One year ago today: July 5, 2018, I once lived in a convent.
Five years ago today: July 5, 2014, sigh, $3.94 per week.
Nine years ago today: July 5, 2010, the double-occupancy scam.
Random years ago today: July 5, 2009, Agnes more bookish.
I can’t believe you are not tired of yard news so here’s some more. This ties in with my master plan to have the most famous unknown working class yard in Florida. If you want formal gardens, you know what magazines have the phoniest pictures. Well I can be just as snobbish and declare my yard to be au naturelle, pardon my Portuguese. This is why this blog goes where no blog has dared before, bringing you the most homespun tales from the trailer court. And not just only because I have not much choice elsewise, what, with my upbringing and all. Anyway, you stand informed that there are wild chickens in Florida. Why, there go some now.
Let’s put this into perspective. The yard has worms, and I keep the seed feeders chock full, with a dripping bird bath. I do not feed the remaining birds at all. They are barely doing their bit with the mosquitoes, so the last thing I want is insectivores napping around the place. It’s a bit of a hike over here for these chickens. All birds should like the accomodations, but if I see any of the eMoose birds, I’ll draw the line.
You know, eMoose, that bird found mostly in New Zealand and crossword puzzles. Looks like an ostrich that needs a shave, except not so pretty. Didn’t I see some eMooses in Colorado last trip? No, those were llamas. I always mix those two up. The heat index was 108°F by noon, meaning nothing is getting done today. Nothing big, I mean. I spilled a bowl of dry cereal this morning, which I spread out for Old Grey. Um, I think he’s gone. I have my own hypothesis that when rodents get ill, they will pass up plain food for anything sugary. Before I left in May, he was picking out the craisins in the bird tray.
I was under the air-conditioner by noon and found a booklet on the German side of the partisan actions in Russia during the Second World War. The Germans compiled statistics on some 10,600 attacks during 1944. I wonder if there isn’t a bunch of Allied propaganda at work, since the Germans considered only 4% of the attacks to be successful. It’s already clear that they did not consider the guerilla attacks to be anything as influential as the Soviet news reports claimed.
The fact is, other than German military bases and storage compounds, which partisans were loathe to attack, there were very few targets other than the railroads. What I’m getting is that the Germans were able to defend these on the cheap. A blockhouse on the bridges (there is no mention of any tunnels) kept away all but the foolish. The Germans simply cleared the forest away a hundred yards on either side of the tracks and put an obsolete tank on a flatcar to machine gun down any wise guys. They pushed a weighted cart in front to detonate any pressure mines. The partisans didn’t have the savvy for other kinds. As for the movies that show them pushing a plunger, well, that’s why the Germans had German shepherds. If you can see the railroad, the dog can see you.
As for bravery, there is no report of any guerillas fighting a battle, even when it was in their own favor. By late in the war, there must have been plenty of opportunities. The Soviets made many claims the partisans melted into the forest represents an cunning tactic, while the Germans saw chasing them away was the victory. They had no intention of cornering them, and reprisals were apparently not meted out when German soldiers were killed in battle, but only when they were murdered. The other side of the story took until now to get any coverage. Interesting. Shows you who controls our printing presses.
Ruby mining, Madagascar.
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Doesn’t that beat the odds? That post of the feral chickens cranked my ratings right up and got me kudos from the Reb. I have no suppositions on that one, unless people like chickens a whole lot more than I do. It was, once again, too warn to work on the house, so l’ll act like a chicken and see what I can scratch up for you. There’s clouds to the west, maybe a late afternoon storm will cool it down enough to at least clean out the path to the joists. So, let’s see what gets my interest in the otherwise. First, that welding book I bought had as markers, a set of 2002 newspaper want ads. I may go through there to see what’s there and what’s gone.
I always seem to have spare calendars around this place unless I need one. I have to mark the days I was away to find out where my electricity is going while I’m away. As it’s a half-day drive to Hermitage, my criteria for being away is any day I was not in here at noon. I wonder if it is their billing cycle and they don’t read the meter every month. If they hit it on times I’m away, then land on it when I’m back, yeah, I could see and extra $50. I don’t skimp on electricity.
Here’s a cheery picture for you. This is squeezing the key lime for my favorite kind of chicken. Baked. For years now I’ve toyed with the idea of a new pancake syrup based on lime. I’ve never bothered to see if it’s already there, though I’m sure it’s been tried. My secret ingredient is, well, it’s a secret. It’s not the hot sauce in the background. For non-Florida types, key lime, or Key lime if you consider the proper noun, is a smaller fruit with a deeper flavor somewhat offset by an odd sweetness to the tartness. Sweeten it enough, and you can drink it undiluted, though I don’t recommend that for rookies. But other than than, əh, it’s just a lime. (That upside down ‘e’ is not a typo. That’s a schwa.)
The library computers also die at your time limit without the usual modular warning, so I lost twenty minutes of work. That just means back there tomorrow. You know the redhead one I shinnied up to a bit years ago, who told me she was taken. That may have changed, but far too late in the day. She asked where I’d been and I mention Tennessee and my ex. That turned her stone cold. Not us, but the very thought of associating with an ex must be anathema to her. We’ve seen that before. Now the Reb is quite keen on us playing that music set. I wonder what that’s about? We know it can be done, but why all so sudden?
Amplifying that, if you’ll forgive the expression, is the attorney from the Big Band. Other than an idle agreement to learn enough of their material to play a set when I’m around, this isn’t a commitment. I like the idea of working with a fancy Nashville band, but that’s 750 miles away in a town I can’t afford. So here’s the score. We had talked about my playing, and I did tell him I had no problem learning the material from recordings. This would involve me sending him intermittent e-mails over details I could not get myself, etc. He’s aware how often that arrangement fails. But he’s become quite avid in keeping me posted. My inquiries are answered in an average turnaround of 13 minutes.
What’s with that, says my spider sense? Nashville cannot possibly be short of bass players and the ones I saw were studio-grade. I am not, I make mistakes in every song I play every time. I’ll describe what I think it looks like from his side, and why. So if anything takes off, we have our documentary already underway. I have a spreadsheet that tracks the 30 iterations I need of each tune. The reason is to prevent the old twin guitarist defects of over-practicing the favorites and tunes at the top of the list. Thus, I am able to report things like as of this morning (hang on while I double-check), there are 54 tunes on the list, meaning I have to play a total of 1,770 instances to be ready.
I have so far played 246 repeats, meaning I am 13.667% along the way. Dood, the attorney, does not know this, but he would be aware that something atypically systematic is underway by the pattern of my inquiries. I downloaded another 36 tabs and chord charts to make my life easier. I only apply my own resources to stuff I like, so you won’t find me busting my balls over Hendrix or Clapton. Just play the charts. This isn’t painless because every nincompoop guitar player has published a version. And the on-line sites don’t know the difference between a chord chart, a tab, a score, and a cheat sheet.
Even when downloaded, you still have to undo all that whacked-out Callibri 11 shit they use. This clean-up took roughly twice as long as the downloads. These millennials have messed up the Internet the same way they’ve messed up their lives. True, every generation can say that about the next, but this time, thanks to computer memory, it is not at all certain the damage can be undone as they age. Is the pendulum swinging back? I’m not surprised these days when I hear of the heads of Wiki, and the CERN guy, and so many others expressing the same dismay at the mess the masses have made of the Internet as this blog did so many, many years ago. It’s a joke compared to what was intended and thinking any government is going to sort it out is bonkers. It is the individual man who needs the Internet fixed, and the government does not have any common interests with that person.
I put it forward long ago that something needs to replace the Internet, but now it’s become too big. My idea for a discriminating browser is now, more than ever, a workable solution. I can even tell you when I knew the Internet was going to mess up. When I read that textbook on HTML back in 1997 or so. Alas, it was just a piece of the Internet, not what I needed to design web pages. That’s what I wanted, but could not find anything readable at the time. I was aware of the potential of things messing up when IBM began hiring “programmers” by the case lot, rather than seeking out the few naturals out there. I issued further warnings about DOS (and hence Windows) to anyone who needed to keep their data secure.
It should not be forgotten that during the 1980s, all computer crashes, lost files, glitches, and the need to constantly reboot were synonymous with IBM computers and MicroSoft. These items became standards not because they were good, but because they were one-third the cost of an Apple. I lamented that Apple lost the computer lead in this manner. My first computer was an Apple ][e. I loved it, but could not afford to upgrade to the Mac. The equipment I needed would have set me back $3,000 per unit at a time I could buy a new car for $2,800.
ADDENDUM
My interest in military history means I’m very interesting in the accounts coming to light from the losing side, a subject that has been suppressed by Western media, and outright censored on the Soviet side. We are told Barbarossa was a surprise attack despite having been announced in 1929. And that the Soviets, once they got back on their feet, fought the Germans back into Berlin by superior military tactics. While undoubtedly brave, the primarily Russian brass were also reckless. By 1944, the period I’m looking at, they moved ahead almost by brute force. The Germans had never intended to fight pitched battles with the Reds.
In the breakthrough sectors, a superiority of 10:1 was needed to insure victory. Even then, the movement was based largely on Germany’s inability to be strong everywhere at once. The Soviets establish heavily-armed advance groups that constantly probed the German defense lines, looking for weak spots. And they always found them, though it was often through swamps and forests. However difficult that going would be, it seems evident it was easier than meeting the defense head-on.
And that must have been some defense, considering how many times it must have been a thin shell of German forces covering retreat of the main body. Once a weak spot was breached, the Soviets poured in their considerable reserves to hit the flanks and supply lines of the Germans. This works when the enemy has to bring everything in from a thousand miles away. He mainly used the railroads, since the road system resembled rural Mississippi in the previous century. Which brings us full circle to my recent study.
While delays in wartime are serious, there were was no full-scale stoppage or even major delay with the general flow of supplies and reinforcements from Germany. Fully refurbished units and newly equipped and trained units were regularly shunted around the front as attacks developed. None of this would be possible if the partisans were a disruptive force. I think it possible the whole role played by these people, while vital and patriotic, fell short of the claims. I find little evidence the Soviets armed the partisan groups and used them as cohesive units after they were taken over by the westward advance. Most were absorbed into larger formations and used as cannon fodder.
