February 5, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: February 5, 2016, on genetic drift.
Five years ago today: February 5, 2012, that 15 course buffet.
Nine years ago today: February 5, 2008, not musical but mental . . .
Random years ago today: February 5, 2009, hilarious music post.

MORNING
           This is a before picture of the shelves from y’day. I decided today was the day to finally get some real shelves in the cabin, and salvage all the crown molds and such for my screen door. I figure it’s mostly how you cut the wood that makes it look swanky. There was a ton of hardware on these units, which I saved and it is now boiling on the stove. To make bolt soup? No, Ken, to remove the old paint. This furniture had been painted a few times without removing the hinges. There’s proof I can stay home all day and putter around, ladies.

           It was a Canada warm day. You know, where it’s okay as long as you are in the direct sunshine on the sheltered south side of the building. Step around the corner or into the shade and it’s brass monkey joke time. I wanted a small work counter in the storage shed, as I don’t like things like grease or gasoline near my robot or woodworking gear. I was out there all day, listening to the neighbor down the road yelling at her dog. What a strange way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Poor pooch.

           There’s an old Alaskan saying that there is something you need to know before teaching a dog. You’ve heard this one: More than the dog. I made a jug of lemonade, real lemons, but used the jug I usually make berry juice mix. Gag, terrible mixture. But the outdoor work was enough for me that I drank the whole gallon. That’s okay, it is easy to get in and out of the kitchen these days. Screen door, y’know.
           Some shifting parameter makes Bushnell adultery radio fade out and get replaced by some equally creepy station that features crime. That’s right, every few minutes is the announcement and description of some wanted person. This is America, so they get to call the wanted person a “felon” or “perpetrator” long before he is ever accused or convicted of a thing. This station is particularly out to defame anyone who is even a suspect. Hint, when the police say they are “unsure of the relationship” between the dead woman and the individual being sought, trust me, they are very sure. And now, so are you.

           This is a picture of my spice rack. I don’t like penguins, I mean why call it a bird if it can’t fly? Stupid and ugly, too, evolved for a niche because nobody else wanted it. This is what Burger King gives as a “toy”, showing how cheap they’ve gone on you. Remember when they gave out toys that flashed and did something. Not no more. So, some people call these penguins. I call them target practice.

Picture of the day.
Streamlined 1936 transportation.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

NOON
           Not many will recall JZ and I had a bet over who would get a house happening first. I forget what the bet was for, but probably money. It’s not a sore spot and I pay him well to help out. So when I say there is a paint brush around here with his name on it, that’s no metaphor. In fact, there it is right now. See, says plain as day, “JZ”. That’s the brush that was supposed to help paint the house exterior in two days and increase my equity in the house by $10 grand. Then I buy some beers and we’re even. Hey, I won the bet.

           For a week I said, Sunday I’m making quiche. Reminded myself repeatedly. But I got lazy. It took four and a half hours to dismantle that furniture and install the three shelves. Sadly, they are temporary shells because it all comes down when I go to insulate the main wing. So I made ham & cheese macaroni. Which was close enough to quiche that I said, “Hell with that. I’m having a nap”.

           And what a nap, with the screen door opoen. Cats can’t get in. Flies and wasps can’t get in. But cool breezes across the interior because the first window screens I put up are the ones that let through the cross-currents. Ah, to snooze with the kitchen door open, haven’t done that in so long. I like my screen door.
           I tried sleep learning once, you know, playing the tapes while sleeping. But the tape skipped and now I can only stutter in French. Stopping to think about that shelf I’m dismantling, there was a piece of crown molding or whatever it is called along the top, English style. I tore it off the mounts and looked at it for a bit. Then it hit me, why not slice that thing up into something useful? Shown here is the process of cutting and painting, it’s self-explanatory. I used one of the spare pieces from the screen door to get the thickness exact. Now, think, what can I use these for? I also measured the screen door and I may just flip it over and hang it inside out, doubling the thickness of the wood with another routed frame. That makes it 1-1/2” thick, so you can slam it all you want—but don’t you dare.
           Here’s 4,000 words. (That’s correct, the saw has no guard. I’ll make one.)

One-Liner of the Day:
“Cable TV insults your intelligence, but
nothing rubs it in like a computer.”
NIGHT
           Why you want to see a picture of the bathroom shelf, I don’t know. But here it is. Just a small upright beside the pottie. To get the essentials up off the floor. No, it isn’t painted because it will be the first thing to go once the work begins on the bathroom floor. For now, there’s not much else that fits in that narrow a space, around 9”. Normally, there are clocks where you see the bog roll, but I was in a hurry.

           That’s all wood from the hutch part of the shelving shown in today’s carpenter pictures. I cut the bottom part to size and shoehorned it into the red shed, but it was too dark to get a photo. Return tomorrow, I’ll show you what I mean. Just get my electric tools up onto some wood. I’ve heard the concept, that resting on concrete has some destructive electrolytic property.

           I got into the bad practice of putting tools on the cement floor. I further needed a dedicate place to store painting supplies, which tended to find hiding places all over my house. There was always a frantic search and I still can’t find my metal paint tray. And I spray painted all the metal frame planters that were scattered here and there when I bought the house. Again, tomorrow, pictures.
           I took the night off because I was also out of practice with navigation. That’s not so bad considering my limited goals. I’ve at least read the advanced chapters and have an idea what I’m missing. Let me recap what I’ve done and learned. The part that kept my attention was the calculations. Not the adding and subtracting, but understanding the process behind the scenes. I’ve taken only around 40 sextant readings total, not counting practice sights from the same location.

           That’s 40 more than most people so I’m okay with that. I’ve shot the sun only, and looked at the moon once or twice, never the stars. This is practical, since in the Miami area, the only option for a sun sight is early morning to around noon, both of which involve either paying for parking or traveling too far. There is no water horizon for evening readings and the light pollution and haze of the city make shooting the stars a frustrating exercise.
           This parallels by study of robots. For me the fascinating part is the programming, not the wiring. Although it could be argued that programming is actually an unusually form of wiring, in the sense that everything programming accomplishes could, theoretically, be done by complicated wiring. Thus, when I practice navigation, I tend to stop after the calculating is done, I rarely take the sextant readings or plot the charts. Same with robots, I figure out the programming, and if it compiles, I know it’ll be fine and hardly ever build the robot. Not my job.

           There are two major areas of programming where errors cause the most headaches. Coding errors and logic areas, mind you these are broad categories and probably have lots of other terms to describe them. Unlike some, ahem, I spend 99% of my debugging on code errors, often having to look up in the manual what the people who created the language were even thinking. But I am very proud to say that in lifetime, I have never produced a program with a logic error. And the 1% of my time on those were invariably procedural logic, not those asinine Millennial coders with their whacked out C+ spaghetti code that has to be redone for every minor change.
           To non-programmers, logic errors are where the code compiles and runs, but produces the wrong results, the classic garbage in-garbage out scenario. I find most of the time it results from the programmer not understanding the subject matter or suffering from lack of intelligent imagination. That’s the cow example, the programmers who try to count the feet and divide by four. They can get the code to work eventually. To be effective, you have to thoroughly understand the subject matter before you start—and this is rare beyond belief in the education system as it exists today.

ADDENDUM
           Here’s your master pie-maker at work. The trick is to get a crispy browned crust without resorting to an egg wash. I could, but I learned how to brown back when eggs were on my no-no list. Now don’t say it’s another pie picture until you read why it is here. What you are looking for is a lesson in applied physics.

           This is a 9-inch pie plate, but there is something a little off dimension. That’s why I call it my quiche pie plate. Somehow it is just a little bigger than 9 inches, probably just by the thickness of the crust, shown here. Because of it, this plate makes shallow pies, or it will hold a double load of filling without brimming.

           Shown here, the fruit pies are thinnner, and break when removed from the plate without a special pie implement. Yet this same plate makes perfect quiche to spec. It bakes the egg evenly edge to center, done at the same time. The toothpick test works everywhere, not just the center. I think it is some thermodynamic property of the glass. It is no thicker than a regular pie plate, but the glass is somewhat heavier.
           Now, I could ponder this most interesting condition, or go have a piece of cherry pie. So, see you later, alligator.


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