One year ago today: July 16,2013, the bare wagon.
Five years ago today: July 16, 2009, a nothing day.
Ten years ago today: July 16, 2004, Martha Stewart jailed.
MORNING
A quick morning at the bakery. I’ve come up with a plan, though not yet decided to pull it off. Next writer’s meetup, I bring along something for them to critique. I write the first paragraph to match up my previous material. Then I lift, verbatim, two pages out of a James Michener book. I don’t copy Michener’s style, but years after I began writing, I read a few of his books and noticed the stark similarity. Anyway, should I put the writer’s club to the test? I’m thinking.
The bakery is closing for three weeks next Wednesday. Off to Europe to visit the family and an ailing father. That reminds me, I haven’t gone anywhere this month. That will never do. Sitting at home is not where it is at, peeps. Make it a point to get out of town at least once a month, but I don’t recommend that you ever take the Greyhound on that count. They don’t call it the dog line for nothing.
However, as shown here, the maximum voltage I can get from the fastest setting on my drill is on 1.06 volts. So I need to spin it 13 times faster, and I do not have the gear mechanism for that. There may be a way using a pulley, but I'm already past my ability. At least I know now for sure that it works. What do I have that spins fast enough? Give me time to think that through.
I read more celestial navigation, it’s slowly melting. To get accurate, you require three fixes, which should be at different times of the day. That’s to the lines you draw intersect at sharp angles. They should meet at a point, but often they form a triangle. Supposedly, you are in the center of that triangle. They don’t specify which center. The in-center, the orthocenter, or the centroid? See, now they’re on my turf.
LJohn called and we talked real estate. She is not keen on my advice about not tying up your entire retirement income in a big fancy house to live in. Remember all those years I lived on the south slopes, it was to look after a mini-mansion while the owners traveled. They had serious problems with that house whenever it was vacant, yet it was in a swank neighborhood. LizJohn wants the option to have rooms to rent out if times get bad.
Hmmm, I was a landlord for 21 years, and tenants can just as easily cost you money. Also, she is a single lady and that limits her options. Is renting rooms in your house a wise idea? What if, like me, a big part of your retirement is peace and quiet? She wants to travel, but experience taught me it is one or the other. You don’t want to retire still owing money on your house. And owning a big house makes it hard to travel. I’m the other extreme. I have not borrowed money (since I got out of university long ago). And I only borrowed for my first degree, when my parents refused to pay what they had promised. My other degrees were all paid cash.
AFTERNOON & EVENING
What a time to have no camera. It was spitting rain all day but that did not stop me from getting a shift in on the camper pod. Remember that sheet of wood I gave the neighbor, the one that got stolen by the cat lady? Well, guess what I need exactly right now. I will, after all, have to buy a second sheet of plywood. The good news is the renovation is well under way. The locks are installed, the interior clamps are fitted. And the electronics are checking out perfect.
The clamps? Yes, the camper is designed so that none of the body panels can be removed by taking out any of the exposed exterior screws. I got the idea from a bank vault door. I’ve again changed my mind about the rear hatch. It’s back to two “cupboard” door. Because I salvaged all the hardware, that’s why. The design was so flexible that when I decided to put the original “roof” on backwards, all the screw holes lined up.
One item that did not impress me was the piano hinges. They appeared to be stainless steel, but the real problem was the screws that came with the package. All rusted to nothing. The marine battery I got on sale out in the prairies is fine, works like a charm at a regulated 12.8V. I know a lot more about electronics, relays and control panels than I did last year, so the work is gliding along.
Later, I ran through another batch of the songs for this Friday. They put some of the newest material on the chart, but that isn’t fair since these are not “new” to them. I've said how in 15 years, I have never seen a Florida musician actually learn a new song. I heard two guys try, but that was a joke. Anyway, we will be playing music rehearsed only once. Not wise, at all.
ADDENDUM
I’m already getting flak for the Martha Stewart link above. My point was very simple, she was never proven directly guilty of insider trading. She went to trial on that count to avoid other trumped up charges piled on her afterwards. That’s after she was “investigated”. Hell, "interrogated" is a better word. I regularly ask my stock broker for advice on how a given stock is likely to perform, because I expect him to tell me something is afoot or how it is expected to perform. It's called investing and it would not work if everyone had the same information at the same instant.
The odd part about American law is that although you are not under oath or obligation when speaking to these people, they will behave as if you must talk to them or you are hiding something—and they’ve learned to leverage that to the hilt. So SHUT UP. Silence is neither false nor misleading.
[Author's note: for the record, Martha was NEVER convicted of insider trading. That is a popular misconception. She was charged with "obstruction of a federal investigation", which sucks. It hasn't happened yet, but just you watch--it won't be long before they start treating the Fifth Amendment as obstruction.]
The only purpose of their questioning is not to remove you as a suspect, you are already on their list forever. Their hidden agenda is to get information out of you they can’t obtain any other way. Once you fall for it and start giving answers, the questions become more and more leading. The game plan is to trick you into exposing yourself to a more serious crime, like obstruction, then let you off if you confess to the first charge. That is clearly what happened to Martha Stewart. And no, I don’t like Martha Stewart. She’s been around too long and is blocking the path of fresh material.
It should be clear to all Americans that in this century, “obstructing justice” and “lying to a federal investigator” is synonymous with not telling them what they want to hear and not immediately confessing to anything they charge you with. Plead the Fifth on principle alone. Of course, they will try to construe that you must be covering something up, I mean, they are just asking “routine” harmless questions. But the Fifth is all you’ve got. You have nothing, repeat nothing, to gain by explaining things to the authorities. By the time they question you, their minds are made up and they are seeking to entrap you with your own words. Wise up.
FYI, though not a TV person, the few episodes I’ve seen of CSI, do a very accurate portrayal of how tidbit “facts” are used to catch the bad guy. Sure, that is TV, but the verbal tricks used on suspects work equally well on innocent bystanders. Watch that show and learn how they do it. Even if you are dead to rights guilty, you are still not required to testify against yourself. If you pay attention to CSI, you'll see it centers on getting the suspect to incriminate himself by getting him to repeat his story over and over until he alters a word or two. The only difference in real life is the authorities don't care about the original crime investigation--if they can get you to fall for a trap of words.
And if you don’t believe me, believe Martha Stewart.
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