Progress on the radio. (I actually built a working radio using chocolate bar wrappers, paper clips and small office supplies in my desk drawer.) I got it to resonate (tank) today. Some may say, no big deal. It is a big deal because I'm not assembling a Crystal Radio Kit here--a friend of mine did that kind of thing and all he was ever got good at was assembling kits. The idea was to understand the principle of each component, and to make a working model before replacing anything with a store-bought piece.
My terminology may not be exact, but nothing in the radio field really is, as I found out. By tank, I mean the combination of capacitor and coil is resonating on strong local stations. The proper size capacitor, in my terms, is two sheets of aluminum foil 13x12”. I predict several months before I can “tune” this tank circuit, and longer before I can build a diode.
[Author’s note: years later (2008) I found somebody had written a book on building things from office supplies, but they were the less techno-minded. You know, the bead curtain out of paper clips. This is also one of the rare instances that I let on I can do my whole day's office work by mid-morning, and the rest is spare time. Shhh, don't tell anybody.]
The Christmas bonuses came out this week, so I stopped in at the Diamond for happy hour, I get there late so everyone is already lit. There was a blonde, about 40, in a black pantsuit. Am I the only one who remembers pantsuits, you know, 1960s, hippie chicks? The one-zipper model that she would have to practically strip off to take a pee? I saw her out of the corner of my eye, but quickly picked up she must be a regular there. I don’t do regulars. So I commenced to cipherin’. I am calculating the possibility of putting an ATM at the office.
Some things are easy to find out. The average person takes $40 out each transaction. They do this three times a week, and often impulse buy with the first $5 to $10. There are (according to a database I happen to know a lot about), an average of 84 persons in the office each day. The nearest ATMs anyone would travel to are at least, time-wise, a dollar away. That’s Galloway, down to 36th, or all the way to Doral. I know that every time we have an office lunch, somebody is late because they have to stop for cash. I understand the law changed in 1996 that anyone can own an ATM. Like vending machines, I learned before I was 20, all the good locations are gone and the ads in the paper are scams.
Some things are not easy. One example is dealing with the dopeheads who sell ATMs. They are a sly and crooked bunch. The information I need is both the fixed and variable operating costs. Each place I contact will only give one figure or the other, depending on how they plan to bait you. I found reconditioned machines for as little as $3500, considerably down from the $14,000 when I last looked six years ago. Other places quote a “system” with 61 payments of $225. Coincidence? The truth must lie somewhere between. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten the blonde, patience already. I'll get back to her.
The two critical pieces I need are, what is the cost of using the ATM system? You know, Cirrus, Star, Plus. There seems to be some price-fixing here. What? Oh, of course, I meant “volume discounts”, heaven forbid I would say "price-fixing". The other item is turnaround time. I need to know exactly how long after the cash is dispensed from my machine until it is transferred to my account along with the usage fee. I need to know how soon I can use it to restock machine so that I can calculate my float. I plan to do this on a daily basis, at least at first. If it is like fifteen days, I just don’t have the cash to stock the machine. Credit is a last resort, but like Churchill once said, I’m not asking for gold, I’m asking for steel.
[Author's note: in the end I didn't place the ATM because I couldn't get a straight answer out of anyone. But I also know that a good used vending machine of any kind shouldn't cost more than that around six hundred bucks. I was to find out years later I was right about that when I was called out to fix a network of these machines. Florida is so full of con artists.]
The blonde finally came over and asked if she could borrow my ‘expertise’. Hmm, the trained observer is already having fun with this one. Forget the fact that I may have been the only man she’s seen in 20 years who didn’t hit on her, that I was the only person in the joint getting anything done. Maybe it was obvious that I was thinking deeply, although and but then, how would she know?
Expertise my eye. Yet I would have probably gone through with it except for one factor. There's a waitress who works there named Dolly whose husband is a regular. The guy is a total write off jerk face. And the blonde was on a first name basis with him. 40-year-old blondes in pantsuits don't hit on guys like me, as I don't look or act like a millionaire and looking intelligent counts for nothing around here. I just had to test if this was a setup, so I replied I’d forgotten my expertise in the trunk of my car.
AaainnKkkk! Wrong answer. She left. Fine, she wouldn’t last ten minutes in my world with that kind of attitude. So, I didn’t score. But neither did she, and after 40, it’s a buyer’s market, ladies. I stress again and again if I could give the women of the world any useful advice it would be to be extremely careful who you are even seen talking to. Real men don't care for women who are too popular.
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