One year ago today: August 1, 2014, Russian candy?
Five years ago today: August 1, 2010, small town experts.
Six years ago today: August 1, 2009, my old house.
MORNING
Here’s a photo of JZ at the War Memorial in Deland a couple of months ago. The connection with today is that we have now made four major trips to the interior in eight weeks. And due to those learning experiences, we are scheduled to meet early next week to finalize plans toward taking advantage of what we’ve learned. What began as a trip to take Peggy to dinner and an inaugural trip for the new truck has progressed to the point where we know, sooner or later, we will nab ourselves an auction house.
I watched old documentaries, this time the US amphibious landings in the Pacific. I never could figure out why, like at Okinawa, they insisted on attacking Japanese strongpoints. There was no chance of the Japanese being resupplied, so just dig in and wait them out.
Every commentator made a snarky comment about how German civilians denied personal responsibility for the nearby death camps. I don’t see what is so surprising about that. I can think of dozens of terrible things that an over-powerful and unrepresentative central government can do that is none of my fault. Some of you need only walk out your door and look around to see the same. Those things are not my responsibility because I could be punished for trying to undo them.
As one man observe, the cheering crowds the United States on the last day of the war so closely resembled the crowds on the first day of the war.
A bit later I read that, in fact, the Stamp 2 on-line tutorials and assistance had been canceled a while ago. I’m certain I can still program the thing, but make sure you look before you leap. These boards, now unsupported, are being sold for $90 a pop on eBay.
NOON
The only positive so far today was I figured out how to repair my dimple punch. Or whatever they are called. Hey, they now cost $20. Nobody could say how it works because my old model was no finely machined, there were no seams. By chance, I found the shaft is made of two right-hand threads. I took it apart, found no apparent damage, and put it back together. Now it works fine.
The tool is the brass-colored object I’m pointing at. You can see the damage done to the barrel by the vice-grips I used, but a few flattened knurls is easier to live with than the price tag on a new unit. There is a little pellet inside that rams forward onto the pointed pin shaft, making a dimple where you want your drill bit to bite.
Noon found me at Starbucks with one of their $2.07 regular coffees. And some noisy jerk at the end of the table obviously looking for somebody to impress, but it was not working on me. He talked loud enough that the room knows his theory that every memory or thought is a mixture of five components. And you know what they are? Sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. Actually, I could agree up to the point that it is probably impossible to prove otherwise. Add that to how unimaginative people and uninventive people can’t organize thoughts into new arrangements, and he might have something.
But I draw the line at saying all memories at every level in every person. It is plain to me that original thought must exhibit a sixth sense. I can’t specify it but it is so distinct that we all know it when such a person is in the room. The guy was getting louder by the time I finally left. I don’t need a repeat of the obnoxious assholes I grew up with.
Then over to Home Depot, where it is evident a change has come over my shopping habits. Before, where I looked for bargains and substitutes, I regularly find myself shopping for quality. And like looking for a good woman, beware of imitations. And be prepared for all the unhappily married men to tell you are so dumb you must be repeatedly looking in the wrong aisle. Like they did.
EVENING
Last day, I drew up a diagram of what the drilling template must look like. Then I glued copies onto every type of material I had on hand that might work. All of them splintered, wobbled, or chipped where they shouldn’t. I am going to try a very high drill speed but this does not look good. This development will not affect my intention to build the drill table. Drilling one million holes will generate five large garbage bags of sawdust.
It’s Saturday, so I did what older men do on Saturday. I went to the local bar where fewer old ladies hang out. But why did I choose Wiley Street, where the barmaid gets arrested as often as the clientele? Proximity? I do currently reside in a trailer court, so it is the nearest club. I decided to clear out of there and head over to the old bar up on Dixie where I used to stop after bingo.
I was there for 90 minutes, more than enough time to notice that every person who sand Karaoke sang exactly the same songs as they did when I first began singing back in 2009. That is the difference, folks, between a musician and an entertainer. You could name what songs were next if you knew who the singer was. With one exception.
As luck would have it, the big table at stage-side was full of local housewives on lady’s night out. Now, although I don’t do housewives, that is my target audience. Did I bring down the house with Travis Tritt and Alan Jackson. Geez, gals, when I ask the audience to “help me out”, don’t take it so seriously. As in get off my stage already.
Who did I run into but Brenda, the Karaoke from Jimbos. So I got all the gossip, including the list of characters who have died without notice since last December. The fancy furniture place that was supposed to take over those premises went belly-up. I was going to say “folded”, get it, pun, but I won’t. Anyway, it is vacant and for rent.
I don’t really go to Karaoke in isolation, I had my notebook and ruler along. So I don’t remember the gossip except there was a lot of cheating and apparently a lot of people my own age having sex with others they don’t even like. That, folks, is why I don’t pick up women in bars. Even if the barmaid over there was, shall we say, over-impressed with my singing. I don’t do tattooed barmaids, either.
I used the time to design a better coupling on the drill table shaft—and why not? The local bar is like going to a company banquet. You already know every woman in the place, the lengthy list of who she slept with in the past six months, what was wrong with her, and why not to touch her with even the handiest of ten-foot poles. Not one winner in the lot.
ADDENDUM
There is something I’ll add on the topic of the noisy customer at Starbucks. What constitutes a computer “power user”? Many things, but I would not bestow anyone such a lofty title until I learn how many reams of printer paper they use each year. (Myself, it is two and a half. That is, in this day and age, I print an average of 1,250 documents annually.) Anything less than one ream, I’d probably consider such a person as somewhat illiterate. Reading without writing is hardly a productive activity.
For the record, I refer to the number of pages printed. This includes letters, documents, diagrams, templates, schematics, and technical material conceived by me. Around 200 pages per month or 50 per week. This number would NOT include, say, printing up a 40-page user’s manual, or the user’s guide to the Stamp 2, nor any other material that I did not put personal brainpower into crafting.
As for “creativity” on a computer screen, I’d like to see the application that is better than paper for innovation. No, not for fancy printouts, but for originality. I fill two scribblers of hand-written material per year that rarely gets any attention. I rarely-to-never travel or even leave the house without a scribbler and a pencil case. And they get well-used every day, see photo. I use a pencil, because I make mistakes. So even if some match me in printed document volume, there would remain issues of depth, quality, and level of involvement.
So, no, one cannot just click on “1,000 copies” and say you done the same.
Last Laugh
Only because it is Saturday, gang . . .
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