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DOES NOT represent any average American life-style.
Tales From The Trailer Court™
Monday, December 15, 2025
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DOES NOT represent any average American life-style.
Sunday, December 14, 2025
December 14, 2025
One year ago today: December 14, 2024, JeePee, my friend.
Five years ago today: December 14, 2020, sextant fluff.
Nine years ago today: December 14, 2016, a batbike trip.
Random years ago today: December 14, 2002, some books I hated.
Anniversary of JeePee’s passing. Very missed. I spent the early morning over hotcakes and coffee, with some deep reading of Arduino quirks. And discovered a mystery that may get me to bring out some old sketches (Arduino programs) that would not work right. It has to do with the delay() function, which pauses your code for a specified number of milliseconds. What could go wrong? See addendum. And here’s a video for anybody who thinks they work hard nowadays.
Today, I get half again as much due to the delay and you bet, back then this strategy made me broke. I recall saving up the $45 for this unknown gadget, shown here today properly mounted on a solid base with laser-etched captioning. I dug it out this morning after the neighbor started a motor—and I was still too weak to get mobile. So I searched around and got some parts together for a test run of this board. One of the defects with Arduinos is there is no way to tell what, if anything, is already loaded onto the device. And it uses the old USB-A plug, which is now beyond rare.
Funny, innit, I foresee a time in the future when this blinking light is considered comically primitive. Yet today, there are very few people over 40 who could pull this off. It involves mastering many tasks the average person in my age-group does not even know exist. Downloading the IDE, matching it to a COM port, debugging the code, and the dozen smaller steps that need to be figured out. The way I approach the challenge is by reading until I understand, but there is no proper guidance on what to read. Trust me, a thousand hours of intense study is an efficient start. I think this is why everything these days is done in teams—and the poor results show it.
Take the micros() command just mentioned. It comes with a description of how to use it by copy and paste code. That’s your indictor of how far most users grasp the concept. But I know those microseconds are too short for the Arduino to generate, thus concluding there is something they are not telling you. At first, I thought it was a special motor, then I saw it. The schematic, but not the directions, shows an added component called an A4988 driver. Another thing to learn they don’t tell you beforehand. It takes the millisecond pulses and chops them into even integer multiple fractions of two, that is, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8th, but not 1/3 or 1/5th. Therefore, it is using some form of register. Is it necessary to know this to use the command? Of course not. Until the plane crashes.
Blue silkie bantam.
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Flour grinding with stone mills. I learned there is still a demand for this, which got me wondering how they still make grindstones. It is rated a dangerous occupation due to the dust conditions. It seems the stones have only a five-year life before needing to be “dressed”. I’ve never had an explanation why stone ground grains don’t contain a lot of grit. Next, I carefully went over the joint account, I cannot shake the feeling of a pending surprise expense landing on her lap right before Xmas.
Today 15 years ago was the last gig Ray-B and I formally played, it was a half-gig. That is, he had a stand-up bassist who could not show up till 10:00PM. It was a great show, but Ray-B was like so many soloists—and guitar players are a separate species of soloist. This entails a belief that certain instruments have magical properties. Onesuch is the stand-up bass, which is useless for much other than blues and jazz. And what the guitar player does not get is that people who play specialized instruments are themselves looking for the same magic. And the bands never last.
But, the first few gigs go well, and why not? They represent novelty. How quickly that wears off. The same thing would happened if it was bagpipes. Not chipper enough to even poke into the shed, I sent through some archived material. My current plan is to maybe post photos that have file dates matching the many gap between 2000 and 2006. There’s no blogs, but by then I had equipment to scan and convert many photos to digital, so there is a ton of material. Just no way of accurately matching it to any specific dates, but for example, see those toothpick photos of 2004.
Last for today, here’s the best view I can get of the vaccinated news anchor who had a stroke in front of the camera. Oops, looks like the censors got there first. Media removed, just too many people knew damn well what was going on. There you have it, if you want even the news the media creates itself, you’ll have to move fast these days.
ADDENDUM
Plenty was going wrong—because I know how to program. Thus, reading my listings shows how I used a master set of commands to call subroutines. This is an ability, for anyone can code a subroutine. Ah, but the master knows that routine isn’t proper unless it is able to do its task without interfering with any other module of the operation. (If this aspect is lacking, the result is eventual chaos—best evidenced by how MicroSoft has to keep coming out with new versions that add nothing.)
I take extra care to design each module. Today I learned they are not and cannot be as independent as I thought. That delay() function has many uses, but most common are to ward off buffer overflows, take intermittent sensor readings, and (for me) to slow down displays that would otherwise occur to rapidly to observe. Hence, I regularly have the situation where one module is displaying data while another module is called to update the variable.
Well, I just found out delay() is more than a pause. It idles the entire code for the interval. I had run into this several times and wrote it off as a equipment error. A button press would not react, often causing the operator (me) to press it again. Now I know the reason. I often use a 5000 millisecond delay—5 seconds in people time. I would be miffed when my monitor would not react to sensor data in real time. The delay() command was blocking all operations.
One that was most annoying was when one delay() command called another—the result was the timings were additive. The solution is to avoid the delay() unless you want it. Use the Arduino timer instead, the internal clock that logs how long the current code has been running. Beware this is trickier to code. You record the time on the system clock, then compare a later time to see if your interval has passed. I’d say you learn something every day, but most people my age do not.
What tipped me to look at delay() anew was I saw a new Arduino command (new to me) in the documentation I read for the latest IDE. The timing command millis() now has a companion called micro(), that is ten-thousandths of a second. Where is this leading? I don’t know because I was just beginning to study stepper motors when the Tennessee Age began and changed life out of all recognition.
Saturday, December 13, 2025
December 13, 2025
One year ago today: December 13, 2024, a day with JeePee.
Five years ago today: December 13, 2020, a disinvestment event.
Nine years ago today: December 13, 2016, a grumpy post.
Random years ago today: December 13, 2015, total unfamiliarity,
From my high-traffic back yard, here’s two guys that wisely avoid each other. It remains too cold, causing my oldest injuries to gripe. This morning I’ve planned a task that may see futile. It’s a barrier created by the usual lack of cooperation and communication between parties on the Internet that the Internet was supposed to fix. Huh? Well, instead of getting along, each faction seems to have gone down their own garden path. There are fifty variations of the C language, none of them compatible. If you click the “inspect” option on any web page, you’ll see what I mean.
The pattern is decipherable and I’ve done it with GPS data when looking for coordinates. That’s where you hit a brick wall. Unless you have a library of resources and the time to wade through it, any existing manual is not going to have space to teach you enough. The Arduino text has some examples that presume you know what they are on about. Thus, my plan is to use the IDE (a kind of mini-word processor for code) to enter the example using my own format, which clearly delineates and separates variables, subroutines, and modules in the source code.
The IDE has a feature that “tests” the code before allowing it to assemble or compile or whatever the GenXers think is clever to call it these days. My plan is to use that to test each part of the code until I teach myself how it works. If that sounds familiar, it is. I have often called it learning to “think like an idiot”, a skill honed by my early family life.
Another example of how idiots think is the tags (HTML commands) that Blogspot allows since it was bought out by Google. It is evident nobody on the team ever consulted with a professional blogger (or any blogger) to find out which ones were useful. There is a useless blockquote tag, but no tag to embed a sample of music. The search command does not recognize punctuation. There is no proper setting to indent paragraphs. Go figure.
Dang, I had trouble walking the show but glad to note my food donation probably feeds them all one day per month. The trouble was, although the room is warm and I’m under an electric blanket, I got up for a glass of water, then my usual 5:30AM pee-pee, then at 7:00AM to fire up the coffee. Those three cold walks were enough, and some of these injuries are twenty years old. I’ve never rode in a Jeep. This one has all the custom parts, the seats still have the Sheriff’s star upholstery. The parking lot had a shuttle which I gladly rode the quarter-mile to the door. I’ve never rode in a paddy wagon before, either.
It’s a 30 mile trip so I listened to more of the Paris tale, but they had best move fast. I’ve begun disk 7 of 8 and propaganda doesn’t work if you push it too fast. Hannah, our 31-y.o. historian, has begun to sympathize with women who were rounded up by the Germans and we just know she will latch onto the Jewish ones. But Tariiq is going to be much tougher to tie to the cause. He rarely ventures outside the Algerian neighborhood. He’s met an old puppeteer who is filling in the blanks. I think the plot here is that Tariq, desert peasant, is sensible enough to learn to pay tribute to the Jews, what’s the problem with you other people?
What’s this? The Joe Biden library may be shut down. These operations rely on donations and it seems he has not gotten any since 2023. The University of Minnesota has diagnosed “Whiteness” to be a disease.
Maverick County Pageant winners.
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If you like, there are more video clips appearing in January, 2000. These are from recently uncovered backup files. I recognize a number of scenes from stills taken out of these VHS originals, so I plainly had that capability by 2003-2006, when many of these backups were created. Since I only had a SONY [tape deck/player] at the time, it must have been a boring real-time undertaking. I had one of those “Pinnacle” harnesses which could be made to work.
What’s hard to imagine is how I had the patience back then. I lived at motels in Miami until I scored my first job—at a temp agency. One day, I will tell that story. To summarize for now, I was not sure about staying in Miami, which I found to be a dirty and unsafe place. Nor did I know what towns were nearby (that's how I found Hollywood), so I picked a temp agency out of the phone book (a type of analog database of that era). To put it mildly, I know how to run an entire six person office by myself, which includes everything from ordering and logging supplies to payroll, to fixing computers and copy machines. Thusforth, I scored the highest paying job on the temp board, a job in a trailer on Brickell Key. $12 per hour.
That is another tale from the trailer court. I was the only male on staff at Victoria & Associates, and none of the women wanted a “construction” job. That staffing agency had an award system based on performance and all I’m saying is I won the Secretary of the Week award every week for the next year until I decided to decline the basket. These two pictures are repeats from that happy time, funny they have a relevance today, 25 years later. There’s the typical basket and a yellow arrow pointing to my jobsite.
There was no blog or journal in 2000, so be flexible with dates and events. There are mentions of my budget, gigs, partying, and general daily life in Miami. Amusing.
My afternoon plan was to catch up on the books and read for the duration. But, delving into the books is not as carefree around here as it seems. The culprit again is inflation, hitting hardest at those commodities I consume. Food, gas, utilities, daily living. Xmas costs me nothing, just another holiday, but I have this looming feeling of an expensive trip to Tennessee in my stars. Then, two hours reading Arduino, but also on various methods used to defeat gambling machines.
I admire people who defeat the machines, since I do not view gambling as either a pastime nor a legitimate business. I don’t see what is wrong with stealing from thieves—and I’ve listened to all the arguments. If somebody can cheat, ban them and blacklist them, but jail time is unwarranted, again just my opinion. At street level, if you can scam the scammers, I say you deserve a medal.
If find it hilarious how the thieves are increasingly being caught by accountants, not security. And, they are caught because the cheater used ID. Carmichael, the locksmith, was caught through his travel records, meaning they are also tracking everybody, which is a different can of worms. Via bargaining, he got no jail time, a $50,000 fine, and some community service. It’s definitely a lucrative career path, considering he stole $16 million. The videos up-play the consequences of being caught. Ha, I would laugh in their faces. Nobody with that kind of money goes to jail in America, not even O.J. Here’s some clever folding flower lights.
The latest version of the IDE is not installed. It has a number of new features I like. A larger text area, for example. And there are more built-ins meaning less reliance on the dreaded exterior libraries. I haven’t touched this app since Tennessee entered my life which means using it means relearning it all. I may have time since my swollen arm is slow to heal, and my bones still ache. I’m under the covers and warm during the cold night, but take last evening. I walked into the cold kitchen for a glass of water and later I visited the loo.
These brief exposures are enough to trigger dull pain, worst is across my shoulders in the deep dull manner from my therapy sessions with Big Loretta. I have taken to wearing my shoulder heating pad whenever sitting. The heat is soothing but the pain remains.
Another round in the youTube ad wars. It didn’t last long. This time the embedded ads play, but never entirely disable the Skip button. It’s still a drag to have to listen to a few seconds of crap. They can insist all they want about their right to advertise, but the bottom line over here is that this computer belongs to me and it is therefore my say what displays on it. Blocking the bullshit is conceptually no different than simply looking away and not watching it.
ADDENDUM
Instead of Spotify, use Demus Music
Instead of Netflix, use Plex
Instead of Pinterest, use Pixabay
Instead of Canva Pro, use Photopea
Instead of YouTube, use Odysee
Instead of TikTok, use Clapper
Instead of ChatGPT Plus, use Poe
Instead of Google Drive, use Terabox
Friday, December 12, 2025
December 12, 2025
One year ago today: December 12, 2024, almost in Ruskin.
Five years ago today: December 12, 2020, they’ve a funny idea.
Nine years ago today: December 12, 2016, the twin qualities.
Random years ago today: December 12, 1996, on meandering.
57°F inside the hallway, she’s another chiller. Unless that improves, let’s see what we can get into just sitting right here with the coffee. Mind you, I’m down to 15 cups [in reserve], kind of the critical level. Some of the recovered video clips are making it into the January 2000 blog posts. Check it out if you’d like to see my “family” on the banks of the mighty Orinoco. (Yes, the lack of audio is a safe-for-work feature.) Wow, the big banks are taking a real swipe at silver prices. And places in rural Georgia and Alabama are posting twice the national average of population increases.
Unable to rally, I stayed inside, mostly reading. The downtown streets are blocked for the Xmas parades later tonight. Says here that Tampon Tim says the billion-dollar Somali heist is the fault of White men, that the non-Whites are just taking compensation for past wrongs. On that, I’m grabbing my bass to play “Some Kinda Wonderful” by Grand Funk.
Then I studied the story of the Pandora. That’s the ship sent to hunt down the Bounty mutineers. A group of the sailors who did not directly participate had stayed ashore in Tahiti. The Admiralty was more concerned about the cost of the Bounty to the British taxpayer. So they declared the group to be pirates and chained them in a cage.
It says here 23,746 people in Canada this year have died waiting in line for medical treatment. Taylor Swift handed out bonuses to her tour employees averaging around $108,000 each. But the number is a secret, so don’t tell anyone I figured it out. The New York Times said seniors got bilked for $982 million last year to on-line tech support scams. I have two conflicting opinions on that one.
Not a fan of A.I. got me looking at a system called KaBLE. It is claimed to distinguish a major flaw in the way LLM (large language models) operate. The chatbots use millions of recorded files to compose the “next word” in their replies so that responses are coherent. (That process is itself a telling criticism of such "intelligence". KaBLE claims ability to distinguish between what people know and what they believe. I could not follow the material but I gather when applied, the accuracy of A.I. responses drops from over 90% to below 15%. You’ll have to look that up on your own, I say, I could not follow the material.
Ship below the horizon.
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This picture tells a mini-tale from the trailer court. These are the rolls of coins that normall are used for anti-dormancy deposits. (To prevent any rarely used accounts from going dormant.) Shown here is $57 that has now been co-opted for the crisis that my old bones tell me is coming. I’m clueless about the mechanics of the recording industry, but I know the path to big sales has little to do with talent. It’s a machine that is greased by money. Most of the hit music you hear is not the best, nor the most gifted musicians. It is the people who paid up, also known as bribery.
I drove downtown to for this transaction and listened to more of the now-destested audiobook. This story is plainly a backlash at the declining believability of holocaust claims. Like Eva Clarke who testified under oath that she listened to the Auschwitz guards bragging about the Jewish girls they raped each day. She made this claim for 80 years until a challenge proved she could not speak German.
I listened to the Xmas parade, just a block from here, but you know, I didn’t go. I’ve already seen the same floats in all their parades and it is only 58°F out there. True, I never know which parade will be my last, but the same can be said of my quiet evening right here, too lazy to cook so I’m eating salami sandwiches. All but one of my catheter wounds has healed. That one, inside my right elbow, has become a collapsed vein two inches long. I’ll give it till morning to improve.
ADDENDUM
Here are the States that still use black & white photos on their ID cards.
AlaskaSoon, you will not be able to buy and sell without a record of your identity. What a pity we now have three generations of Americans who have never know what it is like to have the freedom of anonymity. It’s easy to see the logistics how the system slowly slipped in layer after layer of little laws. Now, if you sell some silver, it is on record down at the Sheriff’s office. Over half the population brainwashed into thinking that is normal.
Colorado
Georgia
Indiana
Kentucky
Maryland
New York
Ohio
Vermont
Virginia
Wisconsin
It’s the old story, if you aren’t up to something, why would you object to the police keeping files on you? The same reason they won’t let me look at those files. They are up to something.
Here’s what to know about silver dealing today. All Florida dealers are required to log your ID into the software provided by the police. The spot price when I walked in was $62 per ounce, I know that is optimistic and the bar charge is $3 per ounce. How close did I get to $59? Not very. I netted $54 per ounce. Talking to the buyer, he explained in the last two weeks, he had bought over a million dollars in his little shop. That is, there is an over-supply from the buyer’s point of view.
If the sale is over an arbitrary limit, which I took to be $3,000, they issue a check with a five-day delay.
Thursday, December 11, 2025
December 11, 2025
One year ago today: December 11, 2024, JeePee in paradise.
Five years ago today: December 11, 2020, she’s getting louder.
Nine years ago today: December 11, 2016, nine bags of leaves today.
Random years ago today: December 11, 2008, must be my turban.
Good thing you did not move to New Zealand, it will be less than 50% White 35 months from now. Unless there’s a right-wing coup, but that is the problem on the right. People don’t unite unless everybody is in 100% agreement, which never happens. My hobby interest in old trains got us this morning’s trivia. Around the world there are around 30 examples of steam locomotives in operating condition, some still actually in use. Trivia is that all of them exceed the most modern safety standards of today. From the era when craftsmanship meant perfection. Ooh, $62.92, looking good. $63.55. $64.24
Much more recovered by noon, I’m off to the city for some logistics. You’ll want an update on the French condo. First off, let me confirm I was against this investment. If you think Florida HOAs are a pain in the neck, try the Europeans. The authorities determined that the common area, a courtyard, had to be redone before any of the units could be re-sold. Ouch, this is the month it should have moved rather than being hit with a €22,000 Euro special assessment.
In US dollars, think of these places as around $6,000 per square foot. It’s unrelated to the sale but during this assessment process, it was found one of the occupants has been there for 20+ years as a squatter. Still, the unit is within walking distance of the Monaco Riviera, where 30% of the residents are millionaires. Housing is so expensive most properties are sold by Sotheby’s. The cheapest current offering is a former maid’s quarters just listed for €268,000.
Having said that, I think the best this project can now do is break even. But, it serves as a wake-up call that I have been right about a lot of things for a very, very long time. And that is how I know I had better have enough put aside because I know that others do not and in too many cases, cannot. I just paid $11 for a $4 tray of frozen chicken.
The good news is we still live in a society where one good idea is the difference between wealth and poverty. So, here’s a good idea. I will need some method to test my first “on-line” Arduino link and my idea is silver prices. The run will be over before I get anything going, but hear out the idea anyway. If you search silver prices, you’ll find almost anything except that. The top two pages of sites, especially the sponsored ads, are all so bastardized you’ll be clicking and scrolling a while to get your info.
With luck, you will hit a page full of charts, sales pitches, other metals, and general clutter that actually has your information. But what a millennialized hassle. There is no place you can go that displays just the single number that you want: the current asking price for an ounce. From experience, I know the banks will commence a deliberate price attack, it was just a week ago the pundits were saying silver might reach $60 by the end of 2026.
Live Moscow cam.
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So as to not have a cold winter day without learning something, I dug out that old gear making program. The one I painstakingly used to cut my original gears with the scroll saw. I see that it will export a number of formats, all of them unfamiliar, so I saved one of each and found one that would export and pick up with the laser. And it is some sort of vector file so it cut these cardboard gears in a minute each (pair). As with other equipment like this, I would have trouble cutting matching sizes in more that one session.
Getting back here took hours, Lakeland roadways are a horror story. This time, a lane closure on my way to the doggie place. I know the shortcut via private property but this lady on a golf cart started getting suspicious when I took another shortcut that’s supposed to be unknown. It’s through the huge Sanlan Golf resort, which takes up a huge chunk of SE Lakeland. It’s posh and has a RV court for winter residents. Pretty nice but not as high class as they like to pretend.
vBeing this far behind schedule, took the long road to the pound and inquired about the open house. It’s this weekend which would be highly therapeutic for me. As I was waiting for help to lug my 44-lb donation, I got a listen to their staff meeting. They have a list of bad actors and known animal cruelty types they will be on the lookout for.
I deposited $1,500 in the joint account knowing this is not a fraction enough and got myself stuck in rush hour. That insane no-need-for-it jam on Highway 98. Say goodbye to my laser cutter for a while. I got through another disk of “Paris Echo” to realize I’ve been suckered into another holocaust sob story. Now, I must listen to find out what convoluted route they must now take to tie Tariq, the Algerian, to 1940s France. The book has to be clever on this. But what tips me off is that this brand of spin rarely happens in isolation. And sure enough, they began with the other lines of comtemporary bullshit.
Examples. The myth that speaking French is exotic. That plain Jane women over 30 still got it. That Arabs have no choice but to hate Whites. The audiobook continues with that irritating European gaslighting every sentence. Plus the plot weakens as there are already several spots angling toward the black and white relationships being the inevitable outcome for all, but only if the women are White. There is no mention of the fate of the surplus African some. All this we recognize as merely setup, there is no such thing as half a liberal.
I pulled up that old Quinn movie, “Lost Command”, about a troop from Dien Bien Phu to went to Algeria. That’s where the claims began that after WWII, the Arabs spotted the weakness of the Europeans. However, the Arabs are disorganized tribes, so they began pushing the concept that they only flag they could unite under was Islam, thus uniting their politics and religion, which we see to this day. And I see MicroSoft, who just laid off thousands, is about to spend nearly $20 billion on a new operation in India. It makes sense in a way, the quality of MicroSoft products has sunk low enough to make such things possible.
ADDENDUM
Recording my symptoms, per my own rules. The roots of this blog remain a journal so I often track what I don’t like about getting older. My appetite is back with a vengeance. By 3:30AM I was raiding the fridge. Those meatloaf I froze last week lasted for barely four subs and now I’m out of buns. Four slices of French toast for breakfast. If I had a large everything pizza right now, I’d scarf it in ten minutes. Aha, I just found another meatloaf in the freezer. We’re set for the day. Where’s my horseradish sauce?
Later, I had turned in early on this chilly night, with the overhead heater and the electric blanket. I was thus very comfortable until midnight when a pain in my arm woke me. Remember I mentioned that first catheter? It has collapsed a vein and I now have a four-inch circle of a bruise on my inside right elbow. The sort of injury I would have laughed at just five years ago.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
December 10, 2025
One year ago today: December 10, 2024, similar nap schedules.
Five years ago today: December 10, 2020, rear tire splay.
Nine years ago today: December 10, 2016, pie for breakfast.
Random years ago today: December 10,2009, cyberSLAPP,
Today’s award for most numerous useless web sites already goes to Harbor Freight by 7:00AM. I want to price saw, instead I get pages of coupons, store locators, business hours, Yelp reviews, and maps, none of which have links to the store in Auburndale. Ah, here it is, top of the second page, 11th on the search list. No doubt whoever managed that will blame his grandparents because he’s getting paid what he is worth.
Going over the Nashville material again, I just know there is going to be a last minute upset. You see, the Reb is too diplomatic but also knows fewer things go wrong if I’m around. I also know the trick to getting ahead when you deal with others is to learn to think like they do without becoming one of them. Who is “they”, well go figure, your only hint is they hate it when you do this. I went around the house to cobble what cash was at hand. Look at this hundred dollar bill, that so is ancient even Wal*mart won’t take it. It’s a 2002 series, barely distinguishable from the 1996 but not a collector’s item.
I found a total of $1,659 here including my rolled coins. I’ll deposit that when I drive to the dog pound. Found myself feeling super thirsty, probably some dehydration. I was inside all day, which is not me. India has advised I use this Celtic salt that’s supposed to have more balanced trace elements. I can’t find it on-line. Food for me is on the bland side without salt so I’ll try anything. India has a “caregiver” personality, but it can be comical around me because I just do not require that much caregiving.
Riverboat cruise, Peru.
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Silver approaches $62 but at too slow a climb to be a real run. It’s that growing gap between the spot price of $58 paper to the ads for the real metal. Not a peep in the news. Food still has plastic taste for me from the IV, so I make up a big pot of grits and that’s what I will live on today. Arduino research is not that arbitrary for me, so those of you who guessed there is an idea behind it, you right. Would you pay to rent a speaker? I dove over to Bartow of AA batteries and stopped to check some details with Wilford. Rent a speaker you say?
Here’s the idea, you can decide if it has any merit. The important thing here is that I NEVER intend to do this, but if I did, I’d get a license. I understand that playing music in public d defines public as any gathering of unrelated people. Does that apply if I play a song on my phoned that is loud enough for others to hear? Legally, yes, but there are not enough police in America to begin to enforce that law. People would argue their Apple account was paid up and they happen to like loud music.
Looking at my old Tailgater amp, it has Bluetooth. It would not be a big leap to add WiFi. Arduino has a shield (baby board) for that. So I’m looking, only looking, at what it would take to have somebody play a tune off their phone on a speaker that just happened to be conveniently nearby.
I only stayed twenty minutes as a situation that’s tricky to deal with arose as I walked in. Let me say, I’m aware I look the grandfatherly type and some women like that. And this beefy old lady started doing her number on me. Wilford and I also looked at maps and suddenly she knows people there, that kind of nonsense. Fat, out of shape, pushy, I know the chances of women like that finding somebody are low. In my case, the odds are negative. She would not quit, so I finished up and left. That Jabba the Hutt shape does not do it for me.
Back home I ran though the paperwork and I found enough for a small contingency. Just you watch, something will come along that uncannily will require all of to the penny. I have most of a book written about how the world knows when to do this and by how much. By lights-out, I see that silver has passed $62. It’s a slow gain, but it is a record high and there will be an unknown point at which it explodes.
Here’s a quick test of your tax knowledge. Suppose you are in a 20% tax bracket and you make $100,000 selling gold. The tax is payable next Tuesday. Before then, you invest the full amount BitCoin and lose it all. Your net gain is zero—what happens with the tax that was owed? Do you still owe it? You gambled with money that was not yours. What if you had gained?
Hint, the rules are different for the rich and the poor.
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
December 9, 2025
One year ago today: December 9, 2024, basically, eBay sucks.
Five years ago today: December 9, 2020,over-groomed adults.
Nine years ago today: December 9, 2016, teenage commanders.
Random years ago today: December 9, 2002, never in your favor.
I do believe that is the soundest have slept in years. Eleven hours, and I’m now grumpy for enduring a morning without coffee as a stress test is slated for 10:00AM. By now I know most of the staff and have mucho more strength yet only one meal in the past 14 hours. I say again, it is like a hotel with excellent room service, though I would not want to see the bill without my insurance. My estimate is around $12,000 so far and I have received no medicine. I reread several chapters on the Arduino knowing what I know now. Big difference.
These procedures meant a lot of waiting around lying motionless on a gurney. By now, I was deep-reading sections on byte arithmetic, something I grasp but was never that good at. While the room had Internet, it censored Gab and was difficult to use, always favoring sites I do not use, but I was able to get the silver ask at $59, meaning it will almost certainly pass $60 later today. Once outside the room, it was several long hours in cubicles along the hallways, a long wait eve though I knew I was already popular enough to get first in line for everything.
Worst trauma wasn’t the medical but that somewhere down that long hallway, somebody was brewing coffee. By 11:00AM you can imagine I was famished. Beyond famished. However, by now I could tell I was okay as there was no longer any sense of urgency about my condition. If I didn’t say, I had a hard time waking up this morning, quite unlike ever before in my life. I remained unsteady for around ten minutes, causing them to slap bracelets on me as a fall risk. Also, I experienced a severe leg cramp, nothing to do with this situation.
I was discharged a bit passed noon but didn’t get out for another hour. It is cardiologist time and I will change my primary care someplace local. This means largely the end to any connections to Miami other than visiting. I can foresee that trip becoming rare.
The Montgomery Riverfront Brawl.
(August 2023)
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Having been assured the tingling numbness in my lower left had is not threatening, I drove over to the music store to look at these recently advertised “desktop” amps. Well, maybe not new, they’ve been around a couple years “taking the world by storm”. Most in the $200 range, they are a guitar-only device and, I find, not a very good one. They have dozens of settings but not even the depth of tone found on old boom boxes. This generation of speakers have a definite “squawk” quality on the full bass settings.
I picked up this month’s doggie chow and suspecting I’ll have a run on coffee the next couple days, I shopped a bit. The last hour in the hospital centered on a lot of questions about my diet, mostly about processed food, which I avoid. But folks, when you get asked about it during a medical event, you just know it isn’t any good for you. The one product they didn’t like me to eat is cheddar cheese, maybe I’ll quit, but only if I find an acceptable alternative.
By now, I just wanted to get home but I spotted India as I passed the club, so I popped in to see her since she knows I want to ask about her selling system. I’m aware she has Etsy, but she has mentioned a site that amalgamates most sellers including Amazon and eBay. I’ll get her to show me, because something more important has come to light about her. I mentioned she’s in the midst of a brutal divorce, so I do not ask.
Instead, I make general inquiries and she gave me the head’s up today. She stands to gain a huge house in the southeast end and, get this, on the property she describes a large garage full of woodworking tools gathering dust. Where would I fit in this picture? That’s easy, I’ve told you she is a startlingly good looking 41 years old—and I would be the only guy in town who has not hit on her. Even the least clever gals know you don’t make business deals with men after your ass. And I got the impression today I was the only one left standing.
Then, I get home craving my home-made chili and, finishing that, find I’ve got a big round of mild insomnia happening. I switched to tea and found some on-line documentaries and just passed midnight watched silver break $60, an historic high. Got my fingers crossed on that one. Remember, my money tied up in Nashville is far from a sure thing and I could use a real boost. But, as I told, even at $100 per ounce, I would just be breaking even. Having said that, I also know that after you are 40, slow and steady if just as iffy, that it is equally risky to set yourself up so that should you get a windfall, you have a place to keep it.
One of the documentaries was on European inventors, the one that stood out was the airplane guy, Anthony Fokker. (Ja, undt dem Fokkers vas flying Messerschmitts.) In several videos totalling an hour, not one mentioned where on Earth he got the money to build and fly airplanes, one of the most advanced and expensive technologies of his day. I don’t have to look further, I know when it’s all daddy’s money. Nobody who had to be concerned with mundane matters like what things cost could pull off the stunts he did.
My research tonight was not on inventors, rather the development of the internally-braced airplane wing. I remembered seeing the spars in a museum back in my twenties. It was, to me, impressive woodwork. I also have some correspondence from the Reb piled up and I just know this is going to result in another cash requirement. I opted out of the recording realm because it is the very definition of corrupt. If you are not familiar with the workings, think of it this way. You enter into a deal where the other guy needs $10,000 up front to get things going. Then he squeezes you for another $5,000 so you don’t lose the $10,000.
That is exactly the “lawyer” type of deal that media, not the music, pulls on you. There is always another fee that crops up the closer the deal gets to completion. And I know it is coming with the scenario she has described. Why? Because it hit me that day last year we were driving east on I-40 and her some came on the radio. Amazingly unique as that would be in one’s lifetime, radio is the original payola-grift-shakedown industry of the 20th century. I think I’ll pre-empt this one and start putting together some cash because my spidey-sense says do not trust anyone in that cutthroat industry.
I'm here because I canceled a planned Nashville trip. But if I was smart, I' get in my van and drive there now and deal with the cash myself in advance. Check back tomorrow. By 3:00AM I’m tired and both my arms are swollen and tender where all four tubes were placed. And to fit in the gamma cam, I had to hold by arms above my head for 8 long minutes and my right shoulder is now deeply uncomfortable. What a day this has been.
ADDENDUM
What did I read in the hospital? Poetry? Escape literature? Now, it was the Arduino chapter on dot matrix displays, but with a difference. I have figured out the internal wiring must closely resemble the way I wired my old ROM board, which is still around here somewhere. Where I had diodes soldered in place for each figure, a programmable matrix would have used transistors, a concept that intrigues me, what can I say.
This is a scan of the chapter title page, showing that I’ve read it at least nine times in the past ten years, each with a different focus. This time I’m wondering if I could use the laser cutter to wire up something that could merge these two concepts. A transistor driven ROM that I could hard-wire but use external commands to change the patterns. Just an idea, but it is driving me closer to setting up that 3D printer even if I botch the design part. But yeah sure, if you want to ride along, just keep reading the blog until sooner or later.
Monday, December 8, 2025
December 8, 2025
One year ago today: December 8, 2024, glad to be back.
Five years ago today: December 8, 2020, jam sessions = boring.
Nine years ago today: December 8, 2016, portrayals of Thailand.
Random years ago today: December 8, 2010, an above average book.
It was with incredulilty I read some postings by welfare cases arguing about their right to live off other people’s taxes. I once met a guy with that attitude in real life, Mike. Born on welfare, lived his who life on welfare, drew no link between his free ride and other people’s taxes. This might be an entire day of commentary unless I check myself into the hospital over a variety of symptoms each minor on their own.
The [Friday] ER had questions about me living alone. I have no intention of letting someone into my place constantly underfoot in case I need a hand. Risky maybe, but fewer people who to you down. I get a laugh out of people who say they have lots of friends and it is easy. A closer look reveals they pour considerable resources into maintaining those relationships, they just don’t see it. But too often, they are resources that create a neglect in other parts of their lives so that they dubiously now have to depend on others. Nope, not for me.
Waiting to dry off after a shower, I watched a highly-touted video of twenty rich people telling how to get rich. It confirms what I already know. All the “secret” information they provide is already common knowledge. Provide value, invest early, get a skill, etc. What is missing it the key to get people off their asses and act. They all know what to do, but once that TV clicks on in the morning, they are basket cases the rest of the day.
The picture here is the screen in my private hospital room. I was checked in by 9:00AM and a battery of tests found nothing, but same as twenty years ago, something is wrong. They are keeping me for observation, that is, to give me the best treatment money can buy.
Ashcroft, Colorado.
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The change in hospital procedures is remarkably different. The “assembly line” aspect is gone I was x-rayed and scanned, then a battery of lesser tests. I saw an actual doctor for a couple minutes and was wheeled down the long hallways to a surprisingly comfortable, quiet, and well-appointed room. Think luxury, this place compares very well with many hotels I’ve stayed. The screen above was an interface, where I could access anything, so bored silly by now I watched a so-so Clint Eastwood movie, “Cry Macho”. This is a picture taken on Mars last week. That's all I have for you, but isn't that something?
Here is a sample of the menu, which I consider top-class and they do not skimp on portions, although they are understandably carefully measured. And there you go, here is a sample of the dinner offerings. Since it is all insurance, I ordered like and English King. Like a class Euro-beaneries, there are no prices listed. You don’t, after all, want anybody getting a heart attack.
This was a weirdly relaxing time, I had everything at the cabin prepared for a 3-day stay. The utilities were shut down, even the live animal traps were all snapped, I was not stressed. So how did I zonk out? I used to experience this traveling, a very deep and dream-filled sleep. I love traveling for this alone and here I was, 22 miles down the road and dreaming in technicolor. They had to awaken me each fhour hours for vitals and was so groggy I could not speak. And it took a full ten minutes to wake up in the morning.
The staff is also well-screened for patient-handiling. This meant when getting a zero-requirement yahoo like me, within minutes we were all visiting like old friends. They showed (and taught) me a truly inside look at the machines and procedures. Best to me was the brand new gamma cam, the old test where you drink the barium or some isotope and your insides glow. Most of the time was just lying around, waiting your turn.
I told how sleep the past ten days was not replenishing. I had slowed down and felt unstable. I was slow-moving and weak. Then that 11-hour sleep and I’m back. Yes, but will it last. I have no explanation and the only medicine they gave was regular 81mg aspirin, which is where I finally learned that is the quarter-dose of your standard 325mg pill.
Sunday, December 7, 2025
December 7, 2025
One year ago today: December 7, 2024, JeePee in paradise.
Five years ago today: December 7, 2020, the camo-coop.
Nine years ago today: December 7, 2016, which I don’t have,
Random years ago today: December 7, 2007, too much “nerve gas”.
Happy Birthday, Eatmore. I still think about you. Sigh, the first time I knew for sure I was in love. Strange, how you just know. Silver is asking over $63, I’m guessing even the wildest bank predictions were ready for that. The kerfuffle over at Gab.com has caught my eye. There are two camps, the old people who don’t like the changes, and the old people who pretend to like them because they think it makes them appear younger. Trust me, as an entertainer I know this effect is super-real. The joke is listening to the owner explain why he made the changes without realizing he’s the one who let the old code become such a mess.
This is a silver bar for sale today, but you can go on-line and see prices of $58 per ounce. Why the spread? I don’t know, but I suspect and hope it shows a growing unwillingness of those with real silver to sell for the prices the banks are pushing.
We are treated to the frightening prospect of England becoming the world’s first Islamic nuclear power. I doubt it, as mentioned year ago I believe the English have had enough and will back Nigel in the next elections. However, like Trump, I do not think he has the stomach for what needs doing. Out they must go, all of the, the good, the bad, the indifferent. They do not belong. For a quick lesson on nuclear bombs, see today’s addendum.
Repeated warnings about censorship coming in 2026. For most users, that would mean X, but didn’t X say they would not do that? Canada’s gun confiscation has bumped up against Alberta. Ottawa has stated that citizens acting in self-defense will be regarded as “not being in the public interest”. Sounds Canadian, alright.
YouTube is on another ad-blocker crusade. It removes the skip button. Intrusive advertising sucks. The trick is to manually bypass the youTube code until the hardworking crew at your favorite adblocker app comes up with the next solution. You can read about the blocker in my post of March 14, 2023. The workaround is to replace [watch?v=] with [v/].
Remember, in this blog you type exactly what is between the [ and ].
Inaccessible Island.
-37°18'5.40" S -12°40'16.79" W
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No changes or big events here, I was inside all day, reading. Here is an item that got my eye. Fox 49 has a new jumbo-size newscaster who they are passing off as “curvy”. She’s a good sixty pounds overweight and hardly in the right places. TV is inconsequential to me, but here are the used comments that gave me a laugh.
• "You look like you could survive a harsh winter."There’s a 90% chance I’ll be checking into the hospital in the next 24 hours. If the blog suddenly stops, well, it has been a ride, indeed. I’ve also been thinking of propelling this blog into the ray gun/cosmic era. The Reb has got me at least looking. I know that in the long,long run, it is likely those works produced in classic, conventional methods, that are most apt to survive. And as media, the written word has been pretty enduring.
• "I ain't never worked as hard as them ankles."
• "She's thicker than zoo glass."
• "Dayuum Gurl, I want you to put a hurting on me like you do those midnight snacks."
• "Brick wall, more like brick house, and I'm looking to move in."
• "She gots enough muffin tops to start two bakeries."
• "Fe fi foe yum."
• "Her parents gotta be beavers. Cause she's built like damnnnnnnnnnnnn."
Having viewed what’s out there, I reached two conclusions pretty fast. A.I. suffers from the same shortcomings as regular Internet fare, that is, lack of original content. A.I. is not inherently creative. By now I instinctively avoid video and photos that even smack of it. This blog, at the other extreme, is for all real purposes, 99.999% original. So, I’ll make a promise. If I survive, I will take a serious look at A.I. software as it might be applied to this blog.
I’ll avoid total fiction, because I see what sells is bubble gum generic, and that will be its own downfall. I will take a look, setting aside money for software in January. I already expect problems with on-line subscription nonsense and expect to pay extra for anything I can purchase outright. One quip I agree with is that A.I. will not replace workers, but that workers who use A.I. will replace those who don’t. Kind of parallels how I have not used a typewriter since 1981.
ADDENDUM
Most folks don’t really know or care about the difference between fusion and fission. Here’ the quick lesson, but don’t write this on the exam. This is as it relates to weapons, [which is] the primary use of nuclear tech since the beginning. There are a number of atomic forces, but the only two concerning us here are the splitting and joining of atoms. Splitting is “uranium” which releases the “binding” energy when the atom is split. Fusion is “plutonium”, the ingredient is hydrogen which converts 1% of its mass to energy when “joining” to form helium.
In plain talk, plutonium is 100 times more powerful than uranium. Now, uranium has to be mined and refined out of the ground and even then, only 0.7% is weapons-grade. The factories to do this are big fat targets. The U-235 isotope (I heard) costs nearly $200,000 per ounce, again, don’t quote me. In 1960, they figured there would be a shortage of uranium, so the military turned to plutonium, the “breeder reactors” concepts that produced more fuel than they used.
The danger with that is how plutonium does not need much work to turn in into a bomb. And this is the type of reactor that the US has been selling overseas, duh. Customers include India and North Korea, double duh.
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