October 16, 2014

MORNING
           The Honda is back, running fine. I have to admit it is getting near the end of its days. A couple more runs and time for the scrap heap. Parts are impossible to get. JZ called and asked about a motorcycle to make his deliveries. Right now he uses his truck and that is expensive. However, while not wild and crazy, he is an incautious driver and I advised him against any type of two-wheeler. Nor do I like Miami traffic, where you are free to practice the driving habits of your country or origin.

           Most people agree, it is impossible to get your photos back off Facebook. But not if you get enough lawyers. Michael Brown is the black man who got shot while attacking a policeman. Brown had just robbed a convenience store and posted his picture with gun in hand.

           His family, opting for the “Trayvon” angle that he was a child, actually got the picture removed. Further deletions were other were photos depicting his gang membership. Here’s the missing photo of “junior” with the stolen cash in his mouth.
           My new book, “Puerto Vallarta Squeeze”, is turning out to be a good read. The plot is heavily worn, the ex-Marine loose cannon sniper goes freelance and offs the wrong honcho. Yet the story remains plausible. But the computerized world is putting the knell on storylines that have these types continually crossing international borders. We need a new breed of cyber-assassin, one who really knows his identity theft. And how come nobody has pulled the first billion-dollar heist yet? Or have they and nobody’s talking?

NOON
           The aging Honda is still a thoroughbred clean through. A quick tour of the town brought the usual attention. It was a struggle to park it and head inside to conserve cash. I may operate at a surplus but there is no such thing as unlimited cash, unless you are a politician who plans to duck out before the implosion. That means I sunk a lot of my travel funds into maintenance, which abbreviates any trip I may take.

           I took the afternoon off to review my grade-school geometry, particularly trigonometry. As long as you learned the basics, it seems all the chores are manageable, they just get ever more complicated. Example, this GP (geographic position) which I’ve come to call the “ground point” is the one spot on the Earth that the sun is directly above at any given moment. Like the north pole, it can be as tiny a spot as you care to make it.

           It took me a while to realize latitude is nothing more than the adjacent angle of the triangle formed by your position and this GP. And how vulnerable the world is when the US shuts down the navigational satellites except for it's own coded uses. Navigationally speaking, I still could not hit the side of the celestial barn.
           Don’t be viewing this as a simple late-in-the-day revelation. It is a mindbender, a kind of thought experiment that combines cartography and the vertices of what is a two-dimensional right-angle triangle. Try visualizing that. There is a big triangle, the one between the pole and the GP, and a smaller one that is between your position and the GP. All you have to do (ha-ha) is calculate the point they have in common.
           The Internet is not much help. The “free” sites are dominated by Google, who, ahem, want your latitude and longitude first. Then National Geographic sites that are so screwball it can be difficult to figure out what in hell they are doing. And dozens of offerings targeted at selling blank maps to schools, who use them for nothing but coloring books.
           But seriously, what I did come away from the study with was a useful reminder on how to bisect isosceles triangles that are “hinged” together on one of the longer sides. Pass the crayons.

NIGHT
           Do I take a trip or invest in the MIG (metal inert gas) welder? That’s easy, I take the trip. My remaining budget does not allow the coveted trip to the Smithsonian, but I now have a list of 56 places that claim to serve the best pecan pie. You could always help me out by offering some ideas here. I loved that trip to Savannah last year, where I’d planned ten days and came back in five because I’d done everything there was to do.

           Every museum, fort, coffee house, Karaoke, club, and live theatre, I was there. Memphis, a few months later, was actually more fun. In Savannah, I still had not conceived of the cPod camper. Now I know, you don’t know sweet about traveling as long as you still think in terms of hotels. “Hospitality” industry, my eye.

           I’ll consider any suggestion, for example, I’ve been in Valdosta three times and have no idea about the city. I still don’t know the Florida gulf coast. But you can rule out the Keys and Orlando. Very ho-hum places, really.
           My leaning at this point is I’ve always liked touring old houses and I’ve never seen an original plantation mansion. New Orleans and those others were all restorals. I’d like to see the real deal. This is Redcliffe, too far away for this season, but a good example of what I would enjoy. It first sold in 1855 for a whopping $3,500 in cash.
           Oddly, if inflation were the only thing weakening the dollar, this works out to a piddling $94,600 in 2014 money. The reality is you multiply that by 20, or about $1.8 million. It has ten rooms per floor, the kitchen is in the basement, and indoor plumbing was installed in the 1930s.
           Keep dropping back. I have a life-long predilection for not spending my birthdays "at home".

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