One year ago today: July 1, 2013, Cape Coral.
Five years ago today: July 1, 2009, Everglades City.
Ten years ago today: July 1, 2004
MORNING
This was the pub across from Starbucks in West Palm Beach last weekend. They get around 20% more rain in the winter, but as you see that does not slow down the two-wheel transportation. This was one of several Sunday places that were busy. But most attractive were the number of small coffee shops and eateries. The whole atmosphere is more my style. If it wasn’t an hour away, I’d hang out there.
And, how about that Aventura hospital? They put a patient alone in an unattended room with a criminal, who promptly kills him. Who does the hospital send to make a statement? No, not the directors, or owners, or anyone responsible. They send the head of the marketing department. Way to go there, Aventura. The Herald also did a half-page spread on seniors at a drum circle. God, take me before I ever get that bad.
Pricing out the tires for my next sidecar trek, the total tire bill will come to around $300. Ah, but doesn’t that take a whack out of my trip finances? Yes and no. It’s been a while since we talked vacation finances, so let’s rationalize. First, the primary justification for the camper pod has been the 90 minutes per day prime time driving. I spend the time getting somewhere instead of searching some backwater for a motel in my range. That’s another thing we now know. The average total out of pocket cost of staying in a motel. It’s $81.60 depending on what you include. So, the cost of the tires (two tires, one installed, one spare—remember what happened in Wichita Falls), or less than four "dollar-motel-equivalents". And if I leave, it is for like three weeks or more, so the money is available for travel, not ratty motels. Nor have I forgotten that in November, I never ran out of money. And yes, putting anything on your credit card is the same as running out.
[Author's note 2015-07-01: I was to learn, within the year, that this $300 tire replacement is a constant motorcycle expense. It requires about an hour's labor and some 24mm wrenches. The repair involves removing the saddlebags and the drive shaft, so in todays money around $70 plus the new tire. The tire is $130 to $160 depending on availability. Average rear tire lifespan is around 6,000 miles.]
No, I have not forgotten the analysis of the weekend gig. But after a year, all topics get complicated and the over-riding principle now is that unless this band plays out more, we are about as good as we are ever going to get. We’ve run out of steam. Be patient, the results will arrive. My fan club, naturally, wants to know if I was again the stage darling. That answer is maybe one of the reasons I’m making them wait. There is something I have to hear first.
Typical MicroSoft-think, they’ve put the menu buttons in Word in the order that the simple-minded use most often, rather than the logical order of creating a document on down through saving it. Thus, opening a new blank page is the seventh selection. MicroSoft only hires hair-lip gimp-tards that are bent over like this, and that’s all there is to it.
Google is suckier every day. Recall I told how their upload app would turn all pictures portrait? It could be tricked by pre-rotating them 90° CCW, but they screwed that up, too. Now, it turns the photos upside down. As you see, I can work around their system, but you can’t make me like it.
AFTERNOON
Have you seen the latest British celebrity bust? Rolf Harris, age 84. That’s not the issue with me, but the fact that these crimes allegedly took place as long ago as 1960. Obviously, the English courts are not above Yankee-style spectacularism. Folks, it is such idiotic show trials that speak volumes for statutes of limitation. I question the word of any person who waits fifty years and then only speaks up when it is a public figure in the docket.
[Author’s note: one should always read English papers with extreme caution. For instance, it should be noted the primary complaint of the prosecutors is that Harris “used his status and position”. Pssst, this is supposed to shock you. Someone should inform the Brit-twits that is why it is called “celebrity” Imagine, a famous person with the gall to actually act famous. The Crown will have none of that!]
Also, the bucket of accusations is just too leaky, for instance, Lee, his primary accuser, was past the age of consent (at the time), another accuser got the entire year wrong (oops!) and another was a waitress who felt a pat on the butt was “inappropriate”. What part of “waitress” didn’t she understand? A pat was perfectly acceptable behavior in 1965. Always remember, English law is self-serving and English newspapers are tabloids.]
This delayed coming forward happens so damn often one must suspect such persons of seeking a scapegoat for their own personal failures in life. I understand there are real cases of abuse, but that doesn’t begin to explain it all. On the other hand, I've met countless deadbeats who would love nothing better than to blame it on somebody else. Exactly what do you expect from such women when they learn from television that the cops would love to hear about the time Uncle Jake looked at her panties on the wire. He also looked at the shorts and the pillowcases, but the cops and courts want to go with the panties.
Then there’s that jerk investigator who keeps saying Harris denied the charges, forcing the “victims” to “relive” the events. And relive they did, for example, in the case of Lee, to the Australian newspapers for, ahem, $57,000. What could you “remember” for that kind of money? And as for the women he slept with that were over 16, that should not even be allowed as evidence. Sixteen year old women sleep with whomever they please.
There’s more. Back in the 60s, the safety of children was where it belonged—with the parents. To put people on trial today is to subject them to a different time and morality, which is plainly wrong. The world was different back then. The nature of crime changes, there was even a time narcotics were legal. To drag these incidences forward and start handing out jail sentences in today’s legal climate is unconscionable. I could understand a bit of it if, say, the police had already completely cleared up their horrendous backlog of current unsolved crimes. What’s next? Arresting dead people? Sic the team of Bruno & Foster on that high-and-mighty Abe, find out how honest he really was.
Please note, I am not supporting Harris, but rather criticizing the danger of applying today's law and morality to yesterday's situations. It takes things out of context. Plainly, the time limit for people to have reported a crime is passed in ten years, much less twenty, or fifty. By then, the situation is altered enough that there must necessarily be an ulterior motive. For the authorities to resort to claiming the accused was “arrogant” underlines the weakness of the case. I remind the reader that arrogance is not against the law and those who bring it up as a legal point are themselves up to no good.
Guilty or not, the world can do without staging these monkey trials, where even if innocent, the accused is destroyed. Literally, kangaroo courts.
EVENING
Some weather is bad, some is nasty, and tonight was ugly. Ridiculous pelting storms that won’t quit or follow a pattern. I made to the writer’s meetup, where my first non-fiction presentation was well-received. By that, I mean a quarter of the room got lost, another half got the clue, the remaining quarter found it ingenious. Including one lady who appeared “nothing less than enthralled”, Why, if only she had spent that $6,000 on education instead of tattoos. . .
My first popular acceptance as an author of fiction! Mark this day in case anything comes of it.
ADDENDUM
Here are the two 600 page manuals donated by Fred to the club. I’d finished reading them when I noticed the publication dates. The left-side edition was printed in 1987 and the right-side in 2006. Yet, there was virtually no difference in the texts. That, folks, is how little robotics has changed over time. Read these books, and you’ll know what I know about robots.
I read some chapters on robot shoulder and wrist motion. That’s when I was not studying my celestial navigation, Ken. The Nova meetup has voted to build a hand, but closer examination shows that it is a kit of some kind. Kits only teach you how to build more kits, although my little club could use somebody like that—mainly because he’d have an aluminum welding machine. It hasn’t escaped me how much research [on my part] is being dedicated to the meetup, and how the rest of the room combined will have read nothing. Dick.
What’s boiled to the top is that even though I don’t have a clue how to work with aluminum, inventory tells me I have enough small parts here to build a robot arm with a gripper. I see I’ve been learning the wrong motors. Thanks a lot, textbooks. For robotic work, stick with servos. I used to get annoyed how every source would say how these type “could be modified to rotate 360°” already, but that’s because all of them neglected to say what I just did: that servos should be your first choice robotics.
I now have a surplus of other motors (bidirectional and stepper). Another bit of advice is see if you can afford gear motors. These are the gear boxes that take the high speed shaft rotation down to slower but more powerful levels. Without them, you have to grind your own gears and that is as unpleasant as it sounds.
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