September 26, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: September 26, 2025, he’s always golfing.
Five years ago today: September 26, 2021, WIP
Nine years ago today: September 26, 2017, WIP
Random years ago today: September 26, xxxx, WIP

           Do you know what a router plane is? A hand-held tool that chisels out hinge mortises, the cutouts I now make with a chisel. I’ve noted some chisels are better, so I looked at this tool because it looks like perfection. At $416, I would hope so. Hand me my chisel. By the way, nice box. It’s still pre-dawn and all I want t do today is build boxes, some special odd sized for some of my lesser used tools, like the Lucida (which I find difficult to work). Buoyed up by not having to spend $1,100 on the van transmission, we are happy this morning.

           Aha, Gulf overcast means a cool day. Later, I was several hours in the shed and we now have a box for my red floor jack, or shop jack, whatever. I cut the blanks for other boxes, but today was for my tools and instruments. For example, the Lucida drawing tool, which I have yet to put to the test, comes with a ridiculous drawbag. Difficult to carry it would bang against everything you stroll past.
           This jack box was a challenge in some ways, and I left it big enough (I think) that a tire iron will fit in diagonally. If not, I’ll cut a hole. One of my prize drills from 2014 had given up. That irks me because they have perfect storage and are not that much used because each has one standard bit. The jack box rivals some of the bigger boxes I’ve built. Using my early technology, boxes above 12” in any dimension use screws. The screw shanks are always the next size up from the recommended, with pilot holes to prevent cracking.

           I’m back inside running the laser, noticing that due to my flu, I’ve used up all my ginger ale. Big deal? No, but it’s an event not as infrequent as before, so I must report it. The undocumented life is not worth living. Here’s a picture of lunch, that’s an Angus beef pattie in the pan, I’m no longer fond of ketchup.
           ’ve misplaced my glue dip and can’t find my 18V drill. They are around, but waste time. This “memory loss” is nothing compared to others, at least I have a system. There is rarely any panic or running out. Any system is better than none, especially when you have to work next to such people.
           Kind as they are, I’ll have to ask the lumber people to let me again choose the pickets myself. They got the straight part, and no knows on the edges, but there is more to it. Some of theirs had high moisture content, split near the ends, edge discoloration, and things they could consider, like a mar in the wood right where the laser logo would be zapped. To keep them happy, I’ll give them each as small unique gift if only I could think of something.

           Here is the “jack in the box” without the lid, which has to be precisely made. This style will have a rope handle, possibly two, it is not meant to be portable. More like transportable. Y’know why this isn’t mu favorite picture today? Because everybody will look at the jack first instead of my lovely, careful, and practical work on the box. Sigh.
           Lovely, it did stay cool way past noon. I’m now inside with my laser, cooking up a couple fake boxes, and then two button boxes. This is the third time I’m tested resting up before any chores rather than after, and it seems to be a better way. I’ve used the laser so much it has become commonplace, like just another printer, I don’t even think about it. Totally routine.

Picture of the day.
French pastry chart.
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           Here is your mystery object of today. What is it? Not the background, but that thing sticking up in the middle. I’ll be nice and just tell uou. It is a small box being painted green resting on top of an old overturned coffee can, which is in turn capping an old metal fence post. It’s a great way to spray paint because there is 360° access and things dry fast in that sunny spot. We’ve earned a nice lunch, how about a cheeseburger deluxe on a Kaiser. Good,.wit some beef now back on my diet, no sense living on pudding alone. The Reb, who can see items on my budget, thinks that is hilarious. I say that anesthetic warped my taste buds.

           Let’s grab coffee and the news. Once more politics crowds out all, but the presence of alternate news sources is really put a crimp in the Democrat pre-election antics. They post a list of promises Trump never kept, but within minutes somebody is posting list of which Democrats voted to block each one, including their phone numbers. When they try the old gas-prices trick, the Biden prices appear right away. Remember his $8 per gallon? They were counting on you having forgotten.

           Another weird platform is the ever-louder left saying the number of queers and trannies being elected is a sign of their acceptance as “normal”. Nonsense. Most people are comfortable enough to just want to be left alone, so it is the self-absorbed jackasses who get into politics.
           I was partial to the idea of going out, a rare nice Saturday, but my sore throat got progressively worse until I could scarely swallow without making a face. It’s the ordinary flu, I’ve had it before. I choose to stay put so it’s not like I’m dying. And what is this glue dip I mentioned? This is to address the problem of my glue joints where a crosscut meets the flat surface. It soaks up all the glue. I’ve seen how others apply a layer of glue and let it dry to seal the ends.

           That uses a lot of glue. But, I drained all my old glue bottles into one and found it makes a nice paste in which to dunk the ends. I don’t know if it works and that was to be tested. Given enough coffee, it will turn up. Note to myself, is that not around the 15th item I’ve lost track of in this manner?

           Here is my doorbell back on the bench for repair. And that is part of the challenge—it works on the bench but not on the wall. Applying a little robot club savvy, I quickly found the issue. See that resistor, the grey rectangle leaning at an angle? Was only letting 1 amp through, I needed 2 amps.

           Yep, I stayed home and watched some tutorials on A.I. Most of it appears to be text, modeled on millions of recorded sentences via cell phone technology. The aspect that most resembles what I want is called “long document preparation” or similar. It’s already having the same negative effect as other millennialware. Designed to make tasks simpler, it creates a whole workforce of people who use it to make things more complicated to save their jobs. Expect documents of extraordinary length with a year or two.
           Over the years, you’ve heard me mention public and private key encryption. It is formally known as RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) and has been the standard for decades. This is the system that uses factors of huge prime numbers and takes forever to crack. Until now, it seems. In a difficult-to-read Ars Technica it seems somebody has spotted a pattern. Really, a pattern?
           If certain parameters are known, there is now a process that predicts the private key without going through all the factoring. This is further evidence that quantum computing will easily crack the codes, but also provides for new algorithms that will eliminate those patterns. This, by the way, is the basis of the big stink over in Europe against the Apple cloud. It also gives you some indication how important phone tracking of your identity is. Apple’s Passkey is the same as the other cloud systems—except the Apple key does not require user identification. And that is really what the Eurocrats are going ballistic about. Your identity is more important than your data.

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