One year ago today: April 30, 2025, gates and boxes.
Five years ago today: April 30, 2021, holiday in Palatka.
Nine years ago today: April 30, 2017, 4 retirement dates.
Random years ago today: April 30, 2001, born followers.
Last evening I should have gone out. The last week has laid me low, physically and mentally. How do “they” know when to strike? It’s been months since I could shrug it all off and I’m already missing a quarter of this year. Listen to me crybaby about it, I should know there is nothing unique over my situation. I would like a milkshake, one eggo, and a day of reading.
So far, no luck on quietude. Spring time is also vermin time and my Hav-a-Hart trap is two for two days. My latest blog video will not upload. Ha, blog readership is recovering more quickly than I am. Why the pic of a laptop? Because it is a HP and because they want $15,000 for it. Meet the HP "Fury". Has there been a computer revolution that I have not heard about? I mean, a Hewlett that costs as much as the house I live in? I truly do need a break from it all.
For me, that means reading and I chose to find out what super-heterodyne means. It’s on many stereos and radios and nobody knows how much they need it. Turns out, it is part of the radio reception circuitry. Radio waves get weaker with distance. The receiver strips away the carrier wave and amplifies the sound signal. That signal has a frequency that all the rest of the radio must work with and it gets distorted. Super-heterodyne generates a strong new frequency inside the radio and maps the incoming audio onto that. Then the rest of the radio has an easier task, and now we know.
And I do believe this is the first time I’ve ever become fatigued from just reading. David Allen Coe died today. For some reason I though he was already gone. He was 86. Epstein left $40 million to some Norwegian diplomat’s kids; one of them just committed suicide. That horrid lady who accused Trump of the naughties has had her $84 million upheld despite the fact she admitted lying.
Watching a video of a small conveyor belt got me curious—it was variable speed. I saw enough to know they were using an Arduino. I’ve always watched for applications that use this controller rather than a custom factory board. You know, if I had the gumption, I know I could build that drive unit myself. Not the control and code, I have done that ten years ago, but the interface is a challenge. I know it has already been done and there is a breakout board for everything these days. But to build one, hmmm.
Canada’s Bill Mckibben.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
My day off became a drive to north Lakeland, where I bought the only camera that was even remotely like what I wanted. A Vivitar, which I already hate. But it does take good video. Just be careful, it has that Vivitar defect of showing the scene on the backscreen as crystal clear while the camera is actually way of focus. It also shows a menu option for macros, but lacks the button that turns the feature on. This photo is the first taken with this unit.
JZ returned my calls to confirm the next batch of symptoms I’ve got is normal. It is remarkable how much medical information he has retained since he dropped out of university more than forty years ago. Then again, I can still program, right? He described exactly the pain I’ve got in my footsies, I’ve already forgotten the terms he said, but that is it. He related it to the neuralgia in my upper leg muscles, he has the same thing and it has been 18 long months since his treatment. This does not inspire me.
There is no direct cure for this neural condition, he says only a control, thought the condition is often known to fade away. He also cautions about eating red meat. Well, I don’t much eat that and I don’t around the Reb. Compared to regular diets, I don’t think red meat could be a problem for me at least twenty years now. Of most concern are the bouts of fatigue even if I’m fine and significantly better than since last month. For no reason, I can get knocked on my ass, drained like a dishrag for an hour sometimes. Now another tale.
There is another item, when I first moved here I needed his help to fix this place up, but he would always balk at the expense of gas to get here. Over time, I sent him hundreds of dollars for that gas, but he’s not been here since 2017. Now, the $20 payment is due on the first and I forgot to send it. Because if my van had not broken down last Wednesday, I would have handed it to him in person. You see where this is going. He reminded me today the bill was due tomorrow and that he would “lend” me the money until I sent it. You got it, he never asked for the hundreds in gas money so no way to take it out of there until I arrive. And he’s the richest guy I’ve ever met in Florida that was honest.
Aha, there’s the coffee cup. Can you see how this picture is not sharp? All of it is out of focus by the same amount. That is a camera fault.
On my left arm, where I showed you sort of all the jabs and needle sites, well I now have 13 new and permanent moles. They are tiny but you can see the pattern. Only one on my right exactly where the medline was connected. I also planned wrong in December—over gas prices, which are now $5.21 in some spots. When I mentioned the cost of driving to his place, he thinks I’m dumb to pay that much. He forgets if I had not opted for a Miami hospital, I would just be getting tests now, if I lived that long. He knows the survival rate is 50%. Of course, I’ll pay the $150 in gas because I’m alive to do it.
California prices show $7.79 per gallon. Recession time, you see almost 100% of Americans who can afford it drive to work. There is no option of walking, the whole system is based on the motor vehicle. And every dollar spent on gas is a dollar not spent on other goods. I need to allocate $216 to drive to Miami for my checkup, probably next week. And I arrive back here with gas for maybe another 40 miles. I’ve made this trip around 50 times.
Changes in my routine after that major stay in Miami are slowly wearing off. It’s my blog duty to record those that persist. Soup. I still eat a lot of soup. Two cans today, it was from before they detected any ulcers. Sleep was disrupted and I’ve noticed a trend. I get great sleep, but those afternoon naps are delaying my beauty rest. It took me weeks to spot the pattern, if I take a nap, I fall asleep at night later. Usually 10:00PM and that slowly advanced to 11:00PM, then midnight and today, 1:00AM. At first so what, but now I see the correlation. So, is it soup or sleep? I’ll take both.
This is not for everyone but anybody smart enough to make sense of this blog will be up to this. Two downsides: a membership is required for more than one game per day (and for most games) and often the words have an English twist that’s nearly impossible or Americans. Example, I’ve read but never said “football pitch”.
ADDENDUM
While few meetings rattle me, I am still subject to intensity, and may I restate that I believe the telephone caused my first heart problems over twenty years ago. The conference call y’day was low key but added up for a total of nearly seven hours. I remain bewildered why an ordinary event like ours went to the top.. It is, I think, the future, not the decisions, that are keeping me restless. Without giving away the game, this redemption was due to a contract deadline. Now I will be on edge for the next 60 days at least part of the time.
Who doesn’t like a good snooze, but lately I’m needing down time while wide awake. This morning, for instance, I sat still, and I’m not a sit-still person. I am fully capable of falling asleep on the phone. The van is unrepaired in the driveway, I have not put my hospital clothes away yet, and I have not gone out for that beer I promised myself a week ago last Monday. Or was it two weeks now? That’s life when things come at you at once. My solution is stay put as much as I can, so I can calibrate my recovery time against some peace and quiet.
You know what would be amusing? The Caltier guy was quite attentive to the moments when the Reb & I mentioned impressions of the company. We’ve seen this everywhere, the top guy’s feedback is filtered by his underlings. What if, once the dust settles, I tell him he can answer many of his questions by doing a search on this blog. Just a thought.
