One year ago today: April 9, 2013, the Cher scare.
Five years ago today: April 9, 2009
MORNING:
Taking time to read the entire newspaper reminds me of why I only buy it for the crossword. It tips you off this is another nothing day. Unless I get fired up and do something later, be prepared for a report of what I do when I’m busy saving money. Because saving up is all that is going on, although I challenge others to dare say what they do under similar circumstances. It is normally the season I’d have a list of the places I didn’t buy, but there has been another unpredictable change in the economy.
Banks are only lending money on properties that make the market look good. And I told you before I only have the down payment. Mind you, Glen, that’s a real down payment in cash, not the kind borrowed from an uncle and lied about. Well, the banks are at it again, trying to prop up their swollen—and illegal--REO inventories. (They have simply ceased foreclosing so they can tell stupid people that the foreclosure rate is down. Duh.) Now go easy on me as I am retired on a budget and you won’t meet many others in that situation who are saving money. At least not on the scale of buying houses, I mean.
Save I must, for unless matters swing back my direction, I may well have to pay cash. For anything I’d buy, that could take some time, considering it must be for life. The bright part on that is I am accomplishing something most of the boomers never managed even in their glory days: I’m saving money faster than house prices are rising. Not making the money, saving it. Anybody can make money.
Meanwhile we wait a lot and do things like read HProf. Oz’s paperback. If he’s going to base the protagonist on my character, could he not have given the guy a little sparkle? True, I mention Prof. Oz in my writing without permission. But I present his persona with a little dynamism and depth. Not me in his book. Plus, by comparison to “Caribecana”, I can claim that 100% of the people who read this blog eventually learn or take something new away which benefits them down the line. I said “by comparison”. The blog has inspired moments, the odd clever passage, and once in a while you encounter an original idea. Is what I mean.
So I’m driving home from Miguelito’s and cut down the back alley to get on the one-way. What do I see but a pull-chain switch in a box by the bin? All switches are expensive in my hobby, so I stop and kick the box. Cha-ching! Chock full of adapters, switches, plug ends, stranded wire, what a bonanza. Auto voltage adaptors, leather straps complete with buckles, even some chromed lengths of chain. The things some people throw away. I was so happy I stopped by at the Octopus. Why do I go there? I don’t much like that place.
That’s the downtown dive on the boulevard. The few women that go there are the type my brother chases. You know, the kind that can be slept with after “years of wearing down with flirty jokes and one-of-the-boys-style teasing”. Much like the daytime crowd at Jimbos. And that bartender from Buddy’s Place, that guy works at the Octopus. On the abrasive side. I know he doesn’t like me.
You want to know why I think he doesn’t like me? Because he is a musician of the sort who believes there is a “proper” way to be cool and that can’t be me since I don’t put up with shit from guitar players. Thusforth, music-wise, I must not fit into his pre-conceived notion of allowable adolescent-grade personality types. (Um, I play in a band and he doesn't.)
I hopped the city bus to the main library in Ft. Lauderdale. It takes nearly an hour each way to cover that eleven miles. That means I read another few chapters but imagine my surprise when I walked off the elevator. That library is weird, you have to independently get up to the second floor to access the rest of the building. But a display caught my eye. They have 3D printers. Here I am holding a lego-grade plastic cup. Chess pieces on the table are not solid. They are hollow, with staircases and little furniture you can see through the tiny windows.
The exterior of the pieces is not smooth. It has horizontal “ribs” from the plastic extrusion nozzle. The printers are silent. The only type of plastic available was the brittle stuff, but the printed objects are amazingly tough. Except some bracelets, which were printed very thin and were thus as flexible as thin metal, same principle.
Larger objects must be built up from pieces and there were was nothing printed that demonstrated the outer dimension limits of the printer. It looked to me like the constraints would be the size of the printing plate and the range of the print head. Some of the output was clearly designed better than the rest. But mistakes were prevalent. A missing parameter meant things that were supposed to be hollow were not. And the exposed workings of the moving parts are dangerously hot.
My conclusion is that unless you frantically need something 3D right now, wait a bit longer. Mind you, the only reason we do not have such a printer here and now is lack of funding. or could it be for lack of brains or plain not keeping up? The price tag on the models I saw, Makerbot, was $2,200 each, assembled.
EVENING
I finally have to give Canon, my Powershot a1400 camera a bad rating. I lost all the time delay photos of the printer in action and more of me pointing to various printed articles. Sorry Canon, but your camera can jam itself into useless and weird settings with no outward indication. I’ve missed too many shots because you bastards don’t have the sense to put a simple button that says “640x480Jpegs”. Canon, you’ve pissed me off just once too often. Besides, anyone who makes menus that you cannot back out of is a dickhead to start with. I’m sorry, I tried as long as I could to cover for you because the camera does generally work better than Nikon. But that is no longer saying much.
I had gone to the library to investigate why my drill bits would not work on metal (as advertised) and to get instructions on using the drill press to thread bolt holes. That means as a bonus, you get some library-style trivia to wrap up this day on a happier note. I flipped through ten books on tree houses. These were mainly permanent structures. Certainly not cobbled together by some kids in the back yard. I learned in England, tree houses built to protest the cutting down of old trees are called “twigloos”.
And a book on the mansions of France tells me rich people have different “sitting” habits than I do. They like long hallways with windows on one side and chairs and sofas on the other. What’s with that? I don’t as a rule sit where there can be much foot traffic. Such a foolish deed in the anti-mansions I was raised in would be just asking for trouble. You’d have to be nuts to try to concentrate on a book in peace and quiet. I just realized to this day, my chair, at home I mean, has to be in a corner facing front where I can see anyone approaching. That was my family and I hope none of you think I’m kidding.
Back home in just such a chair, I conclude that I should not try to work with metal for now. Not beyond learning to solder a little better. There are too many other items my plate. I’m considering, instead of replacing the eBike for now, hauling out the old Jamus eight-speed. Yep, that is still in the shed somewhere.
