After an entire day in the shop, mostly doing research on the CLEP courses, but taking regular breaks to yank a few chains for diversion. I again conclude two Bachelor degrees beat a Masters, particularly looking at overseas employment. That is still two years into the future, so back to the books.
(Ignore the next paragraph about no pictures, the Argus works fine. Here is a photo of the Jamus, and it has over 2,100 miles on it. Logged miles, so the true count is likely over 2,400. This bike has been from Key Largo to West Palm Beach, so it gets out of the house more than some people.)I’ve got no pictures today because the Argus batteries wiggle loose without the cover. By hacksawing off the hand hold, I found an ordinary binder clip will slip over the end of the case, so don’t write that camera off yet. I did lose some excellent shots today. To make up for it, a walk-in at the last moment pulled me in $50 bucks for hooking up two computers. The place is a mortgage brokerage, and I’ve always wondered what they actually do. The assistant says they’ll train me in two weeks. That means it is a sales position – but I like low pressure sales.
Big Al called in. He has looked into liquidations and wants to go over the details with me. I explained my experience with that business was estate sales, but he says his contacts are mostly factory surpluses and such. I traditionally get bored by jobs where you “have to know somebody”. I get paid for what I know, not who I know, although that rule has had major exceptions.
I managed to get three tunes “extended” out to a decent dance length. By very careful zooming with Audacity, I’ve lined up the tracks exactly as I want them. You cannot tell most of the cuts, and the few you can are exactly 1/8th of a drum beat long. That ridiculously short Dwight Yoakum version of “Crazy Little Thing” is now a decent three minutes long. It is a lot of work, but not as much as wasting time with people who can’t or won’t learn the material.
At this rate, I will need another week to manufacture the requisite thirty-two songs. The guy that was to audition tonight didn’t call, didn’t show. So I used the time to edit my own set list. I’ve already found out it is a riot to play “live” bass to these tunes, where a guitarist wouldn’t get away with it. Some of the older songs do not lend themselves to electronic manipulation, such as “Sixteen Tons” and may have to be dropped.
[Author's note 2019: this post has never had a viewing before today. To liven things up, here is a picture of the 2007 Miss Ukraine.]
Remember I promised to find out why the State of Oklahoma has that “panhandle” jutting out west. I have the answer. There were really two questions, the panhandle itself and why it does not quite end as far west as the edge of Texas. Get your atlas and follow along. The panhandle strip was originally part of Texas, which went north to the southern Colorado and Kansas borders. In 1845, Texas wanted to join the Union (the United States). Problem. Texas was a slave state, so look east over Oklahoma to the southern long border of Missouri.
Notice the southern border of Missouri lines up [almost] exactly with the northern border of Texas. This is because the Missouri Compromise forbade new slave states from entering the Union. Therefore, Texas promptly dropped its northern border by 34 miles to qualify. Nobody else wanted that piece of land so it kind of sat there a long time until Oklahoma agreed to administrate (tax) it.
The western part is easier to explain. There were no distinct western borders yet because the area had not been surveyed. So the state border was placed on the 100th meridian.
I got a call back from Florida Memorial University. This is were I wrote some adjudicated exams back in 2000/2001. They sound enthusiastically okay with me taking the CLEP courses there, but I will have to follow up later this week. Ahem, this is an all-Black school, so I’ll be easy to spot in the class picture.
