Fridayorwhatever

I'm sick and tired of the Big Secret Project at the Skunk Works. Not only has the technical side been [long, bitter description roughly paralleling ancient Chinese inscriptions about the unrightous being rewarded while the decent folk are stiffed, deleted] something of a cock-up and a bit of a Heath Robinson, the hours have become unseemly long.

Yeah, I get paid. But the time? That, I'll never get back.

Workin' again tomorrow. Bah.

Your House Is Not A Free-Fire Zone

...Even when it kind of is. Sorry, Chollie, but you probably didn't get the Magic Bullet-Eating Wall option, either.

Having lived alone for a goodly portion of my adult life, I am of a differing opinion than many (most?) about shooting at Persons Unknown in my house when I'm the only one there. My vision is pretty awful and in case of emergency, the order in which things get picked up is 1. sidearm, 2. glasses. Should some ill-seen large-ish shadow show up at the bedroom door twixt steps 1 and 2, things are liable to go poorly for it. ("What? You would not identify your target?" Assuming I am living alone at the time, it is identified: In My House, Not Me. Maybe other people fail to lock doors or hand out keys to friends and family, but I do not. And yes, this means I probably would have shot your hypothetical Kindly Stranger Or Policeman who has entered my house uninvited to Do Me Good -- presuming such creatures are any more real than the Tooth Fairy, which they aren't).

I don't live alone right now, which (perversely enough) means I have freely accepted a higher level of risk; once that one extra key is out there and that one other person has free access, a significant degree of control over Who Goes There has been lost and being certain that target is a target requires far more precise identification. It's the price we pay for being a social species.

And between that and the lack of those magical-backstop walls (and windows) is the reason why my house (and yours) isn't a free-fire zone. Drat! Another hallway-ninja fantasy, gone.

I Was Only Auctioning The Seat

...The city of Seattle's trying to sell off entire washroom facilities! It seems their five all-singing, all-dancing, all stainless, self-cleaning, "set and forget" Hering-Bau WCmatic Public Toilets quickly became...nuisances. Nuisances popular with sex workers and IV drug users. Wow, who knew? You make a well-lit, lockable, unattended space available free for the standing in line and people come up with alternative uses for it!

Interestingly, the "vandal-proof, graffiti-resistant" washrooms show signs of various damage attempts -- crumpled doors, scarred air dryers, etc. Humans do so love a challenge.

July Indy Blog Meet

So far, the voting stands at 5 for 27 July and 2 for 3 August. I'm not opposed to having a couple of gatherings -- these things are deliberately informal, anyway -- but there's always room for your opinion, in a place we like to call "Comments."

Idiots In The News

The March Of Time! Dateline, editorial pages of our local catbox liner.

Item 1. A local physician, incensed -- incensed, I say, or maybe just burning a lot of sandalwood sticks -- about the (Congressionally-averted) scheduled reduction in Medicare payments to doctors as a result of cost goals not having been met, huffs, "...No other business would put up with this!"

Oh, never evar, doc. Why, when the flood of Gummit money that comes to the TV station is throttled back, we-- Oh, wait: there isn't any. Never was. When our clients have to skip meals, we starve. And it's that way for most businesses. Having that nice, shiny "M.D." after your name means you'll starve with a nicer-looking degree on the wall than most folks have got. Shaddup and eat your porridge.


Item 2. In a more recent edition, fluffy-headed primate guest editorialist and doctor Richard Feldman bemoans that "...a strict single-payer system is politically unfeasible," chides us that, "A sustainable system cannot tolerate lavish hospitals that look more like palaces or resort spas," then leaves us with A) "...when our present system collapses we will be compelled to ration care..." and B) "...we will eventually create a blended public/private tiered system...where those who can afford additional insurance will receive more services and go to the head of the line. " Funny, isn't that what we already have -- and isn't the part of it that runs in "strict single-payer" mode the one plagued by inefficiency, cost overruns, and rationed care?

Credit where credit is due; he does point out the built-in problem of a system that makes more money treating disease than in preventing it, though coming right on the heels of a sneer at "competition, consumerism and market forces" as unproven means of cost reduction (never heard of Wal-Mart?), it shines less than it might and leaves me wondering if perhaps he'd be happier were us proles awakened every morning by Physical Jerks on the telescreen and sent off to the impersonal, impartial, egalitarian arms for State Hospital #437 when we fall ill, with euthanasia awaiting those whose course of treatment would overburden the State. But that's just my wild speculation.


Item 3. The award-winner for sheer gall and foolishness leaves the first two in the dust: writing to defend making English the official national language, a local woman points out that "300 hours of free education" would be just the ticket for those dadgum gibbering furriners. Free to whom, madam? Either the immigrants themselves will have to fund your dream, or you and I will be taxed to pay for it; and while you might be happy to ante up, I'm not. Howzabout the Feds stop pandering to those who will not learn the customary language hereabouts, instead? It'd be plenty of incentive to learn.

"Free." Land of effing Nod, does she believe teachers fall from the sky fully-formed, skilled in whatever will be needed next and live on rainwater and sunlight? That school buildings spring from the dust as-needed?


* * * * * *

You get what you pay for. When I get the paper, I'm paying for catbox liner. And I get it. The other entertainment that comes with it, I consider lagniappe.

To eBay™ Or Not To eBay™

Ain't that a kick in th'head?

Here's the deal: back when I moved into Roseholme just about a year ago, the loo was, well, "manly," with lots of oak trim and an oak toilet seat with brass hinges.

I am not so much about decorating -- you take 5 - 6000 books and put them in a house in any readily-accessible way and most of your "decorating" is done by the time that task is finished. Likewise, when it comes to the W.C., my primary criteria is that it be easy to clean and I added plenty of bright towels to liven the place up. Still -- oak? Makes for a more-rustic seat than I prefer. And it was wiggly; the hardware needed to be replaced. When that round tuit came up, I decided to splurge and replace the entire seat with a fine, modern, gleaming-white version.

Tam split the cost so we spent the biggo bux for an ultra-hygienic version with some miracle paint (Tam adds "It's an American Standard™, the Mercedes of toilet seats -- you could beat somebody to death with it," though I dunno what's so awful about Universal Rundle, at least for blunt-instrument use). Woohoo!

The Moment Of Truth arrive when we boxed up the old seat and I pointed out we could always sell it on eBay and recover part of the $30.

T: "Ew. No!"
R: "Aww, c'mon, why not? It's not like we've any other use for it."
T: "No. Some sicko will buy it."
R: "So? Besides, it's a nice oak seat...?"
T: "Ew. I dare you to blog about this -- I double-dog dare you!"

Daring me, possibly -- just maybe! -- not the best way to keep me from doin'.

So, here we are. Should I put the thing up for auction or not? Original owner was a Marion County Sheriff's Deputy! Dunno about the total miles on it.
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PS: In the course of writing spellchecking this post, I came up with the idea of white HiLighter, which Tam promptly decided was, "The spellcheck marking preferred by b@stard SysOps." Oh, yeah.

Another Reason Why Mass Transit Fails

...Especially among male riders: no floor show allowed! Hard to believe you can drive to Rio from there, no? (Or can you? H'mm, maybe not, could be some rough going, those hills look a bit...tallish....)

Hamfest Report

"Report?" Well, I did find a nifty benchrest thingie for rifles. Didn't buy it but it was kinda kewl and priced to move at $75.00, American.


But I'm ahead of myself. Hey, waiddup!


The night promised rain and the dawn delivered. Buckets of the stuff, as the sun rose, backlighting a sky that looked like the beginning of an old movie with the backstory scrolling past in Egyptian Demotic.


Pretty neat, huh? But not, as we say, hamfest-friendly. It was even making for front-porch weirdness, either that or my camera spent the night at a rave, Tam not at all amused by early morning snapshottery:




Somewhat daunted by off-and-on rain in the sunshine, I did the Internettage and breakfast things and puttered around, hoping the rain would pass. Since I was pretty sure even if it did, the mud would linger, longing (as it does. Oh yes, I'm sure of it!) to find the toes of the unwary and squelch happily among them, I unearthed my hamfest boots, the tallest Carolina Pole Climbers made, touched them up a bit, and made ready. (I loves 'em but OMG, I just saw Wesco Highliners...!)

Naturally, the day became darker and gloomier while I did so, and was looming threateningly as I departed. But with the same luck that makes toast fall butter side down operating in surprised reverse, the sun was glimmering hopefully through fleeing clouds by the time I found my way to the far East side and beyond, to Camp Sertoma. To make up for it, the humidity was choking-thick and the ticket-worker advised me to park along the entrance road, "It's awful muddy out in the field and we wouldn't want to have to tow another one out."

No, indeed not!

Ticket tucked away in my purse, I set off. The tailgate area was off a bit but not much. I passed up an Atomic Engineering VOM -- pure niftiness but I'm pretty well set for meters. Saw a nice Atwater-Kent three-dialer and a Johnson Viking transmitter, with a (matching) VF-122 VFO atop it -- what for, I couldn't tell you, as the rig's got a nearly-identical one internally. Passed up a Harris linesman's test phone ($30.00) and shouldn't've -- my antique version needs a serious rebuild. Reflective letters and numbers were a fun find; I got enough to do my callsign.

I did stumble across other small items -- nice ceramic crystal sockets, an Army FM covering "Field Wiring Methods" for telecomms (hey, y'never know). The shelter building yielded some nice driver bits (#2 and #3 Phillips) at a buck a go and a router bit (roundover) for $6, along with a Harry Turtledove paperback.

In the Commercial Building, I found antenna wire, antenna rope, books (yayy!) including one on vertical antenna homebrewing and a 1920s reprint, "War Toys," including plans for a "machine gun" firing wooden bolts. It was a different time! I also picked up a ballcap with my name and callsign embroidered on the front (I blame Tam for the ballcap thing) plus odds and ends, and then dropped off my ticket for the prize drawing and spent some time with my dear friend Don H. at the hamfest organizer's table. He's always got an interesting tale or three (would you believe his wife recently spent a long vacation looking for hobbits in New Zealand? True -- and she did find their homes. Alas, hobbits had moved out. Still...). And we admired the work of homebrew genius R. A. Meiss, who entered a single-lever keyer/straight key in the competition and came away a winner. (He doesn't appear to have posted a write-up for that key but here's another that will give you a good idea of the quality of his designs and of their construction).

All in all, an excellent hamfest.

And Back Again

Wowsers, yesterday was long. Up 0400ish, bloggage, hamfest (about which, more next: think mud, mud), on to work with some extra hours so Evil Boss won't accuse me of wastin' the Company's eeenvestment (105.25 hours over two weeks, yeah sure right I slept most of the time while conduit bent and hung itself, then stuffed itself full of wires and hooked 'em up, all automagical like, 'cos I just loathe bein' home where all my books'n'toys are) and home again at the stroke of midnight or a little later.

Slept a good eight hours; I've been up, rode bikes with Tam and et a delightful brekky with plenty of good coffee* and I am still tending to nod off.

About that most recent meal, more brunch really, after a cuppa' with cold nothin' on the side for our first meal of the day, picture this: my standard "breakfast hash" of pepper bacon, diced (Yukon Gold! Mama like!) taters and scrambled eggs, topped with shredded mozerella, chopped chives and fresh radishes, diced fine. Heaven! Try it, the radishes really work well. And kumquats for dessert. Roman Emperors did not eat this well -- and the record of most of 'em reflects it.
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* Fresh Market's "Blue Mountain Blend," less than a quarter of the price of the pure quill -- which you should have before you die, at least once, it's bliss -- and about 75% of the aroma and flavor, which makes it three times better than most coffee.

Up Early

...Yet again, though a bit later than during the regular* work week, and for a happier purpose: fixing to head out to the Indy Hamfest bright and early! (That's geekery, not pork products. Well, mostly not, one hesitates to guess what's in the roller dogs).

Report to follow, possibly with photos.
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* As opposed to my work week, which started by working Sunday (after a healthful half-day Saturday prior) and will include working today. Have I mentioned how useful it is to be paid by the hour?

Adwenture!

Worked another long day yesterday, though not quite as lookit-the-horse long as the day before, and at the end of it had several small, distracting tasks to get out of the way. Very distracting tasks, it would seem: I packed up the scooter, buzzed home, popped open the garage door, unpacked, and had made it as far as the (well-fenced) back yard when I went looking for my house keys.

404: keys not found.

Not to worry, purse has many compartments, search, search... Nada. Did I lock the garage...? Yep. Back door? Locked. Gate? Padlocked. Prisoner Of The Back Yard! ("You are Number Six"[1]) Oh, poo. Doorbell? No response. Aw, ratters.

Celphone, then, I'll just telephone. Tam's car was in the garage, after all, and so was her bicycle... Dialing. Ringing. Ringing, ringing. Distant door slam, then, "Hellllooh?"
"Tam? RX. Kinda, well, kinda locked in the back yard."
"Hmmm? I'll let you in."

I checked the garage, the various compartments of my scooter, the driveway, took my purse just about apart and came to the conclusion my keys were at work. Called down there, nobody'd seen 'em. (Hot-pink lanyard with a black bead in the form of a tiny skull, they're hard to overlook).

At this point, I'm fallin' asleep but fretful. Bribed Tam ("I'll buy Boogie Burgers!") to take me back to work, where a careful search turned up nothing, at which point I turned up at my locker, big[2] bolt cutters in hand. It took five tries -- I would go and buy a decent padlock -- and when the door was opened, there, next to my coffee cup and spare quad-ruled steno pad[3], were my keys.

I know how I did it; I even know why. What I can't account for is why I never put a spare padlock key on another key ring, as is my usual rule for items[4] I might lock keys in while away from home.

Oh, the excitement! --Still, those Boogie Burgers were good; I had a New York, New York (big wonderful hamburger with lettuce, purple onion, tomato and pastrami and Swiss!) with a vanilla malt while Tam enjoyed grilled Ahi Tuna. And the freshest fries on the planet, arriving almost too hot to eat.
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1. I should not have to explain this.
2. No, bigger than that, even. Way bigger.
3. My fave!
4. Automobiles, for example.

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