I'm about to solve a paradox I'm in due to people who don't keep their promises. As time goes by, I can afford more, but nothing long-term is happening and my goals are suffering. My world is based on long-term plans and this is going to cost somebody. Enrique has to head back to Tennessee soon. That means each passing day he is learning that the offers to buy his place from the Panera people are nothing but lies. None of the old farts who hang out there have any money. And he should know the banks won't lend them any, so everything they say about "financing packages" is bullsh.
I'm also looking at a new scooter, a Chinese 150cc Znen. Not too flashy, but reliable enough to take on longer trips. You'll get details on this soon enough. Meanwhile, here is a photo of a variable capacitor. The photo is more useful to me than the spec sheet. I can see it has three leads. The technician who wrote the specs somehow fails to mention this important fact.Speaking of dunces, you should have seen this jerk at the ATM this morning. Ten minutes, standing there, according to people in the line. I saw him as I biked up and he was finally leaving, but my slow camera means he doesn't make the stoopy-doop list in color. According to the people in the line, when they asked him if he needed help, he kept telling them to "Go buy your own ATM." (He had a Ukrainian accent.)
When he left, I told him that we had not been aware that this ATM was his.
Today I set up and experimented with one of the new HP touch-screen computers. They are trying to look and feel like Apples, but they lack the balls (and ovaries as well) to get it done right. The system overall was sluggish and the main improvements at first seemed to be focused on automating the first time setup procedures. The procedures that should have been transparent to the user since day one, know what I'm saying?
That was over at Professor Howard's who is going in for knee surgery shortly. He wanted a complete easy-to-use computer ready for his predicted interval of rest and recovery. That meant a new printer install and mostly a complete replacement of his older system. The touchscreen was present did not seem that intuitive at all. Oh, if you click on Howard's link, that is the Wikipedia profile we set up a few months back, no easy task. How do you like it?
Biking back downtown, who do I pass on the sidewalk but Mr. Jag, my guitarist? Right outside the High School, where if I'd thought about it would know that is where he is a student and would not have been so surprised. I filled him in on the scooter he can't have now, the potential startup of practices again, the new singer, and how soon to expect a call again. (He was chatting with a pretty little lady, but you know, where I grew up, there was nothing but pretty little ladies in high school. He introduced me as his boss, but I quickly assured the gal we were equal partners on the music part.)
I've begun another spy mystery novel, by Alastair MacNeill . I often refer to these books as having two authors. They are based on a series of movie sketches by the famous Alistair MacLean but propelled into the more modern style by an author with a confusingly similar name. MacLean avoided things like sex and family entanglements, a welcome break after the past two months of Patterson. The book today is "Time of the Assassins", circa 1991.
Alas, MacNeill falls into another bad habit of modernity by introducing no less than 50 different characters by page 200 of the paperback. The book fails to pass muster on this count alone. Do we really need to know the name of the prison guard and every beat cop who shows up at the scene, plus the names of their masters?
The setting is an African country used by international crime syndicates to launder thier proceeds. Just last day, it was announced that a new malaria mosquito has been discovered, immune to most eradication techniques. The anopholes lives indoors, this new one is out in the wild. It adds up to just a few more exports the world can thank Africa for.
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