One year ago today: January 19, 2024, that Nebraska blizzard
Five years ago today: January 19, 2020, box lumber score!
Nine years ago today: January 19, 2016, angry about something.
Random years ago today: January 19, 1980, my earlier work.
Grits for breakfast and I’m ready to go to work. Silver still waddles around $31 per ounce. Since around 1700, silver to gold prices stayed steady around 1:16. Today, they are 1:92. Something’s gotta give. If TikTok is banned, there is a rumor all the influencers may have to get real jobs. The good news is I may have found the reason I could not catch the kitchen thief. He’d come and go, usually a couple times a week. I can’t say for sure, but the nibblings have ceased. Possibly the silo sneak and the kitchen varmint were the same? Just don’t get any hopes up, there is no such thing in Florida as one rat.
While this box still needs to be glued up, stained, and then there’s the hardware, the good news is all pieces fit first time and Tuesday next we find out how this one compares to the guy who is selling them for $80 each. What’s this, another tube sale. Alright! I like this day.
Complicated, that’s eBay. They’ve never streamlined their system, so those who use it all the time have learned it by rote. I had two orders to the same address. Combine them. Foremost, in decades, there is no combine order button as would happen if a Boomer was in charge. Once again, the roadblock is that we know how things are supposed to work, we don’t know how these screwed up millennials went about it. But one thing for sure, they did not go over and ask somebody who did it for a living what was the best way.
We finally got it by figuring out the on-screen text box that said Fedex tracking number meant a USPS number instead. Way to go, Josh & Tyler, remember me in 2030 when the drone delivers your mother’s heart medicine a day late. Talk to you later, I just got a call from Lakeland a rainstorm is heading right this way and I have an exposed lawn tractor. Another happy notice is that eBay now regards my sales as up to snuff and pays out often same day. I’ll go get some Caltier investment money later this week.
I remind the reader I am anti-liberal, that’s it for defining my politics. So I join with America in anticipation of tomorrow morning spelling the death of anyone who supports liberals. And if that means the death of the American left, so be it. But talk about pins and needles, nobody is ruling out a last desperate attempt to take out Trump. He’s hired a private security firm that looks no-nonsense, but remember who is behind the left movements and what they did to Kennedy. Meanwhile, good morning.
I stayed home last evening reading assembler language. It’s as much fun as anything else going on around here. I also read the 1898 Supreme Court ruling that to be an anchor baby, both parents had to be legally in the country and have an established residence. This makes up to 70% of California, parents and children, liable for deportation. Nobody substantive is objecting.
A survey by Reddit on how people who don’t watch TV spend their time says the most common response is reading books. I think most of us already know that, which makes the question into what sort of books. Reddit went silent on that point.
Denver smog.
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More good news. My first box sale. $15, but I had the unit made in less than twenty minutes. I need to get this recorded because one never knows what these events turn into. What stands out is this box was made to spec. These photos how what the customer handed me, could I make a box this size from wood. He was interesting the interior measurement. It’s for some sort of custom size photo paper. The original, on the left, was made from foam board. My version on the right has just been stained and is drying. It will get some fancy rounded edges and a shiny coat of poly.
The challenge was the inside dimentions. He wanted miter joints. I found measuring and marking doesn’t make for accurate fits, so over time I’ve made up a series of templates with the offset, which I found by trial and error. The interior has to be finished first. Here is a secong photo of the sides and panels being stained with “Provencal”, the first color I grabbed off the shelf. The box is open one side. I made the sale, but don’t know if I made any money. All materials were on hand and I happened to have all the equipment set up when the customer knocked. The $15 of course, goes into investments.
Ah, but let a new force come along, and that was Trump. Right or wrong, he was different and like many, I felt him worth a listen because the Establishement could not get much worse. And when they ganged up on him like wild, incensed banshees, that was a sure sign he was bound for glory.
Franz Josef Land, arctic islands north of Russia, were discovered by the English. That’s why I was surprised there are names like Prince George, Salisbury, and Graham Bell. There’s a British Channel and an Austrian Strait. When Russia claimed the island, the were unaware anybody had ever been there until they found and empty Scottish rum bottle.
ADDENDUM
The Hubble space telescope has finished a ten-year mission to photograph the Andromeda galaxy. The image is 2.5 billion pixels, part of which is shown here. That may sound a lot, but Andromeda is estimated to contain one trillion stars. The full size photo shows around 200 million stars. Also known as M31, the stars you see as spots are not part of the galaxy, rather are stars in the Milky Way in front, sort of like raindrops on a windshield as you look through it.
When I was around 11, I saw this galaxy through my binoculars.and knew it was outside the Solar system. You could see that, so I was surprised to learn years later this same idea was attributed to Hubble himself. Then again, I was aware the universe outside our galaxy was immense because I began reading encyclopedias when I was eight. Um, it was the only thing in the house to read.
