July 21, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: July 17, 2025, excess glorification.
Five years ago today: July 17, 2021, Wiki admits bias, duh.
Nine years ago today: July 17, 2017, planning at least 6.
Random years ago today: July 17, 2006, another whiz kid.

           Typical of MSM shock news, we hear of Texas flood water turning “blood red”. Then the claims it was diesel fuel. Wrong, it is the dye used to stain untaxed diesel used for farm machinery. Like most dyes, it is harmless unless you inhale it or get it in your eyes. It is toxic to aquatic life, but this spill was one 44-gallon barrel. As for Trump’s big speech, it was nothing new and in most ways a disappointment. The big issue remains illegals.

           Here is an ounce of silver scored to be broken in half. Silver has fallen 10% now that I’m selling, how do they know? It’s really a PPP, the problem of having to liquidate an asset at the improper time. This ounce is worth around $51 today, still a good enough sell, but down from $80 recently. This money goes to Tennessee. Even if it is good money after bad, I no longer trust the system to provide anything. Now they talk of cutting off pensions in 2032. They won’t, but there is talk. Shall I take a chance of flooded roads and make a run downtown?

           I made the run and got stranded 3 hours, the black clouds doubled back, yep, it’s wet out there. Rather than waste time, I went shopping. Here is a box of American candy. I had to buy it just to get you a copy of the ingredients. This is ordinary candy displayed at the checkout where children can buy it any time. There are some repeats but I count 112 ingredients. Almost as many as a Diary Queen burger which I think weighs in at 155 per the Internet.

           Using my old motorcycle skill-set, I tried the usual series of shortcuts, which were also flooded. This sent me down some side roads, where to my delight, I found a pile of old curbside dressers. In a flash, I was out in the raid salvaging the drawer pulls and got myself around 24 of them. Of these, roughly half are a matching set.

           And I tell you, that hardware is getting pricey. Similar knobs sell for close to $9 a pair at Wal*Mart. Return tomorrow for a photo once I see what I’ve got. Few things spiff up a wee wooden box more than a logo and a tarnished old knob. At this time, I’m weary but the delay gave me time for lots of pictures. So here are the best of the lot in any order. This also provides some insight into how selecting timely photos for your favorite blot isn’t a walk in the park. Very few of the photos you’ll see here are (unless specified or evident) more than 30 hours old. Most are same-day.

           Left to right, these photos often would reinforce the storyline, such as it exists in this blog. It doesn’t really, since enough happens here to be considered random on a given day. Even all the box photos cannot really be planned too much in advance. So here are the 20 ounces of silver traded in today, including the three discovered fakes. That black cloudy sky was at noon, just before I got flooded in. This tiny screwdriver is a gem, it is a 4V piece I got for half-price because the trigger was broken.
           I fixed it with the plastic repair kit you saw last day, and it was how I got those painted-over drawer pulls off before getting soaked. You see, the tool turned out to be not a toy (like some) because of its power. I don’t know how it is geared, but it is incredibly powerful for around six minutes. That’s ideal for its intended purpose. It has a work light and charges off a USB-C so it can stay permanently in the glove box. You know, it deserves its own box considering what it produced today.
           And the last photo is the “caramel culprit”, the solution that made everything taste and smell like bitter candy for the past few months.

Picture of the day.
Mushroom Rock, Kansas.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           We’ve been robbed, but it was long ago. Here are two fake silver slugs. They turned out mostly copper but there’s no way to tell for sure without an assay, which involves melting them down. They were part of this morning’s batch. The authenticity is quick-checked with a “sigma” which measures the conductivity of the metal. It pierces the skin to a depth of 0.08” and compares the resistance to a standard. That also means they have to be regularly calibrated.

           The units cost around $2,000 each so they are not a consumer item. The calibration is against a known sample, and I don’t have any gold bars at the moment. The readings change with different sizes of bars, so consider that as well. Both these fakes are stamped ‘German Silver” and the shop says all kinds of these slugs are showing up on the market.

           One thing could lead to another. My records are airtight and for the period of purchase, I may even have scans for these. So there is a better than even chance I could trace these down to who sold them to me. That would require another day as rainy, and I need a siesta. I’m not exhausted yet, so let’s do some sleuthing. Here we go, these counterfeits were purchased one echo m February 15, 2012 and March 12, 2012. I sometimes buy when traveling, but the short time between indicates I was at the same location both times. Let’s pull the business records.
           Not so good news. There were three of these “German” ounces purchased at the same location in February and March of 2012. All at the same place, but I will do nothing as I know the owners and this is an obvious mistake. I show a fourth suspect piece. This will be much harder to trace, but I assure you my records are airtight and each piece is recorded twice for identifying marks. We already know that ounce was purchased December 12, 2011.

           Got it, here is the original scan, this is a view from 2012. It was the 23rd piece of silver purchased in 2011. The German pieces were purchase items 30, 31, and 34, all in February/March 2012. The purchase prices were as shown, plus the bar charges means I was skinned for over $100. There is no law stopping people from selling these, but it would be illegal to sell them as silver. For anyone who thinks I was down and out because I was living in a trailer court at the time, consider what just happened here.
           The records also show a systematic purchasing pattern. The majority of rich people who got that way on their own can tell the biggest difference between rich and poor is self-discipline. The biggest reason I have seen for poverty and hard times in my life? Getting married and having children too soon.

           Why do I know anything about this electronic scanner? Easy, it fits with my current study, in the textbook I’m re-reading. If you decide to look for yourself, let me steer you the right direction. If you choose microcontrollers, as I did, you will find most of the textbooks focus on blinking lights and similar undemanding tasks. I found the best reading to be on sensors, so here is what to aim for. Most sensors output an “analog” signal between two voltages, usually 0V and 5V. It is up to you to scale that signal to match the inputs on your reading device, similar to how you select a range on your fluke meter.
           This means a ton of reading about how the sensor can be connected to a meter, in this case a microcontroller. But add another step by then connecting the microcontroller to a computer. To be accurate, I should specify a “multimedia” computer capable of much more than a read-out. Here’s one of those spots I fully understand and could pass the exam, but I have never actually done any of this. And I am re-reading the chapter on this function with any eye to finally hooking something up.
           It is outwardly simple, you send a stream of data to the big computer, which is then interpreted and follows your instructions. But this demands agreement on speed, voltage, field length, and formatting, to name a few of the parameters. There are several protocols, I’ll choose one and be initially wrong as usual. Seems there is never anyone around to ask. Nothing but useless Boomers. We have our share of those.

ADDENDUM

           More rain, so you get some Hollywood, which has a new mandate to convince you that it was colored people who invented everything. They can’t enforce this integration at bayonet-point, so it’s diversity through the box-office. In keeping with that, here is a photo of the new Helen of Troy. The woketards would by now be force-feeding us this crap if Trump had not happened along. Oddly, this “leading edge” industry is slow to grasp reality, so they continue with this nonsense that just does not work on a public who’s learned they can, like the President, reject DEI.
           So, for your amusement, I have sifted through a thousand comments on this photo to bring you the best or the worst, depending on your woketard index.

a) A mean dog in a Drano commercial
b) Helen of Destroy
c) The face that sank a thousand ships
d) My eyes just took a shit
e) Visual explosive diarrhea
f) Wait for the next horror film
g) Helen of Detroit
h) Looks more like the Trojan horse
i) Her reaction to “per capita”
j) Felon of Troy
k) Mike Obama is not aging well
l) Hominid of Troy
m) Looks like police body-cam footage

Last Laugh