November 2, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: November 2, 2015, doing a fine job.
Five years ago today: November 2, 2011, memo, $12 monthly for checking.
Nine years ago today: November 2, 2007, missing the 7/16” – again.
Random years ago today: November 2, 2008, on Canadian logic.

MORNING
           Okay, I’m all in. Before noon I got the remainder of the front tree sawn and stacked, fed the cat, and got the back yard pile started. The neighbors seem to find the safety gear I’m wearing to be a bit amusing. I just remember that carpenter on the Internet called “Ten-Finger Tom” and I smile right back at them. I only got the cutting and stacking done, I have not begun the raking and cleanup. But it’s all good. The property already looks more cheery.

           Blog chart says to mention food again. We lumberjack types need a lot of calories because of the workload, so I had eggs, toast, fried catfish, and tea. Calories, ha, I’m just as tired as if I’d skipped breakfast. My stiff neck was finally gone so maybe I launched into the yard work a bit much. The blog chart is a list of topics known to be popular while avoiding politics, kittens, and porn.

           So, today’s random item was food and here is a picture of, what is this? Hammed potatoes? Where did this come from? There’s a casserole recipe on the back. Who buys potatoes in a can? Let’s get back to lumberjacks. You know my favorite lumberjack scene?

           In the movie “Stepbrothers”, where Will Ferrell sings “Volare” and his therapist imagines him busting down the door of her office. He’s a lumberjack and he says, “I’ve come 500 miles to give you my seed.” He rips off her business suit and she’s wearing one of those French maid undergarments.
           And I have another mystery picture for you. What is this? Don’t try to remember because you’ve never seen it before. You have to solve this by figuring it out. Answer in the addendum. Yes, those are clothespicks, and this is your typical Vivitar can’t focus worth a damn autofocus camera picture. And don’t bother trying to use their viewscreen, because on Vivitar, the viewscreen is always in focus. Bunch of bastards can’t do anything right. We lumberjacks also have bad tempers.

Picture of the day.
Urban prairie, Detroit.
(In background, Central train station, abandoned in 1988.)
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NOON
           Before we continue, here is the answer to y’day’s mystery photo. This is a device that you clip over your pot and it stirs your pudding for you. As shown here, the battery cover is off, it is being soaked in ginger ale to clean the terminals. I have little use for such a utensil, but the fact that it rotates 12 times per minute has sharp appeal to any robot hobbyist.

           One look at such a motor tells the trained robot mind three things. One, there is a gear motor inside. Two, the torque on that motor must be impressive. Three, it takes only a few gears to step this down to one rotation per day. I haven’t made any gears for a while but if only I had some very hard wood, say chokecherry, to work with, I might be tempted.

           This is a souvenir of the big back tree. [Referring to the nearby photo of the top eight or so feet of the dead limbs leaning against the side of my red storage shed.] The tip of this branch was at least 60 feet in the air a few days ago. Don’t underestimate the amount of work left cleaning up the yard. I talked to a few other people who had received quotes as high as $2,000 per tree. And I can see the majority of the work is slicing up and hauling the stumps away. Part of my discount was from having him lop the trees down at the lowest level the bucket could sit.

           Which still leaves eight or ten feet of dead tree, but I am basing a lot on JZ’s statement that we can remove a stump like that ourselves. No, I’ve never seen him cut down a tree. I’m counting on his long-standing reputation of knowing what he’s doing, although I am not at ease with his disregard for basic safety—and this time the work is on my property. Remember how his dad would not let me go up the tall ladder when we were painting the house? Same thing I’m talking about here.
           I’m going to begin a hunt for a replacement truck from here. That includes asking Agt. R for any leads. The used truck market is slack and I don’t know the budget quite exactly. I still think instead of junking that van he had over the power steering, he should have just parked it here and taken the train home. The line goes right to his doorstep, well, nearly. Two blocks from his door in a nice neighborhood. Not as nice as mine, but still nice.

NIGHT
           Also visible in that last picture is the wagon. My excellent neighbor, Howie, ran a pneumatic hose over and inflated those recalcitrant tires. The guy is so unreservedly helpful I’m at a loss. The tax bill arrived today and I guessed right. It is less than a single month’s rent back at the trailer court. To celebrate, I went for an hour’s scooter ride. To familiarize myself with the area, I still can’t recognize half the town. I discovered a few yard sales and bought some cook books. One can never have enough cook books.
           I got this French cooking book, not because I like French cooking. It was full of directions on how to carve a bird and present certain dishes. I decided maybe I could stand getting a little ancient and useless culture around here. It talks about roasting vegetables where I have always had mine boiled or steamed. Roasting, it says, caramelizes the sugars. That sounds good.

           It’s been a while since I dished out any good robot advice, so here’s the word on capacitors. Don’t buy them from Radio Shack. It turns out they only sell poor quality units in oddball sizes that nobody uses much. If you have any leftover plastic laminate, don’t throw it out. Fasten it to the wall of your workshop, where it makes excellent dry erase board—and pencil marks will erase without that shadow you get on regular boards. If you have really small pieces, glue a round one on the side of your tape measure for writing down quick measurements.

ADDENDUM
           If you got that the clothespins are hold something, well, you get Brownie points. These are skinny sticks, a craft product, being glued together into scale model joists. These long strips are later sliced into scale joist lengths and you know the rest. The checkered pattern in the background is just where I laid the sticks to dry. It’s the lining of a sleeping bag, being that I’m still crashing in the living room.
           I’ve been here long enough to know the sounds of the house, and I think I have a visitor under the bathroom floor. This is a never-ending fact of life in Florida. The majority of critters in the state are opportunistic. I’ll set the trap tomorrow and see what we have. It’s small, like maybe a house rat. He’ll be gone fast. Ants. Florida is also full of ants, and you know I don’t spray chemicals in the kitchen. You will never kill all the ants in your kitchen, so I use bait traps only. They are a control, not an answer to the problem.


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