One year ago today: September 24, 2018, clockwise because.
Five years ago today: September 24, 2014, calibrating the drawbot
Nine years ago today: September 24, 2010, crappy edition.
Random years ago today: September 24, 2007, 84,729 calories.
Show of hands. How many of you knew JZ was not gonna show? All of us, huh? This time is different, in that he has not only not arrived, he has not called, and is not answering his phone. In Florida, when somebody disappears like that, it causes questions. Despite my warning-like advice, others changed their plans based on the expected visit. Myself, it just means I’m crawling under the house later today to begin replacing the joist. I rode the bike trail all the way to Bartow this morning before sunrise.
The Reb called and she is totally okay with the pet blessing. This led to the discussion of the pet’s middle names. I’ll tell you the ones I remember from the conversation, you know me and names. Your test this morning is to guess which belongs to who. The five pets are Sparkie, Sammie, Lily, Chloe, and JeePee. The middle names are Sweet Baby, Millicent, Von, Lee, and Hemmingway. So far. The only one I had a hand in was Millicent. See how you do, but it’s a fair guess JeePee isn’t Sweet Baby.
Here’s a scene normally associated with Florida pre-hurricane panic buying. This time it was just the cooler failing at the local Sav-A-Lot. They salvaged the $4,000 in stock, still, I think I’ll pass on shopping there for the next week. This state is too racially integrated and globally assimilated to take chances on food, but I’m not going to say a thing about that. It’s hard to say which is more risky, the food or the opinion. Even the chickens have learned to be picky.
And they’ve learned my routine. I spread certain foods on the ground for the wild birds. The chickens have even memorized my schedule. I’m glad we can talk about this, you and I, because mention chickens or anything like that around the Reb and she laughs. Do I laugh because she has deer, raccoons, and bamboo in her yard? No, and another thing, the second crop of bamboo didn’t take. I thought the stuff would grow anywhere and get out of hand. Me, I can’t get the stuff to grow in a garden.
What do you know about Portugal and why has it become a desirable place to retire all of a sudden? Rising prices in New Zealand have knocked that destination down the list, plus the income requirements to emigrate show they’ve decided to milk the cow as well as let it graze. As England’s oldest trading partner, most people can speak passable English. The Reb & I were on the phone actually quite a while and this topic got kicked around.
She’s spent time in Europe, I have not. On the other hand, I’ve been overseas long enough to qualify as having lived there. And those places are not America. Even countries with a strong American presence still have their weird and curious habits that will always stop them from becoming anything on a scale large enough to make life free and happy for most people. Some say that doesn’t exist even in America, but we are talking by comparison. You don’t miss America until the well runs dry.
Charla tells me a story. You know how I give any tree stumps in my yard an extra bug spray when I’m going around the perimeter. Let them rot away, I saw, but not by termites and roaches. She never does and had a log lying in the far back. This spring she walked out and the termite swarm was “like a tornado”. Wish I’d been there. The trick is a nearby pail of water with a small light. They will drown by the thousands.
Duh, ok.
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It required six hours today to clear the space for work. I didn’t want to shortcut since there is some chance JZ could show. I didn’t want to move things a second time. As for the joist, it may not be all that bad. I put in a few extra hours a couple years ago in case I ran into any problems. Good move, since I may now be able to get away with running the joist across existing pylons. If I level the bathroom, there will be a slight but perceptible difference in floor height. But this is a retirement cabin, not the Hyatt Regency.
Back to the joist. When I first started leveling the house, I repaired the existing joists and sill plates. I thought that how it was done. Now, I run a whole new beam under everything, and jack the whole place up a corner at a time. It’s a bit like laying a new wooden foundation under the whole house. I plan to do the same for the kitchen. As long as the wood is sound, raise the whole shebang. And if it isn’t sound, scab it and carry on. If JZ doesn’t show tomorrow, I may sidetrack and rough in some of the new plumbing. That’s the hot water tank and the second shower head. Plus the washer taps and the drain for the new kitchen.
I’ve decided to put patio doors in the hallway. That brightens up the whole place. As for the bathroom, where there is no A/C or place to put one, they must make a high speed ceiling fan. It’s not like anybody will be living in there. There’s plenty of headroom. Boss Hogg radio says the Democrats, still stinging from their election loss, have become desperate. Today they announced yet another “certain” impeachment. How many is that now? Six attempts?
This should be the culminating spectacle. The sore losers have run out of time. They have to make this one stick or their whole agenda may go down the tubes along with the next election. The day of the liberal do-gooder as champions of anything is over, but they will continue to thrash around for a long time yet. Once more, I don’t actively support Trump, but I love it when liberals and other thieves get a bloody nose. Taxing people for things they don’t want is stealing.
I found the logical path to 441, taking my usual route up to Lake Wales, then my old motorcycle route to the Athens junction. After that, it is new territory and the most scenic of the roads by reputation. Another mystery solved was those two twin cats I could not tell apart. They had amazing ability to get around. That’s because today, I stepped into the yard to find they are triplets. Duh.
ADDENDUM
One major reason I like my home privacy is the ability to have a secure, quiet location to get work done. Out of the blue, I’ll mention I turned down another partnership proposal because the person did not have such a place of their own. How important is it? To me, of supreme importance. There are two situations in my life where lack of a place to be uninterrupted have had the most negative effect on how I operate. One was growing up. There was no place in the house that was both comfortable and conducive to accomplishing anything in reasonable privacy. Yes, I did have a desk downstairs, but it was always too cold in the winter, the desk was rummaged through regularly when my back was turned, and as I’ve told before, being at a predictable time and place was never a good idea around parents like mine.
The second is traveling. There are very few places while on holidays and such where you can quietly sit down, say, and write a postcard. My desk work is generally done before sunup and after sundown, so libraries are only a partial answer. As you know, I’ll often go for a beer, and if there are no frisky babes in the place, I’ll write or keyboard. But all too often, this prompts the juke box heroes into action (because it makes them look even dumber than they are, I think) and the bar tables are either wet or have fans that prevent much paperwork.
I understand the viewpoint of the bar or café, they are not running an office. My point is that the running of such places has somehow sunk to the point where what they naturally do prevents somebody from doing a little reading or writing, which is not their province to prevent. But mostly they do. This could be why I like the Fubar. By now, there is a spot where nobody bothers me, the staff knows my rhythm, and people have learned that is never the time to telephone me. In fact, five hours from now, guess where I may be?
The part of no place to work that hit me hardest was that, as it played out, one of the most expensive things in life in this country is just that. Private property seems to be the only sure place you can conduct an on-going project without interference. And it requires a lifetime to pay for something like that. That’s for real. I sorely missed a private workshop most of my life. When I was a kid, it was pure stupidity to undertake any venture that required more than one session. Does everyone know what I’m talking about here? Where you start something, leave it on your work bench, and expect to come back even next day and work on it some more?
I rented all my life until recently, so the only work spaces were either cramped or shared, limiting everything to small, short-range tasks. Now that I have the space (sort of), time has become the constraint. I don’t dare start any project with a payoff in more than a couple of years. It’s a pity America has made the private workshop so expensive. You’d think they noticed the Wright brothers had a bicycle shop, the Apple guys had a garage, and that Hughes weirdo inherited a tool company. Me? The biggest project this year was repairing a lawn swing.
The blog address database is still in the picture. I estimate the popular Yesteryear feature accounts for a fifth of my hits. Maybe it is the feature, not the content, that is attractive. Thus, I’m kicking around the idea of a fixed or possibly random date into the future, starting 2010 and looking forward. It depends on finding something like File Express, I want DOS based for security reasons.
