One year ago today: March 28, 2024, the County Fair.
Five years ago today: March 28, 2020, once in 14 years.
Nine years ago today: March 28, 2016, the road to Ona.
Random years ago today: March 28, 2013, no one-ticket rides.
Some recent articles about the riders (I refuse to call them astronauts) on the ISS about their diet. Many assume the station is a lab for growing space food. I don’t see it, since that is not where such food would be grown in the foreseeable missions to the Moon or Mars. It would hardly be economical to lift the food growing apparatus into orbit. But one you land, then food becomes a priority. You can only recycle so much. See addendum.
Worse, he has an upstairs bathroom and you can clearly see those a manufactured chip-board joists. Very susceptible to water damage. Allow me to explain the seriousness of this. Mitch’s house is in a climate that freezes every winter. He usually shuts the place for the season and visits out on the relatively balmy west coast. For the repairs shown in this photo, it means his plumbing is, at least in part, inside those exterior walls.
If the rest of his house is as flimsily constructed as this corner, I have no doubt the plumbing froze while he was away. He was damn lucky to check in when he did. If he’d returned after spring thaw, he’d be replacing walls and floors. This news just came it overnight, so this morning I’m not so ticked off about a little floor job around here. Hmmm, y’day I drank eleven cups of coffee. It’s proof I’m not invalided yet. It’s hard to believe he spend $185,000 on that place. Or was it $235,000. Either way he’s lucky he bought when he did.
Not so lucky are 10,000 filing clerks at the Health and Human services, that bloated bureaucracy athwart the vast medical billing waste cycle. So, this makes a total of 60,000+ jobs eliminated without a lick of difference to the overall health of Americans. As for the reporter who is claiming he was sent secret war documents, he’s lying through his teeth.
My executor is back from Mexico, but no pics. She is a firm believer in MSM, climate change, orange bad man, and is convinced she has COVID, which gives you an idea of how firm a grip such ideologies have over the media. Now don’t single her out, I worked at the same company and there are thousands of people whose entire contact with the outside world is the TV and the phone. But I need her to be okay, healthy, and happy.
I’d be in a very bad position should anything happen to her. She’s much younger than I am and stayed on the job another 24 years after I quit, so she’s doing very well financially. She’s never run a business but I trust her judgment on such matters.
Let’s talk music. The newest guy, who I’ll try to call Roberto, has carved out some time and sent a list. It’s pretty standard and contains the typical groaners, but that is not a deal-breaker. It’s that I know what he is listening to and what he’s thinking. It depends more on if he wants to sing the material, because the more he sings, the better job I do on bass. And I know exactly what he’s expecting. For most guitarists, I am the first bassist they’ve played with that supplies the full bass line they know is there, but usually have not heard a good bass arrangement.
Let’s take two from his list. Remember “Sister Golden Hair Surprise”? The bass line is dull as dishwater—until the chorus, and that sort of bass line is my specialty. Give it a listen again and you’ll see the opening where he cannot play both parts. He also has Buffett’s “Come Monday” with another humdrum bass part, that is, until you hear those “middle notes” played on a second guitar. Now, does that sound like piano or what.
However, always ease the new people in and we’ll see what he can sing first. I need him to front at least half the material, so his list is more important than he thinks. The Prez learned all this from scratch, which is pretty damn impressive, but this new guy says he’s rhythm all the way, so hopefully he can strum the parts already.
Utah gold claims.
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You learn something every day, at least if you are around here. And here’s something I’ve been doing wrong half my life. We’ve known forever that meters will read small batteries, as full voltage unless there is a load. I’ve always reached for a small resistor and you are not measuring the voltage, but the current across the resistor. It differs per resistor. I did not know I have a drawer full of cheap meters that will test these cells under load. Mind you, screw the engineers who mark this function with what looks like a small capacitor and the instructions that call it something else.
There’s your proof of what I said about on-line crap thirty years ago—truth by majority rule will be the downfall of the Internet.
I received the oddest letter from the city, saying a new balance has been posted to my utility account. That’s been true every month since I arrived, so I called my real estate lady. She’s heard nothing either. She got hit by the storm surge from Hunnicane Helen, but did not say how much until today when I asked about the coast. The surge came in four feet deep and hit 3,800 houses, including hers.
She’s had to replace drywall, plumbing, and generally most of what was four feet under water. That includes her nearly new $10,000 golf cart. Ouch. She had just replaced the batteries and those are gone once salt water hits them. Oddly, my cell phone does not call her number unless she is in town so I had no chance to offer help. She’s amused by how I managed to fix those joists without any outside help. I didn’t want to tell her I’m not out of the weeds myself yet.
Later, I report nothing but a 35 mile round trip today, but to banks and shopping. That doesn’t count as a break. I got some electrical boxes Then, the day just brought itself to a standstill. I did not get the fancy coffee or any groceries and I’m down to rice mostly. I did stop at noon for fast food, a shake and some nuggets. The stop on Sunday at the market didn’t seem so bad when McDees soaked me $8 for the snack. I’m out of audio books, the Texan wasn’t home, I did not even check the sheds or the cull lumber cart at the lumber yard. I was the picture of listlessness—then it hit me. I need to review the finances. That’s all I’ve got for you today.
During the next 35 days, we are recovered from the Valdosta Disaster of August 12, last year. I have not yet farmed out the new transmission. I will, as they say after April 2, if the world doesn’t smarten up, the tariffs will add $6,000 to car prices. That makes my older van even more valuable. Caltier remains static, the pause of ten months has had me looking for alternatives and nothing has made the grade.
Here I am, out of ideas. I’m hearing about these on-line loan services but everybody wants money just to tell me how they work. The parameters for me are the same, I must plan for the days I cannot work and that means taking advantage of what I do have. Spare cash, patience, and a tolerance for risk. Hang on here, we have a tube sale. And it’s a nice one, $25 for me. Give me that a couple times a week and I’d be happy. Why is this GE tube so expensive? Let me look into that and I’ll be right back.
Got it. There seem to be a demand for tubes that are imprinted with a hexagon. Possible some mark of quality, but double the price. Order processed in nine minutes, I’ll drop it in the mail tomorrow. I’m due for a payout. I have not checked with the place that says I can display the boxes, but I’d like an inventory of 30 units before commencing sales. I have no idea if these will even move. Now, where was I? Looking for a business that works because I have cash and the other people don’t.
I’m suffering because I don’t know anybody who can show me the ropes to use this advantage on-line. Noting the growth in robo-advising, I may dabble in that. Nothing makes the stock market crash like you investing in it but I’m out of other ideas. There is no magic to this investing. You fill out a survey that outlines your goals and a computer algorithm goes to work “balancing” your investment toward that end, bypassing dealing with a broker. It’s good-old “dollar cost averaging” from the old days.
The market is volatile due to politics, and I have not forgotten the shaft job by Robin Hood not that long ago. Some people leveraged a gaming stock and were poised to make millions when the stock fund froze their transactions. But rather than sit on the money, I’ve chosen the one that tops several lists. As with Caltier, the initial idea is to learn the system, then after than monitor the performance. The one I selected is WealthFront. I stress, I am at this point just looking.
ADDENDUM
Vegetables have been grown on simulated Lunar and Martian soil, but they cheated a little bit by mixing straw or grass. The soil up there is powdered rock. It’s been analyzed to have all the major elements for food production but has never undergone the “terra preta” process seen in South America. The Martian soil is also full of salt but that is no big deal now that we know there is probably lots of water available.
Watching the videos of this simulated food production shows many common vegetables but there is a glaring omission. None of the videos state if the food it good to eat. The plants absorb nutrients from the soil, but is every nutrient good for human consumption? Recently, we’ve seen that food is only one problem with people in isolation. There have been major personality clashes in space and at a station in Antarctica. I see the common theme with the Biosphere experiment in Arizona.
All kinds of theories came out of that experiment because there was lots of social pressure to avoid stating the real problem—that some people have parasitic personalities. They cannot survive without getting something for nothing out of others, and generally that something is demanding behavior that others consider reserved for more private relationships. One of the worst is when there is pressure to be nice to someone so they won’t cause even more trouble.
Having even one such person (a woketard) on the crew will destroy group cohesion if not the mission itself. Years ago I wrote the trouble stemmed from letting people self-evaluate. And that the solution was to let the others decide who they wanted on board. But I started paying closer attention once Trump entered politics in 2015. I see now that parasitic personalities become champions at disguising the trait for years, even decades, to cajole into a situation where they think they can exert control.
That one I have no suggested solution for. You can’t just walk away on a spaceship. Can you imagine the horror if one of the crew refused to perform his duties unless everyone else “cooperates”? Is there a term for this? I saw it a lot when I worked at the cube farm. Remember Don who would not take his turn of the trouble calls unless you listened to his constant faggot talk, or Gary who slept half his shift and complained when you wouldn’t help him catch up? If you can’t isolate such people on Earth, you can’t do it on Mars.
Gerrymandering.
