One year ago today: July 23, 2018, my fridge magnets, okay?
Five years ago today: July 23, 2014, Cape Canaveral, a rip-off.
Nine years ago today: July 23, 2010, Starbucks’ goop.
Random years ago today: July 23, 2011, Neanderthal.
This is the culprit. A much clearer picture, so if you see it you can save yourself the $62. And that’s only the parts. It took a half day to disassemble the old reassemble the new. A little experience would likely have saved me the time, but no way. It’s simple, I’m pointing to a 1/2” point which has to be 3/4” because it carries 50% more water and the previous work showed there is a lot of corrosion going on inside the older lines. And it is tough rust, I had a time cleaning it with a bastard file. Some of the parts and teflon tape look new because I did that part of the work before spotting the bottleneck. And they form part of the $62. (Speaking of bottlenecks, see below.)
Summertime Florida is subject to wild windstorms. Here’s the Terrace hotel last weekend. On returning from the Polytech, we saw a New Orleans style pub on the kittycorner. This is what greeted us when we stepped out an hour later. You know by stylish straw hat? Don’t worry, I caught it in time. You want to know about the pub? Okay, it was French Quarter designed and packed with family groups. No entertainment, which tips you off how little there is to do in Lakeland on a weekend. The only good-looking gal was our server, she was from Chicago but not a trace of accent. The windstorms are local, so they can’t be predicted well enough to pinpoint ‘em.
Now it’s me and Boss Hogg, and the deportations are now [being announced for] next Sunday. What’s with the delay? These are people already told they have to go. They are either burdens on the system or taking a job away from somebody. They come over here on a visitor visa and because the cultureless bastards have zero experience at a free society. They conclude all the services here are free because Americans are naïve and trusting. No, it’s because our system was never designed to track down cheaters. It was the “Honest John” system and we know exactly why this would never work in the Third World. Where it appears nobody works unless practically forced to do so. What, did somebody say they could be supporting themselves with money from back home?
Allow me inform anybody that stupid a thing or two. I’ve seen these other countries. There is no middle class. That means if they were getting enough money from home to live in America, they are so wealthy and privileged they have no use for America but to enjoy freedoms they don’t deserve. And they can walk the streets without being kidnapped. The worst abuse is since they can’t get medical, they check into emergency rooms to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per year at each hospital. I’m quoting that guy Dodds, who wrote how California got hit with hundreds of millions.
I’d say it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch, but California State has no money, so the hospitals send the bills to the Federal government, and guess who winds up picking up the tab? Round ‘em up. By the busload, by the boatload, people just don’t care any more. Now all the do-gooders are saying a roundup doesn’t give them a proper hearing. Hey, the hearings are only for legal applicants, so again, abuse of a free system by those who never contributed to it. But it requires effort to understand that and that’s asking too much of a liberal. I’m grumpy because Boss Hogg has this new feature and this lady DJ who seems to know the shallowest “TV version” of everything. I was raised around that, I don’t want to listen to it on the radio all these years later.
Plus, I’m not fond of the way she uses “we” a little too often. She’s that first crop of boomer before 1954 that has so little in common with those born later. “We” do not care for doo-wap music. “We” don’t think Elvis was a good musician. “We” never heard of the bands she can name. But no doubt she has a following. So did Jim Jones, the purple Kool-Aid kook.
Templeton carpet factory.
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Take a gander at this idea. A beer jacket of tinfoil bubble-wrap. What do you think that would sell for? I know the lady that makes them. Meanwhile, six more hours on the bathroom. A chunk of it was fixing the vanity, but it is solid wood as in no laminates. Much easier to spot repair. Looks like we may be in Nashville two weeks earlier than planned. I left my schedule for this entire year flexible for this eventuality, but I don’t like what just happened. There are some personalities that you don’t let plan more than a few weeks ahead. Why? I’ll tell you why.
We never dined out much after that, which she was okay about regularly pointing out. That reservation was made three months in advance. There are many ways to look at this, but my way is that if she is prone to getting such phone calls at 7:30PM on a nothing Thursday, she should not have accepted an invitation so far in advance. Hypocritically, she regularly got fuming when something cost her even $5. But your money and your time? Tough luck. Deal with it.
Pesto. Years ago, I lived next to a pizza parlor that was just too expensive. I never figured out how so many teens could hang around there. The place sold a slice that was reasonable and I developed a liking for pesto. Except, I didn’t know what it was. A greenish topping with a distinct flavor. That’s when I played with my last self-created band, “Not Half Bad” some 30 years ago. So I’d often get home too late to grab a bite, but with a pocket full of tip money.
I’ve bought pesto in bottles since then, but never found the same flavor. So I got a small jar from Italy, a brand called Montalbano. To me, that means either White Mountain, or bathroom on top of the hill. Anyway, here’s a possible explanation. Look at these ingredients. Basil, potato flakes, sunflower oil, cashews, olive oil, pecorino, pine nuts, garlic, grana padano cheese, and romano cheese. What didn’t they throw in there? The point is, no wonder nobody ever duplicates a pesto recipe.
And yes, tomorrow I intend to find out just what pecorino and grana padano are. Remember, Italy is the land that once sold grated umbrella handles as cheese. I think the influence of Italy in world affairs and American life has shrunk to insignificance. What the heck, even Sophia Loren isn’t from there any more. She’s that floozy who likes Walter Matthau, poor gal. Anyway, she was already an older woman by the time I noticed. Hey, she’s still a bit of a looker, guys. For her age, her padano isn’t that grana at all.
ADDENDUM
My music completion index today is 32.448 %
There's a shot of the vanity repair being clamped. Up early and putting some effort into the tune, “Calling Baton Rouge”. Heavily orchestrated, but adaptable. Such tunes I tend to find a bass line that assumes at least one musician does show. This can save your bacon. It means with the bass line alone, the audience can still distinctly recognize the tune. For some reason I went full blast on this piece. Additionally, another rock standard I chose is titled “The House Is A-rockin’”, which is really a guitar line. Meaning there are fifty ways to play it wrong and argue your version is the best. It’s another with strange tuning, what is it with guitar players and playing an instrument out of tune?
[Author’s note: to convey the amount of work involved, the number 619 counts only the times that I’ve played through the entire tune, start to finish, which is necessary to find any weak spots. I play each tune as a whole so it immediately sounds better than bass players who “follow”. But to get there, I may have up to a dozen false starts, or go over one passage of the tune. The reality is I’ve probably played “Calling Baton Rouge” a total of sixty times so far, and will have played it 180 times before I get it on stage.]
For diversion, I’m watching “Yours, Mine and Ours”, a DVD that lacks the Oxford comma. Another Brady Bunch Cheaper By The Dozen take-off that glorifies the big family. It’s always amazing, that theme, how movie scripters envisage it as one big, happy, fun-filled environment. At least this family moved into an abandoned lighthouse so they were only stacked two to a room. The pet pig is your indicator of how much originality to expect in this production. The impression I’m left with is that there is a massive surplus of child actors and semi-trained dogs kicking around these days. Sadly, none of the females were so plain looking and politically correct they would not have gotten a second look from me in the day.
The movie is based on the theme that with a large family, there are always other kids to play with. That concept never stops to think what happens when you no longer want to play. The longest term effect this had on me is not straightforward. Put it this way, I do not value peace and quiet that much more or less than the next guy. What is supremely important to me is that I have solitude when I want it. Not when somebody else decides to leave me alone. I would never have lasted in the army.
The movie hinges on the subplot of who is a better single parent, the wife or the husband? I think the statistics answer that very well. Single women are, collectively, lousy parents. Look it up. I’m beginning to dislike this movie over it. I don’t seem to have any other movies, time for a shop. I don’t have any good war movies or mysteries I haven’t seen. Wait, here’s that sort of war movie “Back To 1942” with all the Chinese wandering around in both directions. And I forgot it’s all subtitles. If there is one thing to be learned from the Chinese, it is that all forms of politics are corrupt. Mankind has risen above so many things, but not politics. How sad that it is one of the first things we’ll take to Mars. You watch, as soon as we get there, somebody will start “organizing” things to their own benefit—the very definition of politics.
This 1942 movie isn’t in black and white, but darn near. It depicts the war the Chinese had going on with Japan since 1933 or so. Peasants everywhere, in herds and columns, great for strafing practice. Talk about bleak, the scenery reminds me of Montana in the wintertime.
