I’m having second thoughts about any more out of town trips. I’ve already got plenty of memories and it would be nice to leave something for later. But a day trip, that’s different. It was Honda time up to Boulder after a morning of tinkering with the brake lights and fuse box. The dealership wanted $44 dollars to replace the spring that controls how soon the light comes on after you depress the pedal. I fixed it for $3.08. Here is Boulder seen from the escarpment to the southeast, looking northwest.
Those are the Colorado Rockies on the horizon. Like Denver, Boulder is built up right to the base of the mountains. And I think I found another winner, the firm of JB Saunders. This is the electronics supply store I’ve been looking for the last 18 months. They have a fairly complete inventory of everything important and are organized enough to tell you what they don’t have.This is an extreme departure from every other store I”ve been to. Also, JB is focused, it is not like other stores that carry components as a sideline and are perpetually out of the popular items. Prices were also reasonable and I collected all the info I need to order from them without a credit card. There’ve been so many disappointments, I didn’t bring my shopping list with me, but I spent $60 there in twenty minutes. The place is a gold mine with a huge selection of ICs in stock.
What’s more, the tech who works there knows all the clubs and associations in the area, but he was not present today. The management has been thinking of offering courses for exactly the same reasons I have—there is nobody out there who will give a straight answer or commit to a way of doing things. That last item is important, since so many so-called experts won’t back up what they say, where I’m the type that will do what you say only if you pick up the tab when it doesn’t work. They may be looking for some good teachers come next spring. How about that?
Next, I went downtown to the mall, called Pearl Street. Busking must be legal in Boulder because I heard around eight of the worst guitarists in town. How do you guys (all men) expect to make money if you can’t play what people want to hear? I mean, if your act is so bad you have to put up a sign, maybe you should consider a day job. And sorry I couldn’t take a snap, but this hard-ridden old lady in a 1960’s style go-go girl outfit, replete with the knee boots, was trying to sing “Hey, hey, hey, Good-bye”. I wanted you to see what happens to old groupies when they begin to shrivel up.
Parking isn’t friendly in Boulder. The machines take credit cards or coins only, so I had to find a public lot. I don’t like parking the sidecar in the corner of a dark building. The morons who design the ticket system don’t have the brains to figure out a motorcycle has no dash, but hey, once a moron. The mall itself is like any other, but for some reason not enough coffee joints. I don’t like Starbucks, so I walked a ways to find a deli. Their brew was the best yet for me, but I can’t name them as when I got back here, I see they didn’t give me a receipt. They are on the corner of Pearl and about 12th, with a yellow sign.
Here is another reason you should not patronize Internet indexing services. They don’t update their databases. I did not know the name JB Saunders, so I just searched on electronics supply. All the indexes gave me this address which, considering my experience with suppliers, I almost gave up. But I walked to the window, got the company name, and saw they had a map to their new location. That was a close call.In a related search, I see the University of Colorado in Boulder has a completely equipped electronics lab, including a wind tunnel. I’m not recommending the school, just noting what they advertise, but I am leery of all Universities for being extremely difficult about allowing you to take just one course of your own choosing. (They use high-pressure to upsell you into a student loan.)
There is no doubt Colorado is a better bet than the Florida wastelands. No doubt the state has its share of deadbeats and freeloaders, but how could I dislike a place with a real electronics store and a wind tunnel? They have an Arduino course and a workshop on CNC machines. I have no idea on the University policy concerning single courses for non-credit, but few places could be as bad as Broward Community College. (That’s the outfit that goaded me to sign up for their beginner’s computer courses or I’d be reneging on my “duty to help my grandchildren with their homework”. They actually said that. You see, my policy is to avoid searchable databases, so they couldn’t snoop into my background. Thus, their deep-rooted ignorance assumed when they found no records, I must be uneducated.)
ADDENDUM
The robotics club meeting this morning concluded (by cell phone) that we will work in connection with the Denver machine shop. Ah, some say, how will that possibly be? Easy, unless a blind eye has been turned on what is happening in the world. Nobody, civil servants included, can afford five years from now to be doing business the same way. Some will try and fail, but there is a tidal wave of change already half-way across both oceans.
We cannot find any school that, in isolation, teaches the necessary courses. Nor are we hopeful, being that it took them 15 years after the fact to start offering lectures in Linux. For clarity, we are looking at the capability of the printers, and how the specifications for design are created. At present, we believe it to be a choice between a 3D laser scan or purchasing the design from an Internet source. (My vote is the scan. I won’t even discuss privacy with any nobodies who don’t require it.)
We will examine 3D printing and scanning, devoting $800 for research materials over the four months of Nov-Feb upcoming. Not much, but a lot more than most people. This has nothing to do with nanotechnology. The details of 3D printing have been available in magazines for several years now. What? Yes, Patsie, at the grocery store checkout rack. Beside the Archie comics. Whew, your breath! Have you been aisle-picnicking the Bumblebee tuna again?
As a sideline over the next couple days, I’m reading a book about the Mafia. I thought, “How many people know much about the topic except what they saw on TV?” Unable to answer that, I picked up a book that details the organization, names, and the more notorious events of the syndicates. It is too thin (of a book) to be a study, but my intention is to become fact-oriented. Those who think “the Jews stole Israel” should note this open-minded process of inquisitiveness. For instance, what does “syndicate” mean? Cat got yer tongue, Wallace?
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