January 23, 2024

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 23, 2023, this month or next.
Five years ago today: January 23, 2019, the major reason.
Nine years ago today: January 23, 2015, my bakery spot.
Random years ago today: January 23, 2004, a maid, no butler.

           A slight improvement in the outside temperature means today we work. The “blog topics regular and random” chart says mention food. Okay, breakfast was one of my favorites, Heart-healthy porridge and a stab at playing that Clapton old lady song through the headphones until the sun came up. I am this close to clearing out the red shed, check later. Let’s check the news feeds, see what got past the filters. What’s this, JZ on the phone? Now 28 minutes later, we got the horror story, they did try to use re-activating his phone as an excuse to pump him for information that was none of their business—now that JZ knows what is none of their business. He contacted me, it seems, because of all his vast family and acquaintances in Miami over 50 years, he could get no help.

           I will say he’s got one thing in abundance, and it is a ton of people who think they are smarter, nicer, and more well-adjusted than we are. That’s despite the fact they have 1/10th as much fun, never have any adventures, get boring after ten minutes, and can look back on little more than having worked for a living. Fine, we are fully aware we lead lives more dynamic than all of them put together. Don’t believe me? Then ask all of them who they know is making a $200 plan to check out ostrich burgers. Now ask them what any of them have planned. See, told ya. When they stop talking about us, things get dull in a hurry.

           This is the fastest box but not the fastest for long. It was very quickly assembled but the pieces would not fit. The blog-worthy part is the repair. Have you ever tried to fix something like this. Every adjustment you make throws something else off. It gets maddening. But, as shown here, once you learn most repairs take two cuts, you can get the thing to the stage shown here. This is not ready, but it is assembled. Like most boxes I’ve built in the past two years, it will soon have hinges and a latch. You can see the lid being cut from the solid box. It took me a while to learn that. It is tricky to see, but the gap is because the lid is not entirely cut.

           The reason is if you try that, the cut may be crooked as the box pinches slightly for the final cut. So leave a tiny tab front and back, and then cut them by hand once any adjustments are made. This is, again, pallet lumber. This box has no planned contents yet, it was built to test rabbet joints on the table saw. This repair took time, so that shift this other box as the fastest, a container for my heat gun and glue guns, which I do not use that often. Also rabbet joints, this is crudely glued and screw. The top and bottom were slabbed on, and moments later this box had hinges and a latch.

           First news feed is Canada sends out notices to people that their electric power will be cut off if they use too much to heat their homes in the middle of winter. Hey, they were warned and warned but Canadians already know it all. White recruits in the US military have fallen to 44% and the family of a white girl raped and killed by an illegal are suing the Biden administration for $100 million. But already it is popularly known they really are suing Biden in public opinion. Tampa radio is bursting about how in New Hampshire, where people can vote at midnight, one township named Dixville Nothch did so, voting 100% against Trump. Tampa went on to say how “former UN ambassador” Nikki was poised to “cut off his margin or pull off an upset outright.” Later, we find out Dixville Notch has six registered voters.

Picture of the day.
Bar staff, downtown Phoenix.
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           I installed some hinges on the latest round of boxes and bolted a miter saw in place for the neighbor. He didn’t understand the saw template has to be 100% solid. I used the nice weather to get some finer work done and look at what I’m up against in the red shed. Two days hard work, that’s what. I could not find a radio station that wasn’t pumping the Poon hype. Trump’s supporters outnumber hers five to one, but they are still saying it’s a close contest. They have to say that to cheat, the margins have to be so close that a single suitcase of fake ballots can tip the scales.
           Here’s the only other picture that turned out from the Citrus Tower. In the extreme lower right is a museum of Presidents. I didn’t bother. The horizon is 35 miles away. There you see another Florida Lake. If you could see another ten miles, you’d spot this cabin dead center in this photo. Although you can see lots of trees, none of these are orchards any more.

           Putting on the coffee, we watched another Gunsmoke episode on the neighbor’s big screen. A whole show about Matt, no Festus. A family in a covered wagon find Matt and an outlaw handcuffed and unconscious. They can’t tell which one is the marshall, kind of an interesting theme. It’s kind of remarkable how back then the law and justice were so much closer to being the same thing.

           The rest of the evening I took time to sketch out an LED array hoping to make the connections with transistors instead of diodes. It is not a matter of just replace the junctions. With diodes the logic is accomplished by switching the power on or off. With transistors you need a third set of wires to do the switching and I’m not even sure if one should leave the power on all the time and clock the transistors, or set the transistors first and clock the power. And once again, I ask a question that is not answered on-line. The next step, I think, is to build smaller grid to see if the concept is even reasonable.
           Somebody else must have hit this snag before, but I have the advantage of knowing they must have solved it. So I wrote it out in a letter to Jeepee, the turtle. Who gets more fan mail than most people. Followed by a letter to JZ on how, if we do things right, we can go for that ostrich-burger, the Great Ostrich-burger Adventure of 2024. Our budget is $167 including the gas to Miami. All we lack is a timetable. He is fully aware we may get there to find ugly waitresses and this item not on the menu.
                      If so, this will elicit howls of laughter because he relates these adventures to his family. Ha, does not bother me because we know if they ever had 10% as much fun in this life, we’d hear about it and we don’t. Neener, neener. You know something? Some of his family seems to get cranky how we manage to have a blast doing ordinary stuff like this. Good, anything less would be boring and I don’t do boredom.

ADDENDUM
           You know why I take credit? Because bass players so rarely get it when due. Here goes. I got feedback on the Sunday “rehearsal” which is was nothing of the kind. It’s a repeat of what happens on stage. It’s the psychological effect that is a joke, these guys all swerved to a single attitude. To get the perspective, it was the Prez & I, by now a semi-polished duo who can play most anything the other guy can, plus an old guy guitarist I audioned back in 2018 who showed up. I carefully suggested we play the intros to the tunes “now that we have a full band” to do so. The Keith guy gave it a try but he will forget that on stage, just you watch. He learned nothing, did nothing new, input nothing, and probably will never learn anything new.
           But, since he has no clue and takes all kinds of ten minute breaks without regard to other people present, some from miles away, I say let it run. The Prez is more like the boys than I am, he knows cars, guitars, and lead players by name. If he is content to make the drive thinking it is doing any good, I’ll use the time to slip in new material. I’ve got him trained to learn how to learn, making sure of that since day one.
           Sure enough, from this one nothing rehearsal, they boys are already talking about how good they are getting. This is a very common mental defect in guitar players. The fact is, the Prez & I imported structure, good timing, backup vocals, instrumental breaks, and we play the intros and outros. I might add the Prez was unaware these these things were systematic until I taught him. But there you go, I’m taking credit again and the fact it happened as I’ve said does not matter to a certain grade of people. Right, Elliott?

Last Laugh