One year ago today: November 5, 2017, like they were on call.
Five years ago today: November 5, 2013, John Day.
Nine years ago today: November 5, 2009, on telemarketer sniping.
Random years ago today: November 5, 1984, Phuket, Thailand.
What I did this morning. I went for coffee in downtown Bartow, my second favorite. Those who recall my beginning to learn electronics, what, some six years ago, would have found today highly productive. I was inside the cPod camper for hours. And that’s another thing, I worked another entire day. Few things would please me better than even a partial ability to become reliably active again. Three projects today, I’ll record what happened, you decide if it is bloggable.
I got the two lawn tractor batteries and began to wire them up in series to produce the 12 volt pack. They seem to need charging even when new and test badly under load. I designed a small harness to more or less permanently join them together. Once I fit them back into the amplifier, I don’t want to have to bother with them for another few years. That amplifier is a must, for practice, travel, and it will even handle a small gig. You may see lots of photos of electronics today. That’s because such projects are plain better documented to start with.
This sequence shows the two six-volts units on the left, comparing in size to the defunct 12 volter on the right. The snag is best visible in the middle photo. They are not lined up exact, but you may perceive a slight difference in size along the top edges. That is enough to cause headaches on the other end. I’ve decided to try chiseling out the cardboard liner. No, not easy. It is tough cardboard and it is really in there. Flip back a few pages and you’ll see a photo of what the hollow looks like. And yes, I took care of that duplicate Last Laugh.
The challenge was the car control center. To anyone on the aesthetic side, this design is 100% pragmatic, designed on the fly for what worked best. I’ve had it long ago trying to fit pieces into a newer car. That maddening frustration is a chore I gladly leave alone. Each component had to be hand-fitted numerous times. The most awkward part was the off-on switch, you may recognize this piece. Over the years it has appeared on many prototypes. This item is required, I remind you, because the 12 volt “cigarette lighter” plug of the car stays powered when the engine is off. Which, if you leave anything plugged in, slowly kills your battery.
That conspicuous flat cover contains the inner workings, something you don’t need to see. But I can tell you it is complicated and an astounding improvement over early workings. An engineer might look at and think I built items that could be bought. True, but I delight in creating custom components armed with only a pair of wire cutters and the hardware I’ve got on hand.
Even with the skeleton of the console made up and glued together over the past week, the wiring was a four-hour task. After each modification, I had to carry it out to the car in the afternoon heat to see what fit, and usually there was something. In addition, I reinforced the curtaining system in the back of the station wagon. That had to be done in the blazing mid-morning sunlight. The GPS position is not ideal, in that viewing it means taking your eyes off the road for a moment, but what’s the alternative? Have it block part of your vision on a dash mount?
The apparatus also supplies two 120 volt inverters. That’s so if on the road I lose a cable or break anything, I can always stop at a Dollar Tree and slap together something that works. Otherwise, it is occupied by a battery recharger most of the time the car is running. You are not looking for elegant design, you are looking at what works. And that is after months of untangling cables and cluttering the passenger side with the flotsam of the millennial age. Don’t get ready for any rest stops either. All of today’s gear has only been tested on the bench, that’s ot field-tested, that's inside here with the cool air conditioning.
Tell you what made me happy this morning. You know that utterly gorgeous half-Chinese lady that works at the courthouse? The one that knows she’s got it. Always dressed to the nines and classy as they come. I caught her looking at me. I glanced up from the crossword and there she was, just a hint of the you-know look. What shocked me momentarily was she knows I saw her and she did not look away like 99% would. She fixed gaze on me just that half-second that said, “Busted. So what?”
Then it was over. Maybe she’s like me. If I thought for a wink that she’d say yes, I’d walk right over and seal the deal. She certainly has the aura of confidence to do the same, but you know women. Then it was gone. A group of her friends, including some nerdy IT type guy sat down with their coffee right then. I put it to you that your station in life can be gauged by how often the rotten timing of the lower orders interferes with your sequence. Yep, the moment came and went and left me only with the satisfaction of knowing it happened. Sigh.
Oak Chapel.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
The red scooter battery is inside the cPod. This beast of a battery holds enough charge to operate a small 12 volt fan overnight. I still cannot find my 12 volt fan but I proceeded anyway. Half the day was spent crawling in and out the hatch making last minute modifications. Like routing all the sharp lumber edges smooth, lining more spots with carpet, installing coat hooks, and shutting off incoming political telemarket calls. Trump has turned the normally dull mid-terms into a marathon. And the liberals are peeing their pants in public.
Even Tampa radio has quit making comparisons and pointedly never play sounds from a Democrat rally. Instead, they have resorted to begging the welfare class to get out and vote. Even then, they are just changing feet because the implication is their voter base consists of the least Americanized groups out there. Nobody with a brain is buying that diversity twaddle any more. (Actually, they never did, but liberal control of the media made it risky to speak up.)
Later, so much later it was well after dark, I went out for a mini-celebration. I should have said the red glow in the picture above is not from the special effects of the camera. No, there is a permanent red lamp on inside the camper whenever there is enough incoming electric from the solar panels to operate everything at half-capacity. It’s hard to see, but just below the hanging wrench is the carry handle from the scooter battery. It is secure to the shelf just below. The voltage reading of 12.3 is steady because I designed the circuit to smooth out all frequency variations.
My plan is to drain the battery completely by leaving the radio on. Check back tomorrow. I know you cannot dream about something you don’t already know, but some people think that because they have such bad memories. I was reminded that when a lady appeared in my dream overnight last, just a lady I used to work with whose name I don’t recall. (She’s the one who, when the phone company switched to computers in the early 80s, I switched the “i” and “o” keys.)
The final bill is in. That water leak cost me $341.56 extra, and no way will the city give a break. They used to lop the bill in half, but most of City Hall these days are not local people. Even then, they want to see a bill from a local licensed plumber. Like anyone could get a plumber for less than $400 these days. The grounds crews are, however, and they nicely away the trees on my north side for free. I explained that the kids played in that yard and the branches had me worried. I really need to get the entire yard chopped back to safety status.
ADDENDUM
Our newest book, “The Yellow Admiral”, is a gem. Similar to this blog, you are painlessly learning new things while thinking it is a log of ordinary occurrences. I love it. In this case, our hero, Stephen Maturin, is connected with sailing only as a ship’s surgeon. He is not a captain, the wording in this story reflects the period and part of that learning is you have to figure out what is being said. There are damn interesting passages on issues where our schools nowadays give no perspective. Example, the enclosures. I was taught the landlords and barons threw the peasants off the land to make room for sheep farming and wheat fields.
Now I know it was a far more political affair. There was no consistency to the way the manors were created, each one was assigned a separate set of laws and privileges. One was to maintain the commons, or a common ground which all the residents could use. This enabled a peasant, no matter how poor, to maintain a cow, a flock of geese or chickens, and although only the lord could hunt, poaching was apparently condoned. This worked well because the poorest resident understood not to do anything to harm to commons.
Apparently enclosure was a process of breaking up the common area and allotting a share to each resident according to some obscure rules. Each cottage was often held by tenure, not formal contract, and at best customary and existed only by long standing. With enclosure, the entire area became one large farm, with the peasant as a shareholder, essentially working for wages. His personal allotment was often too small or to broken into distant parcels to keep a cow, so the land was sold back to the lord, the only person around who had any money, for a fraction of its value. This created the landless, poverty-stricken laborer who went from door-to-door begging for food or work.
Hence, most responsible landowners opposed the enclosures, quoting how it led to rural poverty, with its “squalor, dirt, idleness, petty thieving, cruelty, frequent drunkenness and not uncommon incest . . .”, but the politicians forced the estates to put it to a vote, citing peasant rights. This was done by counting shares, not heads, so the largest farmers had the most say, and too often the commons “runs deep” into their estates. All that was needed was the influence to have politicians enact this vote as a right. Says Jack, “. . . even a country cannot be run by a self-seeking parcel of tub-thumping politicians working on popular emotion, rousing the mob.”
Hmmm, that sums up what was happening in America until Trump came along. The liberal state was doing the opposite of enclosure. Giving each voting group government treats in exchange for a vote that sold their rights back to the state. Vote Democrat, and the state will feed you, protect you, inspect your food, educate your children, tell you what you can eat or drink, and who you can sleep with. The ‘rural poverty’ part sounds strangely familiar. Add the welfare state and entice the peasants into the cities where they are easy to control, and pretty soon you have Detroit.
This has been going on in America, slowly at first, since after WWII, when America owned more than 70% of the money in the world. Essentially, the US of A commanded both the carrot and the stick. It was ripe for political plucking, and we entered the era of the welfare state. Give that money back in dribbles to the groups least apt to spend it wisely and let them vote their way to bliss and cable TV. Hey, this policy has been in force in Canada since day one and look where they are. Soon, the majority is dependent on government aid of some sort. But don’t say it that way, or you lose the election—just ask John Kerry (the one who stated 49% of Americans are on some kind of welfare). He was warning us, not insulting us.
Let’s see what happens in tomorrow’s election to judge how well Trump has done. My prediction is he’ll landslide the increasing isolated and hostile liberals. I assert again my support is because he is a businessman, not a politician. And how did you like today’s world-class magazine article? What? Well, yes, that is a safe question because you must have read this far. Tell you what, if you dislike it, give me $12.99 or $15.99 in Canada and we’ll call it even. It’s not like a magazine always tells you what you want either. They just try harder to do precisely that.
My advice remains the same. Mr. Trump, if you want to go down in history as the good guy, put an end to all telemarketing, including religion and politics. I have 87 unsolicited messages on my phone, which costs me $13 so far. From dumb c-word people I do not want to talk to.
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
