December 4, 2015

Yesteryear
One year ago today: December 4, 2014, like babysitting adults.
Five years ago today: December 4, 2010, well, I can
account for $615,000 of it.
Nine years ago today: December 4, 2006, on evaporative cooling.
Random years ago today: December 4, 2012, the road to friggin’ Nebraska?

MORNING
           See my nice rain jacket. Top billing this morning because four people asked me where they could get one. I dunno, this the one I picked up at the sidewalk sale for $5. The brand name is “Stearns” model Rainjammer 20. I think Stearns is a division of Coleman, the camp stove people. They don’t advertise this rain gear any more but similar jackets can be found on eBay for $13.

           I see I bent a few Liberal noses out of shape, which is a good thing. If the USA can outlaw communism as a threat to national security, then Liberalism should get the same treatment. Those people are out to destroy the traditions that made America tops in the world, and they should be labeled as traitors. I’m serious, because it carries the death penalty. And it is us or them, both cannot survive in the long run.
           Another shooting in California and it does not surprise me. As soon as I heard the names of the “Americans” who did it, it did not surprise me. Because there is only one type of “name” that specializes in shooting unarmed civilians.
           The irresponsible establishment media is as usual glorifying the event with front page coverage. Texas is refusing admittance to Syrian refugees and DC is telling them they don’t have that right. Remember, if Texas breaks away, I’ll be taking sides.
And how did you like that ignorant Jew who asked Trump if he would support Jerusalem as capital of Israel. This country is going down the tubes and the only thing on his mind is some stupid situation overseas. There is a reason certain groups of people are universally detested. That tends to happen to the types who only care about themselves. Face it, that boy isn’t exactly Nobel Prize material, as in what next? Ask Trump the color of his favorite crayon?
           And of course, the anti-progressive establishment media reported the rally as so-so. But it is in their best interests not to publish the truth about Trump. Their tactic remains the time worn modus operandi of the Liberal. Keep flinging shit at your opponents in the hope that something might stick.

NOON
           Time to put a certain rumor to the test. I have proof that it is entirely possible to take your own blood pressure with a sphygmanomometer. Poo-poo to the urban legend that you cannot take your own readings on yourself. The story goes that due to your own ear hearing your internal heartbeat or something to that effect, a person may not take their own pulse or blood pressure readings. Wrong, the pressure part anyway.

           You can’t make it out, but my reading was 128/69. In fact, with zero experience, I got accurate readings on my first try. I picked this puppy up practically brand new at the Goodwill. The needle in the release valve was stuck in the open position. Fixed that with a drop of machine oil. Good as new.

           And did you see the proposition that computer coding should be considered by the school system as the study of another language. Good thinking, somebody. Why didn’t that occur to me. Let me count the languages I speak. Mixal, COBOL, BASIC, RPG, Assembler, Fortran, C+, Pascal, and HTML.
           I’m aware some of these are not exactly “languages” but others like C+ are a hodgepodge of degenerate coding systems, but I have written working programs in all of these languages or their variations. I probably missed a couple through disuse, so round it off to ten languages. I also learned in college I could not study more than one computer language per semester after 1984. They became to similar, or in the case of C+, too degenerate. Degenerate is when the code becomes more complex than what it is intended to accomplish. In C, it can take an infinite number of instructions to add two numbers.
           My favorite languages are Assembler, a lightning fast machine language, which I can only do on mainframes, and good old COBOL, the oldest language still in use. I do not like any of the degenerate languages, in particular LISP. LISP is one of the few courses I signed up for, then dropped. There’s a right way to do things, then there is LISP.

           I talked with that guy who wants to start a duo, but he’s unsure of that. I mean, he may want to start a bigger band. I won’t go near a big band in this town for one easy reason. I like to play out. There is no real work for big bands. I know, I was in the biggest. Five gigs in nearly two years. Not good enough. He’s a sharp one, I got him to commit to not finalizing anything until we jam. The idea is to let them know I’m okay with playing as a duo now while he works on forming his big band later.
           Because several of the longest term duos I’ve been in were during the never-ending process of the guitarist trying to get something else going. The sooner they learn the duo works more and makes more, the more they get reliant on it. My original “Not Half Bad” group was together three years before the guitar player wised up he was never going to get “a real band”. And quit. I have since learned measures to forestall that.

           I have a moment so I’ll tell you how that works. I know all guitarist have that Clapton dream of fronting a big band. The problem is that can take years. On the other hand, I am a very, very, very easy bass player to “chum & strum” with on stage. I know the material so well that the other guy can stop playing and the show still goes on (though with me on stage you quickly learn not to forget your part). There is also much more work for a duo and I can get us playing out almost immediately.
           Then there is the part about tips. I treat tips much like I do women, I never directly ask for anything. Instead, I just make it super easy for them to respond to what I want. And it is not uncommon for me to make twice as much in tips as I get from the house. It doesn’t take long before the guitar player is hooked, he can’t wait to get away from the headaches of his big band and show up at the Tiki Bar. I went on-line and saw this new guy playing mandolin, Not too shabby. This town is starved for variety.

AFTERNOON
           What’s this photo? Just something I peeled off the Internet. The caption is “I like my women like my coffee—white and bitter.” Hope you like it, because it is not me--I steer clear of bitter women, you know why? Because I never met one that was not bitter dueof her own lousy life choices. And inability to accept self-blame. I can be bitter at other people, but such women are bitter over themselves. Right, Theresa? Patsie? You make life hell on others, you get hell back. Bitter, bitter comes around, goes around. (This picture was from CL, where some bassist is claiming he kicked the guitarist’s ass, in which case I instantly think the bassist is okay.)

           I stayed out of the rain and fed the birds. .And, with the advent of cooler winter weather, coffee in the evening is making its way back on my menu. I not only learned to make perfect tea in India, I developed a knack for instant coffee. Instant will never taste as good as filtered, but if you like the separate taste, you must try a cup of mine.
           And smoked turkey turnip stew. With veggies. I have a slow cooker and my calendar says mention food. The blog does better when I mention food, but not too often. I was scanning the Tamp-Orlando corridor for real estate. It kind of bisects the state, north of there you get a touch of winter. It is 78.3°F outside right now, about as cool as I ever care for.
           That’s not a typo, “Tamp” for Tampa. That’s local jargon. There is nothing on the market, but every year so far that has been a precursor to a surge of places the following spring. There are several large patches of Florida that are relatively uninhabited north and south of that strip. I’ve seen south Florida inside out so time for me to relocate. I’m leaving behind fifteen of the longest years of my life. Much longer because I never met a keeper of a woman.
           But I’m equally quick to notice that neither have I gone so long without being in a performing band. Seven of my 15 years, I did not play at all. Because neither have I met any suitable guitar players who I did not have to babysit on stage. And it is no lost to me that only once in my life have I ever had a long term gal who could not sing or dance. Even then, I wound up teaching her how to dance.

EVENING
           What’s this advertised in Sears? A heated jacket? I’ve seen them for hunters, but didn’t like the style or the price. However this is something new, so it got picked up here right away. Listed as construction gear, it has a 12v lithium cell. They also have a cooling fan jacket. I’ll be looking into these items as motorcycle gear but I’ll tell you, heat and cold have never been the limiting factors for my sidecar travel. The constraint has always been the number of hours on the road daily.

           The literature says the jacket stays heated the old “up to” five hours. Meaning three hours on the lowest setting. It has five heating pads, two chests (they mean), back and pockets. But remember, the control console on my Honda is now solar powered and fully capable of powering a jacket. Actually it could probably boost a Mack truck.
           And who do we know that is the pro at bypassing battery power supplies with precisely the correct volts and amps? Who can build an adaptor and a permanent power connection, with robot precision? Just asking. Nonetheless, this does not isolate me from battery problems. Fact: all batteries available to consumers are now intentionally poorly made. They will quit functioning over a much shorter time than batteries manufactured twenty years ago.

           I should ask myself why I didn’t state more emphatically months ago what I said about Trump getting the biggest landslide in American history, because I just heard him practically repeat it word for word across my room. I’m not saying Trump is quoting me. I’m saying that that there are incredulous parallels. Not so much the topics, but the order in which they appear.
           Hence, if I do have an audience over there (that comment aimed at whatever Trump person is clearly reading this blog), I say to Mr. Trump to begin attacking the Liberals by name. Don’t say they have America’s interests at heart. They don’t, they are unbelievably cruel to the working people of this nation. Don’t mollycoddle them, point out how they are the ones that ruined the middle class. Quit blaming it entirely on corporations. You may seek the Liberal vote but these people are not your friends. Do what they do, lie to get into power, then turn your back on them. Trust me, they need a dose of their own medicine.

           As for the cooling jacket, I’ll pass. It is basically one of those hand-held vacuum motors that does not cool, it simply circulates air from the small of the back through the neck and arms at about 50 cfm. It is evaporation that does the cooling, and we all know that doesn’t work well. Stepping out of a really cool room and a fan-cooled room into the sunlight is not at all the same. If I went that route, I could connect a whole shop vacuum to my new system, why bother with a toy motor?


ADDENDUM
           And Trump finally did what was predicted here so long ago. He had some mouthy troublemakers thrown out of his rally. Or shall we say “gently removed by the police”. If you don’t like what he has to say, don’t spend three hours in the rain to get into his rally. Duh.
           Folks, it is illegal to incite a riot or cause a public disturbance. However, we all are waiting for the big one. When he kicks out any media that does not repeatedly pan the crowd for ten seconds of every minute. Trust me Donald, nobody but the media will object.

           Some will scream freedom of the press. No, being part of the press is not a license to misrepresent the truth. Just let them know they are not welcome and the crowd will take care of the rest. Why not put up a big mirror or screen behind you so they can’t show you without showing the crowds. There’s many ways to skin that irresponsible cat.
           Maybe bring his own film crew and demand equal time? Face it, the media are terrified of showing the American people the size of the Trump crowds. Here is the picture of the rtuck trying to scale the border fence. I don’t know if this is the one Trump saw, but when you see something more than once in this blog, it is not a repeat. It is a reminder.
           For instance, my statement about colleges being a rip-off by pressuring students to borrow. Trump y’day announced “somebody is doing something wrong”. Yes, and one answer is to make college admission tougher. I was appalled at the caliber of teaching at college level when I checked out the Florida situation. The courses are so watered down that ordinary IQ people were being granted medium and advanced accounting degrees and medical certificates. When ignoramuses who cannot read or spell correctly start applying for positions which require a Bachelors degree, it isn’t entirely China’s fault they can’t find a thing.


Last Laugh
I have no idea.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++