Today we rolled up the sleeves and did the scooter maintenance, including finally removing that jammed crankcase plug. The noisy muffler turned into a major job. This was supposed to take an hour, instead, things wound up at the shop for half a day. That doesn't mean I have regrets, since I learned a lot and the time was not really lost the way it is when you work on a car. You can't exactly just lean a car on the side away from the gas tank and have at it.
We also replaced the gasket where the muffler connects to the cylinder head. These gaskets can oxidize and get brittle over time, mine was like metal when we scraped it off. In return for the repair, the mechanic got a new anti-virus, complete system cleanup, Belarc, Cookienator and the knowledge that Pandora (Internet radio) used 91% of your system resources if you have one and one - one Gigabyte RAM and on Gigahertz speed. I also learned which shops along Dixie won't help you out for nothin'. (The bolt tightening took two minutes once it was realized we needed three extensions, shown here lying on the ground.)
This means nothing else got done today. I did stop at the library and download a ton of flash videos on subjects like how to play the washboard and the spoons. Then I accidentally deleted them later trying to transfer them to my hard drive. The babe was at the library, only this time I noticed a fairly expensive looking engagement and wedding band. Sigh, all the good ones are gone. But I know she notices the difference of what I do on the computers compared to the proles.
National advertising. It is not as expensive as all that, provided you don’t bother with the biggest newspapers. Note that printed advertising is known to be 17% more effective than television. I’ve located a service that will place an ad in 500,000 papers for $105, slightly higher than last time I looked. People advertise web sites all the time, so why not blogs? Depending on how the next couple weeks transpire, I may consider such an ad. Right now, I advertise in one Texas magazine, “Backwoodsman” because it is so cheap ($10 per month).
Three weeks to the Baby Bust, the momentous day I’ve been watching for twenty years. The day ten thousand boomers a day start turning 65, many of them with jobs that don’t have the option to continue working. The newspapers have been crowded with sob stories for weeks already, how 2/3 of them won’t have enough to live on and half of those already owe more money on their house than it is worth. Hey, no mercy, let them borrow some more, it’s what they do. Let them spend cake.
I’ve got my own worries, like how I almost lost Alaine’s book, “The Life-Giving Sea”. Of all the crazy things I’ve done, I had placed it on the table, then inadvertantly on top of it I had set an empty DVD box that was the exact same size, shape and color. Talk about effective camouflage. I practically tore the place apart looking for that book until I randomly picked up the box. Lo! Computers, money, I’ve lost all that stuff. But never a book.
Two small projects are cooking at the moment. First, have you seen those cans of compressed air at the hobby shops? They are damn expensive, more so than some spray cans with product inside. They also get freezing cold to the touch when you use them. So I got to thinking about the principles involved. I found a suitable container and gave it to a buddy who works in a shop full of small fittings. I believe we can build a portable unit with a built in pump that looks an awful lot like a combination of my garden insecticide sprayer and that old Coleman plunger I kept for some reason.
Next, research shows that there is no single web source that lists the characters in a book. Some book review sites have a list, but not with the same deliberate intention of what I have in mind. I’m still looking just in case. Have you ever read a book with so many characters that you forget the names? I have, I believe the ideal maximum number of characters in a book should be seven. I understand it is easier for lazy authors to throw in a new character than expend the effort developing an existing one. What I have in mind is a site that lists the characters in a book along with a brief description of who they are and where to find the first point in the book where they are mentioned.
What do you think of that?
I’m still slowly reading Plato, though more as a reference book than a story. I’ve read very little philosophy since university and don’t really enjoy it any more today. I suspect that is because the discipline smacks of a self-justification toward the idle rich. For example, Plato argues that justice is the result of people being good and his antagonist feels justice is what the powerful impose, for their own greedy purposes, upon the weak.
If I was in power, one of the first items I'd impose is that the cost of "crime lab" investigations be made public information. There is a police saying that given enough money, every crime is solvable. Maybe so, but we have a right to know how much is enough.
Myself, I think justice only works when people are equal and that can never happen. This is consistent with my view of “crime labs”. Society only has money to accuse you, innocence is something you have to pay for out of your own pocket. Ask OJ. The police have a radar gun, but you are a criminal if you try to defend yourself by owning a detector. You get the idea.
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
