One year ago today: October 5, 2016, a generic Wednesday.
Five years ago today: October 5, 2012,1,800 pythons.
Nine years ago today: October 5, 2008, just ask them.
Random years ago today: October 5, 2009, system error reset.
Come on now, admit it. This car is a beauty and some of you are jealous. Here it is, posed for a publicity shot, framed by two downtown trees at the Wal*mart parking lot. It has a longer wheelbase than the previous model but the handling is identical. It seems to have the same gas mileage as the batbike, meaning my fuel budget is about to double. Three weeks and I’ve already put a thousand miles on it. Alas, the car is too nice to leave overnight at the train station, so I still need a ride there and back. That’s because I’m planning something for next month.
The millennial BS Virus strikes again. I go to put money on my phone, but there’s a millennial behind the counter who does not possess the mental faculty to understand “payment”. I get home, wondering why I’ve not received the customary confirmation. Sure enough, the ignorant bitch put it into that dork-brain holding account that says “top-up now”. It is well established that the Virgin Mobile PIN number on the receipt does not work in this mode unless you have a specific brand of phone which I do not, by choice. Now I have to waste a trip back there tomorrow to explain to her that “payment” in the real world means one thing only, not the millennial fifty shades of stupid.
Chandelier.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Blog rules compel I tell about the big event of the moment. Laundry. That’s right, but at least I’m not writing about my cat, although I have in the past. Because it was an important cat. Without a car for ten years at least, I never took a full load to the laundromat. Then came today and that laundry made it unique. Blankets, towels, sheets, the kind of gear I normally do as a separate batch. By motorcycle. I filled up the car, plugged four washers full, and worked the crossword over at the donut shop. What more do you want from a guy like me who no longer drives a motorcycle?
Not only that, but I have fallen out of habit not driving a car for so long. I’m out of practice. Backing into parking spots takes me two tries. Car interiors smell, as different from motorcycles. Old cigars, old aftershave, that Seattle-like mold from parking, it returns to cost me a ton of “new car” scent. It’s not that bad, but I can’t pretend it isn’t there in a car so many years old. Hey, I’m still glad I got an unbelievable bargain and once I get over the initial outlay, the car will seem more cost-effective.
“To every rule there is an exception,
and an idiot ready to demonstrate it.”
~ V. Nazarian
What’s this? I discovered a bottle of Canadian Mist whiskey in the cupboard. Who do we know that drinks that stuff? So I settled down and wrote letters to the more deserving individuals on my list and drank a glass. Because I’m reading a new book. The last one, “Prometheus’s Child”, ended as bland as the plot, written for the movie rights. Now, we’re reading “Butcher’s Moon” and it’s already a winner. Not your normal cops and robbers, it involves a smart crook who steals from other crooks. First he does his research at the library, figuring out which businesses are owned by the mob.
In this instance, he had stashed some money and it was gone when he returned to get it a few years later. So he starts knocking over mob businesses, stealing not just the cash, but the checks and credit card receipts. Smart, he also knows which businesses can’t recover without those deposits. He rips up the paper and throws the shreds in the river. The idea is to get the mob to return his $73,000. This quickly gets the head mobster’s attention. Problem is, the mobster really didn’t steal the stash. I like this book already.
What I don’t like is the condition of the floor underneath the front door. It must have gotten wet for a while at some point. I’ll have to shore it up extra, which gets tricky because of the heavy concrete steps in the way. The maneuver involves raising the entire section just high enough to place a new set of concrete blocks underneath, then setting the wall back down. I’ve done this at each pier so far, but by comparison, that was easy. There’s a trick to it, which I’ll tell you if you want.
The sandy soil gives way easily. Raising each wall to level is a two-step process. On the first pass, the base of the jack pushes the sand down faster than the wall raises. This compacts the sand to a depth of several inches. The jack has to be removed and collapsed, then by placing higher blocks on the sand, the jack will now raise the wall. At the door, instead of temporary wooden blocks, I’ll press concrete blocks into the ground. Once they stop moving, viola. It is then easy to shim the remaining space. Repeat this process every sixty years.
This afternoon was a bit of a disappointment thanks to the weird weather. It is staying hot late in the season. In the summer, you start your work before the sun gets overhead and finish up later as it sets. But when the temperature stays over 80°F with 95% humidity, it gets dark before there’s enough time to get anything done. That’s what this autumn has been like so far. That also explains why the blog posts happen later in the day. The mornings have become too valuable to hit the library before noon at the soonest.
ADDENDUM
Okay, I figured out how that DVD movie resumed playing when I’d played a different disk on a different computer years before. That one that was so mysterious, it had me wondering if I had recorded the movie on a writeable disk. Nope, it was more complicated than that. The drive was one salvaged from an upgrade at the old computer shop. I have a habit of writing the year on the casing. As I went to install a new drive, I saw my handwriting, so I scanned the disk for, among other things, any movie markers.
Sure enough, some previous owner had watched the same movie when he owned that drive. When I bought the same DVD years later at the thrift in Lakeland, then plugged it into a rebuilt computer, it picked up on the old marker. It was a movie that regularly played on the overhead at my old house gig as I was setting up. My memory misremembered many spots in the movie and one took the place of that marker. Wouldn’t it be nice if all mysteries had such explanations?
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
