One year ago today: July 19, 2018, another successful failure.
Five years ago today: July 19, 2014, my first automotive relay build.
Nine years ago today: July 19, 2010, preferring the known enemy.
Random years ago today: July 19, 2007, early anti-guitarist post.
Here’s a closer picture of the ten-dollar cutoff taps under the faucets. I never could cut a hole exactly where it is supposed to be. No matter how carefully I measure, I’m always off. I know about cutting a cardboard template but I never do. This tap will be hidden behind a counter anyway. And if you want pretty, they sell chrome flanges to fit over the hole. The tap is actually working in this photo. It is off or you’d see lots of hot water.
Yes, I’m moving the laundry to the north side. Good thing I left so much slack in the cables. It won’t be this week or even next. The bathroom is going to cost nearly $900, that is, $500 over budget. Blame your tariffs. I’d like to blame the record hot weather, but not being a liberal, I’ve no practice at conjuring up totally obscure connections. This doesn’t apply to the bass. If I can’t play it, that’s Jimi Hendrix’s fault. The way a regular guitar is tuned just isn’t good enough for these people. Anyway, there should be an afternoon thunder shower that I can put in the last piece to connect the cold water line. This picture shows the piece, if I learned one thing from the electric company, it was to prefab as much of the operation as possible. It’s easier to measure carefully than to cut pipes already under the building.
Some fun getting rid of that new virus. By the way, it was not detected by any of the name brand scanners. Malbyteware, Avira, MS Defender, all missed it. Oddly, it only triggered when a browser was open. I didn’t do any on-line scans because I’m dumb, but not that dumb. I also notice AVG and Symantec are both offering “free” scans, but they are lying. You pay for it with your e-mail address. You may have your VPN and all the protection you think you need, but it is to no avail if you send even one item to any person who doesn’t. The fact that you sent something at a specific time and date is more than enough to blow your cover. VPN providers are required by law to keep a list of every subscriber, and are not permitted to reveal that fact.
I got it, a clever little virus that kept opening screen after screen, getting ever faster until it used up your entire resources. In celebration, I drove over to Ricki’s in Winter Haven for coffee and a cookie. The weird staff was on today, including the owner who may or may not be named Ricki. I found a far corner to search my entire registry, but once again, I suspect that I somehow look like somebody people want to talk to.
There’s your picture of the end piece. Where I’m pointing there would normally be an elbow. This way, I have a few inches of extra line jutting out into space and capped. Built-in versatility for a minor investment. Note the regulation quality of the work and the proper spacing of the hot and cold lines minimum four inches apart. These will be insulated before the flooring goes on. If I have time, I may place them in a raceway and double insulate. In the case of Florida, if you don’t, the cold water never really gets cold.
Precious Island of Samal.
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Mercy, is it going to rain all afternoon? I’m going to cut away most of the drywall to expose the entire above-floor section of the sink drain. That way, when I discover the hard way what all the professionals are keeping a secret, I can access the pipe by removing a few drawers. And I just found out that a regular 3/4” to 3/4’ pipe union does not join CPV to iron. I have two shark clips, but they specify everything except iron. Since I’m not into ripping up the floor at a later date, I’ll wait until I find out if there’s a Fernco or something. Other than that, we are ready to proceed with the expensive part. The picture is a tobacco warehouse in Tennesse. And why not?
In my kit, I found a curious piece that I did not know existed. I have it in 1/2” and I need 3/4”. The fact there is such a piece means I go looking for it today. Getting that cold water back means I can set the bathroom counter into place, kind of a milestone for me. Working alone and all. I called it quits at 10:00PM and went down to the old club on 60. Sandy sat by me and the band was my once hopeful “Southerndipity”, the mother-daughter duo. Except, as I predicted, they are no longer a duo. Some guitar player has wrangled his way in there. Musically, the sound is more polished but they’ve lost their direction. Because for the route they’re going, it is will never be near polished enough.
Their appeal was always that they were a two-girl band. They’ve altered with that blend. From the outside it looks like that same guy who started with the slapbox has now moved to guitar. All guitar players will try to turn any band into their “backup group” and he is around 80% there, destroying their charisma in the process. The music is better, but the guitar influence is horrid. Their vocals are on such high reverb, you can barely make what they say. Every tune gives the same methodical impression.
So, now they are just another band. Don’t get me wrong, they will survive, but this change puts them into the most highly competitive route to musical success there is. Trying to musically be good enough to make the big time is a false god. Then again, maybe to them, playing bars between Nashville and Key Largo is the big time, but I know the clubs they play pay maximum $250 a night. Split three ways. I know lately my expenses are running at 52.2%. The appeal of two blonde women on stage remains, but everything is diluted down by having a male on stage. They should relegate him to the background and leave him there but it looks like he got himself in with the daughter. If they are not careful, in another short while, they will be in the background.
I should point out the guy is second-rate, both as a musician and his utter lack of stage personality. He plays the same song all night. He can strum a narrow set of Eagles-like riffs, but this butchers the majority of songs that don’t have that feel to them. Gretchen’s “Red Neck Woman”. It isn’t supposed to sound like “Peaceful Easy Feeling”. Like I warned on day one, he’s dragged the music down to his level and will now start taking over even their list. I recognized maybe half of their material and even then, it’s because I know the lyrics. The home-spun choices of music that held most of their allure, such as “Mama’s Broken Heart” are already absent. Guitar players don’t like music without lead breaks.
The mother came over to chat a moment and I gave her my contact information. We don’t know each other well enough to talk about what she seems to want, but I can guess what it is. Two years ago, I offered to join them as a bassist. Understanding the band’s appeal, I stressed I would add a dimension to their existing material and make no attempt to change the format. She seems aware they’ve lost that edge and are in the process of losing it more, though I am not a mind-reader. Like I said, we are not that well-acquainted but there can be little question that I remind her of something along those lines.
There is ever present the option that she may have let the guitar player in with a view to establishing a backup group for their duo. If so, she’s lost control. If the guy is making whoopie with the daughter, she’s become a minority on her own stage. She did ask something about my performing but I just answered that in three years I never did find a guitar player in Polk who would listen to me. Much of what I wrote here is based on the way she spontaneously nodded and leaned into that comment. As I was leaving an hour later, she said she would definitely be in touch. We shall see.
If she wants to collaborate, my instinct says no. That guitarist embodies all the bad habits I’ve listed over the years and he would automatically clash with my methods. He’s got guitar-brain up the ying-yang and it’s not my job to set musicians in their place for any cause except my own. For all I know, that could be what she has in mind. Nor can I tell her if she ever takes back her band, it will be by getting rid of the bad influences, and the net result being what you can never take back is the lost time. In a band, lost time is measured in years, if not decades.
ADDENDUM
My music completion index today is 29.531 %
Another mystery, which tend to get blogged no matter how trivial to the world at large. This time, it’s about cleaning mirrors. I’ve got the same array of them as most households, including two hand-helds. One here, one in the car. What’s this, a tarnish on the glass. I wipe it down and it is coated with a light layer of tar. Like the interior car window of somebody who smokes. Except, nobody here smokes. So I clean the old medicine cabinet, the hall mirror and the door mirror. Same thing. Brown tar, just like nicotine. If it’s the Florida air, I’ve been breathing it.
This just handed to me. Maybe instead of sleep-walking, I’ve been sleep-smoking. Jesus, who comes up with these brainchilds? Would I not find the butts in the morning? It would set off the alarms. I would not go out to the car to smoke. No, it isn’t me. But now I’m wondering if there’s some big cover-up going on. And did you know I have to play eleven or twelve songs to raise my completion index by a single percent? I hope Nashville appreciates what I do for them.
This morning I took some money out of my bank account. Reading the fine print in this month’s statement, I see once again the bank has slipped in the old “overdraft protection” that I have repeatedly told them I don’t want. This time, they are saying they DO it even if I decline, since it is now listed as “an additional service”. That you can’t opt out of. They pull this stunt at regular and random intervals, hoping to get my $34. Hasn’t happened except the once they got me by surprise. They do the authorizing, not you. Tell me again, who does this account belong to?
Wait, there’s more. The April statement informs that without consenting to anything, each time you send or receive a “real-time” payment, you confirm you are not acting on behalf of a non-citizen or non-resident. This is why I never send or receive money via any bank. I withdraw cash and walk it over. I was never asked about this, were you? I was notified that it was an update in the bank’s disclosure. My viewpoint is if it is your money and you paid the tax on it, you should be able to spend it without being shadowed. Show of hands, who still wants a cashless society?
