➛➛➛ This Way To Bliss and Me

I feel like this video much of the time. Bouncy, not going anywhere much. Other days I feel like I'm going nowhere like this.

So here are some examples of the second operating mode:

After buying our new Camry, we found we had to do some mouse control. We had the car for like only two weeks and already there was a dead mouse in the cabin air fan. Stinky. Icky.

The autoparts store was confused when I asked for a 2025 Camry cabin filter because 2025 hadn't happened to them yet. But I don't think Toyota has changed the cabin filter spec for twenty years, so I talked them into giving me a 2024 for a replacement.

We had the same problem with the truck and we found a bit of screen over the air intake port kept the mice out of the sensitive parts. But Toyota maybe already thought of this and the external port appears to be covered by a cowl that gives only about a quarter inch clearance, which is plenty big for mice.  We have tried to block that gap with some copper wool but that might freeze up in the winter and make us roll down our windows. Damn mice.

The RV is also plagued.

For the RV we embraced the landing field lights solution. Light up the underside of the RV with lights so bright they scare blind men. It kept the mice away quite well, but attracted helicopters looking for the near-by hospital's landing pad. And it was obnoxious. But it did remind me of a night scene of a landed UFO.

We have tried repellents and traps. There are more mice than there are traps and the repellents only work for about a week and cost about $20 each time, so they effectively don't work.

We are now in the make-noise attempt. The theory is that if the mice hear noise in the vehicle, they will think it's occupied and stay away. So far it's worked but are mice really that stupid?

The problem with this is that our noise makers are FM radios and their tuners require constant tuning as they seem to drift with temperature and don't lock on to the weak signals for shit.

So I'm building a prototype Mouse Boom Box. A tiny nano-computer, a couple tranducers for speakers and the most shrieky boomy noise I can find. Ornette Coleman and Lady Gaga. On repeat.

If you have any good noise mp3's let me know. Cannon fire. Sirens. Cats eating mice. 

I've been forbidden to use ultrasonics, but if the cat doesn't tell, Cyndi will never know.

And I understand rats (and presumably mice) make ultrasonic sounds, which mean "lets cuddle" to another rat. 

I had a tooth pulled. It was more fun than it sounds.

I've been killing locust and chamisa all summer long. Killing chamisa is a task of duty (Cyndi's allergic) and killing locust is a task of glee. Both are never-ending tasks.

And now next we head to Indiana where there will be a slew of birthday parties and Halloween parties and graduation parties for completing the first six weeks of kindergarten, each with probably a few hundred relatives or friends and I never remember what I'm not supposed to say to whom. 

I'll also find my soldering iron in Indiana and finish the Mouse Boom Box, so I won't be able to test it until we return. By Valentine's Day we'll know if it works. If it does work, there will be more boxes for the RV and the shed. If not, more traps. Or lights.

What have I been doing for fun? Glad you asked.

I got into solving differential equations for fun and that led to the two fascinating vids above and the tediouos pdf below. I really enjoy doing the physics, making pretty pictures, writing arcane equations and, in the end, having the computer do all the number work and have something cool pop out. Physics does work!

This is kind of nostalgic for me. I used to do this in 1970 using Fortran on a Burroughs. They didn't have fancy libraries in those days. Had to do the forward integration the old fashion way, one data point at a time. No animation, no graphics. Plotting charts on a line printer, one X at a time.

Men were men in those days.

I know you're not really interested but here is some example ODE solution work. It's fun (and fiddly) to put this together and I really like the way the documents look.

Down in this doc are some other pretty pictures.

You won't believe what happened next !!!

 It rained.

That doesn't sound impressive to you, does it? I understand that rain elsewhere is a somewhat common place happening. But for us here, where even the normally scare rain has been even sparser for the last four years, this is noteworthy. Even surprising.

But then what happened?

We bought a car.

I also understand that some of you purchase cars. In fact, I've heard that lots of people buy cars. But I think our purchasing a car is at an excitement level typical for click-bait articles. So you get to read about it.

Cyndi told me she no longer felt comfortable driving the truck because she couldn't simultaneously reach the brake / clutch and see over the dash. And since I'm going to rely on her driving me back home after my cataract surgery, I figured we needed to do something.

I don't know that I need cataract surgery but since everyone else in my family has had cataract surgery, I want to get in on the fun too. 

So we drove to Santa Fe to "just look" at some cars and try to find one that fits Cyndi's size. It turns out she fits into a compact car just fine. After a couple of dealers, we found ourselves at a Toyota dealer and a Corolla Hybrid AWD seemed just right. The dealer offered us $22k trade-in on the truck (which cost us $25k 12 years ago) and I said that was good but we hadn't brought a checkbook with us and would have to return at a later date. 

I guess the dealer figured that once we got home, we'd buy the car online and they didn't like that, so they "incentivized" us and also offered to drive up to Taos (70 miles one way) to pick up our check. Fine with us. We drove home in the new car.

Here is a comparison of the two vehicles. The pic of the truck was taken when it was shiny and new (and frankly it still looked like that ... at least after I washed it). Cyndi hasn't changed size in those years, so you can compare the two vehicles (btw, the Tacoma is considered a small truck here in the USofA).

So I said to myself "gee Paul, buying a car every 12 years is pretty frugal". Then I thought again and realized "maybe not". So I generated this list of cars I have purchased. This is just exactly what you've always wanted to know.

That is a car purchased about once every 4 years. About $5k per year in capital outlay. You can buy a lot of bus passes for that. I think the auto industry should thank us.

Why do we need 3 cars? We are 'mericans. That's why.

✅ Visit In-Laws

 Our semi-annual visit to Indiana is in progress. 

There is clearly a gravitational anomaly in Indiana as I find time passes very slowly around here.

But we were here in time for the solar eclipse. The eclipse caused panic here. The Governor declared a state of emergency 10 days before the eclipse. You see, Strangers have entered the state to view the eclipse. Strangers. Shudder.

The police forces loved the State of Emergency and have been in a frenzy handing out speeding tickets to out-of-staters.

The eclipse weather forecast was "mostly cloudy" but turned out to actually be "most clear". The Stranger Fear, the speeding tickets and the alleged cloud cover kept us at home 30 miles east of totality, so we enjoyed a nearly total eclipse from our driveway. It was fun.

That's a view of the early stages of the eclipse. That cloud moved away in a few minutes but This Was It for eclipse photos from me

Indiana is getting ready to hire a new Governor. Now Indiana is one of the least educated states in the US, has one of the highest drug abuse rates and is below average in the household income vs expense. So candidates for Governor have plenty of policy options to chose from.  I've seen ads for two candidates.

One is the current Lt Governor who calls herself "Governor" in her ads. Her main platform ... no, that's not right ... her only platform is to "Stop the Chinese". I guess some Chinese want to buy some Indiana property and jesus, who would let a Stranger invest in Indiana, let alone an Alien? She's also says it's time for Change, which is odd since her party has been in control of Indiana forever and, besides, what conservative wants Change. 

The other candidate is an Independent who's only platform is to Stop the Chinese. 

We have had to huddle in the basement twice so far due to tornadoes a few miles away. It snowed a couple of times and been 78 a couple of times. On the plus side, there hasn't been any mass shootings near by (so far).

I don't like it here.

There are a few bridges across the Ohio River here and the most used has been under re-construction for several years now (emergency about-to-fall-down repairs closed it for six months about 10 years ago). In the four weeks we were here and while the bridge is in the probably-never-get-done reconstruction, it was closed twice more for emergency repairs. Then two semis drove off the edge of it. This truck-over-the-edge has become a common occurrence here and I can only speculate that drivers who have dared and succeeded in crossing Indiana suddenly become faced with the ugly reality of entering Kentucky and loose all hope.

There must be plus side. It's always good to see the in-laws. Is there more? What else is there in Indiana?

Well, we went to the local hipster place to eat a $15 taco. And then we went to the chain hipster taco place and had two tacos for $8. Went to the local hipster asian redneck fusion place where I had ramen with pork belly, which had a base of sweet barbeque sauce with hominy in place of noodles and a side of corn cake. Now of course you can chide us for trying tacos and ramen here in Conformistan, but much to our shock, they all had Flavor. Even a bit of spiciness. Maybe not the "right" flavors, but flavor never-the-less. Maybe there is hope for the future of Indiana.

While here we did get the RV remodeled. "Red" did the job for us and I'm glad it was Red and not us. A nasty icky job but at least the inside is nice andclean and neat now. We like the minimalist ethos. Less to break and clean and actual room to turn around. 

We are rolling out of here in a couple of days and aiming for Taos. 

☝ Exiciting News !!!

 This is a 3-asterisk announcement. 3 out of 11. 

I am nearly back to blogger. For real.

My current site hosting contract ends in a month or two. And they raised their prices by about 700%.

And I am too cheap and my ego is too small to agree to that.

So I'm back to what is free and probably better anyway.

And I recently discovered tailscale and it fills the gap my command-line provider provided.

Tailscale is great. Please do not tell me it is a security risk. 

What to expect.

Not much. Not much at all. But who knows and it might be worth the ten seconds it takes to add me to your rss feed aggregator.

Meanwhile, I'm glad you re-found me.

Hugs

😘