Happy Independence Day (observed)

Another day of weird sleep patterns, waking up before the buttcrack of dawn. Seriously getting tired of waking up the chickens to remind the rooster to crow. The good news is because I have all the ingredients to a safe and effective sleepytime cocktail I can pretty much decide when I want to go to bed now, and be able to shut my brain down to get some decent sleep. Decent sleep with weird dreams, but I’ll take weird dreams as the price of getting decent sleep.

On my music streaming app right now is Stranglehold by Ted Nugent. He’s pretty much an asshole now but he was a good musician then. And the back-and-forth between the guitar and the bass and swiping the theme from Bolero is what makes Stranglehold Classic Rock. The lyrics, not so much, but given the ratio between lyrics and instrumental passages we can pretty much ignore the lyrics as just something to break up the instrumentals. And while I was writing the critique of Stranglehold we moved on to Tom Sawyer, a song that demands you pay attention to the lyrics. And Imma stop writing about music now.

My son has purchased a home ice cream maker, and he brought over samples when he came over to do his laundry on the washer and drier he bought. Make no mistake, they stay here, but he paid for them so he has a place to do his laundry, and also an excuse to check up on his parents every week. But anywho, ice cream. He made some regular ice cream to test out the machine and have experience with how it works, but the main reason he bought it was to make sugar-free ice cream so he can have ice cream even though he has diabetes. He brought a small sample of the sugar-free recipe, and larger samples of the regular recipes. Part of what he has learned is sugar controls the formation of ice crystals in the finished product, and his first attempt at sugar-free had some crystal formation that was larger than he wanted, and the technique to reduce the crystals was churning the whee out of the ice cream before letting it set up. Basically it takes about twice as long to churn the sugar-free stuff as it does to make regular ice cream. And this machine does a heck of a job with the regular recipes.

Also, my son is a culinary genius who delights in sharing his creations with others. He made a coffee ice cream that was heavenly, because he steeped the coffee beans in the custard while it was cooking. He also made a peanut butter ice cream that was so smooth and creamy because the peanut oils synergized with the milk fat to make something impossible. The TL;DR for this is basically one word: yummy.

On the Sprint-T front, I’m beginning to think the fan shroud I got was in the wrong box, because it is nowhere near as big as the part description in the catalog. That’s why the 14″ fans had so much overlap when I checked how they would fit. Now I have to see if I can get an exchange for the right parts.

And I think I am about out of words I can put in the right order, as there is a lady on Messenger wanting to know about how I got killed in ’01. >sigh<

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I’m hot and a little short-tempered

And my meds are basically knocking me out most of the day. Seriously I didn’t get out of the bed until almost 1700 yesterday and I slipped between the sheets at 0500 or thereabouts. And I dropped off almost immediately, no time delay between kissing my wife goodnight and brain shutting down.

I wasn’t asleep the whole 11+ hours, because I did hear my phone telling me that the second Cup race at Pocono was starting about 1415 and promptly fell back asleep. I heard the sound my phone makes when I get a text, the sound when I get an Amber Alert, the sound when someone sends me a Facebook message. And I didn’t wake up enough to get out of bed until I had to take a leak at 1645, and even then it took a while to get everything functioning. You don’t know what frustrating means until you stand at the toilet trying to pee and nothing comes out, because your muscles are still not responding to your orders, especially including your urinary sphincter.

And for some reason the usual summer daytime setting on the thermostat feels like the Warm setting on the new oven. BTW that Warm setting is freaking wonderful for having late brunch for us late risers. Anywho I’m not sweating, but I’m definitely not comfy at 78°F anymore, and I’m not sure of why. I just don’t feel comfortable at what used to be a very comfortable setting. Might be related to my meds knocking me out for 11 hours today, might not be. But it is another thing making me unhappy today. I think it has something to do with other things that are making me unhappy that I don’t want to talk about here.

Anywho, I am still getting as many entries as I can for that 0.060 over Ford 302 (real size 311 in³ making that 5.0 a 5.09) from Power Nation and you haven’t been helping as much as you can. You don’t have to do anything besides click the link and enter the contest and agree to give me the engine if you win. Right now I’m 10 friends shy of the maximum of 10 friend entries. I guess I need to do something about that, somehow. Winning this engine would be a major boost to the Sprint-T project. I could sell it and buy a junkyard engine and transmission and all the controllers. Seriously, a 6.2L truck engine makes about the same power as the giveaway engine at high RPM, and a bunch more down low, as it comes from the junkyard with the long-tube headers I already have to fit the engine in the car, and it weighs about 80 pounds less. The difference is a junkyard engine will look like… something pulled from a junkyard, and the giveaway engine looks like… bling. And there is always the pull of bling. Who doesn’t like bling? I admit, I like bling, too, but what I like more is an engine and transmission that both work, and are as light as possible while also having good power and reliability.

Previous paragraph I tried to use some html to make the word bling look like sparkle or rainbow text, and all I got by copying in the code and swapping their “rainbow” and “sparkle” text for my “bling” text was this

bling

. It didn’t matter which code I used they both returned the same result, that you see here. I don’t have to describe it it’s right here. And that doesn’t look like either rainbow or sparkle no matter how you squint at it. And that is a good reason to put this to bed and not get any more angry at it for not doing what I coded it to do.

I’m staying up all night and day again

As I begin composing this post I just passed 24 hours since I got out of bed, and I have about 9 hours more to go. Why do I do this at over 60 years old? I have a doctor’s appointment that requires I leave the house to catch a bus about 2/3 of the way through my normal sleep cycle. I normally hit the sack about 0400-0500 and get up 7-8 hours later. Well I have a 1130 appointment, and I have to leave the house at 0915 to make sure I catch the bus. As you can imagine getting up in time to leave at 0915 along with eating and showering when you just got to bed at 0500 is sub-optimal to say the least. I mean I’m still fuzzy around the edges of my mind when I get a full 8 hours of shuteye. So you can imagine how functional I would be after less than 3 hours of sleep, because it takes some time to get to sleep after I get to bed. Mrs. the Poet has commented that my tossing and turning has kept her awake for more than an hour after I get in the bed. And I’m actually less sub-optimal after being awake over 24 hours without sleep than I am on only about 2-3 hours of sleep no matter how long I was awake before.

“Less sub-optimal” does not mean anything approaching good, mind you. let’s say it’s the difference between walking into a wall and breaking my glasses, and not walking into a wall and stumbling over the pattern in the floor. And yes I have tripped on the pattern of the vinyl floor when I was tired enough. And I’m well past the point of Tired Enough, the text on the composition page is swimming as I type it…😝 And I’m desperately trying to remain conscious while I do this. I can’t afford to buy another computer to replace this one. And I already faceplanted into the keyboard more than once, but not today. So I’m trying to stay awake and not break my laptop today.

I’ll post how the doctor visit went on Friday if I can manage.

I can’t decide

I can’t decide if I’m just cheap, or acclimatizing to the heat, or what. Because it doesn’t really bother me that it’s 84°F in the office, the real concern is for my electronics, some of which are not performing correctly, like this laptop. Since I have to use the on-screen keyboard to use some of the keys, things like cursor control are important right now. But the cursor is wandering all over the screen without any input from me. I used to be able to park the cursor on top of the <m> key on the on-screen keyboard and just tap the touchpad at the bottom of the keyboard to type the letter “m”. And the cable box is a little wonky too but nothing I can put my finger on to say specifically what’s wrong. It might just be the remote instead.

But me? I’m just dandy, if a little damp. Not sweaty, just not dry, damp. Also not uncomfortable. Which is why I think I should be getting the new unit for the bedroom instead of the office except for the electronics, which are much more heat-sensitive than me. That is my dilemma, save the electronics that will cost a fortune to replace, or have a bedroom Mrs. the Poet can sleep in. But she’s leaving for the summer, so that has to weigh heavily in the decision. And before anyone says anything, Mrs. the Poet spends most of the summer in Upstate NY every year, and has since we moved to TX back in 1989.

Still caught in a circadian slip

And pretty much nothing else to report.

I don’t have anything to use for the powertrain or any raw stock to use for a build. Basically if I was moving on this build I would be driving in circles, except I don’t have an engine or wheels, or a gas tank. I have a really neat steering wheel, most of a front axle (in pieces), and a body. And several square miles of mental plans with options for different engine/transmission combinations.

Now: Circadian slip. This is a real thing. I’m getting up at 5 every day, but instead of 0500 I’m getting up at 1700. So I have to figure out how to make myself sleep and get up at 0500 instead of 1700, something that has never happened in my life. Part of the problem is we are so close to the Winter Solstice that there is very little daylight for resetting my biorhythm. And artificial light at night doesn’t help keep me running on a diurnal as opposed to nocturnal rhythm. And my anti-depressant med makes everything, except my depression and my sex life, worse. Seriously, the soporific effect of Mirtazapine is so bad that I can take it and spend the next 12 hours asleep so I need to do the 36 hour reset one of these days soon, but I already took my pill for this 24 hour period and will probably be asleep soon. I just have to remember not to take my pill tomorrow night and then zombie through until Thursday night before sleeping again. I’ll need 2 pots of Opus grade Coffee (beyond weapons grade) and a clear path to the potty, and I should be good to go (and go and go and go…).

Now to work out the logistics to staying awake for 36 hours at 59 years of age and sign off…

This is when I write about what I did

Earlier this week I was too busy doing things to write a blog post. Now I have a few minutes to write what happened. All I need to do is get the story straight in my head so I can put it on the screen. That is easier said than done.

Big news first, I lost my wallet again. Exact same way I lost it last time, from the same pair of shorts. I thought I was putting the wallet into the pocket, but it didn’t stay there. I probably lost it when I was sitting down after buying the day pass on the first bus of the day.

Second thing is I am no longer hairy. Well as hairy. I used a ½” guard on the top of my head and no guard at all on the beard. Then I charged up the electric razor and finished off the beard. Voila semi-fuzzy.

On the Mini Sprint-T, I think I have my tire mounting problems solved. I mentioned in an earlier post that I would be using a discarded insulin syringe to inflate the tire out to the edge of the wheel, well the other problem is the wheel making the tire grow larger in diameter by a substantial amount because it’s just too thick, for structural reasons. The resin used to cast the wheels is not as strong as the styrene plastic used in commercial model kits so it has to be thicker, basically all the way out to the flange diameter of the wheel. This in turn stretches the tire diameter by a similar amount, which drastically alters the scale relationship of the tire to the rest of the car. Well I’m going to try sanding out the inside of the tire bead so the oversize wheel so it doesn’t force the tire larger and see how that works. I have a spare set of wheels, and tires that I won’t be using on either model, to experiment with.

And I’m starting to get fuzzy around the edges of my mind, so I’m quitting while I can still hit the correct keys on the laptop.

Bille @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable but sleepy