August 13, 2015

Yesteryear
One year ago today: August 13, 2014, remember Melilla?
Five years ago today: August 13, 2010, remember Steve Slater?
Six years ago today: August 13, 2009, remember the Red Devil?

MORNING
           Club meeting at the café, we’ve decided on a shopping trip up to North Palm and this time we have $190 budget. Inadequate as that location is for robot supplies, it is still the best and cheapest in south Florida. We still have to custom manufacture most of what we need. The upside of that is if the other club doesn’t grumble over this, then they are building kits or something. Think Nova.

           We are also better at scrounging. Here are some patch cables from the Catholic church up the road. The story on this is they seem to have the best of everything and find it too cumbersome to sell their discards on eBay. So they throw out excellent near-new items like this phono (1/4”) stereo plug ends. I’m hold $22 worth of plugs and whoever the blazes wired these up knew what he was doing.
           This morning’s meeting proves once again the ideal size of a robotic “think team” is two people. Three is pushing it, four constitutes a committee and at that point forget about results. Didn’t the Muslims say something about the ideal number of wives being four? I think that’s what they meant. Four people will never agree on anything.
           Agt. M has met a gal on-line, something I’ve become skeptical with. So we talked women, and here is part of what the Book of Proverbs has to say about a good woman, of whom very few are present in the entire Bible, even fewer in Broward County.

                      A man should not be enticed by an evil woman’s beauty.
                      A man should never tamper with his neighbor’s wife.
                      A man should never waste his substance on a harlot.
                      Glamorous, foolish women are empty-headed.
                      Gracious women retain their honor.
                      Wise women build substantial homes
                      Foolish women destroy a home.
                      Brawling women are not easy to live with.
                      Angry women are never good company.
                      Adulterous women can be self-righteous.
                      Odious women ruin the peace of a home.
                      Loose women are like snares and nets.
                      A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.

           I would also extend the second to include his ex-wife as well. I laugh when I hear the news of trouble with the ex-husband and the new boyfriend. Now you gals don’t be asking for good husbands either unless you have something like the above list to offer in return. Because everything and anything else you got is nothing more than an added bonus. I meet lots of women who are husband-hunting that don’t know how to peel a potato.
           Want to keep things going with your former life after meeting the new guy, ladies? That’s a fine idea as long as you own a lot of cats. Take my advice, Tootsie, the new relationship means break it off with the old one(s), and that includes your mother. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to dump a new girlfriend over this, but it comes in somewhere in the top ten.
           My favorite was the one who wanted me to wait out in the car with the heater running to go to the dinner I had made reservations for a month earlier because her mother had called just as we were heading out the door. I hope the two of them are very happy with that arrangement, because I never thought about it as I pulled out of the driveway and went to dinner myself that night. She wisely never called for an explanation.

NOON
           Imagine driving down the road when suddenly a camera-equipped drone drops out of the sky and checks you out at 20 mph. Pretty creepy and a lot of people would crap their drawers. Myself, I recognize it as just my neighbor clowning around. The camera is slung on a gimbal slung below the body, you can see it if you look closely. Note the typical Florida summer afternoon overcast.

           To those who think Trumps border policy is radical, time for you to watch some newscasts of what is happening in southern Italy. You don’t have to speak Italian to see what is going on. The Italians have elected a hard-liner who doesn’t call them migrants, he calls the invaders. It seems the illegals don’t think their welfare checks are big enough to live the Italian dream. Back home, I’m glad to see Trump is sharpening up his axe for the detractors who are taking cheap shots at him.
           As I said, he is running for president, but the other candidates are not running for anything except against Trump. Don’t you love the ones who say all the people who like Trump will “get over it” and that Trump’s following won’t endure? Wishful thinking on their part. Unless there is a Martian invasion, Trump is the next president, folks. America is fed up with career politicians.
           And I mean that, because the only people with squeaky clean political backgrounds are those whose family were in the trade, and coach them from birth what not to do. It is evident from the Fox moderators who attack Trump that they can’t fathom why he is popular even with a checkered and controversial background that would flatten the campaign of the other nobody candidates.
           While you are at it, watch Europe or Die, so you will know it is not just the Americans having this third world problem. Watch the video, but you can ignore the commentator. She is a thoroughly indoctrinated Millennial obviously raised in luxury far from any problem border. She thinks European human rights conventions apply to illegals, much like our own Liberals think our rights apply to those who abuse them.
           Our laws were never intended to give away our rights to criminals, but methinks there just as many ignorant citizens in Europe as we’ve got here. It’s easy to play the Good Samaritan when you can get in your BMW and haul ass back to the country club. She is keen on saying Spain is “breaking international law” by pushing immigrants back across the border, but seems to be okay with immigrants breaking international law by flooding the other way.
           Incidentally, I agree with the legal definition of racism. You cannot claim anything is racist unless you are an African-American direct descendent of a slave. No other ethnic groups have any right to play the race card. That includes the Cubans, Muslims, and the Jews. Even a white man cannot technically call another white man a racist. Because racism is an American legal term that applies only to blacks whose ancestors were slaves in the USA.
           There, how’s that for a daily dose of controversy.

NIGHT
           See this winch? That’s part of my planned new business. Except it is not a business and I didn’t say it was. It looks like the winch from a tow trailer, but we don’t say “tow” because that requires a separate license. We say “delivery service”. My total risk is around $400 out-of-pocket, so it is worth a try. There are a few other requirements, but all involve under-utilized equipment I have lying around.

           Yep, I think Trump, if he has not hired any writers, is certainly more refined in making a point. Send the Kuwaitis the bill, he says. But then to say the money will go to veterans, hmmm, that’s a fine selling point. And before anyone disapproves of my stance on immigration, ask if they have as much experience as I do with people who find it easier to accuse hard workers with “lack of charity” than to go out and work for their own things. I know all there is to know about people who will not work, but would lie in wait to watch what you accomplish, and then demand an equal share.
           Like the illegal immigrants in Greece complaining that the standards of free health care they receive is not as “substantive” as what Greek citizens enjoy. We have the same trouble in the USA, but we are used to it by now. People jumping our borders and claiming levels of service and protection under laws that were meant for our own people.
           I further tend to agree with the militant view that people should not be jumping fences to get freedom, they should be fighting for it back where they come from. However, I understand that the US government does shore up a lot of questionable regimes. To that I ask if they would maybe prefer to have the Russians or the Chinese up their asses instead? Anyway, my attitude is not politically-based, rather that I view freedom as just another brand of property they have found it easier to steal than earn.
           On one hand they call us a decadent western culture, on the other hand, they are desperate to pilfer everything you’ve got plus your any ability you possess to create it. Once again, I have considerable familiarity with people who think everything you own must have been stolen from them and they want it back. Even if they lacked the intelligence, culture, or wherewithal to even recognize it for centuries until you came along and made it work, they want it back. With interest.
           I’ll repeat what is becoming my mantra about greed: “They don’t want their own bicycle. They want yours.”

ADDENDUM
           Interesting. I received a generic notice that ATM cards can no longer be used for purchases. That is, you cannot use them as a credit card, which indicates some people are actually dumb enough to do so. We are to suppose this change has some basis in banks protecting themselves, because I have always withdrawn cash only and then spent the cash. Still, I get the feeling there is more to it.

           Here is a picture of y’day’s bottom of the tar can, rusted through. I caught it in time and covered the hole with a patch of cardboard. While we are talking patches, the inside patch of the old motorcycle tire is proving a challenge. Or I should stipulate the glue is the concern. It must remain flexible in hot or cold weather, never get brittle with age, and thin enough to keep the tire round. Easier said than done.
           And enough tests with elastic bands, fish line, and leather show that for a flat (non-geared) drive system, the best material appears to be old round-wounds. For the outsiders, that’s one of the bigger guitar strings that has a solid core, but a smaller wire wound continuously around it. Good traction. I know, because I just lost a big bag of them when somebody else thought they were trash.


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