Here’s a local picture of no significance. It’s a little photocomposition I call “Green Paint on the Pavement”, a study of Hallandale Beach Blvd, where it is illegal to ride your bicycle on the shady side of the roadway. There was a power outage in the area this morning and everything was closed which wore me down on my bicycle by 10:00 AM.
Every now and then I have a bad day from my prescription side effects, a day when they appear in combination rather than ones or twos. So I rode the bus to the Ft. Lauderdale library. Unfortunately, it really was not day of getting much done and I lived on coffee and Raiman noodles. Guitar Eddie says, “You know, there’s really only one noodle in that package.” If you ever need a model on how to eat cheap food, contact Eddie. Altered taste perception is not a listed symptom of my pills and I don’t know why.It caused a craving for tea all day long, a commodity I don’t use much. Strange to want something you normally care less about. To be exact, I wanted oolong (perfumed) and the Yuppie places nearby sold only pekoe. I had to wait until I got home. Then I drank five cups one by one, meaning although I have an English teapot, I didn’t use it because there was no way of knowing how much I wanted. Blog rules I must report anything unusual, that’s it for today.
The top news was I’ve learned that real estate auctions are considered the most risky form of property investment. Fine. I was quick to notice all the authors were real estate salesmen who warned about things that could go wrong if you didn’t buy through them, look left and cough. They implied the agent would do everything for you including crawl under the boards and check the plumbing. Theresa can tell you how thorough these people are. The second thing wide of the mark with the agent theory is that for a hundred dollars is anybody going to give a damn what is wrong? Hell, if it has four walls and a roof in that neighborhood, I’ll take it.
But I did uncover (yes, you have to dig) that any outstanding taxes are passed on to the new owner. What I could not find out is what they can do if you just move in and don’t pay up. I know they eventually take the house, but I want to know how long is eventually. I’m no crook, but if there is a loophole, my loyalty to the system is kind of used up. I’ve been waiting for the housing market to collapse for years and that’s no lie.
The Ft. Lauderdale library computer rooms are huge, spanning two floors. The local branches are so poor for research it is worth the hour commute up there. There is not one volume on electronics at Hallandale, but they have 174 self-help books on diabetes, dog-training and menopause. My real estate lawyer’s wife is a real estate agent and this weekend in return for setting up a wireless computer, she is going to show me how to check properties on line using her account. Says a guy like me will learn the process in an hour. Good. Don’t expect a report as that information is likely to be a guarded secret until other matters are settled.
Who do I run into today but Enrique, the guy who sold me the mobile home on West-A. He’s got another for sale thinking he’ll get twice what it’s worth, so let him dream. I just missed a double-wide on Park (fancy) for $3,999.00. Missed it because I had no cash until a month after it sold. I was keeping tabs on that one because that park is about to have a fire sale on double-wides. They are all furnished, right down to the kitchen utensils. It is a gated community. And it’s in Hollywood.
Matters of perception, I read some Arduino code that caused a light to blink slower as a sensor detected body heat. Took me a while to clue in why anyone would want to do that. Turns out the guy was installing the lights on his doorstep in a pumpkin on Halloween. What a ham, the kids would squeal because it only acted up when they moved further away but stop when they instinctively moved closer to see. Hey, at least I’m getting to know enough of the code to know what I don’t know.
Here’s some history about hobbies as it affects my choice of the Arduino. Back in boy scouts, we had two different troops, the rich guys and us. While the rich were no more talented, we were always jealous of their access to raw materials. When a plank was cut wrong, we were chastised where they just threw it out and grabbed another. I wanted to make and sell polished rocks, but that would have demanded a machine and inventory so squelch that idea. Apparently, the machine would have to be left unattended for weeks on end, so around the madhouse I grew up in, triple-squelcht that idea. Have you got polished rocks in your head?
Every year the rich got richer, their sales at the craft fare brought in much more money than ours. It could be because they were selling $30 hand-made varnished shoe boxes* while we tried to flog $1 old pill bottles of tap water (remember when they were glass and had real tops?). “He who drinks the water of the mighty Red will always return.”
Along comes the Arduino. The Arduino is a model of no waste. Every component can be recycled indefinitely until broken or lost. Now that is a hobby. Things are galloping along with that so try to keep it in perspective that I have not yet wired even the basics. The same does not apply to the coding, my forte. The average “advanced” Arduino sketch uses 2,700 of the available 30,720 bytes or 9% of the capability. Occam’s Razor says that is due to the difficulty of typing long code and mentally juggling everything after around the fiftieth line. There will be no such barrier once I grasp the concept.
But I have no Arduino. While I have some cash, nothing is spent until I find out what is happening with this place. Wallace is grumbling like he is ill-done-by, when in fact he is the author of every problem around here. No way did I keep it together with no help for all these years to have somebody else make a profit off my hard work. Either I’m a partner or I get paid, one of the two.
Temp: 78.5 Press: 30.05 Humid: 94.5%.
*[Author's note: these shoe boxes were the origin of the broken-chisel, a true story widely covered here in other years.]
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