STUMPTOWNBLOGGER

LINDNER’S WORLD

 Once upon a time, maybe 25-30 years ago, my friend Rick (of Cynthia and Rick fame, who are presently bobbing in the warm waters of the Sea of Cortez), was either upsizing or downsizing from one sail boat to another. He had a box of parts leftover, so he gave it to me, including these two brass porthole dealy-bobbers. Not that I have any use for brass porthole dealy-bobbers being a dedicated landlubber, but they’re kinda’ cool. All heavy and piratey and whatnot. So to the garage they went.

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I’d forgotten all about them until last year, when they surfaced during the remodel. I *still* have little use for them, but decided to hang on to them for another few decades... just in case someone gifts me with Aristotle Onassis’ yacht. Could happen. 🤨 

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So I was out in the Tardis/warehouse/garage/shop cleaning them up, and I remembered a television show was coming on shortly, and wondered what time it was. Alas... no clock out in the shop. Which gave me an idea.

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1) Remove plexiglass from portholes.

 

2) Grab iPad.

 

3) Order two cheapie battery powered clock movements (2 for $5.00, including 5 pairs of hands).

 

4) Order enough wooden stick-on numbers to make up two clock faces (bag of 60 numbers for a pittance).

 

5) Paint the numbers black, stick them on the portholes.

 

6) Tack one porthole on the wall above my workbench in the shop, the other in the media room. Center the clock mechanism in each porthole, tack it in place.

 

7)  Find (or fabricate) a brass escutcheon to hide the butt-ugly little black box mechanism. Maybe a canning jar lid? I’ll come up with something.

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I know, it’s kinda’ redneck, but it keeps me out of bars.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LINDER

 I’m 69 today. Just a li’l grey. Air’s still going in ‘n out, blood’s going round ‘n round, I’m vertically inclined, most of my favorite parts still work—last I checked 🙄. I may be old, but in my day, I saw live:

 

• Jimi Hendrix (twice)

 

• Janis Joplin (twice)

 

• Simon & Garfunkel

 

• Jefferson Airplane

 

• The Who

 

• Credence Clearwater

 

• The Doors (4 times)

 

• The Grateful Dead (dozens of times)

 

• Rolling Stones (heard, could barely see: Altamont)

 

• Led Zeppelin (sort of: Page & Plant, minus Bonham & Jones)

 

• Oh, and The Beatles.

 

But please... tell me about Justin Bieber!

WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

 Alright fellow science nerds, I am in a state of perplexity here. And no, I don’t know the answer. 🤨

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This is one of a set of six glasses that I bought at Costco maybe 30 years ago. It’s the only one I use, the others are all tucked away in my cabinets.

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This is the official Lindner Whisk(e)y glass. If I’m in the mood for Scotch Whisky, I pour in a few drams neat. If I’m in the mood for Bourbon, I pack it full of crushed ice, then fill it to top. If I’m in the mood for Jim Beam, I put the glass away, get in my car and drive directly to a psychiatrist.

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I digress.

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So I just happened to notice that the glass has become discolored over the years. Sort of a brownish, whiskiish hue. Doth mine eyes deceive me? I grabbed a step stool and fished out one of its siblings. Sure enough, it HAS changed color over the years! So I grabbed a scotch brite pad and scrubbed the bejeezuz out of it, just to see if it was on the surface. Nope. It’s IN the glass.

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Who knew Whisk(e)y could penetrate glass? Or can it? Am I missing something here? And does this mean if you turn me inside-out, I’d look like a turd instead of an inside-out old dude?

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Inquiring minds want to know. 🤔

LINDNER’S WORLD FROM ANOTHER WORLD

 I think this is an awesome picture. It’s a selfie taken by the Curiosity rover (NOT Perseverance). That rock formation in the background has been named Mont Mercou. Even from this distance, you can see the sedimentary layering. Mont Mercou is about as high as a two-story house.

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If you can zoom in, check out Curiosity’s wheels. That’s what 8-1/2 years of maintenance-free driving over rocks does to aluminum. NASA says they’re not worried about it though.

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And a late-breaking update on when the Ingenuity ‘copter is scheduled for first flight (back to Perseverance/Ingenuity). JPL tweeted last night that they’re looking at April 11th, with data arriving on April 12th. That’s at the EARLIEST, so don’t get your hopes up.

WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

 I have a rather elaborate stereo system that I’ve built up over the years. It’s strictly old school, because I’M old school. I have a modern digital system too, but I much prefer tinkering with the old one. It’s like owning both a ‘36 Duesenberg and a 2021 Corvette: They’ll both get you there, but c’mon... there’s a lot to be said for yester-tech and patina.

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There are two things you can do with a good sound system:

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1) Listen to music.

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2) Listen to the system.

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As I get older, I prefer doing the latter. Oh, I still love the music too, but that’s where the convenience of digital comes into play. Grab the iPhone, find the Beethoven’s Symphonies playlist, and hit PLAY. But for “deep listening” sessions, where I want to scrutinize every component from the vinyl to the acoustics of the room, I roll out the ‘36 Duesenberg.

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When I reeeeeeeally want to put the system through an audio obstacle course, this is my favorite recording to do it with: Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” It's got it all. A dynamic range as wide as a 6 lane freeway, great mixing, amazing performances by the band, and oh baby, that bass! That deep, tight, shiver-me-timbers bass intro to “Welcome to the Machine.” Windows rattle. Dogs howl. Siri says “Wut?”

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I have the album on mp3 too (of course!), but it just ain’t the same. The timbre is just different on the analog system. More intimate. You FEEL it in your gut, as much as hear it, and I don’t just mean the low-end grunt. It’s uncompressed sound waves preserved in a physical medium, as Edison intended. Each voice, each instrument occupies a specific point in space in a studio that was probably dismantled decades ago. The digital version lacks some of that dimensionality.

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First runner up after Welcome to the Machine: Talking Book by Stevie Wonder. Other runners up: Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson, several James Taylor recordings he cranked out during the ‘70s, the Eagles Hotel California, and a few oddities most folks are unfamiliar with, but they really light up my system—if not always my life.

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Again, I’m not talking about the music. I repeat: I’m NOT critiquing the music itself. I’m talking strictly about how sound is recorded and played back via my system. I’m not qualified to critique music & musicians—only my gadgetry that reproduces it.

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And to my ears, Welcome to the Machine is superior to its predecessor, the King Kong of ‘70s rock albums; Dark Side of the Moon. Which is saying a helluva lot.

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Care to guess what I’ve been doing all night? Yes, I’m tired. 🥺 I bet my amplifiers are too.

THIS IS AMERICA ( FROM LINDNER’S WORLD)

 In case you missed it, the Senate confirmed Deb Haaland’s Cabinet appointment yesterday. And I don’t mind admitting it, I get a little emotional about this one.

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Think of who she is and the Cabinet position she now holds. She’s a 35th generation New Mexican and a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe. Her ancestors were already living off this land 300 years BEFORE Columbus set foot in the New World. Native Americans were the first Americans, and I doubt there are many people alive today who can cite an ancestry that goes back 800 years on this continent. So the fact that she’s the very first Native American Cabinet Secretary (and a woman at that), is long, long overdue.

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In that light, consider the department she now oversees: Secretary of the Interior. That’s hardly some ceremonial post. She will be responsible for protecting the land and natural resources of all 50 states and territories, our National Parks, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, the USGS, and managing the well-being of indigenous peoples from Florida to Maine to Alaska to Hawaii to American Samoa to Guam—and all points in between. So it’s not as if she’s been appointed Secretary of Stoplights.

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IMHO, her pedigree makes her a perfect candidate for this position. Who better to protect the land that was stolen from her ancestors? Her heart is already in it. And her record in Democratic Party politics just adds to her progressive résumé. If one can be typecast for a Cabinet position, she’s as perfectly suited for this role as Sean Connery was to be Bond.

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Especially when compared to Trump’s horrid, climate-change denying Ryan Zinke. A corrupt businessman who raped and trashed the land, pushed for offshore drilling parcels in the Atlantic, Pacific and the Arctic, removed protection of wildernesses in Utah, tried to do the same in Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon, pushed dirty coal on federally-protected lands, and set the stage for turning the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge over to Big Oil. Even by Trumpian standards, Zinke was one of the worst.

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Deb Haaland is an inspired appointment. I can’t envision a person better suited to run the Interior Department. Joe Biden’s detractors can say what they will about him, but he’s put together one hell of a team, and I think they know it. As far as I’m concerned, Deb Haaland is the icing on the cake.   🏔

LINDNER’S WORLD ( and ours too)

 Perseverance phoned in a whole slew of new pictures the other day. This one’s my fav’. It swung its selfie-stick underneath the chassis to show us its nether regions. There’s a wide belly pan (that looks like a ginormous cookie sheet) just aft of those four round objects at top-center. Perseverance will drop that pan, freeing up some more instruments, cameras and mini-laboratories.

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But it’s that big black turkey-roaster looking thing just behind the belly pan that I’m most jazzed about. That’s the sheath that protected the Ingenuity helicopter from debris during the touchdown sequence. That too will drop off, Perseverance will roll away from it, and with a bit of luck Ingenuity will take off and fly like a bee on Mars.

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When I was a kid, this was the stuff of Bradbury, Asimov and Clarke. Now here we are a mere two generations later, exploring the surface of another world through the electronic eyes of a four pound flying bug that we ourselves built and sent there. It’s like a whole ‘nother (nonfiction!) chapter of The Martian Chronicles.

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Ray Bradbury lived long enough to witness the landing of Curiosity (just barely; he died two months later), but I bet he’d be gobsmacked if he could see these views of the planet he inspired so many of us to ponder. And it was Arthur C. Clarke who floated the concept of “communication relays” in Earth’s orbit—now known as communication satellites.

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Here’s to the dreamers: without whom, none of this would be taking place. In fact, if not for them, we’d all still be living in caves. 💫

WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER ( His Dad is over 100 years young)

 Twenty-four hours ago. My brother, my dad, yours truly and the kid. Before we hit the road at 6:30, we woke Lisa and her grandpa for this three-generation shot. Thanks for all the kind words of concern for my dad. Considering his age, he’s doing remarkably well.

HERRRREERES BRUCE!

 Remember the opener in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ when you’re wondering if the projectionist fell asleep, then suddenly there’s a bright flash, and the movie begins? I grabbed one of these LED light panels at Costco yesterday (they’re dirt-cheap now: $39.00) for my kitchen. I probably spend more time over my stove than in my bed, so I want to be sure of what I’m grabbing. Wait... that didn’t come out right.

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Anyway, so I installed this thing yesterday, which turned out to be one of those good news/bad news situations. The good news: holy crap, is it BRIGHT! The bad news: it’s so bright that I’m seeing more than I used to. More than I WANT to. How long has that stain been there? Is that a crack in one of the tiles? How long have the fridge handles been that grody, and why won’t they clean up?

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I’m liking this bright flash. I’m not liking this
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LIVING HELL FROM LINDNER

Story time. A few years back, I launched a second business. I developed a condiment/hot sauce that I tried to get on the market. I soon learned that getting products on store shelves (particularly national store chains) wasn’t at all like slinging lattes in Portland. I tried getting it on Amazon too, but that offered other challenges. I ran into problems with 1) the copacker, 2) year-round affordability of one of the main ingredients: Granny Smith apples, 3) dealing with the aforementioned chain stores, and 4) my heart. This was around the time my left anterior descending surprised me with a bottleneck.

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So I pulled the plug on the sauce business (no, not my heart. I’m still using it), and decided to scrap the whole shebang. I still own the business name, the domain, the federal and state credentials, the barcode, the recipe and a few remaining bottles of sauce. But I decided to let it go for the time being.

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However... 🤨

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When I launched the business, Snappytown Sauces, I hired a friend to set up a dedicated website, as well as a Facebook account, a Twitter account, an Instagram account (which I’ve never seen) and three email addresses. They were all interlinked through the web hosting service that I hired.

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Still with me? You’re about to get lost.

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As with many outfits these days, the website hosting service renews automatically unless you set it up to renew only at your discretion. And they make it VERY difficult to change. So I got two emails from them this morning within a few minutes of each other.

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The first one said “It’s time to renew! But we’re unable to access your credit card account.”

 

The second one said “Congratulations! SnappytownSauces is renewed for another 5 years! Thank you for your business.”  😡

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Oh no you don’t. I am NOT going to maintain a website for a product that I no longer sell. So I figured I could get them on the horn and cancel this boosheet ASAP.

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I figured wrong.

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📞 ⏱ Twenty minutes of Muzak, followed by pressing 2, 3, 2, # and #, I finally got ahold of “Bill.” Bill was utterly useless.

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Bill: “Let’s start with your four digit PIN number.”

 

Me: “I don’t know my four digit PIN number.”

 

“You don’t know it? How do you log into your account?”

 

“I don’t. I haven’t logged into my account in five years. That’s why I’m calling. I just want to cancel the domain and your hosting services.”

 

“I can’t help you without your PIN number.”

 

“May I speak to your superior?”

 

“There's no one here but me. I’m working from home.” 🤦🏻‍♂️

 

“How can we bypass this PIN bullshit? I want to get out of this auto-pay turnstile.”

 

“Well, maybe Melanie can help you. She’s been with the company forever.”

 

“Okay. Connect me to Melanie.”

 

“I can’t. She’s working from home too, but here’s her number: 1-800-SCREWYOU.”

 

📞 “Hi this is Melanie. How can I help you?”

 

“I want to end my site hosting services with you folks.”

 

“No problem Mr. Lindner. What’s your PIN number?”

 

“I. DON’T. KNOW. MY. PIN. NUMBERRRR. 🤯”

 

“Oh dear. Okay, let’s see if we can locate it.” ⌛️ (4-5 minutes on hold)

 

“Mr. Lindner?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Your daughter Lisa, can you confirm the day and year of her birth?”

 

“Yeah. 30/84.”

 

“Thank you. Let’s try that as your PIN. We have that as your personal question on file.

 

(((It worked! 🤩)))

 

I can complete the deletion of your account now. You won’t be charged for renewal. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

 

“No, you’ve been VERY helpful! Thank you so much!”

 

“Would you be willing to take a short survey so that my bosses can hear that directly from you?”

 

“You bet!”

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So I took the survey. I told them that I didn’t appreciate the fact that their default was to automatically renew with them no matter what. When I got down to the final question, “Was Melanie able to resolve your concerns,” I wrote “Yes she was. She was kind, helpful and patient with this grouchy old man. If I were you, I’d double her salary.”