One year ago today: July 3, 2018, free lessons.
Five years ago today: July 3, 2014, remember the Figaro?
Nine years ago today: July 3, 2010, me, a foreign student?
Random years ago today: July 3, 2004, launch date.
Captain’s log. A zero progress day. Sorry also for the posting lag, I’ll explain about the servers in a moment. Nothing to report, so how about this plan. I record what happens here on a nothing day. This morning there was no server at the coffee shop, so I drove back to the (Pierce)Thrift to grab a few of the last bargains. Any box of stuff is $20, so I got some wire mesh for the turtle cage, which I’ll take with me to Tennessee when I get the call. I bought batteries and gasoline. I’ve nurtured the habit of pulling up five weeds every time I pass the flowerbeds. It’s time for more yard pic anyway, so here is a posed and cropped shot of the flower cuttings from Agt. R’s yard this spring. C’mon, say it’s a beauty.
I slapped together a stand for my printer and wrote two letters, Marion and JZ. And watch a video meanwhile, a strange comedy called “Super Troopers” with strange acting. Until I realized it was written by an East Indian, then it tallied up. They think the way we attach freedom to things like honor, sex, money, and youth to be most funny.
The crowd that live with their nose to the gorilla glass may think it weird I don’t much talk on the phone, or do anything with it except that. Watch them assume it’s because I’m old-fashioned. Hey, when I use a phone, I expect to be paid. Put that in your iPipe and smoke it. I’ve lapped that crowd so many times they think they are ahead.
I’m taking the rest of today off. General fatigue, guys, and shoulder stiffness I could do without. For recreation, I kind of sat down and drank six cups of coffee. I figure, what does the world expect, after all “retire” and “coffee” both have the same number of e’s. I did bike up to the coffee shop but it seems all the big servers are down in the vicinity. Russian sabotage, I tell you. Aren’t they supposed to wait for elections to interfere with? I bumped into that gorgeous brunette who told me if she ever dumps her boyfriend, she wants a fling with me. With our age difference, sex can kill. So I’d go easy on her.
Some of my stored lumber warped, a constant menace in Florida. So I put together a stand for my printer, and while in the shed I took note of a happy concurrence. The beer caddy uses 5/8” lumber, but the design will also do for the thinner generic dog ear fence pickets. A quick mock-up shows using such lumber allows the pockets to be big enough to fit those round pastry cans, spray cans, many glue bottles, and such. Talk about handy. This design is not tested yet—the biggest challenge is balance. Too much of the wrong thing can tip it over. Give me a day or two to get some more wood and smaller screws. It looks like it will be great for nails and such. Wait for pictures.
Pyongyang metro.
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Sorry, nothing to spice up the day. It’s as if I get spoiled gallivanting around Hermitage and this place seems dull. But it isn’t, I’ve seen dull. This joint is perfectly okay, so shame on me. I should be building the turtle cage, fixing the window screens, all kinds of activity. The solution is clear, I’m going out for another coffee. And I’m driving over to Winter Haven tomorrow if you need anything. Small things, I mean. No refrigerators or used cars, not this time. Finally, here is a clear photo of a bamboo cutting. Down, Teresa, that is candle wax dribbled on the slice to prevent infection. Cut bamboo is particularly vulnerable. This new row of cuttings has been especially favored with a matched diet of timed fertilizer and two insecticides, one instant, the other persistent. In ten days, still no signs.
Yeah, but isn’t that the bunch who did the same when I warned against Google, Facebook, smart phones, and so many things long before they became the threats of today? And I have standard advice to be leery of self-driving anything, cashless society, the cloud, and IOT. Those will be the next round of issues to take away your freedom. Paranoid, or prepared? If things continue as they are heading, watch how many and how fast my critics will try to change sides on that issue.
I’ve never been wrong about such matters yet. I, for one, find it funny how many blind and trusting people are the first to scream for help when they become the victim. Here’s the sad news for millennials. You don’t have to be really, really stupid to get your identity stolen. Being more or less just as stupid as all your friends is sufficient. What works best is complacency, especially around digital devices they use, but know nothing about.
Here’s another hint to protect yourself that millennials will laugh at or ignore. How often do you use coupons that arrive in your mailbox with your address pre-printed on the flyer? Ah, you are safe, because it is addressed to “occupant” or “current residence”. Wrong, you just handed your identity away. See that bar code? It’s activated the instant that coupon is scanned. Ponder this. Whoever is at the other end of that flyer is wretched enough of a prick to work for a junk mail outfit. He spends his dull life scheming how to make a fast buck and you just gave him all he needs.
Your only protection now is that he’s dull-witted in the first place. But one day, he’ll become another disgruntled employee and he is going to walk out that door with a drive full of information that he’s going to sell the real assholes out there. $100 for each 3500 names, all cross-reference-able with everything from your credit reports to medical records. Actually, with me, you will get a ton of information, same as everybody. One difference, though. My information is all outdated by years, carefully salted, and contains countless spoofs accumulated over decades. I spotted the dangers of social database abuse when the concept was still theoretical.
What a storm but at least I know now where that leak above the bathroom has got to. There’s a whole new shingle job planned next year, so I’ll see what can be done for now. Maybe nothing, trust me, between storms, that attic gets bone dry. I set the attic fan thermostat 2°F lower and it made a difference. Consider the heat index today was 108°F and I worked through it, shirtless. I read a chapter on the early American road system, up to 1930. It was that bad and I discovered a few possible reasons. I know the Florida road system is bad because they paved over the old wagon trails, which took the path of least resistance.
What happened in most other states is there were no proper built-up roads except the few that followed the railway design. That’s where you have a main line and a bunch of feeders. I might have this wrong, but they were called trunk lines if they went to a single destination and stopped. Thus, if you were in A and wanted to go to B, if there was no feeder, you had to take the train out to the main line, and connect to the trunk. It would explain a few things if after a while, somebody built a connecting road between A and B, an logical that cars would use that route.
By 1925, all the transcontinental wagon trails had been graded, and 40,000 miles of it was paved. You could take the bus across the country in four days on the cheap. If there was a decent bus company left in America today, I’d consider it. It takes guts to even consider the train, the way things have gone downhill. Say, didn’t the Reb take a big train trip ten years ago? Remind me to ask about that. I’ve budgeted for a three week tour around the whole country with up to four stopovers of three days. Then Amtrak started that policy of not letting singles get the window seats. Maybe it’s changed back, but in th meanwhile, they lost my patronage.
There were two maps, one showing major roads, the other major airlines. I thought, why not superimpose these to see what matches. Only to find out I don’t have the software. But I can gif, and here is the result. This was tricky to get even this. The original maps were not as close as at first glance. While it seems logical the routes would terminate at much the same large cities, notice how many places no longer have either service. And that was so much like work, this ends my attempt to make an educational gif. Hey, I tried.
ADDDENDUM
Boss Hogg radio, still in AM so you get to hear all the distant lightning storms as well. It’s the usual Democrat newscasts in a setting that will never fit. They are about to make further clowns of themselves by organizing protests on the holiday. July 4th is about America, not about their politics. It’s so obvious they have nobody running for president, just a lot of bit players running against Trump. They used up their bag of tricks and are starting to get repetitious. I think in 2020, they will be soundly trounced.
In the front bedroom, I’ve got the desk in there but it will take a half day to finish the receptacles. You see, the original wall covering was thin drywall. I now have a layer of tarpaper and thick drywall, so some outlet boxes are too recessed. Some, I can use those green spacers, but the oldest pieces need the box extensions. That means, in turn, having to completely remove each box to fit the extensions. Here’s a progress picture. I’d rather go for a cold beer on a holiday.
Say, you know what I heard? That crummy Karaoke guy I don’t like isn’t there any more. But I also heard he broke his leg. Either way, I do hope they find somebody different, who has a clue how to run a fair and professional show.
Another downside of renovating this way is things get lost. I went to replace the outlet covers, which I carefully stored in a special desk drawer, and they were not there. The ones I did not want were there, but not the matching sets. And you know what will happen if I buy new ones. I can’t push any of the furniture back against the walls without creating even more work later. That’s when Boss Hogg started talking about “my date’s not hungry” menus. These are special menus that have, as one feature, a slightly larger order of anything such as fries.
The concept is the date who isn’t hungry that reaches over and takes food off your plate. This really annoys some people. With me, it would depend on the woman, since I rarely take dates out for food. And when I do, I’m the one who can rarely finish a restaurant portion these days. The broadcast was not about this feature, but the backlash. No kidding. Apparently some woman has even written a book bashing any restaurant that has the menus. The DJs didn’t say, but the implication is the people majorly offended were all women. I can see it, because any man who tried to snitch food off my plate would get a fork through the knuckles.
I asked myself why would a woman who said she was not hungry get bent out of shape over a menu that provided a solution? I came up with an answer I’m not going to print here. It’s another of those situations I’ve described where they don’t want their own. They want yours. While these cranks have been around forever, they needed “political correctness” to get away with it. And now that is gone. Hell, no wonder they are miffed, they were never screwed on tight enough to start with. Did I just say “majorly”?
