October 15, 2019

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 15, 2018, a generic post.
Five years ago today: October 15, 2014, A.I. based on the wrong model.
Nine years ago today: October 15, 2010, the troop cook.
Random years ago today: October 15, 2009, Her Highness.

           The Yamaha scooter. Agt. R called from Lakeland, he tried to drive the Yamaha over, but it sputtered until he cleaned out the carb. Now it will pop wheelies, he says. It’s a chain drive. Not bad for a 150cc. I’ll try to get it here by tomorrow. I have never ridden it yet, just seen that it is relatively new. I don’t like leaving things like that parked elsewhere. I sent a dozen e-mails and called it a morning. We have a tentative schedule and it looks once again like my old rule of not spending my birthday in town will come true. If things work out, I’ll be leaving for Nashville in three weeks.

           The forecast for a cold spell means I may get some real work done in the next few days. I’ve contracted Agt. R to find and plant some trees, up to six of them as planned last year. The change is I now want flowers and such instead of fruit. He says he just puts up with the fruit flies. I’ve been in his yard a lot of times with fruit on the ground and insects were not a problem. More like rodents, they eat everything except the rind.

           In a moment, I’ll tell you about my new motorcycle tarp, but for now, I seem to have lost my ability to calculate the rafter angle. It’s the first time I’ve had to use it for years. I have an 8-foot board to span a six foot distance. I want the angle to cut to fit against the ridge pole. And I cannot remember the formula. Usually, I approach this by dividing the rafters isocoles into two right angles, so I know the height is the square root of 7, or 2.645751 feet. I want the angle. Can anybody help me here? Fact is, I have not done this calculation in forty years. I always worked with easy angles.
           Isn’t it odd, how all the work I did with celestial navigation is no use at this time. I measured the angles and used them to cross-reference, but did not calculate them. I’ll get it because I’ve passed the tests so long ago. What was that mnemonic? SOH CAH TOA? Yes, but who remembers which side is the opposite and which is the adjacent? I believe the angle I need is a = 1-sinØ. Pooh to those who say you will never use this stuff. This is one time already and it’s only been fifty years.

Picture of the day.
Latex mask.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           I should have worked on the house today, but the weather turned perfect. This is almost a month early, let’s hope. Instead, I picked up supplies and built a better (but still temporary) cover for the sidecar. It has been in the elements for two years, just under a tarp. Well, okay, it still under a tarp but that tarp is on a spindly frame of furring strips. If it works well, I will reinforce it. And move it back out of sight, maybe onto the north side of the building. I wonder if it will still start. Of course, that one is a Honda. Here’s another picture of the Yamaha, return tomorrow after a test spin.

           For siesta I watched “Man on Fire”, the ex-CIA agent theme, hired bodyguard, Mexico City. It says there is a kidnapping every 70 minutes in Latin America. That, peeps, is the legacy of Spanish rule. No middle class to speak of. Kidnapping on that scale is a crime of desperate poverty. I’ve lived in Caracas and Mexico City and seen first-hand how this tribal system operates. When the national mentality is still at the tribal level, instead of rich people and poor people, you get rich families and poor families. When that happens, the rich cannot dare take a chance on letting any poor people gain even a toe-hold, it’s best if the poor cannot even read or write.

           Some point out that in Latin America, poor people can become doctors. Yes, they become poor doctors, driving a taxi to make ends meet. There is no national insurance scheme to charge poor thousands of dollars for x-rays and referrals they don’t really need. Under such a regime, any growth of an educated middle class is a threat of revolution if only because they are not family. Again, that old-world family tribe thing that some cultures never shake. It’s insidious. Even the Mafia dons wound up in prison because nobody could move up in the organization unless they became “family”. As for these sorts of cultures to change for the better, well, it hasn’t happened in 500 years.
           Tribals are also slow to learn by either experience or example. They live with bars on the windows and spend ever increasing millions on bodyguards, bulletproof cars, and armed patrols. You’ll get nowhere suggesting they could democratize the situation to where at least the harder working and more intelligent peasants could get ahead. They would just turn around and say we should do that in the USA first—and they have a point. It has been a century and a half since hard work got you anywhere in this country. But it got you into the middle class. If you were really lucky, it got your parents there. The only thing hard work gets you in Latin America is an early death.

ADDENDUM
           Now I get to tell you how my luck went today. Welcome to Florida. Because my place is upset with the floor work, I leave some things in the car where they are safe. Or are they? With that gasket leak, I keep a gallon of water in the car. The water leaks. Guess what it leaked on? The Yamaha motorcycle papers. This distracted me. I got the papers inside to dry. I forgot to turn off the hose. The water leaked for up to 14 hours full blast before I found it this morning. I wonder what that will cost me?
           Now, I really feel like going out for a cold one. Maybe two. Because I did not get up to the bank today and only have $7 left on me. Drop back tomorrow to find out that was my last $7 because get this - the bank took so long to clear a check, it became stale-dated. Their delay, but being a bank, guess who takes the fall?

Last Laugh