MORING
This is what it looks like. A blasted out windscreen on the Ural sidecar. It is water damage on the way to my doctor this morning. I got up past Griffin when a wall of rain hit me head on. Before any conclusions that the screen was too weak, I’d better explain. The screen was folded down at the time, under the leather tonneau cover. It is shown here back in the upright position as I look for the broken pieces. Had the water hit the screen when upright, it would simply have gently folded back onto the passenger’s lap. But the weight of water from a single combined splash and downpour pushed down on the material and it cracked.
I was late getting downtown for the repaired eBike, but at least I walked it. Dang, they closed a little early. So I went to the Arts Park to discover this is the first and only time they’ve canceled Fridays because of rain. Which cleared up some five hours ago. What did I do? I went shopping. Popular Mechanics magazine, a Rabbit (type of Internet “antenna”), lemon lime Alka Seltzer, you know, just the household basics. Don’t want to run short.
NOON
The magazine reports a type of automatic guitar tuner. These have made the rounds before, but this one apparently fits onto existing pegholes and costs less than $300. That’s enough to make me take a look. It is for guitars, as it can be set to alternate tunings for guitarists with alternate intelligences. Don’t ask me to put that last phrase into other words, I’m not in such a good mood.
Which is why I chose this moment to test the Rabbit. It is basically a USB plug that gives you access to Rabbit TV, a site that already exists. That site is an index of free programming where most other similar services have other strange criteria that want your credit card number. The only physical difference is that Rabbit arrives on a USB plug instead of an optical disk. It does nothing but install a link to Rabbit, but that link includes a year of “free” service for the ten bucks.
Be aware that Rabbit requires the highly suspicious MicroSoft .Net software and will install it if you don’t already have it. Therefore, do NOT install Rabbit on any computer with sensitive files. Also, Rabbit likes Silverlight, the MicroSoft answer to Adobe Flash and is an equally iffy thing to trust on any computer you would rather not share with some very slippery people over in Redmond. (Computers containing my private data are not even stored in any room with Internet service.)
I first saw Rabbit on Alain’s iPad and am testing it to see if I can find anything worth watching. Don’t wait for rave reviews because I’m not a person who even knows the day or time of a single program. But I do know the six o’clock news comes on at seven, and that Letterman and Oprah got rich talking to the sheeple. I know that Leno is so dumb he trips over cordless phones and Drew Carey is one fat, unfunny mofo. That about covers TV from my lookout. Still, I might find something.
EVENING
There is nothing like the chance of bad press to get to the bottom of things. The lady at the bakery with the car in the shop and “Help Me Howard” one phone call away, well, that was enough to get the owner of the repair shop on the blower. He knew the answers, but only at the point of reporter-lawyer time. The important thing is he cleared the air. I’ll give the nutshell version.
When the car came in, he [the repair shop owner] wanted it totaled, but the insurance company said commence the repair. Sure enough when he took the body panels off, he noticed internal damage. He called the insurance company for authorization to proceed but did not call the customer who was waiting on the original repair. The insurance people took up to 8 days to reply on four occasions, there is a month’s delay explained right there. Alas, he also didn’t tell his clerk, who kept telling the customer they were “waiting for insurance approval”. The customer, thinking they meant the original damage rather than the subsequent damage, was furious and felt lied to. It now appears the problem is a lazy insurance company.
Even worse, the car is a rental. The insurance only covered her loss for a month and it is now 60 days. Is she obligated to pay the rent when the delay was caused without her knowledge by the insurance company? We’ll see, but I subscribe to the principle that he who changes the course of water is responsible for it. The insurance company should pay the rent for any delays they brought about.
The picture of the palm tree? What’s that got to do with electronics? Nothing. It just happens to be a pretty tree across the street from Miguel’s house. Entirely ornamental. This tree produces no lumber, fruit, flowers, berries, or much shade for that matter. Such foliage is the civil service of the Plant Kingdom.
Miguel is shy on the physics, for example, his coil is tinfoil. But electricity does not like pointy areas. It wants a smooth surface to accumulate evenly. His design is also mismatched. This isn’t always the builder’s fault. When I started at the phone place, I thought a Strowger [switch] was the same size as a CO [central office]. Diagrams showed it so. Then again, Miguel is not a club member. By comparison, our club’s failed projects look like they were built by a team of hand-picked volunteers. (I’ve been informed that is an unfair comparison, because, essentially, our projects are built by experts. But just not electronics experts, as there are no such people in the club.)
Time for just one joke. This dyslexic man walks into a bra . . . .
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