Annoyance

     Fine, I have badly bruised knees.  If I need to do any work near the floor, I have to sit on the floor.  Kneeling is obviously out, but it turns out that squatting pulls my slacks tight over my knees and it hurts like the dickens, even in the baggy, multi-pocket work pants I prefer.

     This is the weekend -- I can just slob around in a nightgown most of the day!  --Except my favorite summer sleepwear hits right at the knee.  That featherweight touch, touch, touch as I move is maddening and if it hits just wrong, surprisingly painful.

     The fall could have been worse.  I probably came close to breaking a wrist, I could have done far worse to my knees and I just missed smashing my face into a concrete curb.  But the aftermath is still unpleasant.

The Universal Campaign Yard Sign

     Here it is, one size fits all, suitable for every voter:

Like Ball Bearings

     Yesterday was a long and busy day.  One of the towers I'm responsible has white strobe lights.  This carries some advantages; since the lights run day and night, you don't have to paint the tower the usual red and white bands and can match the paint color to the surrounding structures.

     Until recently, it has also carried some disadvantages: the strobe fixture itself is an overgrown version of a professional photographer's flash: a strobe tube a foot and a half long and an array of electronics to light it up (at different intensities depending on sky illumination), time the flashes and keep them in sync with the other strobes, and to monitor and communicate the status of all that.  Operating several hundreds feet in the air means it is exposed to the full range of weather -- and producing the high voltages needed to make the thing flash generates copious amounts of ozone.  Electrical contacts that switch brightness levels arc and pit; exposed metal corrodes.  Wires and circuit-board traces eventually melt away into smears of green-blue slime.  The normal life of a strobe fixture is twenty-five years.  These were installed in 1981.  I've been keeping them going (with the help of a succession of skilled tower climbers) since 1987.

     Yeah, I'm pretty good.  So are the tower guys.  But nobody outruns rust.  And nobody outruns technological obsolescence.  These strobes lost manufacturer support fifteen years ago, and FAA rules mandate only OEM parts can be used to keep them running.  There's a thriving cottage industry of what I am sure are New Old Stock and refurbished used parts.  I'm sure of it because I have had to be: there was no budget to replace the old strobes and you can't just turn 'em off and hope the FAA doesn't notice.

     Over a decade ago, the first solid-state tower strobe systems came on the market.  It's a sealed-up widget, no user-serviceable parts inside.  They were fiendishly expensive, but came with a warranty good for the normal life of the system.  And they got a little less expensive every year.  Meanwhile, the cost of sending someone up the tower to do work kept going up, over a thousand dollars per technician: they have to be trained and insured, and fitted out with the right safety equipment.  (You can thank the cellphone industry for this: they kept hiring the lowest bidders and those crews kept having accidents, often fatal, and every time, local, state and Federal governments made moves intended to increase safety.  Now the low bidders are very nearly as safe as the best crews always were, so there's that.  Also, fewer dead guys, which I do count as a win.)

     The converging lines of old, worn-out strobe lights, falling hardware prices and increasing costs of getting anyone up there to swap out parts several times a year finally crossed this year.  We got on the wait list and this week, a crew has been hard at work on our strobed tower, taking down the old stuff and putting up the new.

     The sun was going down yesterday when they needed some semi-obscure conduit hardware to hook onto some existing wiring.  I had dug it out of our supplies and was carrying it to the tower base.  This tower sits next to a paved parking lot, surrounded by oak trees.

     The oak trees produce acorns.  Any more, they produce a lot of acorns.  I was walking across the lot, both hands full, and managed to look one direction  while turning the other way.  I put my foot down on a mess of acorns, and it started to go out from under me.  I took a big step to get my balance back -- and put my other foot onto more acorns.  They might as well have been marbles.  Zip!  I was going over and I knew it.  I tossed the conduit parts away (a condulet and some 1" rigid couplers and locknuts), tried to get my hands up, managed to avoid smashing my face into a curb and came down hard and sliding on my right hand and left knee, followed by right knee and right breast.  Knocked the wind out of me and I laid there.

     The boss of the tower crew, who I'd been talking to at the time, leaned over: "Are you okay?"
     "I don't know.  Give me a second."  I was sore already.  I moved my arms and legs a little -- okay -- and sat up.  Both knees hurt, but no tears on my slacks.  Dirt and -- oh, damn -- a big abraded patch on the heel of my right hand.  I looked around for the conduit parts.  "Did you see where the LB went?"
     The crew boss shook his head. "No."
     I spotted it, stood up shakily, picked up my purse, went over and picked it up along with the other parts, which I gave to him.  "Here.  You take this.  I'm going to go inside and clean up."

     I did just that, walking through the (large) building to the breakroom where we keep the first aid kit while the cupped palm of my right hand slowly filled up with blood.  I washed all the damage (and dirt) with strong soap.  It hurts but it's worth it.  Got it dry, put a bandage on it and some other scratches, took a couple of Tylenol and went back out.  The crew had decided they were done for the day: not enough light left.  Yeah, I could have told them that when I failed to see the layer of dark acorns on the blacktop, right before I fell.

     Got home and discovered the damage to my left knee when I was getting ready for bed.  Washed that with hydrogen peroxide and slept with ice on it.  Today, the knee is much larger than my right one, and we'll see how that goes.

     They'd better have those new strobes working by the time I get in today.

Some Circus

     The ringmasters -- there were two -- mostly looked bored, except when a pie fight broke out between a clumsy magician and a fake strongman with cardboard weights.  A sad clown led out a poodle on a string, walking on its hind legs, but it didn't do any other tricks.  The Human Cannonball promised several times to launch himself the entire length of the Big Top, but he kept falling well short and missing the net.  He even complained about it, saying, "The rules were you guys weren't gonna fact-check."

     The acts didn't strike me as especially well-rehearsed.  Yes, I'm talking about the debate and while I think Senator Vance lost on facts, especially his refusal to admit Mr. Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election and in claiming the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio under Temporary Protected Status are "illegals" (they're not), I wasn't impressed.  I think Governor Walz would do okay if he had to step up to the big job; I'm not too sure J. D. Vance has the chops.  Tim Walz and his opponent would have both benefited from doing more interviews with neutral to hostile press -- and so would we.

     These two are what we have.  Their running mates are what we have.  Most voters have made their decision already.

Circus Comes To Television Tonight

     Tonight -- and for one night only -- the bearded dudebro in the gray flannel suit squares off against the grizzled Dad in a tartan flannel shirt.

     This promises to be interesting, since each man is the ostensible "folksy" member of their respective campaigns and they'll probably be fighting to be more centrist than the other guy, J. D. Vance's Yale degree and hobnobbing with high-roller venture capitalists notwithstanding, likewise Tim Walz's Upper Midwest progressivism.  Why, they're Just Plain Fellows who might live down the street -- surrounded by a phalanx of well-armed Secret Service.*

     Only one of them is yoked to a candidate who most recently promised stealing from businesses would go way down, if only, "You know, if you had one day, like one real rough, nasty day, one rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know, it'll end immediately."  That's former President Donald Trump, of course, and he's talking about allowing police to exercise extrajudicial violence without due process of law -- to control retail theft, based on a misstatement of California's moving the line between felony and misdemeanor theft up to $950.00, American.†  (Draconian punishment has been tried; England used hang people for shoplifting, picking pockets and theft, as late as 1832 for some offenses.  It was not a deterrent, though they did produce some of the most skilled purse-lifters in the world.)

     Senator Vance's challenge tonight is to not come off as a weirdo.  Governor Walz's is to resist the teacher/senior NCO impulse to chivvy his opponent to act normal.  Vance has been marinating in "manosphere" culture, a subset of the Trumpist Right largely divorced from reality; Walz has been enjoying nearly universal acclaim in Democratic circles.  For both of them, success in the debate will depend on how well their preparation has allowed them to look beyond those comforting horizons.

     We'll find out.
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* This is why I'm not chiding any of the candidates for avoiding the areas hardest hit by hurricane Helene and its aftermath: their unavoidable retinues place a big strain on resources wherever they go and any visit would do far more harm than good.
 
† Weirdly, this is the same guy who likes to talk about how bad inflation has become.  So if it costs more for the same stuff (and it does; the argument is over how much more), wouldn't that move the bar for the seriousness of crimes, too?  In 1789, Congress made sure you could get a jury trial if more than $20 was at stake -- about $715 in 2024.

Mushroom Hash?

     I made a variation of  "breakfast hash" this morning with a little bacon, a diced potato, a nearly equal volume of diced white mushrooms, sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, scrambled eggs and some seasoning, mostly smoked paprika, onion powder and a little truffle flavoring.

     It occurred to me that I have not made a version replacing all of the potato with mushrooms.  It would be simple and possibly quicker to make, since mushrooms need little to no fat to cook up.  The trick would be adding one or more exotic varieties to the mix for best flavor, since standard white or brown mushrooms (the same species!) can be mild.

Catching Up

      No post yesterday.  I chaired the fiction writer's critique group, and that really takes it out of me.  Not because they're a particularly difficult bunch, especially as writers go -- in fact, they're remarkably pleasant -- but because of me.  The isolation during the pandemic, following on the heels of marked political division during Mr. Trump's Presidency, has left me far less able to cope with social interaction.  I didn't exercise that set of skills and they have atrophied.

     Idly browsing social media afterward, I happened on a factiod that sounds made up but isn't:  SF writer Gene Wolfe, a prolific writer of complex, interestingly-told tales, a prose stylist of considerable merit (according to the fans and critics, and I agree), worked for many years as an industrial engineer, designing the things that make things, and he's the father of (according to the company) or a considerable contributor to the machine that make Pringles®.  Seriously -- click on "Who invented Pringles®" or check his Wikipedia entry.

     "We invented the future" is an often-hyped claim made for SF writers, and it isn't always true.  Jules Verne was an "If This Goes On..." writer, who kept extensive files of clippings and usually described perfected (or over-hyped) versions of things that already existed, from big guns and propellants to submarines to airships to the use of compressed air for energy transport and storage.  H. G. Wells made up impossible technologies from whole cloth -- with one terrifying exception.  On the other hand, a young Arthur C. Clarke was an electronics technician for the group that developed ground-controlled approach radar, and George O. Smith helped develop the radio proximity fuse during WW II -- a vacuum-tube radar system small enough to fit an artillery shell! -- but such specific examples are rare.  More often, there are things like James H. Schmitz showing how to use text-to-speech in the 1960s/70s* and Robert A. Heinlein roughly describing -- and as a result, naming -- the waldo, or writing about online search engines and how to construct a search string in Friday (1982), long before Google or even Archie.  But just as I was about to write that Gene Wolfe was surely the only SF writer to have been involved with snack foods, I remembered E. E. "Doc" Smith.

     You see, Edward E. Smith, Ph.D., was a chemical engineer.  He worked in explosives during World War II, but the majority of his career was spent in food engineering.  Specifically, food mixes.  He developed doughnut-batter mixes, among others, and did so long before the first cleverly-shaped chip ever slid neatly into a metallized-cardboard tube. The next powdered-sugar doughnut you enjoy may well be a Child of the Lens!
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* Young Telzy Amberdon adds punctuation on the go when using her voicewriter, comma, period, paragraph, open and close quotes.  You will find your phone or other device works very smoothly with those inputs, with a single exception: I have yet to find one that will start a new paragraph on command.

Hurricanophoon

     By the time the remnants of tropical storm Helene get to Indiana - and we're getting the fringes already -- it will be high winds and lots of rain.  A mess for us, but nothing compared to the trouble the people in Florida where the thing hit with as a hurricane with Category 4 winds.

     I'm not looking forward to it, but if we avoid heavy downpours and the winds don't get too crazy, it should help out my tomato crop in the back yard.

Hey, Remember The Taliban?

     A socially-conservative religious movement that started small and gained influence over a modern country, using war and instability to establish themselves as the loudest minority among factions with only the loosest of common goals?  Destroyers of cultural artifacts, oppressors of women and foes to modernity in all its forms -- except, perhaps, weaponry.

     Their methods are not without admirers on what used to be the far and crazy Right -- and it keeps trying to "sanewash" itself.  They're still nutjobs, out of touch with the wide center of American culture and always looking for ways to ooze in.

     These kinds of movements often get a sort of "piety exception" from people in the culture around them: "I don't agree with everything they say, but they sure are sincere in their faith!"  Don't be fooled.  They reject the notion of tolerance and freedom of conscience.  They want to run your life by their rules, down to the smallest of details.  Our homegrown version is hostile to the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights.

Kaos?

     Netflix released a series in August that I happened on last night.  Kaos retells Greco-Roman myth, apparently (and very loosely) the story of Eurydice and Orpheus (and perhaps others), starting with Jeff Goldblum as an insecure Zeus.

     The world of the series is modern times with a twist: the gods are real and the cities and nations are those of myth.

     This makes for a Pratchettesque environment, including absolutely unrestrained party-boy Dionysus and a grocery store breakfast cereal aisle stocked with Spartan Crunch, Gaea's Granola and Achilles' Heels.  The casting has the potential to go very weird -- in much the same way as Greco-Roman mythology itself: the deities and heroes of Classic myth were a bunch of stone freaks.  (Yes, yes, Medusa, sit back down.  You'll have your turn.)

     I've seen not quite half of the first episode and along with the story, there's some suspense wondering if the showrunners can continue to juggle ancient and modern elements.  It's a delicate trick and it can go badly wrong.  But so far, so good, and if you ever wondered about Zeus and Hera's home life or just how scary Cassanda was in person, here's your answer.

Walkin' The Midway

      Shakespeare told us all the world's a stage.  I think it's more like a traveling carnival, and politics is definitely the sideshow with the media as barkers out front:

     "Alive, alive, alive!  SEE the Amazing Man Without A Heart!*  How does he live and move?  Nobody knows!  Hurry, hurry to MEET the Universal Dad!  He'll warm the cockles of  your heart and find the right oil filter for your Chevy!†  WATCH as a fifty-nine year old woman only five feet tall‡ attempts to pass THROUGH a glass ceiling!  It's never been done!  THRILL to the most amazing self-promoter of all time, the Mystifying Magician!  He transformed an entire political party!  He multiplies audiences!§  Only one small dollar, just a single U.S. dollar to see them all before your very eyes, walking, talking, doing and saying the most amazing things!"

     Yesiree, the one sure thing you can count on is that you'll never get that dollar back.  Don't miss the snake-woman and the vanishing gubernatorial candidate!
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* This is patently untrue.  The real act retired years ago.
 
† He has to look it up in the greasy cross-reference book at the auto parts store, same as anybody.
 
‡ She's 5' 5".
 
§ Only in his own mind.

A Hopeful Sign

     Radio news this morning had a short piece on politics in the workplace -- how most people avoid it (good!) and how some people reported not asking a co-worker for help because they didn't want to be drawn into a conflict over differing opinions (not so good).

     It's food for thought.  At my work, one of our critical (but minor) suppliers is deeply into partisan politics, in a very over-the-top way.  Were it up to me, I'd look for different places to buy the things we get from them, places that stayed out of such deep and murky waters.  But it's not up to me.  When I'm looking for stuff, they're not on my list; I'm not in charge of anyone else's buying decision.*

     The survey underlying the story had another good sign: for all the rumblings of open conflict, despite rumors and punditry, despite calumny season being in full swing, less than one percent of survey respondents were found likely to commit political violence -- and that number overlapped neatly with the people willing to commit any kind of violence.  The guy who'd punch you out for voting wrong is the same one who'd do so over backing the wrong sports team or drinking the wrong brand of beer.  Most Americans aren't rushing to the apocalypse -- among other things, there aren't any Walmarts or Macys there, and who'd look after the grandkids?
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* One of the best things about McMaster-Carr is that I have no idea of what political opinions the company or its management hold, or even who any of them are.  The closest thing to a slogan on their website is the hyperlink at the top that says "Browse catalog."  But if you need industrial stuff, they have it, and you'll probably get your order the next day.