One year ago today: November 20, 2015, Caladium.
Five years ago today: November 20, 2011, reality: 9 miles per charge.
Nine years ago today: November 20, 2007, I was first, you know.
Random years ago today: November 20, 2003, Scientific American.
It’s a fine pickle, but I can’t find my battery recharger, so today’s pictures are from around the area recently. They are the foundation outline of my intended porch. Then, the police raiding that place up the road, I told you those Hispanics were up to no good. Always pretending they are asking of things in your yard are for sale while they are casing the joint. Last, a Dali picture. To lend this countrified day a wee bit of class.
MORNING
This week, though not this day, has special significance for me. You guessed it. It was 35 years ago I began my limited career at the phone place. Limited, in that I never intended to get into the cutthroat realm of upper management. The phone company does not want intelligent, driven people at the top or the bottom. They want automatons whose specialty is following the rulebook and kowtowing. Like the army. And the phone company always fights the last war. It was a union job with benefits of both kind, although
When I did, they were the pick of the litter. These are the gals you’ve heard me account on how our combined incomes were so massive, as long as we went dutch, there was nothing we could not do. A couple of those women are still with my inner circle to this day. I called what I did “mining the phone company”. I padded my pension, graduated twice from evening courses, and took 90% of my overtime as banked days off. In 1991, I had so many banked hours, I moved to California and worked a second full-time job for eight months.
That’s another reason you love this blog and this blog loves you—I actually do some of the things I plan. I was out there in the trenches and front lines—only to discover that unless you are on your way by age 24, making it later in life is largely an illusion. I rapidly moved to the top of the union scale and that, coupled with my near-legendary money management skills, meant a lifestyle beyond compare, not to the world, but to anyone in my demographic.
I might still be there, except in my eighth or ninth year, the company began to change. The government was sending factories overseas and removing protective tariffs. The phone company (and many others) thought they could get around this by mandatory “productivity” lectures, rearranging the desks to some Japanese model, and constantly harping the bull that “teamwork” would magically improve . . . well, they never did specify what it was supposed to improve. Certainly not morale.
There was no increase cooperation between workers, mainly because the company was full of nepotistic bastards whose goal was to get you doing their work. Now don’t you go thinking it is a simple matter of just telling them where to go. Most had parents in upper positions and they were experts at turning any of your resistance into safety issues and so forth.
The rest you know. At 41, I retired with full pension. I was the youngest person ever to do that, and was so successful, after I left, they changed the rules to block anyone from ever doing that again. In my own defense, which is not required since I did nothing wrong, I would like to clarify that I did not “connive” to leave the company.
I was not that sophisticated back then. All I did was read that same rulebook and use it to plan ahead. I did not know until later that merely thinking more than a couple months ahead (and in my case twenty years ahead) would put me in a league of my own. And judging by the distance between my self and my co-workers today, it seems the distance is permanent.
This was no grand conspiracy. I was fully aware I was planning things differently and that I was the only one. I was mocked. But I also knew I did not want to wind up where they were. House payments, car payments, TV payments and an empty, wasted life. And I’ve warned you about this before—the phone company assumes once you’ve been there more than five years, you are so up to your eyeballs in debt they can begin ordering you around.
Example. Want me to work a graveyard shift at the stores because the whole crew quit when you told them they could not wear their Walkman’s because it was “unsafe” but really because you could not use your little bag of tricks to make them constantly prove their “mind” was on the job? Oops, sorry, Ruth, I just remembered I’ve that week off. What? In that case, I’m meant a month off. With pay. You want people to work at midnight, you hire people to work at midnight. It’s not my problem, since the company’s credo was the lazier you were, the more they left you alone. I’ll hardly forget the years I got a mediocre performance review—because although I was the best, I had “not proven” to them that I could not do even better!
To put this in perspective, when I started at the company, I was in rags, a student loan default wearing the same clothes I’d run away from home with ten years earlier. Five years later, I’d been around the world, I was driving a Cadillac, and living on the south slopes. By year ten, I was by far the wealthiest man in the department, including the supervisors. And it was a big department, my friend. I am not specifying a dollar amount, but like today, I was the only one who could come up with $10,000 cash if I had to.
This is the source of the claim that I lived better than people with five times my income. One time, the courier left the department head’s pay envelope on the employee rack. Roger Perlotto held it up to the light and yep, five times what I was making. And that supervisor, if he took one holiday a year, had to put it on a credit card. I took a minimum one ten-day vacation per month. A “week and a weekend” if you planned it right. And I’m talking Caracas, Bridgetown, or Merida, not some staycation in Utah or a coupon junket to the Berry Farm.
Camaroon.
Use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
NOON
You are right this is no ordinary Florida cold snap. Global warning, my eye. Fortunately, or wisely (take your pick), all my cold weather gear from the great Colorado cold of 2013 is maintained and to the rescue. That dual A/C heater unit that came with the place doesn’t work at all so I’ve done the old Alaska trick of moving all the heat and living to one room of the house, the one that’s kept toasty. The only section insulated is the master bedroom but that was a smart move. Nobody lives in that wing of the house at this moment, but the whole area is easily kept shirt-sleeve warm by just a propane lantern. How about that?
Now 40°F is barely above freezing, more so if there is a slight wind. So I stayed home and read more of “The Name of the Rose.” Dang, I nodded off in mid-morning and didn’t wake until late afternoon. I do have some experience at staying bundled up in the cold, but one thing I have against freezing weather is oversleeping because nothing else can get accomplished. The book is divided into days, and I am now on the chapter called Day Five. For a laugh, you could read the first section.
It’s a description of a malicious argument between the priests and monks and legates or whatever that more resembles a bitch-slapping. If there’s time, I see if I can translate it to modern terms, but trust me you will recognize the slimy two-bit tactics used by the pro-Pope committee every time somebody proves a point they don’t like. That remains constant to this day, religious fanatics calling any analogy that does not prove their side to be heretic.
Mind you, there are two Popes at the time, one appointed by the kings of France and Germany, and the other by the people in Rome. Each calls the other a pretender, but the behavior of the Roman bunch is beneath contempt. Still, you should decide for yourself.
In case you don’t have the inclination to follow up, the argument is the same old: whether Jesus was poor or wealthy. While the bible is silent on the point, it does say Jesus had a purse. One side asks if a farmer feeds his horse and the horse eats it, does that make the horse for or against material possession? The Pope guys, who desperately want to avoid any decision on that, pretend they are offended by anyone who compares the holy whatever to a horse. As I say, you’ll recognize most of the scenario. As long as one side can burn its opponents at the stake, there is peace and tranquility back home. Like how the IRS operates.
[Author's note: before you complete reading the next section, bear in mind that Canada has produced the most famous political prisoner of the century, and that there is no such thing as a fair trial in Canada. Zundel was jailed for a "thought crime". Their legal system is mainly for show and its major function is political enforcement bordering on thought control. In Canada, if it is not forbidden, it is compulsory. And no, their medical is definitely not free. Nothing is free in Canada. Nothing.]
The country radio stations are again catering to Canadians. This is the time of year when every welfare case or pensioner in the province of Quebec gets Uncle Pierre to collect the cheque while they head for Florida. One of the cute situations is the stations will carry Canadian news reports. I used to get a laugh out of these at the phone place. I would hear the Canadian version of things at work, then drive home across the border and often get the other side. What irked me more than the anti-American slant to everything was the stories that Ottawa did not even report. I found out about them [the Canadian Jews] burning down Zundel's house from a Seattle radio station. Remember, this was the days before heavy cable news and the media was not so blantantly trying to influence the outcome of elections.
The weather report says eastern Canada was enjoying summer-like temperatures until last night. I remember this from my semester in Calgary. At noon it is 50F above and one hour later you got 20F below. Only idiots and madmen live in such a climate by choice. Oh, an also the people that through little fault of their own, don’t have that choice. I understand if you live there long enough, you begin to believe you “like” such weather.
Now, if you are curious how political correctness can distort the news, listen to CBC, the consummate dysfunctional bureaucracy. A “Toronto man” means a Jamaican welfare case in their ghetto. A “person of interest” is a Hindu who just set his wife on fire. And, did you know, if you separate American crime into those committed by whites and blacks, the Canadian crime rate is higher than the American. As I said years ago, any system like Canada that allows such a disparity to exist between rich and poor will have very full jails. (But, but, American jails are also full, I heard some one in the back of the room say in falsetto. Yes, but what did I just say about white and black? May I remind you of why the FBI requires that newspapers classify Latinos as "white".)
NIGHT
It continues too cold to enjoy. I got out the radiant heater and read more—it’s actually getting interesting at the part where the Inquisitor starts to interrogate. This was 700 years ago but you would immediately spot the similarity to those two TV shows that trick people into confessions. (I’m guessing but I think they are called “CSI” and “Law & Order”. I’ve never seen either, but often hear the audio in coffee shops and such.) The whole shitterie is there. The “judge” gets to lecture the jury privately in the back room and regularly tells them which remarks they are obligated to disregard. The accused has no such option. Other than that, it is a fair trial.
That means the quicker they got the victim to crack (literally), the faster they could get home to supper. The torture would then stop, and by comparison, the trial would seem like it was saving the victim from further pain. Today, we call this an “interview” and “plea bargaining”. Tell us who your accomplices are and we’ll go easy on you. You don't need a lawyer, this is just so we can get your side of the story.
Time permitting, I’ll see if I can put that crazy chapter into contemporary terms. But as soon as each day gets just warm enough, I’ve got a ton yard work to catch up on. Actually, closer to three tons. I miscounted the number of logs as 5 or 6. When I cleared some brush y’day, it is 7 logs. And they ain’t going anywhere by themselves.
I further pursued that “lead break” I’m learning on the bass. I remind the reader this is different from the other breaks I’ve played in the past, each of which was custom fit to the song. This time, I’m pursuing the theory. Most of us have probably watched lead players and noticed they are playing repetitious patterns. I’ve detected seven of them. Previously, I only knew the Flatt run and some fills. The idea here is to get enough theory to fake a lead break on the bass, even to an unfamiliar song. At this juncture, the lead break seems to be adding bends and grace notes to the standard Flatt run. I’d be happy if I could do just that.
This is not quite as easy as copying the lead break, as that instrument has an extra octave. It’s challenging to play each segment so that the next “chord” properly emulates the original. I’ve discovered that the audience can be finicky about the riffs follow on in the right register. I used to play ahead of the guitarist, a trick I called “flanking”, so I’ve got the experience. Oddly, with bass, I never thought about landing on the right notes. It was always automatic, I never had to think about it. Not to this degree.
Last Laugh
No, Ken, the link doesn't work . . .
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
