Things have been hard to process

We have had multiple mass shootings including Uvalde, and others that haven’t made the mass media, and I have had other problems that can be solved with money I don’t have. Ain’t things just peachy?

Personally, my leg where I got hit is not even functional to tolerances, specification is not even in the equation. It’s to the point that I make trips from the office to the kitchen, mailbox, toilet, and bedroom for fresh underwear, and that’s pretty much it. I have reached my limits of pain and exertion for the day, and I am mentally exhausted. I have the physical energy if I need to get up and do something, but mentally? I am done. I just can’t face getting out from behind the computer and going out to the hall or anything.

I got a jar of organic nut butter for free, so I thought we could replace a jar of peanut butter with it, but as it set on the shelf waiting for the peanut butter to get eaten it separated into oil and solids, and Mrs. the Poet poured off the oil and now we have basically a jar of nut solids in paste form, AKA edible concrete. So many cashews gave their lives for Mrs. the Poet to turn them into unspreadable paste. I honestly don’t know about her anymore, her mother didn’t do things like this.

The screaming in my ears is quieter today, I still can’t understand speach in a noisy environment, but a quiet conversation with Mrs. the Poet is possible without her having to shout or me saying “Huh?” every third word. And when we got surrounded by multiple lawn crews doing their thing I was near hair-pulling frustration at the noise. But they’re gone now, and I can hear myself think. Which was part of the reason I sat down at my computer, I have the ability to compose my thoughts through the keyboard and onto the screen. I just can’t think of much to say.

I did the marathon race thing on Sunday, but exhaustion from my disrupted sleep schedule caught up to me before the Coca-Cola 600 was a third of the way done. I watched the Red Bull, Ferrari, Red Bull finish in the rain and wreck shortened Monaco Gran Prix, I saw Marcus Erikson win the Indy 500, but I caught myself nodding off at lap 133 of 400 and put myself to bed before Denny Hamlin won his first World 600 after multiple green-white-checkers in NASCAR overtime. I did watch the YouTube highlights yesterday which is how I know Hamlin won and there were overtimes, but at the time it happened I was zonked out, sawing wood, slumbering, catching Z’s. Dead to the world. Off in the arms of Morpheus. T-I-R-E-D.

Now getting back to the problems I have that can only be solved with money. I need to get an upper plate denture at a minimum so I can bite and chew, but that’s looking out of my budget. I’m supposed to call Aspen Dental and see what they can do , but my wake cycles and their office hours are not synching up so when I’m awake to call them there’s nobody there to take the call, and when they are there I’m not awake. But I’m not sure I have enough $$ to get an upper plate. That’s the problem, I can’t get a price until I come in, and when I come in I’m committed to paying the price no matter how much it costs. That’s No Bueno for me.

Also I’m having the problem of not getting any female companionship in bed, the way I want and physically can manage. I mean I have arthritis in both knees and kneeling is uncomfortable at best to unbearable. And most sex acts require at least some kneeling except for a very few that can be done with the man flat on his back, and some that have to be done standing and my hips and back are unhappy with those positions. So if the woman involved isn’t light or agile enough to be on top, I don’t have sex. And since Mrs. the Poet is using a walker these days that precludes her from being agile enough. Not that she wants to these days, we’re down to one snuggle party per year. This is another problem that can be solved with money I don’t have…

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My ears are ringing so loud right now…

Seriously, I can see why some people kill themselves over tinnitus. Mine is so loud right now that it drowns out just about everything else. The dryer, the dishwasher, Mrs. the Poet, traffic outside the window, all just an undertone to the incessant screeching in my ears. Unfortunately my med for this is only slightly effective today, I even heard it in my dreams last night, which is highly unusual.

To go with the screeching in my head I also have aches and pains in my hips and the muscles around my hips. I had a massage Friday, which helped for a day, but the pain came right back Saturday, and even worse yesterday. And this morning I barely had the DEX to get out of bed because my hips hurt so much. Getting up and moving around helped restore some of my DEX, but I’m still a bit of a klutz around the house. And I’m still having problems getting out from behind the desk quick enough to not pee my pants trying to go to the bathroom. Today my shirt got tangled up in the drawstring on my pants further delaying getting the pants clear. Yeah, this has not been a good day for Opus the Poet.

I noticed that the volume of the noises in my head was inverse to how rested I am, when I’m good on my sleep, very little noise, when I’m just a little off the noises are louder, and when I’m really tired it sounds like a centrifugal-flow jet engine in my head, you know the ones that have the siren built into the design. Today has been a constant flyby of the little screamers. Unfortunately the med for the noise is the same med as I take for the nerve pains in my legs and hips and I’m maxed out on that to keep the twitching in my sleep from waking Mrs. the Poet. Anywho, I’m taking as much Gabapentin as I can at night so I can sleep, but even that wasn’t enough to silence the jet engines in my head last night and today. Yet another reason to strangle the guy who’s been dead about a year less than I was, only he didn’t have the fortune to comeback from the dead, so I could strangle him for the pain and suffering he’d inflicted upon me… Yeah the noise gets worse with lack of sleep, which makes it harder to get to sleep which makes it louder which makes it harder to get to sleep, ad infinitum.

In news not related to the noises inside my head I entered a contest for a fully-built LS3 engine with a 4″ stroker crank that makes an advertised 700 HP from 415 in³. It has an advertised price of just over $14K which means if I win it I’ll have to come up with about $1K for taxes, but still I’ll have an engine for the Sprint-T and I won’t have to crawl around with the snakes and scorpions in the junkyard to get it out.

And I’m still hearing the sound of AT-37s taxiing down the street. And I’m tired so Imma put this to bed.

I’m on my third pair of underwear tonight

I’m having hip problems that keep me from side-stepping quickly which is how I get from behind my computer. The muscles I need to move my hips from side to side are not functioning to specs the last couple of days, and that keeps me from getting up and going to the toilet as quickly as drinking lots of fluids to prevent kidney stones combined with diuretics to keep my BP down and also not get kidney stones sometimes requires. Basically I’m trapped in a bentwood rocking chair with tall arms and I need to completely stow the keyboard shelf and my laptop under the desk to have room to slide sideways out from under my desk, and sometimes there’s a bind in the sliders and I can’t get everything out of the way in time before the dam breaks and I have soggy underwear. So far I’ve managed to get my pants off in time, but my underwear doesn’t clear the waterworks before the dam bursts, and I have to put on fresh underwear. This is embarassing, but it’s a fact of life when you have hip issues and calcium metabolism issues and blood pressure issues all at the same time, so I just live with it and try to not get caught in places where someone could find out about it.

I’ve been watching YouTube videos related to building the Sprint-T and getting hopeful I might get this thing done before I won’t be able to get in and out of the car because of my hips not working, maybe. Even though I’m still missing an engine, transmission, frame, and all that kinda stuff I have to either buy or build yet. Anyway, I’ve kinda figured out how to make the clutch work so I will be able to make the car start and stop without stalling, but I really wanna know how Indycar makes the clutch on the steering wheel work, because they can slip the clutch or dump it as required from a paddle on the steering wheel where I’m looking at using a handbrake lever to do the same thing. If I could get it done from a paddle on the steering wheel, I could granny shift with the same paddle instead of having to buy a special gearset for the transmission and jam the car into gear without the clutch just lifting the throttle and sticking in the right gear. Looking at the way it’s done by Indycar, I don’t think it’s a viable method for the Sprint-T. Indycar uses an electro-pneumatic system, which has a system not on the Sprint-T to power the clutch declutching, the pneumatic system also used to operate the airjacks that are also not on the Sprint-T. I can’t find anything more than that about the system but as it allows the gradual engagement of the clutch I’m assuming there’s some kind of linear sensor in the paddle on the steering wheel that controls the clutch, and probably a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) signal to the controlling device for the pneumatic cylinder that drives the clutch to declutch the transmission. As I stated I’m having to exercise my imagination on this because there’s nothing on how this system works beyond “electro-pneumatic clutch” “operated by a paddle on the steering wheel”, in two separate articles, but I can’t figure out any other way for it to work than as I have posted it.

As it stands I’ll have to use both hands to get the car in gear then lift throttle and jam the gearshift either up or down to get the car in the right gear, because I’ll need to use my left hand to work the clutch and my right hand to shift into gear and if the car is moving that leaves no hands to turn the steering wheel, which is illegal in some states and not recommended in most if not all of the rest. Although these same states allow putting critical engine and HVAC controls on a touch screen that requires taking eyes off the road for an extended time so apparently not having a hand on the wheel is a bigger thing than not having eyes on the road.

And I’ve been awake over 22 hours now and I’m getting clumsy at the keyboard and having to fix typos repeatedly, so maybe this is a good time to put this post to bed, and me shortly thereafter.

Imma getting political, keep your head down

I’ve gotten political before, but it’s usually something that I deal with personally. Usually something to do with reining in drivers so they don’t threaten people on bicycles or pedestrians. But this time none of the issues has any effect on me personally. I am an old cisgender white man, I’m either aged out or the issues had no effect on me or my life in the first place. But just because I will never need an abortion, or have my right to vote ever questioned because of the color of my skin, or had my right to exist because of my gender or lack of it, doesn’t mean I’m ignoring what’s happening to other people. I’m a part of society, and this affects me as part of that society.

The problem is these issues are the domain of a small group of old white men who own media companies, social media platforms, and worst of all, politicians. I mean we all can see it, they don’t even try to hide it, a law gets passed that only helps one or two people and the politicians who shepherded it through until it was passed get “contributions” to PACs that operate as slush funds for the politician in control. It’s bribery right out in the open, and it’s 100% legal, and it’s anti-democratic even when Democrats are getting it. The weak reasoning goes since it’s after the fact it isn’t bribery, bribery is getting the money before you do the thing. This is taunting us by publicly doing the bribe with fingerprints all over it. Or actual signs saying how much money was given in the bribe, at least for now for funds that have to publicly disclose who gave and how much to the penny, but there are “campaign” funds that are secret other than the fact of their existence having to be registered. How much they get and from whom, and what the money is spent on, all legally secret, for the politician with twinges of guilt about getting bribed in public. And the money isn’t even taxed. Even my little SS check is taxed, and my IRA gets taxed at 50% before my return gets filed and I get it all back because I don’t make enough money to tax it as income.

Anyway, abortion should be a decision between a woman and her doctor, and her husband if she’s married, even then it should be the woman’s final decision because it’s her body, and her life is at risk if there is a problem. Transgender people are their own concern because which gender they decide to present as is ultimately their decision as to who they are, and love is love and who you love is your business and nobody else’s. Final Answer.

Just.
Leave.
People.
Alone.

I earned some money, but I can’t get it😤

I participated in a research project about ride-share, that promised a $75 gift card upon completion. Well I got the card, but I can’t get to the money.

The sitch is I have a gift card that requires a phone app to access, but the card won’t load to said app, I get caught in an endless loop of trying to transfer and loading the app. And the money never transfers. As you might imagine I find this extremely frustrating, and I’m getting zero help from Customer Services. They were supposed to e-mail me today, but as of 1730 I have nothing. No message, no money, no nothing.

I used to deal with this company all the time as they were the company that handled paying for my USPS gig up until it was scuttled in 2020. I never had any trouble dealing with them getting my money through the date we all got fired by DeJoy, haven’t dealt with them since. But now they aren’t using Discover, they’re doing Mastercard, and instead of pre-loaded physical Debit Cards they are doing Digital EFT Cards. That are supposed to work with an app, but the app has a 1 star rating on the google App Store. For an app that lets you spend other people’s money, one star is not a good thing. Given that one star is the lowest rating you can give an app, and this app is the only way you can get your money, and this a cumulative rating, it’s abysmal.

And at this point I have no idea when or if I’ll get my money.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I’m an invertebrate punster, spinelessly unable to resist a pun. And that’s two in one post, the picture and the caption…

Seriously, go find a good tequila or cervesa, and celebrate the day the Mexicans drove the French into the sea, or something.

May the Fourth be with you

That’s it, that’s all I had to say.