One year ago today: July 15, 2024, assassinations & brickwork.
Five years ago today: July 15, 2020, 9% isn’t friendly.
Nine years ago today: July 15, 2016, those overhanging trees.
Random years ago today: July 15, 2008, suspecting my doctor.
Consequences, I slept in until 2:30PM and was within an ace of missing Festus Tuesday. I misplaced 130 receipts from the last trip, they are not in my van. I unpacked the rest of the gear, if I did not mention, I finally have the centering cone and the mortise router bit. What I can’t find is the charger for my lithium battery booster. I was up earlier but read the warning signs to take it easy. I opted to read something I never quite understood, which is the “slingshot” method used by satellites to gain speed orbiting a planet. I still don’t but here’s what I did find out.
The US military how pressed the Vanguard team to launch before they were ready. The rocket got only a few feet off the launchpad and collapsed, go boom. The military did not supply anything they had learned, so the rocket really was home-made.
Odd enough, the satellite, around the size and weight of a small grapefruit, survived the blast and kept on ticking, or actually, beeping a radio signal. Vanguard was the fourth object in space and it is still there, preceded by the two Sputniks, and Explorer 1, the US military answer. All those have burned up making Vanguard the oldest satellite. For anybody who disputes my contention the last three US generations have invented nothing, Vanguard was powered by solar panels, but the beeping stopped in 1964.
The orbit was unusually high, and it is eccentric. What I figure is the highest spot is where the satellite is traveling the fastest. If you give it a kick at the right moment, that might work. That is why engineers have slide rules, or something like that. Who remembers a few months ago one of the latitudes and longitudes had us taking a look at Johnston Atoll/Island. It came up during this morning’s study as a potential “space port”.
We shall see, as my report covered gems like leaking toxic waste. The plan is to launch rockets carrying troops and supplies to the island (which is 90% runway) direct from the US, then a second launch to destinations like Asia. SpaceX has brought down the price of rockets to, it is rumored, a tenth of what NASA was spending. It normally takes weeks of planning to send military assets to a war zone. The aim is to bring that down to one hour.
Beach bars in Rio.
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We’re running out of Festus reruns. Today we watched the last half of “Hombre”, a Paul Newman flick that I found rather slow moving. Assessing the electric problem with the van, I opted to get all the bulbs working so I can drive it, but the rear lights stay on. Is it the lights or the wiring? I need to plan for a half day when I won’t need the van. If I screw up, I have the second vehicle, right? So I paid $6 each for two bulbs, using an old trick. One of the lights is a single filament, but put in a double. It will still work and can be swapped for the more important brake light on the fly.
There’s another sign of the bad times. There is now always a tattooed 30-something punk hanging around the parking lot where most people make minor repairs. He’ll send his skank old lady over to see if you “need any help” or may try without being asked, pretending they are just being neighborly. They aren’t, they will always hit you up for $20. “I helped you now you gotta help me.” The store is aware of it, but that parking lot is not theirs.
How unusual to have three bulbs burn out. And one of them has a short, not an open. It’s the clear one on the far left, one of the filaments is intact. The other two bulbs are clouded, indicating a possible overvoltage. Yes, it still strikes me odd that in 2025, they still put both sides of the entire brake and tail lights on the same fuse and circuit.
