One year ago today: June 4, 2016, Red Cross, my eye.
Five years ago today: June 4, 2012, FUD.
Nine years ago today: June 4, 2008, moving into Wally’s Folly.
Random years ago today: June 4, 2009, a dreadful outcry.
Exciting yard news. Hey, this is Sunday morning in Bum-you-know-what, Egypt. I stayed home last night playing Merle Haggard. You don’t know how much I need this band, and I find out more every day. Like my guitar player is busy playing drums in the church that morning. So feeling limber, I raked the yard and bagged two. I found one of those ancient thick glass beer bottles and began building another set of shelves in the work shed.
Later, here’s a photo of the finished lumber storage shelf, about half the shelf space I worked on today. This shed is a blessing. It is so nice to be out, away from the house, not worry about noise or mess. And all the tools in one room, man, I waited so long for this. I was out there for seven hours today, and I might still be out there if I had a coffee machine in place.
It was all very light work yet the improvement in efficiency is impressive. It seems I take naturally to multi-tasking this unfamiliar work, which makes me happy. As half expected, I am already running short of electrical outlets and have already installed two power bars with more on the way. The shed isn’t perfect but for less than $400, it’s better than most I’ve seen. And make that $500 once I install a used air conditioner.
Here is a pic of a new shoot poking up. If you can ID this plant, let me know. A supplementary advantage of this transplant is it is cleaning up the garden space in the back yard. Alas, the area is too shady for a garden, but we’ll set to work using the old imagination. That is too nice a spot in the back to leave vacant. It’s fenced, too. Something will eventually go in there.
Computer carved.
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Two weeks of rock tumbling. We don’t have the proper type of raw material. Still, you can see these specimens have gotten much softer. Probably, we got further than most people ever did and I’m still looking at the results. Put a lot on hold, however, as I need to start on that living room floor this week sometime. Everything I use daily has to be shifted around. Retire, they said. You can relax, they said. No pictures, as I did not have the macro lens ready before returning the rocks to the barrel.
This is not a random repair. The extra width allows the occupant to twist and turn, or sit at an angle. When you get old with a far arse, you’ll appreciate the thoughtfulness. The next project is the white park bench. I was tempted to just paint it since apparently it is to used only as an ornament. My thinking says if it is a seat, somebody will sit in it, so I replaced the rails, shown below, WIP. I don’t need painting experience meaning I decided to use the English Cherry stain from Minwax. Staining experience I need a lot of.
You bet I learned plenty. Take a critical look at this lumber. There are two sizes of rails, wide and narrow. Clear is the variation of the wood stain coloration. I ran out of 1x4” halfway through, so y’day Agt. R dropped off some old bed slats. Here they are, sanded, planed, corner-rounded, and cut to length. They are the boards with the distinctively redder color to the left
What about the book I’m reading? It is called “Reapers” and it is of that new species written by a doctor or lawyer. It shows, as there are rarely any factual errors in the plot details. Sort of like Jules Verne, who was totally aware of the role of science in reaching new conclusions—and sticking very close to scientific fact. This book seems to be about smuggling coltran, a substance most people never heard of. It is used as an ingredient in most electronic circuits, from your smart phone to the GPS in your car. I’ll look it up, but for now think of it as a titanium alloy or something like that.
It is generally mined in Africa. Now, Africa is the birthplace of AIDS and corruption. Their entire economy is based on exploitation and kickbacks. Generally, some local warlord will send his hoodlums on a raid to take a few hundred prisoners. Then work them to death at gunpoint to dig the coltran ore out of the bush. Most of middle Africa is not jungle, it is bush. Like blood diamonds, the buyers don’t ask a lot of questions. The book, “Reapers” is about a murder investigation by a park ranger.
Beware, the characters in the book, particularly the female park ranger, are so politically correct, their poop don’t stink. To finish this book, you have to wade through a lot of this brand of nonsense. How she is horrified by pornography, hated by the men she was promoted over, is a good single mother (aren’t they all), and she is much smarter than all the males she has to deal with. Still, the plot is there. The Russians and Chinese are moving into Africa in a big way. Once they control the resources on that continent, they will become mega-powers. And Africa will again become the primary source of slave labor, which, by the way, is something else that was probably invented there.
“Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut
you used to get for five dollars when you had hair.”
~ dunno, it got deleted before I pressed ‘Enter’.
Guess what I found? The old red Vivitar camera. It was the usual, fell behind something and hung on the wiring. I knew it would turn up and when I went to move the lumber to the shed, there is was. This is the first prize painting from the Fair back in March. Note the Ferris wheel and go-kart track. What mystifies me is the “toothpaste tube” dead center. Any ideas? Is it one of the rides?
Have you heard of the skeleton being found in middle-Europe. They predate anything found in Africa by a million years. While this would shift conventional thinking away from Africa as the origin of mankind, I’ve already considered two side issues. One is that I’ve always felt the labeling of Africa as the birthplace of humanity was just a hoax to make some people feel good. Second is that just because something is found, one should not declare it as final, rather that it stands as sort of a record until something else is found.
So, while the bones are white people and they are older than anything found in Africa, to me that is just another fact. No different from other facts, but significant because for my entire life it has been shoved at us by everything from newspapers to the encyclopedias that it was always and only Africa, we all evolved from Africa. That assertion was never backed by enough fact to convince me.
This raises an uncomfortable possibility. What if it was first white people in Africa, and their ancestral lands were stolen? What if they were wiped out by newly introduced African diseases? What if they were enslaved? You can see where I could go with that.
ADDENDUM
Another tune I gave a deep listen to was Rucker’s “Wagon Wheel”. For all its appeal as a suitable stage piece, it isn’t as a great choice. For openers, it is a studio number, heavily beautified by recording technique. While the chorus is catchy and so is the melody, the remainder of the lyrics are vague and difficult to memorize. The song is has too long an outro and I can see now why it sounds rather anemic when a guitar player tries to solo it.
It’s a good song but for stage appeal, it loses the audience too quickly and there are other tunes that fit better. This tune was probably written for some other purpose and happened to land on the country pop hit parade because of the chorus. Without the fiddle track, it is a weak number and I’m putting it on hold. Unless you want to sing it and I get to play the fiddle line as the bass part—and although such lines are notoriously difficult on the bass, they will also steal your thunder.
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