First the bad news. My guitarist turned in his resignation. Yes, playing in a band is hard work. It involves a change of lifestyle and it is neither convenient nor fun and the rewards can be delayed beyond patience. Trent, it was refreshing to deal with a professional and there was a tremendous amount of information learned both ways during the rehearsals. Stick with it and you’ll make it.
Here is my classic ad on the Guitar Center bulletin board by same afternoon. It kind of gets lost in the clutter. I also responded to Laura’s non-stop texting to attend Buddy’s Karaoke. Heidi and I delivered that version of “Jackson” only possible from two out-of-practice locals who’ve lived to tell the tale. My own eyes were watering by second verse.Remember my bet to pick up a 3/2 in Ft. Lauderdale for $5,000? Allow me to explain that I don’t specifically mean that town, which is as spiritless and monotonous a city as you’ll find. I mean the concept of snapping up a house that somebody who was “right” had to work for his whole life. My point is more along the lines that even if I had been born that rich, I could still have managed better.
What brought this on? A working class hero. This lady I know claims to be a success because she “started with nothing and owns four houses”. What doesn’t figure is why she still works a dead end job and complains about the low income. My mortgage detector say underwater and sinking fast. Any time I want to plunge into debt, I’d have such things myself.
It’s the classic “pile of belongings” mindset. They base a lot on how much is in the toy box. I had to claw my way up to their starting point. Being born poor, I probably had to earn $100,000 more in my life to even have $5,000. (Figure out how long it takes the average somebody with a job to save five grand that sticks and you’ll see the connection.) I don’t get any credit for actually having advanced far further than most.
Over this issue and my recent down time, I took inventory of how prepared I would be to grab a repossessed house. Taking stock like this has saved my bacon more often than you think; fortune favors the prepared. Knowing ones finances to the penny has a charm of its own and emphasizes the philosophical difference that the money game isn’t over yet.
Put more simply, when you amass belongings, by the time you have enough you are trapped and the goods are obsolete. My plan, on the other hand, is to accumulate just enough to make a quick surgical stab at any emerging weak spot. In that sense, I am the antithesis of the wage slave. When I strike, my assets will be the newest and finest off the drawing board. It only looks like I don’t have what everybody else does, but that’s because the stampede hasn’t started. I only have to outrun the bear.
So when I do get my fancy house, I won’t have the drone mentality, the unwelcome credit rating, the lack of privacy, the peer pressure, the herding instinct, the false belief in conformity, and a dozen other trappings that the idiot class consider normal. Sure, I want the house because I had originally planned to be married with a couple kids at this stage. Not only did the heart attack forestall those plans, you know it stole my peak earning years as well. Will I take somebody’s house? Let’s just say in the past eight years I’ve developed a heightened sense of what I owe this world in return.
Then, in an amazing (to me) feat, I looked at the laser eye web page y’day, but I certainly did not give out any information. Today, I began receiving e-mails to one of my alias e-mail addresses. How did they do that (and no, it is by no means a simple thing)? I know it is possible, but how? And if they can do that, what else? As usual, until somebody important gets in trouble over it, there is no law says they can’t. What scares me is it was not my regular e-mail, but my private encrypted, supposedly secure e-mail. Maybe four people in the world knew about that account and it had never been opened on this particular computer where the spam arrived.
[Author's note: this incident was traced back to people calling my doctor's office. While they do not give out "medical information", it seems they may not consider your personal, private, unlisted phone number to be part of your medical information. My view is that anything they know about me becomes automatically part of what they are obligated to protect from anyone outside the concerns of their immediate office. Since then, I have stopped providing any doctors with an email address.]
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