One year ago today: June 28, 2018, six easy hours.
Five years ago today: June 28, 2014, the best yet.
Nine years ago today: June 28, 2010, trashy & inconsiderate.
Random years ago today: June 28, 2013, at the Lanai Kai.
The videocam arrived on schedule this morning. Give me two more people like the Reb and let the good times roll. I get home to doubled electrical rates. I’m going to analyze the records. My bill, normally $120 for everything, was $171 while I was away. Meaning I was not here to use any utilities. I’ll monitor the whole usage since I now have that cutoff switch that kills everything but the fridge and cameras. By noon it was indoor time [due to the heat], and my luck stayed bad. I threw on “Bells of Innocence”, a disc with Chuck Norris on the cover. Fake-out. It’s Grade-B actors, um, make that Grade-B people from the get-go. It’s another stealth religion pitch.
More talk about forgiving student loans. That would be most unfair to the few who ponied up their repayments over the past few generations. There’s an irony here I can’t quite nail down, but the worthless keypress that creates the worthless money buys a worthless degree. Have you seen these people try to spell? (More about fake money in the addendum.) The quirk here is if you borrow to buy a house, your repayment eventually gains something of genuine value. Can the same be said of today’s university degrees? My position: absolutely not. There is little resemblance between a 1970 and a 2010 post-secondary education in this country. There are stubborn reasons a high-school diploma sufficed for a good career forty years ago.
Today, both the borrowed money and the education have roughly equivalent merit. America schools place something like 25th on the world scale—but those countries have something we don’t. An education system not mandated by the government. One has to be blind and deaf to not notice that most government-run operations produce the opposite effect intended. America still has its geniuses, and at a rate several times higher than the rest of the world, but overall they are not graduates of the public school system. Those who argue there is no need to conjugate an irregular verb in the real world are missing the point that what’s important is the ability to do so. The “skill” to look it up is not at all the same thing. Yikes, I hear the squealing from the nation’s basement rooms already!
It was precisely 1969 when the schools became government wards that the decline began. I recall by 1970, you needed a degree to get a good job. But the degree in those days had to possess relevance. By 1980, that was gone. It was the presence or absence of a degree that determined whether you even got a job interview. In my workplace, I met all manner of people with irrelevant diplomas and such. I never did meet anyone who had trained in telecommunications. That was more a management function, but the disjoint was well-established by then. A Bachelors in Art Appreciation had limited applications on the shop floor where I worked. Even my dentist back then started as an entomologist (bug doctor).
By 1985, an engineering degree was required to sweep the floor at the phone company, but that is a mis-observation. It was similar to what is happening in India right now. One million applications for 9,000 programming jobs. In no time at all, it appears that standards have risen. But, have they now? Where are the new scientists? Where are the new inventions? Instead, we get the daily flogging of this generation’s dead horses: the Tesla, the high-speed rail, and the next phone toy.
Most of them notions significantly older than the woman I had dinner with last Friday.
1927 juke box.
(Yes, those are 78 rpms.)
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That’s my row of bamboo shoots. They only look green. They are as dry and brittle as that rattan furniture on your grandmother’s porch. The literature said to wait a week and look for sproutlings or something. These are healthy cuts, if they don’t grow, it composting time. Where located, the stand would block not only the direct view from the street, but the side of the neighbor’s house plus provide at least some shade for the south side. I’m prepared to go to Tennessee enough times to make that bamboo happen.
Music. I did a load of laundry, giving me time to begin downloading all the tabs I’ll be using. Playing this blah music by ear is tedious. If any shortcuts exist, use ‘em. That lady singer at the marina pours her little heart out on a tune I’m indifferent about. “My Heart Will Go On”, and tonight is the first time I’ve listened to it all the way through. Or in the alternative, stayed awake the whole time. Okay, here’s the deal. It has no bass line. It’s an orchestral arrangement. This means three options immediately. One is root-pump, that is play the tonic notes of every chord throughout. Adequate and amateurish. Two, much of the same but with a few passing notes to keep the melody interesting. Better, and a sign the bass player can do it if he must. Three, well, this one isn’t so clear-cut. Rewrite an entirely new bass line to emulate the orchestra.
Not that I would ever play it that way on stage, but I found all those droning notes associated with Highland bagpipe and fiddle music. They are ordinary double-stops on the bass. You cannot get a more solid background in music that piano lessons and theory. The sound is a strum on the downbeats of every measure and if you know your violin tunings, there’s a trick to it. Use lower thirds and fifths to capture that Scottish humming sound in the background. And who is the master of bass thirds? Hello, Glen, remember me?
It took an hour, but I rearranged the bass to play only the accented beats. It would be necessary to work with the piano player in Nashville, but let me tell you again that guy is fantastic. I’m guessing he’ll be surprised to meet a bassist who can work with him on that level. If so, it would be a judgment call if he wants to supply the lower root while I play the upper chording song. Give the tune a listen, if you let your ear filter out that fife-sound, you’ll hear what I mean. Turns the stage presentation of this song into a total tear-jerker. It will also work with guitar, so let me contact the Reb about that.
But one thing I’m taking on my own. That worn out Clapton song “Before You Cuze Me” just fell another notch in my book. I never did like Clapton and no, I don’t think he’s that great. I’ve discovered a way to play the entire tune mostly on one string that is flashy and quite noticeable. Yet, it cannot be said I’m stealing thunder because the notes are the same. Since it is the E-string, I play it with my left hand above the neck with a single finger, while putting on my most-bored look. Which I’m good at. Ask any second rate college prof.
Another two hours cleaning the desk from the communication wall. That’s the one that will have 24 duplex outlets, that is 48 plugs. It’s the home of the computer and recording equipment, with a small assembly area. But no foolin’, I need another 8x12 foot secure storage area and I think I’ve got a way to do it without paying for the permit. The code allows a canvas shelter to be erected but does not specify what can be placed under it. While yard equipment an autos are mentioned, the code is silent on other things. I will read the entire chapter first, but so far there is nothing to stop me from storing something like a shed under the shelter. It also takes care of the dead space to the north of the back bedroom. I’m only thinking at this point.
Clearing that wall was effort. It hasn’t been accessed since 2016 and you know how I accumulate stuff. It was formerly the robotics work desk and is destined to be placed into more general service. Now that I can build hutches, it will solve some of the storage challenges. It also gives access to the plumbing of the tub area from two directions. If JZ ever gets here, that would make for fast and easy work. Myself, I’m going to rough in what I can and look at it. The good thing about PVC is you can’t make too big a mistake at once.
ADDENDUM
Today’s wind up is small details from the past few days that I’m logging for their own sake. I’m on the lookout for a broken casette player to convert to a 12V rewind unit. That bamboo sure looks dry. Agt. R tells me that sometimes they just don’t take on sandy soil. He again described the 15 inches of rain, but to me that sounds biblical. He came over with his lawnmower to keep the place from looking abandoned. I priced out an 8 terabyte drive at $160. However, it was hardly a portable unit and I don’t know what I would need such capacity for. That also means I don’t know what others would need it for either, but they must have vast collections of it. I prefer the real thing.
Now I understand a lot more why people say having money changes you. But I see it as more that to get the money, you have to change yourself into something most people would not want to be. Both theories arrive at the same goal. The difference is are you willing to sacrifice everything for it? The answer, to me, is not obvious. One should be able to get ahead by working hard and it is an artificial evil in place that prevents it. The world has changed repeatedly since the 1700’s, yet I see some ancient principle of a privileged class whose main interest is preventing others from rising. Stay with me for a moment, I’ll explain.
Think of what discoveries have freed man from manual labor. The advent of machines alone should have meant nobody in England would have to live in poverty. Yet, look what they did. New power sources, better health, all the inventions of the past century added up should have placed everyone into at least some comfortable existence. I mean, all these things were invented or discovered here, which puts a certain category of people above and beyond the total accomplishments of all the rest of the planet combined since day one. Instead, it’s daily toil to pay debts that should not even exist. Don’t even suggest to me that somebody is behind it.
The current rage is against the Federal Reserve, which prints the US money. It is neither Federal nor has any reserve. It is a printing press. The way the money supply works is the bank makes a loan, the Federal Reserve prints up the money, or these days creates it electronically out of thin air. The borrower then goes to work to pay back the money with interest. It is really a one-sided affair. The money that is lent has no value, but that which is paid back is based on the efforts of the borrower. Every dollar paid back has the equity of the toil of the worker. If you figure out who’s best interests are served by enforcing this travesty, you’ll know that this cannot continue forever.
