One year ago today: September 2, 2022, pallet profiles, duh.
Five years ago today: September 2, 2018, no band on Labor Day . . . .
Nine years ago today: September 2, 2014, early Arduino.
Random years ago today: September 2, 2006, carrots, sigh.
Let’s see what we can find for adventure today. That probably means what is possible in the yard, we are already sapped by the morning humidity. A quick recap before the sun comes up. The baby raccoons have been rounded up, probably by the city. I think the cowbird has finally moved on. Two squirrels have returned, they are not as noisy. The release catches on the rear seats of the van don’t work right. JZ still has no e-mail. Ray-B remains convinced he has COVID. We are having rice for breakfast in a few hours. And see addendum for some studies on the old war in Rhodesia.
This is why I’m looking forward to spending a day in my shed. Let’s recap the work. I’m almost done the spline jig. It’s all out of scraps but it’s not that complicated or fancy, you’ll see from the photo it just holds the corner of a picture frame at a 45° angle to the table saw. If this works well, then I plan a wider piece that will cut splines for box corners. Like sawhorses and clamps, you never have enough solid wooden boxes. Yeah, what I really never have time for is the work that needs doing.
Here I am later testing the jig. It took a while and there are still some adjustments. This is pretty much how it works. The only part you can’t see is the backing, where I built a rail that fits over the fence and that is what this assembly is sliding along. To get the two cuts equal, just flip the piece over.
NPR is reduced to little more than apologizing for the mess of things thanks to Biden. They are strained to put a positive spin on things like the border—they actually claim the border is secure. Figure that one. What’s always struck me as odd is if the corrupt tyrants want to take over, why are they destroying the middle class that produced all the wealth they are after? I suppose if they wanted to return to the feudal system, it kind of follows. But they must be smart enough to know if they try that, somebody is going to outsmart them. That’s what happened to the last feudal system when they discovered the scientific method.
As for Biden, he showed up in Florida to a chorus of jeers and profanity. He was quickly hustled away from the crowds that lined the roads in an ugly mood. The message was very clear, FJB. The motorcade kind of sped up and away to some secluded backyard where they privately taped a climate change commentary. Biden did not mention his reception.
PPP
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These give a good view of the spline joint in progress. Once the jib is set, a series of passes results in these slots across the corners. At this time, they are held by pins and this is a mockup. A real box would have the pieces of hardboard glued into the slots and trimmed flush with one of them fancy Japanese draw saws. I’m happy with the results even if I made a raft of mistakes you can’t see. I would also like to try this on picture frames, where the slot is a bigger portion of the thickness. This box was assembled as shown, I’m tempted to try building the entire next box first, then installing the splines just before the lid is cut.
While I agree children should be protected from the worst of the porno, I believe that is the job of the parents, not society, and certainly not the school system. There was sex education when I was in school, but it was all about how to get pregnant and nothing about how not to. Wrecked a lot of lives, that one. And, when there was any information about birth control, it was heavily critical of recreational sex and kept pushing marriage and religion. It does not surprise me how many of my contemporaries got it wrong, and worse, got even weirder when they figured out they’d been played.
The country is in an ugly mood over what Biden did to prices. It’s recognized now that he canceled the pipeline and such in order to channel money through the Democrat laundering system. We all knew it was going on but before Trump it was at least covert. He cut my retirement in half, the things I buy have doubled. I had a buffer built in and a plan to increase my income by $500 per month. Most people have no plans and no such options. I calculate that $500 is enough to distance me from those who cannot afford it at all, a cruel but factual approach. For clarity, that amount puts me ahead of enough people who could not buy basics that prices would have to fall.
This does not include any potential income from the duo. I report the new guy is keeping up and we have another practice tomorrow at his place. The conclusion is the pavilion will be in use for the big weekend. Well, big for some, to me it’s nothing but a day off without pay. I’ve got the PA system (Fishman) in the van and I’ve dug up the old Beringer rip-off mixer, six channels my eye. I’m taking all this gear into the shed tomorrow for a thorough cleaning with compressed air. I broke a string on my acoustic and I can’t find my spare microphone. The Prez reports he’s got himself a [guitar] pickup. That means we’ll be testing out stage sounds, but I’ve got that down pat.
For most people who would join a band, their own personal equipment is bought and paid for. The biggest expense is driving to practice and commuting to gigs. So any money that comes in is prioritized to make up for the cost of the gasoline. Part-timing in a band usually means up to four gigs per month (fewer and I don’t take you seriously). So the first thing most of new people notice is they have four tanks of gas and that’s more than they need for the band. See the effect? Now they have three extra tanks of gas per month and everybody likes that. Tanking up my KIA these days is $75.
Here’s the peach tree, still thriving but not producing. At least we know why. It seems to have survived most conditions and the leaves are as big as they ever get. I have hopes for the avocado but all literature indicates they are a slow-growing plant. As in twenty years or so. If the past four days are totaled, we’ve had over 9 inches of rain and the ground in the whole yard has been soaked. There are no signs the plants don’t like it but common sense says these are not swamp species.
Now, I’m not saying today’s crop of computer users are idiots. But consider this. Why would anyone do a search on how to disable the “Windows Genuine” message? Try it. The top responses are from MicroSoft containing directions on how to contact them and pay them a few hundred dollars. It’s not the idiotic message that’s scary, but that there must actually be enough stupid users out there to make it worthwhile for Redmond.
ADDENDUM
The war in Rhodesia against Black communist takeover is an embarrassment to all civilized people. We let a nation fall by backing factions that had no claim or legitimacy in the area. I thought I would find some unbiased accounts of what happened, but every source on-line was anti-White and anti-Rhodesian. All were laced with language that is being repeated today against White America. My goal was to research stats on the military operations against the communist guerilla forces that were raiding into Rhodesia from neighboring countries.
It would seem that Britain and America, champions of independence and self-determination, would side with the Rhodesians who built the country and the economy. And that claims of Black ownership would be scoffed, since the tribes committing all the raids had homelands elsewhere. Instead, the international community imposed sanctions and boycotts, and cut off supply lines.
The historical coverage was not accurate at all. They went on about how the Rhodesian declaration of independence was “illegal” and how the mercenaries fighting alongside the Rhodesian army were misfits and liked looking for trouble. I was quite young at the time but remember darn well most of the Rhodesian military was conducting killing raids in reprisal for atrocities committed against White farmers. The Black terrorist attacks against defenseless civilians is constantly referred to as an “insurgency”. This was a foretaste of South Africa.
As for the land belonging to Blacks, the horror story of what happened to Rhodesia once the White’s left is all the documentary needed to define the last half of the 1900s. Complete chaos and descent from a major economy to near-subsistence and hopelessness. From grain exporter to starvation levels. Inflation percentages measured in the thousands and disease statistics so horrific they cannot be published. Some say that is America’s destiny, but once again there is the unknown factor. The average person in Rhodesia did not own a gun.
I was hoping to find out what tactics were used, since I had read that there were, per unit, more parachute drops in Rhodesia than any other military ever. Nope, not a word. The parallels for South Africa were all present, though. It will always surprise me that South Africa did not pull back behind the Karoo or some other natural barrier and stem the flow. Instead, they squabbled for decades that removing the Black laborers would destroy their economy. Idiots. Now they have no economy.
What I found interesting was the desertion rates. The magazine “Soldier of Fortune” regularly ran ads for mercenaries and most came from America, France, Britain, and Albania. (Albania had an exiled King who was, predictably, very anti-communist.) The Rhodesians allowed them to bring their own weapons and the Viet Nam war was winding down. While overal desertion rates were low, almost 2/3rds of the Americans ran for it. Turns out they were expecting the luxury and pleasures of Saigon and didn’t take to having to actually go out and fight. Note, less than one American in ten in Viet Nam saw any enemy or action.
The Frenchies repeated their performance at Dien Bien Phu. They lacked discipline, continually needed help extracting themselves, and eventually walked away and took the reputation of “Legionnaires” with them. Another shameful outcome was the conditions for Black majority rule at the end. Very little about how the Blacks would take over and run the economy, only about how the Whites would still do all the work and pay all the taxes.
It’s the same situation as today. These people think once they take over the welfare checks are going to continue. The Time magazine photos of the “peace settlement” look ridiculous today, with “The Three M’gubes” posed in plainly uncomfortable (for them) suits and ties next to a totally professional Ian Smith who knows exactly what’s going on. The Whites leave and foreign aid takes over because the liberals over here can’t see past the surface. They seem to have this theory that once Whites become a minority, they will continue to work and pay taxes into a system that now benefits people who hate their guts. The raw fact is there is only one society in history that has produced enough of a surplus for all, but it seems they can only do it when you let them run the show.
