One year ago today: August 15, 2014, my band can’t learn!
Five years ago today: August 15, 2010, I fail at watching TV.
Six years ago today: August 15, 2009, okay, bingo is okay . . .
MORNING
An easy morning at the flea market, picked up $30 worth of junk for $2. There’s another difference in that I’m never, at any point, spending money I don’t got. It’s dumb to go shopping when you owe money on the phone, the electric, and have to buy gasoline on a credit card. Besides, it is indoors for me as the temperature by 9:00AM was 93F and the humidity 86%. You do not want to be in Florida today.
[Author's note 2016: this is a meaningless photo put here to replace a duplicate from August 14th. Usually I proofread a little better than that, so now I hope this new picture isn't yet another repeat.]
Once again, one of my projects steals the show. This time it was that adjustable “voltage divider”. I did not invent it in isolation, although I’ve never seen one before. It is the type of item used in textbooks as example problems, all I did was add a few features to make it more useful. Although the club is not exactly open to the public, anybody is allowed to bring in anything they built or repaired.
So I kind of knew I’d take first prize (free breakfast). When you get right down to it, people are often taken aback by the sheer number of articles that are repaired around my place. Take this plastic foot switch. You step on it to turn the electric. But who makes something you plant your foot on repeatedly out of an easily breakable material. Walmart, that’s who.
One of the first materials I learned to repair was plastic. The floor plate under this plastic switch was cracked. Now, as shown, it is replaced with rugged plywood and a couple of chromed screws with matching washers. Better than new. Here’s where I’d like to make a personal point. It is common for people who see handy repairs to presume that I grew up around people who repaired things and learned the trade. Wrong. Nobody back on the farm had anything or could do anything useful on this scale.
NOON
Short-term memory. Agt. M comes flying over to day with this birdcage. Wow, it is neat, etc. Ahem, was I not talking about building replicas of the Taj Mahal and the White House out of brass or coat hangers for the past 20 years? If you look closely, you can see a few of the pieces have been repaired with bamboo skewer sticks. They are a light tan color, not painted like rusty metal as shown here.
The frame was built on a jig and the curved pieces were made by boiling the bamboo in a pot like spagetti. Then bending it on another jig to dry into shape. Making this out of metal requires brazing, not poisonous (to birds) solder or welding, which is skilled and expensive. Also, tall, narrow cages are cruel on flying birds unless they can get out of the cage on a daily basis.
I have several times tried to find somebody to teach me brazing, or at least to learn it along with me. The finished cage has to be dunked in enamel or some kind of protective coating. I would equip the cages with a food timer or some other clever feature because they would have to sell for $400 apiece to make the effort worthwhile. You can buy these new for $35. This is why Trump says we need tariffs. Your turn.
AFTERNOON
I repaired all of my phono cables to discover that the reason the other place threw out such high quality plug ends is they have a ground hum. This is tolerable to a degree, but not for live music. Another thing is many people assume it is an easy job to repair these jacks. Nope, it takes a lot of delicate work and isn’t fun. But that’s okay as I had all my gear out to install this light (from an old china cabinet) onto my bandsaw. Note the proper use of junction boxes.
Agent M came by in the car, he found a brand new oscillating fan missing the remote timer. It is now performing an admirable job in the Florida room. Where I was refining parts of my seismometer concept. I can’t get the meter to read even the strongest current, so there is a fundamental flaw. I suspect that because the magnet that moves inside the coil induces the current, the fact that the magnet hangs on a spring is interfering. The spring is also a kind of coil. But now I want to experiment with two “spring” coils to see what happens. I don’t recall ever having seen a device that works on this principle.
EVENING
I reverse engineered an old pager to find even that long ago they contained no useful or interchangeable parts. I salvaged the buttons and switches and the offset (buzzer) motor, that’s about it. I further looked closely at other spring-loaded and spring-operated devices, including a type of solenoid. The spring that returns the core does not have to be very strong at all.
[Photo delayed]
Here is a blurry and irrelevant picture of a $12 bottle of pumpkin oil. What brought this on was news of a study by Dr. Oz that cholesterol levels are unrelated to heart attacks, and that high cholesterol is associated with longer life in older men. This is not as farfetched as it sounds, but Dr. Oz is known for uttering such statements. Like this one “an epidemic of obesity and diabetes “the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences”
He’s basically saying that cholesterol is normal, and thus a low fat and low cholesterol diet is unhealthy. The problem, he explains, is not the cholesterol, but inflammation. He has, you should know, performed 5,000 open heart surgeries, so I listen to him. But that’s it. He says that cholesterol is not a problem and cannot form plaque unless inflammation is present in the body and blood vessels. And my opinion, since Oz does not say it, is that the inflammation comes from:
You guessed it: genetically modified foodstuffs.
Have you heard my newest theory on why news moderators won’t let Trump or Coulter finish a sentence before shouting them down? It’s because the moderators are used to political hacks that only say pre-rehearsed lines with only one weak point per statement. When Trump or Coulter speak, it is rich environment of thought-provoking truths and the moderators do not possess the mental agility to deal with it. Or how about this crop of inbreds who insist that Trump’s following are nothing but uninformed rabble.
Or the bunch that insist the real crises facing America are things like women’s rights and gay marriage. Why bother with the economy going down the tubes and America losing the white identity that made it great when you can worry about the Middle East? You do know Ann has a web stie, don’t you? Her latest article is that “immigrant” is the new “N-word”. You can think it but you can’t say it. If you took a look at the link, good for you, since it doesn’t hold a candle to this blog. On the other hand, she is a busy woman.
ADDENDUM
Look at that spike in my ratings. Happens whenever I mention silver. Caution, I am no expert, I say again and again, I am not investing. I am speculating, not so much on silver as on human nature. It’s a mad world out there, with the upper elite behaving like everything is about to collapse while ceaselessly assuring us that everything is fine, everything is okay. Ask not who I trust, but who you trust. Is your future in somebody else’s hands? Then be very worried.
Here’s a couple things to chew on. All Israeli billionaires have left that country in the past six years. Thousands of rich people are moving away from the US coast into the interior, near mountains. The major banks have scheduled a conference in London later this year to discuss banning cash. That’s right, all transactions will be digital and tracked. If you stockpile food, it will be on file somewhere. Don’t look at me for help, I’ve been warning people about loss of privacy for decades.
Last Laugh
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
