One year ago today: July 11, 2021, meh, 53 miles ain’t space.
Five years ago today: July 11, 2017, all-girl clone bands.
Nine years ago today: July 11, 2013, mental diarrhea for guitar.
Random years ago today: July 11, 2007, a fake post, I think.
Have you tried to get the new Amtrak schedules. You know, the ordinary, familiar pamphlet that lists the stations and times for the route you chose? It’s been so totally bastardized on-line by the millennials, I finally gave up after a half hour. The option that advertises “schedules” are the schedules for sports games and (get this) bible reading. Say, says Amtrak, you don’t mind if we shove a little religion down your throat, do you? And now you must spell your destination exactly. Because they are AOLs, that’s why.
Here is a small hole dug by some critter over night. I’ve no way to identify what and there is nothing buried here. Just some lumber leaning on the shed. The work meant crawling and kneeling so I had no camera when a black snake paused right in front of me. I got an excellent view, my estimate is just over three feet. And fast, I must have blinked. Strange I still catch the odd rat when these are prowling the north edge of the yard. This was not an indigo snake, it was flat black and a quick look in the book says probably a black racer, as that speed was impressive.
Back indoors, I took a break to watch Horatio find out that his duchess is an actress. These English, they could have found a pretty one you’d think. But she fits the role, especially if you’ve been pent up in a boat for six months at a stretch. I’m on episode three, up to the prison break. Now I’m going outside to work on that axle. It’s already more stable than a wheelbarrow, though plastic is plastic. And I still cannot get the chain saw to fire up.
Bizarre Invention #202.
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A light cloud cover and I was back outside, this time to get that wheelbarrow happening. And it is done, here’s some photos showing how I made the axle. That is the tale from the trailer court, not the wheelbarrow. You see, this is my most complicated metalwork project yet. Everything went perfect and it worked the first time. I cut the axle, drilled cotter pin holes, and having no cotter pins, I threaded them and put machine screws in place to make sure it was working right. It was, I cleaned up the largest log pile in the front.
Not only was this fun, having all the tools and pieces handy meant it was done in half the projected time. That’s encouraging, because I’ve entered another phase where I’m having to do work that doesn’t show so that I can get bigger jobs done. Like this wheelbarrow. Without it that front yard would take a week. However, I did I overdo it today? I’ll know when I try to climb out of bed in the morning.
The pictures show using the drill press to center the hole, then a slightly burnished view through the rod where I ground off the burrs. Next is a 8-32” machine screw fitting perfectly into the thread, I don’t know if I used a tap or a die, like whatever. Last pic is the temp arrangement to hold the wheel on the axle until I get the cotter pins. The axle is a half-inch steel rod, a little small but the largest diameter I have tools to work with. It’s more accurately called a yard cart or something, which still cost $80 and a small wheelbarrow is over $100, so I’m happy. It rolls effortlessly in the yard which was a big part of the plan. And I just discovered, unlike the plastic type, these go up and down stairs quite smoothly.
Two hours later, yes, I strained a few muscles. Good, that means home with a good book and old Horatio, the series. Yes, when alone, I alternate between reading and watching a DVD in intervals. This would drive others crazy. I gave the reason years ago, that most movies move too slow for me. A half-hour and I’m ready for some math, navigation, electronics, history, geology, rocket science, or circuitry to take up the slack. And as I’ve learned, this parallels when I’m on a challenging work project. Meanwhile, it is easy to tell the Spanish on the battlefield, for like the English captains, they are all wearing their hats on sideways.
Today, I did not take even a breather on that cart and now I may pay for it. It’s exactly a stitch in the side, but if you hit it wrong, it’s the same pains the last time you fell off a bicycle. Like a cramp you stay paralyzed for the ten seconds it takes to abate. Blog rules say I must document these kind of things because they represent real changes in what’s possible any more. And my long-term readers know to put up with these old-lady complaints because when I’m confined to barracks, the budget allocations start piling up rather nicely. This is my 14th day at home in the past 17, so there’s a lot of gas money not used, the van is running great, and my insurance is paid up until the end of December. I’m just sayin’.
No, we are not going to Jacksonville for the weekend. When home, other budget items are affected. Household and office expenses rise, and so does laundry as that was once considered a different category since the money was spent downtown. Budgets scare some people, around here they are a tool and I never said I was all that handy, I just get lucky a lot. It would seem processed food got hit the most with Bidenflation, since my outlay remains around the 22% total for groceries. I’m not baking as much as usual yet the costs are still below median.
This commotion over the Uber “kill switch” has me at odds. This was in Europe but it seems to me whether a man is guilty of anything or not, as long as he has not yet been charged with any crime, he should be free to destroy, hide, block, or erase any records not required by law. And that would strongly include any internal memos or documentation that he deems others should not see. The concept is, or course, that no man should be compelled to witness against himself and it is wrong to retroactively determine what is evidence. Seizing business records in general is a fishing expedition and that is not permitted in the Constitution.
And it is fun watching Twitter squirm as share prices drop toward $25. Like I said, Musk could easily have broken his purchase agreement and lost the $1 billion penalty if he can pick up the rest of the company for half price. Let Twitter bellow for a bit as they learn what it is like to be on the receiving end of a little bad faith.
ADDENDUM
Here is the long-awaited (from here anyway) first photo released by the Webb telescope people. It’s been jumped on by Biden/Harris as a major accomplishment of their administration, which is an outright lie. They also made press releases relating these distant objects to climate change. These people are on drugs of some kind.
The distortion of the galaxy shapes is from the light being bent by gravity around the star cluster at the center. You can’t see the whole cluster, but the spiraling effect gives the location of the middle point, where all gravity can presume to be concentrated. Until more is know, this photo adds little to existing photos of deep space. I have no clue why they would show such a dull picture to start with. I’m thinking that might be more important that what is visible.
The blackness beyond is, to me, unexplained. Conventional thought is the further we look into space, the faster objects are retreating. When they reach the speed of light, an event horizon of sorts, beyond which events cannot be observed. While I don’t have the brains to say, it seems to me that is a situation that can’t exist. Therefore, the objects are not retreating faster and that is an illusion caused by a misinterpretation of red shift. That’s the Doppler theory that electromagnetic waves lengthen as an object retreats faster. Light is known to have both a wave and particle nature and there is some interaction causing the red shift to be misread. I can’t back this up, but I’m saying that many existing theories don’t follow.
