October 15, 2025

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 15, 2024, exactly sea level.
Five years ago today: October 15, 2020, alleged academics.
Nine years ago today: October 15, 2016, no Saturday song.
Random years ago today: October 15, 2009, Pudding Tat.

           I got lots for you today. Dang it, there is a problem with the planer. Shown here, the setting for 1/32nd inch is plainly taking off too much, but any low setting barely skims the boards. We’ll find it. I also put some wheels on the box for the 30-ton, although it remains unwieldy no matter what. Right now I’ve got a big batch of turkey fried rice, as the helper did not show up again. As usual, he’ll say he lost the address. I watched a documentary on harvesting bamboo. That is not for me, but the forests sure look nice from the ground up.

           Take a break, read some news. Says here half of the Tennessee sales tax is ultimately expended collecting the sales tax. The illegals in Chicago are finding out the Feds and National Guard are not their old chicken-shit police departments. Some are borrowing a page from the HAMAS guidebook and getting their own children in harm’s way.

           Our old hero across the pond is crushing all opposition in the English polls. Over here, Arkansas is prosecuting a war hero for leading a successful vote to require ballots be hand-counted in his county. They also raised the filing fee to run as a Republican to $30,000. Silver was over $53, and selling is hard. You heard me, buying is easy, it’s knowing when to see that isn’t.

           How about the 20 minute box from y’day. This style of box works best for me when you get tools where the power cord weighs as much and no amount of tying is worth having to untie it next time you need it. You KNOW what I’m talking about. The result is not that fancy nor intended to be.

           There’s welcome into that the mainstream media continues to bleed out. NBC states the number of layoffs will be “significant”. And CBS says “a big round” will happen before Xmas. If I know media, those jobs have no transferable skills. Golly, maybe they should have learned to code. Oak Ridge, TN, is to be the home of the first “portable” nuclear reactor. Makes sense, they built the first a-bomb, though the personnel are not likely still with us. The word portable means the components are build in a factory for shipment, rather than built on site.

           The WMO (World Meteorological Organization) has declared carbon dioxide levels at an all-time high. Plants are thrilled. We begin week three of the shutdown with no end in sight except the Democrats poised to lose big time. It’s ironic they are losing to tactics they practically invented themselves. And I did not know the US has the largest reserves of “rare earth” minerals. What’s makes them rare is the expense of mining them. You need cheap labor and the US is not known for that.

           I recall the Skating Rink murder case from 1984 because three men were convicted on testimony only. That is not supposed to happen, there is supposed to be evidence and witnesses. They were in prison for years before DNA proved them innocent, but that still left the killer out there. Well, they caught him today just before his 65th birthday, using a straw from a smoothie. Lesson learned, at 65 you should not be still drinking smoothies.
           But the world has not learned the lesson about trusting the word of terrorists. Immediately upon returning to Gaza, HAMAS went on a witch hunt. Executing people in the streets and maiming others by breaking their arms and legs.

Picture of the day.
Petrified log cabin?
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Okay, I fell back asleep until quarter to four. Here’s the process of cutting the wood for the hinge jig. It’s past the point of no return, I have to finish it now or admit I’m that bad at woodwork, these are self-imposed conditions. So either way, I get coffee afterwards. The latest round of squirrel wars goes to me. They are persistent critters but that shielded post has stopped them for now.

           No place for them to leap onto the feeder. I kind of figured if they could not get at it from the top or bottom, they were somehow leaping. I speculate they were running along a tree branch, leaping and using the pole to bounce off.
           That is why I have a video of a failure. I hoped to get the reflection of the morning sun (you can see the clock) from the disco balls. These are positioned along the overhead rail so the slightest movement, even bird wings, causes the lights to swirl around. The wind does the same, but you learn to differentiate. The birdies and squirrels cause a sparkling effect, where the wind makes the balls swing back and forth. I tried to capture the sparkles here, but they don’t show up that well. Maybe you can see some.

           In the shed past sunset, I tried to salvage the wire from a transformer. There are plenty of on-line videos but no universal way except smashing away the laminate core, which is too much for me. So, I grabbed the base and finally wrote out a bass progression that does not use scale tones. The split chords make that so tempting that it is over-used. They also don’t use the IV chord where you’d expect, as it complicates the harmonies.

           You know me, why stop there? I’ve mapped out a way to play the riff over my semi-famous “three octaves” without using any walks. It has a polka feel without ever resorting to root-fifths and I love it because it repeatedly sounds (to any musicians paying attention) that I’ve trapped myself. Ha, you know about this.
           Semaphore lacks any sites that send practice messages and I’ve pretty much exhausted to best one, Semaphore Sam. As ever, it gets comical toward the end. Imagine receiving code from somebody who can’t spell and you share the experience. I clicked on Gab to find some joker giving dating advice, so I gave him a listen. What a soi-boi, yet he has a following. He’s saying give up what you like or want and become a servant/slave to a woman so that she knows you want a relationship. For me it was a laugh because after 35 years, I have never ordered a drink for the Reb. She wouldn’t want you to, but I get how some folks would operate on that level.

           I love that new icon, the Sombrero of Truth, I hope it takes. And it seems without insider trading information, some of the Democrats aren’t doing too well on the market. YouTube’s attack on ad-blockrs is costing them tens of thousands of viewers, proving they just don’t get it. I want to be the first on my block to build boxes out of SuperWood. Unfortunate for me, their plant has already sold everything they can manufacture this year (2025). And no free samples, though there was mention of a sample kit for sale.

           There is no direct information on pricing, but there is a comparison site that states costs by the pound. Superwood is $12+ per pound, while the steel it is intended to replace rings up at around 40ȼ per pound. Then again, they say the wood is 10x stronger, you’d use less. It’s not big in the States, but wooden buildings up to 18 stories tall have been okayed in most of the world using laminated timber.

           Then I got to wiring up that amp circuit, most of the time is finding components. In my ten or so trays of devices, I could not find a 1µF capacitor, or any combination I could rig up close to that value. And before I know it, we are at 1:00AM in the morning. Too late for coffee, I opted for the unsweetened lemonade and so you don’t think I wasted the whole day, here’s photo of the circuit. So, Glenn, what did you do today beside send me a nasty e-mail?

Last Laugh