April 14, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: April 14, 2025, a generic day.
Five years ago today: April 14, 2021, the looming hyper-inflation.
Nine years ago today: April 14, 2017, I will make bird Utopia.
Random years ago today: April 14, 2012, travel taught me.

           My loyal readers, I must report this as the most nothing day of my life in 40 years. I will go outside and take some photos for you and hopefully have enough zip left to caption them. I’m sorry, but not as sorry as I am that this could be a harbinger of days to come. First photo is my refilled coffee nest, in its own custom wooden case, matches my décor. There’s another pic of biscuits and gravy, but that was y’day. Still hot out of the oven.

           Owl time. The tree line of my property has a mini-zoo living there. This includes owls and they are majestic. You just never see them. Instead you hear them, and they seem to have a morning window. As the seasons change, that means with my normal 5:30AM routine, I get to hear them mainly in the spring and fall. This morning was a concert. They call from the southeast yard, between the neighbor’s mango trees and my lindens. Are they feeding? Resting? Pair bonding? I’m an indoors morning person, not outdoors except on occasion.

           The other zoo this morning is California. Remember, I care not much of politics, but I’m a great critic of folly and it is not my fault if most of it is committed by one side. The Democrats are now using their anti-Trump tactics to remove one of their own from the race. The laugh is that they’ve know about his deeds for years and did nothing. People love it when Democrats and liberals have to eat one of their own. And CostCo is finally getting rid of the membership card.

           Latest term for the homeless camps: Pelosi villages. California introduces legislation to outlaw investigative journalism. As streaming prices skyrocket, sales of DVD players are up. That is it for this morning. I went back for a snooze that lasted until past 2:00PM. Here is the last birdhouse from Tennessee, a salvage. I put the fence and window frames and paint on it one frozen winter day back in the twenty-teens. It is now retired in Florida, in a scenic location unlikely to attract any inhabitants.

           Let me tell you I hate Google. They remotely disabled my voice text app which came with the phone. Now I cannot get it back without creating a Google account. I’ve had the phone guy fix this, but he, like every GenX “expert” I’ve ever seen, does it by trial and error and really does not know diddely-squat how the system works. Or it would not keep coming back.
           A few A.I. videos got my attention and there a quips about mysterious diseases felling the Spanish in the new world. Hmmm, I always did think tales of Europeans infecting the locals were a little one-sided. Who recalls our trip east from Barstow, California stopping for gas on Route 66? I paid top dollar for gas and that station was in the news again today. Highest in America. Gas price nearly $10 per gallon in good old Ludlow, California.

Picture of the day.
East Indian arrival card.
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           Making coffee and making sawdust, that’s what I had planned but no dice. A quick shopping trip took two hours. I had a craving for hot dogs and spent a bit more for m favorite Oscar Meyers cheese dogs. Then off to the neighbors for Festus Tuesday. Time to face the fact we have seen most of the good cowboy episodes. Now we are getting mostly soap opera crap. This time Dooley was after a governess so we paused it halfway and maybe pick it up next week. Knowing how all these deputy love affairs end is a help.

           Wait, maybe I do have something new. There is that fence picket that curves. All the pieces were flat when I put them up last day, so we know this one is sensitive to something. Probably humidity, but that’s the riddle. Why this plank and not the others? Why such a warp when the local humidity does not vary that much? And why, in ten years, this one plank and no others. I have no instrument for measuring humidity.

           Dang, I see later that is not a great picture. But no way I've going back out there in the foggy morning dew. You can see the curved board well enough, and quite a curvature it is. Quick, thing of a way we could display that. My first guess is to turn it on one side.


           Next is a photo of my table saw work station. You can see the air hoses and how the equipment is partially exposed to the elements. My intention is to move that partially under the scooter canopy and fix the saw fence. The only thing wrong with this saw (for ripping and general cutting) is the fence cannot be set easily. It’s a used tool, so the previous owner bent or over-strained something. But I’ve devised a way to reinforce it soon as I have the energy.
           I have further collected all the pieces needed for my DIY seismometer, but not the seismograph part. It is the casing from the old breakfast cereal dispenser, a plumb weight, a spring and a chain. I think it could detect an earthquake in all three dimensions. But I have no clue how to wire the thing up to record such events. The apparatus is cool, so I may go with just that.

Last Laugh