MORNING
And time to mention food, this is the mysterious mid-East flatbread. The shoe store guy brought some to the bakery, but quite frankly, it can’t compete. It is too much like a pita pizza without the things that are bad for you. To him, it’s like candy, so it must be standard fare in Lebanon. I wrote to Alaine asking what it was. Which reminds me, it’s her birthday. And I’ve got her favorite gift in the fridge.
This morning’s Herald had a report of a campus telling rape victims to not report to police. That it would have negative impact for them, their churches, the community, and the school. The paper concentrated on the feelings of the accusers while avoiding any comment on the validity of the impact part.
I spent six years of my life on campus and unless these women went to frat parties, I cannot see how they got attacked. But if they did do such a dumb thing, I cannot see how they didn’t. We had names for women that dated frats back then. A gang is a gang and frat boys are, by and large, alcoholic half-psycho brutes, at least until further notice. No, women who go to frat parties are not innocent babes-in-arms. NatLamp didn’t call it “Animal House” for nothing, gals.
This morning’s club meeting was LCDs, the liquid crystal displays and their programming. I can make them display anything they are capable of, but I cannot take an existing model attached to its own controller and override that. My guess is one would need to examine the EEPROM contents and that stumps me except for the Arduino. Come back in a few hours and we’ll be designing a display for the superbike. It has to happen today as this weekend Agt. M is leaving on a cruise around the Caribbean.
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Now, didn’t I tell the known universe that the stock Goldwing cable is too short by 7”? I’m no mechanic, but I can measure “real good”. You’d think those who have seen me measure the moon and the planets would take my word over a cable. Instead, this is now a major job with two trips back to the shop. Shown here is the back plate being removed to get at the clutch assembly. It does not just clip in like later Honda models.
According to country radio, the newest advice about office Xmas parties is to not post any photos on-line. Some people actually have to be told this. They also say sex is a no-no with “cubicle mates”. Duh, okay.
Trivia. According to TidBits, over your lifetime, you will shed forty pounds of skin cells. So quit calling it house dust and get out the lemon Pledge. I never could fathom why they didn’t make it coconut Pledge.
NOON
Ah, isn’t it nice to work with the right tools? Here is the shaping of the superbike (damn MicroSoft won’t let me spell that like I want to) control panel. The Harbor Frieght tools are proving a boon to the finer work, particularly the finishes seen on our newest work. It’s still short of elegant, but we are gaining on that. Most structural robot work is cutting, grinding, and drilling. And we are now superbly kitted out for it.
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Who remembers Kenny Rogers? Many of my contemporaries view him as a rock and roll turncoat who fell into country music. I can see it, I felt the same about country when I listened to it and only liked it once I began playing it. You might say I don’t even like country music fans with one exception. The sweet babes who look dynamite in a pair of blue jeans and cow boots. Mostly illusion and foundation garments, but I know what I like.
Once Rogers went country, I began to notice any country musicians who were really rockers. Top of the list has always been Toby Keith and one of his tunes, “Who’s Your Daddy” is now under the scope. It isn’t country, but it has some amazing chord progressions. So it’s a maybe.
Before I get ready to leave, the “Now I Know” by Dan Lewis has a lengthy article today on what he’d like to see in a library. He’s describing exactly what I proposed so long ago, a licensed premises that is mainly a coffee shop. Good thinking, but he’s on the wrong track. These places don’t work out because of the huge population base required to support a single such operation. Public libraries are funded by attendance and unfortunately a lot of very popular locations are nothing more than places people can hang out for free.
I’ve tooled with that same [private library] idea for a long time and consider the best hope for success is to not be an independent operation, but to piggy-back with some existing and compatible business. Like that front area at the foreign cinema last evening. A non-Starbucks atmosphere, but I stop short of free, there has to be some token admission to keep my famil… er, I mean, the rabble out.
NIGHT
The scooter trip back from Miami I describe as brisk. Actually colder than parts of my last trip to Utah. And unlike the batbike, the scooter does not have a windscreen. I was bundled up, like what? Like a grade two with an over-protective mother? And it bit right through my parka, but I’m a tough old bird with a hide this thick. It was an Xmas Mass at St. Judes. For the first time in 21 years, I saw a mariachi band.
They sang in the church, then the traditional parade behind the portrait of Guadalupe (that’s the wreath-trimmed object on the right wall). Into the hall where it took forever to find Alaine. See, she said she’d be relaxing for her birthday and instead volunteered to help. Of course, I can’t lecture anyone about relaxing, since my idea of relaxation is on a par with reading Korean dictionaries.
We did chat but she’s got that flu I had from the Maker Faire event. It zaps you every morning, letting up by mid-afternoon, week after week. I met some musicians and a couple of single ladies. I had to watch this band, however, because the bass guitar player was a pro. That’s the big boat (of a guitar) on the left. I don’t play bass guitar, I play electric bass.
Shows you how Americanized I am, can’t play music without electricity, but never even worry about it. This group had a great sound. That toy guitar shown here, a trumpeter, and the bass. He plucks the strings upward often playing two note chords. The guitar part is simple, a 4/4 measure, all down strokes. This makes most songs sound alike—something I abominate in my own music. But these guys had the right idea, by not all playing the same thing (in unison, like the Hippie does), they filled the room with sound.
We exchanged gifts, my favorite a jar of home-made pickles. Alaine, I believe, knows the people and when they make extra, what can I say? With an old kraut like me, there is no such thing as extra pickles. Or too many pickles, although it could be said there may be too many pickles without garlic. Why leave out the flavor, I ask? A hint of garlic keeps vampires away, and mosquitoes and women.
Tonight, we skip the Dupont Registry. Nothing in there can compete with my jar of pickles, anyway. Promise me the world, but give me a jar of German garlic dill pickles. Deal?
Today’s Togla Treat
No comment.
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