May 13, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: May 13, 2022, Chloe in the morning.
Five years ago today: May 13, 2018, car travel lacks.
Nine years ago today: May 13, 2014, travel log to Winter Haven.
Random years ago today: May 13, 2013, a ton of advice.

           This is the very definition of a nice day off. I fed the cats, counting 12, but it’s likely more like 16 as some ferals won’t come out from under the house around people. Let’s see what we can get accomplished today, that’s much better for relaxation than lounging around. It’s astounding the summer rains have not begun. Right now, I can work inside. After today, I will be able to work outside no matter how badly it rains. This doesn’t solve the problem of when I have to dash across the yard for a tool or tack. But one of the standing Florida snags is the number of conditions that will stop you from finishing a project. This lowers that count by one.

           Start the morning with this dramatic view of the Downey woodpecker at the sunflower feeder. These are the only pair in my menagerie that sample every feeder every day. The angle of the sun made the shadows just right for this angle, for once I didn’t miss the shot. Today we get the roof on the north work area and move the chopsaw under it. So far it is only luck that I have never forgotten to pull the tarp over that saw in case it rains. I’m purposely going to overbuild that spot using some of the salvaged fence lumber.

           Introducing Saw Pony Mk II. (Ken, that’s Roman, not “eleven”.) It’s progress which I’ll point out the parts you might not see. The first panel shows two of the best advancements. On top is small template mark “2023”. It’s a spacer to make sure the legs are not set too far in that someone foolish enough to stand on the sawhorse would flip. The major difference is the crossbeam is 24” instead of 16”. (Normal size sawhorse dimension is 30”.) I found the 50% longer pieces made it easier to saw a standard panel, where you kneel on the wood. The less noticeable, but more important change is the clamp, see it?

           The clamp is totally empirical, derived from thinking about what went right. It’s kind of the opposite of feedback over what went wrong, but I learned a thing or two about robots. What the clamp is for, let me put it this way, have you ever noticed that lumber, like some women, waits till you get it home before being less than cooperative. There you have it. The clamp coaxes the lumber back to its original promise of true good form. One of the robot club truisms is that when something goes right, don’t presume it’s because of something you did.
           Peering at the work on the table, you may note how clean the pieces fit. During the learning process, I was subconsciously picking the best pieces to match up. Since then, I’ve got any stubborn crossbeams squeezed into perfect shape and the clamp left in place while I attach the legs. The picture also shows the rearrangement of screws into triangle patterns for strength, see how two of the screws are not buried yet? That is done when the opposite leg is attached so the 3-1/2” screws bite a 1/2” into the other side when all tightened down.

           This was a half-gallon peach tea project. The Mark IIs are also more stable to throw plants across, to which they were immediately employed getting the plywood onto the canopy, shown here. Part of the discount was the way you see this plywood is separating because it got wet. It is dry now and all the plies will be screwed back into place, which I hope to accomplish before dark but I’m getting tired and it is only 3:00PM.
           The squirrels are hungry and they are irate. What, they are hungry, you got food, what’s the matter with you? Hand it over. I’ve noticed they won’t let go of the bird feeders, constantly probing for a method. One is to jump from nearby limbs or structures and grab onto the feeder. They most they get is some spilled seed. I can’t stop them from crawling over everything in their attempts, but I’ve noticed something. While getting away, they will jump to anything they can, but not so when they are incoming.
           There is a narrow band of heights from which they can make a successful leap. Up to now, I’ve sought methods to stop all approaches, but now I’m thinking about placing flashing on the areas where they can make the jump. It’s maybe a foot of leeway. Prevent a successful launch and you’ve won the next round.

Picture of the day.
1884 Victor
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           By 3:15PM, I need a break. Here’s a view of the new tower fan, much quieter but moving somewhat less air. It has a feature I didn’t seek that turns out pretty nice. It’s called sleep mode. One button and it turns the fan on full blast for an hour till you are asleep. Then another hour at medium, and then low until you wake up and shut it off. The concept works surprisingly well as more than once we’ve all had to get up and turn down a fan that was blasting too much in the wee hours.

           Thanks to the air lines, it is far easier to keep a nice clean work area. Dust, both wood and dirt, are a constant in my sheds, which are not sealed to the outside and all have big circulation fans. I installed a cut-off valve to the front shed, no need to have that line full except when in use. That small release knob was for draining water, but I left it where I could easy reach it from the light switches and drain the tank. That gave me an idea.

           As you release the air, there’s a spot where the pressure causes a whistle. Hmmm, remember that novelty train horn I bought out near Sarasota a couple years ago? I think I know where it is. All we need is a creative idea. I’ve additionally thought I might put a timer on that compressor. More than once I’ve not noticed the red warning light during the day and heard the motor cut in after I was back in the house. I could just hook up a “noon whistle” but there’s a germ of a better idea just out of reach here.

           While you’re thinking, come up with a solution to another new circumstance. The north canopy is great for being in the shade and it is already easier to work—except when there is a dead calm. No breeze at all and the heat becomes uncomfortable in moments. You have free rein to come up with anything. The mid-afternoons here tend toward these doldrums, just a dead dank heat and high humidity. Hurry up so we can get rich.
           Here are the pieces of 3/4" lumber destined for practice on the miter joint bit. One step I’ve never done is build two identical boxes at the same time. At least part of these pieces will be my stab at that. Okay, I tried an hour’s break, no dice, I need a sleep. Back by 4:30PM, after a nap.

           We got some work done, including bracing the old fence and cutting the old rails to reinforce the entire back portion of the work area. The lumber was so old the nails would not pull, so I pounded them in, took twenty minutes. But my heavy nail-pounding days are over so be glad this much happened. All this time, I’m pondering, those squirrels are still here. If they were not getting some kind of food, they’d move on, unless the squirrel population is determined by other factors. Remember that dashcam I got for $3? Found it. The jack is one of those old T-shapes you can’t find anymore. Fortunately, I saw that one coming and have a bag full of them.. Here we go.
           The tiny printing is no match for my cameras, we have a Pilot Model 802. Made in Vietnam, so it is a higher tech place than America these days. I popped the mini-SD card and it is 8 gigs, so what’s that? Three hours? This is going too easy. Some millennilal xyzer has to screw things up. Okay, the camera won’t allow settings to be accessed when connected to a computer. That’s a total fuck-up right there. I can see it has the standard three modes. Camera, video, and record. Let’s go on-line, but that’s putting faith in even more millennials.

           Sure enough, the manual is discontinued. Typical. I tested and got the audio to record, also two pictures be they are stuck in 720 dpi. That’s pretty crappy for a dash cam. Nor will it show the format. But something that blurry is probably audio-visual interlace. I’ll try that later. Most of these recorders take three minute bites. These things get donated once the internal battery no longer holds a charge. I’ll use my old tablet battery pack. Here it is. Yes, it is AVI and three minute. Squirrel wars is about to get scientific.

           Another Olympic athlete, this time in Winter Garden (about 60 miles from here) dropped dead. I thought I’d look at the report because the title mentioned the death rate. Instead, the entire article was about how all the deaths occurred “after Trump announced Operation Warp Speed”. No mention that almost all the dead got the vaccine due to the mandates imposed by the Biden administration. And they wail that nobody trusts the science.
           I’ll tell you who else is stupid. The millennials who design websites for components. There has never been any collaboration between manufacturers of electronics. Hence, the stupidest thing you could do is mix all their products together and sort them by number. That is how every site operates. I was looking for a 4013, an uncommon PCB for a scanner. Be prepared to have your time wasted. You’ll get sites that say they have it, but you are presented with a database dump of every other component that starts with a 4, sometimes thousands of pages of garbage to scroll past. After a while you just accept that is how these people actually think. Probably any other organization system would be better, but sorting is the first one they teach at Computers 101.

ADDENDUM
           Trivia. Because they were once so expensive, wristwatches sold my jewelry stores can often have strange names. So it is with “bezel”, which is the casing of the watch. The material is usually an alloy but it is the absolute cheapest alloy possible at the time of manufacture. Apparently that’s almost the entire market, and calling it “base metal” sounds better than “zinc”. I replaced by wristwatch today and it was with a design I know to be at least thirty years old, possibly forty.
           I’ve never been keen on wristwatch fashion and I snigger at the eBay sites that do a trade in older non-working Rolexes. Hey, for all I know there are women out there who pick their men on this basis, but I rarely even drive through that part of town. Here is the FDOGE001, the first digital model I ever owned. I believe this is the same model I wore since the 1980s at least. All through Point Roberts, California, Washington, and now Florida, the price has stayed the same throughout, at less than $10. (The same model sells on-line for $22 plus shipping.)
           Never a fan of expensive watches because of their failure rate, I still shied away from digital readouts for many reasons. The average watch lasts me around six years and I occasionally find one around, usually with a broken wrist band. Most often the battery dies and a whole new wristwatch is comparable in price to replacing it. By coincidence, when one of these watches gives out, it tends to be when I am on holidays, so the longest times I’ve not had one is because I had to buy something more expensive overseas. This watch is available in gold and silver finish at Wal*Mart™. Myself, I don’t care for yellow watches but that might change if it was real gold.

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