One year ago today: January 9, 2025, like a pile driver.
Five years ago today: January 9, 2021, Me? Eat kale?
Nine years ago today: January 9, 2017, now we have shed light.
Random years ago today: January 9, 2008, in beautiful West Palm Beach.
A first in my life, I made key lime pie. I’ve been missing out on one of life’s best treasures—because I though it was complicated. I was a bit shocked by the prices, but I bought the best and what a delicious treat. And I hope to extend that to the new woodpecker family, the adults have grown too large for the regular feeder. We have two tiny juvenile females, I don’t know if they are related. Today, my plan is to work in the shed and ignore all the other work that needs doing around here. Who’s with me? Silver has plowed its way back past $80 before mid-morning.
The key lime pie is the best thing I’ve tasted in years, and I seek good food. See my wee birdie pal at the top, so you know this pie is not storebought, ha-ha. I was still moving too slow for my own liking, so I took to reading some MIDI code. I discovered Jan Ostman (the drum-box guru) has a new website and he has published files on building a drum machine (but it is really a midi controller).
I thought to contact him but all links lead to membership sites, which are not my inclination. He’s published a Gerber [laser file] for the circuit board which I’d like to study, but he uses that AV1 format that requires a Win 11 download and I’m not that stupid. I have nothing to lose seeing if he can coach me on my now-ancient drum box idea. I read his Arduino code and it will work on my Uno, but again, it is just the triggers which I call “dread” code because of all the data-read commands which require learning uint (unsigned integer, that is, bit arithmetic) syntax, which if you ever entered data that way, you’ll wish you never started. I also discovered his name is super common in Sweden.
Am I a slow learner that this took a year? I don’t know. Nothing to compare to. Depends not only if you do it, but if you write it down and share it. I learned that the hard way, too. I’ve decided to get the jointer back into operation for the sole purpose of fitting that final bottom slat, the one that causes a problem every time. The jointer has been sitting for a few years and I plan to adjust it for one purpose—to shave 1/16th of an inch. That seems to be the right tolerance for the wood I’m using.
Marc Bolan & Mickey Finn.
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Here’s a treat for you, a drive down the Palmetto. Your typical Florida freeway that goes nowhere and makes a 90-degree turn in the middle. So it doesn’t matter if you are trying to drive north-south or east-west, you only get half-way before you hit a traffic jam. Except this time, there wasn’t any. Remarkable in itself, you can read one of the road signs saying I-95 was 8 to 11 minutes away. I have never seen that sign say less than 30 minutes until today.
I located and watched some documentary video on a fairly forgotten event, the Soviet pilot who defected with his MiG-25 to Japan. The Foxbat was supposed to be the ultimate interceptor, but I quit watching it after the Israelis shot down the whole Syrian air force in two days. The hype over this jet backfired on the Ruskies because it spurred America into building advanced fighters that could deal with the MiGs. And do so from 100 miles away. I was amazed to see Japanese photos of the Foxbat showing exposed airframe rivets.
I have two opinions of the ICE shooting in Minneapolis. One is that it clearly shows who is responsible for instigating violence. And I believe police should be banned from standing in front of stopped vehicles like I’ve been saying for 30 years. One noticeable was how the MSM is referring to the victim’s sex partner as “Becca” instead of her real name. Because searches on her real name keep finding her arrest records for burning children with cigarettes.
Here’s another trip clip that sort of turned out. This is the Florida sunset as I drove home on Wednesday. It’s 193 miles. This also shows that central Florida is not a semi-tropical swamp. Most of this is cattle ranch. No towns because there are so few people.
