March 31, 2005

          This is the beach near Hollywood. I was over there for an hour.

           [Author’s note: this is one of the earliest mentions of the “shop”. I do not recall if that is a referral to the same computer shop on Hollywood Blvd, but I think it may be.]

           First quarter finished, and I’m still back in school. I’m taking the scanner in today to see why the thing won’t connect. Probably that scuzzy cable which I have no method of testing. Which is frustrating because I can test anything. I need a second cable or some expensive gear. As soon as I get it, remember there is a fairly large tub full of pictures that need to be scanned. Some as early as when I was fourteen years old and combed my hair so it would look (from a distance) like I had sideburns. I never wanted sideburns, but people who would otherwise have bitched that I had long hair thought I was really dumb if I thought I was fooling them. I have not even gotten to the slides. These are several more trays of rather expensive shots from around Asia, mostly Thailand. I actually lugged a $300 35mm SLR around in those days. Then, it sat on the shelf for years when I found out it also required a $300 sealed case to take it on vacation (or the shutter would rust). What a rip-off that was. Give me digital any day.

           [Author’s note 2021: I was past the shop last week on my way to the club meetup. I saw a small orange sign in the door of the old shop, but for the most part it has been vacant since we left, what, some ten years ago anyway. The boring coffee shop and the Korean store are still open, but how, I don't know. Money laundering? That's the shop the landlady tried to raise the rent from $800 to $3,000 using the old CAM-clause trick.]

           Which is the focus this week, getting the system to the next level. Didn’t I warn all my cronies that this was going to take six months and a thousand dollars? People who say they got some cheap software together and started producing video are leaving out a major part of the story. For example, Sam (JZ’s brother) does it, but has a whole library of 8mm footage from the family vaults. That makes production considerably easier. I am also told that scanning photos is a tricky art that has to be learned and according to at least one source is not worth the effort. My situation is that I hardly have an alternative.
           I missed going into the shop today, maybe tomorrow. I walked over to the lesson, which was only an hour, but hey, that’s a half tank of gas. Marilyn has been given instructions to learn Excel, but has not been given any time to study it. She is quite aware that studying during her lessons is the most expensive way to go about things, but she is okay with that for now. Today, we worked directly on her spreadsheets, not copies, but live files. This was as unwise as it was unavoidable. They haven’t really given her a choice, because she gets seventy e-mails a day and it looks like she’s also doing the single mother thing. I wouldn’t have any time if I only had to read the e-mails.

           Now I am really glad I took that ten minutes when we first met to explain [to Marilyn] that a spreadsheet was never designed to do certain things, and while you can do those things for a while, there is a point of no return. She does not have time to practice any of the lesson material and with that spreadsheet [she is using] it is not going to get any easier. She is trapped into adding more and more columns as each weekly report is due. Already half her time is spent scrolling back and forth. There was a complaint at the far end, so that is the reason I broke the rule and showed her how to clean up the spreadsheet (but only after she affirmed that we were going far beyond the skills she has learned so far and she should not try to duplicate the process when I am not around). Also, I normally charge a significantly higher fee to work on the actual spreadsheet design.
           This is the reward and challenge of teaching adults. She is bound by tradition but knows a better way when she sees it. She is going to have to change from thinking across the page to down the page, so I am leading up to it very gently. Today I asked her to start putting the design number down the column of every related data item [instead of just once at the top where it often gets scrolled off the page]. She immediately took to that. Down the page, and that is a good sign.

March 30, 2005

           Up at 5:30, I wish it was to chase women, but it was to work on the computer. I am still learning the ropes of Windows XP. It has a few annoying features that you can accidentally enable, but not so easily disable. One is the select group cells in Excel. No matter where you click, it does not unselect, it just extends the range. Rebooting does not help.

           Trivia: A 9 foot, 640 pound freshwater catfish was caught by fishermen in northern Thailand on the Mekong River. According to many, this is the largest freshwater fish ever caught. Since this catch, the average size of all large food fish in the world has steadily gone downward. The fish are not being allowed to live long enough to grow large any more. It was back in 2001 when a 440 pound bluefin tuna sold in Japan for $173,700, or almost $400 a pound. Mankind will never see large fish again in our lifetimes.
           I did the food thing again. Made a great meal and did not write down the recipe. It was ordinary chicken soup, but I added some ripe olives and some day old Cuban bread crumbs. Cuban bread is meant to be eaten the first day, it even comes in a paper bag. I had to be content with smoked turkey sandwiches with all the trimmings including hot mustard, and a tumbler of half and half ginger ale and cranberry juice last evening because I ate the whole pot of chicken soup earlier. This is the telltale sign of a bachelor hitting a winner. The Hippie (don’t tell him I told you) ate an awful lot of soup and sandwiches before we started hanging out. Now, he has the bachelor complaint of having to eat a ton of the same food or throwing it out. Thus, when you can eat the whole thing it is a winner. Exception: pizza. Anyone can eat a whole pizza no matter how bad it is.
           Marilyn cancelled our lesson today, giving me plenty of time to study. Plus, to figure out the details of the way Microsoft has changed things that worked quite well before. For example, spreadsheet cell locking and protection. It was just complicated enough to discourage most people from fooling around with it.
           While reading this morning, I found the local Jamaican radio station. Like most, it is one format. 100% raggae and not a single note of variation. With one exception. They play this music to annoy listeners to get their attention. Do you know what music they use? Ha, it is a few seconds of Scottish bagpipe music. I thought Jamaica was once a British colony and they might like the skirl of the pipes, but obviously they hate it. The ads indicate the station is south, near Plantation. The current hit by ‘The Crown Prince of Raggae’ is an version of ‘The Land Down Under’ which I believe was originally the Village People. Or another of that crowd a generation after Linda Rondstadt.
           Today we are going to learn to download and install printer drivers from the internet. This will be lucrative, in that I have a line on roughly 40 unsold printers at a time because they are missing the software. They are at the various thrift malls, and all appear to be in good condition except for three easy ingredients: software, ink cartridges and proof that the printer works. Where is that database I tested in Hialeah that listed the prices of all print and toner cartridges? I’ll find it, because I remember smirking over the fact that there are more, not fewer cartridges as time goes by. Even the same manufacturer’s models don’t fit in the same internal brackets.
           This is also proof that there are far more stupid people in the world than there were ten or twenty years ago. Take for instance that CD-ROM I had to install in the Presario because the IDE plugs did not line up. It looks like a CD-ROM and has all the features with software, but it does one thing only. Play back existing pre-recorded CD music. It will not read any DirectCD, UDF, photo, video or data CDs, or burn any files, and it gives a file read error if you try to install any applications.
           It does one thing: use an expensive computer to play music. That is a real no-brainer. Yet there are enough such people that it was profitable for somebody to set up an assembly line to produce these pieces of crap and to ship them over and sell them in this country. I salvaged it out of a computer that had a Pentium III processor, that tells me a lot about the original purchaser.

           Trivia You think Hewlett-Packard is a computer company? A dedicated outfit who's primary wish is to provide you with top-quality computer printers and ink? Think again. Before the company glommed onto the computer ink cartridge scam (by selling printers cheap and over-charging for the ink), Hewlett-Packard made a "shock machine" claimed to cause weight loss. Their primary product was urinal flushers. That company stunk to high heaven long before I pointed it out.

March 29, 2005

           [Author’s note: normally I would edit this type of entry to tone things down, but it is so chock full of facts that accurately reflect the true situation that I have left it intact. This was also around the time I began to get more than irritated about other musician’s complaining about their lot. By comparison they’ve had it so easy they don’t know.]
           The Hippie called early to do a laundry party. We still go to that rather expensive place in Dania Beach Mall. There are no coffee shops nearby, but there is the bank, library and two grocery stores. I have my 11:30 so I can’t do nothing until this afternoon. He also wants to go over a few tunes. You know, I once studied all those musical modal patterns. I still don’t know what they are for, or how to string them together into bass lines. Forget about even getting original because I do not know [these patterns]. There can’t be much to it because, well, for instance The Hippie has played Happy Birthday the wrong way for half his life.
           I wonder what it must be like to sit down at ten years old and discover you can sing and play guitar? I was ten when I took my first music lesson. My teacher was Enid, Dr. Frobb’s daughter. I never could understand why a doctor’s daughter had to work. I struggled with lessons for another five years. I admit the three reasons I took music were to get women, to make money to get women and because I felt if I didn’t, I would get left behind and somebody else would get the women. Less than three years later, I organized and created a small ‘rock band’, which was any band that wasn’t a country band back then.
           One day I’ll have to write that story just in case anyone thinks it was done under familiar circumstances that anyone could relate to. No. I had to learn each instrument listening to an old Beach Boys 45 rpm record and teach some often unwilling local farm boy it was okay to ‘listen to The Beatles’. I had to work against adult opposition, most of it from my own family. I’ll never forget Brian Hanson, a kid who showed his father a catalog of amplifiers and gingerly asked if he could have a small one. His father threw a fit, but not like my father. Brian’s father went out and bought his son the biggest amplifier, no son of his who showed initiative was going to have anything but the best.
                      By contrast, I remember John Campbell and I grabbing my amplifier and running across the frozen school grounds at night to hide it in his garage. We’d been warned my father had gotten drunk again and was going to ‘kick the speaker out’. You think that is funny? I don’t, and I was there. When we first started, we were not and could not have been very good. My father, knowing this, made us play in front of his cronies to have a laugh at my expense. That is the kind of help you could expect from my family, who to this day do not understand why I left and never went back. It baffles them, because they are perfect in every way and could prove it if you would only listen to reason.
           I often had to walk around town at night begging older boys, like Billy Reuther, to help us move the band equipment in his truck whenever we had a “dance” that Friday. (I was too young to drive by several years). I guess if I had become musically famous and you did not know the facts, all of this would now be part of folklore. My family tried everything they could to embarrass and sabotage that band, because they didn’t like looking lazy by comparison. (They were too bull-headed to know the whole damn town plus every town we’d ever lived in already knew that, except for me, the whole bunch of them were lying, back-stabbing no-accounts and empty talkers.) My family have always maintained that they were 100% behind my bands and did everything they could to help. That is another big lie among many big lies.
           There, I feel better already. Some people tend to forget that I still to this day often reach for things that aren’t there because they should be. Let’s look at some events on the positive side as the rest of the day progressed. My 11:30 was over but fast, the easiest money I’ve made in years. Marilyn does not do her homework, but this is very typical and not a lack of dedication.

March 28, 2005

           [Author’s note: today’s entry is not clear. I am in the process of learning some new computer operations and I'm surrounded by people who can’t even install a disk telling me they know all kinds of geniuses. But these geniuses don't know dick, they are all trial and error. I'm talking about the photo below, how it shows only the article being photographed. The photo is simple – if you look at the photo, you will see there is no “background”. Nothing in the picture except what I want you to see. This takes a little know-how]
           Did I get that improved version of the infinite horizon for you? The disk drive on this computer (the Compaq Presario) started to act up when I tried to save last week, sparking a round of preventative CD backups in addition to normal. The CD system is still flaky. The Hippie says I must be a jinx, because nobody else has such problems with a computer.
           That is true, you know. Most people never go beyond the basics of word processing, e-mail and Internet. They never experience any limits on their machine until they run out of memory from downloading games and porno off the internet. Then, they run out and buy a newer, faster computer with a credit card. Hence, no detectable problem that The Hippie or anyone else can see.
           He also says he knows kids who can do all the stuff I am struggling to learn. I accept that these kids have grown up around computers, but I do not accept that they know how to independently press on into learning new and unfamiliar subjects after the school day is done. Besides, where are these kids when you need them?
           The problem I am having is ghost readings on my new CD burner. This is where I place a (known good) data disk in the tray, but the menu comes back and says either retry, or shows the disk as blank. A whiz kid would tell me to hit retry several times, which eventually works. Problem. That is a workaround, a term I do not use to suggest I’ve found a solution. I’m trying to discover what is causing the ghosting error in the first place, not find the workaround. The Hippie does not yet know the difference.

Now, back to the photo. This type of picture uses the "infinite horizon" technique:
           The photo (this may be a repeat) should show a bright yellow multi-meter. The big deal is that it should show absolutely nothing else. When I was younger, I probably would have called this a catalog picture. The idea is that the viewer knows exactly what they should be looking at. Don’t laugh, this is a major advancement in my ability to photograph and it was not easy to do using only scrap material. I see errors you might overlook. There is still shadow at the lower left-hand corner of the meter, and the chrome-colored tips of the black and red probes have been clipped off.
           Personally, I am quite satisfied with it, my second real attempt. Are you curious how it is done? Hint, there is a salt shaker behind the meter holding it up, and I could have chosen any color for the background, but neutral gray was close to what I was already using. This was, for the record, done indoors with my $18 Argus camera and a budget of zero dollars. If you look closer, you’ll guess the light source is to the left. It’s my open kitchen door. The next logical step is to show the meter screen all lit up. It is there, showing a reading of 0.000 volts.

March 27, 2005

How To Cheat At Minesweeper

           Today, I tell you how to cheat at Minesweeper. No, I don’t cheat since I win most of the time. Your [results] may vary, or as they text message, ymmv.
           Research. Finally, I know how that kid was cheating at Minesweeper [the free Microsoft computer game] in 1992. He could tell you if a given square was a mine. He told me what to watch for, but not how to set it up. Here is how to do it.

           A) Open a new game of Minesweeper. Then click anywhere on the title bar. This is the blue bar at the top of the Minesweeper window that contains the word Minesweeper and the minimum maximum buttons.
           B) Just click on it anywhere and nothing apparently happens. Then you type, without the quotation marks, the lower case “xyzzy”.
           C) Press and hold shift and then press enter. Release both keys. Nothing apparently happens.

           Okay so far? Now look, very, very closely at the upper left-hand corner of your desktop. This is the main screen with all your icons, not the Minesweeper window. Move your cursor over the Minesweeper squares (which are called ‘cells’). You will notice a single pixel in the corner will turn WHITE whenever you are over a cell that does NOT have a mine, and revert to your background color when the cell IS a mine.
           It takes a little practice, but the following advice may help. The first cell is never a mine no matter what color the pixel is. The “key” has to be set up each time you open a new Minesweeper session, but lasts for the entire session. Don’t give up, for sometimes the key does not “take”, and you have to re-enter it and test until it works.
           To really baffle your audience (or at least an audience that took as long to learn this trick as I did), if you uncover a cell that has a 3 or higher number, bet then you can, in advance, pick which of the surrounding cells contain the mines. I found this information in a book on advanced XP at the Barnes & Noble library. Er, I mean, book store.

          [Author's note 2015-03-27: these instructions have been double-checked. If they don't work, you are doing something wrong. Also, this has NOT been tested on the 64-bit on-line version. But what kind of complete moron would play a game where you have to sign in with information that compromises your identity.]

          [Author's note 2022: remember this was written in 2005.]

March 26, 2005

           I get to watch movies and drink coffee all evening. The lineup tonight is a 1970s production called Murder on Flight 502. At least I think 1975 or so because there is a 747 in many scenes. (I rode in one of the first 747 flights on New Years Eve, 1973.) The cast is ‘noteworthy’, including Rob’t Stack as the pilot (gag), and Sonny Bono as a rock star (double gag). Remember that twerp Danny Bonaduce? He plays a 13 year old rich kid. Isn’t that a little bit like casting Farrah Fawcett as a stewardess? That would be just too corny.
           Hold on. Fawcett is there, and behold, she is a stewardess. Wasn’t George Maharis on Route 66? At any rate, the acting is on a league with Bonanza re-runs and I’m writting off two of the other actors with the last name Stack as pure coincidence.
           The movie is supposed to take place at 36,000 feet. There are clouds flying past outside the portholes. There is a portrayal of early abuse of police and medical records to create a suspect list of the passengers. Old movies can be so comforting, especially if you believe that only slim, well-mannered and cultured people wearing their best clothes ever fly, and remain stone sober throughout.
           You’re also asked to accept that the cabin contains, so far, an author, a priest, a dress designer, a famous doctor, a sexy teenybopper who likes older men, a stalker, a police detective and some elderly people who are just saints. I once read that at any given time, there is the population of a small city flying across the Atlantic. It must have been a very small city, for not only was the stalker after the said doctor, but the parents of the groupie who got pregnant from our rock star all on the same flight. Budda-bing!
           The second movie is based on fact. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. He killed a sheriff in self-defence, but the idea that the cops are always the good guys was just as much a part of court trials a hundred years ago as today. He got fifty years from a trained jury. The movie seems realistic, especially how the prosecution ignores all the facts about why he killed and focused on the fact that he killed. Under Texas law, you are allowed to defend yourself against an unlawful arrest, even to the point of using deadly force.
           He managed to elude 600 Texas rangers who had telephones, telegraphs and railway trains on his trail. That part of law has always intrigued me, that you can be charged with evading justice by running away. Yet justice says you are innocent until proven guilty, so how can you evade justice by running away? Are you, yourself, supposed to break the law by presuming yourself to be guilty? Thinking you are guilty, even if you committed the crime, is technically illegal in this country.

March 25, 2005

           The Hippie and I were talking about nutrition again so I [finally] bought some olive oil. Now The Hippie is a vegetarian, and so will I be one day if I don’t save up enough for my old age. Seriously, I just don’t see how I could really cut back much and still enjoy food. True, I eat cookies and argue that ground beef is not red meat. You see, it is brown, I’ve seen it. If you leave the wrapper off in the fridge it will even turn a deathly gray color on the outside. (That’s a joke, son.) My point being that I do not do anything to excess, so cutting back is most difficult.
           Face it, my diet includes meat, of course, mostly fish, ground beef and chicken (skinless). I only eat white bread and rice occasionally for variety, once every other month. I drink only diet soda and decaf every day. I insist on 3.25% milk, not that mirky near-milk called 2%. I use evaporated milk in my coffee. No raw sugar and only rarely cake or candy, except for my daily chocolate bar. Potatoes are very rare in my life, in any form. So until talking can go aerobic, I don’t think talking about diets is going to result in any weight loss.
           [Author’s note: This confusing passage is a referral to my plan to lose weight, since I can gain weight on a diet of 1200 calories per day. The Hippie prefers power-walks, but they don’t work for me. Makes one tired without the results. In the end, I lost nothing through dieting.]
           For a break last evening, I read unusual facts about famous people, you know, how Winston Churchill was 1/16th Iroquois and such. There was an article about how the Russians [Soviets] uprooted all these factories and shipped them east on the trains. The tale is that they had these factories put back together and out-producing the originals in a few weeks or months.
           Now, I do not in any way discount the super valor of the Red Army in defeating Nazi Germany, but there is just something about the factory episode that does not add up. Individual machines would make sense, but entire factories. I don’t disbelieve that it was done, only the time scale. I think the historians are overlooking or leaving out some prep work. It just seems if it were really done, as claimed, by human labor, there is a point at which adding more people fails because they start getting in each other’s way. I suspect some of the factory sites were prepared as much as eight years earlier, in 1933, including running in the necessary rail lines.
[Author’s note: in later years there is some evidence finally emerging that Soviet historians did fudge the factory thing to build up patriotism and loyalty to the regime.]
           Then I get a late start off to school. For the first time this year, there was no real traffic jams at rush hour, and I made it with a few minutes to spare. That includes picking up the Hippie’s amplifier in Delray. That HP computer is pretty much fixed now, and it does not make sense that the person who donated it said it was in good working condition. In fact, it was so bad that we used it in class as a model of what could go wrong. If it had not been for charity, we would conclude the damage was malicious. I loaded all the critical updates and ran the anti-virus twice before class. That leaves just the anti-spyware and it is ready to go. Actually, I need copies of Microsoft Office that will work with Windows 98, and that baby is ready for sale.
           [Author’s note: years later, that olive oil is still sitting in my fridge.]

March 24, 2005

           If you never took a ride on these double-decker bus things, it may be too late. The people in London have decided to phase these out. I don't know the schedule, but it will be soon. The only known place to still operate this things is Churchill's, the pub in Little Haiti (north end of Miami, Florid.)

           I picked up some more information on ATMs. I dislike calling these things by that term, so I will interchange ATM with ‘bank machine’, which is far more descriptive. This is new, incoming data, so listen up. The average return on investment is 2.5% per month. The machine is $2,900 and the phone line is $50 per month. The service fee is $20 per month. The average withdrawal is $62.50. The machines are linked to a network called Lynks. The purchase price includes setup of both the machine and a data link to your computer. The display is neat, it shows the balance, last transaction and location. Everything is resettable from home. This includes the minumum and maximum withdrawals, the restocking point and the transaction fee.
           There may be a chance to ‘take over’ a unit, it seems they know somebody who’s owned one for years and wants to retire. He wants to give it to his son, but the son doesn’t want it. I realize vending machines tie you down, but these units are not that big. I used to complain that the bank machines in Key Biscayne were a rip-off at $4 per withdrawal. Now I know who owns them. I’m thinking, especially how I would have to leave my money in the bank for six years to earn 1% in total. I have no doubt the good locations are gone and the business is very competitive. But I’m a competitive person, and I don’t have to make a living off the thing. I also think the $2,900 price tag is misleading, because very few people have the additional cash to fill up the machine and last ten days until the funds clear. (You must open a bank account to which the banks replenish all withdrawals after a fixed period, usually ten days.)
           I’m thinking you really need closer to $10,000 to get one machine up and running. At $62 per withdrawal, that is less than 100 transactions until you’ve used up the average machine full (which is around $5,800). If the fee was $2, you would only have ‘made’ $200 which you would also have to wait ten days to receive since that also must come from the bank. I’ll run the numbers this week.
           By coincidence, this afternoon my statement from Investment Co. of America arrived. There is $7,100 in there, of which $6,200 is equity, $542.61 is return and the rest is a rather tame short-term capital gain. The point is, the total return this quarter (Jan. 1 – Mar. 31, 2005) was $29.46 or enough to buy just .943 new shares in the rollover. That is $9.82 per month.
           That means the true price-to-earnings ratio is in the order of 60:1. Somebody must think this is a good deal, but I have always thought it really sucked. Did you know they charge a 5.75% front end load? It happens to be the first place Tammie [my broker] recommended back in 2000 as safe and conservative, otherwise it has done nothing in four years. This is the company you see listed as ICAP in my books and it has always had the bad practice of including unrealized capital gains in their publications of annual returns.
           Let’s see, I have $1,086 in a savings account that pays .18%, that is 18/100s of one percent per year. Before taxes. The Sunbird should move before long, so that is another $1,500. Let me add this up. Not counting my reserves, I could get $9,500 together within the week. The reserve could easily last me a full four months. This is all just talk for now, but I do have a concrete example of a man successful at this business, and you should see the house he lives in! I’ll wait to see if the old guy wants to sell cheaply. The P81 books would not show any change except in assets and if you think about it, should I ever run short of cash on this investment, I’ll know where I could make a withdrawal. Joke.
           [Author’s note: in the end I decided against purchasing the ATM. Every way I looked at the thing, in the end it was just another vending machine.]

           Author's note 2015-03-24: I specify these are those mini-ATMs that you see on small business premises. They hold a lot less cash because of the danger of somebody with a forklift stealing the whole machine. This was the determining factor for me, as I know that all the prime vending locations are long gone and any newer locations have already been scoped by the big companies. However, make no mistake, I keep tabs on the industry and would not hesitate to get back into it. In my life I have owned three small vending businesses, including a laundromat in my early 20s. I've got the experience, just not the motive.

March 23, 2005

           I yakked with The Hippie for over an hour after class. The [amplifier repair] guy called him back less than an hour after I dropped off those two amplifiers in Delray Beach, so that would seem to point to it being an easy repair. The Hippie talked about his arrest for violation of probation several years ago. He really did learn the hard way that lawyers and police and judges are not people you can trust. Only a judge would believe a forty year old man would resist arrest and try to assault five cops, but that is the case here. This is the incident where he walked out of a 7-11 and a grubby guy asked him if he wanted some pot. I stress this is HIS side of the story.

           But first this picture of the big rock concertin Hyde Park, in England. This is what the crowd looked like at these concerts in Britain just ten years ago. And if the crowd in American looked anything like that, why I might attend some my self. Anyway, back to the one-sided story.
           Then the grub started trying to push cocaine and such, so he tried to leave. Five cops dragged him from his car by the hair, handcuffed him, pepper sprayed his face and kicked the daylights out of him. Then, they sprayed him again at the station while he was still handcuffed because he asked for something to wipe his eyes. I have a different word for people who attack a handcuffed man. Talk about a setup, five cops words against a hippie with a previous marijuana conviction which they told the judge made him pre-deposed to drug use. Law enforcement attracts such brilliant specimens, don’t you think?
           He also had a lazy lawyer. The Hippie went down to the police station and got proof that two of the police had reprimands for excessive violence, but that lawyer couldn’t see the connection. That is why I don’t like trials where the police are the only witnesses. It is too obvious they lie to protect themselves, and too many judges seem to think bad cops are okay because it is not the cop who is on trial. This reminds me of the worst cases of English law, where people could be convicted for trying to defend themselves in court. Anything they said was ruled “inflammatory”.
           The cops are running a sting operation in the Baer’s furniture parking lot. It is right behind The Hippie’s. They have a mobile home set up, and a ridiculously pretty (for this area) bitch cop in a miniskirt pretending to talk on a cell phone. I knew nothing about the sting, but I smelled a rat long time ago. She is just too good looking. Others didn’t.
           The Hippie says they seem to have arrested fifty or more johns for soliciting a prostitute. Who was soliciting? Cops are sicko when it comes to any sex crime, they are the worst people to contact because they really want the details. If you ask me, they become cops mainly because of the macho crap about police and firemen, but generally they are like jocks [in the sense that] they wind up all screwing the same group of women everybody else has. The prostitute bait thing is another “Thought Crime”. In cop-think, since a lot of those men were undoubtedly married, does that just makes them pre-disposed to sex? Ha ha.

March 22, 2005

           [Author’s note: I am a bit of an arm-chair lawyer when it comes to personal freedoms. When reading this article, recall that I do not support any criminal activity, but that extends to the police as well. Too often, illegal means are used to entrap people, a tactic which the authorities call by the euphemism “creative law enforcement”. It is not, the police are breaking the law. The point I'm making here is not about any sex crime, but how a group of men were targeted by a sting operation and their lives and careers were ruined despite the fact none were found guilty.]

           The Hippie informs me of another sting operation. It seems a plane load of men got arrested in a sting operation involving a vacation to the Caribbean. This trip was to include sex with “underage females”, underage in America, but now elsewhere, it turns out. Like, were these guys that stupid? Yes. The men were all rounded up at the airport except one who smelled a rat, and he got a swat team at his hotel room.
           For now, ignore the fact that so many men could be so clueless (the ad was on a website), and think about what happened. Total entrapment and arrest for a “thought crime”--nothing illegal had yet occurred. Don’t think because they will have to be released makes it all just a warning. The arrest record will be published on the Internet and these men are now marked for life.

           Within a couple of questions I had determined the real problem. These men had not systematically protected their identities. These men still don’t realize the danger of letting people keep files, and in each case the state was able to find out exactly what their education was and hold it against them (by denying them funds for a lawyer). This was in the newspaper, how on average they had so spend $16,000 each to get acquitted, since no crime had taken place. If you are not protecting your identity, you are not obeying the Constitution or adequately protecting yourself in a hostile environment.
           They showed these men on TV, another item to avoid. Bad publicity, and take my word, this will only get worse as the Internet takes over. Each man that spoke admitted they gave out private information against their free will, because they believed they would benefit or would be punished by not telling the whole truth. The classic bureaucratic sucker job. "Tell the police what happened and they'll let you go." The whole truth is never in order. A blank spot is neither false nor misleading, how many times I gotta tell you?

           [Author's note: From time to time, I am asked what set me against the bureaucracy so many years back. That is an easy answer – the Student Finance Board. I am not “against” the system, rather I am fascinated by how it works opposite to personal freedoms. I learned to restrict the amount of information given out to strangers, believing every file is a permanently lost freedom. This is not active resistance by any means, merely an inclination not to provide ammunition to a potential adversary. A good example is when someone asks if you have any ID. Where you reach for your wallet, I don't. I simply reply that I do. Right? They did not ask to see it and may have no legal right to it, but they’ve got you thinking if you don’t show it, you’re hiding something. I mean, you didn’t fall for that. Did you?]

           Where did I learn all this? Easy. The student finance board. They put the screws to me when I was a kid, so I decided to make them fight for every penny. (The issue was that I’d borrowed the money at 4.5% and they wanted it back at 28.5%.) Thus, I was able to watch the mechanisms used to trace me, what threw them off the trail, and what type of actions they could take to force a repayment. In the end, I was quite successful, paying back only the principle by the time I was 38. But for the average student, that would be next to impossible. You had to suspect something from the start.
           They could never find me (although they tried some incredibly sneaky tactics) and in the end proved that income tax records are not so private after all. That information alone was well worth the $8,000 it took them 20 years to get out of me. I know exactly what not to do. It was during this process that I learned how far nastier people than the Student Finance Board were abusing information.

           The worst offender by any standard is the DMV, the Motor Vehicle Branch. So much so that the information is hardly ever used for any other purpose but to conduct illegal searches. (All background or identity searches conducted without a warrant are illegal in America.) That is why all my vehicles have been registered to an anonymous company name--I was on to the system because I never had a vehicle until I was 21, by which time I was cautious. By the simple expedient of registering my vehicles “across the border” I was able to watch the terrible confusion and analyze their tactics.
           It is actually pretty amazing the amount of trouble an outfit like the Student Finance Board can cause in your life if they get hold of your driver’s license information. My argument is that my vehicle registration should not be used by creditors or even police, because that is not the reason the information was originally given, or you are potentially providing information that will be used against you—something the Constitution says you can’t do. The authorities don’t exactly make it plain that by passing a driving test, you are also creating a database file that will follow you for life. That is a pretty sneaky way of doing business.
           And for the record, there is no tradition or history of requiring people to register their ID for a driver's license. This entire driver's license vehicle registration. nonsense was started by some obscure US senator so he could claim he was "doing something".

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March 21, 2005

           [Author’s note: this must have been a bad day at school, which was beginning to happen with increased frequency. The instructor had refused to answer a question about a CD because the answer raised the possibility of creating pirated disks. I have a long-standing criticism of people who assume educated people automatically become criminals. That is only true if you work for the government, joke. I think. In the WAMU incident, the bank intentionally processes deposits late if they are not in the banks envelope.]
           Those who know me will be aware that I have had this same criticism since I’ve been eight years old. I dislike instructors who suppress information because you ‘might use it wrong’. I once asked my guidance teacher how scams worked, explaining that when I went to the city, I did not want to fall for any. He not only refused to tell me, he informed my father of my intention to leave the farm, and I got slapped around. The result was that, yes, I did get taken by a few scams when I got to town at 17.
           Fortunately not as badly as others, from what I’ve heard about old people and lotteries. That same teacher, when I told him years later he was an asshole, insisted he had only been protecting himself from being accused of teaching crime. That kind of gross stupidity was very normal back in the 60s. That same philosophy was also applied to knowledge about birth control, and it certainly worked in that small town. It insured the maximum number of teenage pregnancies, yet nobody could pin anything on the sex education teachers!
           Another episode with WAMU. They don’t ensure there are always enough envelopes in the ATM trays. Excuse number one is that they don’t own the machines. That is lame. They could make it a condition of installation, or have the machines deal an envelope when you select the deposit function. I had to drive all the way to downtown Hollywood to find a machine with envelopes. I’ve noticed if you use your own envelop, or the envelopes from another bank, they don’t record your deposit for another 24 hours. That is the brand of nonsense you can’t have when the rent is due.
           Then I call the school, looking for both a way out, and something to shake them on their high horses. One, there is no way they are getting a photocopy of my ID. That is not the law and I am very uncomfortable with trusting strangers, especially pushy strangers who insist they are just doing their job. You want to see my ID ten times, you come and see me ten times in person. This course if over on the 22nd, and I still can’t fix computers.
           I know a lot of terms and concepts, but not much about using those to fix broken computers. Also, as predicted a month ago, the instructor is now repeatedly saying things like, “You’ll recall we covered this”, and “You’ll recall we covered that.” Yes, I recall that we covered it, but also that nothing was ever reinforced by repetition at the time. Covering it and learning it are not the same thing in the real world. No one sentence was given any more stress than any other, and nobody in the class could possibly guess which of them were important. But he is doing the old trick of implying you are dumb if you don’t recall every word.
           I recall we installed Windows 98 back on March 18th, but not every detail and nuance of that complicated operation. It was covered once in the context of what each feature could do, but without any practice on fixing things if anything went wrong. Maybe we are supposed to guess at the methods? If so, very few people would agree with paying tuition to learn by trial and error.
           There was no lab or practice time since then and all that was three weeks ago. Will the school, after graduation, provide me with a teacher to remind me on the job? It would be interesting to know whose side you take in this kind of issue. It is plain that the whole idea of the course was bait, to get me to take even more courses, and in the end, spend the money they want. That is a disgusting way to behave and claim you are an educational institution. If nothing else, Workforce One will find out that this A+ course has very little to do with computer repair. It should be called “An Introduction to the Names of Computer Parts and How to Install Windows.” Or, “Talking About Troubleshooting without Actually Doing Much of It.”

March 20, 2005

           The Hippie called earlier, he got his CD/DVD system working again. This time he took notes (as instructed) and sure enough, it was his audio software. It would have taken months to solve this problem at the pace we are actually learning repairs in class. It seems that Windows XP must have Explorer set as the default browser and that the installation process turns on the integrated sound even if you have an expansion card. These are the little gems that we are not, repeat not, learning in class. I know that the problem I’m having with the HP is some dumb little step that is missing, but hello? I’m paying thousands of dollars to learn how not to overlook those exact little steps. PC Professor seems to have “got it backwards”.

           The Hippie got a sharp contact this time at Dell. That is the person who should be teaching class. The Hippie could only write down what he could interpret, there is no doubt he was expertly guided to the exact problem and given the correct instructions to fix it. This is still not an endorsement of Dell, because everyone who answers a help line should be this type of expert. Pay enough, Dell, and you will get them. Marilyn [my top student] called, and her bosses want her to go to a regular computer school. By that, they mean CompUSA or New Horizons. After a few weeks of learning to change her fonts and screen colors, she will be back for more useful things. Sadly, that takes away my student, and I may have to advertise. I gave her my e-mail. She politely called me a genius but that still means I lose my student.

           Author's note 2015-03-20: I recognize the above post as the type of writing I produce when I am dead tired. What I'm discussing here is fixing computers using Win XP. I signed up for a course to fix the computers, but it is actually a course on the use of XP. The course sucks, it is designed to dribble the information out to maximize the tuition charged. Everything I need is "next term". That is nonsense, as it only takes one term to learn computer repair.
           At the same time, I am fixing computers for others, such as the Hippie. By 2008, he became a "computer expert", of course, but in 2005, he could not get his sound card working. This "instant genius" behavior does not surprise me. I saw a lot of it while growing up with 8 people in a 3 bedroom house.
           Marilyn, my best student, never did call back.

March 19, 2005

           The Hippie had the keyboard player and a truly Cajun guy who plays harmonica, banjo and reed accordion (that tinny thing you hear in hillbilly bands). We actually sounded good for a practice. Even I got compliments when we played originals The Hippie and I had worked on four or more years ago. His originals, I cannot write music, or at least I never tried as I have no aspirations of recording a hit.

           “Fool’s Gold”, “Where Are You Tonight” and “Cajun Queen”. The sound is really good and we could easily make money at it right away [but it never happened]. Everyone wants more practice first and I’ll go for that, too. I need the money and I need the break from school work. What else did we go over tonight? “Stormy Monday”, “Jambalaya”, “Okie from Muskogee”, “Tom Dooley” and “Year of the Cat”. That cat song is a lounge music special that puts me right to sleep. Message or no message, it is one boring piece of music to me.
           I believe the term reed accordion may be Reed accordion, from the name of the man who builds them. The unit in the picture is called "bloodwood". I had a go at learning one of these, but it was too much effort for the variety that the instrument can provide.

           [Author’s note: the Cajun guy may very well have been Cowboy Mike, but it is not recorded.]

           [Author's note 2015-03-19: it was definitely Cowboy Mike. Years later he turns out to be the only dude in town who plays reed accordion. And I found out those were the only two songs that he knew. Of what we learned that day, only "Jambalaya" is still on my list ten years later.]

           [Author's note 2016-03-19: the random calendar landed on this date again in 2016. Cowbody Mike has disappeared. It is covered elsewhere, but chances are he headed with his fifth wheel back to Amelia Island, forever to play those same twelve songs he's played for forty years now. Over and over.]

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March 18, 2005

           The Hippie called while JP and I were turning around in a turnip field on the farthest western reaches of Miami. JP’s father bought tracts of land in the area once, and held it for 25 years. The US government stepped in and stopped all speculation. The land finally got sold to the government for the original purchase price [of $600 per acre]. JP remembers it because each of the kids got $12,000 from the sale. JP was once going to be a pediatrician when that fell through (which he sincerely regrets) and blew 90% of his share partying up with fancy women. The other 10%, he wasted.

           Pope John Paul finally gave up the ghost. Nobody was surprised, but JP (whose name is also John Paul) was surprised that I had once read Shoes of the Fisherman. That was in Grade 11 and I was barely able to understand what all the fuss was about a non-Italian pope. I hardly remember that time of my life on a daily basis, but I do recall that my school marks began to suffer very rather badly once I had discovered teenage girls liked sex (we had been raised to believe something quite different*).
           That is also the year I met Ian and Linda James, two teachers who were working their way around the world. Up till then I always thought you had to be rich to travel. Certainly I am no student of church tree charts yet I know that this Pope [in the book] had tackled some tough issues and must have had to contend with a lot of entrenched resistance.
           The book made it clear anyone could become pope, at least anyone who was Catholic and over 35. In reality, you have to also be a priest and a bunch of other preconditions that technically are not supposed to matter. Otherwise, JP would stand a chance.
           I learned that if all the bishops and such doing the choosing all shout out the same name, that person becomes Pope. Other than that, I barely remember the book. I found it, and all assigned reading, very boring compared to women and music. That was the same year (of the grade school reading assignment) of Pearle S., Susan G., Debbie B. and some gal with very rubbery breasts.
           Beep! My computer just reminded me that it is an hour later than a minute ago, making it 3:01 AM.
           Before I go, I have found another vein of research that some other interested person could pursue. I have always wondered why [do] rich people help the poor in [such] strange ways? They build fancy churches or universities or libraries. How does this help the poor? My curiosity is where this useless custom originated, and any related question such as why rich people think they are doing good by it. I’d always assumed that like with the Coliseum that it came from ancient Rome and I’ve heard such [modern] buildings referred to as ‘Monuments to the Pharoahs’. (If you visit India, you will see these buildings everywhere amid the poverty.)
           However, this practice would not seem all that viable once society underwent the Dark Ages. I’m certain when half your family dies of famine, you are not partying it up at the local ballet. Hungry people can’t/don't usually read, although I am certain any monastery with food could stage amazing recruitment drives during a famine. I’ve heard various suggestions, including the pressure of tax law and desire for immortality, but that does not explain to me why so many poor people think the same way. Why do the rich insist they are helping the poor with buildings the poor cannot use?

           *Author's note 2015-03-18: there is more to that story. We had been [forcibly if necessary] taught to believe women who were raised proper and decent had to be coerced into having sex. That they were to be courted and coaxed into it with diamonds and gold and romance and all those women who sold out too cheaply were called "tramps". As it turned out, I very quickly found out the opposite, that teen women are practically pre-occuppied with sex. Yet to this day, I still see most men still trying diamonds and gold--when only the tramps remain. What fools they be!"

March 17, 2005

           School was super boring, the more so because it is a class full of men who would rather be just about anywhere else on a Friday. I’m back home comfortable now with a pot of coffee wondering how I even show up, for it would never have happened even ten years ago. According to the records, my coffee consumption since school started has leapt right up to the same level as back in college. I don’t track the poundage as much as the usage of coffee drip filters. I am back up to buying them in the 200 packs again. School, study and coffee go together for me.
           Okay, gang, we’ve gone over this before, but what is new each time are the details. I have a bit of a forceful personality, and it is always highly amusing when people who have recently met me start to act like me. They can go through the motions and often make fools of themselves because you can’t duplicate my spontaneous thinking. Guess who this time? The class instructor, Mike. Several weeks ago one of the guys in class was not paying attention when his turn came to answer a chapter question. I whispered to him, “Nueve”. (The number nine in Spanish.) Mike’s reaction was sort of like, “Wow, you can do that?” Seems to me it would be the ideal situation to do that. Well, since then he has been trying to talk Spanish. The joke is that he plainly must have learned Spanish from a book.

           I do not know if he has ever spoken Spanish while teaching before, but it certainly seems that he has not. It causes smiles behind his back because his Spanish is affected and does not have the same impact as that first time I did it spontaneously. He often spells out DOS commands to Juan, the teenage kid in the class. The laugh is that Juan’s difficulty is not spelling, but concentrating on the lessons. Mike has to think about the letters just a moment longer than natural and this halting manner grates on the class. Additionally, I had said a number where he is using letters (his favorites seem to be r, e, d and I.) (Sic. This word processor will not let me type a case letter I.) This ‘help’ can be condescending in Spanish, implying the listener does not know how to spell.
           This Mike guy is a bit of a unique character as well. He is a qualified computer tech beyond doubt, but the way he teaches it opens plenty of questions about how he learned this trade. He has picked up that most of the questions I ask in class have a direct bearing on how the knowledge can be used to make money. You’d think this would not surprise anybody who lives in America. I take generous amounts of notes, and although it is probably not true, I keep thinking I find him standing where he can read them to see what I consider important. Nobody else in the class takes notes at all – he neither gives handouts or allows time to write anything. I’m told a black lady in the other class also takes notes. The rest of these guys seem to do absorption learning, a shallow and rarely effective method that wins battles but not wars.

           He [Mike] pronounces escape as ‘eks-cape’ and exit as ‘eggs-zit’. I took that infinite horizon picture of my cell phone into class to show Don, a guy who is repeating the course. (Hmm, half the class is repeating the course.) [Author’s note: I took a picture of a salt shaker holding up an object to show an effective technique of photographing for eBay. The purpose was to reveal how the photo was taken, in this case a shot of my cell phone.]
           Because I knew Don would ask, I also took a side picture including the salt shaker I had used to prop up the phone so he could see how it was done. Any other object that is heavy enough would have done the job just fine but the salt shaker was handy. Don wanted to know the technique, and this behind the scenes picture was the ideal way to show him. The topic was not the pictures, but how to get people to focus on what was for sale, in particular on e-Bay. Mike walks past and takes a glance while hearing the last part of the conversation. He walks away saying, “Who’d want to buy a salt shaker?”
           Good night.

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March 16, 2005

           [Author’s note: another unclear entry which I can explain. I am again getting impatient with the Hippie because we are endlessly playing the same songs in the same places. I’m stuck with doing things his way for now. Thanks to that, I’ve never learned where the good places to meet women are in Florida.
           He is ignoring my motive of playing in a variety of places to meet women and make a little money. Those are pretty standard goals in my book. The Hippie only plays coffee houses and cafes, places where there tend to be no single women. Since he shows no signs of wanting to get out of that rut, I’m stuck because I’ve put so much time into his music that I would have to start over completely from scratch to get back into a real band. Traditionally, that takes months after I get all the required equipment.]

           Worse, I have not met any women this year. Such a sad story, that is. As most guys would say, some poor woman out there is putting up with a goof rather than take a chance on me. At least I’m an educated, hard-working goof. Ha! This photo is nothing special, a 2005 Mustang, but they all look alike to me. It is here because the original was made to be copy-proof. And here is your copy.
           Allaine (JP’s sister) now wants to know when I will come by and clean the computer. See, when you can repair computers, mechanic or hairdress, you do not tell your own circle. That is a piece of advice rephrased from something I heard on my paper route in 1963. My memory is fine, it is other parts of me that are giving out. I think I will try to get Rusty to contact me again. He has not responded to my last e-mail close to two weeks passed. I need that American passport. Whenever I see the young Spanish women, I just know I’ve got to get back to Venezuela for a holiday.
           You see, nobody told me about the demographics. Oh sure, I knew that it would get increasingly harder to find good women as I got older. I knew it would get more expensive. None of those things are what fooled me. I’ve got eyes and ears just like you, and I could see the world around me. I reckoned on all kinds of difficulties getting women as I got older, and had some impressive plans to get around it all.
           Playing in a band always works no matter what your age, so does teaching although you have to be damn careful on that one. Travel is a great way and the gift of gab comes in handy, especially in several languages. So what, you may ask, is the problem? Why don’t I have a string of women? Well, pal, let me tell you.
           The women disappeared from coffee houses and anywhere else we play in this town. All the things I can do are useless unless you can find the women to use them on. (Sorry if those are harsh words, but I live in a harsh world.) I have not met a decent, good-looking woman in slightly over five years. It is not like I’m putting the hustle on a dozen women a week, and failing. The women are physically nowhere to be found. I’m first to admit I never learned any ‘old people’ things and I’ve never joined clubs much.
           And another thing--nobody told me the supply of women would dry up. The world was supposed to be full of aggressive divorcees and rich widows by now. How do you explain that?

Author's note 2015-03-16: This post says most of it, talk about foreseeing the future. I went on to become a solo performer and hav not really been in the coffee houses since. Smart move, even the university coffee houses are duds in this town. Note the coincidence on the date since I met a good woman, I said the same thing precisely ten years later. And in the end, I could not find a good guitarist that was gig-ready. Dang, what is it about March 16?

March 15, 2005

           I had to white-knuckle it to school, it is just appalling what the police let people get away with in this town. A county that enforced the dangerous driving laws against tailgating would make a fortune, but nobody will do it because that driving practice (by and large) has a distinct ethnicity in Florida. If there were two Cubans on the road, one would be tailgating. And a Florida cop would sit there and watch it happening.
           We are covering, at lightning speed, the various built-in features of Windows that diagnose the computer and peripherals. I now know that all kinds of software exists to fix broken computers, but I do not have a clue how to use them. Only that they can be used, or so I am told. So far we have only gone through most of the drop down lists one by one, and looked at the options and settings. I still have no idea whether any of the information that these programs display is good or bad. There were some interesting parts once we got on the Internet because several people in the room know where all the good free sites are.
           [Author’s note: during this period I had no Internet access at home. There were good reasons for this. I had also had only WebTV for the previous few years, which served all my purposes. The Internet has become totally commercialized and I am not certain what kind of businesses will be the winners.]
           I see there is e-mail from Julie, Marion and Wallace but no way to print it at class. Also, the instructor is looking for volunteers to direct parking at a concert in a couple of weeks, in return for two tickets. It is the vocalist from Bad Company so the Space Hippie leaped at the opportunity. Make that double leap, because I am the one that will be directing the traffic on April 16, 2005.
           A good point was tossed around during this class. Nobody says it is a bad idea that computer manuals now come on CD-ROMs. The downside is when the manufacturers stop printing manuals altogether. That would force people who never needed or never wanted a computer to have to get one, a bad thing indeed. To save the $5 or whatever the wholesale cost of an instruction sheet is these days, the factory will make somebody spend thousands of dollars to get a computer and learn to use it on the internet to get something that should be free. Then along come the bloodsuckers who start a Manuals ‘R’ Us and gouge you even more. (Does anyone recall my $40 Sony manual? The one where they charged me $1 per photocopied page and when I got home, 26 of the pages were in French.)

March 14, 2005

           That’s JP ordering a soda out in the Redlands. We were out there for a tour. He used to ride his bicycle out there on Sundays as a lad. I’ve been meaning to get a bike myself but I still feel too weak to even try that much exercise. Like anything else, once I do it, I’ll be fine.
           JP wants to go to Marco Island this weekend, but on Saturday. It depends entirely on finances but I'm all for it. He’s got some big commitments on Sunday and that famous dollar store will be closing up any time now. I still have dozens of things around my apartment from that store, a lot of it I would not buy except at such a low price. Exotic vitamins and expensive tools.
           I glanced at the gas prices right after John hung up. Wow, $2.28 per gallon. Drive those SUVs, you Florida types. Drive ‘em hard, and get out yer credit card. A lot of people who own them rationalize saying they might need to haul stuff. Have you ever seen them do it?
           There is a neat guy [Don] in the computer class, he is a qualified aircraft mechanic. It pays so low, he is back going to computer school. I showed him some pictures at break. The toothpicks, the babes at Calle Ocho, but he was really floored by the multi-meter in the infinite horizon shot. Hey, it only took me 50 years to actually do it. Then, by coincidence, somebody throws out a piece of styrofoam the exact size and shape I was looking for. I am going to sacrifice one of my Office Depot file boxes to get more of these apparently impressive photos.
           I think I read the wires wrong because we did not download any printer drivers at class, plus I’ll have to go in tomorrow (Thursday) for another combined network class. The school calendar shows a large and undoubtedly very expensive set of networking courses, how I wish I had done some of that at the phone company. The phone company works on the Babbage system to make 100% sure you don’t learn how to do any complete job yourself that you could transfer to the outside. But I know some of the guys in cabling and network managed [to learn] it.

           Author's note 2015-03-14: this turned out to be the day I made my life-altering decision to get back on a bicycle. It was not any particular affinity for a bicycle, but that I found walking was out of the question. While walking is low impact, nonetheless I could feel that impact going directly to my heart on every step. There was really no other reasonable mode of transport available. This eventually led to expensive bicycles that I rode seven miles per day for 1,000 days. Then bought an electric model, which like most Broward bicycles, eventually gets stolen.

March 13, 2005

           This is not your usual Cuban lady. She had just slapped her own behind, kind of letting us know she knew we were staring. I’d say she was far more Venezuelan than Cuban. There is a difference you know. I have investigated the Venezuela variety, and it is much firmer.
           Finally, JZ and I made it to Calle Ocho. This is the massive Cuban party on SW 8th. It is really more of a get-together, just that it involves close to a million people. Not all at once, but over the entire day. We means JZ and I. He has never been there in his 50 years. Several times there was grid lock which means there were so many people that nobody could move for minutes at a time. There was more Latina boobs and butts hanging out it was like watching a live beer commercial.

           We were there six hours even though JZ was late getting out of church. There is some bishop doing mass, two religious terms I do not understand. JZ is neat to have around Miami since he knows where all the free parking is. We took the Taurus. Calle Oche (Eighth Street) is in south Miami. One day each year they seal off twenty blocks along the eastern portion. And I really mean seal off, there are guardposts and foot patrols. Stats say a million people attend, although I personally know what a million looks like and it was more like 310,000 at any given time. This is plenty to cause gridlock for minutes at a time. That is probably very dangerous and no place for anyone who fears crowds because you really have to press the flesh. You have to find designated side streets to leave the area, there is no place to sit down, and it costs a dollar to pee.

           Sadly, I must report that there were very few single women there between 18 and 35. That is authentic South Florida, right there. I had the video in a blind so I there is plenty of footage to back up this claim. We specifically went down there to meet women but I do not advise it. What few good-looking women were around acted superficially friendly and knew the score. I blame television on all this behavior. Food. Unbelievable food, and it is also unbelievable expensive. You’d think that would be the one thing available at less than restaurant rates. No sir, it was $8 to $10 per (paper) plate, which for future generations works out to almost twice minimum wage. I never pay more than a half-hours income to eat out, and I’ve had some damn good meals in my time. Calle Ocho is not the place to bargain hunt.

ADDENDUM
           The side streets contain band shells with the hired help pumping out those far-too-loud Latin American disco rhythms. I like loud, what I do not like is cheap, speaker-rattling sound. The media was everywhere. Robot cameras, helicopters and interviews on the curbside. Otherwise, there is no theme to the party. The food vendors and trinket sellers are identical to any other side-show in the country. No special events or displays. JZ loves the free samples. Let me look in the bag and see the haul. We got Doublemint Gum, insect repellent, a day-glo Frisbee, anti-acid pills, two coupons to a spoof on Fidel Castro and a bottle of Coke with lime.

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March 12, 2005

           Here is a very long entry that will make no sense to anyone. So to keep you interested, here is a picture of a sexy girl. See? That works every time. She was sporting this advertisement at Calle Ocho, which technically happens tomorrow. Drop back for the details of South Florida’s most attended party.

           The moment class was out I drove up to Del Ray and met up with Glenn. We played a house party on Jasmine Court for a newspaper executive leaving town. Lots of video with a keyboard player. We actually got paid which always keeps me interested. Come on, Glenn, let’s do it again next weekend. Suddenly I like house parties all over again.
           I knew I had never met the keyboard player, but this man named Joe answered the door and we both agree we have met somewhere, yet neither of us know where. The crowd loved us. On the other hand, between us we know most of it was faked and we are badly out of practice as a group. Here is a secret. I only liked House of the Rising Sun the first time I ever heard it, and I reluctantly accept that I am going to have to play that stupid song in every band I’m in for the rest of my life. It friggin’ puts me to sleep already.

           Back home at midnight. I did the books, and for some unexplained reason there is an extra $60 in the coffers. This is not due to undocumented income. These are the real books that have a checksum built in. Every bank withdrawal is accounted for, every transaction is supported by a receipt, yet here is $60.18 extra. It is scary because it did not enter either the books or my pocket through the usual paths. Three crisp twenty dollar bills and change. Today’s bank balances show everything is in order over there. I just dunno.
           The bank statements are reconciled, the most recent was bank statement number 112, 692 on 2/24/05. I did not take this from my savings account, as the last withdrawal there was 38-0217 contained on lines 64, 65 and 66 of my records. Ah, what is this? Line 398 of my checking shows an unrecorded $20 entry on 3/2/05. I think somebody gave me $20. Okay, so let me see what happened today in 1981. Actually two days, March 11 and March 12, 1981.
           Hey, forget those dates, since I was obviously bored. Take a look at Saturday, March 14, 1981. Here is the quote verbatim: “I still can’t sell R. H. on the idea of going computer. He still sees it as overkill. But any business not on computer 5 years from now will be obsolete. I think, because he finally got a C in a course & it was coincidently (sic) a computing course, he thinks all the software will be too expensive. He doesn’t understand I can do most of the programming we’ll need so it will cost quite little at first.”

           How’s that for prophetic, all you so-called whiz kids that didn’t even arrive for another ten years? What did any one of you ever predict that far in advance with such confidence? Which one of you even knows how original that statement was at the time? Not one person in a hundred thousand had ever touched a computer when I wrote that, and yet I was obviously certain we needed one. This was just two years after the Apple II came out and the only useful software it had was a primitive spreadsheet called Visi-Calc. Yet, there it is in my own handwriting buried in place with hundreds of pages of entries on either side representing years of work and thus impossible to fake.

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March 11, 2005

           [Author’s note: I must have originally put a lot of work into this entry, there were dozens of pictures. I’ll ask you to imagine the ones that didn’t make it, I had to trim down the file sizes.]

           Okay, an early morning study session makes for a good day. I memorized Chapter 6, the material we are covering this evening. I have an old computer from Jerry to practice on. This is where the old hard drive currently on Glenn’s machine came from. It was really in there and took me a half-hour to remove brackets to get it into the open. When I moved in the hide-a-bed, several containers had to be shifted and I see one of them was the box of music notes Julie sent me some years back. The contents were listed as rock hits, so I just had to browse.
Does anyone remember:

                     Chris Montez (1) ???
                     Every Mother’s Son (5) Come On Down to My Boat Baby
                     The Tremeloes (4) Here Comes My Baby (In the Midnight Moonlight)
                     The Happenings (4) ???
                     Scott McKenzie (1) San Francisco (Flowers in Your Hair)
                     The Parade (3) ???
                     Frank Sinatra (1) ???

           There must be pages missing. Yes, 16 pages because there are no matching tunes Let’s have some fun and attach the names to the pictures, which I claim as fair usage because they are so old they don’t even have advertising value. No cheating now, I want you to name these rock musicians from memory. I’ll give you a hint.
           The first one is Frank Sinatra, although what the hell he is doing in a book of rock music is anybody’s guess. Just take a look at that dipshit hat! Now, his daughter Nancy, did chant (as opposed to sing) a few tunes at around the same time as others were playing real rock music. But she isn’t in the photo. For some reason my word processor won’t put a number insert in Ole Blue Eye’s photo, but if it would, he gets number zero.

           Let’s see who we can recognize on sight? Okay, well number 2 is the only known photo of Scott McKenzie, last seen clearing out of San Francisco in the general direction of Chanute, Kansas, muttering something about “the whole damn record business anyway”.
           Then we can guess which is Every Mother’s Son because there are five members. Otherwise, they are indistinquishable from any other group of farm boys who experimented with long hair for roughly half of 1966, only to discover that didn’t get them any chicks either. Notice they all have very crisp left parts in their hair? That, you see, is the ‘Mother’ part.
           The other group seems to have just arrived from the beauty parlor. Call them the Tremeloes, named after a sound effect built into guitar amplifiers for some unknown reason. Rumor has it this group broke up when the man to the far right was caught “trying on” the vocalist’s sequined jacket in a motel laundry room.

           That leaves photo number 1 as The Happenings. Note the pocket handkerchiefs? Those were big prop items back then. Whoever they are, they did not happen for very long nor anywhere I’ve ever heard of. Get a load of those greaseball haircuts and receding hairlines. Apparently for the first month everyone mistook the promo for an ROTC recruitment poster, during which period the band went bankrupt from dry cleaning bills. While none of the above is true, we are still waiting for more plausible explanations for their simultaneous disappearances on April 1, 1970. Except for Sinatra, in whose case most people had to be content with only wishing he had vanished.
           I was a half-hour late getting to school, there was a rollover on Sample Road. I’m afraid some of my concerns about the teaching methods in this course are about to come true. The instructor stated tonight that we are “ready for the exam”. That is complete crock, we have barely touched on any one subject in any depth. Nobody who started from scratch is ready, although some did not start from scratch. We have gone over basic things ad nauseum but not learned any new useful things. People who have decided to go into computer repair probably already know how to turn on the computer, so why are we practicing that kind of thing?

           I checked my e-mail. There is a long item there and it is from Rusty. I didn’t have time to read it, and that cheap school does not have a printer hooked up to any thing in the student area. I may have to pay $6 to get that letter tomorrow, but RH does say he spent 6 years in Saudi, and is still married to Marjorie. It looks almost like she spent the time there with him, I think I figured all this out on my own around ten years ago. Anyway, it is great to hear from him after almost 18 years.
           This is exciting news for me, almost enough to make me forget that the Hippie called me yet again seeking free computer advice, and the new software for video capture already has a serious bug. This is my old contact in Taiwan, Kworld. I’m drinking coffee and reading the manual. The screen locks up when I try to capture video. I am getting throughput because I can see the opening scene on the monitor. I’ve directed the save to the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) but I suspect this software only likes to save to CD/DVD and has no buffer to save to HDD. So today I must buy and install a DVD burner. [The video problem turned out to be a serious glitch in the software, boo on Kworld. It seems it could be made to work, if you had 4 GB of RAM.]

           We did not really do any computer work at school as scheduled. That has been shifted to Monday. He does tend to arbitrarily do things like that. For instance, tomorrow is another movie day, this time about the internet. It is great and nice, that is why I am going to see it. But it would be even nicer if he had scheduled them on different weeks and on regular class weeks. This last week, those working a 40 hour week would have another 23 hours of class time and in my case another 10 hours of travel time. Last I heard, this doesn’t leave much time to study in addition to eating and sleeping. He does not seem to factor in these issues. Part of the problem seems to be that he lives just across Federal, something very few people can afford to do much less students taking trade courses.

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