Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Be Thankful for the Little Things

Thankful for the little things. Oh, example? I just got to roast a seller on Amazon for completely screwing up an order. Sent it to an address two states away (“Your order has been delivered!” to some anonymous door in a town beginning with a different letter, having five fewer letters, total in its name, with a zip code COMPLETELY different to mine). Had to jump through hoops JUST to find out the company had then retroactively canceled the order w/o even the courtesy of notifying me.

So, hence the roast. Made me smile. Still have to wait another week/week-and-a-half to get the item from a reputable company (Rockler–always good to do business with, and I wish I had searched there for the item first. Naturally. *heh*)

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Semi-Sorta Random Thought on the Passing Scene

In response to absolutely nothing, “ex nihilo,” as it were (from the vast, empty spaces between my ears) issues this random thought:

I believe the only proper gun regulations are self-regulations (with a tip o’ the tam, and an apology to Jeff Cooper):

1. Always treat ALL guns as loaded and ready to be discharged.
2. NEVER let the muzzle cover ANYTHING you are not prepared to destroy.
3. KEEP YOUR BOOGER HOOK OFF THE BANG SWITCH until you have acquired your target and are ready to fire.
4. Be ABSOLUTELY sure of your target and what lies beyond it.

If those four self-regulations are followed, and the Second Amendment were enforced with more than the *wink-wink-nudge-nudge* pseudo-acknowledgement now practiced (IOW, the current open, blatant, and oppressive disregard for “shall not be infringed”), then methinks the proper and ideal “gun regulations” would be in effect.

But maybe that’s just me. . .

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It Is Neither Pretty Nor Is It Art.

I have (more frequently than I care to think) heard folks argue that Psalm 100:1-2 (“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing.”) is a perfectly good excuse for execrable congregational singing: off-pitch, raucous, muddied rhythms and lyrics, and worse. Betcha most of those who use it as their excuse for their laziness and lack of care in approaching their worship expressions don’t use the KJV (the “noise” translation in Psalm 100:1) for other things. Other translations focus on joyful shouts and joyful songs. Painfully raucous croaks ain’t what springs readily to mind when I think of “joyful.” Maybe it’s just me, but off-key, or even atonal, grating, muddled, and altogether ugly sounds just do not comprise “singing,” IMO. (And no, “Their heart is in the right place” just doesn’t cut it. If their heart were “in the right place” they’d not submit “sacrifice[s] of praise” that were crap. Just sayin’.)

Of course, much of the problem may be simply because something approaching 90% of people nowadays apparently cannot hear and reproduce pitches with any degree of accuracy. Not my fault: theirs, for playing crap into their ears and pretending it is music, corrupting any possible embryonic musical ability they might have.

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Oh, Well. . . Not Today

Made a lot of good “man glitter” yesterday with ye olde Husky. Lil 16” bar and chain did an excellent job w/25” diameter logs on down to smaller limbs and even twiggy stuff, chewing away at the wood mess in the back yard. Was a pooped puppy by the time the saw ran out of gas. Actually, that’s been the way it works pretty regularly: both the saw and I run out of gas at about the same time. *heh*

Today has been a disappointment on the “man glitter” and cleanup gig because of freezing rain (and near-freezing rain that’s even more chilling in some ways) on top of the bit of ice and snow dusting the ground. Ground varies between icy and slip-slidin’-sloppy. Not gonna do that to my back and knees, so the back yard gets a pass today.

Instead, I toodled on outa town and got some material I’ll need next week to effect a safe setup of a burn bin and also use a lil timber jig to trim some of the larger logs down to manageable size. Need to pick up a couple of large tarps as well to erect a sort of awning over where I plan to store logs/trimmings and even a few early cut planks, getting them at least mostly out of the weather.

I hope that I can have a clear path from my back yard to the large logs still laying on the periphery of our property, so that moving them into a place where I can work on them will be possible. We’ll see if the weather will let me get that done.

Not the day I had planned, but I’ve still gotten a little good prep work in.

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Well, It’s No “Instalaunch” But. . .

A comment I made on another forum got a “thumbs up” from The Puppy Blender–Glenn Reynolds.

Oh, the comment?

I rarely read or hear any critique of Trump’s policies that cannot be summed up as “Orangeman bad! Therefore, this (and everything else he does/has done) is bad!” Classic ad hominem fallacy: dismissing something because of the character or personal circumstances of the person who does/utters it. Or simply because of personal rancor. Oh, I have read/heard rationalizations that purport to be arguments against his policy decisions that attempt to throw enough manure over the ad hominem nature of the fundamental argument being made, but I have read few cogent, sound arguments against most of the things he has done.

To be clear, I voted for neither of the distasteful candidates in 2016, and I find Trump in many ways to be distasteful still (not someone I would, by personal preference, select to join me for a cuppa joe and conversation), but in November, I’ll most likely vote for him, because his actual policies are at least mostly mainstream, and some of them have been better than those of recent presidents–some much better.

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I Sometimes Wonder. . .

Whatever became of the lame man who was healed as recorded in Acts 3? He was 40 years old, and his entire livelihood had consisted of begging daily. Once his lameness was healed, what did he do for income?

Ah, he probably got a job with the First Church of Jerusalem. 🙂

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No More “Behinder I Get,” mmmK? ;-)

“The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.” ~ The White Rabbit, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

No “New Years Resolutions,” no. I’ve made a start on getting on top of my “to-do” lists, and maybe a bit ahead of the curve on somethings; just a start, but it feels good. First of year Bible readings, for example, were sadly neglected. within one day of catching up there, and seeing myself anew, as verses both affirm on the one hand and convict on the other. Appreciate that.

Daily (daily) cleanup chores dealing with the trimmed sycamore wood is feeding a sense of slowly conquering that mess, with the goal of turning every part of it into useful products. It’s not just a dream but a real, attainable goal.

Other daily tasks dealing with the minutiae of life are surrendering to a journal of daily work, and I am almost on top of taking my daily multi-vitamins. *heh*

2020 “big gigs” for me are mostly focused on our home:

  • The wood products from the sycamores — new fencing and building products (deck repairs, additions, too)
  • Kitchen rehab advanced — new “coffee shrine” area, finish new island (add fold up/down area), tile kitchen floor; little things
  • New paint for living room/upstairs hallway; new trim for both
  • Finish work on basement rooms
  • Add storage upstairs
  • Purge closets

Those are some of the major task/project areas for out home for 2020, and I can already see progress in most of them. My “exercise program” (cutting up, moving, stacking, etc., all the downed limbs, etc. outside *heh*), rehab exercises (for lower back pain, right rotator cuff, right knee, strained brachioradialis, cervical pain), diet, and sleep mods are already showing progress, and I am developing habits to make that ongoing. Pleased with that.

All-in-all, scheduling and record keeping seems to be helping me be less hurried and more accomplished. We’ll have to see how things are going forward, eh?

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Sometimes (Actually, Quite Often) Problems Can Be Interesting

*headache* An “old” (more than a decade) Windows Vista computer ended up on my to-do list yesterday (NOT mine *heh* I’ve never had a computer with Vista installed.) It needed to be upgraded to Windows 10. Yeh, sure it could have just had a modern ‘nix OS installed, but the user wanted to see if he could use it once again for gaming (still quite a powerful machine with great graphics), so Win10 it was. But a direct upgrade path to Win10 from Vista just doesn’t work all that well, so. . .

Oh, wait. he couldn’t recall his password, either. Fixed that first.

So, as I was saying, burned a DVD with his desired data. Then. . . no, despite having it as an option in the BIOS, the USB image of Windows 10 for which I had a valid product key would not boot, so. . .

Burned a bootable image of the USB drive to a DVD R(DL)–the last one I had on hand (‘cos I just don’t use those much anymore *shrugs*). Got to 36% of files copied on the installation and. . . borked. Retried and. . . borked.

So, what now? Easy-peasy. Looked up an installation disk for Windows 7 Ultimate in my archives, copied down a valid license key and installed that. (I still have a few legitimate ones for Win7 and quite a few other M$ OSes and products, from “back in the day”)

As soon as it booted, I inserted the USB drive with a purchased copy of Win10 (with legit license) and Bob’s your uncle.

Coulda been a PITA, but was. . . doable. Now to use my bandwidth and data allowance to configure a desired software suite, make Win10 usable, disable all the “phone home” crap, and. . . will have a happy camper.

Fun.