One year ago today: May 5, 2024, remember 80 gigs?
Five years ago today: May 5, 2020, the right idea.
Nine years ago today: May 5, 2016, when $100,000 was high.
Random years ago today: May 5, 2007, my Yamaha speakers.
Looks like the renovation down the road has hit a bad patch. City inspectors swarming all over the place this morning. I recognize the truck of the “Enforcer” in front. It takes a lot more than a code violation to get action like that around this town. I’m not saying the city is against renovating older houses, I’m just saying that makes one damn good description of their behavior. Nine of the eleven staffers were not born here.
There’s a small story behind this photo. Shown here are some brass accents or trim for a single small box. They are light duty, even the hinges can be bent by hand but gain a lot of sturdiness when attached. This is a set from Ace (Hardware), the place where you can always get what you need—for a price. I already files the receipt, but this shows around $15 of metal that is little more than decoration. That is, three times the entire cost of the rest of the box. Now the good part.
While at the store, the chatty lady told me there is another guy building stuff out of pallet wood. I would have shrugged but she mentioned the small hardware, leading me to ask what he is building. She said a doll house. A couple more questions show the guy is dealing with the same barriers as myself, but that he could potentially use some occasional help. If that help involves materials, costs, and tools he may not have on his own, I’m very interested. My shop is equipped for two people, what I lack is experience on how to use them. Well, I also lack a partner who has not shown up in eight years and a helper who is in jail for twice that long, but those are other tales from the trailer court. I left my contact.
I think my Danelctro bas turns 23 this month. My shoulder blades continue to loosen up and I now experience pains of reactivating old muscles. Maybe I have a few rounds left in me after all. Just kidding, I can no longer lift anything more than 40 pounds with any ease. And that, peeps, is how my morning went. I sat down to read a few articles that interested me and when I looked up, it was late afternoon. Too late to begin anything.
Here is a pic from the yard at pre-dawn this morning. This is not enhanced, that is the soft blue tint of a Florida dawn signaling a hot day with afternoon showers. The yard looks busy, but that fence is fifteen feet back there and showing 7:21AM and 64°F. Time to get underway.
The word from Miami is the welfare people are once more ramping up investigations on the more serious scammers. They do this when they think the authorities are watching. This time it is cheating families, so is DOGE behind it? I hope so. There is a misconception that a person cannot get benefits if they have more than $2,000 in a bank (or assets other than a car, etc, same as welfare). Actually, it has been raised to something like $3.750 but that isn’t the point. The reality is the law states no person in the immediate household can have that much. And this has been a problem for ages, people selling welfare groceries and putting the money in their kid’s accounts.
Why I don’t play Euchre.
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Tell you what, to say we did, let’s find the Sun at 23:02:29 GMT on this day in 2014. It is approaching Johnston Island, which we’ve already reviewed, so we choose the nearest inhabited place. It’s the 13 square miles of Fanning Island. It has native names and is part of the nation of Kiribati. Around 900 miles south of Hawaii, the population is roughly 2,000. A channel into the lagoon was blasted through around 1900 and Norwegian cruise lines sometimes visits. Most people work for the coconut farm. First, admire my nice new mini-tool box, now in use. Now back to Fanning.
The Japanese had heavily fortified groups of island that formed chains, like the Gilberts and Marshals. Hollywood gives the impression the goal was capturing these islands. But the Americans knew they had more ships and planes. The idea was to capture one island in each chain and build an air base. The navy would then blockade the other islands while the air force pounded the Japanese. Strategically, this plan is quite economical.
Those movies of landing craft bouncing in the ocean are not Tarawa. In this landing, the approach was from inside the calmer waters of the lagoon, hitting the beaches from inside the atoll. The Japs knew the island was important and had 5,000 troops in the area. The island with the airfield is tiny. The huge counter attack never came because of chance good luck. The marines saw three officers taking and called in naval gunfire. One shell killed all the senior Japanese officers, so nobody remained to issue any attack orders.
Many of the landing boats could not cross the reef at high tide, so the Marines waded ashore. This cost them the majority of casualties. Tarawa was also the first Banzai attack against the well-armed Americans. It was a slaughter. Most Japanese fought to the death, killing a total of just over a thousand GIs. Of the Japanese, only 17 survived.
Later, I am informed there were earlier, smaller Banzai charges in places like Attu, a remote Alaskan island.
