One year ago today: July 23, 2021, the potential is built-in.
Five years ago today: July 23, 2017, early kudzu woes.
Nine years ago today: July 23, 2013, looking at REO.
Random years ago today: July 23, 2014, getting the finger.
I’m lifting the floors, which over the relevant spots consist of plywood sheathing. The stuff is probably worth a hundred bucks a sheet by now. The original oak flooring, as you know, proved non-salvageable, though I did save the best sections. I’m having a hard time getting underway today. I finally opened a Gab account so I could see the good posts. Often I’ll add snarky comments to see who takes it personal. I am not there for brownie points but it’s fairly amazing who “follows” my random comments. Then this morning, I see somebody has mass copied 243 of my posts on their own page. Interesting.
While doing the repair, I got another look at the fifty year old wiring under the old section of flooring. It’s looking bad, the outer insulation is brittle and flaking off. The old electric panel is nearby so I could probably redo the whole kitchen with a fifty foot roll. If so, while I’m there it would be a good time to wire and plumb in the rest of the new hot water tank. Once more, all the basics are run in, so that leaves only the final connections. I downed a quart of peach tea y’day and this morning, plus double my coffee usual. I’ll get at these jobs yet.
A closer look at the plumbing revises my estimate of sixty feet last day down to twenty feet. By running the pipe diagonal, I only need one pipe as the feed direction of the hot water tank feeds will reverse when one. Now, let’s try another coffee and see how Horatio is faring against Boney. Can Horatio single-handedly defeat the Spanish Armada? What, you never heard of the 2nd Spanish Armada in the 19th century? See, I told this Horatio guy was good.
There you go, I think I’m taking a break and I still put in an hour’s work. Now I’m inside under the A/C and watching some material on the German defense of Salerno. These big names in WWII would shock a lot of people to find out how tiny and insignificant these places are. The Germans quickly pulled inland out of range of the Allied ships guns, leaving a few pillboxes and assault guns to deal with the landings. Prepared and alert, the Germans often withdrew rather than defend the poor terrain. Time and again, a single machine gun held up entire American regiments in a mountain pass.
The Hollywood version says the Germans were defeated and ran. In most cases, they fought until out of ammo or their assault guns were knocked out, then retreated a few miles. Assault guns were more useful than tanks in the hills but the Germans had only 32 or them, some say 36. Others try to build up the defenses to “one hundred panzers” without specifying some of that was Italian manufacture, suitable mostly for target practice.
Like many coastal Italian towns, Salerno is really a tiny wedge between mountains, a spot that is less vertical than usual. The mountains plunge straight into the sea and Salerno beach is maybe five city blocks long. The town has not flat areas, the houses are built in terraces up the mountainsides as high as the dare to go. After the novelty of the beach wears off, it’s a nothing town.
Chickens love watermelon.
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Here’s a view of the baffle installed in the twilight. You can notice the black ring still drawn on the metal, thinking that’s the same diameter as my lawn table. The squirrel is fiesty and knows when I see him, he’s got thirty seconds before I can walk out the side door and throw a pebble at him. There’s another reason for the pictures, this is the first real metal working project I’ve done in my life that worked out well enough. And I didn’t cut myself. I did find out I have a lousy rivet gun and some even worse rivets. Harbor Freight.
Later, I turned the water off for overnight. I have plenty stored in the fridge for coffee and meals. I don’t want it springing a leak while I’m asleep and it is easy enough to adapt to this routine. It was not stressed at the time, but this test photo from the Webb telescope is a milestone. It was used to calibrate the panels. What’s not emphasized is this is one of the deepest space pictures ever taken. The objects with diffraction rays are stars. What’s more interesting is that all the other spots are not stars, but distant galaxies. There are at least 700 galaxies in this view.
Voyager 2 is still out there showing how little has been done in 45 years. I don’t like the system of measuring space probes from the time they begin operations, instead I consider the launch date. In this case, August 20, 1977. The two ships had nuclear electricity generators, but Voyager 1 had the less spectacular moves. Their initial missions done, these craft hurtled on past the planetary system into areas of radiation and gravitation and other invisible boundaries.
It was eight years ago (tomorrow, actually) that I went by sidecar to see a satellite launch in Titusville, Florida. Don’t waste your time. Every possible free view of the launch site is either no parking or blocked by tall trees planted for the purpose. Motel prices soar to 10x regular and parking on private property is prohibited. I found a coffee shop that let me sit on the terrace where it was possible to see the rocket after it was already in the air. But the launch was cancelled at the last moment. I never went back.
