March 12, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 12, 2022, sing with the audience.
Five years ago today: March 12, 2018, why I use a headset.
Nine years ago today: March 12, 2014, encryption vs passwords.
Random years ago today: March 12, 2005, test to capacity.

           What early start, I fell back asleep until past noon. Retirement can sometimes work in one’s favor. The discovery of that calendar distracted me enough to barely get started today. Let’s recap the activity. Late or not, we started off with pancakes, then out to the yard. I rearranged the birdbath and mister to where Mrs. Downey likes them best. She is either very friendly or very hungry these days. The red cardinals are so well-fed, they pick out only the best of what I offer. And so do the two squirrels who showed up.

           Already one of them is in the trap and ready for a little ride, in the late afternoon after the church traffic abates. This focused me on that trap from Agt. R with the missing parts. Since the mechanism was not obvious and nothing on-line, I devised my own trigger, shown here. It needs a little adjusting but that nail is the working part. You can just see the small chain on the far right, this is spring-loaded.

           This involved some light metal work, I may put together a video for you in a day or two. There’s a picture of meal filings as I drill holes for cotter pins through the real axle that’s going on this trap. I don’t know ho lost the working parts the last time but you’ll have to be a severe write-off to mess up this trap. I also reinforced part of the frame as these wire cages over time don’t like to stay rectangular. As shown, the trap is “over-set”, there will by a much smoother mechanism than that nail holding the latch open. This metal work is another regret for JZ, it was something we both wanted some experience with. And now that’s what I have. Some experience.

           Several of the electrical conduits are cut and ready but that could not be done indoors. It waits. That water tank needs two separate operations, the water and the electric. Both are roughed in but barely, as I did not know the final dimensions until I got the pipes. First the electric. I can’t find my best Black & Decker how-to book on the 220 wiring. Do I proceed without it?

           Up the ladder again, this time to secure the spot the squirrels were getting in. Sneaky, you can’t see it much from the ground. I leave a small dish of bait inside that anything mouse-sized or bigger will disturb and it was untouched this morning. All my worksheds have a dust problem because all have dirt floors. I’ve been spot clearing areas where I want to run the vacuum system but with dust-prone work spaces, am I asking for trouble. One item than collects dust you may not spot right away is electrical cords. I leave all my spares hanging on a rack by the north shed door and they get covered with a greasy dust found nowhere else.
           I’ve even had to set up a special wash station to keep these cords clean. One day I’ll research what causes that. The burn barrel was scheduled for today and it is still sitting there, laughing at me. The logic is straight up—lighting that fire means tending it for two hours minimum, and that extra six hour nap of this morning told me not to start any projects with a time factor.

Picture of the day.
Giant inflatable colon, Detroit.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
           Nine days ahead of schedule, we have a peach sprig. Shown here, this is two days old so I missed it y’day. Let me check the calendar, yep nine days earlier this year. The twig shows a whitish scale, which several sources say is an insect called snow scale. Looks like a fungus, but if it’s an insect, it’s days are numbered around here. One video showed a lady going over the entire tree with a toothbrush. I’m prepared to do that. I like my nice peach tree. Other instructions say spray with white oil, and this is the first time I ever heard of such a thing. I read up on it.

           Some sites say it is identical to mineral oil. But would not explain why there is such a large group specifically calling it white oil. If I go downtown after supper, I’ll keep an eye out. One thing we don’t want around here is citrus snow scale. Funny, with all the ladybugs and other predators in Florida how these infestations can even get out of control. What is that commotion outside? Ah, see, I told you Mrs. Downy like her shower mist and a pair of smaller birds mistakenly though she would share.
           Yard plants. The ones that get attention thrive. Then they all disappear when I go to Tennessee. I’ve again begun monitoring the periwinkle. The soil is right but they need watering, which I cannot guarantee. There has to be a compromise so I’m trying three different pot sizes and trimming back every stem after it flowers. I don’t understand how the one in Agt. R’s yard not that far away grows as a perfect bush and he never tends to it. He says he’s uprooted it and it still grows back.

           Going over the 2001 material is not as nostalgic for me as for, say, people who watch television. I can’t reminisce over M*A*S*H* because I’ve never seen more than a few reruns when there was nothing else to do, and I have no idea who Ali McGraw is. Other people I would not recognize on the street are Jimmie “Dy-No-Mite” Walker, Loni Anderson, and Ron Howard. I would sort of spot Faye Dunaway. I’ve never seen ChiPs or The Partridge Family. All this was in my lifetime 40 years ago. Let me pull up some states on 1983. That’s my first year I borrowed money. I visited Barbados and was stranded there when the US liberated (not invaded) Grenada.
           This was also the year I committed to the $19.34 extra pension fee that paid off so handsomely. People told me to buy a color TV, which would have cost me $400. Gas was about a buck a gallon, but I had no car. Houses in Seattle cost $72,000. I strongly disapproved of NASA sending non-astronauts into space as a publicity stunt. I did not like Frankie Avalon because even at an early age I knew the name was made up. But that haircut, it became a standing joke in my circles.

           What’s this, another bank has been seized? Signature Bank. I avoided them because of exposure to cyber-currency. Watch the left claim it is all Trump’s fault because he “deregulated”. Wrong, Trump told these banks they could no longer disguise their bad decisions and policies behind federal regulations. He warned them to clean up their acts because no more bailouts and expensive government oversight to babysit them. Of course, the worst banks will whine, look at Silicon. They tried to bolster the Biden regime with the claim that inflation was low. They invested, I hear, nearly $30 billion in 1.8% bonds knowing damn well the true rate of inflation was ten times that. You can’t fix stupid.
           What’s likely happening is investors, spooked by the Silicon collapse, have begun withdrawing their real money. When the bank can’t cover the withdrawals, it is called a bank run. It is more a symptom than a cause following the FTX scandal. It’s an empty threat, most Americans don’t have any real money in the bank in the first place. Most of the people hurt are likely to be speculators and the idle rich. So don’t be expecting any outpouring of sympathy. Few are surprised the bank failures come hard on the heels of the released J6 tapes.
           Meanwhile, the story grows as the list of names of depositors who lost big continues to grow. Some say King Charles and the royals had millions in Silicon. This amid tales that he is seeking to downsize the royal family, partly by not leaving his $900 million in assets to anybody not on the closest terms. About time, if you ask me. Five or eight royals is enough for anybody.

ADDENDUM
           I say it is fake until proven, but here is a picture of Oprah throwing a fit. The rumor says she had a half-billion dollars in the Silicon bank and had to be physically restrained. If true, this could not happen to a better person, for she funded a bank with the woke agenda. Go woke, go broke, said President Trump. Personally, I hope it is true as the news is now arriving from all directions. Let’s just say, if she has any real talent and it was not all dumb luck, she’ll make it back in no time, won’t she now?

           Let’s look at the bright side, Winnie. Remember that time they threw your black ass out of the purse store in Europe because they thought you were a bad lady? They thought you were poor. Well, now you are BWAAAAAAAAA. Oprah, everybody’s favorite woketard bigmouth. If I might point something out. It seems certain big investors pulled their cash out of Silicon bank quite recently. Were they tipped off? No. They did something you know that I do all the time—watch how long it takes for transactions to clear. These days it should be instant. I turn a blind eye on Caltier’s five days because they spell it out.

           Last for today, I tweaked one of my code practice apps to stress learning the gaps between words. This has been a weak spot for years, since words then to end when they to, but not code. I have trouble with anything following an e, i, or s, and following a t and m. Quirks are expected in this hobby. The news is this small change has resulted in a surprising increase in overall accuracy. I did not notice this at first. My practice is two minute segments. With that eentsy increase maybe 1/20th second between words, my accuracy improved to the point I am regularly breaking my barrier of 60 characters without an error.

Last Laugh