I’m not saying I don’t like pets, but another one I don’t care for is tiny little dogs. Meet the new Wiggles, this is the mascot for the doggie wig place. She is still a puppy but won’t get much bigger. Watch your step.I didn’t mention the cat also knocked over Cowboy Mikes Dobro y’day and has broken the table lamp bulb twice already. It is only 7:00 a.m. so let me find some good news. Okay, the bicycle. I will have been riding regularly one year later this month, when I’ll give you some statistics. For those interested, there will be few surprises, however the figures are exceptionally accurate, likely approaching laboratory grade.
For the first time in my life, I’ve worn out a bicycle tire, the rear wheel to be exact. The tread is worn off, mind you, it was somewhat used when I bought the bike. I’ll replace it with the best quality I can find. The tire has never been skidded even in panic stops, so folks, at my age, I really did wear it out. Remain seated.
You want a sample? Okay, I’ve put 2,254.892 miles on this bicycle, and consequently, at that much on the rear tire. It did surprise me that the wear is uneven, despite the fact that the wheel is balanced to factory specs and it has also been regularly repositioned around the rim when fixing flats, which I get a lot. I average 400 miles on a given “heavy duty” [inner] tube.
Anna O called and her twelve-year old may be interested in picking up the guitar again. That is the girl I lost to after school softball lessons a few months back. I don’t mind, that is exactly how I was at the same age. Well, except for the supportive family willing to invest unlimited money in my future. Hmmm, can I fit this in with band practice? It would have to be Tuesdays, so let us see what happens next. Did I mention I am now regularly making more at music than computers, and that gap will become huge if the “Two-Hand Blues” band plays regularly? (A pseudonym.)
At any rate, I am thinking seriously about introducing Loren, the student, to the electric bass. Practice without immediate, or at least short range results, is meaningless to teenagers. Bass, in the short run, is more interesting that rhythm guitar. (In the long run it is somewhat more complicated.) I just happen to know of a band that may be looking to fill just such a position. Now that I know lots of Dixie Chicks material, I mean.
I’m due in Bal Harbor by 10:30 a.m. I’m off to grab a coffee and the Argentine place, a 2.101 mile round trip. Exactly. Return later for updates. Is it later already? Yes, and I had the opportunity to see first hand all of the tiny errors made in importing and storing material ordered from the other end of the Pacific. It was not any particular error. For example, the decision to hand unpack the first order was made when there were to be 1100 items. That grew to more than double and requires full time help for two weeks to get the material into saleable condition.
The product is shipped in a poly bag that is not suitable for sale, but nobody remembered to cancel the product sticker. The wigs come covered with a hairnet, like a hairnet. The storage locker is not the best arrangement to take these boxes apart in that things cannot be lined up. Batches mean each item is handled five or six extra times in roughly a hundred different steps. The bright side is that we now know it only adds sixty cents [each] to the cost and can be done in a pinch. The marketing guy got his teenage nephew to help.We immediately wrote to the factory for a price quote to package it over there. No way anyone here is going to get stuck doing this mindless kind of work, although I’m certainly related to some people who would say it is okay work for you.
Um, that lady (Melissa) from the Thrift has not called back. For all I know, that is the way they do these things in Florida. On the other hand it has only been two days, but then again, it has already been two days. I work the side of the street that says in these situations, if you want it bad enough, you will create the time. Was it her that mentioned there were 176,000 repossessions (real estate bankruptcies) in Florida last year?
Much later, I came rolling in from the Jimbo’s gig at 2:35 a.m. My earlier experience tells me not to say anything that might serve as or become a basis of comparison for situations that may never happen again with music. You decide. I made more in tips tonight what I ever made playing with other so-called “professionals” in total. That is correct, I made more tonight than the total I made in Florida before. There were twenty-dollar bills in the tip jar, and I don’t even sing. The owner personally introduced herself and I stand informed I can “help myself around the place”.
Sure, I ran out of material as I predicted. I also tripled the barmaid’s tips, packed the place and had them dancing in the aisles. Um, for those who need to be informed, I did it without a “contract” or a “demo tape”, ahem. Oddly, the tune that livened them up was an old Brian C. special, “Hippie Hippie Shake”, brought in by the inference that anybody who could dance to it would [have to be] be far younger than myself. I know I recently toyed with the idea of publishing my music income, but too many dodos might take that out of context. Suffice to say that tonight, I surprised myself as it is only half-way through and I’ve made $56.25 more in tips than I did everything else put together.. And there is plenty more where that came from.
