One year ago today: August 7, 2013, failed Al weld.*
Five years ago today: August 7, 2009, pretty generic.
Ten years ago today: August 7, 2004, hurricane alert.
MORNING
Here’s a bottle of Retro Baikal, a Russian soft drink, non-fizzy. And half of my breakfast sandwich, a type of pork sausage that would give my cardiologist a heart attack. The drink is made from black tea and a hint of licorice with a new item for me, eleutherococ (sic) root. Turns out to be a bush that grows in Siberia. The popular name of “Siberian ginseng” is banned in the USA as ginseng refers to a specific product. As with most herbal concoctions, the extract has contradictory effects, none of which are scientifically tested.
Trivia. On average across America, the recording musician, that is, the musician who records rather than performs, makes in his entire life a gross income of $700 before expenses. I very rarely record, but now I may just do that to see if I can better that figure on my own. Meanwhile, no scooter means a few long days of getting things done in-house and pondering the universe. For example, if there are colorized reruns of black and white TV shows, why doesn’t somebody take the color out of Bonanza and bill it as special? You’d probably make a lot more than $700.
Here’s an item. I have never dated a woman with dyed hair. Not even streaked. Highlighted, yes, and cover the grey a bit. But as in a totally different and artificial color? Nope. All women I’ve dated had the same hair color as their grade four class pictures. And that’s back when grade four meant she was a nine year old virgin. Long before Paris Hilton and Madonna and Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus, if you get my direct meaning. Before they invented night-vision cams.
And while on the topic, no, the latest crops of television actresses are not as good looking or as sexy as twenty years ago. But wait long enough, the non-coke-hooker look will come back into fashion. My regret is the cycle is twenty years and I won’t live long enough to see sexy women without makeup and tattoos ever again. Sigh.
NOON
The scooter is going to cost. Shopping around was a nothing, there are very few mechanics who will touch Chinese. Since I can’t wait, I went to the Cuban garage on Dixie. Wish me luck. I put eight miles on the bicycle over all this, so I’m tired, yes. And I make dumb mistakes when I’m tired. By 12:30PM we had the scooter on the rack and eliminated all the cheap and easy solutions. It is a compression problem, or whatever it is that causes that. The scooter is past the best before date and each repair causes other component failures.
Along with that comes another realization. You see, it isn’t enough to fix things, you must keep an eye out for what is causing the problem. It is now clear that when Miguel fixes something, it does not stay fixed. That is a brand new motor on that scooter. I’m not pointing any fingers, but I have to now let somebody else have a go at it.
I’m planning my birthday party. I wanted a big 20th, which didn’t happen. Instead Judy and I went to a pub on the east end and squabbled all night. Then my 30th in an east Seattle parking lot helping a friend change a tire. You get the idea. This one, I have the money ($550) and the time to plan it out. For advertising, I’ll use the gossip wagon. As for catering, Little Caesar’s Pizza is four blocks away, kind of munchies on demand. You have not heard the last of this.
Gun barrels, one of those things we know they did back in the Dark Ages. Watch this half-baked video to see how gronk the process is at heart. They actually pounded the barrels into shape. The novelty here is that this is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone build something on an anvil. Usually you see a few seconds of them pounding iron.
Last, Agt. M came by. We ate pickled Russian vegetables out of jars, drank tea, and discussed buying tools for the clubhouse. I say we need materials to finish what we’ve got more than anything new. And except where necessary, we work with wood. In the end, we compromised. Check back after we make a trip to Harbor Freght.
NIGHT
Music issues. You can’t have a band without band problems. If I become famous for firing guitar players, good. It establishes a precedent. And I’ll say one good thing for the band I’m in right now. They have one hell of a lot more experience practicing than I do. Here is a
Yes, he got us fired everywhere we played. Yes, he eventually got in a fight with everybody. I knew he’d tell the obvious lie that he fired me, but that’s not what happened. Yes, he was an excellent guitar player. But he could not learn anything new. And the way he kept his learning private, he knew it too. He’d never try a new lick or tune at practice.
Now remember, a lot of this material never made the original blog, as you really, really have to be a loser to get me to give up on you. We are talking over a half-decade here before I told the guy what to do with his guitar. With all the time he spent in prison, maybe it fit.
The last straw was his nasty habit of saying “Bass is easy”. I didn’t mind much (the important word is “much”) when he did it at rehearsal, but he would also do it on stage. “It’s just A, Dm, and G, with an F#, then an E”, this type of nonsense. This, we recognize, is a severe case of gittaritis. He’s so infected he doesn’t understand any other instrument. There are no “easy” songs the way I play bass. One of the most difficult tunes I play, “Memphis”, only has two notes.
The fact is, like most guitar players, he cannot play bass worth a damn. They only think they can. I told him if I ever heard the phrase “Bass is easy” come out of his pie-hole on stage again, he was fired. One, he figured he could not be fired by a bass player. Two, he figured after six years, I would not dare fire him. I canned him the very next gig. Middle of the last set. At that Irish pub in North Miami. The song was “Turn The Page”.
I played a few more gigs with him after that, but only freelance for cash up front. That’s one dodo who never did make peace with the world. The guy disappeared in 2012, so either he moved to a weed-legal venue, his past caught up with him, or he got himself flattened for talking when he should have been listening.
ADDENDUM
One hour into the [projected eight-hour] study of DC motors, I’m overwhelmed by the lack of industry standards. I’ve learned I want 5V to 12V models geared down to 50rpm to 150rpm for general robotic work. The shafts should be coupled by a set-screw and the motors bolted to metal “T” plates. Gearboxes are as expensive and complicated as you imagine them to be. And H-bridges are cheaper to buy by the dozen than make on your own—though you should be able to make your own in a pinch. See my early model of June 30, 2014.
Speaking of reinforcement, I still cannot find the 26” fan belt for my drill press. Very close examination of the broken belt shows that the core material is something I first saw up at Nova last month: braided fish line. You can see the ribs of this just beyond my pointer finger. I read these belts max out at 6,000 feet per minute, except for timing belts on motors. These are used instead of gears because they a quiet, don’t require lubrication, and jam less. These can run up to 16,000 feet per minute. And they cost a fortune.
Read this article on pulleys and you’ll know everything I know about them.
*If you've noticed the stepped up frequency of pictures of the blog files recently, it is for reasons. I've received an offer I'll likely turn down, but it is an offer.
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