August 9, 2025

Yesteryear
One year ago today: August 9, 2024, getting disgusting.
Five years ago today: August 9, 2020, early scooter shed view.
Nine years ago today: August 9, 2016, pileated, you say.
Random years ago today: August 9, 2023, pallet awareness day.

           These are the 5-inch guns on the USS Orleck in Jacksonville. Hello from downtown, I left home at 7:30AM to meet up with Trent at the History Museum. This included a stop at Skycraft in Orlando, but they did not have any 7805s, or anybody who knew where to look for them. Sign, but the interstate through town is beautifully brand new, or as it turns out, the northbound lanes are. If my batteries had not gone dead, you’d see some video, I swear, I will get a new camera soon.

           The Robot Club rides again. That’s the tag for today, and we had five years of catching up to do. We got millennialized right off the mark, but turned this into a great meeting by touring this WWII destroyer. It’s on the river near downtown which I discovered is on both side of that river and I had a hard time finding my way. GPS let me down via advertising, I could see the place across the bridge and Trent was on the phone, but the GPS would not let me find a way to the bridge. Turns out the city is apparently on this kick of routing people downtown.

           The plan was to visit the Jacksonville Historical Society. I thoroughly checked this place for location and business hours days ago, including talking to staff on the phone. For me, this was a 423 mile round-trip so I didn’t need their bullshit. But that is what I got. I made sure I had the correct address at 314 Palmetto St, you can call them at (904) 665-0064 and tell them what AOLs they are. Trent confirmed all a second time and arrived twenty minutes early, texting me that the building looked closed. It was.
           How could they muck up a confirmation? Easy for them, they are pricks. Once again it turns out the web page has never been updated because not one ass-clown over there knows how. The double-prick on the phone then read me this outdated information. Millennialized, we did not learn it was shut down until time and money was wasted. Turns out there is a sports arena across the street and the museum shuts down during events to gouge the sports fans for parking.

           But you are talking robot club and we turned the day into one memorable tour and a lot of business, plus aforesaid catching up. Thanks, Trent, for springing for both the tour and lunch. Sadly, during this entire day we saw only one good-looking gal, folks, there is no worse sign of the decline of a country when all the babes go into hiding. I meant everywhere, not on a used naval destroyer in the harbor—although if I was a babe husband hunting, that is exactly the sort of place I would show up, hint-hint-ha-ha.
           The ship had been sold to the Turkish navy for a spell, which made for hilarious signs around the tub. It’s a very poorly planned walking tour with few directions, so allow for two hours. Ship interiours and train cabins have such similar cramped quarters that I always try to get a look at where they bake their bread. Guess what, we found the bakery and it had eight, count ‘em, what looked like modern pizza ovens. Ha, you would have thought this could be today’s Little Caesar’s. We got you a tale from the trailer court. Here goes.
           Parts of the ship were still off-limits, not for security, but because of the stifling summer heat. This vessel operating in the tropics without air conditioning, so the interior is a sweat-box and the ship is only partially getting AC this year, and only in stages. This kitchen area is not only windowless, it is deep inside the bowels and lots of people like to see the food prep area. So the room was a monster of a torture chamber until they got a brave local contractor to crawl in there and install what looked like an 8-foot long ceiling cooler. Well, he starts working away in that furnace and calls the “captain” to come over in a hurry.
           Sure enough, the last Turkish cook had forgot to turn off all eight “pizza ovens”. A 1930s design or not, they were in perfect working order and were still cranked up fill blast. There you go, more history right there than we saw at the Jacksonville museum.

Picture of the day.
Mutton Island
(Irish sewage facility.)
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           The last club meeting was August five years ago in St. Augustine, so we had much to update, including music, plans, and increasingly the need to develop some small business, known collectively as side-hustles. It is nearly impossible to start a large business in America since this is not a true capitalist system. The barriers to market entry are enormous and kept in place by those who have already succeeded. All I can give you is a brief overview and my repeat lament that such things seem to take so long to find out.

           I repeat how I have no contacts when it comes to Internet operations. Every XYZer I ever met was a bullshit artist in that department. What I know about anything from crowd-funding to on-line publishing, I had to find out for myself. It was known Trent was in much the same boat, but he does have kids who were raised around these apps, and the conversation quickly tured to which ones he had used. One was Spotify, and he made money.
           First, this nice video clip of the USS Orleck’s holodeck, with this 3D animation of a sub attack. And a photo of the first actual ASROC launcher I’ve seen up close. This is the housing for eight of the rockets on a trainable turntable. I don’t think it was ever used in action. But the USS Orleck was the ship that blasted the ammo trains in Korea. They used to hide at night in tunnels until Orleck figured a say to slip into range and fire a star shell at night. I do know the 5-inch guns were one of the most successful designs ever. The Orleck had six of them. I took a pic of the magazine feed tubes, if it turns out, I’ll include it tomorrow.

           Sadly, like most displays on the ship, this otherwise excellent presentation was gimped. Slowed down and too loud because there might have been one deaf retard in the group. So they inconvenience 100% of the others, real nurturing bunch. Back to business. Trent put some of the early recordings from, when was that, 2011 or something? They were deemed not adequate by the standards of the time, but we did not know that standards would fall so low that now all on-line indie music is of this nature. Well, it seems some Norwegian radio station picked up the recordings and played them what must have been many, many times because he got a check for $202. Now, we are interested again.

           According to the Norwegians, this brand of country music is big over there. Okay, so it isn’t real country, most of our lists are better tagged “country-like”. In this process, it seems that Trent’s kids have opened many on-line accounts, some of which might sell boxes, you see where this is going. First things, he is going to have a look to see what is possible. And one more item of potential, in the early days we often supplied copies of our recordings, most of mine were instrumentals. Well, he may have kept some long lost copies, including my non-hit, “The Debbie I Knew”.

           If anything goes, I’ll mention it at the time. What did not go is something I predicted right here years ago. That the old club would die a hard death over letting those new people run the show. I’m not against the new people, I just pointed out what would happen. And it did. The lack of live music, the importation of non-local staff, and the constant pushing of that pseudo-rap shigga-booga music finally killed the established order and the place had two customers last night. I stopped in to give Wilford some LEDs from skycraft and at prime time, I was the only person in the place.
           I stayed an hour to write a letter and chat, and one other person arrived. A Spanish-speaking stranger. Cathie is gone, her husband the Karoke guy is gone, and so is the old-timey local atmosphere of that once-popular club. I had one beer and left. Remember I said once the place had been bled, the new people would move on? Well, so did the Karaoke. No customers, no Karaoke, no country, and no cash. Yet, the one thing that will turn the place around, country music, is somehow not on their option list. Remember, my secondary prediction if they did not go country would be turn the place into a gay or latino bar.
           The strange part of being right is people can still disagree with you and your silly little facts.

ADDENDUM
           We stopped at BB’s Bar, an eatery on the riverfront. That’s where we saw the only babe this trip, and she was the server. That’s a scenario I first described in Tacoma, WA, back in the mid-80s. One good-looking gal in the whole city and she’s living with somebody. No, I didn’t check it out but I’ll bet you a hundred dollars I’m right. She earned a nice tip for two such pleasant customers.

           I had been in the mood for sea food, and the only item on the menu turned out to be swordfish. And oddly dry meat, comes with a smoked bacon sauce. Most unusual meal for me in twenty years, though I would stop short of calling it a favorite. Again, a mild taste for ocean fish. Normally it is served with grits, but guess what I had for din-din y’day? So I subbed a large serving of the house fries. With my dead camera batteries, I can’t show you. Nice place, that BB’s. They also have a well-equipped bar, but it was too early in the day.

           I also got millennialized on the way home. Now you can say I don’t give them a break so why should they give me one? Because that is their job. They are paid to do it right, I don’t get paid to put up with them when they don’t. My van has a light that comes on when there is arounn 40 miles left in the tank, which I rely on a bit as the KIA gauge isn’t accurate. So I’m just north of Orlando and the sign says the Colonial exit is 13 miles. No problem, lots of gas stations here. I pull up and the tiny sign says exit 38 ramp closed. And exit 39, 40, 41, and so on. I finally coasted off exit 68 on fumes. I passed six other cars who had run out of gas.
           Ask yourself what kind of ass-clown blocks 31 miles of exits without notice? You see, it is not full, true entitlement unless accompanied by lack of any accountability. After those are achieved, all that is needed in their world is an ability to blame others. Block an exit plus tell some lost tourists about it—that is not within the realm of millennial comprehension.

Last Laugh