August 4, 2020

Yesteryear
One year ago today: August 4, 2019, 2,000 grit sandpaper.
Five years ago today: August 4, 2015, $4 trillion is welfare.
Nine years ago today: August 4, 2011, reduce costs, my eye.
Random years ago today: August 4, 2010, schlock writing.

           Alas, my banner post has to go, but I salvaged the far more popular Yesteryear segment. You may notice some chronological errors. That’s me getting used to future posting again. I used to make up a week of Yesteryears before leaving on a trip. If the GoogleGoofs have ceased disabling the feature, you may see the results as a post that is on time, but does not get fleshed out until later. I can not recommend the Maple Street biscuits and gravy as the best I’ve ever had, including home-made. Next time you are in St. Augustine, tell them I sent you and they’ll say, “Who?”

           From the blog that dares, here is a patch of the school carpet drying on the grass. This is one of the pieces I [later] threw over the rafters to dry. How this made the blog is I again overdid things. I could handle just the carpet but when even mildly damp it feels like it doubles in weight. I had to huff & puff to get the bigger pieces over the rail. The good news is the aches and cramps are same as before but wear off much quicker. This gave all the excuse I needed to pile in the car and drive to Harbor Heights. I should be over at Becca’s place making tea, I shall try for more exciting photos than the rug. I can’t change the blog rules after so long a run, which enlightens us on how such photos and topics get top billing. It really was the event of day.

           This blogs lacks pornography, since those of us who have the real thing don’t need it. So this photo taken at the Lightner Museum is your quota for this year. You get the painting and the closeup. By the look on the lady’s face, her mother was in the hallway. Today, this photo would be banned because the man is clearly more than two years older than the lady, meaning he was abusing and taking advantage and human slaving and giving her the full Bill Cosby. Today’s post would be rated R, since apparently there are some adults still out there who think kids don’t know women have tits.

           Things got better by sunrise, I arrived in Harbor Heights around 9:30AM and we got caught up on all the news. Becca’s a doll and too often dolls don’t know a lot about computers and stuff. She got rid of the guy who kept calling her is girlfriend, that was predictable because he was like my brothers. But that isn’t much my business so we got to talking antiques. Besides the radios, her late husband also collected antique cameras. Unlike the Lightner museum displays, all these are in perfect working order.

           Except you can’t get film for them any more. A lot of this stuff is now so rare you’ve never seen any of it. Like the stereopticon and camera set. What, you’ve seen the viewer before. Nope, this one is hand-carved in wood and has a swivel handle. If there’s time, I’ll get you some photos since it is all in like-new condition and more interesting than most of the museum pieces. Plus, these ones you get to handle and operate.

Picture of the day.
Hazelridge, Manitoba.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           This camera I call the Jimmy Olsen model. In pristine condition, this is one of a dozen cameras around the living room, conversation pieces really. We found some film stored away but it was so old it had gone brittle. Our goal today as to get her printer working again. She has these super embroidery machines and software that can emulate her paintings. She does a lot of nature and bird pictures, the idea is to get photos of them into the plotting computer. The software there can generate sewing patterns. She’s got a commercial grade Canon and sure enough, from the symptoms she asked about over the phone, the plastic retaining tab was still on the print head. This blockage caused ink to splatter onto the rollers. I got there must in time.

           Her Internet computer had been completely taken over by malware and you name it. But she had followed my advice from 18 months ago and kept all private stuff off that hard drive. I updated her Norton 360 and got rid of 3,335 suspicious items. Speed improved instantly. The we got down to a serious computer lesson. Like many she is afraid to change anything for fear of doing something wrong and irreversible. I showed her how to just reboot everything. Her filing system is a shambles and I had to leave it at that.

           By now we are famished and drove to town for a late brunch at Morgan’s, my treat. This could be rated as a first date because there was always somebody around whenever we’d met up before. I did not know she was a pancake lover. Any woman who can tuck away pancakes and keep her figure is okay by me. We talked a lot about her plans since that house if massive compared to her needs. I can’t help there, she offered me a lawn mower, but I have no lawn. I settled for a gas powered weed whip missing the air filter. Another topic was her wish to become a member of the yacht club. It’s quite the swanky joint but this where I found out she was hesitant to go there on her own because the guy she dumped was a member. And a bit of a loudmouth know-it-all.
           I’ve dealt with this before. It does not take women who hang out with me very long to notice as a couple, we naturally draw a lot of attention. I’ve shown her to do what I do, just smile and keep on with what you are doing. It’s probably got something to do with bearing, I think they call it. Taking advantage of this, I escorted her over to the clubhouse and we turned every head in the place. They had renovated since she was last there and we got the royal tour. Of course, I had to test the new dance floor with a few gold level steps before declaring it first rate.

           My long-termers are aware of my history as a dance instructor and how I was a favorite companion at the work place. Women knew I was a safe bet to go along to movies, dances, theater, almost anyplace they did not want to show up alone. You know, I could probably say I’ve dated 400 women in my life if I count those. But that is another story, I know how to make a lady look taken and that is what the yacht club thinks now. Woe to the ex-boyfriend who thinks he can charm a lady away from me. The consensus is that she can now go to the club without the least worry he’ll try anything.
           Anything more makes it a long story and I really can’t supply any details about what is a delicate situation. But trust me, that dud is history. One thing is certain, once he hears the gossip, he won’t dare ask her to dance. BWAAAA-ha-ha.
           Look what I captured, a shot of the stereo viewer. I’ll see if I can salvage a side view as this angle doesn’t show the slide focus and card holder. These are in brand new condition and solid wood. The viewer is almost weightless. See below, we also found a box of the viewing cards. Below is one showing a placer mining operation. Funny what was considered entertainment not that long ago. Other photos were of dead horses in the street and a lady going through her sleeping husband’s pockets for coins. The caption assures us she did this to keep for good purposes and stop others from taking them.

           We took a tea break out on the canal, she wants to get rid of all the lawn grass and put in crushed stone. I’m only a partial fan of working a lawn mower, so maybe we’ll watch her results. She’s got a huge DVD collection which she has painstakingly cataloged on sheets of foolscap. What was that? Ka-boom and the local Internet is down. Budda-bing, it’s back already. Becca is a fan of war movies and mentioned one I’d never heard of, “A Midnight Clear”. Don’t watch war movies with me, folks, I’m a critic of the weapons and most wartime propaganda.
           Drop back the next few days for photos and editorial on things you have never seen before, including Irish dust sweeps and tapestries that cuss. I may be centered on the renovations but I do have a life. This stereopticon shows five girls on a teeter-totter. There was no time to go through the hundreds of cards in the box, all appear to be pre-1920. I have no real way to copy them except what you see here. The 3D is not that real, more like early Disney attempts as in layered 2D.
          

ADDENDUM
           Car travel from here hits two dead zones on the radio. North you get no stations, south there’s nothing but shigga-booga stations. You are aware I listen to audio books, mostly gleaned from library sales. Many are still in the original wrappers. Even the best of these productions are not prime material, but the narrators often do a dandy job. Usually it is one narrator doing all the voices but I’ve had teams work it. One constant is the speaking is slowed down to below normal. This is not for the hard of hearing, but for the stupid. This means you sometimes get a triple whammy. A poor plot, a gimp narrator, and a disk that’s stuck on 33rpm.
           I’m on disk 9 of 11, the story of the Scorpion. This is the clone boy set 100 years into the future with the opium ranches along the US/Mexican border. The plot has no surprises, nor is it science fiction. Other than a “brain clamp” that turns border jumpers into zombies that toil the fields, every method, idea, or device in the book already exists. Hovercraft, plankton farms, and large masses of people who still think Communism was a success. Considering the US education system, even the brain clamp isn’t original.

           The plot has an annoying “it’s all good” pressure for the reader to believe in 100 years, the illegal immigrants have brought America down to their level and now we get along. Except, Mexico is communist and believe they have thrown off their oppressors rather than just exchanged them. If it was not for these long car trips, I would never have the patience for these audio books. Our clone was one of seven harvested for body parts for El Patron, who was 148 years old. The maid saved our clone by feeding him tiny doses of arsenic. It built up his resistance but when the time came for the heart transplant, his levels were too lethal to put into the old man and El Patron croaked.
           Matt, our sort of hero, represents the “clones are people too” side of things, he escapes to the Mexico side, where his saying please and thank you flags him as an aristocrat and he’s sent to a forced labor camp. Oddly, this slow-moving plot is unpredictable, like a Dickens tale, not because it was planned but because it was made up as it went along. So, let me guess. Matt escapes to either go the USA to start a movement that frees the zombies, or becomes a leader of yet another Mexican revolution that also frees the zombies.

Last Laugh