One year ago today: March 19, 2024, returning to XP.
Five years ago today: March 19, 2020, American banks suck.
Nine years ago today: March 19, 2016, endless Florida horizon.
Random years ago today: March 19, 2009, the car I never had.
I’m straining to find something interesting about this morning. It isn’t the 40°F weather, which I only pay attention to over my own health. I don’t even like people who obsess about it for no reason. I awakened to birds surrounding my feeders, dead batteries, and a hankering for a processed food I have not eaten I much in fifty years. Namely, Velveeta cheese, it was the only cheese I grew up with. I learned to like others on my own and it fell out of favor. Until recently, which is not great, for I shun processed food, and it doesn’t get much more processed than Velveeta. Check in later, you can buy Velveeta just about anywhere in America.
Here’s how to apply the glue, fast, minimal fuss, work in the shade. Unfortunately the quality of the product has declined. I don’t trust the labels so I usually clamp together a couple pieces of scrap and test those for strength. After the recommended 24 hour cure time, I was able to easily separate the blocks with a single good whack from a 16oz framing hammer. The glue is spread on both sides and the material is porous, meaning this should be ideal glue-up conditions. Yet it failed at two joints. Most of the work so far was sanding the facing surfaces to make sure the bond was wood-to-wood. I’m thinking about what could be causing this, no theories so far.
Let’s glance at the news. Two weeks from today is the deadline for Trump’s tariff changes. No more paying foreign competition. They must bring their own tariffs into line or face loss of American trade. I’ve seen many of these countries and their production figures are a lot of baloney. Once America stops propping them up, we’ll see who survives. Same goes for guitar players at the old club, which now has no live music, the last drop before it becomes a gay bar or similar. Old Keith has disappeared. Remember how he’d sit out most of the shows? That’s because him and his guitar playing drinking buddies knew how they’d sound after the Prez and I had played a while. All they had to do was ask, but guitar players don’t like that.
Authorities in Washington State are recalling pet food over links to bird flu. One again, the flu only affects American birds, never Mexican or Canadian. Was I born poor? I was reminded today of how people who did not remember my dorm room number would find me. Just look out into the student parking lot and find the only unused parking spot. R213. That’s my room. There were other students on campus with no cars, but none in the residence. Most of those were within walking distance of their classes. Anyway. I did not have a good academic record until I made it work on my own, which is why I don’t owe anybody a thing.
It says here India has raided the offices of George Soros. There is some kerfuffle over the Kennedy assassination files, but we’ve had too many false alarms. A jury in North Dakota has ruled in favor of a pipeline company that sued Greenpeace for defamation.
Metro State Prison choir.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
How’s this for a view of the bench seat. Glued and adequately clamped, the nature of used lumber means we’ll likely have to do some tight fits. I think you can visualize how the boards all fit together. The weakness of the glue tested this morning is concern. I stopped only long enough to go downtown and buy some Velveeta. And to play “Secret Agent Man” since I have not had that on a song list in at least twenty or thirty years. It came out around the same time as the early James Bond films but apparently there was no connection.
No flooring work today, it was late afternoon before I realized it. I’ve been using the air conditioner in the afternoons, turning the indoor climate perfect for a siesta. I received a long newsletter from Caltier about most every topic except the one we want—when is the pause being lifted on new investments. Bottom line, we got into crowdfunding while still a new enough thing and learned a ton about how it works and does not work. I remain leery of “ground floor” startups or moving too fast. The reason I’m looking afield if mostly due to Caltier’s lack of communication. I know it is an SEC tie-up, but what is the nature of it and what is being done to get back on track.
What’s this? Six black men and one White woman at a station in Antarctica, and “violence” has broken out? Who’d a-thunk it? There were two other women but that didn’t change the odds. Only woketard reports with no names and no details other than there had been threats and a sexual assault. Since the “team” is there to study climate change, I say leave them to their own resources. Kind of an acid test of how much they care for their fellow humans.
The whole day flew past me, that’s rare. I took an hour after dark to go over the cost management factors on Etsy. Who is selling what? The first thing that hits me is the people who are not making money. I pay close attention to pricing which is why I notice when other don’t. Ease of market entry is a pitfall in America. One example I’ve used is landscaping. People get into it for a few thousand bucks and try to undercut the competition. While most go belly-up, there is always a constant supply of new people to take their place.
One constant are videos claiming to turn $2 of lumber into $50 hotcakes. They then proceed to demonstrate using a vintage 20” Dewalt radial arm saw. (About $12,000.) Cutting pallet lumber with a $300 saw blade isn’t the smartest idea. As mentioned last week, I see a clear division with people who have to make a living at it. Allowing for that, some of the prices are still too damn high—which also attracts foreign competition, especially with smaller articles. But prices too low means working for nothing, which defeats the concept. But like music, even if I never make a profit, it stops me from spending money on other things which is the same as profit.
ADDENDUM
Navigation is an elaborate set of estimations, and that includes the seconds. The Almanac values are more accurate than needed and you soon learn to round the figures. The explanation is simple—you don’t need extreme measurements in the middle of the ocean, and if you are in sight of any landmark, you would use that. A good navigator would know by how many seconds his chronometer is off. However, that is not the reason I chose to leave the seconds where they fell. It is called the equation of time.
The Earth is not perfectly circular and its distance from the Sun varies during the year. The Sun does not always cross the Prime Meridian at exactly noon. I’ve seen the time off by nearly seven minutes, and it may be more that I have not seen. The values in the charts show “mean time”, the mathematic term for average. It is my understanding the Sun can move almost 30 miles in those minutes. For an amateur like myself, I would consider 30 miles out on the ocean to be very good results. So, for the purpose of practice, I disregard the seconds. Let’s do an example.
The time of measurement (not the sextant reading) is 12:58:17 GMT on March 19, 2025. I’m using a 2014 Almanac, again for practice. The Sun is very near the Equator and at time of reading, it was at Greenwich Hour Angle 358°03.6’ at a declination of S00°28.6’ on the last hour. Referring to the table of increments, we add 14° 34.3’ to allow for the 58 minutes and 17 seconds past the hour, to arrive at a GP of 12° 38’ S00.29’. We will now use an app to find where that is. Why not use Google maps? Because Google is one of the worst. It automatically tracks down your IPS and displays the location of that. Maybe to let you know who is boss, I suppose. You cannot enter the data in any known format. You can trial-and-error trying to drag the pointer around, but of what practical use this would be escapes me.
Don’t be dismayed if this isn’t easy to follow. What hindered me is the terms, which are an admixture of words from navigation, astronomy, and math. The sun is still nearly three hours over the Eastern horizon and Florida is on Daylight Saving Time. (That’s ‘saving’, not ‘savings’.) I have not yet located a map where coordinates can be entered in correct format. The one site that comes close tries to find the nearest street address, which takes a while if your GP is somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean
You won’t find many exciting places under the Sun’s position. It is in a band around the Equator that is just under 24° north and south of it over the year. That part of the world is mostly water except over Africa and the Amazon. The land parts are not known for the contribution to civilization.
If you find a map that displays co-ordinates, you can click by trial and error to fine the GP is in the Gulf of Guinea some distance south of Sierra Leone and west of Gabon. How millenials think this way of doing things is useful just proves they don’t have a clue what is going on—but they can sure as hell code that sucker!
