MORNING
Temp 69.5°, pressure 30.5”, humid 84%, and I’m headed for the bakery. I was going to buy stamps, but the Hollywood post office closes early on Saturdays because there is not enough business on Saturdays because the post office closes early on Saturdays. Here is a photo of me carrying a folded up newspaper onto my porch. You like that, do ya?
It is too expensive to coat every plate, as we are using surplus fingernail polish. My favorites are summer neutrals, maybe “beach bum blu” or “serial shopper”, although “play date” and “under where” work well. In a pinch, try “jamaica me crazy” or “meet me at sunset”. We tried lacquer and polyeurethane, but they don’t dry fast and hard and cost even more.
Author's note: that is unclear so I will explain. What I'm saying is we buy the polish from the weekend swap meet where they have buckets of the stuff on sale. No, there is not a surplus of fingernail polish in my house. But I wish there was, sigh.
There it is again. When the Canucks return, my electric bill goes up. In winter, when one does not use much air conditioning, it is supposed to go down. Yes, we’ve traced every inch of the wiring and there are no taps. One possible explanation is that I am an extremely efficient user of electricity, based on the premise that reading and writing have the highest productivity of anything I do, see addendum. Think about it, 99% of my writing requires electricity, something that just was not so merely twelve years ago. I don’t ration my electric, I use as much of it as I want without thinking of the cost. If it is a luxury, it is one I make sure I can afford.
Note that I was raised in quite a different situation. When we finally did get electricity, there was constant bickering over the thermostat settings, water temperature, and leaving a light on when you left the room could mean a world of hurt. I’m the opposite, I love my hot showers, cool fans, iced tea, hot coffee, flameless heat, and power tools. I learned long ago the difference between penny-pinching stinginess and comfortable living is, electric-wise, ten or fifteen bucks a month. Tops.
Check back later, as I’m going to try to scroll saw what are basically meccano set pieces upsized 215% on Corel Draw. We also have a template for cutting wooden gears, but I’m not ready for that. Nor do I know anything about gears except how to calculate the ratios on paper. A day off to build robot parts, that is what retirement is all about. It must be winter, I put the coffee on. Come on over, my horoscope says a surprise visit is due.
NOON
So, my horoscope lied. I wound up drinking the whole pot of coffee myself. I feel just fine. We are also investigating the use of old pill bottles as insulators, fuse holders, and waterproof coverings for wire joints. If you’d come over, I’d have put you to work right away. I didn’t tell you but there is very little social visiting around here. It’s robots, computers, music, or motorcycle work mainly. But most of the time, something will be learned. People who gossip a lot should try it sometime.
I kind of made this gear assembly as I studied the theory about contact points and why at any given point, at least one tooth has to be engaged. That is, it cannot release its “grip” until the next tooth is making contact. (That is what is meant by “involute”.) Depth is also important, I had no accurate way to measure this dimension, so I used a printout, shown here. The result is the gear jams slightly on turns that are multiples of 7 and 20. But sure it works, here, give it a try.
This is another case of I could pass the exam, but I can’t build a simple working model. I disappoint myself where I should be thinking this is much further than I ever got building things before. You know I don’t buy into that crazy talk about self-taught. I would much rather have gone to school and learned the trade proper. But my college education was not driven by a search for knowledge, rather the desperate need to get a better job.
NIGHT
Speaking of college, Obamas out to buy the student vote this time. Free college for those with a piddling GPA of only 2.5 and up. That’s the rating of “dumb bastard” in my day. I know what you are thinking, but no, it isn’t for me. First, you must graduate from a high school in Florida, and second, college is no guarantee of a thing anymore. When they include trade schools, I’ll go for that. As for the education system (student loans) these days, it’s like the local gymnasium racket. Their plan is to sell you the biggest program they can and hope you never show up.
Author's note: I was unaware at time of writing the gunmen may be dead.
Did you see the statement issued by the terrorists? That when they are defending the Prophet, it is not murder. Interesting, that they have a prophet that requires defending. How will France react? Probably as they always have whenever they are attacked. Insert joke here. I can tell you what they won’t do—boot out the whole lot of them and start over again on a case by case basis.
Don’t laugh, we may live to see this happen in Germany. They have a lot of experience handling troublesome minorities, you know. And recently, too. Especially those minorities who claim to be German for the benefits are actually loyal to anti-German causes. Myself, I think those who let these hoodlums back into France should be held accountable. But I also think the USA has no business in the Middle East. We have enough oil if we use it right.
The media is trumpeting a successful 2014 with record job creation. Yep, 800 thousand minimum wage positions. Did you see that Orlando factory that advertised 200 positions with pay from $8.25 to $13.80. It seems 199 of the jobs were $8.25. Hey, they didn’t lie. So get out there and spend money and if you can’t do that, borrow some. Whoopie, happy days are here again.
ADDENDUM
I know a lot of people do not believe I learned to read in one instant, but it is true. From the Dick and Jane reader. Everybody remembers “Run, Spot, run”, but it was actually the cat that ran. Spot jumped, he never ran. Here is the exact page from the reader.
To me, writing is a projection of learning to speak, then to read, then to write, and I learned reading in the second grade. And I grasped it instantly, so I knew my mother was wrong to tell me bugle was pronounced “buggle” and robot was “row boat”. This sense of “wrongness” cannot be taught by imitation, ergo language is not a simple string of words. And that’s where I failed the sentence contruction test. My sentences do not convey a message of homey, chummy “see the doggie” type phrases that linguists feel are necessary.
My sources? Read Hunt’s “The Universe Within” and Pinker’s “The Language Instinct”. Or more like try to read them. You’ll see.
Unions work best when you are in one and everybody else isn't.
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