One year ago today: May 9, 2017, only the live ones count.
Five years ago today: May 9, 2013, poor-people food.
Nine years ago today: May 9, 2009, U.S.S. North Carolina.
Random years ago today: May 9, 2012, the same ad a year later.
I felt like working today. It was logistics again, not progress. Here is your promised shot of the basic water pipe insulation test. Without affordable thermometers, things stalled at this stage. Here is the outline but it isn’t set up yet. There are planned control parameters. For example, both hot and cold water will be run through the pipes until they reach the normal operating temperature. Then they are sealed and measured, as that is the condition this work is designed to preserve, that is, not to heat or cool the pipes, but to keep the tubing at the last functioning temperature.
I got a test for Ken Sanchuck. C’mon Ken, put down the fat one and guess which of these pipes is for the hot water and which one is for the cold.
In each case, the bare tube is the control. The insulation consists of pool noodles, a child’s toy from the dollar store. The approved insulation would cost $11.50 for each length shown here, or roughly more than twice the cost of the pipes. If this works, I should be able to insulate each ten footer for $2.50. Initially this insulation will not be much of a benefit as I do not usually run water more than once every few hours. In that sense, I’m testing insulation, not water.
It was mid-afternoon before I got just the materials moved up into the attic. This work drags on and I know it takes getting used to that snail’s pace. Smart move putting that fan in first. I’ve taken to leaving it on overnight, since it cools the rafters to the touch and extends the working time by around an hour. You could work there all day, but I mean in decent comfort. I hear on the news they finally got around to turning ground-penetrating radar onto Tut’s tomb to finally announce there are no hidden chambers. Are there any hidden chambers? All we know is they announce there are not.
This is the same radar Adolph and I looked at in 1992-ish. I eventually declined funding for the project for an array of solid reasons. Top of the list was the printouts were not the neatly scaled graphics of today. They were like those old sonar printouts that required skilled interpretation. And Adolph was no better at interpreting charts than people are today. The units were also outrageously priced. He wanted to search for gold, but the best idea was to turn the machine on the parts of the riverbanks where the Indians were blocking progress by claiming it was a burial ground.
Of course, they would not allow any excavations to test whether they were lying. In turned out in every case, they were lying. Indians only bury on high ground, closer to the heavens. Adolph could only think of what the electric company would pay to prove it was not sacred ground, I wanted to charge the Indians to pay us not to. We’d heard of the potential to scan the pyramids but I argued we were in no financial condition to mount an expedition. I take it the fact these process was not conducted until 2018 to be vindication I was right about that.
(Yes, I am aware of the spelling glitch in Adolph’s name. But that’s the way he wants it spelled.)
Grand Central Station.
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Salvage these plugs from your A/C when you junk it. I kept them as spare power chords, but the gizmo on the end turns out to be a very rugged GFCI, probably worth $20+. As long as you plug them into a grounded outlet, they work pretty fantastic. Oh, and for the record, last day I mentioned an electric motor to run the sifter. I meant in the back yard. I have no intention of using electricity near water. Even on dry land, I limit such motors to 12 volts.
The radio was celebrating today in 1960, when “the pill” came on the market. Tampa radio automatically took a liberal slant on the event. It had nothing to do with women’s lib or free sex. These movements were already underway and birth control was an outcome of that ongoing process. The real dividing point was 1951-1954, depending on what you are defining. As mentioned, Boomers are really two groups, those born before these years, and those born after. Socially, the difference is real hard ass difference in life style and outlook. I have nothing in common with my older sister.
The effect of the pill was not immediate. Most of society still had the attitude that abstinence made you a better person and a better spouse. Females under 18 were not allowed to get the pill (a prescription was required) without parental consent, which from the previous sentence you can guess was so rarely forthcoming that I doubt it ever happened in my home town. By 1965, nothing much had changed with the exception of college and university campus and coed facilities. But again, this was not a free for all as the media likes to depict. For most men, sex outside marriage was still only available downtown—and that was hardly free. The real backlash was delayed a few years and society has nobody to blame because their attitude creates that brand of desperate of men.
You see, as things gradually loosened up, the men who were never intended to get laid (queers, surplus males, geeks, etc.) never gave up their bad habits. Instead, they began to spread their foul diseases to the general populace. By the 1970s, the threat was no longer pregnancy, but dreadful infection. The tragedy was not the pill or the morals, but the inclusion of that vast body of useless males into the circle of casual sex that formerly excluded them simply because they were not worth the risks. Now, they screamed equality and there was no way to protect society, so you had to protect yourself.
I know these seem harsh words, but I was there and saw the changes first hand. The government spent tons on ad campaigns to indoctrinate schoolchildren that STDs were not conditions of the lower class, but that was interpreted to mean the economic lowers, not the social lowers. The rich bought disease-free call girls while the poor went to communal whorehouses. In that sense, VD is a disease of the lower orders. Hookers and their customers are the dregs of society, but they will always be part of it because that is the only way most men will ever experience a variety of partners.
This is why the saying is the 1960s didn’t happen until the 1970s. Except for my first, I don’t think I’ve ever dated a gal who wasn’t on the pill. It took close to twenty years before women adjusted to the fact they could not longer rope a guy into marriage over sex. That was the real change, but it was not instant, let me tell you. It was not until 1989 that I quit hearing women claim that being on the pill long-term was dangerous. (If so, where were the casualty lists?). It was really the age-old ploy for old-fashioned marriage. It still works, but the nuclear family has never been a majority in contemporary American society.
It was also 1989 before I met a gal who never spoke about birth control or brought up the sharing approach. She said, once only, that she was the one taking the chance of getting pregnant and to leave that responsibility with her. She knew that the problems of the world were mainly because women would not give men what they wanted. At the same time, she never moaned that men never gave women what they wanted either—but because most men did not have it to give.
Yep, the world could learn an awful lot from a woman like that.
ADDENDUM
That’s it. Time out. All day with so little visible headway. Most of the little stuff is done, so see some improvement soon. It’s neat, you can walk down the hallway and tell when the insulation ends. What’s this? I’ve got $225 unspent dollars in the expense kitty. See you later.]
Okay, it is later already. I may be purchasing a custom-made motorcycle camper. According to his wife, he spent a fortune on it. Then he died last month and I got it for $500. Pictures to follow. And I finally contacted JZ. He reports nothing has happened in S. Florida since I was there last February. Not a thing. Every place gets boring once you’ve lived there too long. Anyway, I got to talking to the widow and sure enough, he was going to take the camper on a trip up the Mississippi. Sounds familiar, or what? This gets me spurred to have my lawyer settle the Rebel case out of court. I’ve got a bucket list myself.
[Author’s note: as for the camper, she said come get it tomorrow. My $225 budget is gone, plus close to $100 in the spare change bucket, plus my tips, poof, all gone. And, if the guy sells the hot dog cart, I’m going to be broke until my west coast manageress gets home from New Orleans.]
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