One year ago today: January 25, 2018,a dozen, maybe.
Five years ago today: January 25, 2014, remember Kim Dotcom?
Nine years ago today: January 25, 2010, on some diseases.
Random years ago today: January 25, 2012, another day.
Work? A great concept, but none of it got done around here today. Chasing around, the day amounted to buying set of handlebar grips and a bicycle carrier. Cold or not, I’m going to start hauling my bicycle around with the station wagon to see how well that works out. I just did not feel like doing any heavy lifting today. I watched a video, “Law Abiding Citizen” and found I was rooting for the bad guy. He started systematically killing all the people in the justice system that plea bargained his family’s murderer into a three year sentence. It was, to me, a powerful message of how broken the system is.
Which got me listening to NPR news, the libtard review. Man, are the Democrats shooting themselves in the foot on this one. On they go about how badly the shutdown is disproportionately affecting their voters (an unexpected gleeful bonus to patriots), yet they refuse to compromise on the wall money. They are losing ground rapidly on that one, because the bottom line is twice as many people voted for Trump as voted for Hillary. The Democrats make a spectacle of themselves trying to claim there is a massive movement against the president as they keep digging themselves deeper and deeper. It’s as if they cannot understand why such shitty tactics don’t work on Trump when they worked so well on the candy-asses that went before.
Looking at the bike rack picture again, does that seem right to you? I’ve never had a trailer hitch rack before and it looks kind of odd to me. And even when the bolts are all tightened, the assembly seems to move around a bit much. It is rated for twice the weight of two bicycles yet it still seems flimsy. I’ll take it for a test run in the morning. The temperature is really going to drop tonight. I also burned five bags of leaves. What’s bloggable about that? Well, there are two burning type aromas I do not care for, burning tree roots and burning leaves. They bring back bad childhood memories. You went to Disneyland, I picked roots. Be danged if somehow the smoke, which went straight up in the air, got into my only winter jacket fifty feet away in the car. No I either pay good money for drycleaning, or have that faint smell of burning roots, which I honestly cannot stand. Here is a picture of the crosscut sled I made for the old table saw. The picture just didn’t fit any place else.
That’s doubly odd because he has, more than any other person alive, seen how often I turn women down. I’d estimate he’s seen me do it, hmmm, thirty times. He states he cannot imagine how I can hang around with women I don’t do the wild thing with. True, he’s never met Marti, or Liz, or my ex, but he’s seen pictures of us. The only one he accepts it with is his married sister. He considers hanging around with women as chums somewhere between me being cheated and a lack of testosterone. Then again, he’s never believed it that I’ve never had any hired help either. Yep, folks, millions of years of evolution, in this case, divergent. I don’t reproach him on his attitude, because I have brothers with the same mind set and know it is useless to reason with them.
I paused twice to watch the movie. They tried its best to show both sides, how the system looks at getting convictions, but succeeds only in showing how far that has departed from justice. The bad guy turns out to be a professional assassin or something, and he gives the system every imaginable chance to do right. They won’t, and it is too obvious the process of becoming a lawyer, or judge, or warden indoctrinates people to the point where they can no longer see the error of their ways. If the courts are a shambles, it is the fault of the courts for letting things get so bad. Hey, I’ve been around long enough to have seen the rot take hold and spread. American courts are all about money, not justice, so if you think they will change themselves, you are nuts.
The plot also reveals how far the authorities will go to nail somebody they want to set up. The police break the law to enter without a warrant, knowing if they find anything, the courts will forgive them. That is legal corruption at the highest level. Police who do this must be fined or jailed and prevented from every serving on another force for life. Instead, they are idolized. Creative law enforcement, my eye. I had to rewind and watch several scenes, they were so well-portrayed. I love it when the warden says no prisoner will tell him what time to serve dinner, he delays it six minutes and the defense lawyer dies.
Another chapter into the “Eagle Against The Sun” and again I have to wonder what kind of bull the education system is feeding America’s children. There is no need to beautify the exploits of a real hero, and I don’t care if the practice is a holdover from that era where they sold dime store novels. The raw truth should be enough, and all too frequently in the US media, truth isn’t enough. The 1940s public needed heroes but today, I could not name you one from any war since 1950. Guess I must plain be insensitive, you know, concerning undeclared, unconvincing, and unpopular wars. Maybe I’m so old fashioned I think if you are fighting for my personal freedoms, you should do it less than fifty miles away.
I stopped at Wal*Mart and as I emerge from the checkout, I see some forty-year-old housewife ogling the 17 year old dude cashier. No mistake about it, she was eyeing the guy up. The room was otherwise empty but there was no mistaking. It reminded me of the news report earlier that another female teacher has been arrested for sexual misconduct. Being a woman, she’ll get a few months, suspended.
Briefcase man.
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By late afternoon, I’ve disappointed myself how little work is done. Here’s a photo showing how my new fence has sagged already. This is not unusual, it’s just that I was hoping it would not happen to me. I’ll fix it. I went looking for a carpet for the bedroom floor. Nothing now that I’m looking. My hunger pangs are intensifying; it just took me longer than usual to know they are ordinary hunger. I had gotten used to steady state hunger and you know how overwhelming that can be. It doesn’t prepare you, but nor am I going to waste a payoff that took, what, 14 months now.
The laugh is that his responses over the previous week reveal that he’s beginning to see I’m right. Acting like, to use a 1960s expression, King Shit of Turd Island is quite normal for a guitar player, but he now suspects it might be less than optimal, band-wise. I’ve challenged him, saying on his command, we will send each other a song we want the other to solo with in 48 hours, by video. A few rules to make sure the contest is fair, and we have 48 hours to learn the tune. He too readily agreed. He’s beginning to suspect he was hasty, but this is so much fun I don’t want him to bolt.
L et’s see if this causes more embarrassment at his expense. He has to solo on guitar a tune I pick, and I have to solo on bass a tune he picks. It must be the whole song, it must contain all the intros, breaks and outros. I do not know if he can sing, but that is not what is being tested. I sent him “Exes & Ohs”, which is pretty much impossible to totally play just on lead. He will have to do some strumming. Thinking he has the upper hand, he sent me “The Breeze”, which I can play and sing in my sleep. I wonder if I should let him know that?
I have an ulterior motive not to. Back in the mid-80s, I met one of the most successful duo guitarists I ever knew by similar means. Once these guys get knocked off their horse, they can sometimes work out as a team player. Why, I can’t even remember his name, but the one who used to steal the sandwiches on the Washington State Ferry and pay twice after the gig when he had money. That guy. We played a lot of veteran’s halls on the islands around Puget Sound. But, eventually, his bad guitar habits caught back up with him and he reverted to soloing for peanuts again.
Oh, what was his name? Dang, we had great fun sets once he realized he could mix things up and I would fill in the blanks. I recall tunes we did that I should resurrect, like “Momma Don’t (A)llow”, the “I-95 Song” (Were You Born An Asshole), “Summertime Blues”, and “Tiny Bubbles” (The Bathtub Fart Song). I’ll ask my ex, she knew the guy because he jammed with Brad, the one who ate hotel ice when he was hungry and had no food money. The Brad that got our duo started when he failed to show one opening night at the Commodore. Jesus Christ I go back a long ways.
ADDENDUM
Okay, that car is running so well again that I’m considering doing something about the bad heating system. Why have not the car people made the heater an electrical device that A) works better, and B) is far more easily repaired or replaced. My guess is economic reasons, that is, economic in their favor. So, I’ve designed a circuit that operates an electric heater, although the blower will still be needed for the rare occasions when I need defrosting.
Rather than risk the battery, which I’ll explain momentarily, I’ll tap off the generator. The on-line videos that show this have several unresolved issues that I can correct with the addition of some standard discrete components. My intention is a cutoff switch that is buffered by big capacitors, like you find in laundromat dryers. This operates a 1500 watt DC/AC converter with a single purpose. To run an ordinary room heater. It will operate at around the 1200 watt level for electronic reasons I won’t get into just now. With the curtain system already inside the car, the idea is to heat only the driver’s compartment.
Back to the battery, why not take that as the source. Two reasons. One is the danger of accidentally leaving the switch on. The 1500 watt converter would continue working, and you are stranded. Secondly, the alternator is designed to top off the battery. Too small a battery will not hold enough reserve charge to operate anything like 1500 watts, and over time it slowly never stays topped up. That is why when you install a stereo amp, your damn battery goes dead every six months. Bigger batteries are the usual solution, but with a heater in operation, it just delays the problem.
The biggest robotic converter I have is only 400 watts. Today it is raining (since midnight) so I’m going out to price the components. To replace the rotted heater core, the labor alone is $650 so let’s see if I can come in significantly lower that that. Remember, this arrangement is robot-grade and it would also operate a camper, this time with 120 volt service. I know exactly how to do these things. Hey, I’ve built working microcircuits and I just rewired a cabin and a garage that worked perfectly first try.
[Author’s note: this heater arrangement is a compromise. The car was never intended to be operated in cold weather for any length of time. Should that happen, I doubt I would have any passengers. Thus, the heater is to be situated in an insulated box (to protect car upholstery) that sits in the passenger seat. If it works, the kit is for sale. Just joking. Or am I?
Later, I’m dismayed by how the prices of DC/AC converters has doubled since I last looked. Even the HF models for 1500 watts run $150. Even when the lady clerk gives me the staff discount, that’s still $120 for what should cost $50. Still, I should do it here if I’m going to because every place further north means working with metal pieces in cold weather.]
