One year ago today: July 5, 2013, Canadian culture.
Five years ago today: July 5, 2009, mystery analysis.
Ten years ago today: July 5, 2004, 3D Phoebe.
MORNING
I kid you not. This is an ad for brain surgery from y’day’s newspaper. Are they advertising for walk-ins? If you can’t blow the ad up, it says, and I quote, “Brain surgery today. Back to your normal life tomorrow. It’s your brain. You decide.” So let’s stop and think, is today the day for brain surgery? Apparently if you want your normal life back, it is. I couldn’t find the two-for-one coupon. Or maybe I should have my IQ lowered so I can enjoy the on-line dating sites.
If this is the level you need help with, eHow is the answer. Worst part of eHow? Apparently the site does not allow uploading photos, meaning the instructions are entirely prose. And you know how most people are with written instructions. In the addendum, I’ll tell you what you probably need to know about the Kodak. (The Canon is in the sun, drying out.)
The scooter is still out of commission. It seems one of the special bolts that hold the muffler joint (the gasket part) against the motor head is snapped off inside the motor casing. It resists re-drilling and cannot be extracted with one of those reverse-thread drill bits. Worse, it is broken off just close enough to the surface that a new bolt doesn’t bite deep enough and eventually works its way loose, even with high-temp locktite. But, the club is working on the problem, so it will be solved. (The scooter was working well enough by 2:30PM so short-term things will be okay.)
The scooter gas budget has flattened out to $3.94 per week. This works out to around just under 9 miles per day, which seems to be the minimum possible the way the system is designed. In other words, even somebody with no private transportation would likely find it necessary to travel this distance in the course of living. But this is a broad average, for most days, I use the scooter about 1 mile. In a pinch, I have the bicycle but there is a tradeoff between time and convenience. Make sure you don’t get caught on the wrong side of that equation. Life would be tough without the scooter. Damn tough.
My horoscope says today I’m to do what I feel (emotionally) rather that what my brain says is right. Oh no, I feel like canceling July and riding my sidecar up to Montana to live on an abandoned farm. Instead I went to the bakery, where if you time it right, you can get enough free bread for the weekend if they are not sold out by noon.
AFTERNOON
Yep, two plywood sheets it is, meaning I’m on target. Please, one week of nice weather, that’s all. By loosening eight bolts, I can slide the existing compartment forward 14” The limiting factor is I will not make the camper higher than I can see over the top during a shoulder check. The new interior will have four times the space of a pup tent and wider than a twin bed. The electrical is improved and there will be room for a wind powered fan that will slightly over-pressurize the sleeping area. In case of bionic attacks or something.
Weight is up slightly, by around 38 pounds, but still less than half the rating. And of course, this camper can easily be pulled by a small car. I had planned a complete circumnavigation of the perimeter of the entire country this season, but house prices are rising, damn it. Can’t spend all my money on the road. But soon. This time, the mattress will be memory foam, the access hatch will swing to the side (instead of downward, where I had to crawl over it) and I’ll have a small bookcase. Every dollar saved on a motel is another dollar of fun!
Strange, when digital cameras first came out, everyone had a serial number. Even the junky little ones they gave away free as keychain fobs.
By late afternoon, the scooter still not right. Miguelito got no further than I did on my own, but he did a much finer-looking job of it. I guessed the right piece from Home Depot last Thursday, so he installed those. The next attempt will involve drilling out the screw holes by 1/64th of an inch. Miguelito would not touch that, but by happenstance, this kind of drilling is something the robot club knows how to do almost to perfection. Check back with me, but it is either drill or replace the entire motor head for no reason other than the motor head comes factory-drilled. And we are not made of money over here.
EVENING
A typical Saturday evening here. A harmonica player showed up who knows me, but I could not place the guy. But I remembered his harmonica playing, that’s music for you. I’ve got an upper chest flu that throws me into a coughing fit if I try to lie down. That’s two days without much sleep, except sitting up in my reading chair. Bingo was a wild sell-out crowd, meaning breakfast uptown if I want. And the harmonica player wants to release the first Hebrew Blues album. When I suggested “Hava Tequila”, he got this real serious look and handed me his business card.
ADDENDUM
Kodak Easyshare. If you have one, it is likely a leftover and the battery is dead. You want to replace it, but as with all cameras that have a separate battery charger, the charger is long gone and missing, same with the USB cable. But you noticed the rechargeable battery, the KLIC-8000 is identical in size to two AA cells. Duh, the camera case has no indication of how these cells should be inserted. The answer is down-up, try both possibilities, it won’t hurt the camera if you get it backward.
(Here is a test of the macro, showing it can be used at this angle which somehow over-rides the auto forcus. Yes, I know—if that is the most popular pencil in the world, how come it is called “No 2”. In the foreground is the factory battery pack.)
Now the bad news. If the camera doesn’t respond, it is a goner, but don't give up easy. Kodak products are needlessly fragile and once they break, don’t bother with Kodak customer service or wasting time on-line. That will be the day when I tell people in India my home address. The batteries
Other than that, the best feature is that the robot club gave me this camera for free. Despite its heaviness, it seems to work fine and unlike the Canon, there are on-screen indicators of where you are in the various menus. So far, so good. Here is the “stitching” feature, which I see requires a little practice.
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