people suddenly having to pull their own weight is greater than the slow dull pain they have inflict on the hapless taxpayer over his lifetime. I say it is not. Some say cutting welfare is taking food out of baby’s mouths—but that is exactly what the welfare people are doing to the taxpayer every payday.
           The dbag Bruce Springsteen is selling his concert tickets at $3,000 each. Did you know Charles deGaulle holds the record of assassination attempts at 31.

Picture of the day.
Brenham, Texas.
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           A short nap put me back in the game, I was around 50% energy the rest of the day. A nice improvement. The neighbor called and we found a movie we’d both heard of but not seen. The original 1950s(?) “King Solomon’s Mine”, the legendary Alan Quartermain. There seem a dozen movies on this theme, but this was the version with Deborah Kerr. The red-head actress who always quarreled with the men she eventually, you-know. This movie was a nearly endless safari but some of the greatest scenery. Plainly filmed on location and while and before the tribes decided they invented everything.

           Movies are ideal activity level for me, sitting two hours with a coffee. I am getting better, but almost unbearably slowly. Even allowing for heart weakness, which I’ve experience before, this is slow. And why is it surface wounds take so long, it isn’t like they are connected to deep heart repair. It’s exasperating, but I am walking a bit steadier. My limit is around 150 paces.

           Here’s a military picture to ponder. Another example of how the Gulf wars are not made to defeat America in combat. This depicts the damage from a $2 million dollar Tomahawk missile. Launched from a warship costing hundreds of millions sailed around the world by crews that cost even more millions. And it just took out the silhouette of a fake jet painted on the runway.
           This waste is repeated every day and no nation can support that forever. My interest in the affair ends at the technology of the weapons. I do not think, other than indirectly through things like gas prices, that any war the US has ever been in has affected my day-to-day activities.

           Blog rules I record medica. While in the shed today my left upper leg felt like it was on fire. This attack lasted four minutes. It is the exact large patch that feels numb, a shallow numbness under the skin. Doc says pinched nerves. I just kept on working, taking this as a good sign that the condition changes, meaning it isn’t permanent. It felt sharp and burning, but left the site less tender than before. It’s beneath my left pants pocket, where keep my money so this could be good or a bad thing, ha-ha-ha.

ADDENDUM
           Some tech sites are reporting the salvage of old undersea fibre optic cables. Usually, when such a link goes dead, it is unrepairable. So why raise it up? Answer: fiber or not, the cables contain tons of high grade copper to power the system. And copper is the latest uber-manipulated commodity. Silver remains at $85, a so-so price waiting for boom or bust. MAID, the Canadian government suicide department, shows that 95.6% of the takers have been White.

Last Laugh

March 6, 2025

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 6, 2025, more boxes.
Five years ago today: March 6, 2021, something to hide, ha-ha.
Nine years ago today: March 6, 2017, refurbished.
Random years ago today: March 6, 2009, Pete the Rock.

           Begin week six of recovery and I have a few mild signs of improvement. Howie was over to see if I need anything. As usual, we got to talking machinery and such. I learned something new, you know those pneumatic spikers for house framing? They use banks of spikes which have a yellowish tinge. I wrote that off as part of the galvanizing treatment. Wrong, it is glue. Turns out the nails were able, over time, to work loose due to their smoother surfaces.

           As the nail is driven in by the piston, it gets hot and I can verify that a few times over. The glue is designed to melt and grip. Makes sense. And I now know that Howie has a tool I can borrow. He liked the way I used screws instead of nails on my fence panels and now we have the most wind-resistant fences in the neighborhood.
           Howie also has an alert about anesthetic, another peril they omitted to mention. His sibling required a series of operations. Apparently this progressively dulled the taste buds. And did so in a peculiar way. The first few bites are great and then the food becomes tasteless. This is exactly what I experienced in the hospital.

           The squirrels gobbled a week’s supply of sunflower seeds out of my best feeder. They can’t tip it and pour the seeds like they used to, so today we set up the game cam and discover their latest antic. I was up early but too drained, though I watched what I could find about the killing of the Iranian dictator. Strange they got him, the most heavily guarded man on Earth. I have a theory on that. It is based on US military intelligence, which is based on the slickest and most secret brand of snooping in history, called Google. They just did not know how advanced we are in that department. That was the first of three mistakes made by Iranian security.
           Next, they seem to have ignored the US lead in drones. The reports of how it was the Ukraine or Iran leading the world in drone warfare overlooks the fact drones were invented here. The way the Iranian radar system was taken out on day one spells out their defenses were overwhelmed, which means drones. It seems the Ayatollah was likely moved between bunkers via deep tunnels around central Tehran. They got him anyway.

           The videos showed a block of flattened buildings with little collateral damage. This tips us off they only knew his general location. So they bombed them all. I heard the nonsense about the bunkers being bomb-proof. Fools believe that old tale. Even Winston Churchill knew the trick was to drop a second bomb down the hole caused by the first.
           Later, cancel today. A trip to the pharmacy put me out for four hours. That’s another downside for me, a disruption in sleep schedules makes days disappear. What happened to this week? I do not remember. And last month is already a blur. On the other hand, it’s easy to recall the Shahed drone that is just now getting the latest press coverage was reviewed here back in 2022.

Picture of the day.
Tuba museum.
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           I had to invest in bandages, $27 these days. The trip downtown was exhausting, so continued watching “1408”, the haunted hotel movie, which reverted to cliché bits I did not care for. What was more amusing was “Bullet”, the audiobook. Once you get past the girly-talk, it has a real plot. I can only take so much about what she had for breakfast and how sensible her shoes were. She goes to visit people who knew her murdered parents to discover there were only two bullets fired.

           The one who killed her father, which went through him into the door frame, and the other went through her mother. The killer could not find it, because it was in her neck all these years. Now we have the possibility if the bullet is removed, modern forensics may be able to find new evidence. This could take a while, as we first have to listen to a few disks about all the men who are chasing her. So far, that is her doctor, neighbor, co-worker, ex, the newspaper editor, and some guy I already can’t place. All putting the squeeze on her.
           No surprise this trip downtown (the local CVS closed) tuckered me out, so pause for a nap. Seeking distraction, I saw a few seconds of a Trabant, reputedly the worst car in the world in its time. Following the link, I found the old movie “Man From U..N.C.L.E. which I’ve never seen. Not the TV show, the movie. I see it is a modernized version, where the women have acting talent instead of looks. Sad.

ADDENDUM
           How are home sales faring since I last looked? Told you, prices keep rising while sales drop off. There has to be a break. I don’t think the bust will be big enough. Houses should cost around $80,000 in my opinion. And of course I would like to see many a bragging home owner shot down in flames.

           The thing that I notice is the slowdown of institutional buying. Where is Blackrock? Another item is Caltier. I had to quit checking right around the time the offering expired. It was too exhausting by mid-December. I was also about to change the log-on and contact info when I got laid low. I had the Reb check and there is a problem. One aspect is that she will not quit using Google and that prevents me from logging into the e-mail unless I get a passcode on her phone every time.

           She says we are losing money, now I cannot log on, Caltier rejects my password. My understanding is they invested only in positive cash flow buildings, so I expect there should be dividends. Normally, I would have been in Tennessee on December 5 to take care of this.
           We also talked about monetizing several companion features of this blog, such as the countless videos you never see because they are real time and people. It boils down to youTube and TikTok. I dislike TikTok because of that “Internet” thing about requiring constant new input to get paid. That is, you cannot upload a bunch of great content and sit back for the royalties, the way it should be. They want a minimum input each period that turns membership into a job. These sad people have no idea how badly they are sewering themselves in the future.

Last Laugh

March 5, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 5, 2025, Lofty, too screwed up.
Five years ago today: March 5, 2021, spiffy-looking.
Nine years ago today: March 5, 2017, none of it grew.
Random years ago today: March 5, 2005, church, beer, talk.

           Talk about a sporadic recovery. Where is the long, slow convalescence? I am plagued by good and bad days randomly. Last evening I could not hold a pen in my fingers. But, it is all physical, I have a dozen academic pursuits to keep the brain sharp. This morning working with my Arduino again, I’m reminded I don’t have a reliable 5VDC power supply and they don’t make one. What I have is lots of 3VDC packs salvaged from Dollar Tree. They can be ganged to 6VDC, which will work because the instant you connect them to anything, the voltage drops. That was my project for this morning.

           As for recovery, I am now experiencing the expected chest pains, somewhat familiar to anyone who has had a broken rib. It tolerable but can bring you to a stop. I have painkillers, but tend to avoid them as the pain is an indicator to behave. It moves around but centers on the upper chest area. There is no pattern to it and some inner parts can be felt moving themselves.

           It is a mild pain and I got out to the shed. Here are two gift boxes in progress, for the guys at ICU and therapy. I’ve learned it was Rick took pity on my diet and scored me the ginger ale and Nick who fast-tracked me out of physical or I might still be there lifting weights instead of wood. These are the side plates for two Z-boxes, being lined up for customized laser etching. They are for staff at the med places who went out of their way, and we know the boxes are highly conspicuous, much better than your ho-hum performance review.
           Now that I’ve built around 50 boxes, I was able to accurately gauge the amount of exertion to match the therapy guidelines they want me to follow for exercise. A darn good equivalent, which includes moving the lumber. These plates have to be carried from the back work shed to the laser table, and so on. For now, my limit is around 15 cuts per day. Enough [energy] to make the pieces shown here, but not assemble them in one day.

Picture of the day.
NE New Mexico, I think.
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           Just now I got a lecture and it was overdue. This hospital stay changed a lot of parameters, one of them being my blood is now, as far as I am concerned, contaminated. The lecture was from the Reb, who has long felt I should have larger social media exposure. I now agree, but you know how I view advice from people already on-line. Most of it is too self-centered to be of any utility to me. If, however, she can suggest a compatible way for me to approach this, I will promise to give it a try.
           What did I think about in the hospital? That’s not a complicated question. I have my wood box hobby that I should seriously make a backup plan over. I was unable to lift my own tools, but my typing skills remain undiminished. So there is a paradox—you have heard me lament for years how I never took shop in school. But here is something you should know. Rewind to that classroom where I learned to type—I could see out the window all the jocks playing murder ball.
           So typing and shop were not overlapping events. I could not both be in shop class and typing class at the same time. It was one or the other and for those who have been following along, I would NEVER for an instant give up my typing skills or any amount of shop. Not any fifty of those guys ever got anywhere with it except a better job while I got all the women I wanted in every high school, college, and both universities I attended. I never put it that way before, but I would never trade my typing skills for anything the other guys trained in.

ADDENDUM

           Thinking it meant a calendar year, I streamed a movie calle “1408”. It’s about a haunted hotel room, but remarkably well done. And I messed up on the navigation last day—was I woozy or forgetful. The result was a quick study of Nicobar, but I got the star position wrong. My background is the Sun’s position, and the sun moves in the sky. The star are fixed, so they are all a certain angular measurement from a fixed point called Aires. This point has to be adjusted for minutes and seconds after the hour reading given in your Almanac.
           I erred in adding it to both the position and the offset. This offset is called a Greenwich Hour Angle and is always measured west. Here’s some trivia for you about the Farmer’s Almanac. You see the term “right ascension”. That is just the same measurement if you go east from your ground point—but this is not used in navigation. Primarily, it seems used to make Almanac types sound smarter than they are.

Last Laugh

March 4, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 4, 2025, the bad floor.
Five years ago today: March 4, 2021, desolate.
Nine years ago today: March 4, 2017, most were train depots.
Random years ago today: March 4, 2016, have you had breakfast?

           Another day of random energy levels, let’s check the news. Hmmm, a US sub sank a warship, that’s a first since 1945. Then again, the Iranians never had enough of a navy to escort their own. Democrats who up to a month ago were screaming voter fraud was a hoax and now howling as they start losing. The midterms, I predicted, will be no side-show this time around. Trump is about to

spring a trap—he does not want the hardened Democrat vote. He has a majority without them and is cleverly letting them paint themselves.
           Seriously, this is a real island, and you can guess its name. I found while practicing the navigational exercise below. Even got the sound hole. It is uninhabited, but maybe send the Hippie there. He’s looking more like Ben Franklin every year. Now, back to navigation.

           Let us calculate a star position at 09:52:40 today local time (using our 2014 Almanac). That is 13:52:40 GMT and let’s choose the star is Procyon. Airies is 15 357° 12.9’ and the sidereal angle is 244° 50’. Allowing for the 52 minutes 40 seconds past the hour we were offset by 628° 14’, which is really 268° 14’ with a declination of 05° 04’N. Converting to Googletalk, that is -268.224°W by 05.64N. Yes, this is an exercise to see if my brain is still working.
           Here we are, in the Indian Ocean. Procyon was southwest of the island of Great Nicobar Island, a possession of India. Home to a forest tribe called Shompen and some sea turtles, these will be gone by 2050 as India builds a billion-dollar deep container port and moves 650,000 people to the island. They plan it to be “The Hong Kong of India” and knowing the natives have no disease resistance. Total population, around 300.

Picture of the day.
You first.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           A few of my birdies have returned. Keeps me company while I sat up all afternoons streaming movies and making sure my Arduino is functioning. I do not know why it lost sync but it is fine now. Soon, I’ll wire something up but the last few days I’ve had a series of false starts. I get the brain part done and then drain to zero soon as the slightest muscle part looms. Each is a repeat without any gain or sense of healing.

           These are two separate steps, so I stayed with reading for how and reviewed the package of new code that arrives with most newer IDE downloads. They seem to be focused on measuring time intervals with unsigned long integers, which I’ve never used much. I’ve seen it set to maximum milliseconds for the traffic lights, the longest time being over 40 days. I have no idea what this could be used for—my goal here is to keep my brain working and I’ll stomp on anyone who makes a Hawkings joke.
           I’m concerned that I now have two wounds that are not healing My leg and my chest now has a small gap. Will these require stitches? My notes from the doc do not mention this, only if the site is red and sore.
           Later, I was all evening tinkering with Arduino code. Except for the brain, this is a no-strain activity, I needed a brush-up on quirks not mentioned in the manual. For example, Arduino beginner’s material is keen on making lights blink and soon everyone wants to make them fade. The code adds a 5 and once it equals 255, (maximum 8-bit value), it subtracts the five. So you get a nice light that slowly fades off and on. Of course, you want to speed it up, so you change the 5 to a 10.
           Now it only brightens, it won’t fade. So you try 12, and 20, nothing works. The problem is that unless the value you choose is a factor of 255, the formula never equals 255. Try 15 or 17. This short video shows the experiment. That’s just a red flip phone in the foreground, the Arduino is back left with a green pilot light showing it is powered up. The small breadboard is the circuit. I could not find a 100 ohm resistor so I used a second (green) LED. The Arduino is so weak it will not burn out most LEDs if your forget the resistor.

ADDENDUM
           COBOL. The language I did not brush up on because the pay sucked. IBM (the only remaining user) is famous for screaming they can’t find people while paying half the market rate. Today I’m double-glad for it seems a startup company has developed some AI software that writes flawless COBOL code, kind of. I’d love to see the output. One aspect of the language I loved is that correctly written code was right all the time, that is 0% errors. You could be certain any mistakes were bad input.
           There is also a rule of thumb that IBM charges the customer ten times what it pays the programmers. If true, this AI app should be no surprise. You interact with COBOL everytime you use an ATM or airline—which also explains why the language is so long-lived. Any replacement would mean downtime these companies cannot afford. That could change if the code becomes practically free and instant.

           How the AI works is it can take old COBOL code one section at a time and re-write it as parallel “modern” code that can be run simultaneously and tested for accuracy. Yes, this still leaves too much in the hands of the wrong people, but it is a vast leap forward to replacing COBOL. Too bad, as the language was human-readable.
           I found some samples of the generated code. It has the same faults as all C code—unreadable commands, abused punctuation, and cryptic lines that have nothing to do with program logic.

Last Laugh

March 3, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 3, 2025, box, stove, etc.
Five years ago today: March 3, 2021, dating apps?
Nine years ago today: March 3, 2017, almost sunflowers.
Random years ago today: March 3, 2015, Florida road art.

           Ha-ha, spring is approaching and out come the ads for bass players. The season is over and all the wannabes are quitting the bands that go nowhere. Happens every year and the bands replace one wannabe with another, it’s a relay race. It could be another day of physical weakness, a good reminder that every other function degrades unless you have a good ticker first. Not so with the brain and I was up early trying to fix a microcontroller glitch. The brain seems unaffected unless they dope you up. See addendum for how I’m thinking.

           To emulate the light exercises from therapy, I’m going to cut some box plates. These motions are similar and the pieces never exceed the 5 lb limit. Shown here is etching a simple logo to make certain I am still familiar with the system. That anesthetic can really blot things out. For example, I forgot the instructions are for 5W and I have the 10W model.
           Dang, I have one crappy camcorder, it will not focus less than about a yard. Here is my clipboard with the logo etched. Looks a lot nicer, as in official. This was so boring I called ahead to check on Festus timing, it is set for suppertime. Of all the things, stringing out the cables and setting the laser up was enough to tucker me out, necessitating a two-hour nap. I need to get past this hurdle. Later, Festus was canceled over this.

           Not so many hours even later, the neighbor called and we watched a Gunsmoke tale any way. That’s how fast my condition swings. Some lady unknowingly falls for the gunslinger who killed her husband. Sofas have become my friend in the past short while and we may pencil in another movie or two now that we know I can walk to his back porch and back.
           He’s keen on the war and news but you know, none of these wars in the past decades has made a lick of difference to me. No changes to my routines and I do not really know anybody in the army. I study war but have nothing to do with it.

Picture of the day.
Wee peepers.
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           Here’s my clipboard with the laser logo. It was dark by the time I discovered that was the only thing I really got done today. By evening, the healing pains enter a new phase. I can’t tell if it is an increase in pain to the bones in the upper chest, or just an increased return of sensation to the area. For a while I’ve experienced a dull and uncomfortable “mending” they said is normal. Now it feels like a kick or blow delivered across the chest. Ever had a cracked rib? Well, triple that.

           I sought a documentary of the Black Pearl, the Dutch automatic sailing ship. The sails are operated by one person, where a regular sailing ship needs a crew of 16. I did not know the design was ready 40 years before a strong enough material was invented for the sails, namely carbon fiber. These ships have a diesel motor for backup and when underway, the propellers are used to generate electricity. I learned the ship is pre-wired to accept solar-powered sails whenever those get invented.

           In other news, there’s a huff about Crenshaw losing his Texas seat. That’s the RINO who plays up the eyepatch angle and votes against Trump apparently for the sake of it. My interest is how the media is not looking into why the election was so expensive. Who was the recipient of all those millions and time to investigate and limit their power to do such things.

ADDENDUM
           My first and favorite Arduino, an Uno, had developed a problem, it will not sync with the port ever since I connected the laser printer. This is ancient DOS era interfacing, using the COM ports which never quite worked as they were supposed to. Fixing it is not as easy as it sounds as there are some 15 different sources of the problem. I have a wired printer, laser etcher, and now the Arduino that all love COM 3. You’d think if I never used them all at the same time, it would work fine.
           But 1970 engineers are no smarter than today, so I began stepping through each port until I got to one I’ve never used before. Port 8. Good, as I was beginning to worry my Uno had finally cratered. It’s been battered and a few years ago I accidentally used it to drive a stepper [motor] which badly overheated the unit. The biggest fail of the Arduino remains no way to tell what sketch (program), if any, is installed on a unit. I tinkered with a subroutine that would send a serial message, but then you have to go find a computer with the Arduino IDE installed.

           Today’s plan is to rig up a transistor controlled relay and see if I can test it to the limit. The challenge is the transistor is far faster and there has to be a maximum. I want to know it. I also need a handy 12V power supply using dollar store batteries. And I cannot find my container of jumper wires. This might be a productive day after all. But I never got there.
           No, it was not, I nodded off in the comfy chair until 11:00PM. I wonder if it is this life vest that is allowing me only 3 hours sleep at a time. It seems passive but I never had this sleep cycle before. My coffee consumption has skyrocketed.

Last Laugh

March 2, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 2, 2025, merit-based.
Five years ago today: March 2, 2021, the sound was off.
Nine years ago today: March 2, 2017, I hesitate.
Random years ago today: March 2, 2014, “a factory virus”.

           Not a good day. Most symptoms relapsed and a return to weariness. Seven solid hours of good sleep and still drained. It has to be waited out, hospital-style. It’s plain the chest wound is widening and about to leave a larger mark. With windows open, my room hints of caramel and disinfectant. I’ve plenty of coffee and gingery ale, so check in later.
           The bulk of the day I was sitting or lying down, minimal movement. Streaming movies saved the day, one I’d never heard of was amusing. “The Extraordinary Adventures of Adéle Blanc-Sec” for special effects, though not for plot. The movie’s best aspect is it moves at the pace I can muster today.

           I’m unable to read many of my notes from January 30 to February 3, it would seem I had great difficulty holding the pen. I was unable to lean forward and nothing in the room, including te bed tray, was enough for a surface. There was no hallucinating in the sense everything I saw was real, just distorted. The scribbler shows even at worse I was writing full but short sentences. And that I knew something was wrong—and that it would go away. What a horrible episode, if I cannot decipher the writing in a few more days, I intend to destroy it for reminding me how it could blot reality.
           Next I tried to watch “The Last Witchhunter” but its cliché with too many weak spots. The gal in the skinny jeans is okay but developing little bulges. Years back I saw Gibson in “What Women Want” and I’m going to find it again. It’s comic for me, since I was around 19 when I began to notice the patterns of women. No, I can’t read minds, but it turned out learning the patterns was enough. The Gibson plot is not only wrong, that’s the movie that I disliked for casting the plain Jane pudgy gal as the 15 year old lead, which for me destroyed and ideal. I get enough tire-biters in the course of events, I want my actresses to represent an ideal.

Picture of the day.
Sydney Taylor.
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           To counter my physical listless day, I took a far closer at the lead patterns to “Hotel California”, both tabs and notations. My brain still works, and I’ve figured the pattern, again noting its similarity to one of the first tunes I ever learned, the fast version of “Hey Joe”, must have been maybe 1966. Now I know the notes will work major and minor, and there is actually just one pattern needed to fake the tune. The only challenge is the motif is 16 measures long.
           You can hear it best at the end of the song, as the music fades. The earlier solo breaks have variations but they are not as distinctive and won’t be missed. I simply chopped the 16 measures into 8 smaller sets and made them identical except for the changes. But I know those changes well and soon as I’m able again, I’ll work them into a flashy bit of bass work, I will. You can try this at home, but most of that solo is guitar 4ths which become a real stretch as you move down the bass neck. I would have to be in top form to play this. And I’m not.

           The old club invited me to an art show tonight. Kind of. The club is dead, my guess is they have been losing money a while now. So management is open to any ideas (except my advice to change it back into a neighborhood country music venue) and Wilford came up with this idea. He provides a ton of art supplies and anybody in the audience can dig in. Novel idea, but I seriously do not think there are enough creative people in the territory to make it work. For that matter, Wilford can’t be unaware he’s wasting his time with four or six customer’s all night long.
           The location is great advertising for his photography business, though it’s not the most effective way to advertise. I have not contacted my latest guitar player since I returned, but then, he has not contacted me, either. By how, he and I should have been able to approach the old club with a duo for those dead Saturday nights. Since Cathie left, they have tried almost everything except live music. Worst was the DJ that played the pseudo-rap disco noise that drowned out any chance of conversation.

           We’ve gone over this business cycle before and here it is, staring us right back in the face. The downfall is predictable, the club hires full bands, business is good but the best match is small bands, that is duos or trios. Except, there aren’t any and Bash bands are too expensive. (Bash is the local bulletin board agency, for corporate events.) So the club drops to solo guitar players but soon that becomes a rotation of the same few people. And I have long since spotted how they do not hold a crowd with their choice of music—just ask the Hippie.
           So, the club crops to Karaoke. You know that mistake, there is a certain period where the show is novel and the house makes an extra couple hundred per night. But it is not live and it wears thin, but worse, the club loses the regular clientele who liked live music. With the loss of business, the club drops again to DJ music and that quickly dwindles away. So, here we are, a dead club that can only be revived by live music and that music has to be, in my experience, country. That’s why I switched to country, folks.
           And that is where the club has sat since last year. All the regulars are gone and except for payday at the mines, long empty nights. And that mining crowd is nasty, fights and police outside. Normally, I would have made a deal with the club for tips only because I know the formula for neighborhood country music—but I do not have a band to offer. Neither does anyone else nearby. If I lived forty miles east or west of here, I’d have been in a band for years now.

Last Laugh

March 1, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 1, 2025, a 6-pancake day.
Five years ago today: March 1, 2021, that’s baloney.
Nine years ago today: March 1, 2017, yep, Jim Stafford.
Random years ago today: March 1, 2013, early Arduino.

           An early start with a bit of energy, which I used to make breakfast hash and a key lime pie. Better yet, I stayed awake and watched some documentaries of living off the grid. Folks, it does not good around here to make wild claims of independence—it costs a hell of a lot of money to get a a cabin happening in the woods. This one couple who “started from nothing” carefully avoided saying where they got the cash and tools to survive for years during startup. Or where they got the tools and solar panels. I don’t mean nothin’, I’m just saying.

           So I’ve decided, except for electric, which I will not skimp on, and water which is mandated by the city, am I not off the grid? Let me fathom that, because I was not happy with getting $241 in electricity bills while I was away in the hospital with the main breaker turned off. The average cost for a small cabin system in 2025 was $15,000. But what if I live another 23 years like my last round in 2003? This requires a lot of thought and planning. See addendum.

           Here is something you don’t see every day. This is dead lumber, that is, the wood was dead before it was lumberjacked. The effect is not something I’d pay extra for, but these planks have an abnormal source. It is pine wood that has been killed by a beetle scourge. The tree trunks remain standing for years after and this is the result when sawn and planed. Sorry, you will have to consult elsewhere for details but I understand there are thousands of square miles of these dead forests. A most interesting recycle idea.

           Pennsylvania remains deadlocked in a fight with power companies a year now over a bill that allows residents to refuse the installation of “smart meters”. The companies were charging an opt-out fee by some other name and slow-walking the removal of existing unwanted meters. What does that tell you?

           My single chore today is to get the rest of that $1600 into the joint account. This is where PPP comes into play. Many, possibly most, people would say this trip downtown is just the logistics of reality. I see it as the consequences of being poor. If I had to pay somebody else, or calculate my true full cost, this trip carries a price tag of around $75. And even after the 18th, my reserves will stand at only 34% of optimum. Who knew poverty was so complicated? It explains a lot.
           Wait, there is more. My commercial bank has begun charging me the $11 monthly statement fee for below minimum balance. The joint account ATM has stopped printing the balances. An obvious ploy to encourage an overdraft. These GenX types must love to screw themselves. Another good one is deleting texts on my smart phone. It also deletes the contact and removes it from the contact list until you turn the phone off and back on. But nothing beats my original millie-phone that required ten keypresses to use the speed dial.

Picture of the day.
Dealey Plaza today.
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           What is this? Turns out this is a can of evaporated milk with coffee. Agt. M and I stopped at the Russian store and I wanted some sweet evap. My crappy camcorder won’t zoom in, so here is the best shot I have of the product. My curiosity is returning and today I got some minor housework done. This place remains a shambles. As the old saying goes, if I die today the police will describe the scene as “there appears to have been a struggle.”

           It is 30 days since the operation and time for a status report. You can skip this if you don’t care for hospital stuff. I am at about 50% mobility most of the time with some lingering annoyances. The numbness in both my pinkies and ring fingers is concerning. At the rate of improvement, my hands will not be normal for months yet. The loss of sensation on my outer left upper thighs is not diminished at all. My left leg is half again the size of my right from swelling.
           Both feet are now subject to localized gout attacks. At the moment, it is my right heel and painful but tolerable to walk on. The two wounds for the veins in either leg are still unhealed. The left is closed but scabbed over, the right has formed a white-ish covering (not infected but looks bad) that allows clear fluid to leak slowly but continuously.
           During the 72 hours following surgery, I did my best to keep notes. It remains a blur and my writing is barely legible—but it is evident they gave me narcotic pain-killers. That means two instances of treatment I refused in advance. Narcotics and blood transfusion. So much for my pureblood status, as I can never be sure again.
           My guess for the drug was morphine, which has known withdrawal effects. My notes state that many times I could not read my book (the Buck novel) as the pages turned black in my hands. Black, as if burned, but not shriveling, so I could see widely-spaced single typed letters on the paper. Mostly capital Rs and Os. I would pick up the book and see the pages turn black in front of me, often with a slight gold or orange outline showing through from the other side of the paper.

           My forearms are a bad shape, still bruised and damaged. I have collapsed veins and knots under the skin in several spots. I count fourteen dots and spots from needle punctures that are slow to heal. Swellings of blood on the backs of my hands have subsided to leave blotches. And the skin on both arms has become dry and loose, a condition I’ve often seen in other people in their 80s. Yep, cosmetically, I’ve just aged ten years.
           And the scar. It was a thin red line a month ago, but from the ordinary required motions sitting up and daily routines, it gets slightly tugged and stretched and is now a disfiguring mark. And there is always something alarming about a wound that takes so long to heal. Later, the banking is done and I just want a quiet evening. I slated next Tuesday to get back on track with Festus. There is some light on the horizon.

ADDENDUM
           Solar is not the only option. Later this week I will examine the cost of running a backup generator. I have two advantages. One is I understand the battery technology and how to install and maintain lithium. The second is my place is already 90% wired for adaptation and I can do the rest myself. I have two roof surfaces facing south and east that are unshaded. How about I get outside and take some measurements later, so I can estimate the power generation and cost. I would have no problem installing an experimental site in any of the sheds, which all have exposed south roofs with the sun almost directly overhead most days.
           The videos are extra amusing to me because I see something a lot of others don’t, namely infrastructure. You see them getting water from a wall tap connected to a well. I see the tens of thousands of dollars needed for that to happen. If they had the well drilled, that cost plenty, if they dug it themselves, where did they get their water meanwhile? And is a propane water heater really living off the grid? You can fake an easy-living video for the masses, but around me you cannot fake infrastructure.
           Meanwhile think of me as semi-off-grid. Because I am not about to begin growing and preserving food. I have thought about it, say with potatoes. But I live a mile from the nearest grocery. And I’m slowly getting able to walk again that far again if I must.

Last Laugh

February 28, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: February 28, 2025, shift happen.
Five years ago today: February 28, 2021, best window ever.
Nine years ago today: February 28, 2017, turkey burgers.
Random years ago today: February 28, 2010, the 2010 virus.

           Bear with my random-like posts, I’m still lapsing in and out of sleep. I chose to look at some videos of the WWII campaign in Sicily, a case study in Allied ineptitude. Yes, they won, but hardly by great military means. They had paratroopers, which by now had proven useless against even light enemy forces. And whenever the ground troops ran into any equal numbers, they were stopped solid. For me, interesting reading, indeed. Time and again, where the Allies “won” an engagement, they had actually found the enemy positions abandoned.

           The “tenacious” German resistance turns out to be ten or twelve guns against hundreds of attackers. British news reports continual refer to the Axis withdrawal as a retreat. In reality, the Germans knew they did not have the resources to defend the island before the invasion arrived.
All I have for you today is this picture of out first shopping trip after the hospital stay. It does not show all the dried fruit.

           Wide awake from 1:30AM to 5:30AM. At home I used the time to study PWM, something I will likely never use. It’s the fifty different ways the on-line tutorials explain it that gets me. Most are wrong or leave something out. Today I learned that the pulse with, which emulates voltages, can be made into an actual lower voltage by adding a capacitor. I needed the reminder that the [Arduino] analogwrite() command is really a digital signal.

           Now approaching noon, the day proper begins for me. The Reb calls and we had an extraordinary conversation about money. You’ve never heard me mention PPP because the term pre-dates these blog posts. It is a derogatory meaning “poor people problems” and refers to the hoops the system has in place to jerk you around if you are poor. You know what I’m talking about. The mess of snags and annoyances built-in to society that most people erroneously think is the natural order. They don’t suspect a thing.
           The best way to avoid PPP is to have a sufficient cash float to wait the bastards out. Most people living hand-to-mouth do so because they have never learned to keep a float. If you must know, my float has traditionally been $16,000. If things go wrong, that is enough to keep me going for months. You’ve seen me buy vans and shrug off banks when necessary, and that is what I’m talking about. Well, folks, the float is temporarily used up, and today came a batch of PPP, landing right on my tired lap. I have not had compound PPPs this century, but here we go, the system is always lurking for the opportunity.

Picture of the day.
Easter Island airport.
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           Now, PPPs work together to trap you. Each cog in the machine seems to know when you are in a pickle. Today, a $1,500 bill came in and I’m behind in deposits because of the month I just lost. It means a dead time between today and March 18, what could go wrong? First, I have two ATMS, both with $500 limits. That’s a PPP unless you have a float. This means a trip to Lakeland today and another tomorrow, which costs more money than commonly realized, another PPP. You get the idea.

           The ATMs dispense $100s and $20s. The Tennessee bank accepts maximum 25 bills, which means five hundreds and twenty twenties, or maximum $900. So it is more trips to the ATMs on Sunday—how can the system screw you around on that? Easy. Thanks to my situation, I did not notice that the Tennessee ATM card expires today, I was lucky it took the $900. If I have to send the balance by USPS, it arrives after the deadline. More PPP. (I know some of you are thinking why not just make a second deposit with more bills? You don't know, do you?)
           My float will not be restored until the 18th, when I have to be in Miami. Let’s hope between now than then I do not even get a flat tire. Folks, none of these things, in the long run, truly happen by accident.

           To record my health, it was a zero-gain day. Just as weary and no improvement in endurance. I made French toast and did a quick shop for ginger ale and basics. Other than the unplanned trip downtown, I stayed put. This makes overall healing an uneven process and I don’t like that. The photo is a set of men’s flannel pajamas, may I never get caught in a hospital again without them. Beware of cotton-flannel mixes, you want real flannel. The downside? They are now over $60. And that’s at Wal*Mart, sonny.

ADDENDUM
           There is a military historian who showed promise, but they got to him. His initial round of documentaries were factual and revealing. His name is Mark Felton and they got to him. His latest productions are laced with anti-German digs and plugs. Always a referral to slave labor and the camps, no matter how off the topic.
           His material is also taking a tack toward the “Britannica” version, which is highly propagandized. By now, most sources admit the bomber offensive failed to cripple German war production because it was based on the false presumption that Germany was on a wartime economy. That would have been true if Germany really planned to conquer the world, but I’ll sidestep that issue.            In reality, Germany had never planned a long war and the losses from bombing were handily made up by underused capacity. The "strategic" bombing was a costly failure and a cover for deliberate bombing of German civilians. And we all know who does that kind of thing.

Last Laugh

February 27, 2026

Yesteryear
Yesteryear
One year ago today: February 27, 2025, another 12 y.o. “genius”.
Five years ago today: February 27, 2021, yet another guitarist.
Nine years ago today: February 27, 2017, “entertainment radio”.
Random years ago today: February 27, 2003,10th “last date” anniversary.

           Good morning, but that’s not to mislead anyone that I’m back to par. I’m back to coffee and grits, homestyle, and that is it for a while. My big plan for the day is to refill the birdfeeders and count some lumber. One super-issue for me was finances since I’ve been away, but I was with my banker for an hour and we are going to try a different system which should work—except I won’t know the exchange rates until weeks afterward. As ever, I’ll adapt to that, for the moment, it is coffee and birdseed.

           The option to sleep all night long is already getting results. Maybe I’ll unload the van and do a load of laundry. That last chore is overdue, I took only enough for a week away. I have not stepped on a scale but I’ve lost 8 – 10 pounds. And this morning brought a return of wobbly balance and poor appetite. We are not out of the weeds yet. When I say I’m fine, I mean sitting down or making coffee.
           Checking the yard, I see there was a severe drought during my absence. Even some cactus has died off and the birdbath area that catches the spill has completely dessicated.

           I’d love to hop in the KIA for a drive in the countryside, but that is forbidden. I’m also strapped to the portable fibrillator. It’s to prevent a heart attack, though I am hoping they conclude short of the six-month estimated time that after this my heart is actually quite well. This generic photo shows the transmitter and it is twice as heavy as it looks.
In my office, the cot and chair are one step apart and this makes for wonderfully beneficial rest. I can throw on any of my favorite documentaries and crash. Today, I took a closer look at the German side of the north

           African battles against the Americans approaching from the west. German humor can be hard to follow, but there is no doubt some were laughing their asses off at the Yanks. Time after time, they would see the mass of American tanks approaching with the commanders on the turrets.
           The Germans would fire a few shells into the air, causing the Americans to duck back in the turrets, reducing their visibility to nothing. Then begin picking off the toy US tanks until the rest turned tail. I have yet to see any Allied footage of this going on.

           I bought this book at the Thrift, thinking it would focus on issues like inflation and wars, but it was mostly about media idiots. While I recognized almost all the topics, I could not place 2/3rds of the people. I know Michael Jackson and Howard Stern because they are freaks, and Gloria Steinem because so many outspoken 6’s have the same bark, but who are Al Franken and John Green? One thing I know is they didn’t make their money by working for it, or I would have some idea who they were.
           My conclusion is most people in this book are loudmouths who caught media attention for getting things backwards, screwing up facts, or being a majority at some ivory tower schools. I think this book is like the Jeopardy game show. Unless you spend inordinate amounts of time watching TV and paying attention to other people’s lives, you will not go anywhere with this. Strangely, even if you do know all these people, you will still not go anywhere.

Picture of the day.
Most popular US non-coffees.
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           Here is a view of a model wearing the chest strap, which I call the sports bra. It presses some sensors and two metal cases against the back and front. Rumor is the unit can kick-start your ticker. The apparatus is real time, it sends alarms and alerts for any interruptions. It is well-designed and comfortable. Surprisingly easy to sleep while attached but too heavy to leave long on the belt clip as depicted here.

           When I look back on the week since I got out, the most restful time was going to the movies alone. That is the first in at least ten years without the Reb andI psychological realize I thought she was there. You know, there is that big movie plaza just a short drive from here. I’m thinking.
           Later, what crap they are showing. Plotless music documentaries and if “Wuthering Heights” is as bad as the book, count me out.

           By late afternoon, all attention is on unfinished business. There is nobody here to look after anything in my absence. As mentioned the utilities and wifi were cut off, but easily restored. After the meeting with my banker, I should be back to a surplus by March 18. A tiny surplus, but that is all I need. Some of these margins, I know, are getting pretty thin.

           Checking my bass playing to map what I can play using only three left-hand fingers, you know, should it come to that. I found something. “Hotel California” is a studio overdub of many guitar parts, but during the second half there is a triplet riff that cannot be played by a solo guitarist without losing the rhythm chop. I gave it a try, and while it is a guitar part, there is a great way to spoof it on bass. It also parallels the motif of the lead break. I spent an hour on this just to see. Hmmm, this might be another piece where the guitarist who chooses this tune for his ego may find he has a lot more backup band than he bargained for. I would relish playing this triplet on the bass with the Hippie, just to see his reaction.
           Later, I went to the club to see what I’d missed. Wilford, whom I cannot figure why he still works there, is trying an “arts” night. Might as well, the old club is dead and gone. That is unless somebody gets the lerts to turn Saturday into country music night. I stepped out into a gulf breeze, meaning it is finally going to rain.

Last Laugh