February 24, 2021

Yesteryear
One year ago today: February 24, 2020, trout protein base.
Five years ago today: February 24,, 2016, I lost that box.
Nine years ago today: February 24, 2012, my song flopped.
Random years ago today: February 24, 2011, the art show.

           One of those mornings, gang. Knowing it was trash day, I sent to sweep up the sawdust from installing the ledge in the bathroom. Spent a half hour looking for the broom. It was propped up behind the new bedroom curtain. Then I go to unload some supplies from the van to discover one of the containers was the plastic basket from the Thrift. This is not going to be my day. I stopped at mid-morning and switched to simple tasks, like oiling the Yamaha air filter. I used a combination of clean motor oil and WD-40 to dilute it a bit.

           Before the sun got too high, I also had a go at removing that beautiful set of practically new motors from the removed van seats. They are impacted into the frames and each instance there was one 15mm bolt I could not remove. I attempted to cut around them but an hour later was only half done. Not that I’ve ever used them, but the motors are excellent robot parts. The have a forward, reverse, neutral capability and a matching gearbox. I have to way to gear them, but have read a lot on pulley drives.

           I was quick to notice the motors have one speed. This is a situation where PCM, pulse code modulation, could be useful. My long-term readers remember how PCM works, it pulses on-off in varying ratios, making a DC motor operate at different speeds. These motors look powerful enough to do something useful—and like most power seat other than the driver’s postion, have hardly ever been used.

           Another nuisance was the double window trim. The flashing is in place, but I had to install that before a strip to match the other windows. I carefully trimmed and shaped a piece of wood, a furring strip, then discovered it is one of those rare cuts that is hard as iron. A finishing nail will not drive through it even with a proper-sized pilot hole. After five bent nails, I’ve decided to use screws, which have to be countersunk and puttied in to look smooth. The only fun I had this morning was insulting telemarketers. The latest batch are back to pretending they called a wrong number.

           The air filter causes a problem. I don’t know the cause and effect, but the carburetor or fuel supply either cuts off or floods unless the choke is set partially on. These are mechanical matters which I can live with, but indicators something is wrong. I tried to learn carburetor repair once, but could never find anything wrong with the ones that didn’t work.

Picture of the day.
House plant.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
           Elliott and I are back at the debate. He’s total leftoid anti-Trump, the no-evidence bunch. He knows I am not a Trumpist, but has no provision to react any other way. Leftists must see anything not far left as blac& white. The real news is a Bill Gate’s funded group who saying that math is racist. It is unfair to minorities because of the white supremacist pressure to demand right answers. Before that, here’s a picture I’d lost of more paraphernalia at my recent new barbershop.

           Who remembers Don K, the guy on my trivia team because he knew dog breeds. Don could put a negative spin on anything. He’s long gone, but Elliott has stepped up to fill the role with an added loop—he has the primordial vestiges of a sense of humor, albeit an English one. Thus, some discussions get into the heated dispute stage, and such was today. One example is how Elliott has no hobbies, where I have several. So to Elliott, that means quantity over quality, since nobody could be “any good” or “really good” at more than one hobby, says he.

           It’s not arguing per se, tell you what, here’s an example. He knows I study celestial navigation, a topic about which he knows nothing, but we know it bugs him by the frequency he will mention it. Y’day it came about when he was quoting his buddy, an ardent anti-Trumper, to which I said his pal sounds like a really chipper academic type to sit down and have a friendly discussion with. To Elliott, that’s a veiled insult, so he took the moment to point out that celestial navigation “sounds boring”. To which I responded he was right. Entirely right to point out that to persons below a certain intellect, it was very boring. He logged off for the day. BWAAAAA-ha-ha.
           He is also very much a guitar-think person. He thinks the faster and more complicated you can play, the better you are. This and other nonsense that detracts from good bass playing. Well, today he also said he is better on guitar than I am on bass, which got me asking why he thought that. Easy, more guitar-think. He cannot accept that my goal is not to get into a recording studio and make a platinum album. He’s never gotten over counting the number of gigs as the indicator of whether one is a good musician. The fact that I’ve played several hundred gigs in Florida means I must not be very good, since I have no platinum on the wall.

           But, now follow his logic on this one. Elliott has never played in any band or on any stage except a Seattle teen band fifty years ago. He talks the talk but has zero idea of the complex “chemistry experiment” involved in starting or running a band. Sounds familiar, huh? Anyway, the fact that I have not got much off the ground in the past twenty years means, to him, that I am a failure, doing it wrong, and don’t have the personality. I told you, we are great chums. What, you want to know my retort on that one? Okay, but you might spot the pattern.
           Well, Elliott, I’ve had two bands that lasted six months, so that makes you the loser. (Huh? What? Bullshit!) You see, Elliot, by your logic you have failed at 100% of the bands you ever played in, and I’ve only failed at 90%. That makes you not just a loser, but a total loser. It’s actually a fun discussion group because he reminds me of most co-workers I’ve ever had, and he is exceedingly vulnerable to this type of back-at-you sass.

           The shortcomings of the Beat Buddy are legion. By itself, it is almost unusable, I fear I will have to learn to program each individual song, just like a regular drum machine. That is one painstaking chore. But the Beat Buddy changes tempo between drum sounds, and even when you turn it off and back on. One song I set at 164 bmp has played back at speeds like 91 bmp, or 108 bpm, while still displaying 164. I was also right about how it cannot be started with an ordinary foot tap, it will start in the middle of a measure.
           It has problems that should have been fixed years earlier—and would have been if I’d been on the team. Thus, I conclude the same as forty years ago, that there is no stage-ready user-friendly drum box on the market. And I’m too old to start building one just to put on my Friday night show.

ADDENDUM
           It’s seems to be confirmed, a huge chunk of people who voted for Biden realize they were really duped into voting against Trump. And if they had to vote again, it would not be for Old Joe, who has lost his grip on reality. Looking closely, these 11 million immigrants he’s letting in are not being documented, bringing the total of that group to 29.5 million. Why? My guess is he is following orders. Create a new category of illegal, the “undocumented”, so when Trump returns to chuck them out, the left can scream about that.
           But it looks to me like the left has gone off the deep end. Trying to criminalize opposition is a mark of desperation. They probably realize they won a battle but lost the war. There will be no funny ballots next time, too many people have figured out the left’s wild accusations showed they knew far more about rigging elections than anyone else. Most of the illegals will pour into Texas, which is the only way for the Democrats to destroy that Republican stronghold. He would still hae a problem because most Texans have guns and he has not bankrupted the NRA yet.

Last Laugh