One year ago today: August 4, 2018, hotdog blues.
Five years ago today: August 4, 2014, bloviating.
Nine years ago today: August 4, 2010, some Ayn Rand.
Random years ago today: August 4, 2007, melted the damn thermometer.
Here’s the countertop half-stained. This is the initial layer that will reveal all the blemishes. I have a pack of 2000 grit metal polishing sandpaper meant for car finishes. Now I’ll have a reason to use it. Been in my sandpaper box for years now, what foresight! It’s 9:00AM and I’ve had four cups of coffee. I tried to fix that tablet keyboard but it is glued and snapped together in a way that prevents it.
Man, I thought that fiasco was put to rest twenty years ago. That’s where they spend the price of a college education to train people for $5 per hour jobs. The Job Corps, that’s what it was called, a complete waste of taxpayer’s money. But that was the Clinton era that changed welfare from a benefit to a right. They paid squadrons of lawyers to contest every rejected welfare application, which cost so much the welfare departments finally caved and let all the single mothers and lay men onto the pogie. TMOR that’s “pogie” rhymes with bogie, a slang term for any government program that pays people not to work. New York City alone has more people on welfare than the population of most western states.
Oddly, Americans don’t have as much against illegals who start their own businesses. That’s how ingrained the concept of self-reliance remains in the US mind. It’s the welfare cases they cannot stand. I can think of another country that made such a distinction. Between those who assimilated and those that leached off their open system intended for their own citizens—at least until the workers could not stand it any more and elected a real leader.
I went over the countertop with the 2000 grit paper. You only get a couple square feet at most out of each sheet, but it is definitely smooth. This bottle of creamer product shows the determination of a Florida rat. I keep this on hand because I can’t drink black coffee. I left it stored in the open, since rats normally won’t eat through metal. These have substantial foil seal. The rat first knocks it off the shelf, then gnaws until the contents leak. It’s maybe a gastro-rat-zombie because they don’t usually eat non-food product. He left the remaining seven bottles alone, probably figuring it wasn’t worth the expenditure.
My theory is that in that era, most American singers all had the same name and sang the same song. What’s so far-fetched about that? They all had the same barber. So did their girlfriends. I could not tell them apart, even today, and thus their music kind of slicked off my back while I was busy with The Beatles and my hippie girlfriends in cutoffs. The fact is a lot of that music did not belong on the rock charts. The junk from the musical, “Hair”. The broken-heart gospel blues, and I recall the build-up to listen to the greatest singer in the world.
Zim, Smittie, & I tuned in to the station but I guess the guy didn’t show up. Because all they had instead was that middling semi-opera bellower Tom Jones singing a most non-rock song called, “It’s Not Unusual”. There were teens around that listened to such music but they were most decidedly not part of the crowd. It was “beefy” music with themes my group did not identify with. The probable authentic reason I know none of it was when it came on, I changed the station.
In an ongoing rip-off, I spent anther $60 for ink cartridges. That is one article that should not be climbing in price. Nobody is policing these people. These cartridges now cost four times as much as they did ten years ago. That is how you spell r-i-p-o-f-f. What I can’t understand is why some low cost supplier hasn’t stepped in. Ten of these cartridges a year is costing me a fortune.
And how about that row over Baltimore? Trump called it a dump after the mayor or whatever started raising a ruckus about dirty diapers at the border detention centers. I did not know in 2012 Baltimore had received a billion dollars to clean up the place. Ha, the libtard mayor thought he could start flinging mud with immunity. Now questions are being asked what happened to the money. Good move, Donald. Let these bastards know the equation is no longer one-sided in their favor. Let them know their ivory towers are crumbling.
The Republican party also needs some disciplining. They are also out of touch with voters. Contrary to many claims, Trump is not in because he is a populist. TMOR, if that is an unfamiliar term, it means a candidate who wins an election not because people voted for him, but voted against whoever else was running. It looks like Trump fits the definition, but in fact, the popular groundswell for a leader like him has been brewing in America since the Nixon days. Far from being a populist, Trump was an alternative. The other candidates were sickeningly cookie-cutter.
[Author’s note: some historians are trying to bring back Nixon as a great politician, just misunderstood. Wrong. He was a crooked lawyer, a crooked politician, and a crooked person. He took America off the gold standard to please his cronies. He made it mandatory to have a social insurance number to open a bank account. Everything he did in the arena was tainted in some way, as if he considered politics a concealed weapon. He set the precedent for political manipulation against the masses that eventually caused the Obama fiasco.]
Army ant bridge.
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This is the plumbing vent for the faucet outlet. If fits above the downspout of the drain. It’s a one-way valve that equalized the pressure in the pipe so there can be no siphoning effect. Not that I had a problem with back-siphoning, but during really bad rainstorms I can vaguely hear a gurgling sound deep in the piping. At this time, the drain stem is in place and unclosed, which stopped the sound. This piece screws into a 1-1/2 inch threaded pipe. So, for five bucks, why not fix any potential problem now?
Here’s a picture of the walnut Danish oil after a first coat. I’m pointing to the former finish, which has some type of shiny overcoat. This oil takes its time soaking in, which means lots of bass practice. The oil has to dry completely before a poly finish, which could mean that won’t happen this month. The oil package says to wait 72 hours. If you look closely, it is quite a nice finish and the wood is somewhat distressed-looking.
During a break, I finally got around to a very deep look and listen of that song, “Don’t Stop Believin’”. The band is Journey, I think. Until now it was listenin’ music, not playin’ music. It’s got an unusual bass passage with a few spots that shine. I like the progression, which is more syncopation than complication. That’s an observation that’s contrary to the old wives tales concerning musicianship. That’s where the amateur says it is what you play and the pro says it is how you play it. Both are less than half-right, making them both wrong.
Wrong? Yes, because they refer to the ‘what’ and ‘how’ as if they are separate entities. A master entertainer knows they are profoundly related. You slack off on one and you’ll be jamming in the garage with the boys for a lot longer time than up to now. That has a lot to do with why I don’t bother with the Thursday jam out on Eagle Lake road. You’ve got six or eight people who’ve been playing the same six or eight songs for six or eight years now. They’ve got them, but it is one nondescript presentation. (Their bland personalities don’t help.) Hundreds of hours practicing for some distant future audience of critics who will give them an A+ for hitting every note.
Fitting the drain has not been streamlined over the years. There are still five different factors to juggle if you want (as I do) a rigid set of pipes. This afternoon, the radio is running a new commercial trying to soften attitudes toward corporations. What’s happened with corporations is the boards of directors have become political. They run the operations to their own benefit, not for the shareholders. Myself, I’m running only the drainpipe and the part that goes into the wall is finally done. Five hours I had to cut through a few things from earlier work, but nothing structural. Check back tomorrow for a test.
No running water yet. The available faucets don’t fit, either too short or too tall. I will raise the medicine cabinets later, but if I use the 12” faucets, the top of the mirrors will be 7-foot-6 off the floor and I’d have to relocate some electric. It was still a great month for me, getting this much done. I may find some taps yet, I’m off to Winter Haven again tomorrow. I have to prepay $600 in utility bills before I leave. Don’t panic, I’ve got it.
ADDENDUM
I hesitated to print the following, but I was listening to Tampa news on the hour. The body count is 29, with 20 in El Paso. There was very little actual news on the shooting there, but on and on that the shooter could get the death penalty. Like most people, I say so what? I want the news. The media live in some kind of mental desert with no connection to what people want to hear. Now that they’ve successfully stifled Alex Jones, you can’t even get the other side of the story, even if both are exaggerated. The radio stations are only allowing witnesses who quote the party line.
The airwaves are alive with the news, but in America that only means the shooters were white. That’s the only time American media jumps on such stories. They downplay the non-white shootings to a quip at the end of the late night broadcasts. The liberals will turn this into a “hate” crime no matter what. They’ve gone so far as to state Trump encouraged the shootings, which just cost them another million votes. What infuriates them is how Trump fights back. They thought they had America in the position where anybody who criticized liberalism was accused of hate speech. Cries of “racism” have lost their edge and it is liberals that are taking on a bad name.
Let me explain something. The world is not getting the message. People from a foreign country, even if they qualify, even if they make the list, even if they are highly qualified—are no longer wanted here. Don't blame America, probably no other country wants you either. This is not racism, it is patriotism. It’s got to do with immigration period, not the race of the immigrants. But of course, they will scream otherwise. Stay where you are and make something of that place. Americans do not want to be like other people. The USA is not a liberal country no matter what the propaganda says. We’ve seen what liberalism has done to Sweden and Holland.
The only people here who want more problems are the liberals who have taken over the Democrat party. They want more problems so they can demand more money to fix them. That America is a country of immigrants was partially true a hundred years ago when there was no such thing as welfare. And shame on the Democrat party for allowing themselves to be taken without a fight. Liberalism a corruption of the very concept of liberty. Nor is this speculation. I’ve seen this sleazy form of politics in dozens of countries. Buying people’s votes with their own money.
It’s an interesting development. The media angle that the only people who don’t like immigrants must have a mental illness. Teams are combing through the guy’s e-mails and tweets to find “evidence”. That got me thinking what they’d do with a blog like this. (Not much because the blog is intentionally inaccurate on specific details.) The point is, what could they not find here? That got me thinking, this blog is like that other book where everything cancels out. Its true value is in revealing the character of the reader by noting which passages they choose to quote.
My music completion index today is 41.114 %
