One year ago today: August 18, 2025, except it isn’t,
Five years ago today: August 18, 2021, listen to the downpour.
Nine years ago today: August 18, 2017, yes, I buy at $50 million.
Random years ago today: August 18, 2006, testing “videophones”.
Ah, coffee and the news. The biggest tourism draw in Zimbabwe is now the ruins of old Rhodesia. I plan to read more on this history. It must be Florida election time again as the promise-everything-deliver-nothing radio campaigns have begun in earnest. Worst are the pro-birth fanatics. Don’t I mean pro-life? Nope, they don’t give a damn what happens afterward. And of course, they want to protect those who society deems, in their perception, “less worthy” but want society and not themselves to pay for it. And in the best Trump endorsement possible, the left may be fielding the cackling Harris. Fasten your seatbelts or risk falling from laughter.
Who’d like to cover something other than boxes today? Your in luck, we have some all new issues, including the latest PPP. I got an estimate on the brake job, and they want $700. Hence, it is a sequence of PPPs (poor people problems). If I do that, I cannot have the KIA people fix the transmission. The Hundy was my own loaner, but I’ve put two trips to Tennessee and three to Miami, total 3,700 miles in four months. At projected usage, that is four years wear & tear. That brake was not supposed to act up until mid-2030.
I must opt for the unofficial fluid change and find a Mexican shop to jam that brake open. I cannot get by with the one repair and I cannot afford both. Also recall the starter on the Hundy is rigged up through the grill, and I really need to feed that into the cab and out of the weather, another PPP. This work must be done in the yard and summer is not the ideal time. My yard is quite shady, just not all day. From mid-morning to mid-afternoon you cannot pick up any tools or touch any metal left in the sun. And it takes until later before the day cools enough even in the shade.
Bills due this week: Telecom $74, phone $25, gasoline $60. Maybe I’ll put less gas in case I fix the KIA, but if not that means stopping more often for gas with that bothersome starter. At times, being poor can cost more than being middle-class. Retire, they said, take it easy. All you need do is become a garden slug, get addicted to bingo, and microwave everything.
Picture of the day.
The unreliable sniff test.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Taking some measurements, the new shelf is a few inches too large for where I’d planned. So, today let me get it into the hallway. If it fits, I have a narrower hall. The problem with stacking the boxes, which works surprisingly fair documentaries on the Bush War. This was the Russian/Chinese/Cuban armed militia attacks on Rhodesia.
I was into town to check two bank situations. One is the mystery balance, which I will not know if the check clears until early September, and two is some cash for Tennessee. My doggie is limping. Sure enough, the Reb calls to report my guy has arthritis, mostly in the back legs. Chooks loves his walkies and she reports for the first time he balked. He has a special step (looks exactly like a Z-box) to get up onto the softest bed in Tennessee. This is the first time he chose the bed.
We also worked out a schedule to get my medical info, about the only mail I ever get other than bank statements, though her place. It’s a hassle, but with Fred now out of the picture, if anything down here happens to me, nobody can do a thing to help. Yes, folks, my world is slowly shutting down to basics—but compared to what I’ve seen the past year, we have lots of adventure time left. Are you getting as much out of all this as I am?
I’m sitting here, no gumption, no coffee, and the bass is hanging on the wall. Maybe I should give up temporarily, hmmm, but I’m already at my quiet retreat in the
I’ve seen three tutorials and they are all full of jargon. What is the difference between an element board and a development board? When this happens, I usually try to find a user manual or a tutorial. If you’ld like to follow along what I’m reading, I’m starting with the Sparkfun chapter called “Anatomy”. Learning to blink a light is the beginner’s test for logic boards. I’ll be happy if I get that far at all with just the literature. Then again, how many other blogs examine furniture, brakes, and gate arrays on the same day?
Further looking at several examples of simple code show one of the sources of complexity is the way engineers avoid plain language code. The instructions are compiled, so there is no reason that “Connect port 1 to switch 1” has to become “set_property iostandard LVCMOS33 [get_ports SWITCH1]” Incidentally, there is an engineering term for the jargon. The main barrier with jargon other than the vocabulary is the way they leave out important points. Engineers call this “lacking critical implementation details”. I studied until 2:42AM and that is enough. Good night.
ADDENDUM
My old brake shop has passed from father to son, and the son is a real fly-by-wire. I wanted a ballpark figure to throw new pads on a known bad drum. The millennial working the counter knows darn well what I want them to do is remove the calipers and seal the brake line until I come back next week. That brake has never worked right and does not affect the handling of the vehicle. But he’s got this rule book that, son-of-a-gun, also maximizes his prices.
After the usual discussion that I do not want to be entered into his wonderful private system, he starts tapping away. For around five minutes. I mention to him I work with computers and wonder what he is doing. Working on his crown jewel, the maximum estimate. I know this job is less than two hours. He’s checking the price of calibrating the post-job fluid pressure, yadda-yadda. I tell him I must get to the bank and he does not listen. An older guy at the other counter sees this and tells me, “about $700”. Thank you.
