March 31, 2019

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 31, 2018, Memphie-poo.
Five years ago today: March 31, 2014, Ruby, addicted to cheese.
Nine years ago today: March 31, 2010, I rode this train.
Random years ago today: March 31, 2009, Daytona to Lumberton.

           It was a lovely morning spent repairing the front passenger tire. It was punctured with a needle-like object. I regard this as part of the cost of parking in diversified America. It is your fault you have a car and they don’t, like somebody came and handed it to you. I’m back of my mind convinced it was one of the homeless bastards. And I’ve heard out-of-state cars often get targeted. It’s also your fault you have enough money to travel and they don’t. But only where there are homeless and such. My place in central Florida has never been hit although there are vehicles regularly parked there registered in almost any state except Florida.

           The tire repair answered a few more questions. There is a neighbor I’ve mentioned before. I found his behavior odd, but not surprising. I see now that he has one of those personalities where he likes to be needed. Not a compulsion or anything, but the barrier is he also projects that he expects to be needed back. This is the polar opposite of me, where I’ll help somebody and promptly forget. With this guy, you get the feeling you owe him a favor.

           So, he must have observed me fixing the tire. I work to robot clud standards, which takes extra time. Two jacks, stands, wheel chocks, hand brake, and a tub of soapy water. Turned out I needed that. Both to find the tiny puncture and to discover the first plug had a tiny leak. Those plugs are where the neighbor arrives on the scene. My repair kit is in the shed back home, so I pumped enough air to get over to Kroger’s. They have no kits in the auto section. Just helpful items like air fresheners, cup holders, and tire shine. (Millennials can never have enough cup holders.) Use two tire gauges. Always use two and cross-check.
           About to head for Wal*Mart, the neighbor calls. He has a kit. I thought about it and decided this would be a harmless way to let him endear himself. I had previously considered dissuasion tactics for his always coming over by, say, answering the door in my ginch. Yet, he is still a neighbor, albeit one who watches you change tires and then offers to help. He likes to talk, but not listen, so you know how to get rid of him, don’t you? Anyway, I think he is older than the 72 he told Robynette, and there is also something fishy about his being retired. I’m retired, since 1996, so I know it when I don’t see it.

           Here’s another low-grade downtown Nashville scam. Parking. There are several parking lots that look normal, but the spaces are controlled by different companies. One of the worst has to be Premier Parking. The lot has several entrances and some of the spots have “pay red meter” painted on the pavement. But if all the stalls are full, you’d have to crawl underneath to see the sign. Bear in mind, Saturday it was dark, raining, and cold. In the short time I was there, I saw several vehicles who paid the $40 fee at the meter near the entrance get this $60 ticket.
           The parking bastards have figured out that instead of cooperating on the tickets (the stall number is recorded), the quick money is in issuing these fines. They are probably not legally enforceable, but notice from this picture the vehicle is from Arizona. In that sense, Premier Parking has a lot in common with homeless vagrancy. What burns is not that they are so blatant about it, but that the mistake happens so often, they have an offense named after it. Hopefully, one day they’ll scam the wrong lawyer.

Picture of the day.

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           Are you feeling pampered? No me, either. Now take a look at the doggies here, dining al frescoe after a tough morning of lying in the sun watching me work on the car. Framed here between the trees and under the watchful eye of a Greek statue. Today’s fare was crunchies mixed with scrambled egg, grits, cheese, and diced turkey sausage. Desert, not shown here, was blueberry beef jerky. They love those tidbits so much I wonder what the factory puts in them.

           Next, I get to moan a bit, made bloggable by how it kept me in the house the remainder of the day. The cold weather has reactivated all sorts of aches I’d forgotten, but I do know I developed them working in the frozen winters at the Montana lumber mills. I was just 20 years old. I’d get home and peel off my work boots and then feel the same aches that are returning now. Now I know, it takes a month in cold weather to elicit the symptoms.

           The big club in downtown with the elevated stage also has a neat balcony arrangement. This gives anyone who wants to climb up there a theater box view of the stage. I stress again that although I’d personally rather watch less talented bands of great young women, the entertainment in this joint is top-notch. A-room all the way.

           Worst are across the top of my right foot behind the toes where I once worked a shift with my boots laced too tight. I’m not just crabbing. I barely made it down the stairs this morning. There were no eggs and turkey sausage waiting for me. This is my record, so let me record my upper back is now stiff left to right and walking gives me a taut lower back. Also, a stabbing pain along my left hand, let me look up the proper name for the part. It sears with pain when I bump into anything the wrong way.

           Well what do you know. Yet another situation where I need to describe something and the illustrious Internet fails because it is too shallow. The term may exist, but I could not find it in reasonable time. It is the stretch of your hand along the outer edge of where your little finger joins the palm down to your wrist. The part Bruce Lee would use to karate chop if you were dumb enough to join any contest with “dragon” in the title. If it really has no non-medical name, this blog reserves the right to christen it something popular. This pain also stems from a ancient cold weather injury.

ADDENDUM
           It’s probably me but I blame cold weather. All the aches and pains and now, first time for me, my eyebrows hurt. Like all the hairs are suddenly ingrown. Since they are not, it’s impossible to do anything about the discomfort. So I used the time to research useless machines. You never know when you’ll need one. The tops in uselessness are mostly from cracked.com.

           a) paper ripping machine
           b) gasoline powered flashlight
           c) a machine that writes the time
           d) cigarette smoking machine
           e) jell-O wobbler

           Here’s some trivia. Air’s free. Or is it? Not if you compress it and use it for diving or propelling a car. Then it becomes taxable. I could not find any information on how the tax is applied. I’m automatically against any law that, for its enforcement, involves spying on how people use the product. If a compressed air car came on the market, does that mean if I compress my own air, I have to pay a tax? Or will it be illegal to compress your own to the pressure required. Little data is available, but various rumors say the pressure needs to exceed 4,000 psi. However, there is an outfit in California that used ordinary commercial compressed air and claims a range of 80 miles.
           The motor is a small turbine. They are not pollution free rather it transfers the fossil fuel emissions from the car to the electric factory. I’ve followed the Tata, a car developed in India claimed to run 125 miles with a 3-minute fill up at an equipped station, or three hours with a built-in electric compressor. Tata keeps moving the projected release date ahead, I think the latest announcement is 2020. But what happened to 2015?
           You won’t see them soon enough in this country, and don’t be surprised if they are prohibited. The problem is the technology is dubbed “disruptive”. I don’t know the latest stat, but in my day one American in four made his living from something pertaining to automobiles. They are not about to let somebody with a bottle of compressed air upset that status quo.

           Last, if you ever get a situation where you computer turns itself off and displays the message that it encountered a problem, turn it off immediately. You are on-line and MicroSoft is attempting to reboot your computer by remote. Whether it is actually harmless or not, never let anybody turn on your computer this way. If need be, turn it on manually and call them back. I thought this only happened when the MicroSoft updates were prevented, but now I’ve seen it anyway.
           Note that MicroSoft updates are still compulsory. The way I prevent them, don’t try this at home, is to restrict memory. Long ago I noticed MicroSoft updates are memory-hungry. They need a certain percentage free space, not a fixed amount of free memory. That means the update is dependent on the size of your hard-drive. If you don’t find that suspicious, nobody can help you.

Last Laugh