I’ll always have trouble understanding who would buy a truck like this. The paint job alone tells you it will never be used off-road. This was parked for Sunday brunch at the Burger King, where I stopped after shopping for diodes. Zener diodes. During my year end wrap up a short while ago, I calculated that the scooter had paid for itself in saved gasoline. It made me wonder what kind of mileage this monstrosity gets.
The scooter has 5,400 miles on it; this would have required 270 gallons of gas in the Taurus (all city miles). It becomes more expensive to keep an older car tuned up than to buy the extra gas, but still I didn’t spend $1,012.50 on gasoline. The scooter required 75 gallons for the same distance, so subtract $281.50. The saving is $731.00, meaning it paid for itself already, even allowing for repairs. Throw in the free trip to St. Augustine and it becomes one hell of a bargain.Thanks to bingo, I could have gone anywhere and done anything. So I mostly stayed home. I’m thinking to continue my lessons with the sewing machine. I’ve already patched all my old work clothes (which took a real beating at the shoe shop) and I’m ready for something fancier. I think it would be easier to make things new than to keep repairing old clothes, which can be hard to feed through the machine.
In related trivia, did you know that 49% of people who knit their own socks wear them to bed? I’ve never knitted socks, but I found this well-written book about how to knit them two at a time. I learned about the second sock hitch, where apparently many knitters finish the first sock, but have trouble finding time to do the second. I’m not saying anything except that I flipped through the book, which did not state what percentage of people still make their own socks.
Zener diodes. There is so much lame junk on-line that I finally bought some and will check things out myself. On-line authors have real mental difficulty explaining things in plain language, which I instantly suspect means they don’t really know themselves. This is far more prevalent, including amongst university professors, than you think.
And what about university? For some time now I have balked at the cost of returning simply because most degrees have become zero-sum. Tuition and expenses, plus the time off the job market, are so high that the breakeven point is impossibly far into the future. Remember my dentist, who told me it would take him until he was 48 to pay off his loans? I’ve read articles lately that say the whole college/university system is a bubble about to burst.
I can see it, how the colleges will do anything to sucker people into student loans by strong-arming them into a program they didn’t originally want. Broward Community College tried that stunt on me, documented elsewhere. You can’t bankrupt your way out of student loans any more, something I would have done if it was possible back when. Nope, college has become too much hype and swindle for me. My original university certainly did not teach me what I needed to know. To this day, I cannot program in any Internet language except C, which I’m only now learning on the Arduino.
Who recalls my prediction about an invisibility cloak, one that will bend light around the hidden object. Guess what? The very newest of research has done just that, and using the method I described. Light is just another wave, and waves can bend around objects. Since light is energy, the cloak can be self-powering. There is also talk of submarines being shielded from sonar and wake-detecting sensors by using similar technology.
That tips us off I was up at the bookstore, with a keen eye out for single women. That doesn’t work in this town, yet it is a habit I cannot break. I’ll approach any babe, but I need that tiniest glimmer of reaction first. Anything over 21 in Florida develops a poker face and a crust this thick. Oh, and she should be pretty. I may not be as handsome as I once was, but nor is that my claim to fame. One gal did smile at me in the craft (knitting) section, then disappeared in a moment. Almost like she had an invisibility cloak. Knit me one of those.
Yeah, I still miss having a gal to chum around with. Not necessarily a girlfriend, but company. Lordy knows I haven’t done too well in that department since 2009. I think the reason I’ve lost the ability to find decent women is due to having worked in offices my entire adult life. There was always a surplus of single women, not my type, but my age and race, employed, well-paid, and quite aware a man as a friend is better than no man at all.
They did what they were supposed to do, and didn’t do what they weren’t supposed to. That includes things like not becoming a total bitch the minute they think the guy likes them. It involves having interests beyond their own immediate personal comfort. I have yet to meet a Florida woman with a productive hobby. I’ve had do-nothing women who put me down for having a variety of interests. It’s crazy. One thing I really miss is going dutch, which was a standard at the phone company. If both of us chipped in, we could go places far nicer and more often. The last woman I let into my house in Florida instantly quit her job and sat in front of the TV all day. Like my brothers, she wondered why I never got mail at the house. Ahem.
Here’s a beautiful dawn from this morning. I call it “Cloud on Fire O’er the WiFi Mast”. This view is common in Florida when clouds are high enough and the sun is still below the eastern horizon. I took this as an omen, that I’m over the hard part now. Soon, I’ll have a budget to chase real women again. And the guitar to do it with. I’m just not interested in Suzy Homemaker and Sally Secretary. Stay tuned for the new year, it should be a great one.
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