January 15, 2024

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 15, 2023, a Sunday drive.
Five years ago today: January 15, 2019, Mark Markowski.
Nine years ago today: January 15, 2015, signposting.
Random years ago today: January 15, 2001, the serious lack.

           Elections Canada has a revamped website, which they say will combat misinformation. How? By focusing on the election process rather than accuracy of the ballots. Seems the Space companies are having general problems with propellant leaks as the Astobotics craft begins a fatal plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere. I don’t keep up with all the launches any more, since they are not heavy exploration missions. Ever heard of polyhalite? It’s sort of eco-friendly fertilizer and there are plans to mine it by the millions of tons from 30-mile long tunnels under the North Sea. Maybe Scotland isn’t useless after all?

           You may have eaten this stuff. It is a 3% contaminant in Himalayan pink salt. The connection to here is that world reserves of potash are falling, with the largest mine in the world for it being 8 miles down the road. Polyhalite is from evaporating seawater and is classified as organic. They’ve also found deposits in New Mexico. There’s likely lots of it, but it is buried awful deep. How about the new response to reporter’s nosy questions that is gaining traction. When asked personal questions, reply “I’m sorry, I don’t know you.” I like it.

           The drizzle quit instantly and I was out there putting the siding on the saw lean-to, shown here. This was later, when I wrapped up, you can see the darkening sky through the unfinished roof rafters. I was going to save the siding for the red shed interior, but it was taking up too much space. Don’t look too closely, this was all cull lumber, it is full of splits and cracks. I cut away the worst spots and lined up the good patches, so it looks okay from this angle. Six hours, and I feel fine. No heavy hauling today so finished some smaller tasks while this siding was underway.

           Really, I know I should not be building and repairing sheds when I still have not finished installing the hot water tank or leveled the kitchen floor. Too bad, I go through phases like this all the time. It’s not old age setting in, I’ve done things this was a long time. Did I ever tell you I cannot peel potatoes without thinking of Pearl, my first girlfriend. Man, she was fun but she got serious a long time before I did. I was never destined to be a househusband slaving away at the mill to pay down the mortgage on my 65th birthday. Instead, I was destined to put wooden handles on files like this one. For all I know, this is the true meaning of life.

           All rehearsal is canceled until this cold spell is done, but the discussion of what music to play never ends. It seems everybody but me wants to play “I’ve Just Seen A Face” and my objection is the difficulty of singing those weird lyrics while playing bass. Did you know that song has a Wiki writeup of tricky lyrics? And that song that says “Motorhead” does not say that and it is not by Motörhead, it’s called “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger. This I know because I don’t care for Motörhead. Their music is too contrived, like they learned it at Guitar Center. Not unique enough.

Picture of the day.
Thanda (“Mafia”) Island, Tanzania.
About $25,000 per night rental.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           By late afternoon the weather turned perfect, so I took my time on the shed siding. Here is a picture from the outside after quitting time. That would be around 6:00PM. That glass is from an old door, now mounted sideways. The lighting gives it a bit of a down-home touch. It faces the messiest area of the yard and that is due to be cleaned up this week. I’ve given up on a garden unless it is some sort of greenhouse. Both my avocado trees recovered but they are tiny, maybe a foot high.

           And the squirrels are back, or more likely a new batch of them. They do not get along with the red cardinals because they have not yet learned they can’t get at the feeders. But they sit around annoying the birds and causing stress. I had the radios on in the sheds, the effect of all three on the same station means I can eliminate loud or quiet spots. Did somebody from Whitesnake die, they’ve been playing their music to the extreme for hours? That’s another band I cannot identify with, latter-day rock-n-roll. Too formulaic for my tastes, but one again, I recognize the nice parts of some of their bigger hits. The rest is schlock to me.
           I grabbed a cold 0% beer, which I sometimes keep in the fridge for when I’m working with power tools. Those and real beer don’t mix, though I have no problem with hand tools. The score is, I sat down and now can’t move. Zero motivation. Finding a youTube video on making an electromagnet from a nail. I know the efficiency improves with the correct core material but could not find any how-to videos that got to the proper detail. The cores are a hoop shape that makes it difficult to turn the windings. Remember my little solenoid motor sketch? I believe the retraction problem could be solved with a magnet and reed switch. Like many a Russian, I don’t care so much for formulas until I have a working model that needs improvement.

ADDENDUM
           Ostrich burgers. JZ confirms there is a Fuddruckers near his place, but past the end of the Metro Rail. However, the rail, not the crappy city busses, run a shuttle or something. I say he’s wrong about that. The idea is we go for the ostrich burger. The rest of the half-hour on the phone was whether the ostrich was okay for vegetarians, such as the Reb. Myself, I say yes because I don’t care if the stupid thing can’t fly, it is a bird. He says that’s the point. If it can’t fly, the bird DNA is letting them down. That if those taxonomic people would do their job right, they’ll classify as “near-bird”, so it’s not vegetarian.
           I say he don’t know from DNA, that it’s there but the Bird Programmer has disabled the subroutine. He says even so, vegetarians aren’t getting true bird protein. I say maybe so, but that is not why they don’t eat meat, they are more like animal-lovers and pet owner types. Therefore the only proper test is how it tastes with ketchup, of which I happen to know he is a great fan. Caution, I saw the ostrich burger ad on-line, so there is no real way to know if the Kendall Fudd’s actually has such burgers. What? Ha, you call them if you think getting some 2024-grade food service jerk on a smart phone is going to give you a straight answer.
           The true question is will I spend $100+ to find out if I can connect with an ostrichburger. Turns out there are lots of small ostrich farms in the State, which is still no guarantee. At some point in the convo with JZ, I accidentally said “oyster” instead of “ostrich” and now guess what he wants. His theory is that the women who work in an oyster place eat the product, so they thus have higher “potency”. Give me a break, Florida server types are always too old and I don’t need urban legends to help make bad decisions. The so-called on-line menus are no help, since they are created by remote strangers. We could be there as early as this weekend, but I’d have to take the Amtrak, see how all this ties together?

Last Laugh