January 18, 2014

           Here’s a candid shot of band rehearsal with Jag, we are playing old Don Gibson tunes. You can admire his stick-to-it-ive-ness because he’d never heard any of this music before. In fact, one of the hurdles was we had to cross was how some of his contemporary music is confusingly similar. I can confirm that, as almost every “new” hit these days reminds me of something I heard long ago. Very long ago, in some cases.

           I had a working man’s Friday, first time in nearly two decades. What’s that? It is when you get to Friday after an ordinary week, but instead of being raring to go, you plop down in a chair and next thing you know you wake up Saturday morning. This occurrence once bugged me a lot when I worked at the office, since theoretically you did not work hard over there. Why then, was I exhausted? Because that was long before I learned the accumulative problems of stress.
           There are other contributing factors. One is for all my insistence this place is too small for me, it is a comfortable abode. Too comfortable and I’ve fallen asleep just by sitting down in my favorite chair. And I was tired. Getting this computer problem sorted was a massive undertaking best thought of as “my computer is bigger than yours”. I made several trips to the shed just to find cables. And it is cold. Mind you, I’ve got hot cocoa, chicken soup, and the electric heating pad from the camper pod. I’m not living in Buckingham Palace but this is as comfy a place as I was ever raised in. Add these together and I was out like the lights after a Florida hurricane.
           The new computer system I’ve set up includes a poor-man’s form of Internet TV. Nothing spectacular, but it includes all the documentaries I care to watch. Have you ever noticed the pattern to these documentaries? They all tend to cover (at some point) the same set of topics. The south pole. Hitler’s secret weapons. The genius of Tesla. Worse, they all delve to the same depth. On a scale of one to ten, most documentaries get a two by my standards. The idea of getting educated by TV is a pipedream.

           Later in the afternoon, I got to the scooter. The recent motor work did not address the other things that require constant attention. I set up the carburetor and, shown here, fixed that starter switch. The starter solenoid will not engage unless one of the brake levers is squeezed. In usage, it means the left hand-brake because the right one you are giving it some gas. So in this photo, I’m saving $80. Which is not the same as making $80.
           Is that a pair of forceps? Yes, Hollywood Scooter years ago taught me not to remove body panels unless necessary. I took the top handlebar covers off and looked inside the cavity to see a loose wire. No way to get at it with regular mechanic’s tools. No, Ken, needle-nose pliers are too short and wide to get at the problem. But hemostats have a locking feature and I’m back in business. My entire local operation centers on this scooter, not the eBike. The scooter is needed to make things efficient.
           This morning’s paper has a declaration that DC will curb the surveillance industry. My eye. That’s not the same as outlawing it and enforcing that law. It probably means the task will be privatized and the results subject to subpoena, which is no net change whatsoever. My objection to domestic spying is not as much about the activity itself as you might find in the average person. My objection is that after the phone records are combed for terrorist activity, they are not destroyed, but kept on file. For what? I guarantee you when some bureaucrat is looking to get important, he will look at that mass of data on the innocent and cook up a reason to dig into it again. All too often people would never have given up information if they’d known what it would be used for down the line. But as long as they are stupid today and now, they need watchdogs.

           I can always tell when it is cold up north. I get more e-mail. It drives folks indoors and up north, there is not that much else to do. Like I told my guitar player about college partying. Do it now. When you get older, forget about avoiding temptation. After you are 40, temptation avoids you. Here is a typical front page item in a typical Florida newspaper. It seems the complaint is that the new tourist trolley cars go everywhere except into the heart of the black crime districts. One could get the impression people don’t vacation in Florida to tour the black ghettos. Or some similar crazy idea like they never get in DC. Where, as we all know, is some kind of integrated paradise on earth.
           The sidecar experience for me has been great to the extent of life-changing. There is nothing like operating a motorcycle with a side car, it is vastly superior to regular motorcycle travel. You can make eight hours a day without the fatigue of constantly keeping on balance, something you don’t miss once you’ve done otherwise. But I also see that except for the ridiculously expensive Italian Vespa offerings, there are no sidecar kits made for scooters.
           Yet I’m sure I saw them in Thailand thirty years ago. I didn’t look for them so I can’t recall many details. I can be confident that the Thai merchants selling rice out of their rolling carts did not spend $20,000 on Harley or Vespa brands. The Philippines was crawling with every kind of sidecar you can imagine, but they were dangerous local manufacture and I am looking for a factory kit. Even then, many of the units I saw overseas were attached to small motorcycles, not scooters. These are not at all the same thing.