One year ago today: , twice.
Five years ago today: November 4, 2013, welcome to Oregon.
Nine years ago today: November 3, 2009, running some numbers.
Random years ago today: November 4, 2010, on willful ignorance.
I’ve begun “”The Yellow Admiral” and it is intense reading. It takes effort to read this book. I’m on page 13 and already there are 9 major characters to remember. The plot is hectic and I rate the book as academically challenging, in the sense that to get full value from the reading, it is best to have the education to follow along. In the above stated few pages, for example, it would be advantageous to know Spanish geography, ornithology, entymology, Peruvian history, brands of then-popular liqueurs, navigational terms, the significance of Botany Bay, and the importance of being Catholic at that time in history.
And I am forgetful whether the study of insects is etymology or entymology. It would also be helpful to know what French soldiers were doing in Spain at the time and how money was shifted around before the world was enslaved by the banking system. What am I in for? There are another 250 pages. Here’s the list of the more important individuals as near as I can figure. The book also has listed the names of their maidservants, secretaries, doormen, and a street-sweeper.
Dr. Stephen Maturin – our protagonist, a ship’s doctor, or maybe a captain.
Carolyn – Maturin’s wife, prone to seasickness.
Needham – a jaundiced gossip of some ilk.
Brigid – Maturin’s infant daughter, once thought a mute.
Mrs. Clarissa Oakes – Brigit’s governess, a convicted murderess.
Sir Joseph Blaine – Admiralty office administrator, a bureaucrat.
Doturo – a Spanish spy.
Cpt. Jack Aubrey – an unpopular war hero.
Sophie – Aubrey’s wife,
There are many unfamiliar terms which can be guessed from context, you never know. For example, one passage talks about Diana having a “plenty of bottom: a rare plucked ‘un.’ And subtle put-downs, like a servant who ‘left much to be desired: indeed almost everything.’
This is the distracting type of book I like when traveling, presuming I can afford to get away at this stage. The sub panel was expensive but it was not the only renovation expense during the same period. Remember the shed, the yard, and the bathroom needed attention. I ran further checks with the camcorder and it has a much superior sound system. Cheaper models seem to pick up bass notes better to the detriment of vocals, and I have been really trying to work on harmonies. It seems a while back I found all manner of tutorials on-line that, now when I need them, have gone poof.
So you know, I’ve been ineffectively trying to learn harmony. The best I can do is raise the melody note a third. I’ve already explained how I fake it, but this is not good enough. I have studied music theory and it does not always work and, being a nice guy, I’ll even tell you why. When you listen to harmonies, they are in a major or minor key. Think of the white piano keys, you’ll find they are not evenly spaced with the black keys. These are called intervals and harmonies don’t sound right, at least to me, if you hit a diminished or augmented chord note. This is eventually going to happen when singing thirds.
This is as far as I’ve gotten in years. The few available on-line tutorials that address this point gloss over it in a word or two, basically saying don’t sing it, a fine lot of help that is. I’m keeping at it because of the way I learned to sing. I could not sing for forty years and then one day it made sense. Click. Just like that. This is not unprecedented in my life. That’s how I learned to read and how we all learned to ride a bicycle.
Here’s the drill bit I wrecked on its third use, plus the replacement. I know these bits can be sharpened, something I would have gotten around to years ago if I’d had the promised help on this house. I drilled too close to the corner of a joist and there was a screw inside just long enough to ruin this drill bit. Actually, I’ve found a use for it. It’s a speed drill, notice the screw tip? That is undamaged. Okay, now imagine you are drilling though a plant. The drill still works fine until that screw tip pokes through the other end. Then it spins, revealing the true dullness of the cutting edges.
Normally, at this point you would turn the plank over and drill from the other side to prevent tear-out. Think--I now have a drill bit that just pokes through and stops by itself. Second-hand electric drills around this area cost less than a drill bit. So I dragged my little used dowel drill out of the shed for use as an auto-stopping anti-tear-out device. I bet you don’t have one.
It actually works well under the house. Just crawl along the joists and drill to poke-through. Instead of making two trips you just take both drills and push then along as you go, using the good bit to complete each cable channel. The real question, which cannot be answered until end of the day, is how much time will I really spend under the house on this beautifully cool and crisp winter’s day, with the hour’s head start thanks to going off daylight time. Look at these lovely composite photos. See how much trouble I go through to keep you happy? And look how many people abandon me when I miss a day now and then. Is that fair? After all, daily blogs are like marriage—every day can’t be fireworks.
Mind you, compared to the lives being led by the people in Florida, I’ll compare a boring day around here to their finer months. They are the reason every café, saloon, and waiting room has a television. And I’ll never understand people who have all they need to make something of themselves, but then waste every day doing squat.
IKEA factory.
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It was camper make-ready time, all day. Running a fan out to cool the interior, I went over the same checklist as the other two models. This one, well, I wish I’d met the guy building it because I could have saved him a lot of time and, down the road (literally) a lot of needless expenses and repair. For starters, I went through the entire cabin extracting every nail and replacing it with the next size up wood screw. Unless you’ve live in a tow camper, you don’t really know what can tangle and work its way loose. The added inches of foam made all his shelving too low. It’s always a task to modify the interior of confined spaces. In this case, the back shelf, shown here raised, caused my toes to touch the bottom. Yes, when you are camping, that will keep you awake. This is now 1-1/2” higher.
I tidied up the electronics. I’ll need a whole new battery to get a fan to operate overnight. I can’t fine my 12v fan, but I could not find it in Miami two years ago either. I’ve got $300 in deep cycle batteries outside that never did hold a charge. This picture shows the solar panel charge controller at work. Not visible is a wag needle meter that shows the incoming voltage as high as 22.7. This is potentially damaging to the whole circuit, not just the batteries. So I threw a 2.0 mfd capacitor across the incoming leads, if you closely examine the connection on the wall panel, you can see it, a grey cylinder at an angle on the top right.
The camper is modified according to my road experience. All overhead projections are padded with carpet, I deepened the rims on all shelves and sliced them so they stood out 1/2” from the back walls. No, things won’t roll down there because you are careful to keep everything in bins. You need the crack on the back to run cables and wires, you’ll see. I added a small work shelf that can be removed for storage along one wall. The camper is not to be used in hot weather, but if you have a fan operating full blast, I’ve done it at 72°F in the old unit. I carry a sleeping bag and a small quilt. If I need anything more, I’ll find a thrift.
I also put some time into wiring the console. I devised a holder to hold the GPS holder and have it nearly wired up as a charge station for the phone, GPS, and tablet. The hard part was rewiring under the dash, as the factory installed plug had the annoying habit of staying on all the time. Millennial thinking, if a battery on is good, leaving it on until it is dead is even gooder. I’ve got a kill switch with a pilot light, crudely fashioned from a dog-ear fence panel, it does the job. Also, behind the front seats is a ledge across the entire back, about a foot wide, serving as a work counter for the back seat.
Working until dusk, I see that I put in an 11 hour day, another record. That includes vacuuming the camper and car. The whole time I kept an eye out for my crank-up radio. I tested it a couple weeks ago in the shed, and brought it inside, where it promptly disappeared. I turned the phone off, but still received 87 political messages. I’ve had the phone for years, but them bastards persist. To them a phone number that ever worked just has a new sucker on the other end. The Democrat party is up to the same old tricks, trying to pretend there is a mass rush to vote Trump out of power. Fat chance.
They’ve sponsored a really lame radio campaign that basically says Trump is making America look bad to the world. The implication seems to be that they were doing such a fine job of it before. And the incessant message is always to get things back like they were before. They just don’t get it, that is never going to happen. Think about it, the way it was before was political correctness and welfare were driving the country out of business.
It is raised just now, but the knock down shelf rests right across the middle as shown in this photo. When sitting up inside the camper, it is a comfortable work height, though I rarely actually work inside unless the weather is totally bad. The smoke alarm is tested, the Harbor Freight lights are everywhere, the thermometers can be read from prone position and all the cords seen strung around are now tucked away neatly along the ribs. I’m about as ready as can be, considering I may not actually go anywhere. Boss Hogg played my song list today. That’s coincidence, since they don’t know my list, but they went so far as to include several tunes I’m still working on. How they guessed that is beyond belief.
Hang on, let me double check something. Yep, I set the clocks right and it was an 11-hour day for me, with only stops for cold drinks. My calorie intake was 900 all day. This was not hard work, although there was some lifting and hauling. I’m satisfied that I could just put in that much time in one stretch. I’m monitoring carefully, this is still the spate of energy from that single day operating the food cart. But that day was a lot of sitting around in the shade. Today I was in motion all the time, few things would please me more than to again be able to walk long distances and work on demand.
ADDENDUM
The new PVC curtain system in the station wagon works much better. Here is a picture of the divider behind the front seats still being installed. It is fixed to bow upwards along the roof line. This sheer material does not impede night vision. Yet a lot of people as why the curtains. Simple, it keeps the interior of the car cooler, provides a private nap area in the back if needed, stops thieves from eyeballing the contents from a distance, and most importantly, relieves the A/C and heating system from having to supply the entire car. In the hot summer, drawing the curtain makes an instant improvement in cooling down the most used compartment.
We pile into the sack and she tells me afterward back then I could have done anything I wanted to her. Those were her words, not mind. Back when times for a kid like me were lean and desperate, that empty teenage stretch before I got my first real girlfriend. So that was just great, Debbie. Waits until she is 19 to say something. I always thought she was attractive, the turn off for me was she was only at the neighbors to babysit kids. And I’d been caught by tattletale kids before. Also remember that back then it was a fact that if you got caught with a girl, you had to marry her. Even if there was no pregnancy, pre-marital sex was taboo until you left home. You have no idea how well that functioned as birth control.
The irony is I would have taken her offer, but I did not want to marry her. Yet today, I would give anything to meet a girl like Debbie Bradley.
I’m not much of a gamer, but I like the odd computer logic game. Spider, the solitaire game, is a favorite because you cannot win by any single strategy. I prefer the intermediate level. But I’ve always wondered it if is possible to beat the game. No, not just win. The game is fixed to not deal a new hand when there are any blanks on the table. My question is whether it is possible to clear enough cards from the table that there are not enough blanks to deal the final round. Shown here, I’ve gotten down to one card a few times. If I had a five of spades, it would clear this suit, leaving six blanks while I still have undealt cards in the lower right corner. That would be beating the game.
Yes, I could go look it up and all that, but I wanted to see if I could do it on my own. This game is the one I’ll play when bored, as it completely distracts me, although I can watch a DVD and play along. This version of solitaire took over from Free Cell when I found I could no longer lose at that one. As far as major computer games go, maybe at an arcade, but never at home.
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