One year ago today: February 13, 2015, complaint-ready parents.
Five years ago today: February 13, 2011, what is EFR?
Nine years ago today: February 13, 2007, new Jamus mountain bike.
Random years ago today: February 13, 2012, home in the Gables.
MORNING
This is a picture of the German city of Dresden, taken on February 13, 1880. It is a cultural center of no industrial or military significance. On this day in 1945, the British and American air forces began a terror bombing of the city center with high explosives and incendiary devices. A firestorm ensued, making it impossible to count the victims. My guess is well over 100,000 civilians, more than the atomic attacks combined.
Theories as to why a city full of civilians and, incidentally, Allied prisoners of war, was obliterated range from Churchill’s hatred of Germans or to show the advancing Soviets what could happen to them if they got out of line. All participants of
Do not confuse the Armistice with the Treaty of Versaille from 1919. None of the Allied nations who signed the treaty ceased war production, they only scaled back a bit. Hence, it was NOT Germany who broke the peace treaty as you have no doubt been taught. Do not confuse the Armistice with the Treaty of Versaille from 1919.
Had Germany won the war, it would undoubtedly have been Churchill, Eisenhower, and Roosevelt who would have been tried as war criminals and hung by the neck. Here is a link to the posters that were censored in Wikipedia. This indicates only that I am largely against censorship and particularly against religious censorship.
For various reasons, I regard electricity as the largest factor in going green. It heats without flame and does not consume or release gasses. Except over at the power plant, I mean. It’s too bad the American nuclear power stations got so corrupted so fast by the “safety bureaucrats” that they became too expensive to build and maintain.
Have you heard of “phantom load”? This is the wasted power from wall warts, the cube shaped transformers that slimy manufacturers make unique to their own product and deduct from their gross weigh specifics. Wow, that was one jam-packed sentence. You know what I mean, the power lost when you leave your cell charger plugged in. I’m actually very conscious of this lost power because of robot battery requirements, but for most people, it adds nearly a hundred bucks to their annual power bill.
FYI, that average yearly electric usage is $938 (US Dept. of Energy). My total comes to just over $700, but I do not skimp. I don’t waste either, I turn off unused computers and lamps. I mean I don’t lower my water heater thermostat or raise the air conditioning to border-line sweaty. Like some people I know.
New York Public Library.
NOON
This is what a one-pound canister of propane looks like. You should keep a supply on hand, like shown here. These are very well built cans and if you look closely, there are two valves on the top. The screw-on attachment valve, and a smaller pressure release valve. Ah, I heard what you’re thinking. If the propane gas is gradually used up, that means there is less and less pressure. So why the need for a safety valve? Because of Charles’ Law. If the cylinder overheats, there is danger.
I’m currently keeping an eye out for a used or broken propane torch nozzle. As long as the nipple and valve work, this makes it easy to refill these canisters with air for an emergency flat fix. All you do is unscrew the nozzle part and the copper fitting accepts a standard air hose coupling. I know how to refill these tanks, but I’m not going to give directions in this blog.
[Author's note: the cans contain a warning that they cannot be refilled, but that is nonsense. They are easy to refill at about a tenth the cost of buying a whole new canister. What? Oh, sorry, for about 30¢ against $3.00 (and I have seen the canisters for $7 each at some camping goods stores). But this type of law is what is wrong with America, the criminalization of personal activities (prohibition). The law, as opposed to the can, says it is only illegal to both refill AND transport the item.
Plainly, they meant they don't want refilling to take place on an industrial scale and then having the cans shipped on public transport. How a cop at roadside could determine you have a refill is unknown. But still, the fine is $500,000 or 5 years. So don't get caught, you scofflaw.]
I’m missing one of my celestial navigation books. Not outright missing, since my guess is that I took it on one of my trips and it failed to get unpacked. February is kind of navigation month around here so instead of an embellishment on a boring day at home, here’s how I would approach finding my position in light of what I’ve learned and what I’ve figured out on my own. I’ll use the sun to avoid repeating “sun, moon, or planets”. I would also divide this work into separate chores that match the following categories.
A) Take the sextant reading of the sun or something up there that’s in the Almanac. Smart people should take 50 readings before having any faith in the results. Other people need 250 readings. This “height of the sun” is not that important until later in the process, but the sextant reading forces one to know very accurately what time it is. That means year, month, day, hour, minute, and second. With a stopwatch.
B) Using the time from A), calculate the geographic position of the sun. At any given moment, the sun is over one and only one spot on the Earth’s surface, and you need to know that to continue. This spot, the GP, has a GHA and a declination. I like them fancy words. GHA is Greenwich hour angle which corresponds to longitude and the declination is the latitude of the sun.
C) With the sextant readings and GP information, establish an estimated point nearby where you think you are. You can actually be very inaccurate about your guesswork here, because the point you pick follows a set of rules that will cancel out most of your errors. I remain amazed how well it works. Most of this stage consists of looking up values, Navigationalists call this “entering the tables”, which is needlessly confusing. Because a lot of them are a-holes, that’s why. Do I have to teach you everything?
D) Using the sextant reading and the estimated point from C), you can calculate the distance you are away from that point. As a matter of disappointing fact, all this effort only gives you a third of the information you need to find your position. The trick is to repeat the readings three times. If you are accurate, there will be a single point where all three results meet on a chart. And you even have to draw the chart.
Celestial navigation is not for the lazy.
AFTERNOON
Guess who finally called back? The doggie wig lady, and she is living in Arizona. To anyone who just got here, that’s right, you heard me. Doggie wigs by Wiggles. This was a major project over a period of years that I became involved with from a computer installation. In the end, she could not find any qualified staff and I wound up doing most of the ordering and paperwork. It was a hoot. You’ll hear me refer to the lady as Ruth, but that is a pseudonym.
The thing is, if you’ve kept up with this blog for years, she has that wall of fame, the hundreds stage and film personalities over the years that had their hair done at her salon. That’s correct, hair dos. When a wig-maker does your coiffure, it is done right. Ruth had called last year while I was driving home from Winter Haven on the sidecar and by the time I tried to return the call, the number had scrolled off my list.
Now she called to say that she wishes she had taken my advice, which is always a nice thing to hear. She has to write a book about her impressions of these people. Seriously, or it will be lost to posterity. We’ve already got Millennials thinking they’re something unique in history. Ruth did the Beatles hair, and knew all the stars of early TV. Danny Kaye, Ed Sullivan, and she did the makeup for Richard Nixon.
Sadly, she reports less than optimum health, so time is of the essence. I can’t be much help, since this kind of writing is highly dependent on transcripts of flowing conversation, all of it reminiscing that I could hardly identify with. I’m sending her an outline for a 36-chapter book, around ten pages each, of her impressions and memories of the great stars, including Elvis. It ain’t bragging if you really done it and I was in the shop at the same time as Jennifer Lopez and Rene Zellweger (before the face job). What? Pardon me, that’s “natural aging and weight loss.” Oops.
Yes, I know where this is going. I am the only one Ruth is going to trust to write that book. And I have zero experience of such a task. Wouldn’t know where to start. I dunno, do you think I can write? Or no? Do you think I can fish for compliments?
NIGHT
Music. There is an all-girl band constantly advertising for a bassist. I should contact them with some of my promo material. Odd as it seems, I have plenty of experience playing bass in all-girl bands. Because usually, I don’t care for the girls. But a lot of them have fairly decent younger sisters. Anyway, here is a local band that plays rockabilly.
What caught my attention was their totally obsequious bass player. “I try to stay off to one side and keep my mouth shut.” Typically, he exhibits all the other trappings of the failed guitarist, like playing bass with a limp wrist and a follow-along style. Don’t get me wrong, out in the world some of these are nice guys. It’s that I don’t care for any deportment that signals the bass is played by second-class musicians. It often is, but I only said I don’t care for that behavior.
For that matter, it is 90% of guitar players who are second-class. And there’s ten times as many of them as there are bass players.
Later, Trent called and we’ve scheduled a recording session for Monday. We are aware that we’ve put our coffee house set on hold and that is not the right move. Three songs for a coffee place, it is the one easy venture that kick-starts all kinds of musical groups. Didn’t half the beatnik bands of the sixties meet up over java? Simon and Garfunkel sure like to portray that they did.
We are planning a recording of the Can Can Polka. I read the notes and it is all easy guitar chords. Every band should know a polka. For clarity, these are “inverted” recordings, in the sense that the guitar lays down the rhythm and the electric bass plays the melody line. The tunes are instantly recognizable but as far as recording any hits, shall we say the market for bass solos is somewhat restricted.
Last Laugh
I don’t even want to know.
Return Home
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