US Independence Day

Today is one of the most important holidays to me.  It isn't the actual establishment of my country, it is the day we declared our INTENT to become one (and why).  The difference matters.  Upon the actual signing of The Declaration Of Independence (from Britain), it was an utterly uncertain thing.  A bunch of unhappy British colonists complaining that they were represented in British Government and deciding that they were willing to fight about it.

And quite frankly, a bunch of rich colonists who were landowners and merchants who owed a lot of money to British banks and the Government and could conveniently be free of them if they got separated.

My first college textbook was 'The Economic Causes Of The Revolution' and while 'Government And Politic Science' was my major, history was my love.

But when push came to shove, it wasn't just the rich (indebted) landowners who fought.  The colonists were of British descent (mostly) and shared a common past and social structure.  A lot of poor colonists had little to gain except freedom from taxes they had no say about.

A lot of fighting went on, the British found less support over here than they expected, The French Navy turned up at a good point, and Britain discovered that fighting a war across an ocean using sailing ships didn't work very well.

Example:  One British General asked for 950 horses.  Half died on the way and most of the survivors were too ill to be useful.

Example:  The British Generals decided that fighting the colonists in New England and the Mid Atlantic States wasn't working, so they went to the Southern colonies where people were "more British".  Seldom was a worse decision ever made.  The Southern colonists didn't fight stand-up battles like the British army was used to.  They attacked in swamps, in woods, anyplace where there couldn't be a decisive battle.

Eventually, Britain decided it had more important places to fight about.  And they were right, because the former colonists had few places to trade with but Britain and France and France wasn't the major trading power.

So why do I honor this day above almost all others?

Because of what we said in our Declaration Of Independence.

"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Etc...

We have not met those goals completely; it is possible we never will.  There will always be challenges.  But they ARE goals we keep closer to our hearts than some realize.

In spite of occasional presidential flaws like Donald Trump (there have been some real fails in the past too),  the majority of US citizenry holds to those goals.  We will weather this current error and recover from it. 

But for today, I mostly want to honor the start of the US, with some background...

And, as is my habit on this day, I will read the entire Declaration out loud on the deck (quietly)...

Chili

I make some of the world's worst chili.  Too bland, too hot, too many beans, not enough beans, too much or too little tomatoes.   But I got it right tonight!

A true chili affectianado woudn't like it.  I'm a New England boy and "hot spicy" is not part of growing up there.  My favorite fast food chili comes from Wendy's, LOL

But this one was perfect for me.  I think it was the leftover brown sugar carrots that I added.  Go ahead and laugh.  I had some scalp sweat...

Computer Security Surprise

I downloaded a new version of a Software Security I like. and the first thing that came up was "Privacy".  It sat there for an hour reading  "52kb, 62 Kb, etc" and I thought OMG this could take weeks.  So I called the tech desk.  Got right through to them BTW. 

It took the person a couple minutes to understand that I was seeing that as a search of my entire hard drive and wondering why it was so slow.  She finally caught on and explained that it was a real-time processing rate, not a whole hard drive search. 

And it took me whole minutes to get OFF the phone while she tried to explain how that worked.  The INSTANT she said it was a processing rate not a search, I understood exactly what it was doing.  But she wouldn't let me go, LOL!

Now I just have to go through the rest of the security program, which DOES search the hard drive as i expected (and doesn't show a progress bar - which would be nice).  Apparently, you are supposed to just turn it on every so often and GO TO BED.  I'm not good at not watching security programs as they operate.  The good part is that the program doesn't care if you stay on the computer while it goes along it's merry business.  But that it exactly what I want to watch it do.

Speaking Of Sports

When I was new to my first real office, the boss loved having a slow-pitch softball team in the Agency League.  I had been on one before (a temp in a Navy Office) and was good enough at it, so I joined.  The Navy guys were pretty fierce about it, so I understood playing hard. 

And I was good enough at slow pitch that I could pretty much hit the ball wherever I wanted.  Mostly way over the right fielder.  Which was a serious turn-around from Little League hardball where I seldom even swung at a ball at 12.  I had changed a bit...

We had a good team.  Lots of young guys and a few women willing to play.

I'm writing this because we played a team with a blind pitcher.  The catcher would keep up a steady stream of talk to let him know where to toss the ball.   And another player stood next to him in front after the pitch so he wouldn't get hit. 

My immediate supervisor (call him "Bill") was a pretty athletic type.  Bill hit a line drive that caught the blind pitcher right between the eyes.  No one could have reacted fast enough to prevent that.  The pitcher was completely cold-cocked. 

The blind pitcher got back in a couple innings,  the teams kept playing.  Bill kept playing.  I understand that.  The pitcher refused to limit himself, the players did the same.

But I went home...

Sports

I'm not a general sports fan.  On major events like the US Football Superbowl and Baseball World Series, I sometimes watch the last half hour out of curiousity. 

But apparently, I'm a "Homie".  I watch the Washington National baseball team games and am glad when they win.  I watch my University of Maryland women's basketball team games (but not men's because that is just a crude elbow-flying cage fight).  And the US women's soccer team...

So, I've been enjoying watching the Washington Nationals baseball team crawl up from a bad start to .500 today.  They had a tough start with several starting players injured.  But now that they are returning, the team has been doing much better and may even be in contender status by the end of the season.

Why this matters to me is a mystery.  I actually don't care a whit about my State University (a paper degree on a wall proving that I wasn't TOO stupid to get one), and professional teams trade players like brokers trade stocks. 

I suppose that part of it is that they are winning.  But part of it is that they play a game in a way I understand.  Not that the women players are soft (any of them could beat the crap out of me at almost anything), but they play in a way I "get".  More skill than elbows... 

And the Washington Nationals baseball organization seems to value skill more than power.  I admire that.

So for whatever it is worth, here it was...  Just some thoughts.

A Gripe

I finally got my riding lawn mower back yesterday.  The first thing I did was mow the front lawn of course.  It seems to be working.  I brought it the the local mower repair shop because it was suddenly hesitating and then stalling.

I told them I suspected a fuel line blockage because (bizzarely) I found bits of a leaf in the gas tank last year.  And though I got most of it out with an aquarium net I bent into a shape to fit in, the engine was sure acting like there was something in the fuel line.  I can do some basic stuff, but I don't mess with fuel...  Plus, it needed a tune-up, a blade-sharpening, and oil and filter change. 

When I got home that day I looked at the repair ticket and all it mentioned was "Service 1 - hesitates and stalls but will start again after about 15 minutes".  So I called them.  I was told "Service 1 is the basic tune-up and oil and filter change.  The rest was the additional problem". 

OK... "Service 1" WOULD be the basic tune-up stuff and blade-sharpening.  So I waited for an estimate.  after a week, they called and said the hesitation and stalling was due to a failure of both ignition coils (2 cylinders, 2 coils, 2 spark plugs).  Don't worry, I had to look that up.  Its what sends an electrical charge to the spark plugs.  They gave me a price and I accepted it.

I wondered though why both would fail at the same time, but I thought back to when I was so broke I had to struggle to repair my old car and there was a single ignition coil that controlled all 8 cylinders. 

Funny short story:  I had a friend who worked at a car dealership.  One day, he opened my car hood and showed me all the parts (most of which he said were to reduce the performance of the engine for emission control reasons).  But one part he showed me was the ignition coil.  It couldn't be sealed tight for heat reasons.  But if you ever drove through a puddle and the car stalled, it was because the ignition coil got shorted by the spray.

So I understood about the ignition coils on the mower.

So they went about replacing those 2 parts (apparently they are separate on a mower.  Falling asleep yet?

Well, they called Thursday and said they were going to have to clean the carburator and fuel line (another $25).  Yeah, yeah, just do it...

So I picked it up Friday.  The experience was not good.  First, they had to jump start it.  When I asked about that, they said I needed a new battery.  Well, I had to do that too, but I thought a tune-up would solve that. 

So I asked the mechanic "This is a repair shop, right"?  He agreed.  "Shouldn't that have been something to be fixed"?  He said it wasn't on the repair ticket.  OK, he is just the mechanic and he does what the repair ticket says to do.  But they sell batteries!  Why wouldn't they have offerred to replace it?  Fine, I can buy a new battery anywhere.

But the engine gave a whiff of smoke and I asked about that too.  He checked the oil level and said it was a bit high and should probably be changed.   You want a definition of a lawn mower mechanaic?  He wiped the oil dipstick clean ON HIS PANTS, LOL!

And that's when the horrible truth hit me.  There had been no oil and filter change!  I went back to the front desk and asked about that.  The guy there said it wasn't on the repair ticket.  So I asked about the tune up.  Ditto! 

I told him I had specifically asked for that AND called the next day asking about it.  AND was assured that "Service 1" included that.  He said no, the "service" numbers are just a list of problems the customer mentions.  He said the woman I talked to just writes up repair tickets and wasn't there at the time to ask.  But they would be happy to do the tune up and oil change.  For more money.  And they were backed up for a month.

I took my mower home and I will never ever bring anything to them again.

I can change the oil and filter.  And the tune up probably wasn't necessary.  I had removed the spark plugs and cleaned and gapped them last month. 

But Jeez, what a bunch of idiots!

If I was younger, I would set up a competing business on the side.  No customers should be treated like I was.  The mechanics seem OK; it's a management problem.

A Thought

I watched the last half of the movie 'Arrival'.  I didn't understand it all, but grasped that it involved alien linguistics and apparently things worked out in the end.

But what stayed in mind afterwards was that the heroine finally came up with "zero sum game" when her daughter was seeking a "sciencey" phrase for "not lose-lose".  And I got to thinking about that.  I often do that when watching TV and completely lose the next 15 minutes deep in thought.  Which is a good reason to watch DVDs because you can just rewind them.  And see how old I am?  You don't rewind a DVD, LOL!  But I digress...

So I was thinking about "zero sum game".  Too many politicians think of life as zero sum; "if you win, I lose".  And that actually annoyed me.  In the movie, there were alien ships in many nations and all nations were trying to solve the language problem on their own for individual advantage.  One minor character dared suggest that everyone share what they knew and was ridiculed.

So back to reality and "zero sum"...

We have to stop thinking that way.  It's just causing too many problems.  We all know some things but no one knows everything.  We need to start sharing better.  If Nation "A" knows more about building wind turbines and Nation "B" knows more about storing that energy, shouldn't we share?  And why not tell Nation "C" about both parts so they can make life better for their own people?

I once read about 2 Chinese villages that both made hoes and were fiercely competitive.  As they were about to go to war, the Emperor stepped in and demanded that one village make the blades and the other make the handles and share the profits.  It a myth of course, but makes a good point.  We are all one species and should help each other.

Suppose we detected actual aliens approaching Earth 5 years away.  I bet we could all get along better then, huh?  And if they arrived and looked like 8' squirrels with tentacles, we wouldn't think we were all that different either. 

Why wait?

My paternal grandmother used to say that if a flying saucer ever landed on Earth, she would be the first person aboard.   On the surface, that reflects the fact that she and Grampa had rather "hard-scrabble" lives.  But I knew her better than that.  She was a brave and forward-looking person who thought our human progress was too slow and needed a better challenge.  A good kick in the butt...

And I agree.  We have gotten too locked into to group competition.  That's the "zero sum game".  No one wins that way and I'm getting damn tired of it.  We need to go from "zero sum" to "win-win"!

This is all because of the current political nonsense here in the US.  Be on any side you like domestically or internationally, but things are just not working as they should.  It isn't that one side should win and that would solve everything. 

Too many people feel a need to "win" at the expense of "the others" just to get ahead.  But isn't reality the idea of everyone getting ahead?

There is a reason we all don't live in caves today.  We traded knowledge.  One group showed another how to use animal sinews to hold hides together to make a portable shelter, and the other group gave them some seeds they saved that grew better grains.  And the next group had a better flint-knapping technique.

Everyone benefitted.  When did we stop?

Let's start doing that again.

And Happy Summer Solstice Day in the North and Winter in the South...

An Awkward Afternoon

OK, so it was about 5 pm last night and time to start preparing dinner.  I do a lot food prep.  Not like sliding a knife guided by my knuckles (as seen on TV), but I slice and dice pretty well.  I'm careful with knives and tools.

I love most veggies and one of those is beets and I mean fresh beets.  I bake them or m/w them, and I've always peeled them first, which works pretty well.  But I decided last night to bake them first and see if the skins would just slip off afterwards.

Well they didn't.  Worse, trying to peel them after baking was like trying to peel a damp sponge.   The beet was hard to hold, and the peeler couldn't get a grip.  In fact, as I was struggling with it, I said to myself "Self, you could hurt yourself this way".  You know what's coming right?

Yeah, one last peeler-pull and it slipped.  It didn't hurt in the least.  In fact,  while I sensed something was wrong, it wasn't until I rinsed off the beet juice that I was sure I was bleeding.  My left middle fingertip  was bleeding and by pressing on it I could tell I had taken a (small) piece of the nail out as well. 

It is amazing how hard it can be to open one of those individual-wrapped specialty band-aids (fingertip-type in this case) when one hand is bleeding.  I had the bleeding fingertip pressed against a wadded tissue, so I had to use my right hand and teeth.  Fortunately, I wasn't worried about sterility, I just needed to stop the bleeding. 

I finally did manage the get the fingertip bandage ready to apply, the fingertip dry of blood, and anti-biotic ointment applied to the finger, and the band-aid ON.  Which was done pretty awkwardly, but it stopped bleeding.

Which was confusing because there was still blood dripping...  It turned out the ring-finger  was similarly-but-less injured.  So I had to go through the whole process all over again.

So then I had the fun of preparing dinner (chicken, tossed salad, M/W potato, stir-fried peppers and mushrooms without getting my left hand wet or oily.   Its like typing with 2 fingers on one hand... 

Now all I have to do is wait to see what things look like later today.  I stop bleeding fast, but I need to look at the fingernails.  I've never damaged one before and I don't know what happens when you do. 

Fun and Games in the kitchen,  LOL!

And my semi-annual Dentist visit is later today.  Sure, why not?  And tomorrow I "get" to pick up my riding mower from the repair shop after 3 1/2 weeks for $350.

It could be a LOT worse. I could have pulled a fingernail partially or completely loose.  The dental visit could be about a root canal.  The riding mower could be essentially unrepairable and require a new one (and the new ones aren't actually as good as the old ones). 

Baseball

All my life, I have preferred to play sports rather than watch them.  I too old to play now, and when I watch sports, it is usually baseball.  So I've been re-watching the Ken Burn's series about the history of baseball on DVD.  I love the history of the development of the game.

The original players were all amateurs, and (being one) I enjoyed that.  Later, the first professional teams arose.  Those guys were rough men, miners, farmers, construction workers.  As one said "I wanted to escape those damned cows". 

There were only still pictures back then, but they were amazing.  One showed a closeup of a guy gripping the bat.  His skin was like leather and he had knuckles like walnuts!  Another picture showed a player shirtless (for the point of the picture, I assume).  His arms were like things.  I would almost bet he could have crushed a weightlifter.

That's not my point here, just saying those guys were amazingly strong, and very determined not to go back to the mines or cows.

What struck me was that so many of them were completely illiterate and couldn't do simple math.  Money paid to them was sort of a mystery that they could only understand as "spending money".  If I understand it, a farmer got a loan from the bank which went directly to the seed company who delivered the seed.  No bank would trust the farmer to actually manage the money even briefly.  Many did and could manage money, but I'm talking about the many ones who couldn't.

So I wondered, what was it like to look at a written contract and not be able to make any sense of the symbols, depending on some manager to tell you what the terms were, and knowing you got cheated by such people all the time?  What a difficult way to live...

Which brings me to the Black Sox scandal in the 1919 World Series.  The Chicago White Sox were one of the best teams ever.  They were all horribly underpaid (about $3-5,000 each) compared to other teams at the time getting 5-10k),  they were mostly illiterate, and a Big Time gambler came after them with promises of wealth. 

Long story short, some of them went for the money.  The smarter of them demanded their money up front.  The others trusted to the honesty on the gambler (simpler souls).  The gambler (he is mentioned in 'The Great Gatsby') got away with it and got lots.  The players got little.  As Shoeless Joe Jackson said afterwards that they promised him $20,000 and he got $5,000.  Some got less and some got nothing.

All the players involved were banned for baseball for life.  Consider THAT Pete Rose...

Sad story:  Jackson was reduced to working in a liquor store.  One day Ty Cobb came in and recognized the player he had modeled his swing after.  Cobb said "Don't you recognize me Joe"?  And Jackson said "Sure I recognize you Cobb, but I didn't think you wanted to recognize me".

And then there was Babe Ruth, one of the best pitchers ever and the best hitter too.  When he wasn't pitching, he playing outfield so that he could hit.  The Red Sox owner was more interested in arranging Broadway plays and was not very good at it.  So everytime he had a failed play, he sold one of his star players to The New York Yankees.

Eventually, he sold Babe Ruth (well technically, he sold the contract).  The 1920s Yankees were build on Boston Red Sox stars.

But I mention that to say this... Some people say the home run ers started because the ball was made "livlier" which is true in the sense of the ball.  But in20, Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs and that was more than any other whole TEAM but one.  So it wasn't just the ball. 

Another thing I like about the Ken Burn's series is that he related the past to the present.  One thing about baseball is the consistency of player statistics.  Not what one did today as opposed to 80 years ago, but as ythey did against each other.

And I think I will stop here...

An Irregular Curious Event

This blog does not get many visitors (and I sure appreciate you all).  A typical post gets 0-6 comments and a dozen or so views.  I don't mind that, I'm basically tossing bottles into the ocean (or, if you have ever seen the movie 'Conneger', tying messages onto tumbleweeds).

But sometimes there are suddenly 50-200 views days later.  They never leave comments, so I have no idea who they are.  And this never happens on the cat blog.  Many years ago, the cat blog suddenly got 100s of comments on really old posts that advertised products in Chinese that (as far as I could tell with Google Translate) were only for local sale in China. 

It baffled me, and I spent some days deleting as many as I could (and some were undeletable).  But this is not the same thing.  These visitors never leave comments (that I can detect).  And when I try to search keywords and phrases in those posts, none show up as one-off oddly-popular flash-group interests.

My antivirus programs (I have 2 I run alternately) never find any problems.  It is entirely weird. 

Just mentioning this in case someone has any ideas about what is going on...

Random Thoughts

If the weather forecast says a 75% chance of rain, it won't.  But if it says 25% and you decide to cook something on the grill or decide to plant flowers, it will.

You can look at your riding mower tires every week and they seem inflated, the day you don't, they aren't.

Any typo you make is assured to be a real word that is embarrassing in context.  And I don't use autospell.

Lawn grass grows faster when the mower is at the shop for repairs.

If there is a spot of plants who die at the least time of inattention, they are ones you wanted to save.  If you didn't like them, they are impossible to kill.

Speaking of which, why is it that the slightest bump to a sapling you are trying to grow kills it, but chopping down a "junk one" only makes it regrow faster?

I am convinced the mailman sits at the top of the hill just waiting for me to go out and check the mailbox.  Because 10 minutes later, he always arrives.  I need to check the mailbox for a "secret sensor".

Poison ivy always knows where you don't think it is... 

Dry holly leaves are pricklier than you expect.

Never build one fence gate larger than the other.  The larger one will pull the posts over and make the gates hard to open.  On the other hand, the way to solve that is with a chainsaw or Saws-All run between them.

RoundUp kills wild blackberries.  And they curl down from the top.  It's a pleasure to see the next day when you don't want them. 

Iza won't poop in a litter box unless I am watching but always pees in them.  I think she knows pee spreads.  Ayla will come in from outside to use the litterbox and then want to go outside again.  Marley prefers going outside.

Marley hates walking on dry leaves.

In math, constants aren't, variables won't.

I can't tell which way to tighten things when they are upside down.

If I watch my hometown sports teams on TV, they usually lose.  Well, they usually lose anyway, but if they are winning, my watching them is the kiss of death.  I stopped watching the Washington Nationals baseball team a couple weeks ago and they have won something like 10 of 13 since.  Is this a marketable skill?

I like a dish brush that holds liquid soap.  The bottom half came loose.  I bought a new bottom half.  It was the top that was bad.

If I mailed myself a letter, it woudn't arrive.

I could put my car in an empty parking lot and there would be a new dent when I returned.

I have no luck at cards or dice.  I lose a 50-50% chance 75% of the time.  If all I needed to win a game of Yahtzee, and needed only 7 pips, I would get four 1s and a 2.  If I wanted four 1s and a 2, I would get all 6s.

Ayla is terrible at Backgammon; she only wins 1 of 5 games.

The car dealership sent me an ad saying I was due or my 100,000 maintenance.  The car has only 28,000 miles.  And its 13 years old.

Hope you enjoyed...