July 28, 2024

Yesteryear
One year ago today: July 28, 2023, box-making.
Five years ago today: July 28, 2019, starting the laundry deck.
Nine years ago today: July 28, 2015, the Lanai Tunnel.
Random years ago today: July 28, 2004, brunch at Ocean Reef.

           What did you expect, I slept through this morning, missing the Karaoke show. Fine, it’s not that great, and I did get some reading done. Contenting myself with that, I got up and made a big batch of ground turkey, pretty much the only way I like that bird. No sales overnight, but I have a plan to modify the old tune “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms”. It was banned when I grew up because of the “implied overtones”. Why another ancient tune? Because of the luck we have with “Midnight Special” and “Jambalaya”, that’s why. Only I have a plan to boost the music.

           Instead of just the base line, I will accompany the melody, reverting to the bass only in the “answer” intervals. I do this with “Love Me Tonight”, it involves good planning. It is done with a sharp pencil and blank sheet of paper, not by picking up an instrument. Sheet music was no help this time, as it does not capture the nuances. Thing of the opening line of “Ain’t gonna work on the railroad.” Notice you lowered the second syllable of “gonna”. The sheet music does not. I plan to emphasize each instance of that by playing a 5th. Again, I will be playing a melody line and the bass line at the same time. That is the plan, sometimes it does not work.
           This photo shows Florida can shaft you no matter what. If you look close, there is a can inside this wooden box full of my expensive Forstner bits. That’s inside the box, inside the shed. Yet somehow, the can is full of water from the rains last week. No visible leaks anywhere near the box but there you have it. I salvaged all the bits but that was dumb luck.

           I have decimated the vermin population in the attic, but there’s at least one left. The ringleader no doubt, the one smart enough to avoid all my devices. Except the last one, I just have to find out which one that is. Another thing to hate about eBay, there is no easy way to get a report of your gross and net sales in summary form, or (same thing), if it is there it cannot be easily brought up. To date I have had $499.90 in sales. There is a lump sump of $272 in my account, with no way I can find to verify it without bringing up the orders one by one. Go down that route and eBay really is nothing but buying yourself a job.
This second photo this morning looks like plastic bats roosting. It is the sorting bags I use to separate the tubes by brand name. The first bag in SungSol, then Sylvania, and so on. This is one way to keep the merch high and dry and it helps minimize the times each tube is handled. The boxes are no longer in any good condition.

           Sunday or not, I have some terrible news. I will make my last trip to Miami for medical, I kept that avenue open to visit and stay current. Now I will find a doctor in Winter Haven and if I go to Miami again, well, unless for the day, I can’t see it. JZ swore he was never going to let that horrible women into his place. I’m not mincing words, this is the one I’ve told you about for years, she even looks like a trailer trash grandmother. She lies, cheats on him, stole all his coin collections for cigarette and drug money, you name it. She has lived the last ten or fifteen years by hooking and shacking up with old men for their money, but that supply ran out and the condo association finally kicked her out.
           This is not gossip, these are facts about a situation that I’ve repeatedly told JZ I would not tolerate in my circles. He has not answered the phone for two weeks, now we know why. My guess is this won’t last long because she will rob him blind, but I will make irreversible changes and if he wants to visit, he can head up this way. I want the guy to be happy and have introduced him to many decent gals, and even some that were less than decent but would have put him in a better situation that he is now. Sadly, this is not just another chapter in the drama, this puts a damper on a friendship that has lasted 24 years and 10 months.
           If this was his legitimate girlfriend, I’d be interfering and such. He has told me he’s “broken up” with her probably 200 times, and as recently as a month ago swore she would not be allowed into his place. His family deplores her, she’s a hypochondriac when it suits her, takes drugs every day, and picks a fight just as often. She’ll lock him out of his own place and pass out. She’s such a write-off she was kicked off EBT, the government food program. For clarity, I deny this is gossip, everybody in the loop knows everything I’ve said already. And I feel no obligation to run cover for her because she has stolen all kinds of things I’ve lent or given to the guy.

           My hope is things will come to a head and he’ll be forced to get her out of there. For that matter, she causes so much trouble the condo association will ultimately step in. But this is a permanent step in the wrong direction and I’m not certain it can ever be set right or good again. All friendship aside, I cannot afford to be around there with the police and amulaances showing up two or three times a week, she is trouble.

Picture of the day.
Last legal Paris brothel.
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           Going over to check on the neighbor, he has the loaner car for another weekend. It’s one of those millennial designs that does what it like. The steering control fights back when you try to change lanes, and cannot be turned off. It’s an electronic nightmare, same as my KIA, which is currently on the battery charger. The door locks have one setting that locks everything except the passenger door. Duh, but typical of the decline in basic skills that is already haunting the aging millennials and plaguing the GenZers who will never know there were once better ways of doing almost everything they are struggling with. Imagine, if you will, a car that knows you are parked so it turns off the seat belt alarm—pure genius for one of them.. We are still waiting for one of them to invent a phone that when you pick it up and say hello, it knows what to do without swiping or clicking. But that is technology in their distant futures.

           I chose the known driest spot in the big shed for the shelves and tube work space. Shown here, I framed it in at table height, with four foot wide counter. So I had put boxes at the back and still have enough room to get the rest of the work done. This activity cancelled my plan for a short Sunday drive. Part of the work is to relocate the big fan. It was installed before I built the smaller work spot beside the compressor. It’s an industrial size unit with 12” blades, but as fate would have it, there was a support pillar right in front of the best work spot.

           No matter how you aimed that fan, the post would disrupt the air, leaving a dead spot where the heat took over. There is only one spot in the new location, and the fan is in the way. Move it, and it will not cool when the inside she door is open. Counter space is always a premium for me, made worse by the need to keep everything up off the ground or risk flood damage. Ah, here is a picture at the last moment before I locked up for the day. This was an accidental shot, but let’s see how closely it matches my description. Left to right, there is the fan, hanging from the ceiling as the shelves are 2” too shallow to set it on the counter.

           The door behind is ajar, you can see the greenery of the back yard, and that the fan is in the way as you enter. Behind the fan, you can already see tube boxes beginning to pile up. I’ll add a shall shelf to create more storage, maybe run some outlets in as the tubes won’t be there forever. The best room I have is that big work shed and there would have to be rainfall of biblical proportions to get these wet now. I left space under the desk to store things like paint cans, and stuff I don’t use that often. On the far right is the door that would block the breeze if I put the fan where I want to. That’s it, this is the last possible corner of the shed, my biggest work area, that can possible be made into anything that won’t now be in the way.

           If I had to do it over again, I would have sloped the shed root the opposite direction. Then again, I’m pleased that even if it took so long in life, I have a workshed that has provided months and years of entertainment and space I only wish for while I was a renter. This dusty gritty work of running in this work and storage counter won out over a coffee at the bookstore in Bradenton, so I must really like my puttering.
           Working with tubes, if you have a curious mind, is a history lesson. And it’s all about an America that is not there any more. We used to make good things here, and if they were more expensive, nobody minded because the quality and pride were there. That’s the real pride, not the sick kind. Here are three curiosities that are so old I could not price them. Top is a US Army tube, left is some kind of flasher, and right is for the first ever GM (General Motors) automatic headlight dimmer. Which apparently never worked right. I have chosen to research the dimmer. The robot club taught me its designation of 115NO5 means the relay is 115 volts andNormally Open for the first five seconds.

           Back inside, I finally watched two long videos on what’s new with medicine, in particular why I lost peripheral vision in my right eye. There is a new chapter in the study of dementia and Alzheimers. Some doctors are calling it Type 3 diabetes. I scanned down the long list of chemical food additives used since 1960. Most of it is in processed food, which I have always avoided but, and this is a real “but”, my system has always been sensitive to any chemicals. I can sure a bad headache with half a baby aspirin. And some of those listed ingredients are in most food and you can’t avoid all of it. Thus, I paid attention to the early indicators of this Type 3 diabetes. This does not mean you have it, only that some doctors and researches know that they are warning signals. And I have every one of them. Not just a vision loss, but twenty other items ranging from puffiness on my upper arms, loss of balance when standing on one foot, say to put on my trousers, and inability to loose weight despite constant dieting. There’s no panic because some of these symptoms could be anything. It’s just that in combination, I have every one of them.
           Yes, I’m fully aware any of the symptoms in isolation or combination could be nothing but age—but we are dealing here with a list of 21 symptoms and I have every one. To distract you from my ailments, nearby should be a picture of something you never say before. A Graybar sewing machine. I saw it at the Goldmine while looking for an old desk mic.

ADDENDUM
           Firedragon. That’s the name of the Brit laser weapon that has destroyed multiple targets at a reputed cost of 10¢ per shot. The problem is the short range, maybe a half-mile at best. This is not a new weapon, so why has it suddenly leapt to prominence? Drones, that’s why. They’ve become cheat and ubiquitous, able to destroy expensive targets for practically nothing. Drones are vulnerable to jamming, but target-recognition software will soon remedy that. You need to blast the things, probably by the dozens now and hundreds later. Dig that old laser out of the warehouse, somebody said, I’ve got an idea.

           Another aspect of this weapon is it reveals a growing inadequacy of the British military that is beginning to appear in America. Shortage of educated personnel. Sure, these third worlders are excellent cannon-fodder. But you need skilled labor to operate things like battle tanks and aircraft carriers. Militaries have people who know what it takes to operate an aircraft carrier, and when the thing spends more time in port than asea, with record numbers of tenders constantly transiting, you know damn well the fleet is not battle-ready.
           You really don’t want people who can’t read or write operating billion-dollar systems. Nor do you find many top-gun fighter pilots on ZipRecruiter. Knocking down lo-tech drones with million-dollar missiles was not the best strategy. And even I know the Ark Royal turned out to be a floating junkyard. Even underway, most of her aircraft were needed to protect the ship rather than attack the enemy. Here’s a photo of the Ark Royal next to the USS Nimitz.

           Another thing you may not want is too many diversity hires. It seems these affirmative action crews have been crashing airplanes at a phenomenal rate. To top that off, the crews are being injured using the ejection seats. It seems they are rated for 211 pounds and the latest batches of aircrew often weigh in over that. One was 300 pounds, according to Gab.

Last Laugh