October 9, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 9, 2016, interesting IMAX stats.
Five years ago today: October 9, 2012, 700 ships.
Nine years ago today: October 9, 2008, Starbucks intimidates seniors.
Random years ago today: October 9, 2007, slick “college” seminars.

           Here’s a crummy Vivitar of the floor insulation in the living room. Welcome to one of the only houses in central Florida with an insulated floor, at least any houses the age of this one. You can make out the sister joist at the leftmost position, I’m also adding some simple cross-braces. Some of the joists had a slight lateral wobble, so why not fix it while I’ve got the floor in pieces? You get lots of reading today.

           That heat index is up to a nasty 105°F. This usually means a fall hot spell so I baked up enough food for the week. Now that I think of it, if I need any mashed potatoes, I know where there’s lots. One thing that heat will force on me is insulating that living room floor today. I’m so broke over that car, I’ll raid the insulation batts from the attic, which is already well-ventilated. It’s that floor that lets heat in from the bottom. I baked a big yellow grits and cheese casserole with onion, and SPAM. The precaution is that the heat also brings afternoon storms which knock out the electric.

           And she was a hot one today, stifling except right under the A/C. I headed up to the library for some timely research. I looked into Third Wave Water. These are the folks that proved water has a lot to do with the flavor of coffee. To prove it, they went on Shark Tank with a demo. I’ll try this provided it isn’t some on-line-only gimme-your-credit-card millennial scam. You add a packet of salts to distilled water, then make your coffee. I do know that in Texas, the best coffee is made from spring water, not well water. I’ve also heard in Ethiopia, there are streams that are the perfect coffee liquid, so the concept makes sense to me. Provided I can buy it at the corner grocery and not some phony website membership operation.
           What did go right was my cheesy grits pie. You know when it turns out perfect because I eat too much in one sitting. I’m just sayin’ if you haven’t had cheesy grits pie, with SPAM and onion chips, you may be missing one of life’s pleasures. It is not hot-weather grub, but it hits the spot at two in the morning. I stopped at the coffee shop at noon to work the weekend crosswords, the toughest of the lot. I still think there should be a rule against using names and foreign words. I mean, who cares who won the 1947 Nobel for Literature, much less how to spell his name. Crossword-wise, such things are cheating.

Picture of the day.
Tanning booth ad.
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           Here’s another progress photo. This is the electric cable runs now properly installed along the joists. The one cable goes straight through, but the other two have bends. The slack is to ensure there is little likelihood of any strain being placed on the wiring should anything shift. It was pretty amazing how cheaply the last lines were run in. Taut without any give at all. And in the entire portion replaced so far, I only found one staple. My cables are fastened by insulated staples every eight inches where there is no vertical support and along every run like the ones shown here.

           Like every handyman, or those who want to be one, such as myself, I’ve accumulated dozens of little containers around the place with spare pieces. Most prominent is my “used once” bin, where I throw all metal and wood screws that have survived being removed in good condition. Don’t laugh, you have no idea how many times I was able to cobble together a matching set of fasteners in a pinch. It’s time for a more organized approach. Here is that box I built just to say I’d done it. It is much stronger than necessary but I used the materials I had. This gave me an idea to make a small parts bin out of empty SPAM cans, which are fairly ubiquitous around here during post-hurricane spells.

           I have not seen them yet as they went to my office address, but the bills from the collision in September have come rolling in. While I specifically told the hospital not to do any procedures that may not be covered by my own insurance without asking me first, they never listen. Ever. I know I was just about to be released when they decided I required that MRI because of my chest pain. Those are expensive judgment calls. Mind you, I’m glad they did, as a month later, the pain is still sharp.
           Which required another nap, which involves reading myself to sleep. From Analog, this story is more my kind of science fiction. Called “Orphans”, it is about a ship sent to an Earth-like planet a hundred light years away. Probes have shown it to be user-friendly, but they all go dead. Upon arrival, the spaceship is damaged and has to crash land. Therein, they discover that the planet has a type of lichen growth that eats metal and plastic. So they are pretty much fu-stranded.

           This could be any number of old movie scripts, but that’s were good science fiction departs. This story is interlaced with known scientific theory applied to other situations. The plot is based on the Liu theory that planets which evolve life will tend over time to become more and more similar to Earth. Another hypothesis is that each such planet will develop intelligent life, which will in turn eventually send space ships to explore other planets. Sooner or later, such a ship will return the symbiont, the virus that eats metal and plastic.
           That lichen-like corrosion destroys the civilization and returns it to a stone age existence, in harmony with the home planet’s biome. In turn, this creates a possible answer to Fermi’s paradox, that asks if the universe is so full of life, why have they not contacted us? Without metal and plastic, they can’t. And folks, that is my kind of sci-fi.

Quote of the Day:
“Statue of Liberty = Built to Stay Free.”
~ another anagram
           I can’t stop right now to buy a new camera or fix the old one, so bear with my lousy progress photos (see above). I’ve got half the room insulated and the floorboards laid down, but not fastened. Remember how the bedroom continued to shift a bit? I’m ready for that this time and more willing to accept a little uneven spots than before. The push is on to get that bedroom walled in so I can finally unpack everything from the move. That means I’ll be putting up drywall soon but not finishing the whole room due how the plumbing cuts across one corner. But an 8’x12’ section is plenty for what I need right now.
           At the library, I did a scan of all the properties for sale in the outskirts, regardless of price. There’s not really much in Auburndale or Plant City, but if you look to the south, there are actual mansions built in the 1890’s for sale around the $250,000 level. There must be an interesting history in that area for so many of these houses to even exist. No estates, no ranches, no factories, no industry except the mines. There are farms in the surrounding districts, but nothing that could support an economy that includes six-bedroom mansions by the dozen. And this area is definitely not a retirement community. Those operations are closer to the two big cities, Tampa and Orlando.

           Returning home, it was like a blast furnace, so I retired to the back room to read some Analog stories. The only good one so far is “The Old Man”, a tale of insurrection in the USA after the coming FEMA takeover. Places like the swamp are the only remaining hiding places, as the insurgents can dive into the mud when they hear the drones. A captured dissenter is released with a bomb in his head that can be set off if he doesn’t find the fugitive, his father. Well, that’s what they thought, turns out the two “sons” were clones of the old man, needed for spare parts when he was wounded. It’s amusing but the whole coming revolution theme is worn out. Why not a story about the rebels winning and then mucking things up? It would make more sense.
           I’m also going to review that study that National Geographic did on modified food a few years back, to see what side they were on and to check out any predictions. Ah, here it is, that was 2014. First some trivia. The original name of candy corn was chicken feed. The majority of the ethanol in US gasoline is made from food crops, duh.

           Here it is, the article is called “The Next Green Revolution”, and it focuses on increased food supply. I am not against genetic modification for non-food products, like cotton. But somehow oil from these sources is finding its way into the human food supply. Even if a crop is used only as animal feed, I would consider if the animals are eaten by humans. Furthermore, I differentiate between selective breeding and cross-breeding, which are okay, but not when the DNA is introduced between unrelated species or when DNA is altered in any way except by natural mutation. Picking the best specimens and breeding only those has been going on for thousands of years.
           I learned a new term. “Refuge field”. Follow me on this tricky definition. Since plant pests will eventually develop resistance to genetic modifications, a certain percent of acreage is to be planted with non-gmo plants to allow large numbers of pests that are not resistant to thrive, thus keeping the gene pool weakened with non-resistance strains. It’s hard to describe that about plants without instantly thinking of the role of welfare in the USA.

ADDENDUM
           It looks like another trip to Miami is in the works. This was not in the budget, so I have a choice to finish the bedroom or half-finish the plumbing. Can’t have it both ways, so the bedroom it is. And when I say finished, that means dry-walled and habitable, not crown molding and chandeliers. The farthest corner of the house was the part leveled the most, and I mentioned how the doors throughout the whole building no long swing shut by themselves. Well, most of the window latches now work again. Neato.

           I usually leave the drama movies until last and today I watched “Hearts in Atlantis” with expected command performance by Anthony Hopkins. It was great, the plot concerns the 1950s when the US government was recruiting psychics in the Cold War. The drawback with that plan is the psychics didn’t want to be recruited, forcing many of them on the run. The movie had a secondary message that is so stark, I’m surprised it made it past the censors. What, you want the particulars? Okay, but you may not like this, depending on how thoroughly you’ve been programmed by the school system.

           Since World War II, America changed for the worse, but it was brought in gradually over several generations, so that the average citizen did not spot the infiltration. It is a religious cult of expert sinister foreign manipulators that takes over the administration of a country, but never actually fields any of its leaders. This normally happens by first taking over the media and using the press to involve the country in a foreign war. While everybody is diverted by the conflict, there is a rapid takeover of key positions in law, medicine, the courts, universities, and economics. You do not need to look back very far in history to find examples of this in many European countries—but not any others. The cult has a definite preference for white European societies.
           Once the strategic “middle management” sector of the host country is taken over, there begins a systematic dismantling of the moral and patriotic ideals of the nation. Movies and literature become “sexified” and movements begin to accept all manner of sexual deviance (with specific glaring exceptions), the decline of traditional marriage, and a large body of citizens on welfare, that is, dependent on the state instead of themselves. The host county is continually balkanized, the citizens begin to cry for law and order. And, as happened in Russia, the only organized group ready to step into the vacuum are the communists. Ah, but look closely. Are they really communists, or are they the same group who announced centuries ago that they would take over the world by making everybody equal, mind you, under their hegemony. By now, this should have a familiar ring to it.
           I’m really surprised that movie wasn’t banned, but it would seem for most people, the message was too subtle so they let it go.


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