March 4, 2025

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 4, 2024, ordinariness, sp!.
Five years ago today: March 4, 2020, living in the dark.
Nine years ago today: March 4, 2016, most popular to date.
Random years ago today: March 4, 2007, look, an erg.

           It’s finally official, the social media on-line investment scams have overtaken all other forms contacting suckers. Up 784% in five years, they say. Mostly impersonations (of government officials), romantic come-ons, and debt relief bunko, it now eclipses all the classic rip-offs like fake shopping, lotteries, and overseas money transfers as the primary method of finding stupid people. These are the sort who have to be told if it is weather-eventing outside. In fact, they say there is a big weather event heading this way.

           Maybe a year of putting up with e-mails from Lofty (no link) has created some results. I’ve answered their repeated inquiries why I won’t invest by listing the three reasons they have themselves created. Too much lingo, no clear instructions, no straight answers. And one of the worst challenges was the creation of this “wallet”. I know the concept, but I want answers first. I distrust anything on-line that requires 28 separate steps to set up. Baffle with bullshit doesn’t work on me. As of this week, I’m receiving e-mails saying they have finally streamlined the wallet setup. I’ll commit to taking a look only. See addendum for more details.
           Here is the best photo you may get of the base under the old stove. That 2x4” was added as a brace at some point in the last 20 years. There is a lot more of the messy wiring here if you know what to look for. I priced out the 12/2 cable I’d like to replace it with, and it is 83ȼ a foot these days. Depending on how far I want to go with this, I could need 200 feet. The old boards ripped up left the nails exposed, which I pried out with a claw hammer. And today both my hands are really sore where I gripped the handle. My bass-playing grip.

           The entire morning had me chasing around. I have the tow hitch in the van and dropped off the doggy food. They sent out a guy to help me as I can’t heft the shapeless 50-lb bags and he had a limp. I asked and sure enough, he had a back operation last October. He’s a sheriff and they put him on light duty (lifting 50 pounds) and he reported being under for just and hour. He describe the first month as getting used to returning to normal activities but with periods of lost sensation and he was unable to completely ball up his fists, lamenting that he once was proud of his handshake.
           I stopped for supplies to discover the local lumber place has no landscape posts, but the electrical supplies were on sale. All the fittings I need for the major cable runs, except the wire, came to only $27. That was mostly plastic except for the junction boxes, which I insist be only metal. Yet, I had to pause just walking with this back to the van. Now the hitch, that is heavy duty, maybe overkill but better safe than sorry. It is possible a second 35-mile round trip may be needed to get those timbers.

           Now on disk four of the audiobook and what a sob story. The couple lost their firstborn son at childbirth, the bank closed and took all the money. Rafe (Raphael) has abandoned the family, as so many did, hopping a train to look for work in Califormia. Railroad work in the land of milk and honey. Thousands of wives and kids left behind thinking he’ come back. The drought killing all the plants and now the farm animals. No hay for the livestock and the well is going dry. There’s like six more disks to go and I’m already looking forward to World War Two. Makes one feel sorry for millennials of today when their maxxed out credit card embarrasses them at Starbucks.

Picture of the day.
Garden of the Gods.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           There are no shortcuts back from the dog pound, so I turned onto Highway 98 and spotted a Mexican food stall. I could not resist and went for quesadillas. What a feast, though I confirm again there is no place locally to get café con leche with your meal. A pity, and it destroys all claims of authenticity. South Americans love their coffee and so do I. The only reading material I had was a Tennessee road map which did not show the smaller routes I like to take time permitting. Yep, I’m full and there is enough left for a raccoon snack, I’ve discovered she will eat just about anything including chicken bones.

           I built two more boxes in the same 14-1/2 minutes by simply stacking and cutting two pieces at a time. The extra assembly time was offset by time saved moving pieces on the saw table. The jigs have to be universal before I make them, so I’m watching for mistakes and I found them. While every one has a solution, not all are economical. Here is something discovered today. Varying lumber thickness. It’s a problem and a bigger challenge than suggested by this photo.

           This causes pieces that fit into the interior of the box to have slight gaps. They are acceptable for around here, but these have to be eliminated. Accurate measurement would work if you have the time. There other picture shows six boxes built in the last 24 hours, each one has revealed a problem.
           My plan is to build the inside of the boxes first. We already know this works from earlier mistakes. The exterior pieces can be cut a bit proud and then trimmed to fit. The gaps are about a sawblade wide, a size I find difficult to fix. The boxes are getting more refined and experience with the air stapler is a must, don’t underestimate it. The two long sides, the two bottoms, and the insert are the same length and can be cut as a matching set. That leaves three cuts. The short sides and then insert.

           I was past 1:00PM when I got back, truly tired but I got the van unloaded except for the hitch. Heavy rain tomorrow says get all the supplies today, but ask me if I look tired. I date you. Here’s a video of the road back passed Agt. R’s place. Or the place he used to be, he’s never there anymore and his sons have turned it into a party house, always eight or ten cars parked. Nothing suspicious about that.

           What is strange is across the street since y’day, a privacy fence a block long appeared, with digging machinery just visible above the top. There was a storm-damaged building there before, but this covers nearly the entire block. I know six families in the area and none of them have any idea what is going on. As usual, the information was placed in notices that nobody reads any more and all approvals took place over at City Hall. Nobody knows nothing. That vacant office across the street has also been bulldozed and a steel-stud framework appeared in one day.

           Today’s Gunsmoke was another great production. Face it, these successful series run out of new material and steam. The plots remain better and more relatable than anything since. In this episode, a safecracker after his old bar gal gets involved in a heist, but makes good. Trump is due to make a speech tonight but many, like myself, have lost a lot of faith due to his slow methods.            If there was ever a classic self-putdown of any troop of gangsters, it was the political left in that auditorium tonight. Stone-faced and grim while the most popular President in modern history outlined their failures and a series of plans that seemed chosen in part for their resistance to any change back to Democrat rule.

ADDENDUM
           My conclusion a year ago was that there are two types of wallet. One is where you have the key and they have the password. I dislike this because that means you are never really free to do as you please for in the end they have the final say. The other is where you have the password and they hold the key. And we have all heard horror stories of that password being forgotten, lost, or hacked. I stress this conclusion was only my best guess. I did not like the complexity of either system, remember ha-ha how computers were supposed to simplify life?

Last Laugh