One year ago today: June 9, 2016, the old farmhouse, now with siding.
Five years ago today: June 9, 2012, marmite & anchovies.
Nine years ago today: June 9, 2008, obnoxious side-effects.
Random years ago today: June 9, 2014, anti-homeless devices.
Ker-pow! Did I mention that lightning strike last day? Here’s the tree it obliterated. The trunk is blasted off some 40 feet off the ground. The wind took the pieces sideways around 60 feet and splattered them over the roadway. These chunks are big enough to do some real damage to automobiles. The blast half woke me up, but now aren’t we glad we shelled out the $400 and got rid of the potential hazard? The tree is hard to see in the first panel. The obvious upright is a telephone pole. The destroyed tree is the one leaning over from the bottom right corner at an angle. See how it is cracked off at about half-way? Florida is the lightning strike capital of the land, though that is a contrived statistic.
That incident was only a half-block from here. And still minutes later, I heard splinters falling on my roof. Awakened, I read the last chapter of “Actual Innocence”. I can understand that the state and the system doesn’t want to fund opportunities for the convicted to prove their innocence, but it becomes cruel and unusual to prevent them from doing so on their own. We get it, the courts pass these laws so as not to be bogged down with frivolous appeals. But the lower echelons have consistently shown they will abuse those laws to stifle legitimate attempts to expose wrongful conviction or to get access to lab tests.
I’m not saying help the prisoners, but I am saying stop hindering them. There are too many validated cases of people remaining locked up years after they were able to prove themselves not guilty. And too many cases where the entire prosecution (cop to judge) used testimony and witnesses to plow under the real evidence. These people should be held accountable for their mistakes same as everybody else. And as for states that have laws limiting compensation for wrongful conviction, that is pathetic they get away with that. Prisons themselves have become cruel and unusual punishment and those who put anyone there know that. The American court system is modeled on the old British Army. When the crew mutinies, they make the captain an admiral.
One of the more heartbreaking situations is when the innocent person gets out, he’s faced with on-going punishment when he tries to find a job. There is a long gap in his work history that he must account for. Then the question of was he ever convicted of a crime or ever in prison. There is no allowance for explanation. But the one that gets me is the convict employment services. He can’t use them because he is no longer a convict. This system is highly screwed up. The only thing that will cure it is to hold people responsible, jointly and severally, for any mistakes they make.
Southern Germany in winter.
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In my never-ending quest to give you new material at a painless pace, here is another of our river finds. This is an arrow maker. The hole through the center could be used to trim an arrow shaft, just pull the wood through. This represents the height of technological attainment by yet another “great civilization”, whose greatest achievement appears to liberal historians as managing not to be white. And it’s yours for $60. Unless you are a liberal, then I want $80.
So after tearing my place apart, I could not find my binder with all my precious song lyrics. Fortunately, I have them all on computer file, so it was easy enough to reprint the book. Not like some people I know, but my point is, now watch the binder show up. Now that I have the deed done, I can’t find my three hole punch. Ah, but I have the drill press. When will I ever finish getting unpacked? I’d like to say I’m old enough that one day blends into the next, but not for me. You see, I’ve got this thing called a blog.
By noon, I’d put the last upper coat on the big bench, glued up more of the lantern template, transplanted some vines, and put another anti-bluejay bar on the feeder. I figure if the vines grow on their own, I’ll train them to look good. So sad, that lady pigeon that lost her boyfriend now comes to the yard by herself. I think the feral cats got him. Not counting the cats, at least seven species have established themselves in that little 200 square foot area I put the birdbath. That’s already lots for my day off, but you know, I think I’ll drive over to that library that serves coffee. Later, I plan to zip up to Auburndale.
Auburndale it was, but the part of Auburndale closer to Polk City, so I take the freeway into Winter Haven and loop back because it’s faster. I pulled into a Citgo and broke a fifty for six bucks in gas and some supplies. That was all fine until I got home and went to put the cash in a deposit envelope. Lookie here.
[Author’s note: I’m aware the clerk has any cash shortages taken out of his check, but the point here is that the fifty was could be missing from anywhere. So that could have happened any time in the past. I have to make sure that station is the one missing the correct amount. If that fifty has been already accounted for elsewhere, it’s finder’s keepers.]
“You know your god is man-made
when he hates all the same people you do.”
Here’s picture of adjusting the bandsaw blade to cut at 90°, an ongoing task. As for the big bench, I’m putting it together with more galvanized bolts. If Agt. R wants to replace them with the brass bolts, that’s up to him. Why? Because the bench requires 32 of these bolts and the replicas cost $2.80 apiece. That’s why. There is a further challenge finding hole saws that work. You know that large chimney diffuser hole that needs to be cut in the top plate? The regular batch of hole saws don’t cut that well through 3/4” lumber. They burn, bind, or grind their way through and like to wedge the plug inside the bit. And some of them really like to stay in there.
He can do the music, he plays it reasonably well when I show him. But when I’m gone, he seems incapable of practicing the right thing on his own. I’ve seen this, where a guitarist plays along to the recording but without a directed effort of learning the song structure. His mind is not eliminating the song parts that won’t be played. He’s picking up all the subconscious prompts instead of hearing past them. Take away the song and he can’t remember chords, lyrics, riffs, nothing. This is, to me, proof of how guitar players lack the ability to hear just the bass and play along with that—yet those will be the only queues he gets on stage.
Still, disappointing as this is turning out to be, he is doing the work and he knows the ground he has to cover. When he likes the song, we do a respectable job of it right away. I lectured him on how faulty it was to use on a crowd where there is no accounting for taste. I even explained how I had to go through the same process of learning to like what I play. He’s in agreement, but it will be later this month when I get back from Miami before we’ll know if he’s able to change and get this going. In many ways he’s making the same mistakes in the same songs as the day we started.
On the way home, just ahead of dusk, I stopped at that same biker bar as the day I had that designer beer at the Grove in Winter Haven. It was deserted. However, there were posters all over that tomorrow is a big jam fest. I ask questions before attending these things, as there are many kinds of jams and only one that I care for. That’s a hosted jam, where the house musicians stay on stage and help out the new guy without clobbering his effort.
This is important because if he was strong enough to solo, he’d already be out there. The day is some kind of arrangement where the bikers go from bar to bar during the afternoon. I’ve driven past many of them, so it is basically a north and middle Winter Haven affair. Normally there is a dirth of bass players at these jams and it might be worth my while to poke in. It could be one of those jams where the house band is really showcasing. Like with Glen at the beach, you have to use the other bass player’s amp and he unplugs you the instant he doesn’t like what you play.
ADDENDUM
Okay, I’m going to tell you something I normally would not say without independent confirmation, like maybe pictures. I understand you don’t come read this blog to hear the spectacular claims—unless I have pictures--but here’s what happened. Over the past while I noticed something different in the mirror when I shave, which is the only time I look in the mirror, really. Something is different, but I can’t pin it down. Then, this morning the sun is bright enough that I didn’t turn on the light and be damned! My hair has turned slightly blonde again.
This is impossible. Yet, there it is. I angled the mirrors and it is not an illusion or something that got on my hair. Nope, because it is turning very slightly blonde exactly in the opposite pattern I lost the color fourteen years ago. No, there are no other changes, I use the same shampoos, alternating between Old Spice Swagger and Axe for ten years running.
Don’t read me wrong here, I have not gone blonde. It is just a subtle change that even I didn’t notice for the longest time. Nobody in three hundred miles knows what color my hair used to be, so nobody is aware of a thing. It’s not sunlight or highlite because it is changing in from the roots. I saw it last haircut but wrote it off to the angle of the light. My hair is still white but not quite as white as before. Meanwhile, you can call me Blondie.
Last Laugh
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