One year ago today: July 14, 2023, 5,029 exoplanets
Five years ago today: July 14, 2019, idiot strangers.
Nine years ago today: July 14, 2015, the HP Sprout.
Random years ago today: July 14, 2005, not illegal in Florida.
The ensuing couple of weeks means a lot of home time. We’ll be fine, I scoped the yard and sheds and there will be plenty to do even if I get flat-broke. I finished the audiobook “King’s Mountain”. Very entertaining for me, to others a tale of the drudgery and horrors of war. I found the descriptions of historical matters accurate and well-put. One example is how the British used terror tactics suited to small European spaces and level-ground, only to get swallowed up by the mountains of the US wilderness. Since I doubt you’ll buy this work, Ferguson, the Brit commander gets shot trying to abandon the battle and his hooker gets a bullet between the shoulder blades. What? Okay, not hooker but “camp follower” or “laundress”. Sure.
(If you see pictures, it means Google has fixed their shit or I’ve hacked the system again.) Later, you see pictures. Google is still farting around trying to restore what barely worked before. Until then, the hack is to log in once to the edit page, then again to the blog page. While both are open to the same account, switch to HTML mode and drag the photo onto a blank page. It will show the code. Copy and paste that doe into the post. If you see the van in my driveway, you know three things. That it worked, there will be all the laff pictures if you look from the 9th till today, and that's the only picure you get today. I'm tired.
Later, okay I’m back in the saddle, but missing 12 hours. My brain tells me it is Saturday night, so the Sun is moving the wrong direction. The new (used) van is slated for tomorrow morning and as a backup, the Prez has volunteered a lift for this eighty-mile round trip, involving a trip to the bank 15 miles away. I might add this guitarist turned out to be a staunch ally of the band, very uncharacteristic for Florida. Even if his motive could be he’s learned all other startup bands in Polk are all talk and no action, that’s a better motive than all the multi-banders and leftover heroes lurking around these parts.
I’ll contact him later with the latest details from Nashville. You might say “Huh?” but the Prez also paid attention to the management side where others only think they can. He now sings half our song list and as been an active participant—and yes, what it took was that stage time. Yes, he is aware I threw him to the wolves, but he also knows that is what worked. My goal now is to find a place to play even if it is tips-only. I say again, for all it’s bands and recording stars, is NOT a beginner-friendly environment. There are no overnight successes here.
What did I pick up in Nashville this trip. The first item is easy: we have an excellent and balanced song list. This was a year in the making, as I played little bluegrass and we were both restricted by what we could sing. We’ve had several phases and crowds that made out list sound antiquated—yet we play many pieces newer than the Eagles and CCR. It is a balanced Tiki Bar presentation, the tactical flaw being there are no such bars in this area. Even the Caribbean in Winter Haven is just a regular watering hole featuring biker bands.
After two several-hour planning sessions with the Kaiser, I’m assured the versatility of a duo is the right (and possibly only) way to break into the circuit. The Legion, maybe I’d play there again if we get a drummer, but that place is a small concert hall. The Kaiser has moved even more to recording, so if he makes it big, it will be a quantum leap. The meeting was more business than music, I won’t bore you except to say I’m resolved to find a venue that wants our music rather than meet the beast head-on. Keith confirms this approach, reminding me the bands around here today are not the best, but they are the survivors.
There is something else which to me is a negative. It’s backing tracks. No true musican I know uses them. But we are forced to conclude that audiences have become more tolerant of such music. I remain of the opinion tracks are cheating—because I’ve used them (just to get started), and now have to become open-minded about them again. This is work for me, folks.
And so is eBay. Lots of work. They have trained a generation of monkeys to do things the hard way. If you happen to know how computers are supposed to work, they’ll get yer goat, it’s what SFB people do.
Demolished envelope factory.
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The consensus is that the Democrats attempted to assassinate Trump. This is a permanent conviction. They tried everything else, raids, threats, fake charges, hookers, you name it, all the stuff that has worked for ages. Now, the accusations will begin, but that also means the pressure is off Biden. Rumor has it a Secret Service agent had the sniper in his sights but was ordered not to shoot until there was a shot at Trump. And the North Korean dictator has offered a squad of his own security because the American agencies cannot be trusted.
Another emerging fact is that people in the crowd were shouting there was a man on the roof with a rifle for several minutes in advance. That’s not going to look good for the alphabet agencies. If they did not see him, they are lousy, if they did, that is even worse. There is no doubt that, except for die-hard indoctrinees, this was a political hit. Everyone knew the assassin would be killed whether or not he missed. Dead men don’t talk. No news yet, but I’ll wager it was some millennial or GenXYZer punk with the usual psycho problems of the era. And that everybody around him, including the police, already have him on file. This is why we need to bring back mental hospitals, this time billed to their families.
Anyone who doubts now that Democrats have a history of killing their opponents is in denial. The Europeans are placing bets on it. Look at the facts, no Democrat immediately screamed for gun control. There was no rioting or burning. All business as usual. Initially reported as a Republican, the shooter was a Democrat operative who registered as a Republican to vote against Trump in the primaries. Anyone who thinks a twenty-year-old shit-brain pulled this off without help is in on it. He was confronted by a cop who ducked moments before allowing the shooter to squeeze off eight rounds. The libtard press was quick to make excuses that the shooter was “relentlessly bullied” in high school, poor little baby, go shoot them.
The neighbor and I hatched a plan for tomorrow. He’s got a cleaning lady showing up at 9:00AM, so right after that, we are heading for breakfast and over to my bank downtown. This is a 32 mile round trip, so no so-whatting. Then over to the dealership to get my wheels, yes, seasoned Americans still call them wheels. In return, the next day I help him shift drive a car back to Enterprise. His van was also in the shop and they had no loaners, so he had to rent a unit. This is what is meant by in America you need a second car. I got a hunch lots of people around here are in the same bucket, another reason I intend to keep the Hyundai if the Reb does not want it. But I still have to drive it in for the registration—unless the people there remember me by now. Stay tuned.
In electronics, I finally learned what a triac does. It is similar to PWM for AC current. Sorry, that’s Pulse Width Modulation, where you switch the power on and off rapidly to emulate a lower voltage. With AC, you just use a transformer, but I learned the same principle applies for motor control and light dimmers. It’s just more complicated, as it must clip the AC signal which is constantly rising and falling. I don’t use AC, so I will examine the theory only.
ADDENDUM
You know what I don’t like? The theory that the Chinese invented rockets. Nonsense, there is not a shred of evidence of that. They discovered it by accidently, I say, but they did not invent it. My objection came from a NASA documentary I just read that says the Chinese began rocket science. Absolute bull, the Chinese had no concept of the scientific method, what evidence exists shows their alchemists were searching for something to make them immortal when it blew up on them.
I was still awake at midnight, so I watched a video on rocket guidance and control. This moves the timeline up two thousand years. My theory is that a truly scientific-minded group would invent something or make advances. It was the European change in thinking that created the scientific method, this did not happen in China.
How desperate are the Democrats for money? They just put in toll booths over the Hoover Dam.
