One year ago today: October 4, 2017, spider wiring.
Five years ago today: October 4, 2013, pretty typical day.
Nine years ago today: October 4, 2009, 12 bars means 3 chords.
Random years ago today: October 4, 2014, an anti-German joke.
It’s the waterway overpass northbound into Winter Haven, Florida. Think of it as hodgepodge. You like that word, do you? That’s what you’ll get for today, since I spent the majority of it buying cable or pulling it under the house. Talk about dirty work. So here’s random events for you, showing the roots of this blog as a journal of events. You’ve heard of the Captain’s log? You can think of me as just any other Captain over here, only better looking. Here’s more history for you. Back around 2003-ish, one of the motives for changing from private and secure handwritten logs to the ultimate insecure location, the Internet, was to make a comparison. This detail is lost in blog antiquity. I’ll explain.
Events of the 2003-2004 period were dominated by my enforced retirement. I was on the verge of beginning my first $250,000 per year job when I was struck down. I wanted an easy way to compare, year-to-year what changes overcame me under two conditions. One, if I survived, and two, easy to find. Since my existence was in doubt, I wrote things I would not today and the paperwork of a written blog makes it hard to look back in time. Ah, so there is a method to this madness. There were no yesteryear links originally because I had not figured out how to code them in this manner. As usual, none of the manuals were of much use, either.
[Author’s note: nowadays, the linkbacks (Yesteryear) are one of the most popular features here, though I don’t know why. But I do know if I leave them out or am late with posting them, readership drops by a third. The links are not automatic. Each has to be hand-coded, which often takes longer than writing and posting the entire rest of the blog. Often, I find pages that display, but are linked by the first sentence rather than by date. Which means I have to go back and repost the original by date, which means losing the number of hit counts recorded for that item.
Which means the total blog hits here could easily be too low by some 10,000 clicks. There, I won’t say ‘which means’ again. For a while.]
Aw, what the heck, crawl under the house with me and I’ll tell you how it goes. It’s surprising cool there and the weather has become seasonal again. That means 72°F, balmy and palmy. Over the years, dried leaves have accumulated in the spots where I have not raked it clean. So you get not only dirt, but crackly dry leave parts in every nook and crevice, but mostly it would seem, down the back of your neck. And make triple-sure you remember to zip up your fly. Initially, I’m running in just the major appliances, which in Florida means the A/C units. I’m switching a few previously installed wiring runs from the exterior box to the new interior sub-panel. Alas, I have no camera that can give you a close-up of the new work.
It turns the sub-panel into a kind of control center. Remember crazy Theresa? Well, this time, I could cut the power to any part of the house in isolation. If anybody out there points out the landlord can’t do that, remember, I’m not the landlord, I’m the tenant and that makes me a roommate. If I don’t pay the bill, its too bad and the recalcitrant party has a quarrel with the power company. A reminder that you, dear reader, are helping keep a secret. It’s just you and I who know that the house belongs to me. Nobody else has any idea about that.
We’ve got five cables at first. The three A/C units, the fridge, and the ceiling fans. There are others, but they are already in place and due to just be cut over. The heavy work becomes moving back into the front bedroom, reverting this space back to a spare bedroom, mostly. I say mostly because the room is big enough to have a small workspace in one corner. As for running the cables, I’d sure like some help. Instead I’m using the old grunt method. Push the cable as far as possible with a long stick, then pull it with a hook to the other side. What makes it bearable is the track as immediately under my old tube GE radio and it is cranked up on 1380AM, Boss Hogg. You don’t have to be crazy to listen to Boss Hogg, but nor is it a deterrent if you want to follow the humor.
You see, they have up to five, not one, but five disc jockeys in one room, gathered around a single desk. Confusion reigns owing to half of them with no inkling what the other half are even talking about. I deduce the only thing they have in common is they hate the federally required hourly news. Most news is either disaster or politics, and only the most simple-minded citizens base anything on it. But yes, they listen to it because there is no alternative, as all media is controlled by a few severely left-leaning corporations owned by the most universally hated group ever known.
FYI, then, I can tell you that the primary use of news broadcasting in America is the national signal of when to get up and go potty.
Sign me up.
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This picture of the water tower doesn’t mean a thingI’ve done enough electrical work in the last short couple of years to discover I enjoy it, but allow me extend that definition. It’s because, I believe, largely because the work becomes rote. Once you’ve solved all (or at least most) of the nitty situations not in the rulebook, it’s like driving. I can think. You are under the house on your back with every piece of yard stubble digging into your skin, but you go along. Not a job for the remotely claustrophobic. My mind wanders, free from people distractions. For instance, I got to thinking about that lady who follows well, the one who told me she didn’t understand the world. She did everything right and still wound up old and alone.
That’s where I drop the comparison, however. I’m writing this in the manner it came to mind, so don’t be too picky about word choices and don’t read anything more into it than surface level. I was under a house, not on a mountaintop. Avoiding the foremost and predictable blunders in life is not enough. While she has a perfect right to crushing disappointment over her situation, imagine what it’s like for me. What if, on top of staying ‘clean’, she had gone out and done her damn best, if she did everything she could and half of what they said was impossible, and still got to the same destination? Now that would be something to pity. But she didn’t. This is the reason it is wrong to ask why I don’t just team up with her. For starters, I have not admitted defeat. Okay, but how do I know she didn’t? Good question.
Because if she had, it would be her that asked me to dance. It would be her that was leading. She’d be the one bringing down the house with Karaoke. She’d be the one everybody knew by name the second day she was in town. You see what I’m saying. She’s looking for somebody who understands and takes over. I’m looking for somebody who can keep up with me, but that’s just for starters. I did not wind up here in the spaghetti capital of the world because I had no choice, far from it.
Five hours of work. If you’re keeping tabs, I only got one new circuit run in. That’s the new kitchen A/C. It was formerly running off the fridge receptacle. I had to do some fancy drilling and peel back the wainscoting, but she’s in place. Alas, the only place to put it was under, not beside the air conditioner, so that’s a location that condensation could potentially get at it. Not the say it’s installed, it can’t, but it still wouldn’t make code. It’s a 20 amp dedicated line. It is 4:00PM and I’m heading south for a coffee in Bartow. I need to design a circuit. At first I was going to make two circuits for the north kitchen wall, which I’ve taken to calling the display wall. But the loading calculations show that uses less than a quarter of the available capabilities, so I’m tapping some little used lighting end runs. This calls for a big junction box and I’m not sure how that is done yet.
And keep away from me until I hit that shower. I’ve got the dirt and dust in layers because it turns out I couldn’t get at the one corner of the kitchen. So I had to crawl back under all the way from the hallway side a second time, through all the debris I had pushed ahead the first round. Plus some of the drilling had to be from the outside upward, which brought all the shavings and termite crap down on my head and shoulders. By 2:00PM it was hot again, so mix in a gallon of construction sweat which in this humidity and it’s a mucky chore. Tore my good work shirt peeling it off my back.
I’m not grumbling, I must be burning 300+ calories an hour. This is only the fourth day I’ve been losing inches, but the effect is very noticeable. I won’t be calling it a trend until it lasts a couple of weeks. That’s noticeable to me, I mean. That pair of jeans I bought early August made me so proud I could just compress into them, let’s just say it was one darn snug fit. Today, I can pinch two inches of fabric around the legs and the pants just slide right on. Such things can make my whole day. Then again, good news has lately been in short supply.
ADDENDUM
Now, having still more thinking time, I ran over the location problem with the hotdog cart. Let’s presume the majority of failures in that business were due to not finding a good location. I’ve mentioned lack of startup and working capital, sure, but those worries would evaporate if a one found the right street corner off the bat. I know so many people who failed at vending, usually vending machines, because all the good spots are taken. So, back to square one. If you can’t find a location of your own, make friends with somebody who has one already.
When JZ and I met the lady from the Mongolia, we didn’t know she was family friends with Agt. R. Heck, it would be another year before we met the guy. Well, I also did not know she was active in the business associations in town. I think of all the locations “found” by Agt. R, she is the one who has worked out and given him the most breaks. When I checked with the downtown festival committee, they said they would not allow a hotdog cart because they already gave out that concession, even thought it is not being exercised. Well, not so fast. There are restaurants along the southwest segment of the streets they block off. Those stay open for business late on those nights, yet they have nothing directly to do with the celebrations. Thusforth, private business enterprises can take advantage of the celebrations. That’s important, read on.
Says Agt. R, the Mongolia is just around the corner, and it is the only logical offshoot of the main road where they hold the antique car show, the Toe Jam, and parades. I agreed instantly, miffed that I did not draw the association myself. She has not only a prime sidewalk location, she has the only outdoor seating and tables, which to now the after-hours passersby just help themselves. Three metal patio tables and nine or twelve chairs. And she has tried to have bands play there on Fridays to no avail.
You recall, I jammed with one of the bands. It’s fun, but they are a veteran’s hall band and play that mix of music. Also, they have enough equipment to fill a van. When they set up next to the tables, it’s a bit overwhelming. The downtown association also has bands, but they are at the other end of the street and tend to take long breaks. Then I find out our lady friend is, by popular acclamation, a shoe-in electee for president of the downtown business association this year. That’s the lady from New York, ex-cop, married to an ex-cop.
If she was to sell hotdogs after hours on “her” sidewalk, I doubt anybody would carp. Or would even dare. The business association between the three of us is common knowledge in these parts. If any of us sold anything on her sidewalk it would be broadly assumed it to have the same sponsorship. As for sales, since she already is our commissary, we could sell anything we want besides just hotdogs. The kitchen is, like, 40 feet away and just 11 blocks from where we normally store the cart, too boot. Damn rights I would set up my PA system and play people music, hotdog music, kid music, and let the guitar players uptown go broke playing “Hotel California” to death. Check back with me on this, since Agt. R tends to oversimplify what has to happen first.
As for money, except for the (let me check) $142.32 in monthly fixed expenses, we are not hurting in any way. The repair, food supply, and float funds are completely topped off and we still have $1,785.94 in the war chest. I say “we” figuratively. It’s all my money. Don’t never forget that. Pardon me, that’s $1784.95.
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