One year ago today: August 9, 2013, I review "Elysium".
Five years ago today: August 9, 2009, oh, Pudding-Tat.
Ten years ago today: August 9, 2004.
MORNING
I don’t like this guy. He keeps appearing in military documentaries as if he is some kind of expert on the matter. Ha, what a joke that is. Billing himself as a “professor of conflict studies”, he kind of sits there like Jabba the Hutt and mouth-breathes all the popular misconceptions and bad Brit propaganda of the war. Here’s your evidence of an education system gone wrong, no person with brains would believe the cover stories that he parrots as the truth—but that is all you need do to earn a degree.
When I was a kid I thought the South in the civil war meant like, Alabama. The way it was taught also contributed to this, so I’m not the only one who thought the rebels had to push the invaders back for hundreds of miles to reach Washington, DC. When we learned that the bad guy’s capital was threatened, it was proof how much better our soldiers were. It was years later before anyone pointed out places like Alexandria, Virginia, were only six miles from the White House.
Manassas was walking distance and Fredericksburg just sixty miles away. The consolation was that in reverse, it took the union armies years and hundreds of thousands dead to cross those short distances. I see that even today, there are textbooks that emphasize the geographical center of the deep south in this same context.
Need another reason to hate MicroSoft? I’ve told how one of the worst viruses on the planet is their Outlook app. It regularly inventories your registry (not your hard drive) and transmits an index of the contents back to their offices, where it is sifted through. They are not expending this kind of effort on a lark. I’m hearing they are on another “Windows Genuine Advantage” witch hunt, where they will deactivate any pirated software on your Win 7 computer. That's why yoou use a separate Windows XP computer for work, transferring only the files needed to your Internet computer. But nobody will listen to me until it is too late for them.
And because I went out last night to the Moose and then to Karaoke, I stayed in this morning and studied. I may have found out why there are so dern many capacitors on your circuit board. This is a gem, so stay alert. In DC (direct current) applications, such as computers, robots, and radios, there are generally a large number of different components that all work off the same power supply. A radio will have the antenna circuit, the amp circuit, the tuning circuit, and so on. In combination, these components place an uneven strain on the power supply, causing it to fluctuate (or “sag”) as it tries to compensate. Wait, there’s more.
When integrated circuits with their multiple inputs and out puts are added, you get “noisy” circuits, they emit a radio signal that can upset nearby chips.. Thus, a capacitor is added across the power supply rails and near the positive and negative poles of the chips. In practice, one capacitor is placed for every five or six ICs. The components draw any immediate power demands from the capacitor rather than the battery. It should not require years of study to find these things out. And even then, I came across it by chance on page 202 of an out-of-date book.
NOON
Ah, to sit down, to relax, to study. One must be careful to not let relaxing become a retirement staple, lest it lose its novelty. My armchair robot studies are at the stage of studying “presizing”. There are nearly crazy differences in component sizes, just look a set of capacitors. It is best to assemble the loose parts and see where things have to fit before you start cutting. During this process, you will naturally weigh pieces. Uh-oh, this stuff gets heavy faster than Jenny Craig the morning after.
The addendum states no motorcycle trips this month. This does not preclude other forms of travel. I have an Amtrak budget which could be extended because I won’t be buying gasoline on the highway. And another thing, last day I said 99% of all people I ever known in this life are dying in obscurity. Make that 100% with the possible exception of once going to dinner with Liza Manelli when I was 20. I didn’t recognize her, I thought it was a case of same names. (For clarity, I went to dinner with Liza Manelli when I was 20 but did not know it was the same person as the former movie star.)
I find this disappointing, as my generation was supposed to change the world. We did, in a sense, but overall the power structure remains unchanged and unfair. It must be human nature to want to lead yet to wind up being led. Of my contemporaries, two became doctors (Dan and Don) and two became lawyers (Sheila and Russell). But that is a far cry from becoming actually famous, for outside of their own circles, they are as unknown as you or I. No famous scientists, no authors, no musicians, no inventors.
As far as I know, none of them even seriously tried. Careful what I’m saying here. I did not say none of them ever wrote books, for instance. Just that none have produced any famous works. But tell you what, I’ll do some checking. Meanwhile, I was reading about 1940.
Over time, all historians have heard of the Schleiffen Plan, the German strategy of sweeping southwesterward through Belgium. I’m no fan of the English, but I can identify with the BEF as they arrived in France in 1914. Thinking they were there to assist the French in blocking the German advance, they found the entire French battle plan consisted entirely of pre-arranged press releases to blame everything on the British. Wow, a taste of their own medicine.
NIGHT
Another sellout crowd. Week after week, month after month of consistent sellouts do not happen by chance.
[Author's note 2015-08-09: it was unknown at this time that this was one of the final bingo games. The reason for the crowds remains the core group of players who drive out here from the Moose every Saturday. Sometimes they all go on a cruise or something and the bingo turnout drops by as much as 2/3.]
ADDENDUM
Any plans for a motorcycle trip this month are dashed by the scooter repair. I had the camshaft and motor head replaced. Plus a few other items, like the rear tire, which brought the bill to nearly $400. If there is travel this month, something completely different will have to fall from the sky. And if I don’t travel, my life starts to become as boring as, well, you know. The biggest trip on the drawing board remains Route 66. It was maddening last November from Barstow to Albuquerque when I could see but not get onto Route 66.
The scenery includes the leaning water tower at Groom, the Cadillac Ranch, and the Dixie Truck Stop. The recommended (motorcycle) trip is east to west, but I note this is because it gets warmer, something that is not a big problem with the sidecar, which creates a comfy “bubble” of heat for the driver. Many riders like to ditch heavy clothing or mail it home as they progress. I’m thinking, therefore, the opposite direction would mean less traffic and I could sprint home from Chicago.
This is pure conjecture. Such a trip would run me $4,000 minimum just for the logistics. Yet, it remains near the top of my bucket list. While there are societies to promote the journey, they vary in quality and utility, though you might like this one. Three hundred miles is a full day on the sidecar, so the trip of just over 2,000 miles on Route 66 should be at least two weeks (one-way). Add Chicago from here, another 1,400 miles and LA is another 2,700 miles. That’s 6,100 miles by motorcycle.
To any new readers, epic trips of this nature are nothing unusual in this blog. These are motorcycle rides, a completely different and exhilarating experience that is impossible to duplicate by car. My personal estimate is that a mile of motorcycle travel by side road is worth more than four or five miles cooped up on the freeway. Now listen when I say that, I may be uniquely qualified to be the judge. I have NEVER seen another sidecar on the back roads in my years of travel. And the few blogs on the topic are “motorcycle” stories, not real tales from the trailer court. Last month’s ride to Cape Canaveral via Winter Haven was 509 miles, a mere weekday jaunt.
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