One year ago today: November 19, 2024, wishful Epstein file mention.
Five years ago today: November 19, 2020, every tree on file.
Nine years ago today: November 19, 2016, by the ton.
Random years ago today: November 19, 1994, favorite day of my life.
Still not 100%, it’s a low-energy day, so let’s build a box. I moved some wiring and cut some wood [framing] to fit the new stove to its exact dimension. When it got too warm, I built this box, shown here incomplete. As is often the case, there is something about this box that isn’t evident. Several features such a very tight fit and just ten minutes cutting and assembly time. This will be a tool box when I attach the handle. Why is it different? Because it was build using the same jigs for length, but the fact is, the depth of the box is the lumber that was available.
Let me think more on it, which I’m already doing as I transplanted some cactus and watered the yard. It has not rained in weeks. Some clean up had me back and forth but two quarts of lime-aid later, I’m inside for the afternoon. India got a text asking to remind me the time and date of that Ybor jam, no response all morning. I got a message from Steve, who has made the newcomer’s mistake of overplaying. This is caused by trying to get as full a sound as possible while soloing. Exactly the wrong idea.
Playing bass is actually therapeutic in that you learn you do not have to exert and he’s now got tendonitis. He had to buy a brace. India responded saying the jam is Tuesdays, which is Festus night, so I need the hours, which she is not sure about. What’s for sure is my least popular jam may be the only good one left in the county. Speaking of good one left, the vision problem I have with end-on shapes is confined to my right eye, so I’m going to make an appointment once my schedule flattens out. It seems related to loss of binocular vision, in which case there is nothing they can do.
It causes me to “lose things” which in turn costs time spent looking for them. That’s the part that hurts. I set down to small pieces of wood for the handle of today’s box and poof, they are gone until they turn up. I have no idea if this is a common problem. It seems the neighbor had a bout of flu with the same symptoms I’ve got. If so, I’ll be fine in no time, will I use the spell to learn Croce’s “Operator”?
Canada is now allowing unvetted Muslims and Hindus into the country. They are given a cell phone that tells them how to answer, and then an on-line application where they hit one button and they are Canadians. Time to build another wall, Don.
SamG’s wall art.
(Clarkesville, GA)
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This is a Japanese pull saw. It does not seem to work as well as the larger models seen on videos. The plan is the blade is flexible so you can make a flush cut as I’m attempting here. The on-line people must have a trick they are not telling, because they don’t seem to ever scratch the flat wood piece more than can be lightly sanded away. My Harbor Frieght saw seems to lack that feature. The demos saws also stay a lot sharper for a long longer.
Data centers. I don’t know if I like the concept. Unlike mining a resource which is a known commodity that usually sits in the ground, data is something people don’t consciously know they have. Some way the center will revitalized older communities, others say the centers seek those locations due to lack of regulation or locals who know the score. Tennessee is an example, when suddenly some company wants to build a power plant in the middle of nowhere that does not connect to the grid.
Another factor is computers now allow tax revenues to be more easily shifted around. And governments are greedy entities. We’ve all seen how property taxes soon go up to cover things like bus lines that most of us never use. Imagine that applied to a sleepy little town that did not spot the implications that everything they have of value is now on a government computer.
Or how about the factor neither the media or the millennials want to admit? That forty years of dumbing down America so all jobs can be done by foreign-speaking laborers was not such a great idea. American employers have been bitching for decades they can’t fill high-tech positions because there is a “shortage” of good workers. Don’t lecture me, I was replaced by three Philippinos in May 2003. I’m fully aware of supply and demand. Compared to what is out there today, I would require a starting salary of $200 per hour.
Today, US workers who cannot read or tell time want $60 an hour and squeal when the jobs go to H1-Bs. As Trump says, you can’t build a billion-dollar chip factory and staff it with people off the unemployment line. He has a point, but it is more like today’s graduates who fail remedial arithmetic. Those who build these factories would be wiser to train workers, but why bother if the government lets you import them. Just two weeks ago, I visited a much-touted corporate job-training facility (Crystal Springs and it was a ghost town.
ADDENDUM
The Democrat party has fallen into desperation. Six of their chiefs are calling on the military to “disobey illegal orders”. This is treason, but as ever, nothing will happen. Presumably, this is over Trump’s attacks on cartel boats. Why they object is curious, but what I find funny is how they think the military they jabbed, woketarded, and made fools of is going to listen to anything they have to say. It’s interesting to hear they talk when they have not been involved in a “legal” war since 1952.
In politics, the big event today was the 5-4 Supreme Court vote to give Trump wartime powers to alien gang members as an “invasion force”. Off to the Hotel El Salvador, Pepe. The scary part is the vote was not unanimous. Trivia: sixty-five years ago today, Detroit was declared the wealthiest city on Earth.
After reading last day of Taiwan’s missile deal, I searched for the latest on their defenses. They’ve been building them since the late 40’s and the island is full of hills, valleys, rivers, and tunnels. Excellent obstacles. That means the bulk of their army stays mobile to concentrate on any amphibious landings. Those assaults need the right kind of beach and must be near a port and military-size airfield. That will be the communist’s downfall. They would have to ferry men across the straight on surface ships or risk flying them in. The more men you put ashore, the more of your ships are needed to supply them and the less men you put ashore.
While this is going on, you can bet Taiwan, and likely the USA and Japan, are using missiles, bombs, and torpedoes on those ships. So count on losing at least half of them every week. The troops already ashore will be needing lots of heavy gear to attack prepared positions. If they don’t win in the first 21 days, they’re in trouble. This is where things could go nuclear. That, I cannot begin to predict, but the least case scenario is the communists use a few to break the defenses, but themselves get nuked as they are a juicy target bottled up on the beachheads.
Much later, near midnight, I’m feeling back to spec, but with slight numbness in my left fingertips. I’m looking forward to a good tomorrow, with the distraction that the stove has made life comfy again. And the past nine years have really sold me on staying comfy. Steve just checked in to say he’s got a babe on a date this weekend. Just you watch, it will be somebody he met directly through or because of music. In my books, he’s learning the game 35 years too late, but considering the hoops other men go through just to meet women, he’ll be fine. Let me reflect by glancing through my booklet that you will never get to see.
Yep, the year I was Steve’s age I dated just 4 women out of a total 18 who got a second look. At that time it was not uncommon to know men who had not met a datable woman in ten years. When did I last meet one? I think it was y’day. Before that, I mean. Well, India, that was last month I think. She’s a babe, but not my type. I said datable, which for me does not include ready-made families. Point is, as ever, that the problem is not meeting women. Only wusses and wimps have trouble meeting them. What good is bench-lifting 250 if you are chicken to say hello?
