2024 May - 5% diary

It's a diary of my normal life, the 5%. Just posting my replies to the monthly newsletter questions between the family and cousins. Dragon comments are after, "in the record".

David --  

The World Baseball Classic is huge. It happened in March of 2023 and one of the game sites was Phoenix. Here is an explanation about the WBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXhsA5fpaXw&t=372s

What is your opinion of the WBC? This is how baseball should be. Fan being excited versus stuffing their face. And now they have speed up the game. Yes it is even better now. 

Why are the USA fans so quiet compared to the other fan base? Well it hard to hold an beer and jump up and down and shout. 

Here is a video of the Dominican fans cheering for their team.

Should baseball be a part of the Olympics? I don’t know. As long as there is a world competition like the World Cup, I could do with it being out. 

Why do you think that Japan is now making the best baseball players now? We Americans forgot to appreciate baseball. An example of what I mean is in manufacturing. During WW2, the USA was a power house in manufacturing supplying ⅔ off the weapons used by the allies to defeat German. To help Japan rebuild the USA sent Dr Deming to rebuild the Japanese industry. Meanwhile the USA gradually forgot how to build stuff, to the point we stop building stuff and let other nations do it. Now move forward to the year 2000 where my last job at work was to be the continuous improvement facilitator at S&C Electric. My job was to bring the manufacturing excellence of Japanese industry to our company. The very manufacturing processes that we taught Japan and the USA forgot. The irony of it all has never been lost on me.

  

 

So here we are now with baseball. A sport we taught the world and took it for granted. Think about it. The highest paid athlete is a Japanese baseball player,  Shohei Ohtani. Shohei is a base stealing-home run hitting-pitcher. That is not a thing in American baseball. Pitchers pitch. Brutes hit home runs. And nimble players steal bases. Seriously, a base stealing-home run hitting pitcher should not exist. The MBL made a special rule just for Shohei, the Ohtani rule. Watch the LA v. SF for home run hit. Watch LA v. SD for his base stealing speed. I highly recommend watching the LA Dodger highlights to see the impossible in baseball.  Shohei home runs so far.  

In the record,  shoulder avatars are at work for those perfect hits, shots, or throws.

 

 

 

 

 
Spring is here. What is your favorite flower to look at? Oxalis pes-caprae, a.k.a. Sour grass. See short video.

What is your favorite flower to smell? It has to be roses and all of their different scents.
If you are a garden person, what is your favorite flower to plant? None. I let nature do that work. I tend to kill plants.
Is spring cleaning a thing that you do, what is it that you do? De-mold that place. Mold grow on metal furniture in a basement.
What would it take for you to give up your car? As mentioned in the last newsletter, make transportation free. I want my electric cart or bike to get around. For long trips give me the train or plane.
Could you give up grocery shopping if the delivery was free? Yeah, I think I could. I tend to want to shop for sales but it would be listed online.
Berkeley has a tool lending library, could you give up owning tools if you could borrow them for free? Yes, but it needs to be closer to me.

Could you give up owning paint at your home if you could borrow the paint tools and be able to return the leftover paint to the store for a refund? This is yet another thing that has advanced. There are better less lethal paints now available. And the brushes and roller have improved. Yay, I don’t need to own paint or paint supplies. And it is easy to recycle. See pic.
I have been to the sister house in Missouri several times and there are no fences to divide up the backyards. Would you give up your backyard if it became a common space for a community garden or walking path or dog park ? Any suggestions for the common space? We have the 900 Shattuck block earthquake shed in our backyard.
And I have lots of walking path around me. I used to take the kids on walks around the neighborhood all the time. See pic.

Other “do I need to own it”: The little free library is an excellent end use of books, which have loss all their value once you have it. And it is local. There is one two houses down from my house. The science mag I get as a gift goes into the little library after I read them. Why I don’t want to own anything: Technology keeps improving things. I don’t have to own it, but I would like to have access to the latest and greatest. Perhaps if there was a tool lending library on the 900 Shattuck block, sure I would give up my tools. But only if it had the latest and greatest tools. Technology improvements are insane. There are tools I just bought that are now out of date.
Let us know what is happening in your life? Fences. One side of the yard has a fence while the other has a common walkway between the houses. Fences are a pain. A fence with your neighbors brick stairs that are falling apart and they are blaming you for it is a test of patience. A fence that is now causing you to fight with your neighbor to bring you to the point of building a retaining wall at the bottom to solve both of your problems. Yay, I had to let it go and go back to the problem solving which is what I do best. You see, the neighbor needed a edge to build his brick steps against and I needed the lower fence gone to plant a vine to grow on the fence. Problem solved. Now to do the work. 

 

 

Steps: Pin fence post. Cut post. Bracket post. Drill cement. Add rebar. Form. Pour cement. Nail bracket. Post is done. Mind you the retaining wall wood was so close to the bracket we had to cut carriage bolts (see vid) and put nuts on both sides.  Now the wall. Tie vertical rebar. Cut plywood form. Stake form. Pour cement. Water wall for a week 2-3 times a day. Take off form. Remove post pin wood. Rinse and repeat for next half. Done.  

 

Update: