March 2, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 2, 2016, is never good for you?
Five years ago today: March 2, 2012, mirror selfie.
Nine years ago today: March 2, 2008, no coffee shops left.
Random years ago today: March 2, 2009, more flats in Florida.

           Who recognizes this house from what, 18 months ago? It’s the place in Eagle Lake that finally convinced me there is nobody policing the sordid world of Florida bank property (REO) advertising. This is the foreclosure that kept stating the asking price was $15,000 but would never accept any bid. They kept extending the deadline, another slippery tactic I thought was illegal. The price always was $85,000—they were deliberately wasting people’s time trying to get a sucker out there to meet that.

           That’s the same place I waited until quitting time Friday and put in a bid for $15,001 for the deadline Saturday morning. They said a reply could take a month, which is nonsense, but I noticed the place re-listed a few days later. It was a pattern that repeated, that’s flagrant false advertising. There were at least four female, I hesitate to call them ladies, real estate agents in on the hustle. The one gave me a dirty look when I said I’d be watching what they were up to, as I had driven 200 miles based on their dishonest claims. (They said I did not understand how the auction system works. They must mean the system part, since I know exactly how an auction works.)

           The place was at that time vacant with a no-occupancy sticker in the window. The upstairs corner of the structure at the back had some bad floor joists and roof rafters. Nothing I couldn’t handle. I drove past the place today and saw that sticker is still there. There is a red pickup in the yard. I hope some poor bastard didn’t pay the $85k only to find the city is not going to approve the place until he sinks twice what it is worth into it.
           I was flying down highway 17 and zipped into town just to get this photo. The exterior may have been painted, but until that sticker is gone, somebody is losing money on that property. It’s far too exposed to try to crash there without being caught. It was shortly after this I said screw the “auction” scam—until I learn how to fiddle in there myself.
           It was around this same time, checking properties near Eagle Lake, that I became interested in places away from Deland. And some six months later, I found the place I bought. I didn’t get all I wanted. There is no real college in this town, the nearest movie theater is over ten miles away, and I’m in town instead of on the outskirts. But what the hell, I got this place for half-price. So even if it did take every penny I had on me, I’m living in style in a neighborhood I don’t have to put bars on the windows. Like Miami, since they got enriched by immigration. It’s not just me, I mean, anybody who lives in Miami can tell you how much the place has changed since the Cubans arrived.

Picture of the day.
Socotra Island.
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           It’s me, the guy with all the energy. I installed the doorknob on the screen door and had to take the rest of the day off. True, I spent half the day chasing around but still had to admit, that door knob was my limit. It was one of those dummy knobs, if I had not found it on sale for fifty cents, I was going to use an old trailer hitch. It was a warm day so I’d planned to finish the electrical wiring.

           Now, hold on, I did do another task, I just about forgot. I checked into the code for the grounding rod. It says ten feet. And I know from years ago they can tell if you cut it in half by the resistance.

           That’s well down into the water table and the copper rod is over a dollar per foot these days. It’s that ground in the bedroom, where three of the walls are exterior. It has a separate ground wire, it’s flexible. Comparable to around 14 gauge stranded, you attach it to the ground rod with a fancy brass clamp. Wait for a picture. Most people I know have never seen a grounding rod. It looks like a 5/8” plumbing pipe, except it is sold copper and pointed at one end.
           While at the store, I saw this insulator. The old ceramic, these are not much different than the telegraph pole style. It was the price tag that “shocked” me. These things are now $7.00 each. So, I remember the insulators on the poles driving to town when I was a kid. IK counted them many times on that long ride. There were 5 crossbars on each pole, with 47 wires, there were 36 poles to the mile, and it was 31 miles to town. How many insulators were there? Ignoring the red herrings, that 47 x 36 x 31, or 52,452 insulators. At $7 each, that’s $367,164. That also means my last target practice cost somebody $2,100. Bwaaaa-ha-ha-ha.

One-Liner of the Day:
“We had eight cows on the farm but when
I rounded them up, we had ten.”
           Hours later, sorry, the fatigue stayed with me. I’m going nowhere, struck down in my prime by a doorknob. Part of my day I was shopping and the darn store was out of my brand of tea. Tired and no orange pekoe. Is this my destiny? I watched an unusual DVD, “Birthday Girl”, thinking it was an action or spy movie. It’s this bank employee who orders a Russian bride. She shows up with her two “cousins” before he realizes she they are a team and force him to steal $90,000 from the vault. The ending is childish, she gets pregnant, and he falls in love. They steal the money back and run away. Still, it’s a different plot, so I give it a thumbs up.
           My favorite line in the movie is a classic comeback to women in general. After he’s been tied up and robbed, she says she can’t understand how a bank clerk would think he could answer an ad for a Russian bride and find love.
           She snarks, “If you had these urges, why didn’t you just go hire a prostitute?”
           She’s offended when he replies, “Isn’t that what I got?”

           That had me on the floor. It’s a good movie but you will enjoy it the more if you arrive with some pre-fixed and PC notions. I'm saying a passel of idiotic ideas would enhance this movie if you have them. For example, you should believe that women only want sex because it is fun. You should also think that once any woman becomes pregnant, even the local skank, announcing it begins her miraculous transformation into the Madonna, glowing of full-blossomed motherhood. Everything was okay if she was young and needed the money. And what she does is only wrong when “bad girls” do them.

           Here’s a view of those “fruit calipers” Agt. R showed us. This one is in the Auburndale historic museum. It’s a single room in an old building by the railway tracks, free admission. It has few exhibits but a lot of local hand-written charters and minutes. I always liked the days when impeccable long-hand was required for any clerical job. It’s hard to imagine somebody recording the minutes of a town meeting like that, but I’d rather read that than word processing.
           I read some short articles on Fulk Nerra, the castle-builder. He inherited the kingdom while quite young and the local Church figured they’d use his inexperience to grab his land and power. He had a friend on the inside who saved the day. Other than the string of castles, there’s little information on him except that he had his wife executed for suspected adultery. So, which is it? There is no more information, or that other than that, the guy did nothing else worth recording.
           Plus, I sketched out the porch and the materials list works out pretty reasonable. I’m looking at the project in two sections for a good reason. Building the foundation and deck are virtually identical whether the covered porch is there or not. So one section is the deck, the second section is the porch and railings. Most porch plans have a railing, but those are not mosquito-proof. But when I find screened porches, the screen goes top to bottom and I don’t find that attractive.

           So I’ve drawn up a plan for a porch that has a railing, but with screens behind the rails. I think it looks okay. Then the upper screens fit into the spaces between the pillars. This is planning only, I don’t even know if such a design is permitted or if it could pass muster. If the weather is too hot tomorrow to work, maybe I’ll drive around and see if I can find something similar. An enclosed porch with railings. If not, I’m okay with building a solid knee wall. I’ll find something. Every second house in Polk County has a porch.

           According to Reader’s Digest, these are the least popular street names.

                      • Drinkand Dr.
                      • Vicious Circle
                      • West 943,185th Street
                      • Psycho Path
                      • Peoples Ct.
                      • Nofriggin Way


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