One year ago today: August 10, 2024, why I avoid company.
Five years ago today: August 10, 2020, 63 working months later.
Nine years ago today: August 10, 2016, a generic day.
Random years ago today: August 10, 2012, six hours by motorcycle.
Y’day is a hard act to follow. I zonked for 8 hours after realized I had just blogged about Turkish pizza ships and Norwegian radio, but hey, what are blogs for. All I have this morning is a blinking light. With a story attached, of course. Blinkers of most kind for house lights have become rare and expensive. I want a light that blinks when my compressor is left on. So I found four of these LEDs at Skycraft. They are some sort of weird one-off, but they blink with no additional wiring or pieces. Thinking this might be a cheap shortcut, this video shows the red flashing LED in series with a blue LED.
The plan was to see if the blinking feature could be coupled with other parts. Shown here, the answer is no. The red LED blinks only when first activated. After around a minute, it stops flashing. Last day was quite a hike up and down ship ladders, explaining today’s slow start. America continues to be treated to the spectacle of charities, societies, businesses, and particularly big media outfits that are folding or curtailing staff in the wake of the USAID cutoff.
Our beautiful teenage red cardinal is back and loves the bird bath and spritzer. She has lost the last of the fluffy nest feathers and is far too pretty. She will not last here long, there is no room for her and it is time to move on. And the excellent adventure in Jacksonville y’day, including the gas came in one dollar under budget—but double thanks to Trenr treating. I hope he finds the missing recording and I will see if I can dig up the bass lines I used to record when I was learning country music. Some were very adaptable as I remember and I used a lot more walk-ups and walk-downs. Because I could.
Flat Earthers apparently come in various models. There’s the north pole people and even a group saying the plane is not round, but infinite. They all explain gravity by saying this flat surface is accelerating upward at a the correct speed. No mention of how the Moon or Sun keeps pace, but let’s not quibble. If you remove the religious kooks and the people who just hate the government-NASA thing, there are reportedly 10,000 members. I think it likely many just clain to believe in a twisted way to mock those who accept scientific theories a bit too much.
The society has had a web page for around ten years now, which I think explains so many members. The Internet is great for letting people know they are stupid but have plenty of support. They even had a conference, covered by none other than CNN. The pseudo-science is hilarious, like the proof of how shadows get longer and the red-shift predicted by Einstein does work on a 2D model. Hmmm, when searching on “2D model”, I get the report Audi has last $11 billion in tariff money considerations. But we do know the purpose of the tariffs is to get these companies to remove more obscure trade practices, some in place for decades.
Fort Massachusetts, Biloxi.
(Flooded by Hurricane Katrina.)
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Today was a non-starter. The ship was a good work-out, probably had us climbing more than twenty sets of ladders. Ships are not for the claustrophobic. I learned that having a deeper perspective on radio and electronics that these ships were not that advanced, what was ahead was the way things were used. I see the radio room had two of everything. This is also where I saw an ad for snow chains for tank treads. Huh? Turns out to be a cleat that replaces every tenth plate in the track. It has a steel gripping pattern. Tank treads are a study in themselves.
Here is a yard plant, one of those widow-things from Char years ago. It’s featured because anything that grows in this yard is apparently random. This is one of probably 40 that got planted a couple years ago and all but this one failed. Yet, look at the size and heath, you just know it is not anything lacking in the soil or water. My yard is as random as the Amazon, if it grows, fine.
More learning, I put together a small transistor switching circuit that would not work. These are simple, everything was double-checked. I suspect my first bad transistor ever. The something hit me. The copper nails I use for wire junctions. What if they are not real copper, but some alloy that forms a non-conductive tarnish? Very close examination showed the solder was beading, not connecting. But it has to wait, I have no real gumption left to be cleaning nails. In fact, I’m looking forward to physio tomorrow to work on my ladder-climbing groups.
I retested using new copper and got the transistor to switch, but my habit of putting LED indicators shows a weird behavior not covered in the book. Grant me time to look at it tomorrow. When the power is connected, the wrong light goes out. There’s a simple answer but something so basic needs to be understood and the textbooks are no help.
I have one of the worst audiobook styles, but I’m listening to it. The jacket says it is a murder mystery, but it is a dragged out narrative all about how the woman “feels” about the situation. Does her cat love her, is her co-worker thinking about her, what will she have for lunch. I’m on disk 2 and so far there has been five minutes of plot. All the rest is a ceaseless bloviating mess about how this woman believes it all centers on her emotions. The scary part is this is serious, not some sixth grader just finding out boys are not yucky. What I thought was just a silly lead-in is now entering the second out of her self-centered monologue.
The last time I had something like this was reading Daniel Steele, where the story nevery takes place because it is all about the emotions of the protagonist. The label says 12 hours listening time. At the end of that time you will certainly have an excellenteducation on how shallow women can be. And a thorough understanding of why so many of them wind up on the skids with a house full of cats at age forty.
ADDENDUM
This is a design I’d place in the mid-1930s. The placard said it was used to test the effect of underwater mines, or to simulate it. The sadness displayed here is not the function, but the great ideology that America has lost: the concept of one switch one function. Hidden way down here is more editorial that centers on blog philosophy. This is a record of the daily matters I consider adventure—that much of the world considers problems or such. But I know this is also a chronicle of my own aging process (semi-intentional since my late 2003 wake-up call), and also a running commentary on finances.
And in the sense that Trent is one of the few people who is aware of how the budgeting works, it is always an eye-opener and causes a review of the “way things work”. This is not to say we talk money details, more that the course of events are influenced by how we each seem to be doing. His kids are now pretty much grown up and out on their own. I have no such success to report. What I do have is my own comparative stats, which exist solely because I kept them. That is, they were not intended for historical scrutiny—or I would have only kept the good news. Here is one item that is subject to, I think, incredible misinterpretation.
Yes, I really did, in my lifetime, spend slightly over a half-million dollars looking for happiness in the form of a good woman. Spare me the flak over standards and churches and looking too hard, I’ve heard it all a thousand times and there is nothing you can add. The aspersions of evil minds won’t stop there, so I figure this is the right time to set them straight. If you think I spent money recklessly scouting the local pick-up joints, you have not been paying attention. I have never bought sex or love, the half-million is a cumulative total over 40 years, amounting to less than $13,000 per year AND includes travel costs.
That’s around $1,000 per month which compares well with what others spend, and certainly beats the $20 a night some people I know spend just in bars and pick-up joints. Playing pool, yeah, that’s really going to get you a babe. And that is the difference I choose to explain now. How did this amount get spent in my world? I can tell you how it did not get spent. It was not spent like exactly how some will assume—I did NOT cruise into bars and pickup joints, casting a lustful eye about for easy prey and vulnerable females. I did NOT ply any with alcohol and small talk, in fact, I rarely even made a move.
Yes, as an entertainer I am comfortable in the bars, including known pickup joints, but I am not comfortable in casinos or strip joints. Simply put, I have never been that desperate. I rarely buy women drinks because I’ve never had to. But if I met the right gal, that would change on the spot—a claim that seems to irritate the hell out of feminists. My point is (partially) that I do not walk into a club looking for love. If I meet an interesting gal, she gets my attention, but that has not happened in over twenty years. A few diversions is the best I can report. Most of the ones who made it that far were temporarily amusing at most.
But let’s look at the half-million dollars. I don’t waltz in the big spender. I’m more likely to find a corner, and if there are no prospects, I’ll read or write. But of course I am paying attention. What I’m not doing is being a klutz chasing the bar bunnies and leftovers. Chances are I’ll get on stage or dance or even call bingo and let Nature take its course. Once you realize it is the women on the hunt worse than the men, it does not take much to catch the eye of the elite. My problem is not my standards, which are average (in that I ask for nothing I can’t offer in return), there is nothing wrong with my standards. The problem is the elite.
Got a job? Got a career? Have some interests? Hobbies? Tales from the trailer court? A few adventures? A light inquisitiveness about most things? And if you are over 30, maybe your own car and money? Then—PROVIDED there is a spark--, I am interested. I’m emphasizing that my advice is not casual observations, but long experience. So I’ll break it up and you can return tomorrow for more on this.
