One year ago today: July 4, 2013
Five years ago today: July 4, 2009
Ten years ago today: July 4, 2004, comet impact.
What holiday? I spent the morning and midday giving the new cPod frame three coats of fungicide undercoat. That’s the flat black paint you see here going onto the planks. I may get away with just two sheets of plywood, since last year, not knowing what I was doing, I saved the pieces I trimmed. They nicely fit exactly the dimensions needed for the extensions. I’m also adding two small bulkheads on the interior since I’m using thinner plywood for the new canopy. Nobody’s making any promises, but usually when you find somebody working in this kind of weather, there is something afoot.
The band sent an e-mail of four “new” songs, dated 1979, 1981, 1983, and 1984. This represents a cosmic improvement over the 50s and places the music into an era where I had at least heard the music.
I tended away from rock about that time as the bass lines grew repetitious and exceedingly simple via disco influence.
These rock tunes [from that era] had no musical advantages over playing the simple country riffs--and country paid a lot more money. Again, when I say country, I mean country-sounding pop-rock. Old Beatles and Bee-Gees, and rock country like Charlie Daniels. And softer Jimmy Buffet. But even back then I played very little contemporary country which had begun the slide into the mass-produced computer-generated product of today.
If it moves the band forward, I’m okay with it. I can spice up the dreariest bass lines, even the Eagles, which is no mean feat. I was half expecting songs that toned down the bass part (which would have backfired) but all seems reasonable. I may even have some of my own handwritten transcripts to some of these tunes, which I never performed, but had customized them for solo work. If so, watch out, I can play such music note-for-note like it was from a studio.
My new map compass is amazing. It is plastic, but it is fully dampened, lightweight, and has a radium dial. Not bad for six bucks. I quickly noticed it cannot be used indoors over here. Even a pen with a steel spring four feet away knocks it off, I think the metal cage of the building is the cause. It is shielding the stronger Earth’s field.
Have you seen those reports that American Indian DNA shows Chinese ancestry? That man Gavin(?) has a theory that the Chinese reached America (both coasts) by 1421. I don’t place much trust in his findings but he certainly has a knack for piecing stories together. The stones in Bermuda and a tsunami that washed Chinese junks up the Oregon costal dunes, for example. But the Chinese DNA is another matter. Is it a little bit from the accepted 10,000 years ago, or a whole bunch from 1421? It’s a curiosity. Meanwhile common sense says that if a Chinese population large enough to alter the DNA of the entire North American continent existed here, there is no way it would have disappeared in the 71 years when Columbus arrived and found savages with no wheels or handwriting.
Speaking of sailing, my books on celestial navigation have necessarily been written by sailors. Every one of their examples were taken from personal experiences, which spills over into the usual banter. The type of boat they own, its hull displacement, etc. For unknown reasons, I have yet to see a book on navigation written by someone who was NOT own the boat. That is weird. In turn, this reawakens my old gripe when they begin to dispense advice on how wonderful it is to spend a lifetime at sea, often adding a phrase like “instead of dedicating [their] life to amassing personal fortune”.
Please, yacht-owners of the world, do not dispense this type of advice unless you are prepared to reveal how you amassed the personal fortune required to operate a luxury sailing craft. There is probably not a working man alive who would not trade a life of drudgery to take off and sail. Don’t be shoveling your nonsense this way. There’s the old Italian proverb that there are three ways to get money. Inherit it, marry it, or steal it. Unless you are prepared to tell, it will be assumed you are "a drug-dealing thief" or your father was, so leave your anecdotes out of the text. Some may argue it is nobody’s business where the sailor got his money, but I say yes it is the moment at which he starts dispensing travel advice.
That’s another thing. For all the yachtsmen out there, I mean, what a useless lot. All that sailing around and not one scientific, cerebral, or intellectual discovery in all of history. Ever. I mean, even farmers discover new plants and ditch-diggers discover dinosaur bones, but is there a yacht-owner famous for anything worthwhile?
Here’s an item, based on LegalZoom (no link). There has been an upsurge in corporate formations on the west coast. These are one-owner, home-based, self-financed, rental or consulting businesses that only do business in their home state and who state the goal is to sell it for a profit. I’ll bet you the vast majority of these businesses do nothing but lease the owner’s assets back to himself. It is pretty clear this is a protest of some kind. Watch for legislation to shut down whatever it is.
One reason this upsurge of corporate formations attracted my attention is the large number of Mennonite names I began to notice in the articles. Or I should say names I believe to be large Mennonite families. You see, the Mennonite religion, as BusinessWeek put it, “frowns deeply on sharing private information with the English press.” Forming corporations is thus against basic principle. No, Ken, it isn’t just me. (Show me a man who thinks that files should be kept on everyone and I’ll show you a man who failed to protect his own and now wants company.)
Be prepared for a dirth of photos. The [new] Canon [camera] short circuited from a single bead of perspiration while I was painting. It is in pieces drying. In a way, I’ll be glad to see the end of that piece of crap. Worst feature? It would get into menus that you could not back out of, and also had menus that forced a bad choice just to get the window to close. Up yours, Canon camera department.
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