Five years ago today: September 23, 2015, born pretty enough.
Nine years ago today: September 23, 2011, I splurged
Random years ago today: September 23, 2008, my 10th most famous post.
The car worked perfectly and the mechanic somehow got the temperature gauge to work again. It did before but only up to a level where it would stop until there was an overheating problem. I had just gotten got used to it. I drove to therapy this morning and things have entered a new phase. I’ll say just the one thing, everything has gone back to as bad as before—which may be a good thing. I stopped at the thrift on the return leg and got this gadget which has the label missing. The brand name is Fotomatic, any information, just leave me a comment. I guess it to be some kind of add-on to a radio antenna to squelch the noise. That reminds me, there is a beauty of a scanner somewhere around here I’d like to listen to when out in the shed. Everybody who’s seen the shed (not many as it looks like the back yard fence) thinks it wonderful.
Then again, everybody likes working with the right tools as much as myself. That was part of the draw y’day. I’m no mechanic but I have every wrench, I’m no carpenter but I have every saw, and so on. The ladies at the Thrift have taken a shine to me as I show them how to test computers, remote controls, cell phones, and so on, to the extent that I can. While I was there, a the talk was all about the incentive checks. How come I’m the only one who could care less? If and when I get it is fine, but I have noticed a huge increase in the items that have doubled in price. A car battery now runs close to $200 for the cheap brands.orking with the right tools as much as myself. That was part of the draw y’day. I’m no mechanic but I have every wrench, I’m no carpenter but I have every saw, and so on. The ladies at the Thrift have taken a shine to me as I show them how to test computers, remote controls, cell phones, and so on, to the extent that I can. While I was there, a the talk was all about the incentive checks. How come I’m the only one who could care less? If and when I get it is fine, but I have noticed a huge increase in the items that have doubled in price. A car battery now runs close to $200 for the cheap brands.
Examining my guitars, I don’t really have one suitable for a child learner. The usual problem with acoustics is the bridge is glued in place or lightly screwed. I clicked on Blues Creek (it’s a guitar repair site) and saw him use some special clamps to glue the bridge back down. I used a small inspection mirror to determine which guitar was most reparable, I tend toward the one that has better tuning pegs. The Internet is responsible for the rise of a new breed of dickhead who makes unrehearsed, unedited videos, with unbalanced speaking volume and/or horrid background music. Then there are the total pricks who omit all narration. The viewer is, one supposes, is supposed to read their minds.
The trick seems to be using the right type of glue and clamping it right. I’ll measure have suitable regular clamps. But they keep referring to “fish glue” without explaining what that is. I found a brand name but these days that won’t mean much. There is a video from Russia on how to make your own fish glue. I passed due to the shortage of $250 a pound dried sturgeon bladder at the Sav-A-Lot. I decided to make coffee and watch another video on how to make blueberry pie.
Or how about the lady from Somalia who gets death threats? When a crowd starts chanting “Send her back”, I’d say she is a little slow at getting the message. TMOR readers, let me explain something. Yes, in America we have freedom of speech. But that does not mean you can say anything you want anytime you want. It does not mean people have to listen to you, or agree with you, or like what you say. And it does not mean people want to hear it. Most don’t from a person who has been here twenty years and still wears a turban. She has every right to wear it, but not the right to make people like it. She comes across as unappreciative of what she got. With 39 million unemployed, they simply may not want to listen to her claptrap about civil liberties at this time. It has little to do with her concept of “prejudice” although there is no doubt she’ll say so.
Picture of the day.
King Tut’s iron meteorite dagger.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
For unknown causes, I flaked out when I got home, missing the entire afternoon. Hey. Not a thing done on the house or yard, and I noticed a thin moss-like growth on my fertilized planter soil. Let me check my chart for when the first sprouts are due. Hmmm, says around now so I’ll go check more closely. We have only sample rows this time, carrots, beets, onions. The cover has to be raised up nearly a foot to accommodate the deeper soil and the expected height of the stalks.
Bradford was supposed to give a call, but he forgot. Never you mind, his behavior this time is different. There is some slim chance he remembered what I said, but it’s more likely somebody gave him a good talking to. Part of the formula is to not recall the title of the song but sing a couple lines, whence he gets to remember the name, making it his suggestion. What I’m saying is he seems much more sincere about this time around and I’m the sort that things people can change, but not that rapidly. Using this method, I’ve got him up to eight tunes, which is most of a set. I tend to take short breaks so I count ten, sometimes twelve in a set, which also gives the opportunity to skip tunes that are momentarily out of synch with the room.
The tape is removed from my arm. And I had a hard time playing bass. To me, this is what it is all about. I have no idea what I would do in any capacity if I could no longer play, not even a dumb contingency plan. I ran through the list just mentioned and I’m ready to go. I’ve said before, Bradford is one excellent guitar player and I’m not used to working with that. I’ve never heard him play and sing an entire song and this is something I’ve been cautious about since my early 20s. I know lots of people who can play the fancy parts of 20 songs, but not the whole thing through. On the other hand, I’ve been in the room while Bradford’s band was on stage and the music was too obscure to hold my attention.
Is that tape working? I don’t know. When it was removed, my arm reverted to the same limitations as ever, as if the therapy has done nothing. Is that effective? You tell me. I’m not happy about it. I feel I could play a full gig any time at some cost, but this is what it really comes down to. Do I accept the pain or the poor bass playing. This is no idle bit for me, I worked years to play the best I can. This, I declare, worries me more than almost anything for my personal future. I will always survive and thrive because that’s what I set myself up to do if all else went wrong. But that happy time included the presumption that bass would always be my safety net.
I continue to review sample COBOL code. There are dozens of commands I don’t understand, probably more of those famous IBM improvements. Nothing there is confusing, if I could lay my hands on a manual, that’s all I’d need to become current. I notice some practices I don’t agree with, like the picture clause and poor logic flow. The PIC clause has a literal expression to display numbers and I think that should always be spelled out whenever possible. Instead they have an abbreviated variation. I would further note the deliberate attempts to make the code complicated, indicating it my examples are from the 1990s onward. That was an unwelcome standard just starting to bite as I graduated. I’m still sure I could re-learn it in a couple of days.
hat I’m struggling with is a use for COBOL in my life. There’s nothing there I cannot do on a spreadsheet, where I have considerably more experience. Which is not to say I could not find a use, though it would be much more of a technical exercise. I can’t be the only one who thinks maybe I could get COBOL to use spreadsheets as input. I’ve done similar with database files. I am also reading selected parts of mySQL code and I have an instruction booklet that’s fairly good. I know you can export Excel files in various compatible formats.
Silver prices continue to fall. On the other hand Texas, which has not had a Democrat win since the 1970s, has a million and a half new registered voters. And you can bet the oil industry isn’t voting for Biden. The Thrift ladies asked me, as registered Democrats, could they vote for Trump? I don’t know, I thought registration was only for certain types of primaries, but otherwise you could vote for whomever you pleased. Otherwise, why vote, just count the registrations. I sent the question off to Trent. His usual lightning-fast response says correct. In primaries you vote for your candidate. In general elections like the one in November, you vote for whom you pleas. He doesn’t know it but he just recruited seven new Trump votes. And that Thrift is in Mulberry, as small town. Is all I’m sayin’.
ADDENDUM
Strange indeed, how bluff and reality blur with the radical left. On one hand you have dozens of their left-wing newspapers endlessly spewing that garbage that the race for President is so close, with Biden in the lead in all “key” states. Nonsense, Biden has been unable to fill a high school gym. On the other hand, you have all their dirty tricks. Like in Florida, they paid some $32 million if fines for 20,000 felons so they could vote Democrat. Two immediate questions. If they are ahead, why do they have to resort to such stunts, and if they get elected, what do you think they will do to get their money back?
And of course, they will never let up on the Supreme Court thing—because it could be their death-knell. I always thought once the current generation ever experiences any freedom and lack of regulation, enough of them will clue in and quit being sissified me-people. The Democrat left can not allow that to happen, they’ve spend billions getting the last three generations lulled into thinking the government knows best. There are six of these so-called swing states and the Democrats are up to no good in all of them. They are North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Three of them I’ve never bothered to even visit.
This appointment is more that critical to the left, so it would not matter whether the election is near or far, they would have to invent any reason to stop that replacement. The left just can’t seem to think ahead even a few months. They are now pushing a bill to prevent “Presidential abuses” that will come back to bite them in the ass. But see their mentality? Anybody who doesn’t think and act like they do is wrong, or insane, or crude. Argue with a Democrat and even if you are right, that makes you (pick one) racist, homophobic, or nazi.
I still believe that there are some 8 to 10 million people who will vote this election. They did not vote before because both parties, the Republicans and Democrats, were in it for the money. They would argue pointless topics at their debates. Like some worker whose job was shipped to Mexico is going to vote because some politician is keen on climate change. When Trump stepped up to the plate, all that nonsense got exposed. Trump declared himself Republican in name only. His very presence has caused some real worry to the old-boy insiders and he has single-handedly changed the stance of the party. That’s why I make so little reference to Republicans and a lot to Trump.
Those potential millions of voters now have somebody to vote for, somebody who is addressing their concerns. Remember Eva Peron who stole millions? The people love her because she saved them hundreds of millions. Well, Trump may not always be right, but he gets things moving and is open about immigration, wars, foreign aid, and corruption, and things most Americans are against. I stress, it is not the average American who is interfering in everything around the world. The average American would like nothing better than to pull all the troops back home and focus on America. It’s politicians causing the troubles, but as the argument goes, it’s average Americans electing them. I’m just saying let’s see how that goes now that they have somebody to vote for.
