September 28, 2013

           This is leaping ahead a bit, but tomorrow the plan is to visit the train museum I was at back in something like 2003. That’s out by the Miami Zoo. The restored trains have sleeping berths and I would like to compare my camper to what they had. I traveled a lot by these older trains as a child and I still view it as a mode of travel that could beat the airlines if a few changes were made.

           This is a photo of the train I toured ten years ago. I recall this “bus seat” arrangement and bad upholstery very well. The seats were high enough for kids, like myself, to play under. The floors were real linoleum. People have forgotten how roomy these passenger cars really were.
           I may not be remembering right, but this type of car was always called a dayliner because there were no berths to sleep overnight. Bus seats, by comparison were downright luxurious. The legroom on the trains was, however, unbeatable.
           I dug out my old student Fender guitar to meet up with Mel, the lady guitarist. Don’t get your hopes up. Few people in this business realize what hard work it is getting two adults with conflicting priorities to form a duo. There is also the problem of overcoming something most people don’t know they have—a misplaced belief that their taste in music is a reflection of their personality. This makes them want to play only certain selections which very often don’t appeal the least to the new crowds they encounter at places that hire bands. I move quickly to get things past that stage.
           The bakery was less than enjoyable this morning due to one totally infuriating customer. She pointed at each loaf of bread and each cookie and asked if it was fresh. She repeated those four words approximately 260 times. I don’t need to speak Hungarian to know when somebody is an idiot saying the same thing over and over. I was going to work the crossword, but after 31 minutes of listening to that ignorant woman, I went for a bicycle ride.

           I stayed home last evening with chicken soup, coffee, and a few documentaries from NOVA. And what do I find but this photo. You’d say, so what, it is just a few prospectors in the middle of nowhere. And you’d be correct. I’ve seen that river. That’s where I was raised. I told you how the biggest tree I saw until I was five was a two foot high willow bush. The other thousands of square miles of this island are as desolate as this spot. Yes, that is ice on the river water in the middle of summer.
           But I’m not going to say where it was. No doubt it is mentioned somewhere in this blog but I’m not going looking. How do I know it is a hot summer day? Look closely at the rocks across the river. The lichen is green. Tiny sour red berries also grow right close to the ground. I do not know how they survive, but there are bears in the area. Well, when the last ice age ended, it dragged every rock on that moonscape back a few feet, leaving a pothole.
           Every one of those billions of potholes is a breeding pond for ferocious mosquitoes. Since these guys are not sweating under nets and there are no black clouds around them, it is a hot day. That’s the only time you would dare set foot outdoors in the summer. These mosquitoes have a particularly nasty sting. You can hear them, and they are able to detect the carbon dioxide you exhale from fifteen miles away. No trees, no birds, no grass, nothing.

           Now that I’m versed in bricks, I can take more interest in looking at them. This ad in The Family Handyman shows a plastic grid for laying bricks, at least for flat and level walkways. Kind of takes the work out of it. Aha, that pattern is the basket weave.
           Next I watched a documentary on the U-Boat attack along the Atlantic coast. Of all the loony facts, the one that boggles the mind is that the beach patrols say they had no ammunition for their shotguns. What is up with that? For the first time in history, there were no bullets for American guns? Who's gonna fall for that? (And if there were no ammunition for the guns, why did they carry them? To shoot at a submarine?)

ADDENDUM
           What’s the definition of a man with his head up his ass? I don’t know, but I just watched the interview where Al Gore says civilization is at risk. He actually seems to think the Internet is going to solve the energy crisis. He actually thinks the answer to the political mess in America is yet more politics.
           He says that the average dumb and useless Internet user will connect with other users to bring politicians into line. Right, the crowd that uses the Internet for pornography are going to risk networking their computers with strangers against a spying government that is militarizing the police. Doy, Al. What have you been sniffing?
           I’ll tell you what will cure America. Revolution. The enemy within. We’ve got too much politics, not enough leadership. First we go through the bankruptcy to let the entire middle class who lived their lives on a credit binge know that they are now useless and aren’t going to get any money. Then the depression that follows as the politicians try to shore up the old systems that never did work right will totally mess up the economy.
           Next, some incident will spark an over-reaction. My guess is police brutality or another Waco. But this time the people will side with the victims. No matter how you look at it, there will be hell to pay. It is the same when every empire collapses. The rise of the US was spectacular between 1941 and 1945. And the fall will be equally grand. Folks, the party is over. Those with “entitlements” will lose the most. That does not particularly bother me.
           I don’t even like those programs that forgive underwater mortgages. They hired the money, didn’t they? They kept trading up to ever more expensive houses until they bought what they could not afford. Very few ever stayed put in one house until it was paid off, and where I come from that is called bragging. Such idiots should not be bailed out.