October 17, 2014

MORNING
           Here’s a picture just to keep you interested. I’m still waiting for the opportunity to get out of town for a few days. This photo and many more of truly attention-grabbing nature can be found at a site I know very little about. Called Masalatime, it is worth a look. Whoever it is, he’s doing a great job of sifting out the normal quota of BS you get on most picture sites.

           Yep, I have insomnia. And last evening I used it to go over some of the more mysterious tables in the Almanac. I can now adjust for air temperature and pressure distortions on the sextant readings. I notice each correction I learn at this stage becomes less significant. I make no claim to be a navigator, but on paper, I’m as accurate as possible from the tables.
           pIn addition, the Almanac contains a warning I’ve not seen in other books. On purchase, it is recommended that the entire volume be checked to insure the pages are in the right order. This does not affect me much, as I always read page numbers in the course of my studies. I still cannot decipher the eclipse diagrams. I’m working on the planets which I have not watched much since I left the prairies in 1999.
           Here is a link to view the world’s largest restroom. This is also the site where you can send in pictures of the urinals that impress you in your travels. Don’t ever say the Internet lacks dumb appeal.

NOON
           The parts store sent the wrong brake pads. Guys, that's a ’78, not an ’88. How many times I gotta tell you? This doesn’t change my plans since I’m not down metal-to-metal, but if towing a camper will burn car brakes, I’ll conclude they do the same to the BatBike. I designed as best I could which does not make me a structural engineer, and I can feel the difference when that heavy (around sixty pounds) marine battery is installed.

           While waiting for nothing, I nipped across the road to Wendy’s for chili and worked out, in two hours, the very best positional navigation yet, coming within 3 nautical miles of my actual position. Without somebody to work with, I have no way of knowing if this was a fluke.
           And no hope, either. Trying to find someone to practice celestial navigation probably surpasses finding a woman who can sing and dance. It ain’t gonna happen in Hollywood, Florida. Like my family, these people don’t understand why anybody would want to do something complicated without getting paid first. It's never happened to them yet, but that's how they feel about it.
           There should be a graphic here of a coastal chart, now that I know a map from a chart. This depicts the area on the New River where my sidecar went on its only ferry ride so far. That was up near Jacksonville. I have not delved into coastal navigation yet but it seems like a logical next step. There are two items that surprised me. One is the accuracy of the land features and two, it shows roads better than the GPS display. And the more I learn about GPS, the more I distrust it if anything, even one little thing, ever goes wrong.
           Congratulations are in order, as 3 nautical miles is a triumph. Do I pursue it or take the known break that refreshes whenever something like this goes right? Is navigation important? Remember the tale how Captain Cook traded steel axes for Hawaiian stone axes. When he returned twenty years later, nobody was left alive who knew how to make stone axes. GPS, you say?

NIGHT

           I’m not the one to be preaching about amazing episodes, but why not contemplate this one? I got talked into helping set up the Karaoke show at the old club. Good thing I showed, if I must say so myself. They could not thank me enough. That’s for sure. As soon as the show was underway, I headed toward home in the unseasonal chill. I pulled over at Triple B to put on my jacket. And I bumped into this couple, Staci and JP, no connection to my buddy JP.
           Well, floor me or what. This couple from Denton, TX, and say they met me in 1972. I’m drawing blanks because I was only in that town once for a couple hours to pick up a guitar. But they knew the name of my guitar player and details about me I’d forgotten. They knew the town where my mother was born (which no longer exists), that I had taught algebra with the school board, which is where I met the guitarist. They even knew my college nickname and say they recognized me right away. I never talked about this to anyone, so they must be for real. They even remembered I had a bad cold at the time.

ADDENDUM

           You know what grinds my gears? People who try to play the cool rational conciliator when it is not called for. They are now trying to appease ebola debate. It is okay to see both sides of the story but only insofar as one is still able to recognize right from wrong. It is not “taking sides” to rule against some bastard who acts in bad faith. But too many people these days are milking the peacemaker role.
           That is, they try to play the mediator even when one party is undeniably in the wrong. Thus, that party will quickly learn to repeat the evil knowing the worst that can happen is they will come away with something gained at their victim’s expense. In this case, they gain freedom for people--freedom to import a deadly virus. The wonderful “referee” is more concerned with his reputation of being “fair to both parties” than into seeing justice.
           What’s this all about? Well, these are the type of appeasers in the news every day now assuring and re-assuring us that there is no danger from ebola. None whatsoever. There is no need to cordon off Africa until this thing burns itself out or so they say. From these clown’s point of view, it doesn’t matter if an epidemic kills eight million, as long as they get their Nobel peace prize.

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