One year ago today: January 11, 2016, “PARIS”, over & over.
Five years ago today: January 11, 2012, no ordinary bomb.
Nine years ago today: January 11, 2008, gossip, the Hippie, etc.
Random years ago today: January 11, 2013, a talentless half-wit.
MORNING
Show of hands. How many people just knew I had a ham omelet for brekkie? See, you’ve got my number. It’s not all navigation, numbers, and schematics. See here this photo. I now have a much better idea of where people get cubed ham. You don’t need any cubed ham, do you? I’ve got six cups. It was only an omelet because I didn’t have enough eggs for quiche. What, you don’t need any ham? Well how about I varnish your kitchen woodwork. It’ll look really nice. Like the post on my mail box. Prettiest on the block now.
Did I ever tell you about the time at scout camp Brock McLean and I snuck away and wound up in a tent with a three naked French girls? We were 13 and they were hot, hot, hot. Didn’t speak English. Unbeknownst to us, a rainstorm had come up over the lake and we, for reasons, did not hear the recall whistle. So the scout leaders sent out search parties and the tent flap flung open just as we were crawling into the sleeping bags with the girls, peckers at glorious full attention. I had two, Brock had the not-quite-so-pretty one. You see, because I did all the talking. In English.
Bearing in mind this was back when 13 year old boys were not supposed to know anything about sex, we were given the option of being sent home in disgrace or running the gauntlet. We both elected for the whipping. This is why I laugh when I hear guys these days talk about their conquests. It’s not the same. It really is different with two virgin white girls with no tattoos or piercings, wearing nothing but wide-eyed smiles of curiosity. These moron Millennials will never know what aroused really is because the things that make it so no longer exist. That’s why there are so many more stripper bars since the 80s. We snuck back to the beach the next day after tuck and the girls and the tent were gone. A sad, true tale from the trailer court.
I watched another John Wayne movie while updating the files on this place. I still have not had a “free” month, that’s a stretch without some big expense. Operating a vehicle is just as much a necessity out here in the woods as food and water. And that $480 into the Rebel isn’t over, the transmission is still sticking. Don’t be concerned, I have the money, but it cancels my travel plans. John Wayne is a cattle cook in “Hell Town”. Classic dialog like, “Sink your teeth into these biscuits.” “No thanks, last time I did that two of ’em stayed there.”
Dover cliffslide.
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NOON
I got to reading that challenging book “Out of Antarctica” again. This is tough material not made any easier when the author uses unfamiliar parlance. Words like “orthodromic” (normally a medical term) for latitudes, which threw me off kilter when I tried to imagine what he meant could be ortho about parallel lines. Here’s what I think I have figured out so far. He’s saying the Earth’s mantle is like a cracked eggshell, which most of us recognized as Wegener’s Theory of Plate Tectonics. We know this theory is accurate today but the theory’s premises, like subduction and seafloor spreading do not explain the patterns of fossils and sedimentary rock patterns.
So, I think, the book is saying that maybe one should pay more attention to the ancient tales of catastrophe, something that people who study evolution tend to discount in favor of eons of slow change. The submission here is that while the continental plates could not have moved to their present positions, it is possible that the underlying molten core could have turned inside the “eggshell”. It is know that the North Pole wanders around.
“Out of Antarctica” proposes that if the core turns, the continents can and do rotate to find the new equilibrium, where the Earth is slightly flatter at the poles. This explains why the glaciers went only so far and stopped abruptly. The ice fields were following the North Pole as it drifted around. And there were no corresponding ice ages in the southern hemisphere because, if the South Pole followed suit, most of the time it was in open ocean, where glaciers cannot form.
You will probably not be able to read this book unless geology really interests you. If, in fact, the continents did re-orient themselves, it would cause mass extinctions and it would explain why latitudes were no longer parallel. If you shift anything three times, there will always be a triangle pattern, and triangles have orthocenters. See if you can spot them in the above photo. There, are you happy now?
“If You Don't Believe I Love You Just Ask My Wife.”
NIGHT
Is it night already? Yep, I took it easy and raked the shed floor. There was three hours of hauling the old rotten floor out of there by hand, you know, wheelbarrow work. This is all documented because it is all new to me. Shown here is the last big pile of the old floor, crumbling as it is raked. This wood has termites and dry rot, so it cannot just be covered over. I hauled out five loads today, but got the last of it.
The beautiful half-tame blue-eyed Persian cat has been badly mauled on the scruff of the neck. He won’t let anybody near but they look like claw marks more than bites. Still, if something with claws that big is prowling around, I’d like to know in advance. Zeke has disappeared but the other cats still patrol the yard. Oh, and two dark birds around the size of pigeons have arrived. I can’t get a good view as they are skittish and absolutely silent when they fly. They are seed-eaters, so sooner or later I’ll have pics.
This is the sand in the shed being leveled. How do you like my nice wooden screed? The sand back there is more like silt, but not quite that fine-grained. It’s easy to work with, but even walking on it throws things off perpenzontal. I’ll put down some patio tiles later even though I’ve got a darn good idea I’ll have to lay down some wire mesh to keep the blocks from wobbling.
The area show in this picture is where the first work bench is going. It’s the best wall in the place and I can’t imagine having almost eight feet of excellent work counter after all these years. And enough storage space to have several projects at once without having to clear a space. This work shed might must soon be necessary for my psycho-mo-logical well-being. I think some of the deleted passages from the Bible have things to say about every man gets the workshop he deserves. Something like that.
ADDENDUM
In the meantime, I’ve been practicing what Ray-B said, lead breaks on the bass. Anybody who has noticed that lead breaks are essentially series of simple riffs strung together knows the approach, but the bass is short one octave. Variety is harder to achieve than the guitarist who moves the same riff up three or four times. On the bass, if you follow the rule of sticking to bass and avoid the really high frets, leaves you two octaves. And guitar patterns won’t work because there is no offset B string on the bass.
Hey, Patsie, Ken, Theresa, Hector, and Wallace, the floor in my back shed is more famous than everything you’ve done in your miserable lives combined. I thought I’d point that out because you still think you are right and I am wrong. Did you know that when I die, my lawyer has instructions to release your full identities to the world? It’s your only chance of ever being remembered. It isn’t pretty and you know, between the lot of you, there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. You don’t have the brains. And in most cases, the looks, either.
Back to music. So what I did was diagram the two top guitar strings and superimposed them on a schematic of the bass, then memorize the notes. Since I can’t do the octave trick, I used a series of descending bass riffs as passing notes between the two octaves I can use. If I use the third octave, the notes are too high and the bass “dance” feel of the music is lost. Just like I don’t let guitar players lose the rhythm for the sake of some ornamental picking, I don’t allow the bass to drop any roots or fifths that would miss a root or fifth. It’s busy and reserved for bassists with a complete command of the fretboard.
However, unlike most guitarists, I can play both at the same time, the style I call “rhythm bass”. I know the seven riffs that guitarist play and told you of my sabotage “play ahead” dirty trick I pull on show-offs, but I’ve found if I’m doing any lead passages myself, only four or five of the riffs can be used on the bass. This is more limiting than it sounds.
Last Laugh
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