November 6, 2026 Friday
This day will be remembered. My big brush with Real ID, the dreaded national ID nobody wanted or voted for. Then again, nobody was ever asked if they wanted a driver’s license to be ID. The difference? The license must be presented on demand (when driving). The ID has a different set of rules. The whole of the current problem is not my papers, it is that they expired while I was incapacitated. And that is where Real ID enters the room.
You see, Real ID is designed to catch newcomers applying for the first time, and it is know millions of them are cheating. Hence, I need to take a road test—and I was quick to notice they want you to repeat all the paperwork and testing (including the eye test). They have learned, I suppose, that many people can fake their way once. There is another aspect, that none of the barriers are even mentioned in the manual.
You see, Real ID is designed to catch newcomers applying for the first time, and it is know millions of them are cheating. Hence, I need to take a road test—and I was quick to notice they want you to repeat all the paperwork and testing (including the eye test). They have learned, I suppose, that many people can fake their way once. There is another aspect, that none of the barriers are even mentioned in the manual.
So, you cannot plan ahead or rehearse things. But since all my documents are a matching set, I figured they would give me a road test, another potential trap. You see, they demand a second licensed adult to accompany me on the test. Since that person would be sitting in the back seat, it is clear what they really want is a second set of ID on file attached to yours.
This put me on the spot. It is not like I could just walk into the waiting area and ask for somebody to sit in. The place was full of people who did not have licenses. The bureaucratic mindset of the DMV is a pathetic thing to watch. So, I found somebody later, but the next testing date is Monday. And staying around costs three times as much as it used to.
Trivia. Since 1981, wind turbines have killed an estimated 18.7 million bats. Nobody really believes the Democrats won an election in Texas, but they are also pretty certain the Republicans will do nothing about the 1.7 million Democrat voters who appeared from out of nowhere. This picture shows the MSM “polls” with the blue (Democrat) candidates just enough ahead that does not trigger an automatic recount. Anyone who does not see the obvious pattern is just pretending.
I heard a new verb today, which I should have expected. Nate is going “ubering” this evening. At best, I’ve only an overview of how the system works. I’ll see if I can get some info from the view at street level, but I don’t really see the guy long enough to have any informational conversations. Pets, pet food, all that, but I don’t even know if the guy has been to college.
In a few moments, I’ll confirm when it comes to reliability, the guy is beyond useless. I’d already noticed he could not be relied on the take out the garbage, and the primary reason for this trip schedule was to ensure the pets would be fed.
Bagnall Dunes, on Mars, a formation named after the guy who invented the “long range desert patrols” that conducted raids against Rommel from his flanks. The Germans had nothing to stop them. The connection here is the patrols navigated using a theodolite. A surveying instrument. I thought I’d look at how that works. No luck. Nothing but videos of people standing beside the thing and talking about it. Where do they even?
Ah, you want more info about the dunefield. Sorry, it is NASA material, and it is ten years old. Once NASA has done their publicity, the news fades away. During this read I found modern references to the lost Popski patrol, including Canadian videos speaking a language I could not identify. As mentioned, the Germans had no deep desert force. Popski was one of the raiders who set up a hidden base. But the locals spotted him and sold the location to the Germans, who sent two Me-109s in and wiped them out. The survivors set out to walk 200 miles to the American lines.
Famous quote: “Washington DC is Israeli-occupied territory.” ~Pat Buchanan, 1992.
AFTERNOON
Another weekend here throws the Reb’s schedule because she instinctively believes I feel ignored. This is just not the case, I’m here on business. There you go, a man who needs no entertainment visiting a woman who excels at hostessing. Our communication this trip has been “95%” texting, a sign of the times. The best I can plan for now is that I know as soon as I pass that test, I’m restored to the situation 13 months ago. Hardly a giant leap forward.
I’ve determined everything that can be done on this matter except that final appointment, has been done. So waiting for Monday morning may constitute my vacation for 2026. As an incident I must record, I asked Nate if he would help out on Monday. This is like 6:30AM to maybe 9:30AM or so, an otherwise dead time. The guy sleeps until past noon anyway. He would not commit, saying he did now “know if” he could be available “the whole time”.
He said yes y’day, but I wisely asked him to commit to the time today. He went wishy-washy. I was stunned, reminding him he had said yes and this was not something I could leave to chance. I even asked him if his situation was so unpredictable he did not know what he’d be doing 48 hours from now. He would not say for sure. I know the guy is a pot-head scatterbrain, but this is unacceptable. I told him to remember this decision the next time he needs a hand with anything.
I went up to the library book sale. The member's only portion y’day snatched up the good stuff. So I went upstairs to read and have some trivia for you. Lighthouses. They were supplied by boat, meaning unpredictable deliveries until somebody in the 70s hit on the idea of a helicopter pad on top. Within ten years the lights were automated and required no crew. That crew was three men, not two. This was so if one died, the other would not be left alone until the next boat arrived.
There was a sinister side as well. Two men known to argue were stationed and one of them died. The other was terrified he’s be charged with murder. Anyway, there are very few manned lighthouses left in the world.
It seems Walmart is now selling Harbor Freight tools. The first step toward absorption, if you ask me. I have more trivia, I found out how the HB-2 pencil got its name. Long ago, the English had a monopoly on graphite (it was a lubricant for cannonballs). A French chemist locked himself indoors until, 8 days later, he invented pencil leads using a mix of local pottery clay.
He found the darkness or fineness of the mark could be varied by the amount of clay, which he numbered 1, 2, 3, etc. Later, an Austrian (like me) added letters for the Hardness and Blackness of the pencil. England was furious and the world now had the HB-2 pencil.
By now, the curious among you have wondered how I got to looking at pencil leads. Answer: I didn’t. When the revolution cut off European imports to early America, a search for new graphite deposits found them on the Mongolian border. It was expensive to haul, but also the best in the world. The buyer was a Bavarian named, you guessed it, Faber.
And the pencils were expensive. So expensive, they were packed in (you guessed it), fancy wooden boxes, as shown here. This is not a gotcha, I really did just stumble across this. Then a petroleum chemist invented synthetic graphite, which conducts electricity. Where have you seen it besides in pencils? Those commutator brushes on old electric motors.
Want more? Sure. Two lab assistants in wanted a graphite sample thin enough to see through a microscope, so they peeled a layer off a block using scotch tape. They soon found by folding and stretching the tape, they got a single layer, known today as graphene. And those so-called child-proof pill bottle caps? If you leave them in a wooden box in the back of your van, the stupid suckers will come off by themselves.
