Normally I wait to the end of the day and compile my thoughts for the daily dose and then bang it out all at once, but that is not the case in this instance. This daily dose is being segmented for the ease of the old man who puts it together, segment number 1, or “numero uno” for some of us, is about the pinewood derby race that Shortie was entered in on Saturday.
This event was Shortie’s second pinewood derby, last year she had a nice car and did the majority of the work herself; the car was named “who cut the cheese?” She cut the wooden block the cars are made from on a 45 degree angle length wise and drilled a bunch of different size holes in it to make it look like a wedge of swiss cheese. It won an award for most creative, it did not race real well but it did look good.
This year her car actually resembled a car, the judges actually thought it was “futuristic” looking evidently; she won the award for most futuristic looking entry. The weights on the top of the car evidently resembled solar panels I guess, or pale blue paint must be going to be big in the future.
The actual division she raced in was Division 2 and there were close to the 30 entries in that division. Her car was competitive and she actually even won one of her heat races. Each car got to race a total of four times down the track, once in each lane. The track is about 30 feet long from the start to finish line, and then there is a graduated incline that stops the cars that is about six feet long or so. Her finishes were, 3 , 3, 1, 2 so it showed she was competitive. The placing though means nothing as far as track finishes, it is a race against the clock and the time from each race is added to give a total elapsed time which determines the placing.
The timing system is pretty darn precise; it measures the time down to tens of thousandths of a second. That would be four digits to the right of the decimal point for you folks who are not familiar with fractions. Only the top four in each in division get invited back for the finals between all three divisions. Shortie wasn’t even close to making the top four, she placed tenth in the elapsed time standings, which was better than I would have predicted based on the track finishes.
All in all she was happy that her car wasn’t last each time down the track, that chunk of cheese last year was not a fast car. Maybe next year will be her year; we’ll just have to see. However, I am not going to let her forget about this and end up sticking me with work, the next time I go by the hobby shop I’m picking up her 2019 entry. It might be the best time to build the new one for ‘19 while the ideas from the ‘18 race are fresh on our minds.
Enough about the racing let talk steemit for a little bit. I haven’t been able to spend as much time as I would like to curating posts this last month or so has been extremely busy in both work and family life. I wrote the first portion of this daily dose right when we got back from the races and promptly parked my butt on the couch to catch a little NCAA basketball tourney action and play a little SPL poker. My poker playing was poorly executed today, too tired to even care about the game, as soon as I exited the game, my eyes closed and I was out for a six hour nap.
I never even saw any of the basketball games, but the nap was much needed; now it will be a challenge to get to sleep tonight. Between the recent time change and the nap I pretty much have screwed up my body clock for a few days now for sure.
Speaking of screwed up; and this what I was really trying to get too, regarding my steemit comment up voting.
I don’t have the SBD of 500 or more that steemit requires a person to have in order to have the “official” slider thing to adjust the % power of my up vote. I do have some “add on” bootleg slider from an outfit named Tamper Monkey, appropriately named I might add, that I use to help stretch my voting power.
The Tamper Monkey one works like it is designed to most of the time, the qualifying word is “most” as in not “all” of the time. I try to reward people who engage my posts with good meaningful comments, even though my full vote is now only worth 4 cents, I at least try and spread a penny or two around so your “two cents worth” of comment gets two cents.
The thing with the TM slider is you have to click the up-vote arrow on the post to activate the TM slider, then the slider appears and you can adjust the percentage of the vote, after that you click the up-vote clicker and record the up vote. It is pretty simple and works pretty well most of the time. When it doesn’t work properly it can sometimes make me look like an idiot or someone who plays some favorites with the voting power. Sometimes when TM is evidently resting it doesn’t react to the first click of the up vote button, and that results in a full power up vote being recorded on the comment.
If you have taken the time to leave a meaningful with my post and get a minimal amount up vote and then happen to see another comment that has what appears to be not as much thought or fewer words and it has double the amount from my up vote you can pretty much rest assured that the TM slider was asleep at the wheel. I could down vote my up vote and try and redo the up vote but then that is just wasting more reward pool funds. I choose to just let it stand the way it happens, so it is kind of like playing the lottery when using the TM slider, sometimes you are a winner and sometimes you lose.
Trust though that each comment I would love to up vote at 100% even the two or three word comments, because there are several of you who I have known long enough to know that those few words cover what needs to be said. I have learned that after a time or two if the TM slider is not responding that if I reboot the computer it seems to come back to life and works properly, so if you are using the Tamper Monkey slider and have experienced the same issue as I; give the reboot a try.
Lastly, Shortie has one week left to go on reaching her goal of 1,000 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies sold, she currently has 824 boxes sold and paid for; so it is going to be right down to the wire on her making her goal. She has a pretty full schedule of cookie booths this last week so hopefully she can make it, 176 more is possible but the weather will play a big part in it for sure, the booths don’t do well in the rain and there is some rain in the forecast. So, if you don’t mind, say a little prayer for her that the weather cooperates and she has a fair chance at making it.
