July 3, 2014

Yesteryear
One year ago today: July 3, 2013, was I in a mood!
Five years ago today: July 3, 2009, music, retirement, etc.
Ten years ago today: July 3, 2004, on Titan.

           Time out. Everybody has the flu, it is raining, and my scooter muffler is loose. On the other hand, let’s see if there has been any progress on all the big plans and talk that goes on around here. Well, first, here is the lumber frame for the cPod conversion, which will lengthen the chassis by 22 inches. Shown also are the 1×4 trim boards that cover every wood joint with waterproof glue bolted, not screwed, until the large washers (you can see some of them) bite into the wood surface in compression. This is top quality material.

           That is only $18.45 of the $91.00 budget but I could not find satisfactory plywood at Home Depot. The few sheets they had of 23/32” was totally wet and you can’t paint that. Anything thinner was visibly warped. Since my budget for plywood is $32, I’m only buying exactly what I want. I have some experience building motorcycle campers, you know.
           Next, I threw broke the fan belt on the drill press. It was properly set, low speed for drilling metal, and the surface was oiled. So I conclude the belt just gave up with age. But now, I feel naked, a man with no drill press, is he a man? Will he ever be the same? Stay tuned for this and other questions for the ages. The happy part is I successfully drilled and joined aluminum, which turns out to be just cheap enough to work with. This includes using a tap and die kit to make [as in test] every possible size of threaded hole for which I have the correct size pilot drill bit. That’s good progress.
           The sidecar tires are on order, $120.00 each. Top quality, even though I know that is only going to last 5 – 6,000 miles. I’ve run them 8,000 when I had to but I don’t need to take such chances. The new cPod will be 78” long, so I’ll have space on the side to mount the spare. Note the sidecar spare is totally for show. It has never been removed or replaced and the mount is rusted to the frame. You may also notice the plastic case above the wagon wheel well that looks suspiciously like half a milk crate. Shhhh.
           The spiral arms of the first hurricane are sweeping over town, alternating us with sun and rain about every 18 hours. The mugginess stays round the clock. This kept me indoors, so I can report headway with celestial navigation in several forms. One was getting an excellent $35.00 compass, a real map compass, on sale for $5.99. Plus a stopwatch which displays the day and time, so I don’t have to keep searching for a quartz watch to set to Greenwich. Likely more important was we were able to download some actual satellite transmissions from the GPS satellites and, get this, one of the lines was quickly spotted to be good old latitude and longitude to the 6th decimal point.
           Is this important? Yes, because up to now my reading had told that the satellites emitted a series of timed pulses that had to be interpreted from six or more of the twelve satellites overhead at any given time. But you can look yourself, the transmission is good old ASCII code and you are looking for every sixteenth line or so that starts with $GPLL and a string of numbers. I can’t teach you navigation, but you should be able to pick out the latitude, longitude, and time. Those are the only three things you need, well that and a good map. If you are nice, tomorrow I will provide a picture of the GPS speaker, microphone, and antenna used to get this far.

           What is a Figaro? I know, I was stumped as well, but it was a 1991 Nissan that was so rare, even when new it was sold by lottery. When I looked inside this one, parked outside the motorcycle dealership (it belongs to my mechanic) I was knocked for a loop. The UK model is completely luxurious for a small car. It has everything, even a turbocharged 998cc engine. The interior looks completely leather, although Wiki says there is some synthetic piping. A/C, it is a convertible, and at $12,000 is easy on the wallet.
           Careful when I say that. You cannot buy a new one in here because of the right-hand drive. The car must be at least 15 years old in Canada and 25 in the USA. I cannot explain how this one is registered in Florida. The exterior paint job is utterly beautiful. It gets 32 mpg, US.
           Due to the inclement weather, worked stopped on the new club work shed except to re-frame the door. The old door was in such bad shape, anybody could have kicked it in as the frame was weak. It is now reinforced with 4×4 sideposts. Although the shed will be an improvement for us, it is not destined for anything big or expensive, because the landlord has access to get the hurricane shutters. Still, the size of our projects will double and accuracy will also increase. I need the shed, as I hestitate to do metal work here. The filings get into everything. And dust, as the only tool I have for cutting aluminum is a hacksaw. That is not fun at my age.
           That’s the productive part of our day. Fortunately, when the storm hit we were near a Wendy’s (which I don’t like) and waited it out by holding an impromptu club meeting. First order, I caught Agt. M using a hemostate as pliers. Banned from using my tools for a week. All club indoor projects are on hold until the shed is complete, plus I need my interior space to paint the lumber due to the bad weather. Below is a photo of the shed, a lot of what you see will be placed on overhead racks so that we have a decent work area below.
           That’s a dryer, not a washer. Work was stalled by the humidity. We consumed 2.78 quarts of iced tea each and finally called it a day. Use your imagination to see how the shed will be set up for work. The antenna picks up free WiFi from the church three miles away. The air conditioner, not shown, is portable. The router table is visible. See, Ken, all talk and all action. It is possible.

ADDENDUM
           Allow me to make a prediction. Google has had a deliberate policy of collecting all manner of scrap information about users for almost five years. Their “google account” was forced upon me when they locked me out of my own blog (because I logged on from Colorado, which is none of their damn business). I had to provide them with a contact phone number as they would not accept an alternative e-mail. Now they have these files of user data on everybody, all of it tidbits, but the total amount is enormous.
           My prediction is that any time now they will enact a policy which demands positive ID (that’s two pieces of picture ID and a social security number) on every user. Exactly when, I can’t say, but it will not be long after they buy out enough smaller web businesses to establish dominance over all popular user functions. They ones they can’t buy, like MicroSoft and Facebook, they will form into partnerships.
           I didn’t change [blog providers] a year ago because the other blog sites [providers] were even worse.

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