Peregrinating
2017

January

1 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

My morning walk was called because of rain. I stepped out into a very light mist that was being driven horizontality by a strong wind. Walked the 100 yard or so to the Park restroom and when I came out it was in full bore rain mode and I got wet before regaining the protection of Desperado. Maybe this afternoon.

Not an auspicious start for the New Year but the weather guesser got it right so far. They think it will be mostly cloudy by this afternoon but will never get very warm with the high expected to be 54°. The other 9 days in the 10 Day Forecast are still looking good!

I spent a lot of time yesterday drawing Panel #25 and have just about wrapped it up. The balance of the day was devoted to reading "Power". I assume that the paper book was printed as I see it on Kindel which has the vast majority of 'footnotes' at the back of the book. Why editors do that I don't know but I hate it; a lot of paging back and forth.

A couple of passages from "Power" by Bertrand de Jouvenel that got me to thinking. This book was first published in 1952 in French with the translation that I am reading published in 1993 (I think). What Jouvenel had to say almost 70 years ago has withstood the test of time. Power/The State has grown more than even he would have thought possible.

The apparatus of a state is built by and for personal power. For the will of one man alone to be transmitted and exercised throughout a wide kingdom, transmission and execution must both be systematized and given the means of growth—in other words, bureaucracy, police, taxation. For monarchy this state apparatus is the natural and necessary instrument. But on society, too, its influence down the centuries is so great that, when at long last the monarch has vanished without disturbing it, its motive power will still be conceived of only as one will, though it is now the will of an abstract person who has taken the monarch's place. The mind's eye will see, for instance, the nation deciding and the apparatus of state executing its decisions...
The outward growth of Power has excited much comment, the inward growth astonishingly little. Insufficient attention has been given to the fact that any Power whatsoever looks on the mass it rules as an investment from which it can draw the resources needed by it for its purposes, or as a block of stone to be fashioned as it sees fit. To resume the likening of a nation to an individual, but without forgetting that it is really only the rulers who so look at it, the head aims continually at pressing more services from the body, and the brain at increasing its conscious control of the limbs. This characteristic of Power shows itself in concrete ways: in the in- creased budgets of which it disposes, and in the spawning of regulations which it imposes and of officials who see to their execution. Limiting ourselves to outward signs, have we ever seen a Power which, unlike the others, was not impelled by an inner urge to grow? That is not to say that every Power has been equally successful, or that the steady growth of expenditure, of legislation, and of officialdom is due to nothing but the impulse of Power. My point is that this impulse is immanent in every Power whatsoever.

As a result of the Progressive agenda, government now has greater power over our lives through its taxing and regulatory authority. This is what Progressives want, as long as those who benefit from government policies and those upon whom costs are imposed are chosen by the Progressives.
The increased scope and power of government was the explicit desire of Progressives. Now, the powerful government that Progressives created has fallen under the control of a democratically elected leader the Progressives despise.

2 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

It is a New Year, time for a new beginning.

Today marks the 7th month since I thought that Patches had figuratively died. For the first month I was an emotional wreck but there were two incidents in Dolores, CO that convinced me that I would not give her away - IF.

The two incidents involved her contact with people. The second one is still vivid in my memory. We were walking down the street and a man approached us and asked if Patches was friendly and could he pet her. I said sure and he did so for a couple of minutes and then as he left he said "Thank You, I needed that."

The IF was could she and I both be satisfied, if not happy, with her on leash ALL the time and NEVER approach another dog. We have been working hard on the 'reactive dog' issues that she has and she is getting better.

I have also had a number of conversations with other dog owners, some owned pit bulls, and from those conversations we are not doing so bad. There are other dogs and owners that are far worse. It is difficult to be a pit bull, or a pit bull look alike, or the owner of one in our society. The Ministry of Propaganda and the insurance industry has poisoned minds about the breed(s).

Since we have been here at this Park she has been off leash twice. The first time she ran for 1-2 miles and walked about a mile. During that walk-run she got a little close to the barbed wire fence and got a slight 12" cut along her upper side. Not a serious cut but when we went out the second time she was paying attention to the fence.

The second run-walk was 5 days ago and she probably ran 3-4 miles, maybe more because she was out of sight much of the time, and walked one. When we got back to Desperado she had trouble jumping up the steps and then could not jump up onto the couch. This is a sign that her hip dysplasia was causing her a lot of pain and she had overdone the running. I have had her take a daily baby aspirin since then and she seems better today.

So we are stuck with each other. I know that she is living a good life and I will do all I can to make sure that it continues. I need to stay as attentive for as long as I have her as I have been the past six months. If I reach the point where I am no longer that attentive then I need to consider giving her away again.

There were two rain storms yesterday. The first one cleared up around 10:00 and we went out and did our rain delayed walk. Then the second wave blew in and it started raining around noon. Cleared once more and we were able to do an afternoon walk also. It even got one degree above the expected 54° high but felt warmer with a clear sky and lots of sun.

I did a lot of Penrose tile drawing yesterday. Began placing the 'groups' that I have drawn on a HTML Canvas to form the pattern that I'm trying to replicate. That is working - somewhat. This reflection symmetry and fivefold rotational symmetry is a new game for me. Combine that with the problem of finding the right x,y coordinate where to place the group and it is a learning experience! I'll be back at it again today and for quite a few more days the way it has been going.

I always enjoy James Howard Kunstler's annual predictions for what is going to happen in the forthcoming year. He does not disappoint with this blog posting Forecast 2017: The Wheels Finally Come Off. I have only this quote from it "The bottom line is that President Donald Trump will be overwhelmed by a sea of financial troubles from the very get-go, and here’s why."

3 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I did a lot of re-coding on the Penrose drawing yesterday morning so there was no visual progress. What I was doing was writing the coding for the 'groups' as 'functions' which I can then use repeatedly. To draw a group now all I have to do is code the function name versus all of the coding. I also split a couple of groups because the thick and thin rhoms do not rotate the same when I need to rotate the group. I know this sounds confusing as hell but it will help me when/if I must come back to determine what I did and why I was doing it.

I also made each group a different color; this helps a lot when rotating a group. If there is overlap I can see it whereas it is not apparent if everything is the same color(s). I have also changed one group three times so far and have not used, and probably will not, one group. So I have made some progress although it does not look like it.

I don't know if it is NetWorx or Verizon but NetWorx claimed I used up my self imposed quota before 9:00 this morning. Did the same things that I do every morning, read the same blogs. This usually uses 30-50MB but today I have used 200MB and haven't posted this to my web site yet. Something is wrong and I suspect Verizon but know from past experience that contacting them is generally a waste of time.

These are tilings #33, #34 & #35 in the 3-uniform series which I am posting together because the identifying number[3⁶; 3⁴6; 3.6.3.6] is the same for each one.

4 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

The more that I drew on the Penrose design yesterday the more I then threw away that I had previously drawn. I was struggling with the 'overlap' issue where I would have what looked like a place for a group and then when I added another it would be overlapping what was already there. This defeated the purpose of building the groups to begin with.

Then I discovered, re-discovered, that the overlapping was not all bad it was just which group did I want to be the prominent one. This is still a problem when one of the groups is rotated. I have learned that I need to redraw that one group that I have re-drawn a number of times. I'm slowly learning!

Today was shopping at Olsen's again where I got everything that I needed plus the unsalted peanuts in the shell that I have wanted for the past two weeks. Then stopped at Granny's Kitchen on the way home and had their Huevos con Chorizo with the same poor home fries. Next week I'm getting beans!

Received my present from Amazon a couple days earlier than their earliest anticipated delivery. They had given me a 5-12 January 'window' for the Garmin Forerunner 10 to reach me. I plugged it in yesterday and had it charge during the night and gave it a try this morning.

It works much like my Timex but has much bigger numbers which makes it a lot easier to read while moving. I also like the way that all the data (time, distance, pace and calories) is shown on one screen vs Timex's multiple screens. Seems much more intuitive to use that the Garmin I had years ago or the Timex.

For our walk this morning I wore the Garmin and had the Timex in my pocket. At the end of the walk there was 0.01 miles difference between the two GPS watches. I'm very pleased so far. There are some other bells and whistles that I have not looked into using but it does what I wanted - records the distance that I walked and at what pace. I don't remember what my first Garmin cost nor the Timex but I think this Forerunner 10 was about 1/2 -3/4 their prices.

5 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I have found one thing about the Garmin GPS watch that I do not like versus the Timex. It does not automatically add my morning and afternoon walk together although I think it may be what I have done so I'll give it another try tomorrow. It also appears to take longer to connect with a GPS signal but that may have to do with where it was when I turned it on versus where the Timex was. Again, need to start them at the same time at the same place. Generally, I like it for what it is and for what I want in a GPS watch.

I think I have finally got a grasp on how to draw the Penrose design that was my goal. I am using these four 'groups' of rhombus as if they were each a tile and then place them to form the pattern.

There is some overlap but if it is a perfect overlap then it is not seen. There are also a few gaps remaining when the groups are fitted together but I can easily write the code for the rhombus to fill it. I made some good progress yesterday and now see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Obama is truly the great uniter. First he united the Arabs and Israelis in a repudiation of his Middle East policies, now he’s united Republicans and Democrats in a repudiation of his policies at home. Almost everywhere you look, the gap between Obama’s stirring rhetoric and his underwhelming accomplishments is immense. One of the biggest failures was his inability to make the Democrats competitive in every state. This stems from many things, but one is his apparent indifference to state government. He seems to think of the Federal government as the only level of government that really matters.

6 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I spent way too much time yesterday trying to get connected and set up with Garmin Connect. This web site allows me to upload the data from my new toy and then have a record of my daily walks. I think I have set up the account - finally.

This used up a lot of my valuable Verizon quota. When I switched to WIFI it was on and off for the rest of the day so I did not get much accomplished. I didn't try to do any Penrose drawing but finished the first two of the four 3-uniform series tilings. They were not very hard to draw but it took forever to do it because of the VERY slow WIFI. That situation continues today.

This morning I turned on the Garmin and the Timex at the same time and location and the Garmin loaded a GPS signal much faster. I think it begins to record distance sooner also which means that the Timex has been giving me short mile readings since I bought it. Maybe as much as 0.02 to 0.05 per day or maybe Garmin is giving me some extra.

Freed Reed has done it again with Trump to Build Death Camps for Trans-gendered People of Color: Will Deport All Woman - he has stirred up trouble. I quote only his closing.

One reason why Trump is so hated–and why he is President–is that he is an actual men–you know, like Killer Kowalski, Clint Eastwood, Marlboro Man, or Humphrey Bogart. This simply is not done among the house-broken nominal men of the media and the “elite,” and they don’t know how to handle it. Presidents? There was Bush II, asexual, a man without vibes. Obama, a pretty race hustler. Willy Bill Clinton, a slick Bubba with the I-feel-your-pain mixture of Oprah and Karo syrup that got him a lot of nookie–nothing wrong with that–but not masculine. All of the candidates except Trump were poll-sniffing remotely programmed ciphers.
Except Trump. He told all the pretty boys and mannish girls of the media, “Bite me.” This didn’t play well with plasticized viragos like Megyn Kelly–who, if she weren’t conventionally beautiful, would not have a job. Ever notice how many female anchors are at least pretty, and how few male reporters are handsome? There are plenty of first-rate female reporters, but they don’t get in front of cameras. This is reserved for bubble-headed babble blondes. Sex sells.
OK, OK, I’m stirring up trouble for the fun of it. I am a bad person. Thank God.

7 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I did manage to get the other two of the last four tilings in the 3-uniform series drawn yesterday but it was VERY frustrating. The WIFI is so slow, with repeated 'save' failures, but I was staying off of Verizon because I'm still catching up to my self imposed quota for this billing period. I'll have then available for viewing soon.

What I have finished and able to show now is Panel #25 from the stained glass patterns. These rhombus are not the same dimensions nor angles that I am using in the Penrose drawings but I was able to use a technique that I have developed for drawing them.


With another unexplainable big Verizon usage early today I will be trying to do more work on the Penrose drawing using WIFI. I expect that it will be difficult to accomplish much but when I get too frustrated I can always spend some time on the couch with "On Power".

The quote that I included below is from a short book The Ethics Of Redistribution by Bertrand de Jouvenel that was the published transcript of two Boutwood Lectures at Corpus Christi College in the autumn of 1949. I have been reading it off and on in .pdf format on my laptop (finished it yesterday) while also reading "Power" on my Paperwhite. He makes some of the same points in this book as in "Power" but with a different approach. It is a good book to read for an understanding of why 'inequality' of income is not all that bad and why the political solutions have been.

If the richer classes of our day do not benefit from such an attitude, it is because they do not seem excellent to the people of our day. The film-star or the crooner is not grudged the income that is grudged to the oil magnate, because the people appreciate the entertainer's accomplishment and not the entrepreneur's, and because the former's personality is liked and the latter's is not. They feel that consumption of the entertainer's income is itself an entertainment, while the capitalist's is not, and somehow think that what the entertainer enjoys is deliberately given by them while the capitalist's income is somehow filched from them.
The bourgeois has two deep convictions which lead to his undoing. He feels that he owes his income to no favor, but to his own, or his family's, efforts; and he feels that he is free to enjoy it in his own, generally secretive, way. This is precisely the reverse of the attitude which justifies exceptional income in the eyes of the people. They want to feel that exceptional income is their gift, and they demand that beneficiaries thereof shall make a gallant spectacle.<sup>4

4</sup> Another point perhaps deserves a brief mention. It may be held surprising that wealth differentials should be most bitterly resented in a market society, where fortunes accrue to those who have most promptly sensed and most adequately served the desires of the public. The "new rich" might be regarded with especial favor, having been hoisted to their position of vantage by the consumer's own appreciation of values. Yet the hierarchy which results from men's decisions as buyers seems to them as citizens the most inacceptable, and those superiorities which are the outcome of their daily behaviors are the least palatable. This offers ample food for thought, far beyond our subject.

8 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

WIFI was good to me yesterday. I finished the upper left quarter of the Penrose drawing after an hour or so in the morning and by the end of the day I had everything drawn except the right side 'gaps'. The reflection symmetry was my friend when doing the right side. I knew what the x,y coordinates were on the left side so it was very easy to locate them on the right.

So far today NetWorx/Verizon has been reporting a normal usage for my normal daily morning blog and News reading. The Penrose drawing does not use very many bytes although I save and open many times trying to get the drawing right.

I may finish a line drawing today and post a .png image of it tomorrow. There is a LOT of code involved and I don't want to repeatedly copy it and include it in my daily postings. The .png image will probably use up the same or more bytes but will take up far less space on the web input page. I plan on showing at least 3 versions of this drawing; a line drawing and two different colored versions. It is looking GOOD - I'm pleased!

Continuing to read "Power" which is rather slow going and a difficult read. I think I understand about half of what I am reading. The first 10-12 chapters have been a lot of history of how power/government developed since recorded history. A lot of European history and especially France. It would be a good book for anyone interested in history even if not de Jouvenel's theories on how 'power' developed.

History, we have seen, is the picture of a concentration of forces growing to the hand of a single person, called the state, which disposes, as it goes, of ever ampler resources, claims over the community ever wider rights, and tolerates less and less any authority existing outside itself. The state is command; it aims at being the organizer-in-chief of society, and at making its monopoly of this role ever more complete. We have seen how, on the other hand, various social authorities defend themselves against it, and set their rights in opposition to its rights, and their liberties, which are often of an anarchic or oppressive character, to its authority. Unceasing war has been waged between these two forces, between the interest calling itself general and interests avowing themselves private. Power has had its ups and downs, but, looking at the picture as a whole, it is one of continuous advance, an advance which is reflected in the stupendous growth of its instruments, its revenues, its armed forces, its police forces, and its capacity to make laws.

9 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

This is the Penrose rhombus tiling pattern that I have drawn, which is sometimes referred to as a Penrose P3. I am presenting it in what I consider its 'classic' form, as a line drawing, which can be found on many web sites. I used Penrose Tiling Quilt Patterns more than any other because the image size there was better than most plus there was this classic image and a colored one on the same page.

Tomorrow I will show you what my drawing looked like before I look the color out of it to show it as it appears today. I'll also be telling you more than you probably want to know about how I was able to draw it.

There are other patterns on that same web page that I have linked to above that I will be drawing in the days to come. I also want to do a Penrose P1 and P2 pattern, perhaps more than one of the P2s which is the more popular pattern. Although I have always been most intrigued by this P3.

The Garmin Connect web site offers much more than it can provide. There is a Progress Summary page that will not load in Firefox and when I asked on the Forum if it was me, Firefox or Garmin I got and answer that there are a number of problems with Firefox and Garmin Connect. Then yesterday afternoon my watch recorded an extra .25 miles for some reason and I could not edit the downloaded data in Garmin Connect. I may continue with my pen and paper.

This morning I connected to Verizon and then checked NetWorx after opening a few of my Daily blogs. The usage meter was flipping over like an odometer at 100mph. There is something happening that I can not explain and have very little confidence that Verizon will. When I switched to WIFI the NetWorx usage began to report what I usually see. So, I am back on WIFI again as I have been for most of the time these past 3-4 days.

The weather throughout the United States this past week end was nasty. Here I had to put up with a 66/39 on Saturday and then yesterday I did my afternoon walk in a t-shirt with the high at 78° and the low this morning was 56°. I was out there with no cap nor gloves. Pretty nice!

I have been reading "Into the Fourth Turning A Casey Research interview with Neil Howe, co-author of The Fourth Turning" in Adobe Reader as a .pdf file off and on for the past week. The interview was in 2009 so the Fourth Turning was in its early stages. I read the book in 1998 or 1999 as a 'new book' at the Reno library and thought it was great. This interview is just as good and still timely eight years later. Recommended reading!

We have seen that if history doesn’t provide a Crisis-catalyzing event, Fourth-Turning leaders will invent them in order to galvanize collective action and begin the process of reversing many of the Third-Turning attitudes. The culture begins to find a sense of purpose again, including propaganda that spurs people to coalesce around the same goal. Individualism gives way to a new sense of community. People begin to identify themselves with larger groups. We have seen this in previous Fourth Turnings, like the 1930s, which the historian Frederick Lewis Allen called the decade of community and belonging.

Group polarization works this way: When a group of people with the same opinion remains in a single room, that opinion moves inevitably to the extreme. Many tests have been done, with widely-varied groups, and it happens every time.
The more outgoing people in any group will always struggle to make their voices heard above the din. To be regarded, of course, one must have something different to say. And since everyone in the room already holds the same opinion, the logical move is to take the opinion a bit farther than it’s already gone. (Taking it away from the extreme would make you appear unfaithful to the group.)
As a result, people in self-contained groups get more and more polarized, and ever-harsher toward any groups they see as opponents.

10 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

Today was shopping day. Not a great day to go to Olsen's because they are stocking the shelves. The produce section was rather bare and the produce girl was not stocking until I was about ready to leave. I did get everything that I needed although it took a little more effort. Then stopped at Granny's for breakfast where I got the Huevos ala Mexicana and remembered to get beans rather than home fries.

Then pulled into my space at the Park and there were two guys digging up my water line. I had a conversation with the Park Manager yesterday and she said they would do the south row first and then my row. I said I would fill up with water when I got back from shopping this morning.

When I pulled in and started to get hooked up one of the guys told me to go park someplace else. There are a lot of spaces and why did I have to pull in where they were digging. I said "This is my home, I don't park someplace else just because you are digging". Complained to the Manager but I don't think it made any difference.

This is what my P3 drawing looked like when I finished it and before I removed all the color to show the pattern yesterday.

How did I draw it? First I drew the four 'Groups' shown on 5 January. Group #1 (Penrose Star), Group #2 (Penrose Sun) , Group #3 (I think of it as a Crown) & Group #4 (I think of it as a Turtle). On 5 January I colored these groups in the traditional manner with two colors but for my drawing purposes I colored all rhombus (thick and thin) within each Group the same color.

Having each Group a different color allowed me to see if I had overlap of Groups when I placed them on the HTML5 Canvas grid. All of the Groups individual rhombus were drawn referring to a central point (x,y) with a 'up' orientation or a starting point of 270°. I could then assign values to (x,y) and to 'degree' which would place the group where wanted it on the grid and rotate the Group to the angle needed.

Before moving on to how I determined what (x,y) & 'degree' values would be let me point out how overlap worked. You can see all of Group #1 (green) at the bottom center but it is overlapping the two Group #2s (red) on each side. Whereas Group #2 on the lower far right is overlapping Group #1 directly above it. When writing Javescript in Canvas the last line of code will draw over the top of anything drawn with prior code.

If you have read this far then you might as well continue. Those of you with mathematic, geometry and/or coding knowledge will get a laugh at how I determined the (x,y) locations. I now know better ways of doing what I have done but when I don't know what I'm are doing then heuristic techniques are employed. This is what I did.

First, the Canvas grid begins with location (0,0) in the upper left corner. The white square surrounding P3 is a Canvas that is 430x430 pixels so the center is at (215,215). That is where I placed the center of my first Group #2 with a 270° orientation.

Second, it is very easy to see that the Group #2 directly above that would be at location (215, 215-(the sum of 2 thick rhom long diameters and one side length)) and that it has been rotated 180°. Third, it is not so easy to see what the (x,y) location would be for the first Group #2 at the upper left of center would be.

That is where my heuristic comes into play. I draw a black line circle around the known location (215,215) with a radius equal to (the sum of 2 thick rhom long diameters and one side length). I then draw a very small white dot on the black line of the circle where I want to place the next Group. In the example that would be at 198°. I then have some Javascript that will compute what the (x,y) values are for that point on the circle and will 'print' them on the Canvas. I then write code using those values and in this example a degree value of 90°.

In that way I added Groups from known locations on the left side of the pattern. The right side was then very easy because of the reflective symmetry. The 'y' values were the same and the 'x' value could be easily computed using simple arithmetic.

11 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

This morning was laundry day once again. Got the wash cycle started after finishing our walk and before starting to cook breakfast. Then had it in the dry cycle while I was eating breakfast and done for another couple of weeks.

I have been doing my walks for this past week with both the old Timex and the new Garmin. The Garmin gave me a spurious 0.25 miles during one walk but the Timex has done that in the past also. Other than that the two watches were reporting virtually the same distance.

So, starting this morning the Garmin has become my official walk distance measuring device and the Timex has been put out to pasture. It will now be my night time clock because the backlighting works and my regular wristwatch time can not be seen in the dark.

This is the same pattern that I showed before as a line drawing then as I drew it. Now I show it colored in the traditional fashion using two colors one for the thick rhom and one for the thin.

I will probably show this pattern one more time as a line drawing with overlay lines showing some of the geometric shapes that are also to be found in the drawing.

I have found another quote from the "Fourth Turning Interview" that I think is spot on. I have said for years that one of my goals was to live long enough to become a burden on society and society would then probably kill me. Any of you that have bee receiving Social Security during the past 8 years know what kind of cost of living increases you have received. Well look at those years as being the 'good old days' because it is probably going to get worse.

Meanwhile the Millennials will emerge as the special generation. Everyone will want to sacrifice for their needs. And if Millennials face a real emergency and if their future is at risk -- particularly if they are actually getting shot at or are in harm’s way – there’s no way Boomers will be able to preserve their benefits. Not if preserving those benefits is seen as endangering the future of this special Millennial Generation of young adults.
Consequently, I think that in this Fourth Turning, we’ll see a re-tilting of the budget and our entire political policy away from the old and back to the young. This always happens during a Fourth Turning. Our policy biases move back towards the family, towards investing in the future, and towards institutional arrangements that are good for young people.

12 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

Not much happening with me. The same routine day planned with the exception that I am expecting a visitor later this morning. If that happens I'll have something to write about tomorrow. I have started drawing a Penrose P1 tiling but just getting into it.

This will be the last of the first Penrose P3 that I'll be showing. I will be drawing some more of them in the days to come but with some different patterns. This one shows some of the position relationships between the 'groups' that I used while drawing the pattern. I became aware of some of them as I was doing the drawing but only saw others after I had finished it.


The two green pentagons connect Group #1s, the two orange pentagons connect the vertex where two thin rhoms were formed as gaps and I drew them separately. The red pentagon connects Group #2s that have been rotated 90°. The other red lines form a decagon by connecting 10 of the other Group #2s. Interesting, and it all has some VERY advanced mathematics that explains it which I do not understand at all. I do enjoy the patterns however!

Bertrand de Jouvenel finally reaches the 18th and 19th century in his discussion "On Power" about 3/4 of the way through the book. He still provides a lot of European and French history from that time but what he has to say about democracy is more relevant to me than all the monarchs that he previously wrote about. This is the first of the quotes that I found to be thoughtful. He does not support the idea that diversity in a democracy makes it better for the people - just the opposite.

The royal will was, and was known to be, that of a crowned head, his favourite, or his minister; it was in that respect as human and personal as that of anyone else. The will of democratic Power goes by the name of general. It crushes each individual beneath the weight of the sum of the individuals represented by it; it oppresses each private interest in the name of a general interest which is incarnate in itself. The democratic fiction confers on the rulers the authority of the whole. It is the whole that both wills and acts. This personification of the whole is a great novelty in the Western world, and is a throwback to the world of the Greeks, from whom its inspiration comes. But the citizens of an ancient city state, being enclosed within its walls and having been conditioned by much the same education, showing in social standing differences that were but of degree, came much nearer to being a real whole than the people of an extensive nation, of various origins and traditions, and marked by a diversity of functions. This whole is not a fact, for all the care that is taken to break down every private formation and tradition in existence. It is a fiction, which it is sought the harder to accredit for being the title deed of Power.

13 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

My visitor yesterday was Glenn of the blog "To Simplify 2.0"; a saxophonist and composer that has toured Australia and New Zealand with the Glenn Miller International Orchestra. Not this year however. He and what he calls his "intergalactic spaceship", a 1988 Volkswagen Vanagon GL that he has virtually rebuilt from the frame up, are touring the good 'ol US of A. He has boondocked everywhere, including the east coast where he was this summer, as well as the Los Angeles area.

We had a good visit after being in occasional contact since out last face-to-face which I think was in April-May of 2015. Patches also got some attention - she was all over him.

There is a slight chance of rain today with continuing chances throughout the 10 Day forecast. Not happening this morning but from the look of the sky it might happen when we try to do our afternoon walk.

I made some good progress on the Penrose P1 tile drawing. I am drawing this pattern from the center outward as it appeared to be the approach. I could have also put together some 'groups' but this time I'm using "for loops" that draw individual prototile but do so with not much coding. I don't know which is easier but I think I'm learning more coding technique doing it this way.

Another quote from "On Power" that should be very understandable considering the presidential campaign that we have just gone through. The Donald is going to get this treatment for the next four years if someone does not kill him before his term is over. I think this country is in for some hard times these next 10 -15 years!

The faculty of reason may lie relatively unused in the majority of a people, but there is not a man anywhere who is incapable of emotion. And it is to the emotions, therefore, that appeal must be made. Rouse in your behalf trust, hope, and affection; rouse against your rival indignation, anger, and hatred—and success is yours. It is truly complete when a public meeting can be induced to cheer a speech which it cannot understand, and to greet the other side's reply with stampings of the feet. Its path of duty is marked out for it by the proceedings of the national assembly itself. The result is that good citizenship, so far from being awakened among those who are as yet without it, gets extinguished in those who already have it. To stifle the curiosity which may be aroused by an outstanding orator on the other side, to kill the desire for the knowledge which comes from an understanding of the arguments on both sides, to destroy the natural amiability which predisposes a man favourably to his neighbour, the chord of party loyalty is struck. To read the enemy's newspaper becomes a treason, no less than to attend his meetings except for the purpose of drowning his voice and afterwards confuting him with the help of a manual for hecklers. For the political battle is a war in the true sense. Baudelaire, even in his day, marvelled at the military jargon employed in it: "The advance guard of democracy, in the forefront of the battle for the republic, and others." The poet was right. The electors had been transformed into soldiers engaged in a campaign, the reason being that their leaders were out to take possession of Power...

Let one of these machines put more method into its organization and more cunning into its propaganda, let it boil down its doctrine still further into propositions which are at once simpler and falser, let it surpass its adversaries in insult, treachery, and brutality, let it once seize the coveted prey and, having seized it, never let it go— and there you have totalitarianism.

14 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I have my routines and one of them is to do monthly house cleaning a day or two before moving on to my next camp. That is usually every month, when I stay someplace for more than a month my routine is disrupted. Here it is my usual moving day and I have not cleaned house.

The downstairs maid, that is me, got busy this morning putting the house to rights while the lady of the house, that is Patches, lounged on the couch. I got the bathroom done and then paused for coffee before washing down the floor in kitchen and bath. I'll get the living room vacuumed before the day is over but will put off cleaning the cab.

These are tilings #36, #37, #38 & #39 the last four of 39 in the 3-uniform series. I am posting them together because the identifying number[3⁶; 3³4²; 4⁴] is the same for each one and although similar there are discernable differences.

15 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

My usual shopping day would have been tomorrow but last week the produce girl said that Monday was not a good day. So I went a day early and there was No Hearts of Romaine. Received her order on Saturday and sold out. I got everything else that I wanted so it was not all bad.

I had stopped at Granny's kitchen first this morning for breakfast knowing that Olsen's would not be open until 8:00. I got their Huevos con Tamale and beans. The Tamale came with a very tasty red sauce. What did not come was an order for another dozen tamales, the tamale lady has quit.

It tried to rain here 2-3 times yesterday but there was maybe a trace each time. The weather station in Ajo reported 0.10" but we did not get anything close to that. This morning there was a very low heavy cloud cover and when I came out of Olsen's this was a light mist. It looks like it could rain but the 'experts' give it -0-% chance.

A rather miserable weather day. We may not get to do our afternoon walk. I may also be on the couch more today trying to finish "On Power", it has been a bit of a slog.

16 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

It was a not very cold 44° this morning but felt colder than that. It was also at the dew point and when I finished our walk my beard was covered with dew. It is forecast to be warmer than yesterday for the next few days and then back down into the 50s during the weekend. We never did get any rain yesterday but it stayed gloomy all day. Lots of sun this morning so that is a good change.

In the Penrose P1 pattern, it appears that there are only four types of tiles. However to make the tiling non-periodic Penrose set color rules so the differently colored pentagons would be considered to be different types of tiles. This classic arrangement is non-periodic. A line drawing of the P1 would not show that of course.

There is another classic Penrose P1 pattern that I am going to try to draw before I move on to his P2 patterns which use kite and dart. There is not nearly as much helpful information on the web for drawing the P1s but I think I have found enough. I will be doing it with 'groups' as I did with the P3.

17 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

Colder this morning with the low at 38°. The weather guessers thought it would be in the low 40s as they do almost all of the 10 Day forecast. Those are Ajo Chamber of Commerce predictions, here in the real world we are probable going to be in the upper 30s.

I finishing drawing the 'groups' for the next Penrose P1 design. These are the six shapes that he used to tile the plane non-periodically. I think I have drawn them correctly but will not know until I try to piece them together to create the pattern. The black shape which I am calling the Alligator is my most doubtful one but if it does not fit then I re-draw it until it does.

The Establishment's fear and loathing is laughably obvious. Why else drum up the hysterical, absurd narrative that Russia is responsible for Trump's election? The entire media blitz was a transparent attempt to discredit the results of American democracy because the Insider unexpectedly lost. Now the Establishment--from academia to the C.I.A.--is in full-blown panic, because all their precious skims and scams are for the first time in decades, at risk of being throttled or reduced.
Trump isn't just a lightning rod for delusional Progressives who were happy to see their real-world fortunes erode away as long as the Insiders in charge kept muttering the desired symbolic speech acts; he is also a lightning rod for Insiders fearful that their Insider apple cart is about to be upended, and they might actually have to work for a living, or actually compete in the real world--something they know they are ill-prepared to survive.

18 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

Stanley stands at attention, always prepared to guard the palace. He started out as a needlepoint pattern on the web that I turned into a pixel art rendition. I used MSPaint to draw him and it was another learning experience. I wish I could save him without the white background but MSPaint does not support that. There are a number of other free pixel art software apps that do but I failed to get paint.net to install.

I'll put that off until I know for sure that this is something that I want to do. I found a web site that has 100s of free cross stitch charts that will provide me with plenty of opportunity to see if it is. I may also find that the pictures that I want to draw will also require that I draw the background as well. It is something new for me to try.

Stanley is drawn with a little less than 2,000 pixel if you subtract the white space around him. My next effort will be about this same size and I'll work up from there as my skills improve, I'm assuming they will, and I am enjoying the product of my time spent.

I imagine my reading "On Power" to be like the Gold Rush miners, I must look through a lot of gravel before I find any gold. I have found a couple nuggets that I understand and agree with therefore have quoted them.

That being so, when we ask where liberty is, "they" refer us to the ballots in our hands; over the vast machine which keeps us in subjection we have this one right: we, the ten- or twenty- or thirty-millionth of the sovereign, lost in the vast crowd of our fellows, can on occasion take a hand in setting the machine in motion. And that, "they" tell us, is our liberty. We lose it whenever an individual will takes sole possession of the machine: that is autocracy. We regain it when the right of giving the machine a periodical mass-impulsion is restored to us: that is democracy. This is all either misdealing or cheating. Liberty is something quite different. Its essence lies in our will not being subject to other human wills: in our will ruling alone over our actions, only being checked when it injures the basic, indispensable requirements of life in society...
Its specific interests make it the champion of a republic in which the order necessary for the maintenance of security is made compatible with the tolerance necessary for the practice of liberty. It is, as a class, so attuned to a regime of moderation that, wherever it flourishes, such a regime comes into being, and, whenever it disappears, such a regime sinks without trace. It is a well-known historical fact that when at Rome this class of the population had been decimated and proletarianized by a succession of wars, the Republic broke down. It is a no less safe generalization that its shipwreck is the proximate cause of modern despotisms. Tyrannies made their appearance in step with the inflation which destroyed the independence and security of middle-class liberalism.

Obama will enjoy the same historical prominence as Anthemius, Olybrius, Glycerius, Julius Nepos, and Romulus Augustulus, the last five emperors of the Western Roman Empire. Even Roosevelt’s reign will eventually be seen as just another governmental usurpation of power and abridgment of liberty. Nothing special, just what governments do and have done throughout history. Revolting against their arrogant overseers and rejecting Obama’s so-called legacy, the American electorate bestowed an improbable electoral victory on Donald Trump. It remains to be seen what he will do with it, but January 20 cannot come soon enough. Good riddance, Mr. Obama.

19 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I could hear a light rain on Desperado's roof this morning at about 5:00. By the time we got up I could not hear it any more and stepped out into a slight sprinkle. By the time we had gone a quarter of a mile it had turned into a slight rain and by the time we got back to Desperado it was a light rain again. We got wet! Walk called!

Maybe today will be the day that I can spend more time on the couch and finish "On Power". I see the light at the end of the tunnel and could do so today or tomorrow.

I drew a couple of rather easy stained glass panel drawings, #26 & #27, and put them on the same Canvas.

There are a few more that look to be relatively easy and then there are a lot that look complicated. I'll take them as they come; it is good to have a mix of things to draw and degrees of difficulty.

I made a lot of progress on the Penrose P1 drawing that used 'shapes' to tile the plane. I showed the shapes on 17 January but did not outline the components that went into making those shapes. After I began putting the shapes together to form the pattern that I was looking at on the web I decided to also show the outlines and like what is appearing even more than with just the shapes alone. The shapes still appear as their individual colors but I think the component outlines add to the overall 'look'. It is slow going but I'll finish soon.

Moving right along with the next cross stitch pattern converted to pixel art. It is nothing to get very excited about but then the quilt patterns that I drew at the first were not either. I'm hoping for great excitement to come. HA

20 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I have modified my shopping schedule once again to try and take advantage of when Olsen's receives their stock during the week. It almost worked out in my favor last trip and today I got everything that I wanted. I had a little shorter list than usual but none the less I got everything.

Granny's Kitchen for Huevos con Chorizo with beans; much better than their home fries. Then back into my space at the Park all hooked up and starting this posting by 9:00.

There was a heavy mist while we were doing our morning walk and while driving into Ajo. It now looks like it may clear but the weather guessers give it a 30% chance of rain and the high to be below 60°. Tomorrow will be more of the same with a Wind Advisory for tonight with gust of 50mph. I suspect that I'll still have the winds during my morning walk.

"On Power" was originally published in 1945 and the Review that I quoted from was written in 1974. There has been a lot of growth in Power since Bertrand De Jouvenel wrote it. The 1974 Review says that it was 'timely' then and I think even more so now. It was not an easy book for me to read not so much because of the author but due to my limited understanding. I did a lot of read and re-read as I went through it. I do recommend it, it would be of special interest to anyone that wants to know about European/French history.

The book is a broad-ranging study, using examples and illustrations drawn from virtually every aspect of the history of the West, from feudal times to our own day. There are five broad sections: “The Metaphysics of Power,” “Origins of Power,” “The Nature of Power,” “The State as Permanent Revolution,” “The Face of Power Changes, But Not Its Nature,” and “Limited Power or Unlimited Power?” And within these broad categories the author discusses such divergent topics as theories of sovereignty, the nature of revolutions, the growth of democracy, the breakdown of the feudal aristocracy, the development of absolute monarchy, the expansionist character of power, and power “as assailant of the social order.”...
In any case, On Power is a most profound work which digs deep into the nature of State authority and its growth, showing how the central authority in communities has come to almost unlimited power over the course of eight or nine centuries. And, needless to add, the subject is particularly timely today, in the aftermath of the Johnson and Nixon regimes, which have gotten some people at least superficially concerned with particular growths and abuses or power. De Jouvenel may help them to see things somewhat more in context, and his arguments should be carefully considered. - Review by Roy A. Childs, Jr. (1974)

21 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I needed to give Stanley a castle to guard and found this one in the cross stitch web site that I wrote about. This was much easier to draw because I had a much better chart to work from plus I had all that experience of drawing Stanley. I am now ready to move up to a little bigger drawing but not that much bigger and still remain rather simple. When doing this one I added the blue sky background which was just the cross stitch canvas as shown on the web site. I also added the gray border which I think turned out well plus I learned some things about sizing. I'm pleased!

The winds came just as predicted but the official gust speed was less than they had thought it would be but for me in Desperado I thought their 50mph forecast was right on. The 30% chance of rain happened off an on all afternoon and into the early evening until the wind blew the clouds away. A good rain it was for this area totaling 0.36".

It was also good that it let us do an afternoon walk. We did loops through the Park and the Casino parking lot to stay close to shelter however. It looked like it could start again and any time. Today is forecast to be about the same temperature with less wind and less chance of more rain. Looking good this morning!

Trump’s Declaration of War by Paul Craig Roberts is his take on The Donald's inauguration speech. He has been declaring war on the Establishment for over 18 months and they have tried everything that has worked so well in the past to no avail. He is now President. Oh what to do, what to do? Riddle me this Batman - from Roberts article with my emphasis.

We should ask ourselves why a 70 year old billionaire with flourishing businesses, a beautiful wife, and intelligent children is willing to give his final years to the extraordinary stress of being President with the stressful agenda of putting the government back in the hands of the American people. There is no doubt that Trump has made himself a target of assassination. The CIA is not going to give up and go away. Why would a person take on the grand restoration of America that Trump has declared when he could instead spend his remaining years enjoying himself immensely?

22 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

Barack gained the presidency by selling Hope & Change. He left office with very little to show for his Hope promise but he was VERY successful with the Change part of his promise. His biggest success was changing the federal debt from about $10 Trillion to almost $20 Trillion - now that is some Change. Can anyone tell me where all that money went? I do not see any tangible material changes in this country. Lots and lots of social change but $10 Trillion of borrowed money did not buy social change - or did it?

The Hope pixel art is about the same size as the previous two have been. This one had some angles, other than 90°, that the others did not have and the hint of some curves. The one that I am going to do next will have move curves. Then I will be moving up to slightly larger pieces.

Trump! How did this happen? by Brendan O'Neill has been posted all over the alt-News blog sites so I might as well post it in its entirety. O'Neill is the editor of Spiked and a columnist for "The Australian" and "The Big Issue" but posts on many other on-line sites. He is not a fan of The Donald, has written some cutting articles about him, but he does understand WHY he was elected - it was not because of the Russians.

It happened because you banned super-size sodas. And smoking in parks. And offensive ideas on campus. Because you branded people who oppose gay marriage ‘homophobic’, and people unsure about immigration ‘racist’.
Because you treated owning a gun and never having eaten quinoa as signifiers of fascism. Because you thought correcting people’s attitudes was more important than finding them jobs. Because you turned ‘white man’ from a description into an insult. Because you used slurs like ‘denier’ and ‘dangerous’ against anyone who doesn’t share your eco-pieties.
Because you treated dissent as hate speech and criticism of Obama as extremism. Because you talked more about gender-neutral toilets than about home repossessions. Because you beatified Caitlyn Jenner. Because you policed people’s language, rubbished their parenting skills, took the piss out of their beliefs.
Because you cried when someone mocked the Koran but laughed when they mocked the Bible. Because you said criticising Islam is Islamophobia. Because you kept telling people, ‘You can’t think that, you can’t say that, you can’t do that.’
Because you turned politics from something done by and for people to something done to them, for their own good. Because you treated people like trash. And people don’t like being treated like trash. Trump happened because of you.

23 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

The day started very well with a low temperature of 53° for our morning walk. Then the wind started to pick up, the temperature did not and the clouds started to roll in with a forecasted 30% chance of rain this afternoon. Our walk is threatened again.

A good day to get some more breakfast meals prepared. More time on the couch with my Paperwhite and Patches. I finished another FEE book last night and have just started the second in the "Prejudices" series by Mencken. A couple more books and I'll have my download file cleaned up and can start looking for more.

This in the second P1 pattern that I can find on the web. This one and the first that showed are the only two that I have found. They may look different because of coloring but I have found only two patterns. As suspected the black alligator that I showed on 17 January 2017 was drawn wrong. It is now correct and I changed the color to gray so the outlines of the component shapes that were used to draw it are shown.

This pattern is usually shown with only the groups tiled and the individual component are not shown. I think it is more interesting and looks better when they are shown so that is what I have done. The group shapes are still there in the individual colors.

I have now moved on to the Pendrose P2 patterns that use Kites and Darts. I have been having a difficult time getting my mind wrapped around how to draw the groups that are defined at a vertex like I did for the P3s. Maybe I need a rest and come back to the fight later.

James Howard Kunstler gives President Trump only a few months in office before he is taken out in his blog postingHe Is Risen… But For How Long?. But after making the case that President Trump doesn't have a chance of doing what he has promised he closes with a paragraph that sounds much like what Brendan O'Neill has said (posted yesterday).

Don’t forget that it was the dismal failure of Democratic “progressive” politics that gave us Trump. His infantile lies and foolish tweets were made possible by a mendacious political culture that excuses illegal immigrants as “the undocumented,” refuses to identify radical Islamic terror by name, shuts down free speech on campus, made Michael Brown of Ferguson a secular saint, claims that there’s no biological basis for gender, and allowed Wall Street to pound the American middle class down a rat hole like so much sand.

24 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I thought we could sneak in our afternoon walk but got caught. It started raining off and on around noon yesterday and we had a hard rain for 30 minutes before our usual walking time. When it quit I thought we could get in our walk before more came in from the southwest which is the direction that most of the storm had come from. We made it to the Casino parking lot before it started to sprinkle with a solid wall of rain moving in from the southeast. Make it back to Desperado and got only a little wet.

The official reading for rain in Ajo was 0.04" but I know we got more than that. Don't know how much but there was standing water that equaled the last storm when Ajo reported 0.36". The high did get up over 60 yesterday but just, the next 5 days are all forecast to be below that. No more rain expected and maybe back into the low 70s by next month.

This is another of the "Essential" books published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). I did not like this one very much and do not blame Hayek as much as I do the FEE. If they want people to read more of Hayek's writing the selections that they made for this book are not likely to do it. One of them was his Nobel prize acceptance speech which was a big turn off for me. This is what they have to say in the book promo.

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) was probably the most prodigious classical liberal scholar of the 20th century. Though his 1974 Nobel Prize was in Economic Science, his scholarly endeavors extended well beyond economics. He published 130 articles and twenty-five books on topics ranging from technical economics to theoretical psychology, from political philosophy to legal anthropology, and from the philosophy of science to the history of ideas. Hayek was no mere dabbler; he was an accomplished scholar in each of these fields of inquiry. He made major contributions to our understanding in at least three different areas—government intervention, economic calculation under socialism, and development of the social structure. It is unlikely that we will see the likes of such a wide-ranging scholar of the human sciences again.

On 21 January I posted a link to a blog posting by Paul Craig Roberts that asked the question: Why would The Donald want to be president? Dr. Michael Hurd has provided one answer in his blog posting that was published at NewsMax. Trump Is Genuine, Which Is Why He Won tells not only why he won but also why he wanted to.

The only thing that could possibly motivate Donald Trump to want to be president is that he actually means what he says. And we’re about to find out just how true that is...
I believe that Donald Trump is, indeed, in this for himself. Why? Because if you truly love America, then "yourself" and your country are one and the same thing.

25 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

This is the last of the 'small' pixel art subjects that I have found on the cross stitch web site. I may do a larger one from that site but have found a pixel tutorial that I want to spend some time reading before I proceed. MSPaint can do what I think I want to do but it has a lot of limitations. The biggest one is the color pallet which is not only limited but the colors available are not of my liking. It will allow custom colors to be added but with not save them. When you close MSPaint all the custom colors are lost and when you re-open and want to draw more then the custom colors must be added again.

I looked at paint.net again and could not install it. I found more than one posting on the Web that I am not alone in not being able to do so. I have read some about GIMP, FREE software, that does much the same things that Photoshop does. It also does what MSPaint does and the pixel tutorial that I have found uses it. I'll make the decision to install GIMP or not when I finish reading the tutorial and more about it.

If it were baseball hiting .500 would be really good. That is what I managed yesterday. I was able to dump holding tanks and take on fresh water. I must say that the new water faucets that the Park had installed are great.

Struck out with the GIMP install although I did get farther along than when I tried to install pain.net. With GIMP the download went fine but so did paint.net. Then when I clicked on the setup file it did give me a Setup screen and when I clicked Install it went through the motions and said that it had been installed. I then clicked Finish which I thought would open the program to be used but nothing happened.

I don't think this is going to work. If I am not smart enough to install the damn program how can I even think I'll be smart enough to learn how to use it.

Well, I did the install again and must be insane because I got the same results. The screen that has the Finish button on it says to click on the 'shortcut' but I saw no such thing. Went into the Windows files and found some GIMP Application files and started clicking on those and what do you know the program opened. Not only did it open but a 'shortcut' icon appeared on my task bar which I promptly pinned in place.

Now the fun begins. If it was this difficult for me to get the program installed I do not look forward to trying to lean how to use it. I'm not the sharpest tool in the box but not the dullest either - it should not be this difficult.

26 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

The official Ajo weather report has the low at 35° this morning but I saw frost on car windows that required scrapping. You might call that ice and it forms when the temperature is freezing and that is what it felt like here. The forecast has been revised with the next 3 days to be below 40 but still not freezing - I don't believe it. I do want to believe that starting Monday the high temperature will be back in the low 70s but I think these are Chamber of Commerce predictions.

I didn't use up much of my Verizon daily quota yesterday but I was all over the Internet looking for help using GIMP. I probably spent 2-3 hours just getting the Drawing Tools and the Drawing Canvas set up like I want them - for now. I will probably change them as time goes by but the default was not usable. Not by me anyway. Perhaps it looks different with other browsers but it was terrible with Firefox.

I then spent another 2-3 hours drawing the start of a pixel picture. Drew it more than once and threw it away when I could not find a way to correct what I had done. I learned a few things along the way but have more questions than answers at this point.

I'll be back at it today and hope to make some progress. The tutorial that I read was rather short and did not help very much. The GIMP users manual is also of not much use to me. I'm sure it will be helpful after I understand how to use the program because then I will understand what they are writing about. Now I understand almost nothing that I read.

I did finish drawing the shapes that will be used for the Penrose P2 patterns; the two shapes are the Kite (left) and the Dart (right) which if they were put together would form a thick rhombus.

I will probably not be using these groupings when I start to draw the pattern but they are the seven ways that the kite and dart can meet at a vertex. This is same concept that I showed for the vertex groups that the thick and thin rhombus formed. I had a much easier time drawing them than I did these using the kite and dart. Maybe I'll get better at it with more practice? The math geeks have given these names whereas they did not for the rhombus. From left to right first row: Ace, Deuce, Jack, Queen second row: King, Star, Sun.

27 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

It was about the same low temperature in Ajo as yesterday. I think it was near freezing here but there was a slight wind and no frost had formed. I went to Olsen's again for groceries and then back to Granny's Kitchen for breakfast. When I left there I noticed that the wind had picked up some and while getting hooked back up in my space it felt really cold.

Checked Wearther Underground for Ajo and the Wind Chill was lower at 9:00 than their low temperature had been. I'm sure that was true here also. Got the Wave 6 working as soon as I could. It may stay on for most of this morning with the expected high to be only 55°, the same as yesterday. Desperado warms up in the afternoon IF there is sun even in those lower temperatures but it takes some time.

I got a little bit more done with my first GIMP drawing. The learning curve is rather steep however. I want to Copy and Paste and never did accomplish that simple process. Or I did, but after Pasting I could not do anything else, the Selection option had me frozen in that mode and I had to reverse everything.

I also got started on the Penrose P2 pattern. There are 3-4 of them that I want to do. This first one is called the Infinite Sun which is said to tile the plane to infinity. I won't be doing that big of a drawing but will make it large enough that the pattern will appear.

28 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I did some more drawing in GIMP and some more throwing away. I'm making some progress but not much. I'm doing a lot better with the Penrose P2 pattern but it is slow going. I would have been further along but I spent more time than needed yesterday trying to write some 'good code'.

I could have drawn what I wanted by writing a lot of lines of code but wanted to do it with a For Loop inside a For Loop. That would mean that I would only write 10 lines of code rather than 50 or more to draw the same shapes. This is not all about the drawing there is also the Javascript aspect to this learning process. I finally did it, now if I can only remember how when I want to do it again. HA

I liked the second in the series of Prejudice more than the first. There is included a fairly long chapter devoted to Teddy Roosevelt that does not read like anything I have ever found in history books nor one of the biographies that I have read years ago. He has multiple chapters on Prohibition which support what Will Rogers has said but Mencken does it with more verve. It is the second half of the book that I think is the best with the first half devoted to literary criticism again which almost all of the first in the series was. There are six books in the series but I found only one more as a free download. I'll get to it soon and then look for other books by Mencken.

In the six volumes of Prejudices (1919-1927), Mencken attacked what he felt to be American provincialism and hypocrisy, and championed writers and thinkers he saw as harbingers of a new candor and maturity. Laced with savage humor and delighting in verbal play, Mencken's prose remains a one-of-a-kind roller coaster ride over a staggering range of thematic territory: literature and journalism, politics and religion, sex and marriage, food and drink, music and painting, the absurdities of Prohibition and the dismal state of American higher education, and the relative merits of Baltimore and New York. - From the Overview in Barns & Noble

I find it interesting how little things have changed in the last 80-100 years. That is why I like Will Rogers weekly articles so much. Mencken writes about the character and behavior of people at his time and comments that it had not changed for 100s of years. I read that now and nothing has changed. I pulled a quote as an example.

Of all actors, the most offensive to the higher cerebral centers is the one who pretends to intellectuality. His alleged intelligence, of course, is always purely imaginary: no man of genuinely superior intelligence has ever been an actor. Even supposing a young man of appreciable mental powers to be lured upon the stage, as philosophers are occasionally lured into bordellos, his mind would be inevitably and almost immediately destroyed by the gaudy nonsense issuing from his mouth every night. That nonsense enters into the very fiber of the actor. He becomes a grotesque boiling down of all the preposterous characters that he has ever impersonated. Their characteristics are seen in his manner, in his reactions to stimuli, in his point of view. He becomes a walking artificiality, a strutting dummy, a thematic catalogue of imbecilities.

29 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

Warmer this morning, above 40°, and the weather haruspices have divined the entire 10 Day Forecast to have high temperatures in the 70s and lows in the 40. Maybe winter is over in Why?

A rather nothing day for me. I will be trying to finish the Penrose P2 pattern drawing but have become stuck again. I could stop now since I have reached a point where I do show the pattern but want to 'tile the plane' that I have selected. This is one of the most complex drawing/pattern that I have coded in what I consider the 'right' way. I see how to do it as I have in the past by finding the x,y coordinates and placing a group of shapes there but I'm trying to do it all with Javascript 'arc coding' from the Center and For Loops within For Loops. Difficult!

I also have the GIMP drawing still underway. I'm making progress there and learning some things. I'm not sure where this might lead me but I'll keep plugging along.

Then there is the new book that I have started on Paperwhite that needs to be read. With walks to be done. What a life!

30 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

I completed the repeating Sun in the Infinite Sun Penrose pattern yesterday morning where I had been stuck. But that just created 'holes' in the overall pattern that had me stymied all afternoon. Went to sleep think about them and woke up thinking about them.

There are 5 'holes' and they are symmetrical. They also follow the five fold symmetry of all Penrose patterns so I am reasonably sure that what I have drawn is correct. The good thing is since they are symmetrical IF I can discover how to fill one of them then the other 4 will be very easy to do.

But first on the list today is to get next month's Will Rogers weekly articles copied and formatted. This is something that I know how to do so maybe success at this will carry over to filling the "holes".

A very nice 45° this morning and the weather guys just missed the forecast 70 by fractions. I had on my wool shirt jacket this morning rather than the capote of the past week. I was also able to do yesterday's afternoon walk with t-shirt and windbreaker. I may be out there today with just t-shirt IF the guess of 75° comes true.

I have very little to say about President Trump's Travel Ban Executive Order other than he said he would do it during the presidential campaign. He was elected and he has done it - another sign that he is NOT a politician. He can lie all he wants about how many people watched his inauguration, who cares! What I care about is that he does what he says he will!

A travel ban may not be such a bad idea.
"To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength ." - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
The same day he said that there were six men killed and nineteen people wounded, in a shooting during evening prayers in Quebec City. It has not been proved to be a case of Sunni versus Shia, and probably will never be told if it is, but one of the shooters had a Muslim name. I think President Trump needs to watch his back, i.e. Canada, if their Prime Minister is going to open the doors as did Merkel in Germany.

President Trump also signed an executive action to revoke two regulations for every one enacted or a “one in, two out” plan. Federal agencies will need to revoke two regulations for every new regulation they request, and the White House will review the proposal, according to administration officials. He promised that he would do this during the campaign as well - he did it!

31 January
Hickiwan Trails RV Park
Why, AZ

After trying to fill the 'holes' some more yesterday morning and failing I went back on-line looking for a picture of an Infinite Sun Penrose tiling and found one that I had avoided in the past. It required that open Flash which uses up a lot of my bandwidth quota. I bit the bullet and opened it only to find a picture that showed I had made a mistake.

I then threw away a lot, a lot of coding and regrouped. I'll be working on it some more today but did nothing more yesterday. Too disheartened! I got started on it again this morning and have spent a couple hours with not much to show for the effort. This is a tough one. Maybe next month?

I finished getting next month's Will Rogers weekly articles ready. Then spent some time drawing in GIMP after doing our afternoon walk. Also made good progress on the last "Essential" book from FEE. Maybe finish it today, certainly by tomorrow, then one more Menken book and I'll have my download list cleared and I can start over.