October 9, 2014

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 9, 2013, camper pod pic.
Five years ago today: October 9, 2009, cameras everywhere, hmmm.
Ten years ago today: temporarily suspended, I will notify you.

MORNING
           Nearby you should see a photo of the water-repellent coating. This was not to see if it shuns water, because it does that very well. Rather this is to test if the material is transparent enough to use on my scooter dash window. The answer is no, see the cloudy strip along the bottom. The product says it is not clear, I was hoping might have been clearer than the crummy plastic. Nope. The upper part is coated with Vapo-Rub, so it looks clear.

           Nothing happens around here at 5:30AM, it’s a great time to get the day’s chores done. Finally, AMC is on for another special showing of the remake of “From Here To Eternity” (uncensored). Drop back this evening or tomorrow to see if I made it. The sidecar is going in for the new rear tire in a few hours. Now we know, it costs almost precisely 3.6¢ per mile in rubber to operate the Honda. I get around 5,500 per tire.
           There are two other significant costs. Around 7.9¢ per mile in gasoline and 4.9¢ in maintenance costs, normally from keeping those four carburetor needles working right. There are no real fixed costs, just the now documented 16.4¢ per mile. A thousand miles = $164.00, easily verified by reports published elsewhere in this blog.
           The impossibility of getting a factual figure for cars makes this difficult to compare. For example, the official report that says cars get 35 mpg is patently false. No way I believe that. My motorcycle, in actuality, gets 33 mpg. I know my Cadillac, once totally depreciated, cost 55¢ per mile, otherwise almost twice that at $1.09 per mile total cost of travel. Over the years I owned it, I spent $400 (1% of the new cost) having it towed for repairs. The sidecar is a bargain mainly because the enjoyment cannot be measured.
           The sad news for you people who cannot create a new folder in Windows 7 is that there is no easy fix. You have to edit and install inf files with keywords such as “ThreadingModel” and “Apartment”. There is probably no better demonstration that Windows is in its way out than atrocious problems like this. Very few “power users” should be making changes to the system registry, but that’s how it is done. The workaround is to go into Documents, right-click, and create the new folder there, then drag it to where you want.

NOON

           This is the outside of JZ’s apartment. That’s where I’m heading tomorrow. He’s back working at the sandwich place. That’s how many time’s he quit now? Six? As for me, I took the Honda in for the new tire, walked home, made chicken stew, and spent three hours unclogging a computer. That’s a full day around here.
           The new book is keeping me up late. The hero, Coy, finally does the wild thing with Tanger. Took him 298 pages and all his money, but he still rates it a score. Should time permit, I’ll try to quote you some of the more flowery passages of what amounts to him dropping her knickers.

NIGHT
           I got over to see Tim Rice’s “From Here To Eternity”, the remake due for release in 2015. It surprised me in many ways, first of all that it was a musical. I’ve never seen the 1952 version in black & white, but it must have been rather toned down compared to what I saw tonight. My phone kept buzzing so I had to leave after the first hour. But that was already plenty.

           It is a rendition of the seamy side of army life, particularly if you land in an outfit of seamy types. It is concerned mainly with men who drink and gamble, horrid looking whores, and the commanding officer’s wife screwing the enlisted men because the husband gave her gonorrhea, just to mention a few of the things you did not mention in 1952.
           The story was written for its shock effect, kind of an anti-plot of the gooey government treatement of war movies, see “The Tail Gunner”. I’m not a patron of musicals because, quite frankly, you never meet any women there. But the production and choreography are very slick, I think it was filmed in England.
           War time trivia. The penalty for sleeping with the wife of an officer is 30 years in the brig. Just the man who cheats, not the wife. She moves on to the next enlisted man. It is equality like this that makes army life so wonderful.