It was overcast, a good omen considering the fair only sets out plastic picnic tables in direct, shadeless sunshine. The big livestock and machinery displays are gone. You got the rabbits, chickens, and 20 head of cattle, the remainder is all midway. And in keeping with the decline of America, not a solitary new concession to be seen. Computer age or not, fair-goers from the 50s would recognize every booth there today.I fed the llama, the alpaca, and the camel. My sunglasses fell into a cage with some rat-like critters from the Amazon, who promptly tried to eat them as I went scrounging for the attendant. My shades still work, but they are customized now. Best chow was the elephant ear shown here, but I could not finish more than half of what you see.
Sorry, there isn’t enough left about the fair to write about. The original spirit of anything that justifies it is gone. It is a money-generator and that is the atmosphere left once you walk past the Girl Guide knots. Each booth is now required to ring up all cash and the usual 50% cut goes to the fair. That’s why a soda is $3 and a hamburger is $7. So, I change the subject.
For the record, I was at the fair five hours and did not see a single, young babe. There is a Florida theory that they all leave here at 16 and don’t come back till they are 36. I’d believe it except I can’t figure out where they all go. I know it isn’t San Francisco, n’yuck, n’yuck.
Later, on the way back [from the fair] I stopped at Quizno’s, then again at Churchill’s where JP and I hung out for an hour and talked to Barbara, the Amazon server. I played a couple Johnny Cash on the juke box and wound up creating a country music fest. Even JP recognized some of the music, which is not to say he sang along or anything. A few hours of traditional country, the younger staff were asking “That’s a song?"
The new truck is not a sure thing, not after I went over the books with JP and showed him how a vehicle is designed to be your second biggest expense in life (after a mortgage). We discussed the worst case scenario where we put new tires on the old truck and take a chance. It would be more economical because we are never more than a taxi ride from the nearest train station anywhere we might go. Speaking of trains, he is absolutely nixxed the City of New Orleans option. So shelve that idea since I can’t afford both.
While he continued losing at billiards, I chatted up Barb and answered questions about the sidecar. It is a forty-minute run to JPs even on an empty highway. But the backtrip to Quizno’s is right down South Dixie, and area to be avoided if you have a schedule. Two-thirds of Miami is on that road during rush hour. I visited Alaine bearing gifts of fudge from the fair, her favorite. I find it too sweet but you know me and free samples. She may provide some photos of the sidecar in a day or two, so check back.
ADDENDUM
Can you get insomnia from sleeping? In a sense, if you roll over on a recently dislocated shoulder for a few hours before it wakes you up. As ever, times of sleeplessness become some of the most productive hours in my life, I’ve made sure of that from an early age. So what did I do this bout? I designed and built a type of “bounceless” switch. I unsuccessfully pondered how nobody won the Florida powerball, yet the jackpot fell from $230 million to $40 million.
I watched computer simulations of German tanks in the Crimea of 1944, with great artwork but showing the panzers moving down paved roads lined with telephone poles. Zener diodes were researched, also various types of “clocking” devices. (A happy discovery is that I’d already made some without realizing it.) These electronic components are the next round of intense study for me.
Clocking is a challenge. Ordinary switches are “leaky” because they don’t smoothly turn off and on. Most of us have seen a kitchen switch spark in the dark. This type of signal is useless for digital devices. What is required is a very crisp transition from full off to full on without any “bounce” at often rapid speeds. Once more, getting good, useful information on how to build [from scratch] and use these switches is next to impossible. All you get are formulas, theories, forums, useless graphs, and endless definitions of the problem. Oh, and pasted links some dork “found interesting”.
I’ll tell you what is a waste of on-line time. Forums. Great concept; dumb move. A discussion site where idiots send in repetitious potato-head questions to generate answers from their own inferiors. Let me tell you, forums are as useless as worthless as all else left open to the public. If you believe there is no such thing as a stupid question, read a few forums. The caliber of the average answer is embarrassingly awful, though most forums seem to have one hopelessly outnumbered expert who can’t keep up.
You watch, once again I’ll half-invent the thing myself and suddenly all the help I don’t need any more will materialize. I want to build a bounceless switch, not open a factory. No, I don’t want to use an expensive chip. Because I know darn well there must have been debounced switches since computers were invented years before the integrated circuit. Research on the Internet: They won’t answer what you asked but nor will they shut up either. Have a carrot slice.
