One year ago today: August 16, 2016, NPR without Garrison.
Five years ago today: August 16, 2012, can’t tell by looking.
Nine years ago today: August 16, 2008, a product called “System 7”.
Random years ago today: August 16, 2013, linseed oil, no thanks.
It’s 5:30AM and time to treat myself to breakfast before a motorcycle trip around the loop road east of Tampa. Just for something to do, which is a nice situation considering the times. You don’t find yourself surrounded by middle-class citizens any more except at the supermarket. They’re the ones buying the smallest size of toothpaste with a credit card and a coupon. It could be asked if I have any sympathy for these people, the ones who used to brag about their high quality of life while I was living within my means. How can you tell I was reviewing my budget? It seems this year February was the only month I wasn’t hit with an extraordinary expense. But this time it was a couple hundred bucks here abd tgere and it was more often motorcycle parts than the predictable semi-ermergencies.
The premises of these books is, shall we say, as authentic as the cowboy as now portrayed to be one who cares, but cares with the law on his side. I’ve been around real cowboys and their thinking is just not all that complex, to say the least. They don’t ride around the range psychoanalyzing their quarry. They hide behind a rock and shoot him in the back. They cause fights in bars and wear Brut cologne. Most of them order the grilled cheese and find things like piano music and investing to be sissy.
The author is Ralph Cotton, a pseudo if you’ve ever heard one. The good news for die hard western fans is all the heroic elements remain. The lawman is John-Wayne-bulletproof and always know s a kindly single but gorgeous ranch lady who tends to his recovery whenever he is wounded, delirious, or hungover, and who harbors him, for free no less, when he is falsely accused of murder. These events occur in regular annual cycles. And unlike these days, she waits for him forever. Just forever. I mean, not foolin’ around or nothin’ while he’s gone. It’s even easy to tell the bad guys because they have names like “Glick” and “Ratliff”.
The book research is also much better. These are not the dime-store novels written by eastern newspapermen. The terrain matches the venue, the weapons are better described, and they’ve made some effort to understand what riding horses is sort of really like. It’s not by any stretch bona fide cow-boying; I’m only saying they’ve done a bit more homework than customary. I’ve got to be careful I don’t find myself reading a romance novel just to see. It’s a sign of our times, where things that used to be mass-produced at the factory level are now mass-produced by authors and composers.
Not so with my bass lines. These are still each custom written. I’m using “Midnight Special” to teach my guitar player about song structure and I was playing the bass to spec. But I kept hearing that catchy guitar rhythm in the background, it isn’t always there since the soundman only brings it out in the vocal breaks. Ha, I found I could emulate that by using an old bass trick I practically invented. Playing two identical notes at once. This can only be done on three spots across the entire fretboard, but it fit. Now you can hear the drums and guitar that aren’t there. Funny in all these years of bassing, I never played that pattern before. To make sure it wasn’t my imagination, I played it again first thing this morning and yep, it’s a winner.
Northern Rhodesia, 1947.
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Ah, but you want to hear about the motorcycle. Remember, to me problems are part of the adventure, and when I went to start the Rebel, the battery was out of juice. This is routine with this motorcycle, the proper battery type has fill level markings and I didn’t check them. That’s how friggen hot it has been, I believe this year is a record already. Heat or not, I dragged out the distilled water and filled the cells. The best way to charge a vehicle is to drive it for 45 minutes, so instead of the half-hour tour I’d planned I was out there for two hours. I didn’t stop for coffee in Edison, Florida, because there is no coffee shop. We operate very empirically around here, the more so when coffee is involved.
The inclusion of any puzzle would vastly improve that publication. At least get it out of the bush league. I’m aware of the software used to generate puzzles these days but I remind the reader I am capable of creating a 12 x 12 crossword puzzle right out of my head in around twenty minutes. The skill these days is coming up with creative and novel clues. It will be a long time before a computer can do that. Maybe not that long.
Here’s the part where we learn something new for most of us, so Ken, you can go have your nappy-nap now. The product I like is called CrossWordCompiler. You can download the trial yourself, I think the program is called ccdemo.exe. The feature I like is there is a mode where you can fill in the words you want in any part of the grid and the program then generates the rest. Now the bad news. The application is designed to work with Windows 10, so that limits its appeal to intellectuals. Win 10 is an entertainment based system. If you put any big words in the grid, you may be waiting a long time for it to fill in the blanks. At least overnight.
I’m saying here that real intellectuals don’t like Win 10. It is amusementware geared toward shallow-minded millennials. If you let it auto-write the clues, you’ll see how simplistic it is, for without witty clues, all you have really is a dreary list of definitions. Think of it as the difference between “fender mishap” and “bad impression”. I know the code is written by millennials because it quickly fills in the easy parts, the lower right hand quadrant of the puzzle. Then takes bloody forever to work backwards to the upper left. Oh yeah, I know about crosswords and that delay is a dead giveaway of the C+ mentality. Count the hooves and divide by four. And while we are here, I have a few words to say about my use of the word “libtard”.
I’m aware there is a movement about by the recipients of that term to have it labeled name-calling. That just tells us we have their attention. The claim is that it implies the word “retard” and that is not PC, boo-hoo. Ha, isn’t that just like a liberal to gripe about anything that irks them, as if they aren’t past-masters at mocking others. I use the word as a purposely derogatory descriptive expression. Liberals have a callous disregard for the taxpayer, I’m a taxpayer, and they started it. I don’t recall being asked if I wanted to pay for welfare at the expense of my own social security. That issue would have to be settled long before I’ll be listening to any liberal explain his hurt feelings.
Wait, there’s more. It is my understanding that the word “libtard” was originally coined by a liberal group, wasn’t it the MacMillan Dictionary people? Don’t quote me on that, but the liberals themselves came up with the word to insult people who they stated were “too misinformed to understand” progressive political agendas. Ha, that backfired on them and now we have the irony of liberals trying to disgrace the use of a word they invented. But okay, I admit how few non-liberals are cognizant of that background, so I’ll cut down on usage. Down, I said, not out.
But to liberals, I’ll say it again. It is wrong to steal other people’s property and it is wrong to elect politicians to steal it for you. When you take my money against my will, you are the enemy and will be treated as such. Maybe that’s why a majority of Americans elected a politician to kick your ass?
“Now that I have a sheep and a cow,
everybody bids me good-morrow.”
~ Ben Franklin
Not a wisp of wind out there, not even in the shade. That’s why I was surprised how effective the tarpaper put up just y’day turned out. I gave description of how the heat near the walls was radiant and could be felt above the air conditioning. It got to be 10:00PM last night so I quit work before I’d finished the whole room. This side of the house is to the north, so the heat is not from sunlight striking the siding, but conduction from the hot summer air itself. Picture my surprise walking in there this afternoon and finding it considerably cooler along the wall that was papered.
Here is your progress report. This is what the finished tarpaper looks like. If you can avoid retrofitting this material, do so. Each strip you see in this picture required 20 minutes of messing around, so there is two hours of work on this section alone. If the wallpaper had been put on by two guys when it was built, it would have taken 20 minutes total. Compared to this, the insulation goes easy, so there is a second picture around here of the wall shortly after. You can tell by the daylight coming in the window, this insulation was done in less than an hour.
I have to continue, full speed ahead, so I’ll never know if the tarpaper really did keep the room cool. Four degrees could be anything from a cloudy sky to my imagination. I thought tarpapers sole purpose was to keep out the wind and some rain. The paper made a difference but I don’t know how much of one. Note the air conditioner cutout is also insulated. This is temporary. Yep, if Wallace was here and this was five years ago, I would have put the guy right to work. Imagine the money we would have made. In fact, you don’t have to imagine, I’ve calculated it. We would each outright own two nice houses that, in 2005/06 would have sold for $106,000 each and we’d have $22,600 apiece cash in the bank.
Tomorrow I intend to frame in but not install the second window opening on the living room wall. That’s to make the side of the house facing the street look better. Then both bedrooms will have picture windows, which is okay. It’s neat to have a view like that. Plus the increased curb appeal is valued at close to what I paid for this whole place—once I get it finished.
The local people that do these studies say that house prices are up 6%. I wonder what criteria they are using. On the mid-range properties, the prices seem to be dropping. There are no buyers. All the houses I’m monitoring still have the signs up. The public listings indicate only 22 houses sold in the entire county last month. That hardly represents a pricing trend.
I would give twenty bucks for a cup of coffee right now. Seriously.
ADDENDUM
It’s fine having a microscope again. While I’m lacking the lab training to be a tech, I can see that there are no abnormalities in the samples mailed off today. Remind me to get a slide kit, however. You’d think these were easy to come by, not so. I have copies of each sample and considering the declining quality of American everything, it’s prudent to have such things—and equally important that the other side does not know you have them. You don’t need to read much about the slipshod methods and hiring practices of crime labs these days to make up your mind.
Darn rights I’m crabby. I got to eat a salad today. For dressing, my favorite, vinegar and lime juice. Just one more test and I’m done for this year. I’m surprised they don’t ask for ear wax and toe jam. When this is over, first thing I will make a pot of coffee, then thou shalt find me making ribs and rice. Better stay out of my way, salad and me only get along when I’m grinning happy.
Last Laugh
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