This is a more dramatic shot of the missing sign at Jimbo’s. Chances are it will appear in at least some of the advertising. Notice the sight lines move to the missing sign panels, where you can see a glorious Florida sunset through the frame. Hey, I had to wait a long time to get the brightest area dead center. The clouds were not cooperating that day.
Pudding-Tat likes TV documentaries. There are a several nature shows that are telling me I was almost shark food. It is only recently that I’ve heard of a “feeding ball”. There are dramatic pictures of ocean predators herding large numbers of fish into swirling masses and then devouring every specimen. These images prove to me that many years ago, I had become engulfed inside just such a feeding ball. In an ordinary school, fish don’t pack together in such density.[Author’s note 2017: So you don't think I missed a cue, I had planned on replacing that sign with a moving LED sign facing only north, it's a one way street. This sign would advertise bingo, country music, low prices, the only place in town which specialized in this. But the city wanted a fortune to allow the sign to be replaced. Something like $40,000. I don't recall, but I had to shelve the idea.]
I was snorkeling off Rockley Beach, on the south coast of Barbados. The coral [and sands] extend nearly a quarter mile out into the Caribbean Sea. I knew the area and was accustomed to seeing schools of small fish. Then, like nothing ever before, tens of thousands of small fish, almost the exact color of the water (except for a prominent dark eye spot) silently began swimming around me. They parted in perfect unison to leave me encased in a bubble of water. While they did not blot out the sun, they diffused the light to equality in all directions, which gave a shocking reminder of just how subconsciously one relies on light from above to keep [your] bearings underwater.
This left me so disoriented that I could not tell which direction was up and I was running out of oxygen. Then, equally as rapidly and silently, they passed. The fish were moving too slowly to be fleeing anything at that moment, but I now have no doubt I had been inside a feeding ball. I theorize that these fish had been off the edge of the reef where the large carnivores could maneuver, and had fled into the shallows where I was returning from a plunge to the reef bed some fifteen feet below.
[Author’s note: I will try to locate the original journal of this incident. It is hand-written and not yet published, please bear in mind there are thousands upon thousands of pages and that takes time. I have mentioned this Barbados “adventure” before, but the danger was not recognized until today.]
All that work on the rental computers last weekend was lost. There is a piece of adware (those pesky popup ads) that survived the disk wipe. Another genius gone bad, from a company called Adeck. Fred has a military grade disk cleaner we will apply tomorrow. All the weekend work has to be done over, and it is very hard to work on the computers in the shop when customers are milling around. It is like being in a feeding ball.
I’m going to configure an el cheapo computer for customers who are only checking email. No printer capability. Then, I am moving my printer away from the customers to behind the counter. They’ll have to ask for printouts instead of tearing them out of the paper tray and jamming my beautiful Konica-Minolta. That Linksys print server of recent mention is far more trouble than it is worth so far. It does everything except print which is, in itself, kind of maddening.
For those interested in such things, you plug the print server into any kind of network device, such as a hub, router or switch. I use a 16-channel switch. The rest of the network then sees it as another computer, in this case a “printer” computer. Initially, you use one other computer in the network to configure this new device, address 192.168.1.160, but then you log off and the rest of the network should be able to use the printer. All is okay up to the last step.
I dropped by Jimbo’s to inform them due to equipment repairs, I may have to miss the upcoming Friday show. Only three misses in a year. Maybe I dare not, for the Wednesday band, “Fired Up” were in during the day to discuss possible large-scale advertising with the owners. My coveted Friday slot is not likely in any jeopardy though no sense putting that to the test. Jimbo’s knows that Saturday is a dead night and that is where a band should focus on bringing in new people. Will was there so we ran over a few guitar chords out on the back patio. Within moments, another feeding ball.
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