It was straight over to the wig store this morning. Again, I had to charge her the full rate even though much of the time I was doing clerical work. Hey, I charge my rate even if you want me to mow your lawn. I grew up in a family that had extreme difficulty with this [and every other civilized] concept. Ruth had me sending e-mails all over the Orient, mostly Indonesia. I saw the price list for doggie wigs, they wholesale for as little as $4.50, so be on the lookout for what they retail [when they get] here.
Ruth has picked up that I know how to run an office. So, rather than strictly teaching her to run the computer, which was the deal, she often sets me to doing some of her actual work. I would not mind since [again] I am being paid top dollar. The rub is that it is not the kind of work I do, for unlike teaching, there is never a finish line. Just an endless, mindless stream of repetitious chores, another thing I know a lot about.
Here is a photo I almost missed. If you look closely where I added the circles, that is Richard M. Nixon getting off the stand, and Ruth up in the corner. The significance of all this, I do not know. I have to practically run out the door when I want to leave, for you see, she has figured something out. She realizes that it is actually cheaper to pay me three times as much [as she could hire a computer helper] and get the job done right. She even has me sending e-mails to her daughter in Colorado, all for the full lesson rate. This cannot go on because even she cannot afford it. It is interesting to see how it will progress. I’ve already filled Fred in on the details.
For example, Ruth feels I should, in my position, know hundreds of people I could recommend for the job of her helper. That does not make it so. I do not know one person I could even put it a good word for. It does not work like that. Florida is bad that way, no middle ground. Florida is run like a bank, 1% overpaid wimp managers and everyone else a flunky. Not sure what I mean? Open an account at Bank of America and try to cash a check at a different branch.
Thanks to all this, I am actually using AOL more often than in my combined life up to now. It is a poor system that should be scrapped. A major roadblock seems to be that during setup, AOL asks for a bunch of decisions and defaults that a new user could not possibly get right. The address book she did not even know was there turned out to have 200+ addresses in it. Let’s give it up for AOL.
Late afternoon found me back at Barbara’s. She is highly pleased with the results. It may be important that she has tried other lessons and methods, including the “free” library thing. Synonymous with “monumental waste of time”, she says, now that she realizes she is not alone thinking those pseudo-lessons were not worth anything. I detect that the other lessons [she has taken] wound up giving her the wrong idea about computers and that my practical approach is like manna. It looks like I had better learn about parental controls in a hurry, something I never got around to. Still, she has mentioned it [controls] twice so the demand is there.
Things that go bump. Late last night. The hurricane shutter on my side window fell off the bracket. I went out for a look, no wind or rain to cause the incident. The bolts just came loose. I looked again this morning. That Enrique, the guy who sold me this place, was not a handyman. He seems to have gone out of his way to fix things cheaply even when it was unwarranted. I’ll get some lag bolts and ram them straight though the building frame. These shutters are added onto Florida homes and he bolted them too shallow, that is, around a ¼” deep. Duh.
Have I touched a nerve a moment ago? For the record, I am against parental controls on any kind of knowledge. Behavior, yes; knowledge, no. Take that with some salt, because to really stupid people, knowledge in itself is nothing more than a highly stylized form of “anti-social” behavior. Get it? Smart people don’t act anything at all like stupid people, which supports that point of view. Once intelligence is reduced, in their thinking, to behavior, well, any behavior can be criticized. Where they lack the brains to criticize a set of facts, they have no such problem going after behavior. Example, even if you are right, they are expert at putting you in a position where proving right is not good enough, you must also prove them wrong. Which makes you arrogant.
I could go on about this, but I won’t, because I already have. I’m reminded of a comment I once read about web page programming languages having “the initial appearance of common sense”.
