One year ago today: June 19, 2024, my awareness is raised.
Five years ago today: June 19, 2020, view of my attic.
Nine years ago today: June 19, 2016, chasing women.
Random years ago today: June 19, 2015, always a risk.
Once again I get ambushed by Juneteenth. This sets me back 40 days on my medical schedules until I can get into Miami again. The good news is I’m limber today, it’s 8:30AM and I’ve already got plenty done. It’s 79°F out there already but I feel like working outside a while. I have four more e-boxes cut, maybe slap those together. I cleared a space for semi-outdoor storage, look for pictures. No word from my guitar player. I’m in a box-building mood. You mean everybody doesn’t dip their ginger snaps in melted butter?
I was unaware that smart phones automatically unlock when the IR camera is pointed a your face. This is the IR lens, not the regular lens, and as shown here, sunglasses do not stop facial recognition. While retina scans are still rare, one of the primary measurements (called “feature extraction”) is the width of the eye compared to the distance between the inner corners. These are easily visible in the infrared version. For those interested, the second telltale ratio is the width of your mouth compared to the distance from the base of your nose to the middle top of your upper lip. Your ratio is 2.107.
Here is a glimpse at the interior of the work shed with some 13 boxes nearly complete. I’ve got the process so memorized I can set work aside. This results in a better box, since that normally means the unit needs a special cut to make it look right.
He asked about my spine treatment and I know he had an injury not that long ago. I got him to agree to a meetup next time I’m in town. He casually mentioned a $1,300 medical bill. No details, but at the rate I’m losing people nowadays, have to see in person if he’s hiding something again. He’s a yahoo and he dates ugly women, but I’ve known the guy for 25 years. He has photos of the boxes and thinks they should be bigger. Here is one today containing the hardware from the old motorcycle camper, all in one handy box. Any bigger makes the boxes, if you as me, too heavy when full of anything but regular stuff.
And it says here 25 years ago, there was a TV show I never heard of until today. “Andromeda”, it says a TV series that ran for six years 2000-2005, with a politically correct crew, no doubt. The producer is Roddenberry but the literature says it predates Star Trek by decades and there is no “crossover” between the two productions. I found a couple episodes on line, both unable to hold my interest more than moments each.
A news report of Chinese vessels, fifty of them, showing up at a reef in Philippine waters and ignoring messages to leave. China calls them “maritime marine” boats, but they practice coordinated military maneuvers. Another wave of statistics appear on-line saying so many women over 60 are “lonely”. I wonder how they managed that? Illegal border crossing in May were finally zero, and if certain rules are applied, the number of illegals in Americal is now 100 million. Too many holidays now cost America billions per year. And the Democrats are broke, trying to borrow money since their donations have dried up.
America’s largest oil storage depot.
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Things are moving at warp speed compared to April, I was downtown and back in an hour. I had to wait out a downpour to get some lumber, it’s amazing how quickly I’m knows as the picket guy. Listening to “Justice Denied”, we are now subject to four or so sub-plots, which cause me woe by not recalling everybody’s name. Our cop has just discovered the newly-remarried father of his girlfriend’s college friend who committed suicide because of incest was found shot in Mexico at the same time as the girlfriend had taken time off work.
Anyone who has experienced it knows that the cops have a routine interrogation procedure they call an interview. They know people make mistakes under pressure, so they apply that pressure on witnesses as well as suspects. They always want to know who is sleeping with whom and regard any reluctance to answer as covering a lie that will solve the case.
My point is that over time, cops have come to consider this form of grilling as their right. If you don’t go along with it, they put the gears to you. If exercise your right to clam up, you are uncooperative and get on their shit list. And that is wrong on every level. This photo shows the area I cleared for box shelving, with more direct morning sunlight. It is the old scooter shed facing east, it has a nice overhang to keep off the summer rains.
Taking it easy didn’t help as much as I hoped, I still had old pains returning. I don’t mind the muscle aches because I was not limbered up y’day. The back pains, mild, are ominous. The clinic made it clear these injections are part of a procedure to see what works and that failures could lead to surgery. The pain is related to the injections as it does not go away when I lie down. It is minor pain and I wish I had spent some time in the shed today as exercise. One positive I forgot to record last day is pneumatic stapler technique. I can now completely assemble a box without using any guides or markings. Could not do that before.
With the Reb’s pending move, I looked at real estate again. Not good. I don’t appreciate how easily (it seems) that GenXYZ gave up. Let me explain. From the media, it looks like they are saying if they cannot have it all now and better than their ancestors, they are not going to fit into the system. But hold on, most Boomers I know did not have much until later in life, when their years of hard work had accumulated. Why should I feel sorry for others who don’t want to put in those same years for themselves? Hence, I read deeper.
It seems they do not agree with the premise that hard work produces results. They are dead right about that. And one of the worst facts is the world is full of assholes who got it easy and lecture this point. I despise such people. When I was young, I would indeed rather sit around doing nothing, not because I wanted to, but because there was no productive work to be had--and listen to them call me lazy when, if fact, I'm waiting for them to let down their guard. Are the GenXYZ people just exhibiting the same behavior on a generational scale?
Have I maybe only experienced their arguments until I found a way to be productive for myself (and to hell with others)? I can and do work hard to get ahead. They are pointing out that incentive has been taken away. They cannot afford houses or even marriage, so why bother trying? This is where we differ. I went through the same lack of hope, but I did not stop trying. Another contention is their attitude that Boomer jobs were easy, all you had to do was show up.
Other than government jobs, that was never true on a large scale. Even the clerical work they would up shunting me into had to be learned over time. The trade-off was stress, dead-end, or needlessly complicated, pick any two. That is where I learned the telltale signs of anyone working on a computer, or pretending to work. I used a computer the last ten years of my job and there is no way it could be done sipping a latte in Starbucks. Don’t even try telling me somebody in a coffee shop with their feet propped up and time to chat with passersby ever had to put in the same effort as I had to. I’ve done both types of job, so don’t argue with me.
ADDENDUM
I’ve run out of options. The system I set up back west is outdated and collapsing. The system gets a little tighter every year as the taxpayer base shrinks. There is nobody left back west to rely on. I have no way to check on Marion. Well, there is Elliott, but he’s flakey English. He leaves the impression that if he does the tiniest favor, you need to thank him for it regularly for the rest of time. Say, Elliott, remember that tire pump you lent me once back in 1991, I want you to know I have not forgotten and that I will never be able to thank you often enough.
