January 18, 2015

MORNING
           Not again! After I located the battery beep from the stopwatch, I’m hearing another. It’s sedition, I tell you. Two beeps explains the time it took to pinpoint the first. There is only one solution, which is brunch at Senor Café. One beep, I can handle, two is enough, three must be akin to working next to the guy who smacks his gum. Not to leave you hanging, I can tell you the best sound in the world and it ain’t gentle rain. It’s applause. As Dave Barry might say it, once you have squeezed the tube of audience appeal and released the toothpaste of acclaim, there is to be no putting it back.

           The photo? That’s just me making ¼ inch plywood. And proof that you can never quite own enough clamps or vice grips. I’ve learned lots of shop tricks, such as the true use of the sports section. It’s for catching indoor glue and paint overspray. Then, carefully fold the sheets up while still wet, in case some jock in desperation needs the final Minnesota-Milwaukee score. Addiction at its worst and far more fun to watch. Than golf, anyway.

           I have not forgotten food, even if I don’t get much of my favorites any more. Here’s another hint from the farm I never grew up on. I don’t think anyone who has his youth wasted on unpaid manual labor ever grows up on a farm. That has to wait until the farm is long gone. Anyway, if you are going to core apples, make sure you peel them first. Or around half of them will collapse on you.
           This relates to last day when I had the photo of all the apples, (Jan. 9), I was kidding. I happen to know there are thousands of brands of apple. Some call them cooking or eating, you can do either. I also know that legend of Johnny Applesee planting all the MacInstosh apple trees is fake. If you plant apple seeds, the tree that grows will not be the same as whence it came. Because identical apple trees are grown from clippings, not seeds.

NOON
           That was the lovely Alaine on the phone, the hubby is having a SuperBowl party. This might be the one time in my life I actually watch a sports game, so I’m in. Last time, oh, five years ago, I watched about half the game. But one has to be bonkers to miss one of Alaine’s parties. That means count me in. Meanwhile, I’m reading the Madding Crowd book. I still can’t figure out the point of the book, but the writing “sure is purdy”.

           The neighbor’s new toy is a recumbent bicycle. He likes to tell how he can peddle all day in comfort, but so can I on my big bike. I’ve never had a problem with comfort. But I do have an instinctive fear of recumbents. Sooner or later, you are going to have to cross a lane of traffic and nobody can see you. Call me ‘noid, but Florida leads the nation in bicycle deaths (they don’t count the impact of climate, tourists, and the fact people here can spend a lot more time outdoors). St. Pete’s installed 32 bike crossings but quit when it was costing $20,000 apiece (they don’t count the impact of contractor kickbacks).

           This is not going to fascinate most of you, but the afternoon was sunk into deep research on gears. Wood turned out to be a great material for examining the manufacture and operation of gears. Let’s not forget just two years ago, one of our greatest obstacles was gear mechanisms. The gears, cogs, and sprockets so far all reveal an inescapable defect. That all gears are constantly wearing away to a far greater extent than seems logical.
           I’ve built the slowest gears where each contact point was hand-made and sanded to perfection. Don’t take this lightly, we examined videos of how Swiss watch makers tested their bearings. I polished every cut myself, careful to allow for the bias of the saw blades that created the notches. It now makes sense to me why auto transmissions are in a bed of fluid. Don’t tell me that’s obvious because that’s not what I meant. The liquid is also a coolant and a sound dampener. Gears are noisy.
           This may sound elementary to mechanics, but I have not found any mechanic blogs to compare to our rate of progress. One thing I will say, mind you, is that most of what I’ve learned about building things would probably not have been feasible without the Internet. I’ve criticized how bad some of the sources are, but like any other field, a separate skill is required to interpret anything meaningful from the mass of quasi-information out there.

NIGHT
           Rehearsal was complicated and tiring tonight. This is a positive as we knuckled down to learn the bass progressions that are a crucial element in our act. We got heavily into note-by-note bass lines that rival the best I’ve ever written. But nobody cracked under the pressure and our policy of learning three songs at a time keeps us confined and on track. We can always back off later and play simpler arrangements. The best news is only dedicated people will work this hard.

           Afterward, we raided Jimbos II, where all the barflies embarrassed themselves trying to pick up the maid, a spritely Boston gal. Some tattooed limp-wrist was hitting on her and claiming he lost two bucks in the jukebox. Which I had to reset again. It’s a fried shunt capacitor on the hard drive. I doubt anyone has called the company. That’s what reminded me of my meal tag from Wendy’s, shown nearby.

           No, not the chili and potato, the number. See it? It says number one. And being number one works for me. Anyway, we didn’t stick around long. It was all around us a smoking crowd, not a drinking bunch. We got to talking about how much better things are in Texas. Yep, while I would not foment insurrection, but if it happened in Texas, well, you know. It’s as much a matter of expediency as patriotism. Although not apparent to marginal political candidates and other dorks, Texas is always on the winning side.
           And one more thing about the duo, the reason for the songs in groups of three is because of coffeehouses. The usual limit is two songs, so did we play one or three? Yes, this is banking on the intelligence of the average coffeehouse open mic host. So we should be okay. We are targeting the establishments in central and north Ft. Lauderdale, since you never know who you will meet in those places.

ADDENDUM
           Last eve, we finally wound up going for coffee until 2:30AM. We had some complicated robotics issues to cover. The same old conversation came up about Internet service, that I am still waiting for somebody to answer my question, “Can you show me the way to connect this entire service start to finish and fix whatever goes wrong along the way?” I’ve offered to pay people for that, but I can’t even find anyone who understands the question.
           Oddly, I’ve probably made 800 of these connections in my life. That’s taking the modem/router out of the box, connecting it to the computer and setting all the parameters to make it work. Around a quarter of the time, despite following instructions and doing the exact same steps, the thing would not work. A ratio of about 1:4 would not function. The only solution I found was to re-enter or redo the steps over and over until one time, it would magically kickstart. I need to know why identical steps sometimes worked and sometimes did not.

           And all I get are endless lectures on the theory of how it works. Screw that, I know the theory. Tell me what’s wrong when it won’t work. Haven’t met anyone in my life who can do that. I’ve even had people insist I’m asking the wrong question, although they are consistently the same people who try giving me the wrong answer—I’ve had that happen a lot. I have the same problem with differential equations. I know exactly what they look like and can go through the motions, but can’t find anyone who can explain how to “solve” them in a way I can understand.

           The reason for this old and repeated topic was once again, getting wireless routers to talk to each other. I have seen it done but didn’t learn the method. So there’s another question nobody seems to be able to answer, “How come two routers can’t communicate with each other.” Most say they can’t, but I’ve seen it. Bert, at the phone company used to take brand new and identical Linksys wireless routers and daisy chain them into his own private network at both ends of the building.
           He always comes to mind because the same problem would happen to him. Around 25% of the time, the setup would not cooperate. But he knew exactly how to fix each problem on the spot. That’s the question I’m asking. Bert could not explain how he did it, but the point is he did it. Therefore, somebody, somewhere with some teaching skills must also know. And all I meet are the ones who don’t. It can be maddening.
           You can recreate this same scenario by following any set of highly-available Internet instructions on the topic. You'll see--the instant anything goes WRONG (did you get that word you deaf-as-a-post so-called experts, the word is: WRONG), suddenly you're stuck. Then presto. No experts left in the entire vicinity.
           The only thing we decided on was a store-bought belt sander. Look for that in early February.

           Author’s note: I know the router connection has to do with giving the routers the same SSID and designating one as the master. I’ve done it, but only by chance. What I want is someone to show me step by step what to do when it just will not operate. Instead, you get lots of instructions on how it works, not about when it does not. I know that seems backwards, but that is, in this instance, the question being asked. Experience tells me I just lost all the “experts”.


Last Laugh
Time to hook up your own routers?

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