Noon found me at the library at the Circle. The medical marijuana crowd were collecting a petition at the door. Do I support medical marijuana? No, I don’t. I support the outright legalization of the drug, but please don’t lay the medical BS on me. You pot-heads want to light up where you please, fine by me. However, hiding behind flimsy excuses just makes you sound, well, like you’ve been smoking dope. Glaucoma and cancer cure? Give me a break. If weed cured anything my brother would be a fine outstanding citizen today.
Another reason I don’t go out is the imbalance of single men in this area. I can compete alright but what I mean is this imbalance drives prices up out of sight. I see tickets for New Year’s are running around $95 per person. I have never in my life spent that much money “going out” to a single function. Let me check my books, hang on. Okay, I’m back. The most I ever spent on one evening’s entertainment is $61, but then again, I don’t necessarily associate fun and spending a lot of cash, mainly because I don’t like being around people who do. They seem so shallow and that partly explains why I don’t much like casinos.
A return trip to Guitar Center to examine the acoustic bass architecture made me change my mind about converting my Fender. Why? Because the bridge would have to be replaced. In my mind’s eye, I saw the necessity to change out the nut and bridge saddle (the two white thingees that hold up the strings at either end). But the bridge on the Fender is an integral unit with six string-holes. I’ll opt for a used one on Craigslist, although compound search terms like “acoustic bass” confound the hell out of their search algorithm. Isn’t that a telling comment on your average Internet user? That their searches are mainly one word at a time.
While at the guitar store I noted the five- and six-string monstrosities for sale, these instruments are built like war clubs. The music rack was dominated by guitar books mostly how to play Clapton. If you want to find examples of people stuck in the past, look no further than guitar players. Clapton was an old man before I hit my teens.
It being the perfect winter day, I went on a fifteen mile bike ride through the trailer and industrial parks west of I-95. The small shops that have survived seem busy enough. This area reminds me more of Venezuela than of America. Every back road crammed with used tire operations and mechanics working out of rental storage units. Everybody working for cash and under the table.
I’m again associating with a few Canadians and it isn’t fun. No matter how many days in advance you arrange for a phone call, they will never have a pencil and paper ready. It being Xmas I had used most of my 400 minutes (my monthly average is 129) so my phone cut off. Sorry for the immense hardships this will cause, but it was a business call and taking time to round up a pencil and “something to write on” is a waste of valuable air time. I’ll put more money on it [the phone] tomorrow but that isn’t going to help over there now. I had enough minutes for a call but not to be put on hold. The call dropped off.
I was on there long enough to learn the cash in the mail sent to my Canadian friend for Xmas (December 16, 2013 did not arrive. So that’s stolen. It must have been opened for “postal inspection” since it was spray and X-ray proof. We’ll allow another couple days since like all government operations in Canada, things take forever. Did you know they are shutting down their letter carrier system? In Canada, they let civil servants go on strike. That’s how you spell d-o-o-m for your dollar.
Spray, did I say? It is a spray can of very rapidly evaporating alcohol that temporarily turns the envelope or wrapping paper clear for a moment, revealing the content of letters and parcels. I cannot find any reference to it on the Internet, indicating it is some ordinary product (like WD-40) that is put to this nefarious use.
Hill 609. That’s one of the topics I read up on at the library. This is the hill in Tunisia that held up the Allied advance in North Africa back in 1942. It was heavily fortified but what I can’t figure out is why the Americans even tried to attack it. If you’ve got a highly mechanized army, just drive around any strongpoint and starve them out. Yes, I have a Bachelor in military history, but I was not researching warfare. What I was investigating was the repeated stories of American soldiers who testified they could put an ear to the ground and hear the German tanks.
Allied fear of the then new Tiger Mk VI was so great that, psychologically, every German tank became a Tiger. It was an imposing machine crewed by veterans and commanded by an officer. But 50 miles, no way. The weapon was far too valuable to lead a battle. Instead, recon vehicles spread out wide ahead of any actual Tiger attack. It makes sense that these patrols kept their heads down. These smaller but closer vehicles are what the Americans could hear but not see. The actual Tigers may have been fifty miles away but the rumble and engine noise was really the auxiliary forces probing the front lines for weak spots.
ADDENDUM
Another late night (until 4:14 AM) on the control panel brought partial success. The work requires dogged determination, but I refuse to become like just another egghead engineer with no conception of how things work in the field. Met too many of those at the phone shop. The common ground wire solved many small problems. I’ve also learned to test after every four solder joints rather than the textbook five. And at least one of the busses was wired in completely backwards. The book also said the chips have a dot near pin 1. This chip had two dots so I had it installed backwards, no fault of mine. And test every LED. Very steep uphill climb, this one.
Everyone asks why this memory chip is so important. It isn’t, until you figure out that all other memory, not matter how expansive, works on the same principles. Unlike the strict programming skill I had before, now I would know exactly if a memory problem occurred. By midnight, I rewired 2/3 of the components and they are working in sections.
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