I was over at the O’Toole’s this morning but not first thing. Due to my first bicycle-related injury, a scraped elbow and knee, I didn’t get there until well past 8:00 AM. Very light scrapes, I fell down. Here is the accident report. My front tire went flat on the way over. Since I was less than half way, I turned back home, riding slowly on the rim. Um, the good news is that I can still manage 8.5 mph on a flat, more than twice my walking speed.
The Florida economy is largely geared to kicking you when you are down. Nothing intentional, of course, but still a factor. I had to cut across the bank parking lot to trim a half-mile off my trip. They leave a fine layer of gravel on the pavement. Not enough to bother a car, but enough to cause a flat bike tire to skid. I [mildly] sprained both wrists breaking my fall, nothing serious. A slight scrape and I was on my way. Again, it is not the bank’s fault, I am merely pointing out that of all the dozens of banks in this area, that is the only bank whose parking lot is both a shortcut and has that loose layer of gravel.
In response to questions, some people do not know what a pegboard is. Look here. See, it is a board drilled full of hundreds of evenly spaced holes, in which you place little hooks in a convenient fashion. For example, here are all my spare computer cables. True, I could have used just the narrow strip of pegboard across the top to accomplish the same end shown as shown. However, there is a good reason for this arrangement. Test your deduction skills here.
My such skills ran out over at the O’Toole’s. One of the computers has deleted its own client driver. Same as me, everybody I talked to didn’t know it was a thing that could go wrong, trust MicroSoft to design things that even have such capabilities. Despite calling around, I had to come back here to read the manuals. That is when I repaired the flat, noticing that my speedometer, which was not involved in the accident, also quit working. I was able to fix it using a fridge magnet. There, I told you all those years I spent studying physics would pay off.
History lesson in order. I did study physics because it was the only subject I ever encountered before I was twenty that I found intellectually challenging. Things like law and medicine were also challenging, but in a different way. With physics, you projected into the unknown based on your mastery, with the other subjects, as long as you said what they wanted, you got your degree. I realized later the economics of these issues, but by then I was deeply in debt. Too deeply to switch horses.
More praise for the Argus, folks. I spent several hours studying the CSS structure of tables. What a convoluted mess. This was over at the Panera. Hey, I had to test the bike tires. I also tried that “Slime” material. It worked on one tire, but not the other. I’ll stick with new tubes, which cost a dollar less than Slime. Panera gets my business solely for the free refills at this point, their service sucks. The clerks are really bottom-rung, it takes them an average of four minutes to serve each customer, with very little standard deviation (taken to be the square root of the variance). You are unwise to gamble your wait will be less, for if there are only five people ahead of you, it will be 24 minutes before you get your coffee. (Made you look! 5 x 4 = 20 plus your own 4 minutes).
In such a situation, it is more efficient use of your time to go sit down and wait until there is no lineup – assuming you are doing something more important than the Starbucks unattached male-with-laptop pose that fools no one. Like reading. Remind me to create a term for real estate agents who love to sit in a coffee shop and make really big important deals on their cell phones. So important, that the whole room must hear about it. This is the point I realized I had forgotten the Argus. Ouch, because the summer rains are not over and guess where I left it? Yep, and not only that, it was under the eave exactly where the runoff poured right onto it.
Since it was really coming down, I could not double back home to get it. When I did, however, I simply opened the case and poured out the water. Then I sat it in front of a fan, of which I now have aplenty, and if you see any pictures in today’s post, then it worked just fine. It did, even though the battery compartment was flooded. Argus, you make one damn good camera.
That means the camera was both soaked and out in the rain for nearly two hours. You see, waiting out the Panera lineups with a good book is not that successful a tactic. The reason is that the Panera staff has learned to walk away from the counter unless there are customers in line. They bound like to duty to make you wait. It took me 49 minutes to get a coffee. I may have missed several opportunities because I was reading, not watching the counter for serendipitous moment. Coffee at the Panera is a useless waiting game that you cannot win. Starbucks is hardly any better and has no refills.
I am going to rant several items on the Internet next time on-line. Things like those Steno notepads that are always on sale. Who uses a page with the margin down the center? Stenographers don’t, and the paper is too crisp to use for azzwipe. Today, it’s those utterly retarded cream dispensers at these coffee shops. You know, the ones with the twist top. They have no definite open/close position. What kind of retard thinking created these things? What kind of retard closes the cap back when finished? Then you always have to guess if the creamer is going to gush out or not flow at all. Hey, goofs, the thing is a thermos which is enough to keep the creamer fresh without your paranoia that it will go stale in the next few moments. Leave the friggin’ cap alone, if your ignorance can allow you to do that little thing. Neat rant, don’t you think?
