September 20, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: September 20, 2022, it’s over, they said . . . .
Five years ago today: September 20, 2018, the rule that applies.
Nine years ago today: September 20, 2014, Win 8.1 sucks.
Random years ago today: September 20, 2008, mystery gold strike.

           Thirty years later and printer ink is still expensive, that’s successful lobbying. I’m no scientist [I forget why I wrote that], so I had to get downtown to buy the ink to print the letter and then get ripped off at the post office. No wonder they are going broke. When I’m over by the tracks, I check for pallets. Nothing today, instead I found this metal chair in excellent condition. It’s not the clearest picture but it rests on two springs that make it into a wonderfully comfortable “rocking” chair. Here it is beside my two remaining agave cactii that have not sprouted. This is one very comfortable chair.

           On the return leg, I found a pile of concrete “half-blocks” in new condition. Finally, I have my pieces to make a barrier around my peach tree. That’s a maybe, since I picked up the best ones only and they could wind up as most anything around here. The air waves are electrified over Trump’s new campaign. He’s taking dead aim on the corruption that has been attacking him for years. He’s now openly promising to replace all department heads and most of America is cheering him on.

           It’s a clear, open signal that the average American has had enough of this liberal bullsh. Trump’s boycott of the debates is looking at bankrupting the MSM, to whom he owes nothing. They are claiming he is afraid to debate, but Trump correctly points out that his stance on almost every issue is already well-know. Thus, the debates are needless and expensive theatrics.

           The checkout line-ups made buying the ink into a two hour event, so let’s look at what news gets through over here. Walking down the aisles I noticed something that does not happen in America. No shoppers. Wal*Mart™, for all that is said, remains the cheapest place in town. What a surprise to see so few people. Mind you, Wal*Mart™ pulls cashiers so that there is always a jam at the checkouts. Many people refuse the self-checkout saying they don’t work for Wal*Mart™ but I rather like not having to interact with diversity hires. America was better when cashiers were hired for their youthful, blonde good looks and to hell with anybody else.

           There have been slowdowns before, just not on this scale. I now automatically check the price of everything and it’s got into the realm where a large group of people simply cannot afford what they used to. It’s been bad for months yet the MSM carries no reports of this obvious downturn. This could be heading for disaster once these minions max out their credit cards.
           The 2006 situation taught us recession is not a long, slow process. It is held at bay to the last moment, then the dam bursts. Up to then all you get is series of small declines which is what has been going on for months around here. It’s been decades since America was a do-it-yourself and tough-it-out society. Any crisis now has them running around screaming like schoolgirls. From what I can surmise, prices must come down or incomes must go up by 30% and neither is about to happen.

Picture of the day.
Japanese art event.
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           My latest $4 sander with a worn out pad. This is about to be repurposed. The pad is in such bad shape, it gets tossed. The reason for this is the vibrating mechanism. I’m after a small sanding box and this is to provide the shaking. Check back in a few days, as I need that apparatus to sift the sandy floor in the workshed. Lordie knows what I’ve dropped there over the years. Thi is from the Thrift, and let me say something about Lakeland, Florida. Six years I’ve been there, yet I only know how to get around on the main roads. In all those years, I have never met an interesting person or seen an available sexy woman anywhere in town. You have to drive to Plant City or Winter Haven for that. As for any women that are available, every last one I’ve even seen from across the room is some form of reject. I realized driving back home later this evening I only know the highway routes through the north end.

           I just had the latest in post office experiences. Mailing a letter to Canada. It was a forty minute ordeal. You see, it was an envelope inside another envelope, making the total a fraction of an inch larger and inside a bubble wrapper. This classfies it in the post office’s mind as a parcel. Now call me slow, but to me if it is a piece of paper and nothing else, it should not be a parcel or the business of the post office. Whether it is toilet tissue or the Magna Carta, a single folded sheet of paper is not a parcel and never will be.

           This entails a customs declaration. That procedure has changed also. It falls slightly short of demanding to see and record your ID. For example, no initials, you must fully spell out the first, middle, and last names of both parties, plus phone number. It’s the same as ID in effect and any missing information can cause the letter to be “rejected”. Then, you get to stand there while the agent, a non-typist, painstakingly enters the entire form into a database, spelling out each word and number, ask you to confirm. By this time, the lineup behind was 15 people long, but hey, I never asked for any of this.
           Next came the price tag. If I had used regular air mail, the delivery time is “up to three weeks”, which puts it past my deadline. I remember the pre-Internet days when air-mail meant two days anywhere in the world. Apparently the on-line claim of 6-10 business days is not factual. Due to the nature of the document, I could not take a chance. The next option that guarantees 6-10 days is called “priority mail” and I paid the $15.75. What an outrage.

           They have a built-in excuse for everything, this is the millennial era. They have “no control” over international mail. Apparently very little knowledge of it either. I know a regular letter to Canada takes ten working days, but could not chance if that applied to “parcels”. The decline began when they made first class and air mail the same. If you need something mailed overseas (which included Canada) in less than an entire week, it now costs $54.75. That’s a forty-fold increase since 1980 and they say Amazon is the only thing keeping the postal service afloat. It’s plain if you don’t like your middle name of “Hortense” on your private correspondence you’ll have to find some other way to mail your news clipping to Yellowknife.

           Rehearsal. How did it go? Surprisingly well, we got through all the set lists. The show is a go, but it is not all roses. It’s sort of a duty for me to keep tabs on the process, good or bad. While we played the tunes well, they are not up to par except in the spots where two separate events occur. One is his oldest tunes which he knows the best. Like all of us, he can play the crap out of those. The other is where he’s embraced the duo concept and can now strum out a pattern that meshes right. That represents about 4/5ths of our list.
           He has fallen to the habit of comping when he’s playing solo and that appears when the bass is present. Thus, the sound has become (once again) me playing the majority of the elements on bass and him taking a few measures to adapt to each unique beat. This puts the same old burden on me, but it is also the process where I first noticed that the audience picks up on it. So that’s a fir enough trade-off. The Prez may or may not learn the intros and the breaks, but until then, I play them on bass. It works, but it can also outshine the spotlight.

           Last, I thought to stop at the Pavilion to confirm a few last minute details and found the premises closed at 8:30PM. There is really only one reason a pub would be shut that early on a weekday. Yep, things have changed and my method is designed to enhance a crowd, not to steal the same crowd from other days of the week. But the value of “paid practice” is a go-ahead that is too valuable to not press on with.
           To end on a cheerier note, here is the new shelf in place. I told you that white paint was pretty white. I’ll make a special drive out to the Pavilion tomorrow to chat with the server and maybe put up a small poster if it seems appropriate. The music business is always more work than it seems but don’t let that stop you from getting the exercise.

ADDENDUM
           Remember your mom’s advice, you pre-Internet people.: “9600 baud, 8 bits, no parity”. This is simply a protocol for series transmitted data. In parallel, the wiring requires those cumbersome ribbon connects seen on old hard drives. Series data is streamed down a single wire in batches of 8. That’s where the terms synchronous an asynchronous come into play. If there circuit is synchronous, there’s an extra wire that sends a timing signal between the source and the destination, called a clock. This allows very exact communication—but most circuits do NOT have this complicated setup.

           Instead, they are asynchronous, meaning both ends of the circuit have their own internal clock, they are merely set to pulse at the same speed, but not necessarily at the same time. That speed is called 9600 Baud.
           Since the data is now arriving in a big long stream, each end has to agree on how many bits make up a byte. The default is 8. Parity is a rudimentary error checking system that does not work on an even number of bits or errors. That’s why you ignore it and put a start or stop bit, most modem will recognize either. See, now you also know the actual difference between synchronous and asynchronous. These days, only spacecraft and high value hardware is synchronous.

           To those who do not believe in coincidences (I know I don’t), it was today in 2007 that the first know picture of the Gigrac PA appeared in a blog folder. Here it is, since I don’t know if it ever got published. So we knew the Gigrac is at least 16 years old.

Last Laugh