VIDEO HAS NO SOUND.
===============================================
THIS BLOG IS NOT FORMATTED FOR ANDROID.
DOES NOT represent any average American life-style.
Tales From The Trailer Court™
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
THIS IS A HEADER - scroll down one page to begin blog--->
VIDEO HAS NO SOUND.
===============================================
DOES NOT represent any average American life-style.
March 11, 2026
One year ago today: March 11, 2025, 24,300.
Five years ago today: March 11, 2021, learning hinges.
Nine years ago today: March 11, 2017, I loved that Rebel.
Random years ago today: March 11, 2007, Starbucks, no women.
Here’s a soon to be rare sight. Old Winnie on the five pound note. A committee, led by a Jamaican/Sri Lankan has moved the currency change from historical figures to depictions of wildlife. Saying the change is overdue, Nadeem himself kind of resembles an anteater. Britain became a non-country over such things. Today’s forecast says a record high. I’ll be needing some time out there. Then again, I’ve always thought that old warmonger resembled a hedgehog.
My original mileage limit was 25 miles (the Prez was 22) but that no longer has relevance in that playing out a few times beats more trips that go nowhere. Let’s call the new guy Dave, and I found part of his old list (he’s sending me an update). He plays a lot of 60s, as in Beatles, Dave Clark, and bands with names like the Drifters. Before my time, but fun to play. If I recall, he teams up with a keyboard player, but he’s quickly spot the advantages of a duo. As ever, do not get any hopes up. This is the music business. There is always some form of deal-killer the guitar player isn’t being up-front about.
It got pretty warm out there, so I missed the cold spell. But it may have taken out my neighbor’s two beautiful avocado trees. Did I say mango last day? Tell me to wake up. Over the years, he has lost most of what was once a small orchard on his north side. This photo shows the nicest tree, it used to be deep and dark green year-round. Like myself, it is showing signs of recovery. But those leaves are dead and crisp and about to hit the ground.
There is news from Nashville. Radio promotion is more of a factor to the studios than the audience (if you ask me). The most I can say for sure is 90% of all new songs I’ve heard in my life were on the radio, usually in the car. But that is back when there were real radio stations. But that changed for me on the trip to Smithville, remember that?
Today was not all energetic and I took another look at phased array radar. I know the theory, but there is something else I wanted to know. Like in navigation, the farther from the center you get, the more the edge of the wave becomes almost a straight line. The rays of the sun, for instance, seem to strike the Earth as parallel waves. Military radar uses this principle to focus beams without having to aim the radar dish itself. Alas, I could not find info, but it was fun to learn so much. Here’s the quick version.
Phased array has become cheap because, get this, it uses many of the same parts a cell phones. Next, it is fast, up to ten times faster than conventional radar. There were once 500 of these regular radars, mostly at airports. Because phased array beams can be shared and relayed, the number has dropped to around 200. Savings are in the billions. When you see the weather map that “jerks” into the next scene, that’s conventional radar. When it flows smooth like a video, that is phased array. How cheap is it? Well, China built a big unit in the Himalayas that now monitors all the missile tests of India. China used to use spy ships in the Bay of Bengal, but recalled them all (see addendum).
The electronics is conceptually simple though I would not attempt it. One day soon, I plan to go through my gear and find my Arduino box. It has been misplaced for years. Not today. I have just the energy to go out to the shed. Even this minor activity means the evening off, though I may not fee tired. I’ve learned, and there is another movie I’ve never seen. “Kingdom f Heaven”. Reputed to have dull characters and a meandering plot, it might be the background I need for some study sessions.
Sad, but one of my favorite word games has gone millennial. It’s an association game that takes two minutes while logging on. But lately, it has become impossible to solve without knowing slang terms related to feminism, fat reduction, and television. Disgusting terms.
Grill growth.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
A drought it is. I walked around the house to take stock. Here is the neighbor’s other avocado tree, but that brown appearance can also be caused by a freeze. I’m just smart enough not to push the envelope, but I was able to walk around with decent balance for two hours. I used the time for some light work in the shed, centering on boxes. I tended to finish box bottoms, these are the slats or bottom plates of my chosen design.
Making the pieces unequal widths will work, but the product is not as appealing. My plan is to see if cutting one panel in half will produce a symmetrical result with the final piece. I’ve noted this final piece is the most time-consuming and fussbudget part of the process. I have a nice pile of ends that didn’t fit destined for the burn barrel.
I get to snigger at anyone who thinks this box would be easy to copy. The second management verdict involves cosmetics again, in this case the laser etcher. By now we all love logos and emblems. What could go wrong? Burn the pattern, assemble the box. Here is a nice video that demos the hitch. This is just a clip of drilling the thumbholes. The board is flipped over to ward of tear-out from the drill bit. Take a closer look at the board.
That entails carrying the box pieces to be burned from the shed to the office, then back again. Turns out this is plenty of time for the wood to act up. The problem is, having the logo etched means the box has to be assembled so those marks are correctly oriented. Rarely does this match the optimum wood distortion. The realistic solution is to burn the logo on the box after assembly. That means bringing full size boxes and placing them under the laser. It follows the laser must then be propped and braced, as the plastic housing can easily shift from the moving weight of the heavier laser module. Right now, space and money are limited. Management.
ADDENDUM
The Bay of Bengal is a weapons zone. This is where India tests missiles, rockets, ships, subs, and tactics. Anywhere else is too close to Pakistan. So I went on eBay to once again show how easy it is for those with even half a brain to stump the Internet. Not one match on “phased array radar”, but I did find some parts. Lots of books and models nobody asked for. A.I. indicates the starting price is around one million dollars each.
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
March 10, 2026
One year ago today: March 10, 2025, a fault in others.
Five years ago today: March 10, 2021, inherently faulty.
Nine years ago today: March 10, 2017, my flowers don’t grow.
Random years ago today: March 10, 2005, I hate stupid.
What is this, Day 41? That would explain why the medical community is touchy about recovery chances. Nothing prepared me for this. Yet, that isn’t strictly true, in the sense I have long prepared for a quieter and less active life. I just thought it would take a lot longer to get there. Good morning, my guide list says mention breakfast. Fried spuds and muffins right out of the oven. But the loss of taste remains and it is not improving. No matter how well it starts, after five or so bites of anything, the flavor disappears. That’s a problem.
Last day I read about the two-piston tractor. Here is the John Deere next door, so I hobbled over for a look. Sure enough, here is a photo showing the cutout to access a single piston, the other is probably the other side. Once more, I pose a simple question that stumps the entire Internet. Not one direct answer to the question why early tractors were limited to two pistons. Several articles told this arrangement is what gave tractors their characteristic sound, which makes sense. The location of this spark-plug cutout means the motor is located on the bottom of this chassis.
I’ve earmarked today for another do-nothing period. I’m still watching “The Way Back”, a dumb title. I always wondered if it is true thirsty people can “get sick” if they drink water too fast. There you go, yet another yes-no question not one Internet genius can answer. Lots of indirect answers that it could bother people with bad kidneys to start with, and imbalance electrolytes, which some folks claim they can tell. I don’t believe them, it is just thirst.
Later, I finished the movie. It lacks the intensity of the book. The movie kept me still for two hours, which is more important just now. Some years ago I attempted to train myself to do this, but failed. I would get up every twenty minutes for a coffee, or something, or put on a second movie simultaneously, or sometimes read a book while watching the movie. So it takes a major heart situation to get me to behave like others my age. Isn’t that something?
Pro wood cutting.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Sitting still, I got to more documentaries. My focus was companies that were big when I was growing up which have now disappeared. Gone are Sears, Schwinn, Baldwin, and the lesser-missed Kodak and Xerox. Radio Shack is gone, and I really miss Borders. I was seeking some common factor like failure to adapt. I suppose failed business decisions and changing markets would be that category, but so was the wholesale shipping of the work and technology overseas.
Baldwin was my study choice. The documentary correctly covered the impact of a piano, that it was the mark of a good family. The kids were getting culture, the parents were now middle class. None of this applied to my situation, not one of my siblings ever got past a few weekss. This was curious indeed, how they heard me practice every day and decided to take lesson to prove it was easy and I was just a slow learner, but that is a different story. The Baldwin factory is now a condo.
We never had a Baldwin and I did not know much about pianos at all. I believe I had 90 piano lessons in my life before I decided to form my own band, which is also another story. Those lesson took nearly three years and I knew I was no classical piano player. But I had figured out the circle of fifths and forced myself to hear when chords matched—I did not have any source of coaching for this, so yes, it did take often years for items that could have taken minutes.
Google announces a new format of youTube ads. They are unskippable 30 second plugs, which Google says is to allow viewers to watch the ads in a more “relaxed living room setting”. I predict the adblocker people already have the workaround. People who trusted the age verification software to be anonymous are reporting their real names are being searched from places like Israel.
ADDENDUM
What about progress? There isn’t any. I’m still wavering between spells of energy and weakness, both around 40% of optimum. My right leg is still draining though the wound has closed roughly a third. My left leg still feels hot and paralyzed under the skin, with surges of fiery pain. No gout today but my chest wound still isn’t narrowing. And I’ve got a sharp pain across the upper chest, the pain I was expecting weeks ago. The bone-mending pain. But none these pains stop me from moving around freely. The chest pain is worst, but tolerable.
Sleep can strike fast, but comes on instantly if I lean back or lay back. A nap is two to four hours. I have a mild pain right where I think my appendix might be. I’m a lot steadier standing up, it’s enough to have me avoid walking. I also have several small healing scars on my neck and wrists that must have served some purpose.
The revelation to me is that recovery is such a long stretch that possibly there is a real danger of one’s overall condition not being up to the task. I’m beginning to suspect part of this drawn-out return is due to demands being placed on one’s general regular health. This second day of almost complete immobility is telling me my normal constitution can easily be stressed by, for example, the sharp chest pains of today. Could that explain the ups and downs? Hmmm, could that explain the rumor of the 50% survival rate? I can tell you the needs can easily tap into strengths in your core that might not be there for the taking. Lie down, and you can be out for hours. Hmmmm.
Monday, March 9, 2026
March 9, 2026
One year ago today: March 9, 2025, save the scraps.
Five years ago today: March 9, 2021, Charla sells the bar.
Nine years ago today: March 9, 2017, rewired and working.
Random years ago today: March 9, 2016, I hate TV addicts.
Food. I’m awake, but is my appetite. It’s a beauty of a morning with a light fog off the Gulf. I’m feeling inert, which is better than last day. I have a medley of spuds, sausage, onions, and gravy on the burner and have used up only half my coffee supply. What will become of today? Go get yourself and extra coffee and meet me back here in a few hours.
Here’s a picture that may show a soon-to-be outlawed activity. Called “balcony power”, it is what it looks like. Folks are rigging them up to ward off the outrageous (and predicted) price increases for electricity. (For an explanation why I did not do this long ago, see addendum.) The contention is these kits are fastened with zip ties and such. The power companies have town councils saying that makes them unsafe in bad weather—but not the flower boxes.
How about those smart glasses JZ and I looked at in the Dadeland Mall last month? Swedish researchers reveal that data sharing is enable by default, and once activated does not turn off once you take off the glasses. Outfits like FaceBookX have demonstrated they accept lawsuits over privacy to be just another business expense, and in any case, just move the snooping overseas. As one of my major suppliers (Adafruit) puts it, the Kenyans are watching you poop.
And what about the rumor that it is possible to see laser disk images under a microscope. That would be a major security flaw, just when I don’t have the energy or equipment to test it. I read some social media, but it’s mostly already-outdated war news. But I agree with the theory that after 3,000 years of data, there is something behind most racial stereotypes.
Six hours later, I’m still feeling inert, neither good or bad, but it’s overall a negative since only improvement will do me any good. The reasoning is simple. I cannot stay this way, period. I undertook to study the claim that cannons defeated castles. But pictures, such as exist, show no walls with holes punched in them, like cannonballs do to armor. This is what I wanted to know more about.
The accounts also talk of days of bombardment to bring down a wall. Looking at diagrams, the thick castle walls were really two outer walls filled with rubble between. Makes sense as this material would absorb the shock. That explains the days it would take to shatter the walls, but that would just create a pile of rubble forming its own obstacles. Accounts of that fighting are harder to find, so I arbitrarily chose a battle to look closer. Malta.
I got few answers except the battle was not decided by cannons. The head Knight did not care about the forts in ruin and ordered a defense of the rubble. The Ottomans seem to have shot down a fortress wall by making a small breach, then firing cannons at an angle into the aggregate behind the breach.
India’s “peacock-theme” parliament.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Not moving a muscle today, at least kept me stable enough to tinker and putter. I see the dying Democrat bunch in Virginia are attempting to pass a law that guarantees them a massive majority. Some homeless type cut off his own member and committed suicide. There was a time when America would have cared. Only being confined has me bothering with such news stories, but I also got to learn from other documentaries as they came up. I sat still mostly for nine hours, mostly moving only the mouse. Easy, but for me, a dead end. I cannot live like that.
You have to go to the exhibition to see these tractors, ha-ha, I just have to walk next door. This Farmall is a classic and Howie’s current masterpiece. I learned that most tractors of the day had two pistons. Possibly that was an original design feature that later became limited by war production. I read how John Deere knew this would one day change and had a “secret” department dedicated to more pistons.
The tractor story was indeed interesting from the nearly insane numbers of competitors and how simply from steel to rubber tires changed the industry. (Seems the tires required less fuel to pull a plow.) I learned Allis-Chalmers decided to paint his tractors “Persian orange” after seeing a field of poppies. If I need to check any of this, I just walk out my door fifty steps. One big name was International Harvester and most iconic paint colors stemmed from the 1930s.
The videos also reminded me what I have against farm life, that is, anybody who thinks it is wholesome has never been forced to muck out a barn. Most kids I knew who stayed on the farm would never have made it in the real world anyway. That was the summer I was 18, working on a forestry crew. Let me tell a little more about that. You worked three weeks in and then off for a week.
The rest of the crew were jackpine savages, disgusting people who liked the bush. You already know how the forestry truck dropped us off at a compound seven miles from town. All the rest of the crew got in their cars and drove to the city 50 miles away where they had arrangements, as in apartments, and family.. I had nothing and could not even catch a ride, as the nearest town was the opposite direction. I walked the seven miles and got there after the banks had closed and no place to stay. The cheapest place to stay was just under half my paycheck. It would be nearly another four years before I got a car.
It got cold early that year, and I quit the crew because I did not like living and working with jackpine savages. I had no car, no place to stay, but the government wanted me to cheer that my tax money was supporting the national yacht-racing team.
Some years ago I read, “The Way Back” condensed book about the escapees from Siberia, the ones that walked 600 miles, I forget. Today I found the movie and it is fairly accurate as far as the walking goes. The actors all look alike. And it took no time to find videos of hobbyists with toy airplanes able to deliver flour bombs repeatedly on highly maneuvering ground targets. (The bombs work on a spring and are 3D printed. Folks, these robotics spell the end of the US concept of shock and awe. I watched as rookies using joysticks knocked out tanks and bunkers. True, these were mockups and toys, but I know what I was looking at.
I cannot find my thermometer, but I’m not running a fever. My pulse is a steady 64 bpm for a week now.
ADDENDUM
The savings from solar is a complicated calculation based on estimates different for each household. Your electric bill is part fixed and part variable. If you want service, you cannot avoid the fixed charge. My fixed portion has more than doubled (from $41 to $86) since I got here. That’s how my power was cut off last week—I ran up almost $200 in usage while in the hospital—with only my fridge running.
It is the variable portion that gets most people. That is the only amount you can lower by curbing usage. And my variable is as low as $30 per month. That means no matter how much I might spend on alternatives, I would not save all that much. With installations costing in the thousands, there is no breakeven point in my lifetime. However, on principle alone, I may look at some of my existing equipment once I feel better. Maybe some yard lighting. Nor can you count on sunlight. SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites, each a mini-data center. It won’t blot out the Sun, but plants the concept.
Today’s trivia. SpaceX already owns about half the nearly 16,400 satellites in orbit. Most, as in 88%) of the satellites are working, the rest are dead and will eventually “de-orbit”. More trivia, FireFox records almost a half-million crash reports per month. While maybe 20% can be written off to cheap Chinese chips, the rest are a subject I know something about—how the chip registers change data. This is called “bit-flipping” or similar by techs who use but don’t understand the process. Looking at the patterns I have a prediction. That almost all the users who experience a bit-flip crash have one thing in common. Single, unattached, geeky males with Ctrl-C Ctrl-V type personalities. You know who you are.
Sunday, March 8, 2026
March 8, 2026
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.
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.
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.
Stiletto City Hat & Glove Society.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
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.
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 informationAnd, 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.
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
Saturday, March 7, 2026
March 7, 2026
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.
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.
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.
Brenham, Texas.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
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.
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.
Friday, March 6, 2026
March 6, 2025
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.
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.
Tuba museum.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, March 5, 2026
March 5, 2026
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.
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.
NE New Mexico, I think.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
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
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.
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
March 4, 2026
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
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
March 3, 2026
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.
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.
Wee peepers.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)