The blizzard taking over North America means you get lots of cerebral material as I stay inside and read. Today’s picture is nice, but it is too cold to be there. I looked at electronic component prices and I may owe the Shack a minor apology. I’ve said they’ve just become another electronics outlet, but they do still stock reasonably priced parts. They just don’t plug them as much and they are in a drawer back of aisle seven.
My first project will likely be a cigar box AM radio, which uses no Arduino parts. Yet. This raises the old question of why would anyone go build a home-made unit with $20 worth of parts when you can buy one already made for $10. Mind you, that is a question asked by people who are afraid they might learn something. They ain’t dumb, they know that learning always leads to the next thing, which is they are supposed to remember it, and before too long, expected to apply it. So avoid the hassle and just don't do anything where you might learn something. Perfectly circular peasant thinking.The trip to California is out. The total price approached buying a car and driving it there, coming back, and giving the car away. That’s the dollar equivalent of planning to fly, ride or drive there and back. Plan B is Titusville. Let me fill in some blanks to cut down on the questions afterward. Ft. Lauderdale to Titusville is 172 miles by freeway, around 20% more by scooter roads, or six hours driving. I’m planning the trip solo as I intend to make it regardless. My budget is 99 Bingo dollars.
All alternate transportation as advertised is from Ft. Lauderdale to Orlando, not Titusville. Amtrak is $72, the despicable Greyhound is disqualified at any price, and there is a $50 shuttle from Denny’s on I-95. All leave you in downtown Orlando where the one tour bus to Titusville wants $55, more than doubling your cost for the last short leg. I’m still looking.
The best views are from the causeway and Kennedy Space Center (maybe a typo?), which I like to call KFC (Kennedy Flight Center). The available spots are sold out for all remaining Shuttle launches, which I believe continue until middle of 2011. These popular $41 tickets were sold by a lottery system, hooray America. Next best viewing is miles away or offshore. The upcoming mission is on February 3, 2011 at 1:43 AM. As for the Shuttle, I would gladly have paid the admission 30 years ago if the flight back then had been the last one.
That means an overnight, and if you want something challenging, try getting a straight answer over the price of a hotel room on the Internet. That is one field full of nothing but cork soakers, the worst of which seems to be the Clarion group. They know you want that room price and they ain’t gonna just give it to you, nosirree. Also, I found the average “low” rate is around $60 per night (they won’t say if that is per room or per person), and the rates triple surrounding launch dates.
The one saving grace is that hotels cannot, as of writing, function without a telephone, and it is still easier to get prices by phoning the front desk--not the 800 number. I located a room facing the east in Titusville at a small outfit called Riverside Inn and have to confirm the prices as even the quotation is not necessarily what you pay. Ask anybody who has ever stayed in a Miami hotel about that.
The Riverside has some bad reviews, but reading them shows a consistent pattern of people who want something for nothing or who don’t want to be satisfied. The rooms could not be that much different than the budget hotel in Venezuela, where I lived for two years. (Just south of Sabana Grande, near Maxis.) The odd cracked baseboard doesn’t bother me as long as there is hot water, is what I’m sayin’. Furthermore, anyone who lives along a waterfront knows there are roaches even if you can’t see them. Fact of life.
I was in Barnes & Noble for the afternoon, along with dozens of other people escaping the cold. Barnes has removed the chairs from their section leaving only the privately owned coffee shop with seating. An ugly lady with a bad attitude comes around with a menu, which she places so you see the rule that the area is for customers only. Their service is atrociously slow, as the cashier is also the bottle washer.
Like Borders, the shelves are now stocked with what sells rather than a good overall selection. I’ve written about this before, how an idiot thinks if you see twice as many cookbooks, you’ll buy twice as many. There were exactly two books on electronics in the entire store, but sixty feet of romance novels by women who look and act like Doris Day. Poor things.
I also read a book on 150 tech careers, ranging from dental hygienist to truck driver, published this year. What caught my eye was the list of median earnings. Hey, you musicians, did you know you are supposed to be earning $41,600 per year? That kind of money has not existed in this area for years and even the few well-paid people don’t bring up that kind of average.
None of the tech occupations paid more than $69,000 per year, the top being pharmacy techs and nuclear medicine techs. On unusual aspect of the book is they listed the downsides of the jobs, and in many cases I agree. If I was a nuclear tech, why should I have to handle and inject the patients? (Rhetorical question.) That’s what nurses are for. They were realistic, even noting that lab techs would often be required to go collect samples in some very unsavory locations. Worst position for me was hospital lab assistant paying $27,000 per year with rotating 24 hour shift work. They still allow that kind of job in America?
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