June 25, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: June 25, 2025, early box news.
Five years ago today: June 25, 2021, never forgiven.
Nine years ago today: June 25, 2017, anti-bachelor policy.
Random years ago today: June 25, 2014, a look at steppers.

           My right hand looks like I’m wearing a glove. That single wasp bite swelled up. These have to be changes that reflect a diminishing capacity to ward off minor issues. I sure don’t like it. The short-term answer is, you guessed it, coffee. The “Innocence Project” is back in the news after an expert witness pleads guilty to data manipulation. Yes, this blog warned about this decades ago. Always question the integrity of anyone who testifies only in favor of the police. Demand to know how many people she proved innocent.

           Tampa radio told me, over pancakes, that I may have FOMO. Fear Of the Music being Over. Dumb-bunnies, but I don’t doubt most of their audience can’t play anything. Who else listens to orchestra rock all day? I had some energy this AM after 5-1/2 pancakes. So I trotted out to the shed where a cloud cover made it a perfect morning to be doing some useful exercise. That’s what this box shows.

           My experiment at putty box lettering was a failure, I learned that much. The putty has to be a good 1/4” deep, which is too hard on the laser and would take much too long. (The largest logos you see here take up to 8 minutes each.) I’m holding the unputtied side, a bad view of the problem, it’s the smaller pieces that reveal the poor results. I turned off the radio and moved along at what I figure was a pretty good clip. I measured and moved the cages that I think granny raccoon may be using, she seems too old to climb the trees. The ranger blog said keep the den area dry, so I positioned two concrete blocks into a small stand. Exactly two, as I distinctly recall.
           Nor were there any [racoon-size] dimensions given, which tips us off the critter is not too fussy about opening size. Since JeePees Castle had wire all round, it will be easy to use scrap wood to make something which should be comfortable for granny raccoon There is a free round waiting at the club tonight for anyone who figured out that is who the 1/2 pancake was for.

           Three hours is an average thinking day and the nucleus of thinking is the lack of sales. These are great little boxes and people who handle them like them. I’ve got the wrong sales pitch. Now India, for all her initial enthusiasm, has not been in regular contact and plainly has a number of concerts of her own. My roadblock is I do not have the time or patience to tend a shop. Here is one half of today’s output. Six boxes.

           You may count eight, but you are looking at an accounting concept called “equivalent units”, The boxes to the left are not quite finished. But this is something that should sell. America is reached that stage where even retirees with part-time jobs cannot really manage. The boxes here display another change that evolved. The laser decoration is a year old, but now appearing are the matching sets.

           This is misleading in that such sets cannot be rattled off an assembly line. The match is due to (dependent on finding) a consistent piece of lumber and no two are ever real twins. Each set is absolutely dependent on finding the right piece of lumber and a good eyeball of which size can be cut for the “match”. Because of knots and cracks, the boxes on the right in the middle are the maximum size—and getting three from one board is a rare find.
           Why not just list them on-line? Because we learned from tube sales that someone has to mind the shop every day and it is best that [same] person be responsible for shipping. “I was going to send you a box but I could not find anything to ship it in.” Yet involving a sales person eats up a third of the income and even then, they take no responsibility. I’m a whiz at inventory, materials projection, and lately I’ve become skilled enough that even the boxes with mistakes are quite usable. And, we hope, sellable.
           Skilled. I say. What’s this, an ad for a Fortran programmer? $47 per hour. I’ve not programmed Fortran since 1989. Says here it is modeling for a nuclear power plant. Put that aside and I’ll look at it again later. My guitar player collapsed and landed in the hospital. COPD.

Picture of the day.
Oyster Bayou, Louisiana.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Boxes continue to be top story as I see the day will come when I can’t even do that any more. Until then, it’s a hobby long overdue—or is that only because it matches my shed space, tools, and a bit of my aptitude? Here is a view of some seconds produced today. What? Seconds are an old term for imperfects. But, I’ve moments ago noted how those are still great boxes and you might not find the flaws or even consider them without my saying.

           I’m pointing at the glitches. First the two boxes, they are not twins, one is a board thickness too wide. It gets thrown in the bathroom for shampoo bottles and such, a vastly superior décor to even the most fancy plastic containers. What’s wrong as far as sales. On the first box, the wood was 10% moisture and split. Unwilling to let any staple or brad metal show, the wood splintered when the fasteners were drawn. If the pieces cannot be glued back, it’s a second. The last picture is the off-size unit, and also shows where part of the logo was cut off during a burn. Did I mention each burn cannot be restarted . . . yes, I did say. This is an example. So I sliced the wood for a bottom panel so it looks like it belongs. Sneaky.

           Back inside, I snoozed a couple hours under the A/C and got to thinking how Rhonda (the raccoon) deals with this heat. She is not totally blind and in any case can pilot quite well by aroma. I’m unsure where she sleeps because I’ve never noticed her until she gets moving. So after supper, I went back outside and slapped together a small roof for JeePee’s playground cage. It is two feet wide so he could get up to speed. I removed the wiring and folks, if you are a hobbyist anything like me, get a small compressor and a pin nailer.
           Here’s the unfinished raccoon coop. Fun or not, don’t overwork nothing these days. With a few clamps to hold a frame, you can pin (brad nail) all kinds of keen stuff without needing a hand. This roof went so fast, I had time to make you this video before dark. (As ever usually no sound as I have long surmised people who read my stuff must have jobs. I know how boring most jobs are, so I can get away with all kinds of “top stories” like cloud pictures and bent nails. But safe for work is important.)

ADDENDUM
           I’m once more looking for a decent navigational stopwatch. First to be eliminated are any electronic models that do not have one-function buttons. (Have you ever tried to use those bastards? If not, I have a small [wooden] box of them you can waste your time with.) The desirable features would be a unit that displays Greenwich Mean Time and the date at that location. If you want the same data for where you are, go buy a Casio at Wal*Mart.
           The second feature is unique to navigation and I cannot find a single mechanical example. All these watches have a resume function- but you do NOT want it to resume from where it stopped, you want it to resume from where it would have been if it had NOT stopped. You want mechanical so you can wind it up. Relying on a smart phone is plain dumb. As the old saying goes, five miles error is nothing in the middle of the ocean, but that changes when you are four miles from land.

Last Laugh