One year ago today: February 17, 2022, a little all the time.
Five years ago today: February 17, 2018, workin’ away.
Nine years ago today: February 17, 2014, Miami Beach.
Random years ago today: February 17, 2013, 60 friggen Amps!
I was there at 8:00AM but the parts weren’t. Same old story, the computer says the parts are there, so nobody goes back to check. But I have the two spare keys, that’s peace of mind. Reminds me of the guy who dropped his car keys down the grate, but could not lift the grate because he was parked on it. The KIA showroom staff tells me I have celebrity status there. The guy who comes prepared to wait and doesn’t watch TV. They were, it seems, intrigued by my books on navigation, electronics, robotics, and the way I hand-write personal letters. The desk over by the coffee machine is now called my “office”. Good morning.
This photo is nothing until you find it in your yard. Something at night is prowling around big enough to tip over these pieces of wood. There was no wind overnight, so it is some animal. Sometimes inside the house, you hear a crash or two but tree limbs falling is so common it doesn’t warrant going outside in the dark to investigate.
I decided to stay put, in this case watching a video on NASA and why they have not returned to the Moon in fifty years. This video has no date, but it must be recent because of information revealed. For example, they can’t have that much money again because America has squandered the post-war boom money on welfare and other government waste. The video makes a lot of valid points but still comes across as making excuses. Do they think we don’t know it is a dangerous trip or that there are always cost overruns? When I hear that, I’m prone to think the real reason is the latest generations have no Neil Armstrongs.
Don’t scoff, there is not a single level-headed go-getter I could name in the world today with the qualifications to be the next space hero. Bravery isn’t enough and I suspect even that is lacking. There is also bureaucratic bloat, NASA wants $144 billion for a manned mission, which is bullshit and proven by Musk’s attempt which so far is rated at $5 billion. It’s cringe-worthy listening to NASA try to justify costs. Most disgusting is NASA “surveys” which they claim show Americans don’t care about going to the Moon. Hell, it was the best PR stunt ever devised. (NASA even lamely tries putting about that Americans want the Moon money spent on climate change.)
There’s more. NASA claims today’s youth don’t dream of being astronauts. Well, duh, maybe it doesn’t pay enough? Says NASA, more kids want to become successful youTubers. Yep, that’s public school indoctrination for you. I lived through the shift in priorities, I watched the far left Balkanize the right. I myself am part of that divisiveness. I see my group as having its own right gnawed away by special interests. Put another way, I’ll go fight a war for America, but I will not fight for some queer’s right to wear high heels at the bus stop.
We are 50 years behind schedule. The ridiculous shuttle program allowed huge segments of the heavy launch and Moon technology to lapse. Not one new rocket since the Saturn V, about 55 years ago. With private firms outplaying them by stupefying margins, NASA is heading for a shameful conclusion if they miss the Moon this time. The most annoying thing in these videos is the lack of consistency. One millennial expert after another going on about what can’t be done and in the next breath warn that the Chinese are doing it. No shame, these pundits.
Typewriter art.
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The warmer weather isn’t giving me as much relief as before. I still managed to put in two hours. The time limit doesn’t seem to matter doing electrical work. Probably because I’m standing and now walking much. I finished the two switched outlets in the work shed, one for the fan and another for the vacuum when I find time. These are actually double switched for safety. The main lighting bank as to be on for them to work, but once on, these two new switches can be operated independently. I’m tending more to these type of switched circuits in the workshop. That is, outlets that are controlled by a separate switch. The entire shed complex can be killed with a single switch from inside the cabin.
How’s my catapult design coming along? The challenge is the trigger mechanism. It has to be rugged enough to stay outdoors, easy to reset, and not get in the way when the trap releases. Not so easy, since the sling is on of the catapult arm and that is where the switch is logically located. For you medieval experts, the arm is what you would call the beam. Unable to find good designs on-line, I’m conjuring up some sort of balanced weight.
Say a brick, which is heavy enough to operate a latch mechanism, but which can be balanced to match the weight of a squirrel. In between all this, I salvaged a switch from an old dust sweeper thinking it would make a good Morse key. Instead, I got introduced to a practical concern- operator fatigue. The spring was just a tad too strong, requiring too much pressure to maintain sending more than a few minutes. You can, but you have to shift position. That’s where you find out the spaces between the dashes and dots are also part of the signal and you should keep that consistent.
Taking inventory of scrap lumber, there is enough to build a target practice range against the back fence. I’ve wanted one for years. Scrap is not the right word, I have a marked saw deck that I save pieces only longer than two feet. There are smaller pieces of high quality wood used for making boxes, which is another hobby I’m behind on. Ah, but considering the idle do-nothingness that so many retirees fall into, I should be thankful that I never have nothing to do.
Bradford called, he wants to jam at Kooters, but I know not to jam and play on consecutive nights and we have a rehearsal at noon tomorrow. Besides, setting up an amp isn’t something I do for fun any more. I’ve learned the Yoakum tune “It Only Hurts Me When I Cry”, which has one of his usual studio bass lines, easy to kick into high gear by adding one or two extra notes per phrase. Which I’ve already done.
I’m finished listening to the BTK audiobook. I’ve never bought into that theory that bad guys are possessed by demons or that some event in their childhood set them off. All of it sounds too cliché for me, I will never believe two people can be insane in exactly the same way. It took the cops 31 years to catch the guy and the story is a good lesson why you never talk to or trust cops any more. As mentioned, they had a whale of a time collecting evidence on totally innocent people the knew were not connected to the crimes. Troublemakers quickly caught on they could phone in anonymous tips about people they did not like and the cops would shake them down. I’ll wager in later years dozens of those poor saps found out the hard way that a police “interview” is nothing of the kind.
The final two disks are about the hard time the police and reporters went through. How hampered they were by constraints like warrants, privacy laws, Constitutional rights, and all manner of rules that they could not do as they please. Part of the disk goes on about how all the investigators keep trying to find a cause or explanation, usually seeking some ordinary childhood event the killer didn’t adjust to right. The found nothing and I say that is because, unlike me, they never accept that so many people are just plain garden-variety evil assholes to begin with. And 99% of them are men who couldn’t score in a woman’s prison.
Next, I’m watching an excellent horror mystery called “Bad Samaritan”, about two valets who take the customer’s vehicles and rob houses. The find one that has a torture chamber with a live girl. Excellent novel theme, great acting so far. As long as you can imagine people in Portland having Irish accents, the plot moves along great. And finally, screw these millennials. They are so fucked up they don’t know it. Another quirk of the Caltier fund is millennial log-on screens. To make a transfer, you go through a repetitious nine-step process each time. Some of the screens have “Continue” icons, some don’t. Near the end there is a screen that replaces the “Continue” icon in the same location with “Remove Bank Account”. You guessed it, I got millennialized.
Now, you go back to redo the link and the PLAID screen comes up with “Enter ID”. Is that the Bank ID, the Caltier ID, or the PLAID ID? Also, there are several IDs associated with the bank and Caltier, such as account number, on-line banking ID, account name, and so on. If you guess the right one, you go though the same process again with the passcode text box. It turns out to not be an ID number at all, but the number on your bank card. Fucking millennials. And you just know they recorded the info from all your wrong tries.
ADDENDUM
I took a very close look at boutique banks, and it is not what it appears. Federal law does say you cannot limit certain types of information, but it also leaves that up to the individual bank. I have yet to see a bank that chooses to not give out that info under any circumstances except when forced to do so by a search warrant. Any bank which freely hands out your account balance, credit and payment history, and your transactions is not your friend. All other items on their “privacy policy” become meaningless.
Also, be aware that banks continue to “share” this information forever, even if you become no longer a customer. Another sordid catch is the banks universally decree that you cannot limit their “right” to advertise to you, nor their “affiliates”. This opens up the can of worms that says they can do anything because those affiliates are beyond the reach of the privacy policy. The banks behaves as if advertising is above the law and eliminates any suggestion that you can say no. This factor seems permanently entrenched in the mindset of every bank in America.
I chose Nashville’s Studio Bank to look deepest into. The one item that makes them semi-unique is they claim that while you cannot limit sharing with affiliates, that they have no affiliates. However, they collect the identical information they would if they did AND reserve the right to become affiliates with whomever they please without your knowledge or consent. I would point out that collecting and storing this volume of information on you is not a cheap and easy prospect, and they would not do it unless there is some hidden agenda.
One more item, if you “become no longer a customer”, none of the collected data on you is subject to privacy any longer. It becomes their information to do with as they please. You can be sure any entity that does through so much trouble to not be straightforward with you is up to no good.
