June 22, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: June 22, 2022, none commonly available.
Five years ago today: June 22, 2018, slightly oily Florida smog.
Nine years ago today: June 22, 2014, robots are expensive.
Random years ago today: June 22, 2013, Tommy, Taylor, Justin.

           Happy Barbarossa Day. Did you catch that article on how motels have become the refuge of the homeless? It’s become a break from the shelters for street people who can afford it. I call them Paki motels and the featured location was Barstow, California. Once a regular stop for gas on my youthful journeys, the town typifies the seedy motel. They’ve become a haven for those who can’t deal with the hostels and shelters. Mind you, there’s nothing like coming from a large family to make the intelligent crave solitude.

           My opinion? Serves them right, the hardest part of getting un-poor was that sort of people. The can’t get ahead without shafting others and assume the same of you when they fail. Don’t tell me about poverty, I know those motels cost around $200 per week, more than I’ve ever paid in rent. There’s that, and the way these homeless people all have an attitude in common. Or $63 per day. There is no real poverty in America.

           But there is being broke, and we are broke. Spent all the extra bucks on getting some help around here. Now we have to dip into savings, first time in seven years. To show how easily distracted I am by things I find novel, I went over some of the wiring from the failed antenna circuits of early club days. It’s tempting to have another go, which depends on building a successful butterfly capacitor. This time I’d focus on a “tank” antenna of the best quality I can manage.
           The pinch-switch I want goes through the process, a part of which it so find anything that might already work. The result is this picture of a relay from an old pinball machine. I’m holding the contact mechanism that closed the circuit. It’s rusty but a quick once-over with a file and it works perfectly. I’ll salvage the copper in the background if I can’t get the solenoid to unseize. The contact is two strips of springy wire sandwiched between some wood, a simpler design than I had in mind which involved bending the metal.

           Now it’s already 10:00PM and I’m not underway. Here’s a photo of my ersatz Bluetooth™, this is the pinboard for my prototype. It’s a circuit I don’t understand, but easily build. It takes any the aux-out from anything plugged into it to broadcast it on FM via a tiny coil of copper wire. Frequency is changed by adding more coils. Sometimes it changes by itself. As I said, I don’t get it. I don’t build many of these circuits. This one gets mention because I’m out of fingernail polish. Huh? Once I get a circuit working right, it gets “hardened off” with a coating of clear fingernail polish which I used to buy at the flea market. That source is now gone.

           I’ve discovered hair gel does a good waterproof job once it dries. The trouble is, it is hard to tell when it is dry. There are three tins in the shed seeing if any of the leftover chemicals I have will work as catalyst. And where is my hand grinder? I know it isn’t in Tennessee. Listen, 80% humidity or not, I’ve got to get out outside this morning. Howie was over and we talked carburetors. He’s repaired them a lot and now to put it simply, even the best models on small engines are temperamental. Let’s plan for two hours outside and if we don’t melt, we’ll call it a day. I’m retired for crying out loud.

           Is the Internet acting up? Except for major sites, all my links time out. I was searching for the manual on that Bissell, model 2191. It seems in good order. Not wanting to commit to a larger project for the day, I dismantled the air conditioner that fried in the storm. It seems the motors are fragile in the sense they can’t be left outdoors, even in the original metal casing. I’ve got is on the bench but it’s seized. I carefully removed it from the wall and placed it upright on wooden blocks, where it would experience the same conditions. And it seems to be rusted out.
           I removed DuckDuckGo, it was causing trouble. This allowed me to find the Bissell is the cheapest of their product line, the one sold at Wal*Mart™ for $60. The good news is the belt is only $8.50. The European telescope, “Euclid” is near ready to blast off from Florida in ten days. It is intended to study dark matter, but not expected to answer many questions. Dark matter is a substance that theoretically has to exist for current theories of the universe to hold up. It reminds of how, before Michelson-Morley, they had to speculate the universe was full of ether. Often called lumeniferous aether, as far as I’m concerned this dark matter serves the same purpose.

Picture of the day.
Reggio Calabra, Italy.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           It’s been unsettled with rain drops all morning, so I worked inside. I leaned up the solenoid, it’s now soaking in oil. I made a small rack for my resistors, which I discovered fit in my new pill bottles. By 2:00PM, a bit early in the day, it’s coming down in sheets and I’m not going out there to close the shed doors. Both have eaves so they’ll be fine. It’s a thunderstorm, with the reports every 30 seconds, horizon to horizon. So, we took apart a tiny 3-gang variable capacitor and found it mysteriously wired with tiny components, smallest I’ve ever seen. I would not want to be the solder jockey putting those together.

           The pencil nib gives a good view of how tiny these pieces are. Alas, they were jarred lose over time but they were once soldered to the wings of a variable capacitor. That tells me they were present to smooth or filter a signal. It’s way beyond me but the original piece of equipment must have been something quite important to warrant this kind of treatment. All this while watching an installment of josemonkey, he’s the guy that people challenge to find them based on a video. The guy is sharp, but the people are equally unsharp. He’s observant of background objects, yet nobody seems to have figured out to send him red herrings.

           Parts of the missing billionaire sub have been found, parts that are normally bolted to the hull. The thing imploded if you ask me. The consensus is curiosity, not any pity for the billionaires. The builder made a point to not hire “White men over 50” and now he’s dead. Later, information is arriving that navy sono-bouys picked up the sound of an implosion just under two hours into the dive. Debris has been found about a quarter-mile from the Titanic’s bow. Mind you, it is the same general type of debris that went missing from an earlier unmanned expedition. They are not alive and living on Epstein Island. Let’s hope this doesn’t lead to another generation of Loch Ness and Elvis tabloids.

           One thing already obvious. The navy knew about the implosion last Sunday. They did nto release the news until today to distract from the Hunter “traffic ticket” penalty. He commits multiple felonies and gets only a pat on the wrists. It’s a worn-out Democrat trick that still fools a few. All this media means I still have not gone shopping. So I made muffins out of what I had. Cranberries, coconut flakes, sunflower seeds, melted butter, eggs, almond milk, and some kind of gluten-free flour from a blue and brown package. What an aroma, see, now I have to make coffee. Good food around here rarely happens in isolation.

           Another documentary on the Middle East concerning establishment of the first Israeli territory. None of these works emphasize the significance of Israel becoming a nation. It is not entirely a political and religious status in this instance. There was a big rush to meet the criteria but what is the real motive? I’ve mentioned it before, but long ago. It is because only nations are allowed to purchase military equipment. Up to 1947, the Arab nations could buy tanks, planes, and machine guns. The Israelis had to rely on small arms and what they could smuggle or manufacture locally.
           They were immediately attacked by the surrounding Arabs who knew the urgency but forgot their armies were trained mainly for parades and torture. The Israelis embarked on a twenty year shopping spree and had an enormous pool of European-trained officers to hone the latest versions of blitzkreig. Initially the French supplied the latest weapons, designed by Germans and built in state-owned factories. And the Israelis had definitely noticed how the Germans had held back the Soviets for years despite having only a few hundred operational tanks on a given day.

ADDENDUM
           I reviewed some of my own bass posts over the years. It’s a story too long to tell. But I do have three moments that stand out. First was a band I saw when I was 17, the bass player was twice the age of the other members. It was plain the band had trouble keeping a bassist their own age and that guy was the best I’d ever heard up to then and a long while since. That’s the guy who, when I saw a video of myself decades later, I realize I had become—at least in looks and demeanor. He’s also the one who caused me to mistakenly think good bass players would always be in demand.
           The second incident was the standing ovation I missed. The last time I played in a “studio band”, we played an airline staff convention. At the end, as the singer was introducing the band, I was tired and turned back toward my amp when the rest of the band started calling my name. I looked up to see what the fuss was about, and the singer kicked the spotlight switch. I saw the whole room cheering and chanting “bass man”. You bet it floored me. Up to that point all night there was no indication anyone was even listening to me. And the last was a mini-concert I went to in Ft. Lauderdale because I got free tickets. The former singer of some big band put on the show and I got in for helping to set up the chairs. It was all okay but this time I saw a bassist half my age play a flawless set—and it was cold that day. He never missed a note, something I pride myself in. One could sense the guy had taken lessons, but that he’d gone the extra mile. After that, instead of keeping up standards, I now strive for that kind of performance no matter what the rest of the band does. (This is not to be confused with over-playing or out-playing the band. That's not doing your best.)
           I’ve had other moments, but those are the three formative ones. A standing ovation, and two other bass players, one twice my age, the other half. In each case, one song they played stands out. The old guy played “Funk #49”, I played “Last Train To Clarksville”, and the youngster played “Some Kinda Wonderful”.

Last Laugh