July 8, 2019

Yesteryear
One year ago today: July 8, 2018, 16 cents!
Five years ago today: July 8, 2014, a strange post.
Nine years ago today: July 8, 2010, three-figure temperature.
Random years ago today: July 8, 2013, my natural state.

           Another updated list from Nashville, this time adding “If I Die Young”, by an outfit called The Band Perry. They are so much like my first band, except my lady was a natural blonde. You know I’ve complained that modern music is too slow, like funeral dirges. This song actually is. They seem to have a bass player only because somebody told them they were supposed to. The band is wearing great suits in the video. What is with all these dreadfully slow “hits”. I’ll play ‘em, after all, bassers can’t be choosers. Ooooh, did that one hurt? Same here.

           Anyway, the bass line has too few notes, so who can remember 1978? I was piling lumber in Montana, $8,000 in student loan debt. For a sense of equivalency, think of ten times that today. It would be another three years before I got a decent job. Well, there was a tune on the hit parade with a bass line that I think would be great for this new tune. You might have to look it up, but the song was called “Till The Night Closes In”. Give it a re-listen, but this time concentrate on hearing the bass. That’s how I sound.

           Take a look at rusty bass strings. Thank the salty Florida humidity. That’s corrosion from the Florida salt air. The metal gets pitted so there’s no salvage, this is a $60 set of strings. I confirmed another set of song keys and the effect of management on the song list is becoming apparent. They want the band to be versatile so some of the music is bound to be movie themes, Broadway hits, and instrumentals. And those decisions will be made without regard to talent levels. I’ve heard of this in the olden days, but never seen it for myself.
           What I heard is that in the big band era musicians would travel around and in a given city, they would sign up for whatever was available. When they got a call, they were to show up and play whatever sheet music they were handed, or jam to the standards. If the band liked their style, they were kept on for a while. I say, that’s what I heard. So it looks like a situation where you play what you are told, which is still infinitely better than having a guitarist making the choices. Well, maybe not infinitely, but considerably.

           Do, the police have aimed artificial intelligence at driver’s licenses. Funny, I don’t hear as many a-holes laughing at the conspiracy theorists any more. I don’t hear as many people saying they have nothing to hide. The software got it wrong 81% of the time, but don’t you worry, that will get to the point you millennials won’t be able to take a shit without them knowing when and where. And you know, as a generation, not one in a thousand of has the guts to speak out. As for the driver’s licensing, I first warned this would happen back in 1974 when Texas first began requiring a photo on licenses. At that point, it became more than a license to drive. It was another step toward government control of people’s lives.
           The danger is that records are being interpreted for purposes for which they were never intended. Some of the less educated might ask how the police are supposed to do their jobs. Answer, by getting better at chasing criminals than abusing public records. You see, that has been the trend for many years now, the police going after records instead of after bad guys. Police resources get poured ever more into mass covert surveillance and identification than into crime-fighting. This is the definition of a police state. Soon when stopped by police, a camera will be turned on your face and it will be a felony to look away. Wham, instant access to your Facebook history, bank account balances, and that unpaid speeding ticket from North Dakota back in 1986. Step out of the car, sir.

           The threat here is your very day-to-day freedom. Facial recognition is far too powerful to be placed in the hands of the police or the government. They will abuse it; that is an absolute guarantee. Don’t complain about computers, the files have been building up for generations and databases are just speeding up the abuse. Freedom is lost one RFID chip at a time. For the first while, people will presume they are safe because they still come and go as they please. But, it is only a matter of time before that comes under scrutiny. And never forget, the government, while it does not want to give up the present unfair tax system because it gives them so much power—they would gladly trade that for the power of facial recognition. Then they could tax the air you breathe.

           To end on a more cheerful note, here are the pretty purple flower petals falling on the roof of my car. Such a pretty sight, but make sure to brush the flowers off. Or you will have a purple roof on your car. But relax, you have a day to tend to it and there is a massive windstorm forecast for this evening, and moving in from the Gulf. Makes me glad my repaired wooden windows have had the glass puttied in to new standards. That’s one sound that keeps me awake. Noisy shutters, no, but rattling glass gets me every time.
           Also, as we get further into the repair, items that were “lost” are beginning to reappear. I’ll mention them now and then. Like I found the battery cover for my Magic Wand (the hand-held scanner that comes in so handy in libraries and bookstores). And my box of self-tapping electrical box mounting screws. Oh, and a container of strain-relief clamps, the kind for junction boxes. You know, those suckers are now individually packaged for 43¢ apiece. Asset-wise, I’m $24 richer than I thought.

Picture of the day.
Danica Patrick.
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           A four-hour day, which resulted in a mix of good and bad, all of it was progress. Here’s the overview, so I can go grab a coffee. And a haircut, I need a haircut now. I’m zonked tired. Start with this picture of the foundation blocks set in place. I underestimated how well I’ve learned to level houses by myself. This went relatively easy and I finished it in a couple of hours, or around three times faster than it used to take. In the process, I found I need three beams, so no overall savings. It means sinking another eight blocks, which have to be dug by hand under the foundation. Once again, I purchased the materials in the next town over.

           Next, the drainpipe in the bathroom made up my mind whether to cut it or not. It finally cracked and has to be repaired. I notice it is sloped the wrong way. The house cannot have settled that much, so wait for me to find the cause. My saber saw finally broke. The motor is fine but that plastic clip to change the blade snapped off and the blade is as stuck as it is dull. No time to repair it, I’m going for a replacement. Just like before when I got into the renovations, money disappeared left and right.

           For example, those cut-off valves under the sink to shut down the taps are now $10 each. I need four of them, plus another $10 apiece for the stems. There was a plastic model, but it was $8.58, so I went for the metal. I found the extra 12/2 wiring and enough junction boxes to put in 38 outlets, and shown here I’ve started on installing the boxes. As with the concrete, this work is proceeding more rapidly than before. Two of the joists the whole width of the back wing are too damaged to scab, so they will have to be replaced before I even get to the plumbing. And I’m leaving for Miami in less than 48 hours.

           The afternoon rains are keeping it cool enough to work inside, but the humidity doesn’t do my joints any good, not that I have any arthritis. For the record once more, the situation with my shoulder and arm from the accident is unchanged. I can go to therapy and after a few sessions, the pain is gone. And remains gone until I play bass again. Don’t even suggest I quit playing bass. After around twenty minutes, the pain returns, but it is bearable. What doesn’t return is my ability. With the pain, which is mild enough that I will not risk surgery, is a loss of motor control. The two are both the same, brought on by playing, and I have to play.

           The Reb has put toast back on my diet. But I’m not ready for gluten-free bread. First, what is so bad about gluten? It is bizarre to see bags of gluten-free product on the store shelves right next to bags of gluten for people who aren’t getting enough. If anybody’s got it both ways, it’s whoever is selling the stuff.

ADDENDUM
           My, my. Let me tell you what it is like to go out for a late Sunday drink in Polk County, Florida. First off, you will be the only person there for a drink. Everybody else has an agenda. The joint has WiFi, but I’m the only person who ever uses it, except for these smart-phone types who spend a fortune on the juke box app. There’s one woman and I think she used to work here. There’s a goof who says he is 56 picking a fight with another goof who is 72, a continuation of something months ago. The focus is the pool table and the overheads are showing reruns of “Britain’s Got Talent”, that show where a singer or a gimp always wins.

           All eight regulars are trying to pick up the waitress, who never was that good-looking. She’s learned to linger around me for safety, but it attracts pests who mistake me for a catalyst. She knows a lot about men because she spent so many years in night school. As 11:00PM approaches the music gets ever more Dean Martin-ish. He’s this weird guy from Las Vegas who thought he could and act. He hated people who knew he was Italian. You can spot me easy, I’m the only one in the room with a book and a pencil, ever. What? Well, yes that would change if Taylor walks in, but until that happy day.

           I’ve never been in that place until last call, even with my “nine o’clock rule”. This is a convention I have of never drinking alcohol when the sun is shining. And the sun always sets by 9:00PM everywhere in the world. So it seems like I always get a late start. But I know it is time to leave when the room goes melancholy and the patrons become babies. Most people don’t ask what I’m writing since they know I might tell them.
           “The length of the hypotenuse is equal to the root of the sums of the squares of the adjacent sides”
           Every pub in Polk provides an ample demonstration of what happens to people who have wasted their lives and know it is far too late for them to do anything about that with their existing skill-set, if any. It’s partially the systems fault, but to make a point, I was exposed to that same system. It reminds of my brothers, who could not be bothered to learn to read anything academic or technical. Just King Arthur stuff, which they think is a boat you missed. It’s only later in life when they see someone applying the ability correctly that they realize just how deep that canyon has become.

           So, how does one know last call is approaching? First, married men start making innuendoes with the barmaid. Some dork is loudly giving advice on how to lie to the police. Most of all it is those funny-looking old guys with squeaky voices. They love that tune, “New York, New York”, or at least think they do because that is the only part of the song they sort of know the lyrics. To a man, they can sing about as well as they can think, and rarely miss an opportunity to demonstrate it near last call.
           Myself, I finished sketching what my kitchen would look like if I relocate that water heater. Nice sketches, too, pretty much to scale. If Taylor was here, she’d walk right over and join me, just to say how much she appreciated someone else with a mind of their own. Say, isn’t she 30 by now? She better hurry. The picture? Just an interesting store sign me and the doggies saw in Bowling Green a month back. Consignment. Now there’s a business that could make you wish you had a minimum wage job instead.

           A small world? When I view a video on disc, I scribble a unique code on it. I recycle movies because I rarely watch the same one twice. Occasionally, I buy something I’ve seen and forgotten. Today I opened a cover to find a DVD with my code from California. There it was, in my own handwriting, indicating it was the 28th movie purchased that year. How about that?

Last Laugh