January 31, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 31, 2016, Wal*Mart facts.
Five years ago today: January 31, 2012, America’s problem is the government.
Nine years ago today: January 31, 2008, we hate “job agencies”.
Random years ago today: January 31, 2011, you mean the Billy Graham?

MORNING
           Here’s your cover-up news event being glossed over by the mainstream media. That papermill near Pensacola that exploded last week is now all hush-hush. The mill was mostly abandoned except for the part that produces industrial gas. One death. The media claims it was a loading bay accident. Not so, say churchgoers and residents up to twenty miles away who said it sounded like a low-flying jet going over.
           The company has since claimed it was nitrous oxide, an invisible gas, but several pictures show an orange-brown cloud over the plant. Humans are pretty much evolved not to breathe any gas you can see, and I heard nitrogen dioxide was that color. The residents also report that after the explosion, a tar-like substance coated the roads and caused contact and respiratory inflammation. Wait, there’s more.

           The company has since set up a tent on the plant lawn and allows only nearby residents to ask questions, one-by-one. They were expecting a “town hall” type meeting, but no dice. So the concern is what else is going on? The media quickly dropped the story and got back to digging around for anti-Trump trash or anything that could be construed as such. There was a quip in the local paper today.
           The report was hidden in a left-hand column of page B4 amidst the zoning change notices. Darn tootin’ there is something funny going on. So, the question to ask is who has the power to get away with storing toxic chemicals near populated areas and the muscle to gag any investigation thereof? Monsanto? Cargill? Union Carbide? Take your pick, because it ain’t the Bhopal Girl Scouts.

           A few of my books on celestial navigation have advanced chapters that I skated over since originally I was only after a working knowledge. I’ve since taken to reading these and, by George, some of it makes sense. Most of my hobbies have been on hold since I moved here. It will still be a while before I set up my soldering station, my PA system, and create a space for my lesser activities. I’m getting things done by myself but I won’t be winning any speed contests. Don’t get me wrong, I would not care a twit if I die with 50 unfinished projects. I would still like the satisfaction of getting back to my intellectual pursuits. Fixing the house is fine, but nothing compares to good research.
           I might add that my complaint to Tractor Supply has their head office scrambling to make me happy. I really mean the head office in Brentwood. This cowboy knows how to write a complaint letter. They are pressing for the details of the store, but hey, this is a small town and I’m not about to point fingers. Home Depot has the same bottle jack for 30% less. My real complaint is how Tractor Supply has put me 50 days behind schedule and if I got the jack tomorrow, the time is lost and we are in the middle of a cold snap. In business all delays are costly.

Picture of the day.
Oregon wheatfield.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

NOON
           You want a mini-laugh. Okay, you know how I sing by imitation? Well, over the years I’ve gotten good enough at it that I can belt out a tune along with the jukebox that is so exact, it sounds like two jukeboxes. I sometimes do it to give a dull place the head’s up that a good song is on the way. The humor is, other people who’ve heard me do this have taken to trying the same, and it doesn’t work. Ha. Even when they are on key, they can’t begin to match the tiny little nuances of the original, at least not the way I can. I thought you might find that funny.

           Here’s a link to January 27, 2004 proof that I was not a fan of Trump until he started speaking for the people rather than himself. Up till then, he was just another rich kid imagining he did it on his own.

           This is the only “blueprint of the kitchen screen door. You can see it dated 2017-01-14, most of the time since then has been waiting for paint to dry. This is the sketch I drew from memory, I added one center rail, shown here, but changed that to two when I got there. The little red circles are where I counted how many dowels I’d be needing. On the edge,you can see the various joinery techniques I considered before settling on the dowels.
           I found an unwatched DVD, the story of the Walker spy ring. That’s the guy who was selling navy code secrets for years, buying houses and cars and nobody suspected a thing. I barely remember the details and the movie is from a three hour TV special, so the first casualty is accuracy. I recall he recruited his family into the business to carry on after he retired. Didn’t he get a slap on the wrist? The navy certainly doesn’t mind since every time the Ruskies gain anything, they [the navy] just ask Congress for more money. And get it.

           Helium-3 is back in the news. China, quietly, and private American companies have been planning on mining if for years. The hitch is that it is not available on Earth. You have to go to the Moon. It’s a potential energy source and this one is quite real. It makes safe, clean power plants. Don’t worry, it won’t put away all the self-serve gas stations, it isn’t a portable technology. Myself, I always thought that industry would zero in on extracting the helium rather than going looking for it in space. If you’ve never heard of helium-3, go look it up. It’s an interesting beginner’s physics lesson.
           Alas, the program was nearly over when I cranked the radio this morning. It’s that Wall Street broadcast with the guy with the insect voice. Did he say that Saudi Arabia is actually talking about instituting an income tax? That’s all the indicator I need that their oil reserves aren’t infinite and that they’ve squandered all the petroleum dollars received so far. Building cities to look and act like the west but walking down the streets dressed like nomads.
           However, make no mistake about it, the purpose of the income tax, as opposed to most other taxes, is to keep files on the private lives of each citizen. Keep tabs on every business activity, place of residence, ages of every child, name of every spouse. They won’t need tax revenue for the foreseeable future, but it’s never too early to start the erosive private files. They saw how America did it over 50 years, starting with the DMV. How you start small, and gradually turn the driver’s license into identification, then require people to produce it for most purposes. Never kill the host.

One-Liner of the Day:
“If we’re not supposed to eat at night,
why is there a light in the fridge?”
NIGHT
           She’s chilly and that is top story. Seriously. This is like being back on the prairies where only one room of the house is heated. Mind you, that’s not because I’m cheap but because my heating gear can’t keep up. If I knew I needed more, I’da bought more. True, I didn’t buy to save money—but my motive was never to bitch about the utility bill. If you can’t afford to heat or cool your place, get the hell out there and chop firewood. Then maybe somebody will listen to you whimper.

           The afternoons, at least, are starting to get warm again, so here’s an excellent shot of the white paint going on the screen door and trim. The screen mesh has not yet been replaced by the black fiberglass, and the screen on the far right has not been painted. That dazzling white color is destined for all the trim on the house, the eaves, the window frames, and eventually, the porch trim.

           As admitted, the screen door frame is too weak. It is already warping in the weather. However, it is forming a cup, which is not a bad thing if I can figure out how to bend it back when the screen is installed, thus stretching it super-tight. Next time, I will use lumber at least an inch thick, may 1-1/4” for the outside rails and stiles anyway. But what you see here will have to work for now.
And I have sad news, my friends in Maimi closed the restaurant. The place was a landmark, it changed the character of that neighborhood. Now it’s gone, but it will be replaced with something, mark my words. Even opening that business was a milestone, a tremendous accomplishment at a time when the rest of the economy was taking a nose-dive. They outlasted all the competition and my advise was they take a long vacation. I say, get in the car and just drive somewhere for a few months. See the countryside. Make some plans. They did nothing wrong, it was the externals that changed and all businesses are vulnerable. Personally, I think they should take some serious time off and celebrate.

           Antennas. The failure of the robot club antenna venture is history. We tried and failed to build antennas. If you read back to 2012, you’ll see pictures of the very high-quality units we produced along with descriptions how we could not get any of them to work. The alleged experts were no help, so the project was shelved. What do I find out today? Elliott, from the left coast, is an antenna buff. For thirty years he never said one word, until an email this morning when he described modifying a TV antenna. This guy and I used to discuss business matters an hour a day for over eight years and the topic never came up. Now you explain that one.
           The trick is getting that guy to write. I got the (no defunct) club to okay an antenna kit purchase, there is still $1,173 in the account which technically belongs to me. Technically, but that’s okay, I’ll be spending in on technical stuff.

ADDENDUM
           Here’s a real chewy addendum for you, death and taxes. Don’t conclude I’m in despair over anything. I’m concerned about Social Security unless Trump goes in there and cuts off all the people who don’t deserve it. That would shift them onto welfare, but who cares? Stealing is stealing. My concern is that to catch these cheats, they enact laws that cause difficulties for new applicants.
I’m the type that takes all bad news, even rumors, very seriously. That’s lesson one when you work in a cubicle. So            I’m going to tell you a little secret that will disappoint those who think I’m a good example of planning ahead. In 2007, I made a separate 10-year plan concerning the inevitability of my own death. This should have been a plan a beginning in 2009 for a variety of strong reasons, but in 2007 I was, shall we say, deteriorating. Hence, my ten-year “death plan” ends this year, not my planned early retirement date of 2019. I’ll never starve. I could rent this place out, I have reliable people to do that, and go live in Arkansas.

           So, what’s my point? Well, you see, every month it seems there is a change to the system I was relying on. By 2019 I’ll could be 100% reliant on pension income, though I’ve planned otherwise. You bet I’ve cause for concern when I hear that while the laws themselves don’t change, the bureaucrats are continually fiddling with the formulas. My calculations in 2007 were contingent on absolutely everything going right. Nowadays, I’m not so sure.
           You see, very few people get the maximum any more, and those are the ones who put into the system for over 40 years. That’s a lifetime and it’s a pretty piss-poor dollar amount in return, though you can presume a person who actually worked all that time has other sources and a paid-for house. Unless they worked for the phone company, in which case they will retire as broke as the day they started. Ha!

           The rumor is they will adjust partial year credits and early retirement rates, both of which concern me. But the one that is scary is the lowering of the definition of “rich”. This disqualifies anyone above that amount from tax breaks and benefits. There are some sources that say a family making over $40,000 per year is rich. We already talked about this, and it’s no a pretty thing. I don’t lay awake in worry, but I’ve run the numbers. In the worst-case scenario, I could get half what I was expecting. That would piss me off because at the time they took my money, there was no such provision, it was a social contract. I paid my dues 100% and expect 100% of what was promised at that time.
           However, the now-retiring middle class has been driven to desperation. Most oldsters are just getting by so they will never upset the apple cart. The government gives lip service to catering to the senior vote, but in reality, no senior is going to become a lightning rod when he can’t survive the tiniest interruption. If the government announced they were cutting all payments in half, the majority would do nothing. They’d be glad to get that. What a pitiful situation.
           Meanwhile, inflation marches on. Prices are ten times higher than that day in my teens when they taxed my first paycheck. And most of that increase has been in the past few years. The average Social Security check is around $1,350.


Last Laugh


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

January 30, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 30, 2016, doing nothing costs $664.
Five years ago today: January 30, 2012, California corruption.
Nine years ago today: January 30, 2008, they want details.
Random years ago today: January 30, 2004, on travel & tourists*.

           [Author's note: you should read the link above to 2004. That entry was not written as blog material, it is a transcript of a log I used to keep of my travels. It concerns events from the early 1980s, and it was actually written at that time. It was only posted in 2004. I do not recall what happened to the original hand-written material. It's an interesting comparison to Merida today.]

MORNING
           Here’s my entry into the 21st century contest for most boring photo. Allow me to present a running commentary as boredom soaks through your follicles while you admire the sheer blandness of this photo. Boring even by my standards, that makes it top story this AM. Shown on the ground are the messy paint peels that Agt. R doesn’t like cleaning up or throwing down a tarp to collect. I tend to use the largest oblong cardboard box I can find and then pick up the spillover by hand. These chips are from the window frame, which you can see peeled right down to the bare wood.

           It’s also one of the windows where the screen has been fastened in backwards with bent nails. You can make out where some of the siding paint is beginning to curl up a bit. That won’t be painted until after the floors are leveled. The exterior paint is not any big concern. It is further known that JZ likes to paint and I should allow for that. As always, I’m the guy that likes cutting in and let the other guy do the rolling. I believe they make paint rollers to fit this exact size of siding. Once again—paint the back of your house first.

           I look at the list of Oscar nominees to realize I have not seen one of those movies. Of course, living out here in the toonies doesn’t help. I read the local paper, a leftist publication where no pro-Trump headline shall appear before page A6, and even then, must have a negative headline. Don’t we all love those front page articles. The ones written by people who know nothing more about economics than the guy they are criticizing. Economics is a statistical field, free game for anyone trying to support a pet theory. They go on about how both countries benefit from buying at the lowest cost, a classic textbook theory.
           But it doesn’t work if one of the countries, while having no tariffs for show, has a deliberate hidden tariff policy of not buying goods from the other. Think Japan and China. It’s called a trade balance and it’s one of the rare cases where barter would work better than money. When you’re out of goods, the trading stops. And it has a miraculous side-effect: the trading cannot resume until some sort of balance is restored. Instead, we print up money and the hemorrhage continues. The target for Trump is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is designed to benefit corporations, not the wage-workers, a distinction the media stolidly refuses to admit. After all, they are corporations themselves.

           True, the same goods produced domestically would cost more, but that has two positive effects. One, it keeps the money inside the country, and two, it reintroduces the element of competition. Sadly, neither of these work very efficiently any more because the marketplace is complicated by regulation. In my youth we drove through countless small towns that were humming with little factories. A corporation was a company from which you bought laundry detergent but otherwise ignored. Everybody who wanted a job could get one; there was no competition from foreign or illegal workers.
           Like many Americans who found no fault with that system, I was mystified by NAFTA. I was too busy to study it, but I resented that it was an attempt to upset the existing applecart. It was also common knowledge the driving force behind this legislation was NOT the little factories in the little towns. Today I drive though those places and see the abandoned factories. My clothespins come from Korea or Mexico. Most Americans would gladly pay the extra dollar a box if those factories were still running, there could be a time again when your kids could get a summer job there and not have to borrow every cent for college.

           [Author’s note: by the way, in today’s dollars, I paid off a $40,000 student loan in six years while getting on with my life. To this day I view parents whose kids have to borrow for college as complete failures. If there is one reason to not have kids, it would be because you can’t afford to educate them. But that implies a level of self-control that you don’t find in most marriages.
The one exception I’ll make is if the parents buy a house near a campus and allow the student to live there as an adult. That, I have seen. Adult means they can bring home company into their private area of the residence. I wonder how many kid’s lives were wrecked because they had to leave home over that issue?

Picture of the day.
Pacific storm, Washington.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

NOON
           Kiss last weekend good-bye. Not a thing got done, I have one large room sectioned off for cold days with a small heater. We never did get the heating coils of the old A/C to fire up, though Howie says it kept the place warm as toast. And I was too cheap to buy a room heater when they were on sale last August. It’s me and the birds, so I put on this English movie, “Atonement”. How many hours does this thing go on? I’m only half-watching it because I don’t mind chick flicks. This one is about some English family with a daughter who is doing the gardener’s son. This gets witnessed by the 11-year-old sister. When she catches another couple in the bushes, she accuses the gardener’s son of rape.

It shows how instantly the police will believe rape stories even from 11-year-olds who never actually saw anything. They throw the guy in prison so that the niece doesn’t have to admit she consented (it was a family friend her brother brought home). It is a known fact that before 1965, no unmarried women in the western democracies ever consented to a thing. (Then on October 1, apparently, they all did, en masse.) It takes the movie an hour to get this far.
           The son is allowed out of prison if he joins the army and I took a break to make some sandwiches around the part where the British were celebrating their great victory at Dunkirk. They beat the Germans by retreating so fast the panzers ran out of fuel. Don’t knock it, the Soviets did the same thing a year later and it worked, eventually and sort of. I kind of have to watch this one. It is the last unwatched movie in my collection.

           Coincidentally, today in 1933 is when Hitler was appointed chancellor. In Germany, this meant he could, like the American president, rule by decree. He did not have to seek the approval of their version of Congress who, like the American counterpart, was loyal only to their bankers and businessmen. They did not represent the will of the German people, Hitler did. He was not a dictator, he was democratically elected by promising to restore law and order to the system. It is one of the most heavily propagandized periods in history, almost none of what’s in western history books is even remotely consistent with the facts. Germany is the most democratic nation in Europe and they do not elect madmen.

AFTERNOON
           Here’s a puzzle I don’t do becauose I can’t figure it out. The directions are inadequate, which doesn’t help, but I grasp the concept. You add up the rows and columns to the sums in the circles around the edges. If somebody could show me once, I’d get it, but I run across this puzzle beside the crossword and I’ve tried it a few times. But for me, it isn’t worth the effort. Take a look at the upper two squares in the left column, the one with the 7 in the circle.

           The idea is to put two number in there between 1 and 9 that add to 7, but that are also part of the across solutions. Unlike Sudoku, the numbers can repeat down the row, but no repeats in any segment. So the answer could be 6+1, 5+2, 3+4, 4+3, 2+5, or 1+6. What I do is find an easy spot, like the 3 in the right-most top corner. That has to be 2+1 or 1+2. And so on. But, am I using the right approach? I know the two columns that add to 45 use all the digits because there are 9 squares. Is that important?

           Later, I finished watching “Atonement”. My take on it is the 11-year-old grows up and becomes a writer. The movie portrays a happy ending, but that is just in the book she wrote as, you guessed it, atonement. In reality, the gardener’s son dies of blood poisoning in a Dunkirk cellar the morning before he was to be evacuated. And the older sister who’s life she destroyed drowned in a bomb shelter a few months later.
           The message I get is that people will go through all kinds of commotion to make apologies and express regrets—except do what is needed to make things right. Yet if you look at most of their situations, they had the capability to do so. I say one certain sign of a loser is they always wait until it is too late to compensate or pay reparations before coming forward with their boo-hoo I’ve-suffered-too confessions and regrets. This casts a serious dark covering over their true motives. How one reacts to these bastards depends, I think, on how often they’d seen this brand of selfish stunt before they were ten, maybe twelve. I speak from experience.
           As the more astute reader has spotted, the country lyric feature has been replaced by one-liner of the day. I’m only hoping there is enough source material on the ‘net. I, too, have read those long compilations of jokes and such. But they wear thin after the author has posted all the easy finding. One a day is more steady, and the odd repeat or weak entry here at least gets lost in the works.

One-Liner of the Day:
“Relationships are a lot like algebra,
have you ever looked at your X and wondered Y? .”
NIGHT
           The late afternoon was warm enough on the south side to get me out raking leaves. Five piles, even bagged three of them. It you can make out the shape, I’m just starting to apply the first exterior coat to my screen door. That’s the shining white color I intend to do the entire trim of the house with. I now realize that using 3/4” lumber for the screen door was not optimal. It should be at least an inch thick to stop warping. Like mine already is. Not much, but I can eyeball it. No big deal, I’ll think of some artistic way to reinforce it. And now I know better.

           The door stoop was also showing its age, so I did the old Texas landlord trick. I pried up the first boar of every step, painted it, and flipped it over. Good as new, though I couldn’t say the same for the part underneath the stairs, whatever that’s called. I bought a few years on the steps, anyway.

           It’s a quiet laugh to see these consumer products, like my oscillating tool, to have a replacement parts list in the box. Anyone who has actually tried to get a replacement part in the past thirty or so years can contribute a few remarks on that enterprise. Nor has the Internet made it any easier, if fact, the thing the Internet does best is advertising. America’s role in modern advertising is in a class of its own, for sure. I found a book on the downside of Liberalism I’ve not read. This should be fun, as I’ve been an opponent of liberal intrusion since the first day I was on the receiving end.
           My concept of liberalism is the grasshopper and the ant. You buy some emergency rations, a liberal buys a gun. What, you thought liberals were peaceful, kindly people? You have not been paying attention to their riots and protests lately. Or listened to their threats. Liberals are the ones who actually behave the way they accuse others of behaving. When it comes to self-interest, liberals are the real rednecks.

           By 8:00PM, I’ve decided the book is too long-winded but it uses great examples. Great for me, because I don’t follow TV news that might contain facts, but if you think books are long-winded, TV is an opiate. If I find an example I like I’ll tell you. Example, when California decided it was going to make the rich pay the majority of taxes, they forgot most rich people derive their income from investments. When the next stock market crash came around, they found state revenues dropped below recovery levels.
           Only a few states, such as Texas and Florida, have learned that the only reliable flow of tax revenue is the sales tax, a so-called “regressive” tax (a tax that discourages spending). Nothing regressive about user-pay in my books. It’s the places that rely on state income taxes that seem to always be in fiscal trouble. The book delves way too far into the personalities of obscure lobbyists and such. When I hear a town in Texas voted out English as an official language, I don’t need to know the name of the county or every chapter and clause number in the legislation.
           Another redundant theme is that Mexico regards parts of the southwest as still their own territory. This is mystifying when you consider even on the Mexican side, agriculture and development (except for those industries concerned with exporting) stops hundreds of miles to the south of that barren desert. The last thing Mexico legitimately wants or needs is more arid, uninhabitable land. What would they do with it if they got it back? Remember the lesson about the kid who whines because you have a bicycle and he doesn’t?

           [Author’s note: if you don’t remember that lesson, it could be because I created it. And if you didn’t read it here, you probably didn’t read it. It’s about parents, not kids. It goes like this:
           “It’s like the kid brother who whines because you have a bicycle and he doesn’t. When the parents finally buy him his own bicycle, they don’t understand why he doesn’t stop whining. Because he didn’t want his own bicycle. He wanted yours.”
           So nobody misses the point, the kid doesn’t want his own bicycle. He wants the situation whereby he has a bicycle and you don’t. I’ve always said this is a result of parents not wanting to admit their younger children are spoiled, greedy little brats. And they get that way whenever you got parents who try to “teach” their kids to share. Think about it.]


Last Laugh

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

January 29, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 29, 2016, house-hunting results.
Five years ago today: January 29, 2012, over-complicated “service plans”.
Nine years ago today: January 29, 2008, experimenting with routers.
Random years ago today: January 29, 2013, Discovery magazine has taste.

           Here’s Miranda Lambert, or at least used to be. Yeah, I’m going to give her tune “Momma’s Broken Heart” the full bass solo treatment. I can match her vocals for key and timbre and this one is so unexpected it’ll blow the audience away. I like to catch them off guard like that. The real challenge was getting that plinking guitar sound at the intro and a few other licks and special effects. But the rest of the song is a bass polka with two chords, Em and B. It’s a challenge because in no way do the lyrics match the bass, but I’m already experimenting with double-stops during the chorus.

           Not able to find any reading material, I dozed off and missed my plan for a big Saturday night out. Something tells me to get used to that. It was still cold and I threw a light blanket over my shoulders for just a moment. And didn’t wake up until 3:00 this morning. It was still biting cold but the sound woke me up. The sound of cold rain. I haven’t seen cold rain since I left Seattle. In Florida, cold usually means no rain. I had to suit up and go throw the tarps over the motorcycles. How about that, you move 200 miles and the climate changes. I’m informed that in the spring, it rains every day. And don’t panic when a cat jumps out of the sidecar in the dark.

Picture of the day.
Owens Valley, California.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Mr. Trump, you know what you could do to achieve immortality? Attack these telemarketers and put them out of business. These no-call list people are not doing their job because I still get two or three of these interruptions a month. That sucks, since all the calls originate from a few small and easily identified operators. The fact they are still around hints the enforcers are on the take. The tactics of the marketers now are to call you and pretend they didn’t know you were on the list or to claim they doing a survey. Don, you need to crack down on this nonsense. Zero tolerance, and give the law some teeth.
           As for the Muslim ban, we feel safer already. It isn’t really a ban, it is an opportunity for these religious fanatics to handle the problem at source. That’s why I watched the movie “Munich”; early in the plot it began to present the Palestinian point of view. That the land of Israel belongs to them. By the same logic, south Broward should belong to me, because I rented a place there for fourteen years. It does not matter that the people who own it today have receipts that they legitimately bought it from the people who owned it before. Because they bought it with borrowed money that was not available to me. That makes it my ancestral homeland.

           [Author’s note: see, Wallace, logic is fun (see last paragraph), as long as you don’t think too hard and stick with pre-conceived notions. Talking to that guy was useless, because his sole defense was to imply you were just too dumb to follow his “logic”, although in fairness after meeting his daughter, there is every chance he was not consciously aware he was doing it. That’s still no excuse, but if it runs in the family, what can you do? Well, here’s proof I can follow that kind of logic any time. It’s just that since I left sixth grade, I habitually chose not to.]

NOON & NIGHT
           Work with me here, I’m trying hard to make these entries interesting if not informative. I eventually had to slow down and besides, this cold weather takes getting used to after all these years. These are tarps over the motorcycles, which I’ll explain in a moment if you’ll just be patient. The trained observer will note there must not have been any wind at the time. Or you would not have seen me out there.

           I’m looking at house paint again, so stick around and see what I learn. This anti-mold primer on the screen door of late was bay a company called Zinsser, so being happy with the product, I chose to follow up with that brand name. Combining Agt. R’s advice to not peel the whole house, but just those parts which have weathered, and you get “Peel Stop Triple Thick Primer”. We looked at this before and this time it is getting the real scrutiny.
           Say here it saves “days of tedious scraping”, so you have my attention. It says it penetrates old paint and bonds it to the surface below, preventing peeling and cracking”. Friend! At $35 per gallon, it’s worth a try.

           Next, we see yet another repulsive display of the American ruling class, the television media. They have still not accepted their loss. Dear newspaper barons: there has been a palace revolt and you are only in power until the new administration gets its affairs in order. The media is making a big issue of the upcoming visit with the Prince of Wales, who they point out is a champion of global warming. After all, these non-elects like to prove they are attached to something. Anyway, the concern is that Trump will “blow up” if there is controversy on this topic.
           Well, the solution is simple. These Brits pride themselves on diplomacy, right? If we ignore those two world wars they caused with it, here’s their big chance for a showy display. They don’t bring up global warming and we overlook their collapsed empire and their imploded economy. Here’s a real opportunity for Mr. Prince-man to keep ye royal trap shut. Show that you can accept defeat a little more gracefully than the New York Times, who still wallow in the depths of denial.

One-Liner of the Day:
“I find it ironic that the colors red, white, and blue stand for freedom
until they are flashing behind you. .”
           Ha, by 4:30PM and wide awake, I can fake the Lambert tune, including the riffs. Hit ‘em with that, I got ten bucks says the last thing the crowd is expecting is a dude to sing that tune as a bass solo. No, I don’t change gender lyrics, that’s for shitty rookies who fantasize that the song expresses the way they feel instead of the audience. So much the better if I had an acoustic with me. But I’m up against two generations of Guitar Center indoctrinates who know that acoustic should never be lowered to the status of a backup instrument—and certainly not to back up a bass, for that would be the Millennial guitarist’s ultimate humiliation.

           So that I don’t hit you with only negativity today, here’s joyful news. The Lakeland Yacht and Country Club is replacing their building. Their existing 1924 structure is too high in maintenance costs. The budget for the new clubhouse is $6 million. Well, at least that explains what is to become of that old pumping shack down on Lake Hollingsworth. practice

           PS: My wildflower garden is happening without my help. One corner of the soil I spread is beneath the birdfeeder. And they are sloppy eaters. Don’t ask what’s growing yet, all young seedlings look pretty much alike to me. Here’s a picture, try your luck. The majority of the food in the feeder is sunflower seeds, known to be a red cardinal favorite.


Last Laugh

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

January 28, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 28, 2016, how to fake an apology.
Five years ago today: January 28, 2012, second-rate audience.
Nine years ago today: January 28, 2008, generic editorial, ho-hum.
Random years ago today: January 28, 2011, Player’s Filter, $10 a pack.

           How do you like my new oscillating tool? It’s from Wal*Mart and costs a few bucks more than Harbor Freight. But I’m not a war with Wal*Mart. For the extra money, this tool is variable speed and came with a selection of blades and a triangular sanding attachment, all visible here. It seems to be a versatile tool, but the weight you will find tiring. It’s a hefty implement. Agt. R says not to strip the entire house, just the parts that are flaking. He made the point about the mess that stripping makes on the ground, but I’ve never minded cleaning all that up.

           Don’t expect much work today, the weather is really biting. I stayed home and watched the movie “Munich”, very loosely based on the Olympic attacks by the Black September organization. It seems there were many departures from the reports I read about execution style killings. This movie portrays a rookie bomb maker who demolishes a lot of innocent bystanders.
           It is a weird movie that pushes some hidden agendas that I would say are red herrings pushed by the various secret services. It propagates a lot of how these covert outfits would like themselves to be portrayed when in fact, they are essentially professional blackmailers. There are few Americans who doubt we are funding dictators and terrorists but the movie takes pains to underscore the Israelis do no such thing. It’s an okay version, but buy it second-hand like I did. It was mostly filmed in the dark. The assassins ask the victims they meet fact to face, “Do you know why we are here?” What is this, twenty questions?

           Another weather-induced day off, I grabbed the local liberal press to catch up on my anti-Trump rhetoric. What’s this, some “refugees” are stalled at the airport by Trumps order to keep out Iranians? Gee, I guess 18 months notice it was coming is never enough for some people. However, I’ll bet it was liberal leaning individuals at the airports that didn’t process the ones already in transit. The press praises Mexico for exhorting their populace to buy local goods, showing that to liberals, it isn’t racist when other countries do it.
           But the one I like, the one you really gotta love is the Mexican president threatening to stop checking US-bound cargo trucks for drugs and to stop Central Americans transiting Mexico for the border. Ha, the Federales have been doing such a fine job of it that their performance is legendary, at least in the sense that people everywhere talk about the efficiency of the Mexican authorities. Mark my words, the US is paying the Mexicans to do it anyway. I mean, who is this Mexican president trying to kid? The damn place is so corrupt he should have kept his trap shut. Now the whole thing is going to blow up in his face.

Picture of the day.
Clydesdales.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Did you get that quip that Germany is going to change its law making it illegal to call down the heads of foreign states? That ugly Merkel did it because Trump pointed out the damage she’s done to Europe. But she’s also on the dim-witted side. That one is going to come back and chew her nose off.
           I tried to watch the DVD “Journey to the Center of the Earth” remake with that non-actor Brendan Fraser, but I could not take my eyes off Anita Briem. I should have moved to Iceland when I had the chance (when I was 17, but that’s another tale from the trailer court).

Total at time of posting: $20,026,746,758,698.20
national debt

           This day got me behind and I didn’t like that. I could have worked in the shed, but I haven’t had a nice stretch to pour that concrete. Walking around shifts the floor tiles, so I didn’t go in there today. If I’d had some extra propane canisters, maybe, but right now all I have is my survival kit. Agt. R had some rats chew through, what was it he said? I’ll ask next time, but I was lucky the rats didn’t even get through my Homer bucket. I must have had American rats, too lazy to do any hard work.

           Which reminds me, that’s the use I found for that extra ammo can. No way the critters are chewing through that and it holds just enough powdered and canned food for one person for a month, but nothing else. No water, no soap, no first aid. That’s all dehydrated food, except for two cans of evaporated milk. I’m not setting up a base camp and it is not hare-brained to suppose Florida will provide enough water for most kinds of survival. I’ve got firewood to boil a bath a day if it comes to that.

           Here’s a photo from the net showing a 30 ton jack like the one I don’t have. The literature says it is being used to shore up the roof of a small factory. If it can do that it should handily raise my floor. Now we start over again trying to buy such a jack. How sad that America has come to the stage where people who have money still can’t get what they want without a credit card. It’s not good enough they steal your money, they want a record of where you spent it, too.
           That damn Tractor Supply really screwed me around. Oh I know there is somebody in that building that could have stepped in and just got that jack happening on December 18, but the system works against showing any initiative. The manageress was one clueless stooge if I ever saw one. Completely powerless, she knows her job is to quote the rulebook. These are the same people who can’t figure out why they never get anything in return. She’s a smelly little bleach-bottle blonde who comes up to here on me. Her management philosophy seems to be to avoid making any difficult decisions and that will keep your record clean.

           Finally, I got a clear picture of that dead vine hanging in the front yard. Help me think of something novel and artistic I can do instead of cutting it down. This is the dangling end, the whole vine is a good 45 feet long. The challenge was that is swayed in the wind, preventing a good static shot, until, as you see, I went outside and swung the camera along with the vine, blurring the background.

           “Band of Brothers”, the book. It’s amusing for a perspective on war as a business operation. It fits what I remember of the movie, which otherwise I would barely recall. The dramatic scene of each chapter is carefully portrayed. The German galloping on the horse and the kid who shoots himself with the Luger. The book is far better at getting the message across that the Americans were not liberators, it was not their war and they did not belong there.
           The Germans had no quarrel with America, but resented the fact the Ameicans had been propping up the British in a war-like fashion since day one. America had been drawn into the war by specific political and banking maneuvers, both sides of the same coin. Without intending so, the book compliments the quality of the average German soldier, when in fact, the Americans were facing only a fraction of Germany’s second and third rate units most of the time. The book talks of “combat patrols” that only serve to clue us in how thinly manned the German lines were.
           Did you know I own five purses? Nice, fashionable leather purses. They don’t match any of my outfits because they are used to hold my tools. Like that oscillating tool this morning. The purse has a handy carry strap and nice little pockets for all the blades. There is even a zipper compartment to prevent the small bolts and Allen wrench from getting lost. I buy only the finest leather, and in a sense, I guess it does go with one of my outfits—my work clothes.

One-Liner of the Day:
“A recent study has found that women who carry a little extra weight
live longer than the men who mention it. .”

           She was not quite warm enough when I painted the second undercoat. The temp sensors both read over 64°F for several hours, but the wood itself must not have warmed to that range. Just above my thumb you can see the difference in how the paint dried in the cold. Both coats are fully dried. You can easily see the paint brush flashmark at the point where I started and finished applying the second coat to this section.
           This is just the undercoat on a door I fear I made from lumber too thin. I would of course be more careful in applying the finishing coat. The door is slightly warping on its own, prompting me to consider adding a second piece of trim to bolster it back into flat. This photo also shows how the wood joint did not pinch tight with the clamps, which is due to my cutting the kick panel stiles without a jig. It’s one of those mistakes I’d never make twice.


Last Laugh

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

January 27, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 27, 2016, even Google stays clear.
Five years ago today: January 27, 2012, a mystery from 1906.
Nine years ago today: January 27, 2008, a capturable essence.
Random years ago today: January 27, 2010, a Studebaker.

MORNING, NOON, & NIGHT
           She’s another cold one, so I could not paint or plant. It was a fun day for me, I learned new things. Here’s the progress on the screen door, I finally got to routing the shape called ogee, which Elliot pronounces with a hard “g”, I say it with a soft “g”. It’s a word we know from crossword puzzles. All I did was route around the edges so the corners are not sharp joints. It looks okay, you can see the shape before I primed. First time I’ve used such a bit, and first time I’ve routed anything like this. Orange you proud of me?

           No philosophy today as I did not even listen to the radio. I watched a long spy movie that was so boring, I did the books waiting for it to finish. Except for a dash up to Wal*Mart for some paint and a cheap ass miter box, I stayed home. That cold wind bites and it’s not like people on a side road give the motorcyclist a break. They want to you tear along at 45 in a 30 zone and freeze your nuts because they are late and taking shortcut.

           Did you know except for tiny metal parts, I’ve never used a miter? Not for wood trim, anyway. Why didn’t they tell me it is kind of fun. I dry-fitted a few of the joints on the back of the openings you see in the photo. The black fiberglass mesh netting is affixed to the other side which will form the interior of the door. That greenish anti-mold primer dried to this dark grey color.
           Last day I read the Wiki definition of a Libertarian and I caution the reader again that Wiki is not a good source for factual or background information. It is almost entirely written by people who want themselves or their pet topics to appear in the best light. Many topics that should be open to critical discourse are presented from politically correct or outright propagandistic angles. I would rate Wikipedia as left-leaning and unreliable as a source of truth, it just isn’t their mandate.

Picture of the day.
Twins in a mirror.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           The way Wikipedia trashes Libertarianism is to include a wide scope of non-conformist views and lump them into the same category. Utterly ridiculous antics and crackpot theorists are described as if they represent other facets of being a Libertarian. Not so, and I propose that the world needs a new word to define Libertarians who don’t seek anarchy or free food or public ownership of resources. They just want to live in a world where government does not force or coerce them over how to live their lives. It is the narrow “good” parts of Libertarianism that I subscribe to and that is also the model for Planet 107.

           Here’s a close-up of the trim [that was] cut by hand. I think that’s a darn good fit for my first time. I think the topcoat of paint will go right over the hairline gap just visible when you get too close. This is on the door only, the window screens are held in by simple butt joint strips of lath. That old lath they used to plaster with before drywall. If you can’t see the important part of this picture, well thank you, that’s what I wanted to hear.
           The concept here is not the damn woodwork, but what learning this myself is potentially going to do to the value of my property. No more partners.

           I began repairing the window screens that are actually torn or have holes and I see that the last guy took some shortcuts. Also, some of the frames were mounted backwards into the windows so those will have to be redone. Folks, the screen goes on the inside of the window frame. A couple were not just backward and thus warped over time, they had been repaired backward as well. Odd, since I’m only the third owner and maybe fifth tenant of the place.

           Generally the frames are in satisfactory condition, so I’m just sprucing them up. They were mainly just dirty but a few had that same pale yellow compound that’s splattered on the window glass. The next photo shows how I stripped off the pieces and wiped them down, then painted them this decent white color. That’s the same white color the screen door will be getting. It warmed up to 64°F by mid afternoon, allowing me to proceed with painting. That’s another activity I find relaxing, which is good because the whole building needs painting

           Now my book report on “Burma Road”. It was a contemporary of many travel stories of its era, closely mimicking the format that National Geographic still uses to this day. That is, the photos are fine but articles written by photographers tend to be anemic. I know that’s a two-way street, that my pictures aren’t the best—but my prose is vastly more informative than your average (I said average) NG presentation. I have thousands of repeat readers, but how many times have you deliberately read back-issues of NG because you liked the authorship? That’s what I’m talking about.
           Conclusion: the book is a mediocre work notable mainly for its views from the Allied side of the war effort and for sporadic gems of observation on local culture from a moderately strong American point of view. I commend the book for taking pictures in a manner that would be hard to misunderstand. That’s a far cry from the blatant misrepresentations as were to became common during the Viet Nam era, and are now a daily component of the mainstream brainwashing operations known in our troubled times as news sources.

Country Song Lyric of the Day:
“I Shaved My Legs For This?”
           How to you like my bargain basement plastic miter box, compliments Wal*Mart? It seems to work okay but plastic and saws do not, in my experience, form any long-lasting affiliations. I liked doing this work, which surprises me because I’m not that patient with wood as a rule. Please let it be warm mañana and I’ll see if can fit the screen into the kitchen doorframe. The project is dragging a bit for a few reasons. I’m only working on it an hour or two every other day and I’m proceeding slowly in learning mode. I’ve pried apart a number of mistakes and redone several sections for better cosmetics. Like the router, that wasn’t part of the deal. That took a few extra hours because there was no margin for error.

           The country lyric feature needs to be wrapped up. All the really snappy examples are used, but it is a great blog hit generator. What should I replace it with? These are always special features meant to run a couple months, searching for that one that propels me into the limelight. I figure if you get enough 15 seconds of fame, you can make a career out of it. Look at Britney.

           Speaking of frumpy housewives, there’s a tune that has all the ingredients for duo arrangement. Think Maria Lambert. She’s getting a little pudgy, but what, she must be mid-30s by now. The music I’m thinking of—and I don’t know the exact lyrics or message yet—is “Momma’s Broken Heart”. Your typical new country in that it has only one hook in the whole song, usually the chorus. I’ll give it a good listening to soon. I’ve only heard it on the jukebox and it’s half over before I detect the catchy part. One thing I clue in fast is that women like to sing along with that number. And that’s one sound I seem to hear much louder and clearer than any guitar player I’ve ever seen in the state of Florida.


Last Laugh

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

January 26, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 26, 2016, more on Okeechobee dark matter.
Five years ago today: January 26, 2012, the housing Ponzi game.
Nine years ago today: January 26, 2008, . . . all teaching Grade One.
Random years ago today: January 26, 2003, it means “old already”.

MORNING
           Home Depot has the same 30-ton bottle jack, but it’s the same deal. Order on-line and the store cannot/will not participate. You must use your own email, tipping you off that your email is not as private as you thought. Not if department stores will accept is a way to track you down. Time to set up that proxy server, folks. But I need that jack. Today I got some of the black fiberglass mosquito mesh I talked about. What sold me is that not only is it easier to see through, for some reason it does not refract the light into little circles like brighter material. (If you just want to look at the pretty bird, this is a new photo.)

           Look closely at this photo, this time you are not admiring the pretty cardinal. They were here this morning. You at looking at the noticeable grid pattern that overlays the picture. That’s because you are looking through the aluminum mesh screen. It is reflective enough to disturb the autofocus camera feature. But there is no removing that screen. Unless you want to meet Mr. West Nile and Mrs. Zika, two more illegal immigrants who have formed a breeding mass and are now bloodsucking off America. Do I get any points for subtlety?

           You know I want a circular driveway and the on-line calculator says it would add 15% to my home value. The quote I got today was $1,500 for concrete and smoothing only. I would have to dig my own pit, put down the gravel and mesh, and make ready. Still, that’s not bad. No parking dump trucks or farm implements but 4” of concrete with wire is plenty for cars and motorbikes. Of that price, around $750 is for the concrete itself. I talked to the guy who says the job is too small for him and I asked him why.
           He said because it was impossible to get good help and hastened to add he did not mean difficult, but actually impossible. The Millennials want their $15 per hour for standing around and the rest can’t read or write, much less follow instructions. That verifies what I’ve said long ago, welfare makes people too comfortable to work, but never tell us the jobs are not out there. I’ll wager that people on welfare take home more than people at minimum wage. Meaning those welfare bums will never find a job.
           Mr. Trump, if you want to slash the Federal budget, that’s where you start. No more welfare, they have to do some kind of work. To those who say that has been tried and doesn’t solve the problem, up yours. We don’t want to solve problems; we want these jerks working like the rest of us. Can’t work? That’s disability. We’re not talking about that, and anyway, that is insurance, not welfare. There, is that grouchy enough for you this morning?

           I’m the grouch. Don’t ask me, I had a great sleep, a hearty breakfast, everything went okay and I got all the letters mailed. The birds are happy and the bills are paid. You tell me why I’m upset. Is the world sending me information that I’m not decoding? And another thing I don’t like is these “Genius Entertainment” brand DVDs that have those damn commercials you can’t bypass on startup. You know the ones. Feed the children. And in the process feed the CEO of the charity a million bucks a year.

Picture of the day.
Meanwhile in Mongolia . . .
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

NOON
           Down to 54°F again means no flower garden. Let me haul out the Almanac. Mixed clouds, sun, that’s about as nonspecific as you’ll get about Florida. The Farmer’s Almanac, which further says this year’s temperatures could be “wild”. If I see anything of that in the yard, I’ll take a pot shot at it with the air rifle. Besides, that definition doesn’t help. Motorcycle riders have broader parameters about what’s wild. The Almanac tells the best days to diet, bake, paint windows, potty train, dig holes, hunt, get married, and cut firewood.

           I should be finishing that screen door, but I put a chicken in the oven to roast. Not wanting to fuss with dressing, I stuffed it with an onion and now I’m just drinking up that aroma. Can’t tear myself away. I dusted it with black pepper and a garlic spice mixture, which adds to the bouquet. And I didn’t even want chicken today but too late now. Okay, I’ll meet the chore half way. I’ll string out the sander and put the 120 grit belt on it, fair enough. Alright, and I’ll stir the paint. Here’s that hunky construction worker running the belt sander.

           [Author's note: this is the version of the photo sent to Marion, but instead of "hunky", the adjective phrase was "them beyotches get turned on by that light sawdust tan over a slippery glistening work-glow . . .". But this blog is PG-13 so you get the tame version. You're not on my mailing list.]

           I should be finishing that screen door, but I put a chicken in the oven to roast. Not wanting to fuss with dressing, I stuffed it with an onion and now I’m just drinking up that aroma. Can’t tear myself away. I dusted it with black pepper and a garlic spice mixture, which adds to the bouquet. And I didn’t even want chicken today but too late now. Okay, I’ll meet the chore half way. I’ll string out the sander and put the 120 grit belt on it, fair enough. Alright, and I’ll stir the paint. As long as I get to stand downwind from the kitchen window. See how easy I am to get along with when you give me my own way?
           The door frame is sanded. Some of my more glaring mistakes will still show through. Good, it adds to the old school charm of the place. I made enough errors to have to go over it with coarse grit and then again with fine. I don’t have any primer, but I found a can of something in the shed that says self-priming, which is good enough for me because I believe in two layers of primer. I’ve two hours to kill, so daylight or not, I’m throwing on a DVD.

           Mack, the new retiree, showed up at the club last night as I was dropping off reports. We got to hanging around, his wife is visiting up in Maine or something. He’s played the Legion a lot so he knows everybody and we got to talking music. He’s missing the good times so maybe we’ll make a rhythm player out of him yet. Then we’ll work on getting him to learn some fast music. He even plays the droners on the jukebox. Get that guitar, Mack, I can see already that retirement is going to drive you around the bend.
           I finished reading “Burma Road”, it just stops off as they get to the terminus in China. It’s like this blog, where nobody I meet casually ever has their character developed. I heard the road was abandoned after the war. The only surprise is on the last leg of the journey, they get blocked by a massive landslide that will take weeks to clear. They cannot stay put because of the bandits. Once again, money saves the day. They walk a jungle path around the debris to the other side to find the only other Ford in China, and it is a 1938. The guy driving it is carrying a mining company payroll. So, they simply swap the cars. A 37 for a 38 in 39, you might say. You might if you want us to groan.

AFTERNOON
           There’s your primed door frame, on one side. Tell me seriously, how do you like this color? Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. No wonder they left it behind. I read the label and it is a paint to block mold and mildew in showers. Says it can even be painted over tile and formica. And who’d want to shower after that, since the paint is roughly the same color as the mold. Anyway, it bites right into the raw wood and it looks like a good tight surface seal. The final door will be painted white to match the rest of the house trim. That’s the plan, anyhow.

           The books I’ve kept show I’m putting an average of $400 in materials into the house each month. And I shoot for top quality. Much you won’t see, like the insulation and floor joists, but all of it contributes to a dandy little spot to wind things up. An individual in my condition statistically has 9 years left. I’ll shoot for double that. The only thing left is meeting that rich widow, but that’s not going to happen this summer unless she pours concrete.

           Yuck, I did not like the Harrison Ford movie, “Crossing Over”. Biased against the border patrol. Liberal propaganda, like how evil it is to throw out one single family with a potential suicide bomber. But ignoring what that bomber could do to fifty or a hundred American families. Watch it anyway, the movie has a sort of plot and it’s full of dynamite slim, proportionate young women. Make yourself some roast chicken sandwiches with cucumber and sweet mustard, you’ll be okay. The swearing in ceremony is a mockery of what the American people want. And please, just have an ordinary vocalist sing the national anthem. Ditch the scat version.
           One point I would make clear. If Trump deports these illegals, he is not breaking up families. He is reuniting them. What part of “illegal” don’t some people understand? The movie claims these illegals are merely “struggling to achieve legal status”. Yeah, buy buying fake ID, sleeping with immigration officials, and robbing liquor stores.
           One more walk out to the back yard to paint the door trim, that’s the ones I cut myself, and I’m done for the day. Four hours to do 1.5 hours of work, not bad. That’s called overhead Wallace, not wasting time telling the other guy to go get the same tool for the sixth time just to pretend you are boss. (Guys like Wallace are never the boss around me.) You know, I just thought of something. What if Wallace never had the brainpower to think far enough ahead to know what tool he would need again? Then I thought, naw, not some guy with all those chess champions in his family.

Country Song Lyric of the Day:
“Your Negligee Has Turned To Flannel Nightgowns .”
NIGHT
           Time for a repeat tale from the trailer court. My country song lyric feature (due to be replaced soon for lack of material) was inspired by a guy named Barney Buckle. Yep, that’s a real name. When I was in college, I worked summers as a shipper receiver at a construction yard. He was the painter. Oops, I correct myself, he was a Master painter “because that takes 25 years and that’s long than to be a doctor, you know”. Psst, I’ve got a dollar for every time he said that. At that age I hated country music. And Barney would sing on the job. First, here’s the most famous pic of my hero.

           To me, the songs he sang were so corny that I never knew if he was making things up. He’d sometimes get the words wrong anyway. I thought he’d gone loopy when he sang, “Cook me up some bacon and some beans”. It’s misleading to say he sang, Barney couldn’t carry at tune in one of his paint buckets. End of tale, except to say I did not switch over to country music until 2006, and that at the end of a 15 year slow conversion. The biggest motivation for me was that rock wasn’t selling any more. That oversimplifies things, there were dozens of influences. Would you like to know some of them? Sure, wny not.
           To most listeners, music has variety of styles. Rock, blues, classical, ska, etc. All of these can be faked by a musician of reasonable competence. The departure from ordinary with me is that I also recognize additional varieties of music as “dance” or “amateur”. That’s correct, I see the amateur sound as just another type that can be categorized, analyzed, studied, and copied. Don’t presume this is easy, why, imagine the last time you tried to play a game with a child. It is harder to drop to that level than to meet someone at your own. Same with music.

           Country music fits the bill, it is easy to work with, and it is easy to sell to clubs and audiences. Not so with guitar players, I keep meeting one lame specimen after another. The concept of “playing in a band” are so hopelessly outdated they are adversarial. Arguing that your way doesn’t work although they’ve never tried it. Would you confirm that, Glen? Part of taking guitar lessons entails being indoctrinated that the lead player is always right even when he isn’t either one. In the sense of playing a song they don’t like for the sake of the band or the audience, I have yet to meet a guitar player who is a true musician.
           I still played rock after 2006. But I’ll give you the statistic that says it all. Between 2006 and 2015, I played in various rock groups for a total of 11 gigs. That includes the five-piece band together with the times I jammed with the Hippie, Eddie, and Arnel at obscure pubs. During that same period, I played something like 244 country gigs. And don’t even compare the earnings. In the rock bands, for all that effort and expensive equipment, the most I earned in one night was $45. With country, the average was more than that. In fact, the least I ever made at a tips-only country gig was $9—but that compares well with what the Hippie pays.


Last Laugh

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

January 25, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 25, 2016, looking at more properties.
Five years ago today: January 25, 2012, DNA clone machine, $599.00.
Nine years ago today: January 25, 2008, visiting Lake Worth.
Random years ago today: January 25, 2015, on the Angolan war.

MORNING
           Here’s a picture of that “cabin” mentioned last day. The one my pal is helping a friend get into shape up near Prince Robert. It kind of puts my little operation to shame. He’s told me of siding called “Hardy”. Never heard of it—but that’s why we have the Internet. It is described as a “chalk” material. Return after I’ve researched that one.

           After consulting with my people out west, it’s time to proceed on the renovations by myself even if that means hiring help and includes the situation where things return to the way they were, so in a sense, they can never return now. The bottom line is I am 90 days behind schedule over here and winter is half over. I have no porch, my floor is unlevel, and my new bathroom is not even started.
           One new item is a crackdown on expenses. That doesn’t mean money isn’t spent, but it means a keener segregation of costs between household and renovations. I always had the information, but it was lumped together. Beginning this Friday, there will be no overlap. The only new figure is I now know it costs $121.64 monthly for all my services (water, sewer, garbage, etc.)

           I’m also not unpacked yet. I’ve had to do chasing around because I can’t located necessary records and such. Nobody could have predicted that truck disappearing, but that was last August already. Tomorrow, locate that bottle jack and tell Tractor Supply what they can do. When you go down there, they are brim full of suggestions what you can do, but none of them will lift a finger. It was like being back at the phone company.
           Cripes-amighty, I got a second call from out west and did I just get my ass chewed off. Same message, that I’m a fool to rely on any help. My protest that the primary reason for doing so was my failing health—Pooh! They would have nothing of that, calling it an excuse. Time to get off my tush and establish a daily work schedule on my cabin. I know when I’ve done been told.

Picture of the day.
When fog freezes.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

NOON
           My ears still singed by the teleconferences this AM, I took the Rebel down to the south end to the bank. Then, needed space to ponder, I drove all the way out to visit with Agt. R and find out what I need by way of supplies. Concrete, roofing tar, primer, flashing. (He knows about this stuff and unfair as it is, I’m not paying him for all this advice.) Time to get to work. The consensus is that I’m on my own with the renovations and time to start acting like it. Here’ your DIY chain saw.

           Agt. R has been invaluable. He worked the big stores knows what people came back to say doesn’t work. Now, I’ll buy the fiberglass wheelbarrow (instead of steel) and the white-colored roofing tar. I’ve done been told to strip and prime the wood siding the same day—even allowing dew to settle on the wood is wrong. The floor will be concrete, not mortar. And always paint the back of your house first—but I’m going to let you reckon why that is on your own.

           For anyone with short memories, the plan was for JZ and I to remodel an older place to see how that would work for a small business venture. If you read back around a year ago, you can find mention of this as a decisive factor in buying this property. I was prepared to put a down payment and pay out a nicer, bigger place. JZ wanted to fix up a place and flip it, using the profit for a bigger place. So, this house is a compromise and in a sense, it succeeded in letting JZ and I know that such a business venture is unfeasible. Hey, at least we tried.
           I doubled the budget for renovations beginning February. If you think you’ve got problems, take a look at this video of Paris. YOU'RE TOO LATE, THE VIDEO JUST GOT BLOCKED. This, folks, is what happens when you leave Liberals in charge hoping it will shut them the fuck up. Liberals are traitors to their own kind, never forget that.

Country Song Lyric of the Day:
“If I Were In Your Shoes, I'd Walk Right Back To Me.”
NIGHT
           Aha, I knew it. A medical journal, I’m not specifying, has announced that there is a form of motion sickness that is like jet lag, but without the nausea. See, I told ya. It’s a feeling of being off balance without being dizzy. I knew it wasn’t ordinary vertigo, because I could eat a horse and also, I got it from north-south travel. Therefore it was not garden-variety jet lag.
           The lastest musican canceled out. There is a pattern to that. I contact them and they say they want to play in a band more than anything. I explain the logic of a duo as the best band for the times. Their reaction is always that this is the first time they every heard anyone who has paid any attention to the matter. They ask for demo recordings. I send them a recording. They contact back the next day saying they changed their minds, they don’t want a duo. Yet, if in about another year, you ever see these same people in a band, it is a duo. Hmmmm.

           I sat around sketching designs and planning some materials purchases. So, here are some stage one-liners I lifted from an old Benny Hill episode.

           √ The DJ said, “You are listening to AM 1650.” How does he know?
           √ Just because nobody complains, it doesn’t mean all parachutes are perfect.
           √ All the people in favor of birth control have already been born.
           √ Do teenage polar bears hibernate around?
           √ That missing link between apes and modern man—maybe it’s us?


Last Laugh
It’s the cat’s birthday. Sure, sure.

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