One year ago today: October 7, 2018, Oct. 7, 2018 is misisng?
Five years ago today: October 7, 2014, $32/hr was not enough.
Nine years ago today: October 7, 2010, Eureka 5261.
Random years ago today: October 7, 2006, she should ride that bike.
An early morning crawl under the building to the sound of a rooster, ah, the country living in Florida comes right out of your pores. Sure enough, that area under the tub is major cause of the floor damage over the years. The tub was never properly supported in the sense it was not reinforced and it should have been. Folks, you need 2x10” planks, 16” on-center. I should put in the lumber first, but it sure is easier to work the pipes with a few joists out of the way. I found a diagram of joists with holes drilled for pipes, but they are doubled up. Again, nothing in the code. It’s muggy again
This type of empty shelving (this is at Wal*mart) is known in Florida, but is associated with panic buying before the hurricanes. Today, it is tariffs. Empty shelves were once unheard of in the USA. Now, only the most expensive hoses are left and the store will not restock until these are sold. There’s something about paying $28 for a garden hose that I decided to get the $3 repair kit and work with what I’ve got. The rain kept me indoors so I mapped out the plumbing a bit better. It looks like the bedroom closet becomes the plumbing control center. The fittings must be the fun part of the job.
As for siesta videos, I’ve hit a batch of really bad ones, mostly half-baked cops & robbers. Many are so terrible that ten minutes in I can’t remember the title or find myself reading a handy book. This, fellows, is proof you have to pick up hobbies that you can enjoy in the long run—and do it before you have to. I finally grabbed the bass and tackled another Neil Diamond number. I’ve told you about his bass runs and “Sweet Caroline” is another sample of his piano-like consistency. These runs cannot be played with orthodox left-hand positions. To me this smacks of studio trickery.
That band typifies surfing music, an era I missed working on the farm. Those tunes seemed to use itinerant bassists because every version is different. The Nashville band has one surf song on their learn list, “Surfin’ USA”. The temptation is to hack through the tune but I’m up against some bassists who are very good at hacking. I can’t give a formula to it, but there is a certain professional touch to playing bass notes that seems to derives from twenty years of practice. With this in mind, I took “Surfin’ USA” apart note-for-note and gave it the treatment.
It was tricky. Most bassists find the core pattern and repeat that through the chord changes. It isn’t optimal. My goal was finding where on the neck the notes are played, knowing most trained bassists stick to the lower fretboard, a prime origin of monotony. I found a half dozen spots way up the neck, where I have complete command. Ere long, I had spent three hours customizing that song. You know me, it is not enough to just play the notes. Not when I can ham it up. I got this one, there’s a repetitious turnaround where again I appear to trap myself, then make a lightning leap one end of the neck to the other. How I love it, especially when the ladies are watching. Ego-fest. T’ain’t braggin’ if ya done it.
Jimmy Buffett’s wife.
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I found the [radiator] leak. It’s the hose, and the big expensive form-fitted one. The car runs well enough for up to an hour, which also means the leak is too small to spot. Now there’s another item of rampant inflation. The anti-freeze has gone up to $10 or $12 and is the ultimate in package inflation to date. Read that package carefully. It is no longer pure anti-freeze, but a 50/50 mix with water. So make that $24 per gallon. Meaning I just paid $12 for a half gallon of water. I never could figure out why auto manufacturers don’t put an ordinary hose connector on one of the lines it is easy to flush out. On this car, I cannot even find the stopcock to drain the rusty fluid.
And this being a journal, I record daily work even though it is the type of procedure subject to error that would embarrass most guys. Hey, you don’t get many of this exact type of photo (of scale models), so enjoy it as a prime example of semi-amateur planning. This is not exact, some of the joints and fittings are only representative. This is the cold water supply and distribution. From left to right, the lines are
A) 3/4” cold water out to kitchen faucet
B) 3/4” cold water in from street
C) 1/2” exterior hose bib
D) 3/4” cold water to heater tank
E) 1/2” cold water to washing machine
F) 1/2” cold water to wash tub
G) 3/4” stub not used
Meanwhile, how goes my detective novel? That the “Book of the Dead”. I cannot recommend it. In the end, it is written to formula. These guys went to journalist school and evidently passed all the tests with very high marks. The result is a book written by committee, where they try to inject every plot twist or dynamic that worked in the past. I’m at the final chapters and it is getting tedious. One unplanned quirk is the book was written before the surveillance society arose. It could never happen today. The bad guy stays in hotels, uses passports and ATMs, rents vehicles, uses the phone and credit cards, buys plane and boat tickets, he’d be nailed in a moment in today’s world. Have you heard the rumor the establishment wants all ID to expire every six months?
Even the title seems chosen to up sales, since it only relates to a couple spots in the story. And there are no more secret islands left. Anything with a fresh water supply was snapped up before the turn of the century. Besides, if you want to hide, don’t try an island. Islands are Nature’s analog surveillance system. Nothing attracts attention on small land mass like trying to keep a secret.
ADDENDUM
That Sony DVD burner I bought so long ago needs a converter from USB to RCA, but the manual says it can record direct to disk. Too bad the unit isn’t portable. And even in LP mode, it can only manage 12 hours on a disk. I’m thinking on it as a way to monitor the bird feeders The plug is one of those multi-type I associate with Apple equipment, probably because of the cost. Sony—all useful parts sold separately.
I may see if I can use the setup to get footage I now avoid because of the time required. Disks are still relatively cheap storage media and available everywhere. For example, how does JeePee the turtle actually spend his days? And I can never move fast enough to get those deer in the back yard in Tennessee. I would also like to explore some other options than the Sony camera, although experience shows that Sony equipment is overly fussy about what it will record. I wonder if they make a battery powered DVD recorder? I do not recall ever seeing one.
While seeing if I could connect some peripherals to the camera, I note that Sony has gone through quite some length to ensure the camcorder cannot be connected wirelessly to any public network. There’ll be no Hong Kongs here.
It has come to my attention many people use the term “race card” out of context. It is not calling somebody a name they don’t like. That is ordinary garden variety “MLK” grade. The race card is not about equality, it is about greed and control. There is a group nearby who complain the “white” radio stations are not playing enough of “their” music”. That’s the race card. They have all the same rights as anybody. They can listen to any radio station they want, or get free money to start up their own. But that is not good enough. They don’t want their own station, they want to take over yours. Sounds familiar, dunnit? That is the true meaning of race card, gender card, queer card, gimp card, etc. Can you just imagine Boss Hogg playing a quota of ska or rap?
Later, under the house, I got to thinking. Why am I under a house at my age and why am I liking it? The only answer is that it is my house. If it had been my house fifty years ago, I would have liked it as much, maybe more. What brought this up is an interview I heard on the car radio about a senator who’s “daddy was a wildcatter”. He attributes his personal success to “luck and hard work”. Considering the number of people I know who work hard and the fact he inherited both $209 million and the network that kept it invested, I would say luck alone accounts for all but $500 of it.
This is the basis of my oft-repeated claim that America is still the best country in the world for opportunity, but one of the worst for making you pay your dues. Personal success is so difficult that the chosen few who manage it are famous—and they have another common trait. They did not succeed within the system. They invented something new or changed the system. Think about it. The Wright Brothers, Amazon, Ford, Jobs, Gatling, these people did not work their way up through the ranks. While they are a minority of the rich, try to name me ten other rich people who inherited everything. That’s what I mean. So I would like to see a new term for American success, one that reflects that most who have it did not work for it. Not to be derogatory, but to distinguish them from those who had to work hard. Not that there is, in this instance, anything wrong with derogatory.
Why a new term? Because there is hardly a man alive who would not have worked hard on his own house instead of somebody else’s if he had been lucky enough. As it is, senators who put in 15-hour days counting daddy’s money can claim to be working hard. This is your character test for today. Am I bitter or giving the underdog a voice. One thing about rich people is that unlike poor people, they rarely steal from each other.
