One year ago today: October 22, 2015, yes, I paint pots.
(And so do a surprising number of classy but bored women.)
Five years ago today: October 22, 2011, they stole his dog food.
Nine years ago today: October 22, 2007, privacy, Wal*Mart style.
Random years ago today: October 22, 2012, single mothers and Siberia.
MORNING
This is today’s mystery, a tuber of some sort from the back yard. I was raking and didn’t notice where it came from. It was the only specimen in the large area that I raked. Here, you have a go at it. The husk is tough, like an acorn shell. And I didn’t see it come out of the ground, it was in the leaf pile. If it’s edible, well, I’ll let you tell me that part, too.
Could it be the banks have finally clued in that you can’t have the same people who work with the account numbers to access the PIN numbers? That would be crediting the banks with a lot of uncharacteristic intelligence. Anyway, by the time I drove to the nearest branch, they were closed for the day. You can still withdraw from the clerk, but that won’t do me any good until Monday.
[Author’s note: turns out although the bank has removed the time limit on activating the PIN on a new card, the number can go dormant and cannot be activated by the methods described in the literature. It’s a security measure and once you know this, choose the option to “activate” the number only within the USA. She said they are aware of the glitch and are working on it.
I asked about this and apparently a lot of people get two cards these days. One is for use in the USA, the other in foreign countries. Upon returning, they permanently deactivate the foreign card and get a new one each time they go abroad. This tells us international credit card crime is rampant. Canceling the card after they return tips us off that much of the theft if an inside job, probably hotel staff.
It also says there is a mass of people who have no clue how to function without a credit card. There is a key difference when returning home over knowing how much money you have and dashing to the nearest ATM to see if your card still works. Some people are asking for trouble and they will get it, in spades. Whether from the credit system or from the authorities, it will happen. Having strangers so completely control your finances that you need permission to get your own money is probably the depth of moronic naivety.]
How would you like to hear a clever idea I came up with to recycle an item normally thrown away? Do you have any old smoke alarms or clocks or devices that beep when the batteries are low? Ever had to chase around to find what is beeping? Plus, as we have experienced, alkaline batteries go low long before they actually go dead.
Take one or two of those devices, put the nearly dead batteries in them, and hang them on the wall of your garden shed. Then, anyone poking around where they shouldn’t will hear the random beeps and assume there is a latent alarm system inside. Why didn’t I think of this before? I set an old wristwatch to alarm at 1:00AM and an old quartz alarm at 2:30AM. And I glued the smoke alarm that chirps once an hour to the side of my air compressor.
Was it Rommel who said camouflage is as good as thick concrete?
Probably England.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
NOON
I don’t really have a picture for you now, so here is one of what Internet censorship looks like. No, this is not a software conflict with your computer, or some technical fault. This is censorship when I tried to view the on-line video of Justin Bieber getting booed off the stage in Manchester, England. You say it could be a transmission difficulty? Don’t be naïve.
On the return leg (of my mini-trip), I proceeded directly to the library, which like most these days, is pretty much deserted on a Saturday. Except for me and the ten women who work there. I poured myself a tall coffee and went researching sources for my siding. Maybe calling it shiplap was wrong, because the examples I found were called clapboard. I see the old California rip-off forming here. That’s where the stuff is not made any more, but if you ask for it, the pile they were going to incinerate suddenly become an antique collector’s item. “Yes, we have junk for sale.”
I tuned in to the Trump speech where he lays out his plans for the first 100 days in office. I feel fortunate I’m seeing this in my lifetime, even if he doesn’t get elected. I hope I see it, because I was like most people, resigned to the fact that the political class had permanently and irreversibly taken over behind voter’s backs.
They did it by promising one thing and doing another once elected. And their focus became to get continually re-elected to form a unassailable establishment of insiders. They’ve done so and Trump is their first serious challenge since Kennedy. But that’s where the comparison ends. Compared to Trump, Kennedy was more of a greenhorn non-conformist. Trump is a tougher customer and he’s calling out the bad guys.
He has a number of good plans, I’ll comment on the ones I like most. First is term limits. America has to get rid of the permanent political class. They are a national cancer. I also like his plan to prevent government officials from consultant work until five years out of office. I see he is now planning to build the wall with government money and have Mexico pay us back. Hmmmm. The cancellation of visas from countries that won’t take back their deportees, that is brilliant. It puts those cesspools in the position of exporting their best and taking back their worst, which is only fitting.
Now I know it may sound hypocritical that I agree with his ban on consulting. A lot of people inside right now may have made decisions a lifetime ago on the premise that such a move was a career option at the end. So am I two-faced because I crabbed about the government changing the social security age after I’d planned for years on it being 65? No, not at all. First of all, they eased it in over a reasonable period. Second, every person inside the government who planned to double-dip knew damn well it was a wasteful outrage that would eventually be put to a stop. They were not planning ahead, they were playing the odds and cheating by voting for a corrupt establishment.
I’ve always maintained allowing civil servants to vote is a conflict of interest.
I further agree with the cancellation of NAFTA and other unbalanced trade agreements. There was reference to Article 2205, which I believe says all that has to happen is we send Mexico and Canada a certified letter. Of course, they will moan and scream, but they had it comin’. Yes, Canada, too. For years, in breach of contract, Canada has used taxpayers to subsidize industries like forestry and agriculture, which then export to the USA and undercut American producers.
Canada also exerts far more control over wages and prices through their stagnantly pervasive tax system. Since their daily life is dictated by this tax structure, it cannot be changed, so it is best to cancel the contract outright. That will take the stuffing out of their housing market. It reminds of a long ago quote about Canada. You take a nation that is heavily wooded and under populated, and create a housing shortage—that is pure political genius.
NIGHT
My sore neck is not diminishing, so I worked in the yard until deep dusk. I tested burning some yard sticks in the barbeque, like JZ described. But it takes far longer than raking and bagging the same volume of materials. Plus, you have to stand nearby at all times and provide a water hose. The smoke certainly got rid of the wasps this time. I can see the barbeque from the window and an hour after the coals were left, it was still glowing in the dark.
So I decided to experiment. I kept adding fan after fan to see at what point the kitchen was comfy to stay in. Six. It took six fans, all at shoulder height. The trick is to push cool air into the kitchen, then around the corner to the stove area, then to circulate it enough to keep the whole section an even temperature.
Return tomorrow for some comments I’ll have on insulating these rooms. The kitchen is not insulated, so the fans may remain. To insulate properly, I remove the drywall completely, which is fine because it was not originally done very well. The kitchen will be done last, since it involves removing those horrible cupboards anyway.
ADDENDUM
Trivia. On New Year’s Day 2014, the US government outlawed the import or manufacture of tungsten filament light bulbs in the range of 40 to 100 watts. More trivia. Those “compass roses” seen on old maps were a superstition that the wind could blow in 12 directions. These were given mythical names, and the rose was the direction the wind had to blow from a known fixed point to get to a certain destination. You have to think it through, but it would work. What I can’t figure is the roses that are set in the ocean.
Last Laugh
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