July 4, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: July 4, 2025, I took any job.
Five years ago today: July 4, 2021, a rambling post.
Nine years ago today: July 4, 2017, at least a while.
Random years ago today: July 4, 2016, still a lot.

           Fourteen hours on the road, a wonderful trip. I’ll recount the day noting that I awoke without any reminders I’m still mending and fixed a breakfast of croissant bread, if you know what that is. Try it, you’ll probably like it. I stoked up on coffee and got away two hours late. In daylight, that is, checking in with the Reb every 125 miles. No rush this trip, also no radio or disk player.(until I hit the Florida “radio jungle”. I took I-65 directly south to Montgomery

           Beautiful scenery and light traffic. I didn’t really push the Hundy most of the time. Stopping only for gas in Huntsville and Camilla, I grabbed brunch at the Eufaula Capt. D’s. Just the noon special, fitters, fries, and shark. I was either famished or it was exceptional. A couple days back I bought some reading material including a paperback by a combat vet, a pilot with 7,400 hours. It is a bit like this blog, except with a lot more heavy equipment. Like this one time an Apollo crew showed up for training how to fly the lunar module. Makes sense that the controls would be helicopter-like for landing and hovering.

           This trip was 1,676 miles and burned 107 gallons of gas, including the chasing around in Hermitagel. Not bad, though the Hundy is just not up to this. Neither am I and I have not forgotten how badly driving once attacked my blood pressure. This days are gone, as in totally under control. This trip I took a “motorcycle” road east of Eufaula just to see. The area astonishingly nice, sadly there are signs everywhere that young people are not taking over the farms or businesses in the small towns.

           Before I forget, when I arrived in Tennessee, the smoke alarm beeper was active in the hallway. The Reb is away, so that leaves the place to Nate. Since I can tune out electronic sounds, I thought I’d monitor how long before the battery got replaced. It was still beeping when I left six days later.

           The trip was so nice, here, I made this for you you to enjoy a little part of it. I did stop in Eufaula for fish and chips and Capt. D’s. The cutover between Montgomery and south Georgia has no main roads, allowing you to see the pristine wilderness same as the pioneers must have. Anybody who thinks America does not have the potential to again dominate all opponents has never see the vastness of what isn’t even touched. That’s “opponents” I said, not dominate the world like some smaller countries are trying to do. This is a video of the off-ramp toward Union Springs. Never heard of it? Me neither.
           West Georgia is a lot of wilderness. I don’t recall ever eating potato from those fields, or that Georgia was a major supplier. They must be hugely into supply after what I saw today. I used the quiet hours to mull over plans for the immediate future. My investments have fallen behind in favor of helping with the album release. Anything from that direction would be a lifetime achievement even if my role was tertiary. Personally, I never got that close to success. One thing nice is that I’ve never heard of a one-hit-wonder who later starved to death.

Picture of the day.
Rare "landspout".
(They are a type of illusion.)
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           On the last leg home, I stopped at Kooter’s for one. No live music on America’s holiday. I drove past the old club. First time I have ever seen it closed early on a weekend. As I got away late and had to stop to repair that headlight, the last few hours of my trip were in the dark. You might want to peek at Payne’s Prairie, mentioned as the place I stopped. Wild horses grazing under palm trees.

           I had to plan this trip for daylight. The most common reason for a pullover is a broken auto light. But it was raining the morning and that gave me an narrow window of between the too-hot day and the fading sunlight to get that bulb replaced. As it happened, the shadows were just long enough as I passed Payne’s Prairie and I pulled into an abandoned truck stop. Silly me, I forgot my age again and this five-minute chore took me over a half-hour. Yeah, yeah, I should have allowed for this, but that’s my point. I did.

           The upside is I got to enjoy a lot of fireworks the way I like them best. On the horizon, too far away to hear, and paid for by somebody else. This trip faces a lot of accumulated paperwork and logistics, the happy spot for me was other than fatigue, I had no symptoms this trip and arrive back here with no needed recovery time. I’m getting there, so for the rest of today, let me see if I have any videos left from the trip.

           Here’s something, a better view of the flatscreen menu at KOI’s. Just something I’ve never seen before and find expensively fascinating. Everyone knew these were on the way and it won’t be long before the menu orders you. I’m also reviewing the hype on those pet collars claimed to translate doggie barks and body language into sentences on your smart phone.
           Here’s why I find that interesting: what you call A.I., I call advanced pattern matching. It makes sense if you study enough animals it would result in recognition of behavior. The block between you and your dog is all in the translation. So, it seems to me that this would be an excellent and accurate tool simply because A.I. such as it is, would gradually learn your pet’s behavior anyway. I can see how this is a terrifying prospect to many.

           I won’t keep you today, but I must document anything medical, even if it is just my own hunch. I returned from this trip ordinarily tired. But not the deeper weariness over the past few years. This could mean it was the accumulating effect of my weakening heart as opposed to what I took to be ordinary advancing age. It does occur slow enough to think that, and you get input from the environment that seems to confirm this. It must be what TV-addicts get from all those talk-to-you-doctor ads.

           At the same time, I was quick to notice the Florida climate is nicer in a sauna-kind of way. Here’s a video from tomorrow showing the best Texas breeze in months. It has to be just right to emulate the Lone Star and move the grasses just so. I grabbed the camera and this is the best of the best for a few seconds. Yes, the grass in trimmed and prepped and placed to show the sign, but after all, Texas is way across the Gulf of America on the other side.
           I had to get out there and do the clipping, but as ever, it gave me time to plan, and I have a list of things I should tend to on the Hundy. For example, it needs new brake pads and the belts and hoses may need replacing. The horn still does not work and that CD player didn’t last a week. My budget is $800. Time to give Agt. M a call. Remind me to get a new radio aerial as well. They snap off easy in the California car wash.
           Later, I am still reading the war novel, it is holding my interest if only because I've always maintained the only military service I could to is the Air Force. These pilots deserve most (but not all) of the bravado they exhibit. They are a significantly higher class of individuals even when their personalities give the heaves. I'll get you the details when I'm finished reading, but this gets a recommendation. You don't let just anybody fly around your $50 million-dollar chopper and it is not that easy to find somebody both smart enough and dumb enough to become a pilot Commander. This guy's reasoning for saying with the forces is plausible--each time his stint ended, the commercial airlines were not hiring.

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