One year ago today: June 3, 2017, you only think . . .
Five years ago today: June 3, 2013, a PhD, but no balls.
Nine years ago today: June 3, 2009, they stole the cable . . .
Random years ago today: June 3, 2015, she got sideswiped.
Here’s a blurry picture of the fan housing. It shouldn’t take two days to install a fan, in theory. The rule of thumb that renovation projects take three times as long held true on this. For example, the exterior wall, shown here at the rear, was another “left-handed” carpenter and there was like magic a stud exactly where the duct would go if it was centered. It is now set a few inches off to one side. The good news is the insulation and fans make it possible to keep the whole place cool. No repeat of last summer when at time it was impossible to work during most afternoons unless standing next to the A/C. The attic fan keeps the whole place a constant temperature except against the sunny south walls.
Back to work, I got it done and it works perfectly. Silent, too. Still, it should not have been a two-day job. Mind you, there’s more to it than just wiring in the working part, like drilling the studs and pulling wire to the nearest active box, not to mention that hassle of feeding the cable down from the attic. Then estimating I would have had to charge $860 to install that for somebody else, I looked up what an electrician would have charged. Hmmm, it says here between $900 and $1200 for the same job. Does that mean, from an accounting standpoint, I work as fast as somebody in the trade? Since all the parts came from the thrift or the ReStore, the job cost me $28 - $30 in materials.
Materials? Yes, the fan was the most expensive, I got it for $8 brand new. There was the ducting, the cable, the timer switch, clips, connectors, and the outdoor damper vent. Add in the drywall, lumber, screws, and other hardware, it was quite the chore. I wrecked a drill bit. The timer switch has to be cranked on for a minimum of ten minutes to activate. You know, these modern conveniences.
Batagaika Crater.
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I mis-described this kaleidoscope earlier. The accompanying literature explained the embedded crystals are not fixed in place. Instead, they are suspended in oil. Thus, the display does cease changing when the viewer stops movement. There quite a number of variations on this theme, all expensive-looking and some with interchangeable [what I now know is properly called] object chambers. The book doesn’t say, but there is a small and extremely talented by my books society that builds these, and most of them seem to know each other.
Were you waiting long for the last few posts? That’s because there is progress, and of course once things flatten out again, you can read about it. Real blogs have ups and downs. Contemporary life in early 21st century America. How one guy fares with the empire in decline. This blog helps you take the temperature of how ill the nation has become. Institutions put in place during the heyday are now dragging the whole structure down. Every welfare provision creates a new subclass of permanent dependents. The first thing I would end is payments to single mothers, probably the largest economic problem of today and it gets zero press. There’s a prime example of a class of dependents created by legislation. (Remember that I classify all civil servants as welfare cases, that is, they harm society by sitting around collecting government handouts.)
I’m not saying cut off the ones already on the dole, but to let potential new applicants know they are getting nothing. If you can’t pay for ‘em ladies, don’t have ‘em. We’ve heard all the arguments that the man is to blame and whether that can be proven or not, we don’t care and we don’t want to hear it. Single mothers, far from the supermom Hollywood portrayal, are the real reason they still have to print instructions on shampoo bottles. To paraphrase Ann Coulter, individual exceptions do not change a statistic. You want to take it personal, take it next door.
Mild insomnia found me going over that instrumental walk-down in Carpenter’s “Passionate Kisses”. The reason is that I play that melody, not the real bass line. It’s part of the arrangement process and I’m no good at guitar chord progressions. This tune is a duo aspirant because those substitutions spice up the break while the rest of the notes remain the same. It doesn’t work every time and I could not get it until I found the sheet music. That tune is a winner just because I’m the only normally-oriented singing male bass player in the USA that does it.
Two other items have potential for different reasons. One is a Hank Snow spoof called “Movin’ On” by Homer and Jethro, and “Every Time I Turn On The Radio”, by Bill somebody. The former because it is comedy, and if there is a diversification in what I play, it is in that direction. The latter simply because it is identifiable as the type of music I like to play.
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