Five years ago today: December 21, 2018, it’s Friday.
Nine years ago today: December 21, 2014, east of Australia.
Random years ago today: December 21, 2012, early A.I. comments.
Last evening was one of our best jam sessions. With the effort we’ve put in, that is to be expected. The bottom line is I’m in a flap about Tennessee. I know I’ve done all I can and the bills are paid, but I can’t shake what they call “the funk”. I’m a big boy, I don’t need advice on this. Still, every time I try to unlax, well, you know. So, let’s focus on the jam session. The overall situation remains, over the past two months, we’ve learned their material and progressed, they have not. Before continuing, here’s a pictre of the side of the lean-to, showing the tall narrow window toward the right.
I don’t care for the song but it’s their call, and the bass line now steals the show. This is not showing off, this is letting you know what to expect when you choose tunes with a “bass is easy” attitude. Again, I play every note in the bass line, just more effectively and tough luck it if outshines the guitar work. There’s another tune about to get this treatment. “TurnThe Page”. Go on-line and listen to the Metallica version.
The talk of America is the desperate move of the bad guys to block Trump from running. They know they can’t beat him at any level they can cheat. Every attack makes him stronger. There is also the factor that Trump has exposed how they cheat. Dumping ballots and sealing off counting rooms is going to become, methinks, very risky business.
News out of California says the housing market is teetering. My lean-to shed isn’t, thought. It embodies the experience I’ve got over the past six years. Solid as a rock, but I don’t recommend anyone over 200 pounds walking on any of the roofs. I’m taking the blog computer into the shop, it isn’t the memory card. But if not, then it is the motherboard and there is no fixing or replacing that any more. Having to wait around a couple of hours, I reviewed the latest CD and decided not to renew it. The interest rate fell from 4.5% to 2.3%. My private bank does not post interest rates, which is inconvenient in the extreme, although I do have a contact phone number that rings on a real person’s desk.
Nice as it is once the sun gets high enough, my shoulders said take it easy and read. So I’m over half done the book on Wake Island. I didn’t realize quite how big a deal it was, including a movie and a song. The book is fair, but naturally on the American side. It’s the numbers that tell and the Japs got themselves a mighty bad sting when they attacked somebody ready for them. The behavior of the Japs says a lot, how they interrogated the prisoners because they would not believe that the biggest guns on Wake were 5” cannons. The Japanese base was 650 miles away, so this became a major operation. The Japs lost several ships, a submarine, and at least 1,000 dead. Versus something like 124 Americans, a portent of what was going to happen.
France, 62-foot Atlantic wave.
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No change by the nice warm afternoon, I listened to more of “The Last Patriot” on audio books to Winter Haven and back. Disk 8 of 10 and the story is a somewhat novel presentation of clichés. The secret missions, the dead agent who isn’t, hidden passages, and the unwilling hero. Here’s a view of the expanse of my worksheds from standing on top of the lean-to. It looks like one big shed, but it is four sheds that blend together from this angle.
You know why I like December 21? Solstice. Now the days get longer and my time gets more productive. Without that computer, I spent two hours in the library. Could have been more but they no longer serve coffee. How’s that go—I’m all for progress, it’s just change I’m against. Well, taking away things like coffee, that’s hardly progress. I ran some of the numbers on CDs and it is unlikely I’ll renew at the pitiful rates out there now. The two CDs this year produced something like $45 in interest.
That may not sound like much, but it is three times what that account produced in the previous three years. And it was a planned amount, which makes it significantly more important than the dollar total. That’s $45 more than anybody else I know. True, I don’t know a lot of people who invest, it [investing] just is not a social thing for me. JZ thinks a CD is a disk with music on it. Music and computers are the same, I don’t know a lot of people who are on the same wavelength with me. I’ve met a few but they tend to be, what’s the term, “not well-rounded”.
Later, I put in another hour of planning with the CD money. My target for 2024 is any amount over $100. The Reb & I talked and I’m half afraid if anything happens to me the experience I’ve gained will not last. It’s one thing to grasp that money should not be left parked, but another to know all the where and how. We are not talking the decision-making process here, rather the activities that accompany and monitor any decision made. They are pretty standard yet a dull enough topics that even I took years to develop a working system. If you saw my investment files, you would notice they all go to the third decimal point. I’ve learned what is important.
For a break, I logged on to NewScientist. Just close all the log-on pop-ups and nag-screens and you can proceed into the articles. The banner is some dork worried about the impact of walking on the Moon. True, without an atmosphere something that simple can make more changes that a million years of micro-meteors, but wanting to make the Moon a national park doesn’t work for me. The topic that got my eye was a German university has used a laser to produce a concrete like material from lunar regolith. It’s all over the moon and is similar to volcanic ash.
The plan is to build interlocking bricks, like seen on some driveways. This would cut down on the dust factor when landing or driving. Myself, I think it would be wiser to plan Moon sites so that nobody has to drive between them. This isn’t suburban Albuquerque, folks.
