Coming Back Online [NOT 2/2/24]

2/2/24 blue dogcollar 32
steam engine
Dinkey Engine and Steam Shovel / ca. 1914 / https://www.loc.gov/item/93508610

Building Up Steam Again?

I just got over an ugly week or so long bout with a cold with an unpleasant cough, but fortunately no fever or aches. And I have to say it’s lovely to be able to take a deep breath and not worry about hacking up a lung. I’m glad to feel back on my feet again.

So what about you, Deadsplinterrebounders? Got anything coming back together? Have the seed catalogs started rolling in, and you’re putting together a plan to renew the garden? Got a moustache growing back after you shaved it off a while back, or your hair has grown out and is ready for a new style? Maybe you had to leave your car at the shop but now it’s back and purring?

Maybe you have a long dormant work project which finally got a green light from the bosses? Maybe you’ve never told us you’re a pitcher or catcher in the Majors and you’re about to report back to spring training?

Some things are brand new. Some things never go away. But some things go and come back. Share anything like that you’ve experienced.

Or, if you want to revisit an old NOT topic instead, well, that would fit the theme too.

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32 Comments

      • …surely not the tuning thing…or somebody lied to me about jazz being all about the notes you don’t play

        …& now I’m thinking about that morcambe & wise skit with andré previn

        “I think you’ll find I played all the right notes…not necessarily in the right order”

        …& frankly it’s clear I have no business attempting to answer this question

      • No, tuned the same.  It’s the same piano, just a different style.  You have to be good to play classical, but you can have rough technique and still play passable jazz.

        Plus, I’m really just playing for myself, so…

        • Thanks for the explanation. I just went down a rabbit hole and it sounds like jazz borrowing heavily from honky tonk and boogie woogie are the big exceptions where tuning might be different, but most jazz uses standard tuning.

          • One of the many music teachers I’ve had over my long life is Erwin Helfer.  He taught me some blues piano in the early 80s.  He is the undisputed master of boogie, blues, barrelhouse, and honkytonk.  He is in the direct lineage of Jimmy Yancy.  He scoffed at using anything but a standard-tuned piano.

            • That’s really cool. I wish I had the musical background to understand how that works. I’ll read explanations about keys and chords, but it’s like reading about Latin declensions or cellular membranes.

  3. i miss having a car to work on…..

    good fun you know….. tinkering with beer and pizza

    cant do that shit with the new lectrics either…..really nothing complicated on them….boring.so sad

    i mean asides from  all the fucking sensors that go wrong on a whim

    fuck those things….learn to fucking drive…pay attention..and put the fucking phone down…the car will tell you what it needs if you listen

      • havent had that pleasure yet

        i drive old manuals,,,,if i drive

        love sequnital shifters tho…that is the way…..

        anyways….if you are going to fuck up,,,,,

         

        • …so…years back but after they’d inflated someone told me that between the bottom rung model & anything shy of the top couple which had a turbo or a fuel injector or something…there was no mechanical difference to which one you paid for…just different profiles set in the electrics so they had different “performance” numbers

          …made me sad…on account of I remember one of those OG countryman ones made it through two generations of a bit of my family – well, I say countryman but it was that car with the double doors at the back but no wooden bits on the outside…& when you didn’t get to put a cooper works badge on the thing if someone hadn’t worked on the thing…either way that clip has me doing a sort of double take

          …looks-at-new-minis…*that’s* not a mini…looks-at-farscy’s-clip…*that’s* a mini

          …from what I gather people like the new ones…our meg, I believe…& in true comedy style the biggest lad I know used to drive one he was fond of…but like the new beetle…I’d rather have a old one given a choice between the two?

          …speaking of which…it’s a bit like sports…I…know car people…I grew up with no shortage of car people…but I’m not really properly a car person…so I’m curious about where you land on landrovers?

          …remember a great story from a guy who’d driven the very first sort in the army & had fun betting jeep drivers they could beat them in a race driving in reverse…which is a different boast when you can reverse the full range of gears…& had a friend that drove a series 1 when they were young enough to cope with the lack of power steering without needing a soak in epsom salts…but they were a super-no-frills ride

          …now there’s that guy who’s making basically-a-proper-landrover now they don’t any more…but the prices are up there with that rivian pickup or something…did farmers all get footballer rich while I wasn’t looking or something?

          …like…when did landrovers stop being scruffy…& was that a sign of the slide into drive-by-wire picking up speed & getting cameras involved in reversing & whatever?

          …because when a friend’s mother proudly showed off the VW golf that was her first car to just straight up park for her…it seemed like a pretty good idea…& it saved her a lot of time & frustration

          …but…if she’d ever learned to park I dare say it might have resulted in her being overall just better at the whole business…& by the time a mate got a merc that actually would drive for you so long as you had at least a finger in contact with the wheel…I’d admit I was starting to think that the assist might actually be encouraging bad habits more than it was compensating for them?

          • land rovers?…. the old no frills variety are great little trucks if you take care of them

            the lectrics are pretty fucking wonky tho….but thats a meme of its own..lucas has made a name for himself

            mechanically they are tough wee bastards tho

            that said…..there is a reason most farms have a toyota back up

            • …wonky electrics was kind of the british automotive signature for a while it seemed…between jaguar & landrovers &…I want to say MG & a couple more before you’d hit del boy territory in a “reliant”…so that does make sense

              …clearly deficient in my meme-lore, though…but speaking of toyota…if the back up is a pick up… definitely seen some good memes about the size-of-truck : size-of-bed ratio…the classic hi-lux works fine for that but I think it might be a nissan or a mitsubishi that is peak “the one that looks like a dinky toy next to the “full-size” model…will haul the exact same load”

              …those tend to give me a chuckle even if sometimes they might be stretching their point a bit thin?

              • pretty much all uk built cars had a certain issue….from id say about the 60s to the 80s?

                the hi-lux tho….oh that ones a farmers delight….least the late nineties ones….fucking tanks……..theres nothing you can do to them that will kill them

                  • ah bed length and hauling capacity are different things tho

                    i mean…dont get me wrong…the little mitsu punches way above its weight class…….but theres some things you really need that bigly american v8 for

                  • for some reason your last comment doesnt come with a reply option……wierd

                    anyways….i dont think the super duty would be legal to drive on a normal driving license here

                    is well into semi territory

                    not that it matters……drive anything that big here and you are going to find out how poor your choice was about 30 seconds after getting off the highway

                    • …we don’t run up against it this way too often but there’s a limit to how long the comment section lets a set of replies run

                      …looking at some of the cut-down-from-a-full-size-not-a-pick-up-truck trucks people build…like that pair of diesel obsessed brothers who give a bunch away because they’ve got TV show money & the PR is great

                      …I can see there being people for whom the super duty thing could make sense…maybe even a few where it’s not nuts to put a trailer pivot hitch in the middle of the truck bed…seen multiple cars towed on flatbeds that way…or giant horseboxes/livestock trailers…but you gotta be out in the wide open spaces

                      …european streets are like the asphalt equivalent of narrow guage railways even before you get to single track country lanes with low bridges that date back to horse & cart times…so…sounds about right to me?

  4. Actually finished an online health and safety course that I was supposed to start when I got back from DC and meeting MegMeg in Sept 2023… That didn’t happen because mom’s mind crashed. I finally finished it this week!

    Once I get my taxes and credit card debt (various annual professional memberships and investing fees) in order, I’m going to order the rest.

      • Fwiw, the 5th-wheel hitch is *also* really useful, when you’re hauling a big ‘ol modern Camper out to the campground, to stay for the summer.

        I’ve got some family who have ’em–and in addition to the horsetrailer (also used for hauling cattle or hogs), and the automobile and/or stock-car (dirt track racing) trailer, the family camper is the other thing they haul with ’em.😉

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