And no amount of begging or pleading or promises to “be better” or “never doing that again” (whatever that was) ever worked. (Although a good bribe could get you a 24 hour reprieve. But ONLY 24 hours.)

And there was only one “style” of haircut you got: Buzz Cut. Dad might have called it a “flat top” to make you feel better; but it was out and out a buzz cut. Sometimes he took part of your ear. Just because.

This happened through the late 50’s until 1968; when I was 16 or so. Like clockwork: at the beginning of summer and half-way through the school year at the minimum. Still have no idea why he stopped when I turned 16. Maybe he felt the futility of keeping “that Hippie shit” out of the house. Maybe he was paying more attention to the mini-skirts than the way we looked. I don’t know.

I mention this because, at 71+ years of age, I’m about to step into the bathroom and give myself a “buzz cut” again. Been doing it myself since haircuts hit $25 just to sit in a “stylists” chair. Stylists ain’t barbers.

SWMBO says I do a ‘fair’ job of it with only a few rough edges; but I really don’t care. I wear a hat all the time anyway and who is ever impressed with a fat old guy (as if I was trying to impress anyone). Told her she’s welcome to “fix it up;” but she just shudders and goes back to her room.

Ah, well.

Not a lot going on around here. Finally turned cold and now getting dark by 1830 so I’m doing “inside” stuff more than not.

Been buying a couple of pork loins ($1.78/lb) a week for the past few weeks. Trimming then instant potting them and running them through the freeze dryer. Should have a couple of years worth of pulled pork stored downstairs pretty soon. Burger next. Already did chicken when it was on sale so much.

Set my grow towers up down in the FILA but they aren’t doing all that well. Honestly, I’m not paying as much attention to them as I should be. I have to remember to go down there and water what I’ve planted. I swear, if I had the room upstairs where they wouldn’t be in the way Id move them up here. I need to get into the routine. Keeping the FILA at 75 degrees cost $78 last month. Now add grow lights …

Just spent $500 for two 100ah lifepo 4 batteries to replace the lead acid batteries I run my radio’s with. Figure if I’m going to do this solar to run my shack then I need to get off my ass and do it. Backup battery for my cpap next…

This small form factor (sff) desktop computer I have may have an i7 cpu and 16 gig of ram; but it ain’t for shit to expand/upgrade it. So I bought a 4 in 1 multi-function blu-ray burner (external) and that just got in. This sff uses a laptop dvd which I haven’t found to be easily upgraded, so I’m going powered external.

If I didn’t use the memory, cpu, and Nvidia video card (SO much faster) for ripping and transcoding I’d just switch to a really small (something like an AcePC) computer and mount it under the desk out of the way. With that USB 7-drive bay and the external Blu-ray burner everything except transcoding would be covered.

Climbed into the attic over the garage and replaced the furnace filter. Then pulled the 12 ft ladder inside and climbed up and replaced the inside filter in the hall. I really should do it more than once a year! They were pretty dirty. I know! I should make myself a reminder in my google calendar to do that 3 or 4 times a year instead of when I remember to do it! That’ll work!

I joined the Science Fiction Book Club way back about 1973 and got 10-12 ‘free’ books but had to order at least 4 more over the next two (or so) years. It was actually quite a commitment as a newly married HM3 making a whole $98 a payday. But we (my future ex- and I) loved to read and we loved to read sci-fi.

I still have some of those books. Most of them; I think. Dragged them along every time I got transferred to a new duty station. Things stayed in boxes for a lot of years.

(Looking back now one has to wonder why we never found a used book store near by or a Barns & Noble (if they existed). We always cleaned out the local Library every where we went. Where the hell did we get the time (my ex- and I) to make 6 kids!?)

But, where I was originally going: I just stopped by sfbc.com and their “join us!” special is your first two books are $9.99 each (each!) and you can add additional books for $11.99 each. And doing a quick browse it looks like they may have an inventory of around 300 books. Maybe.

How things have changed. But I suppose that selling “hardback,” or a physical copy at all, can be challenging today. Even I switched over to a Kindle Paperwhite and have been slowly moving to electronic books. Haven’t bought a hard copy in a long time. Except for Manuals or Ham Radio related books that almost require a hard copy.

And I prefer it that way. WAY easier to move if one has to move. (Not that I have to worry about that. SWMBO has told me many times that I’m going to die in this house. Or Else!) 

Someone needs to make a “book” smell that you can put a drop on the Kindle to at least make it smell right.

Actually, reading was the reason we needed two toilets in the house. Now it’s YouTube.

Hey, they have Killary’s “Hard Choices” listed under History & Military. Should be under Historical Fantasy but what do I know?

Anywho, SSDD around here. Contemplating making a dump run but that depends on how hard it’s raining. Spent way too much time with the Grunts to let a little rain stop me; but it’s sure nice being able to choose to get out in it or not. (Except for walking the dog every morning. He gets grouchy if we haven’t headed out by 0900. New things to sniff. New places to pee. Let’s Go!

Watching YouTube on how to make “schmaltz.” Just because. If the shit really hits the fan I’m going to be a nice guy to have around.

Cause I haven’t found another program that will organize all your photo’s by lumping together “like” faces and letting you label them as wanted. Otherwise its just a photo organizing program like a dozen other photo organizing programs. Now, if XnViewMP did something like that …

Been playing with a site called palette.fm (I think) and it does a good job  of colorizing your old b&w pics, but severely downsizes your uploaded photos. Been checking out a lot of AI sites lately to see what that can do for me. Looking for a Ham Radio AI to play with …

And I’m still up in the air about “colorizing” anyway. There’s a sense of (originality?) about those old black & white photo’s that colorizing takes away (for me).

But I did like the way the MyHeritage (?) site made an old picture of an Uncle that died way before I was born move and look around. That was neat.

Not a lot going on around here, except, I didn’t get a lot of the “Holy Shit Summer’s Ending” things I needed to do actually done. Too busy doing the other stuff. 

Processed 10 lbs each of burger and chicken for the freeze dryer a couple of days ago and those are running through now. Well, the chicken and pork are; the burger will go in next.

My grow-tower experiment downstairs is going okay so far. Need to get down there today and set up the grow lights since yesterday was (probably) the last really nice day of the year. Wx wise, that is. SWMBO’s beets are growing just fine!

Still playing with the Emby media server. Sometimes it’s so slow! Not sure if it’s the Emby or the Terramaster NAS but it gets really frustrating sometimes. And it will “search” forever before coming up with a “media not found” error before finally finding said media. Almost wish I were a programmer sometimes.

Watching this war in the Middle East. Go Israel! Personally I think that if we kill off all the terrorists then we won’t have any more problems with them. If I were younger I’d offer to help. (As a Medic though. Took an oath a long time ago that still applies.)

Anywho, really just checking in. Checking out. Checking it out cause it may be worth checking up on.