One year ago today: February 6, 2021, my then-new pocket drill.
Five years ago today: February 6, 2017, I told you to fire them!
Nine years ago today: February 6, 2013, the 1,000th caller?
Random years ago today: February 6, 1982, “a company expression”.
It’s noon. I just got up, that’s the breaking news. I could not get underway and once I did things crawled. When you get past 50, these things are allowed. By default, I’ll jot down what happened today and you decide on your own how things are going. I thoroughly checked the van right down to the antifreeze concentration and that’s the advantage of a good dealership. All was okay but I warned twenty years ago things were tightening up. That’s when I last bought a car from a dealer and this time I was horrified by the paperwork. Nobody wants to get sued over something stupid, so the stupid takes the form of signing waivers and declarations.
The postman neighbor is gone and the lady has moved back. She’s a nice sort, nothing will go un-noticed, that’s for certain. She knows all the other neighbors long-term, I’m the only newcomer except for the two rental properties. She’s getting some trees trimmed so maybe the guy will cut me a deal. Not till spring, I’m broke from buying vans and such. I was in the yard getting the van loaded and wound up out there for six hours. There’s prep time, including locking down the sheds, moving the scooter under the canopy, getting everything secure, and making up my trip tapes.
The new vans don’t have cassette players, although I can rig one up through the AUX input. It’s easier to use that fantastic Pioneer dual deck I got for a song and record direct to Audacity, then export the MP3. Mostly I go for murder mysteries, influenced by that being greatly the majority of what’s available. I would get educational tapes, but they are like reading a computer manual. It’s either too easy or too hard, nothing in between. Which is kind of where I stand on a lot of topics, like the Darwin book I’m trying to grasp.
I’ve made up three books this time, around ten hours listenting time. For those who may consider this, remember you need around $300 worth of equipment and the smarts to hook it up. My system used a computer with Audacity, a Pioneer tape deck with a very accurate counter, and a Kenwood receiver, mostly used for switching because I don’t want to hear the tape while it is being recorded, except to check it now and then. This setup does not allow you to listen to something else while recording, the software will record what your audio card plays.
Additional warnings, the recording mode is usually found by trial and error, as Audacity suffers the same as all such products. The terms used to describe things are not descriptive and when they are somewhat clear, often mean the opposite. As for tapes, I thirft store everything unless I chance upon a library sale. Yes, there are CD audio books, but everyone knows CDs have never been easy to carry and store. I switched to MP3s around 15 years ago, and to flash drives maybe 10 years back, and have no good reason to change. I’ve listened to newer formats and systems and there have been no worthwhile advancements. I had listened to a demo of music with a very high sampling rate and some elaborate setting, latency or something. It did have a remarkable presence, maybe the word is a sparkle to the sound. But for the $600 price tag, not for me.
How are the truckers doing? Running out of gas and the feds have cut off their supply. Anyone caught running fuel will be charged with accessory to crime or something. They are armed to the teeth and have been raiding food storage depots. Hey, anybody who thinks they can negotiate with RMCP has shit for brains, these truckers were letting the enemy into their ranks, letting them walk around and probe for weak spots. You don’t let your enemy know where your food supply is, it’s obvious some people have to be taught that lesson.
Alice Walton.
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The neighbor lady, when she moved in, stacked 18 sheets of plywood against her shed. I did not notice, but turns out they got stolen. I say inside job, because you need a truck to haul that much lumber, I think she said the cost was $1,300. She inquired about my cameras and I had the unfortunate duty to tell her all that faced her house were fakes. Besides, there is no direct line of sight from the house, only from the front yard if you go stand out there. She lived in Orlando for 30 years and now moved back.
Last evening I looked at more of the 1981 journal, it is the last pieces of my youth, although I didn’t know it at the time. In June, I had long since applied for the job that I would retire at less than 15 years later. That job changed everything because they had a strong union, a lot of who’s thinking I could not fully follow. Like their ingrained mentality that full-time work was 37-1/2 hours per week. Every negotiated pay raise pushed me into a higher tax bracket and they did not follow the logic of how about instead of raises, we get more time off? Today with the gig economy, everyone grasps that, but in 1981, these people could not fathom the logic.
By nightfall, we are prepped to leave any time for Nashville. I’m feeling a bit off-balance, nothing worrisome but why push if I’m not 100%. The pressure is off anyway, now what I’ve met my commitments and my approach to business is less concerned with deadlines than most of the planet. With both parents gone now, the pets tend to get doted on since we are both fully keen on keeping them, the biggest difference these days is when I’m around they get less packaged food. I just don’t trust as much as the Reb, no matter what the package claims.
COVID has also pushed us away from conventional habits, which is tricky to explain. Whereas I was a fan of the foreign theater, in four years I’ve never gone to a movie without the Reb. It works like this, she is great company and will go along with anything that interests me. That explains the museums, recycling bins, and hardware stores in Smithville. I hear and see COVID has decreased people going out which means we often get the places to ourselves. So I now forestall doing things here if I know I can do them next month with great company, and prop my feet on the furniture as well because nobody is there to complain. Does that make sense?
I wanted to see them make vanilla extract. The only part I know, from chemistry class, which I disliked, was that extract means soaking it in alcohol. If there’s no booze, you have vanilla flavoring, but not extract. My interest was tweaked at the vodka store y’day, where I saw dozens of flavored drinks. Grapefruit whiskey and ginger vodka, all of them chemical flavors. Ah, didn’t I warn you about gastrozombies? These freaks can no longer taste real food and now even their booze has to be zapped. I repeat, all these flavorings work by tricking your central nervous system. Then begins the deepening spiral until they are addicted.
ADDENDUM
I’ve got a volume by Churchill about the interwar years, studded with his propaganda which I will admit gets all the facts right. All his points have been hashed over, he never stops at saying the Germans were wrong, it’s always they were wrong because they were evil. But Allies who did the same or worse were excused because they were right. Old Winston had a way with words. This time, I’m reading for how the Germans reacted. We know they kept up their armaments programs and had training bases in other countries. They were not buying any of the worldwide fake news that they had been defeated. As far a I know, they never retreated and marched back in good fighting trim. It was politics that stabbed them, not bayonets. And I want more information on what happened behind the scenes.
