February 28, 2005

           [Author's note:This is a reconstructed entry, so the date is only approximate. Many of the items written here have been quoted often by myself over the years in many situations that applied. I recounting another major difference between atmosphere I attended college and the free ride everyone else seemed to be having at the time. I stress that meeting people my own age who had cars and money was a major shock to what I had been indoctrinated about attending university.
           Also, I hesitated at first to publish this material, since I could not remember if it had been written for that purpose. If it sounds stilted, it may have been intended as a letter.]

           And here is a photo of a yellow garage door. A mellow yellow door. I had gone up to this place to pick up an amp the Hippie had repaired. They charged him half the price of a new amp to solder a socket in place. Hey, wait till you hear what he has to pay to get his computer fixed.
           By 8:00 I was on the road with the Hippie’s amplifier, actually two amplifiers, in the car. I went to the shop, and finally decided to give kforce a call. I got hold of the higher up, which I like when they answer the phones once in a while. It gives them a refresher of life at the entry level. It is only midday.
           Linton Blvd is 6.5 miles north of my turnoff to school on Palmetto Park Road. I dropped off the Hippie’s two amplifiers, a Line 6 and a pignose, at 2604 Sandy Lane. The tenant is operating a repair shop called ‘Amplifier Junkyard’ out of a house where half the space is a double garage. Certainly, if I was a musician, I would have learned to repair my own amplifiers by now. The Hippie plugged his guitar into the headphone jack and grounded something out. That such a common error could cause problems is a sign of the declining quality of American equipment. That little round trip cost me an hour today.

           At 4:30 y’day I was at The Hippie’s for practice. The keyboard player showed up but not the drummer. Thus, it was me listening to them jam tunes from the 80s that I barely remember. I was never into easy listening or light jazz.
           Remember that tune I tried to learn in Burnaby, called Year of the Cat? I gave up because it was just not worth it, but both of them seem to think it is musically just a fascinating thing. They also know all the really slow Led Zeppelin album tracks that I literally used to pick the needle up and pass over. Does anyone recall D’yer Make Her? It is pronounced Jer-may-ker and is a play on Jamaica, a raggae song. I knew it but not that it was by Led Zep. Give me rock and roll, dad-nerb it. However, I will learn all these things if it means getting back on a stage in front of women.
           The Hippie, once he realizes he can say things without being misinterpreted, comes out with some amazingly similar ideas to what you see here [in my writings]. For instance, he regrets that nobody just hangs out any more. I have never suggested I like to play music for any other reason than that it increases my scoring average immensely. It also lowers their ages by close to twenty years, a big factor when you hit fifty. Poke your head into a lounge in the afternoon to see how other men my age try to tackle the same problem, and music suddenly seems ideal.

           Afterward, we drove up to Ft. Lauderdale and chowed in a Mexican café. That is actually twice in one day, because The Hippie and I had breakfast at El Tamarindo. I didn’t get the name of the other place, but it was full of good-looking Spanish women. The keyboard player (Rick?) is married to a Portuguese gal from Brazil, and for close to twenty years now. He is the ex-FBI agent. We talked for over an hour of old college days and how things have changed. None of us really like the American Idol brand of music on the charts, it is all technique with no soul. All of us partied through a lot of college and realized it was really a rich kid’s game.
           The Hippie’s parents not only paid for his college, they drove him to the Florida campus and dropped him off. My parents? Well, let’s just say I had to hitchhike 350 miles in the cold and walk the rest of the way. From what The Hippie describes, his parents spent a thousand times more on his college education than mind did for me, about $20,000 vs. $20. That is correct, my parents only spent $20 helping me get through college, and they begrudged me that.

           [Author's note: It was in my second year away, I was just past 19 years old and carried everything I owned in the world in a knapsack. They sent me the $20 on the condition I came home for Xmas. I found out later they were telling the town they were paying for my university, and my presence was needed to confirm that lie. I remember it well, because the bus fare was $19.70 for the grueling 18 hour trip, leaving me just enough for a cup of coffee at the bus terminal [during a six hour stopover. Total trip time, 24 hours. I found out later they had sent my older sister a plane ticket.]

           Actually, I fell for this trick for years, my parents always seemed to have money for you to come home, but not one cent to help you leave and strike out on your own. Oddly, my parents were far wealthier than The Hippie’s, having slightly over twice the income and living on the cheapest frontier left in the country. My brothers learned to freeload off their friends, something I never stooped to. My parents would pay for things, but only with so many obligations and strings attached that it was not worth it. My father expected me to work at least one year at menial labor for each $5.00. I am not exaggerating or making that up. Five dollars per year.

           [Author's note: the above makes more sense if you consider my parents always treated my upbringing as a loan and constantly reminded me that I would receive nothing unless I guaranteed to pay them back. There were many arguments. If it was a loan, I wanted some say on the matter, the biggest item was a guarantee in return that money was being put away for my education as they had repeatedly promised. If I had no say whatsoever, it was not a loan, but a standard parental obligation, at least in my 14-year-old thinking. This “bald-faced stupidity” [as they called it] caused even more serious in-fighting for months at a time. I never understood parents who lay a guilt trip on their children just for raising them. If you stay, they berate you, if you leave you get nothing at all.
           It's a shame on parents who let things get that bad, but in that day and age there was nothing to stop them. My parents saw absolutely nothing wrong with placing me in that situation. All I had to do to make them happy was drop out of school in grade nine and “go work on the farm” so they could “retire early”, and to hell with what I wanted. The thing most neglected was infrastructure. Eighteen years after The Hippie finished college, his parents bought him a car and paid his lawyer $8,000 in cash. Eighteen years, my friends. So don’t act surprised when I can’t relate to people with so few difficulties in their entire lives.]

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February 27, 2005

           This is a random picture of JZ crossing a parking lot. I believe this day we were helping his sister move things around. That’s part of his condo complex in the background. You know, he had two parking spaces when he moved in but [foolishly as it transpired] sold one of them for $600. Anyway, back to today.
           Now it is noon, and I got a lot of studying done. This is the newer mode of studying I’ve devised to make some kind of connection between the classes and a real computer. You’ll have to decide if there is a dividend yet. Looking at the Presario, I now know that the reason the audio card does not work is because there is no driver, and that the driver is not easily available. I also cleaned out the front area and set up a computer work table where I can get at the cables and ports more easily. I’ve successfully recorded and mixed two audio tracks on the HP, determined there is a 500 MHz processor but failed to get the system to recognize the SCSI card from the setup menu. It is going into the shop today.

           The maximum time the sound recorder will function is 60 seconds, so I’ll have to find out the way to get around that. One of the purposes of all that gear was to get my recordings off tape. I believe the process is called direct to disk, it uses the HDD as a buffer and burns the CD on the fly. I have to clear my digital voice recorder, so you get some random facts here just because at one time, something interested me enough to record it. [Later, I learned to add bits of trivia more commonly.]

           √ I need the instruction manual for a Casio PCR-260 cash register. That must be for Sonie’s.
           √ There are houses for rent in Ft. Lauderdale that list as 5 bedroom for $8,000 per month. Another 6 bedroom 4.5 bath for $4,300 per month. These are rentals. Wouldn’t somebody with that kind of money just buy the house?
           √ JZ’s home stereo amp is a Denon AVR-610 Precision Audio Surround System. (He later lent it to me and he is NEVER getting it back.)
           √ V45 XXX is the license plate of the guy who calls the towtruck.
           √ 256K of DDRAM average $99 for what look like DIMM chips.
           √ There may be repeated info here. One of the people who sell newspapers on the street medians told me he makes about $40 per double shift. He is on disability and says he only works under the table.

Greetings from 2015. Here is a follow-up on the above list from ten years in the future.:

           A) The cash register was for a college course, which the person failed. She gave me the register and it is still in my shed. I later dismantled it for parts.
           B) I never did get the place I had planned on Las Olas--after the banks stopped foreclosing which froze dropping prices.
           C) John's home stereo sat here unused for three years and is now in the sound room of Agt. M's church up on Dixie.
           D) The guy who calls the tow-truck on everybody, a detestable fellow, now lives directly across the hall from JZ. He's one rat-faced little prick, the one who got the gummy notice slapped on my beautiful Goldwing because JZ and I were a few hours late getting back from Naples.
           E) My newest "old" computer has 16 times as much memory out of the box.
           F) Most counties have now banned selling anything at red lights.


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February 26, 2005

           [Author’s note: I can’t even follow my own logic here, but I was in school and studying half the day. By this time, I had converted by living room to a computer workshop to begin to test cabling and networks. Wise move, it turned out. This is me sitting on a park bench at the beach with a thermos of coffee. It isn’t all work and no play.]
           Rearranging the furniture has already paid off. The bottleneck was cords and cables. It was taking up to a half-hour per session to swap out all the cables because the computer and peripherals were on a desk that sat against the wall. Now, I can walk on either side of the work table, but sadly, I have to eat at my desk because there is no kitchen table any more. There will be after I get that scanner working. It now takes only seconds to move cables, which encourages me to get a lot of smaller projects cleaned up. For the first time in months, my digital voice recorder is blank. I’ve also successfully mixed files on top of each other but that is finicky to do with Windows. The longer recording forces the shorter ones to start over again and so on.
           I took the video computer in to school, and also had a quick discussion about the way the course is going with the instructor. It had gotten back to him that I was dismayed about the lack of real lab time so far. I assured him my criticism was not of his teaching (which is exactly to spec), but the fact that for a computer repair course, I was not learning to repair computers.
           This was confirmed moments later when he opened the video computer. The expansion cards were not seated properly, a condition caused by 100% lack of experience – yet I am supposedly half way through the course! I am still uncomfortable with pressing cards into slots so hard that it bends the motherboard. How can you repair computers without learning the correct pressure to apply on a video card? He sees my point.
           Here is the answer. Tuition gouging. This is an old technique that was dying, but reared up again in the 80s. There are three ways a school gets undeserved tuition out of you. They disallow credits from other schools (Princeton), demand phenomenal course prerequisites (Broward Community College) or have restrictive residency requirements (Washington). As for Broward, to take a single evening course in C++ you would have to quit your job and attend there full time for a year or two first – which is exactly what they want but don’t say. There are some fields where it makes sense, because the school ought to be concerned with the caliber of its own graduates. Generally, however, I doubt it really matters where you took a math or history course. Either you know the stuff or you don’t.
           PC Professor follows the dreaded Microsoft formula. Instead of a laminated reference card you are expected to memorize charts, at least part of whose purpose is to convince you that Microsoft is king. It is, for now, but even they don’t have their act together. They have yet to put out an operating system that leaves well enough alone. That is, they always tinker with some feature that makes each version behave and look differently, with non-intuitive learning curves.
           Well, same with this course. It turns out the lab time is spent all at the computer. That is fine because I know that is a clean way to charge people good money, but I already knew most of that. The second face of the problem is the course title. It is called computer repair, but in fact it is not. The hands-on course I really wanted is called technical repair. Both have the same course description and outline in the college calendar, no wonder nobody knows what is really going on. Since computer repair is a prerequisite for technical repair, I think I will still be in school in the middle of June this year, after I’ve started a new full-time job.
           [Author’s note: Again, I was correct in feeling ripped off by this school, PC Professor. They advertised the course to repair computers, which should take around three months to get competent. It was a come-on to get you into the school for a three year program. Also, as follows, within a few years, Washington Mutual instituted a $5 fee to cash checks for anyone without an account. It is more than just chance that I pick up on the bad guys.]
           Washington Mutual did it again. They got me for a $5 fee on my no-fee account. The reason for it was a policy change. When you have automatic transfer from your checking to your savings (as I did), if you do not have enough in your checking account, they take $5 out of your savings! This, from a bank? So, they have stung me for 250 times more interest than the account paid last month. Their savings interest an annual rate of .18%, that is about one-sixth of one percent per year, but they will crank that up if you are dumb enough to put $10,000 in the vault. I am just so weary of assholes that you have to deal with.
           You know, I suspect that the bank could easily accept third party checks the way they used to, and could make ordinary checks very secure. The reason they don’t is they rake in millions convincing people you need to go to a bank to cash checks, and you should have an account open at that bank to do so. True, there are some bad guys out there, but go catch them. Don’t punish everybody. If you do not have that automatic transfer, they definitely take the $5. They ‘have to’ take your $5 because the competition is doing it, see, and they don’t want to be left behind…

February 25, 2005

           I gave the Hippie a call on the way home. Despite a huge difference in motives, his guitar lessons are somewhat similar because they occupy the same slot in his life [as teaching computer lessons do in mine]. It is cash money income to a person who basically detests 99% of what the government does. I am against all social programs supported by taxation (but I am not against social programs in general). Mind you, if anyone can get together a room full of working taxpayers and, by a show of hands, demonstrate the majority are for welfare, that will change my standpoint.
           Even so, only my standpoint on who pays would change. If one person dissents, the other ninety-nine should not be allowed to force him to comply. The cost of welfare should be divided among those who support it and the rest of society left alone. Welfare should never be majority rule.
           Notice when I get easy money how political I become all of a sudden? Then notice that is generally true everywhere. So, on the way home I see the Thrift Store open on Federal near Johnson. I go in for a look and this half-deaf lady starts talking to me. Soon she remembers a man who needs his taxes done. By 6:00 PM I was over at Mark’s place in the ‘hood. It takes about two minutes to figure out he is one sharp individual. I said essentially that he should forget the taxes for now, I was going to show him something on his computers. He had a house full of networked computers but did not know how to work any of the applications (programs).

           He went wide-eyed and kept saying things like, “I knew that was there for a reason.” I gave him my special course called Small Business 101. He caught on immediately, and I could sense the light bulbs turning on in his head. I told you, he is sharp. You only got to show him once, but that is not necessarily a compliment when you are an over-40 male.
           I see this so often, people in a jam because they can’t get anybody to give then a straight answer or to just show them the easy way to do things. He probably thinks I’m a genius, but the reality is after I’d handled a few dozen of his receipts and invoices, I knew he was making money under the table (you should see his friggin’ house). He’s pulling in about $600 per day, and $500 of it is cash. All he needs is the guidelines to keep minimal tax records to be in compliance.
           That is another thing I see a lot of. People behind on their taxes because they don’t trust anybody to work on their books, and soon they are fearful of letting anyone even touch their affairs. Mark is probably wise to have not taken that box of receipts to a regular accounting firm. No way some of that would pass muster. All I did was show him how easy it was to make the entries on his own. Whether he does that or not is hardly my concern. If he cheats, I did not advise him to do so. Nor is it my responsibility to pass judgment.

ADDENDUM
           It is not true that I lost my license to practice accounting. (I never had a license to practice accounting.)

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February 24, 2005

           [Author’s note: there is mention of the Mayan calendar in this entry. Certainly, I will mention it more as the date approaches. For some reason, I must have thought it important enough to record.]
           Many people don’t take private lessons until they realize they are wasting a lot of time by not studying. They can’t just stop everything, so the lessons become the only time they can actually work at new things. As long as they pay the price, which I explain to them very clearly, and they want to learn that way, I’ll keep on teaching. I found out they basically plunked the computer on Marilyn, so I’m doing a far more comprehensive lesson for her, including such basics as sorting her e-mail and making backup copies with restore points (she uses Windows XP). It is all upside, because I make good money, and these folks remember me years later as the man who saved the day.
           The Hippie and I met up for coffee at Barnes & Noble. Our reading is at opposite ends of a very wide range. He is an activist for the legalization of the medical use of marijuana. Such people often develop matching medical conditions with remarkable predictability. Anyway, he is convinced that nobody ever landed on the moon and most of society is involved in one big cover-up. Similar to Pete Halford at the telephone company, but Pete should meet this guy. The Hippie knows the names of obscure reporters who seem to have uncovered a decent array of wrongdoings, but all of whom promptly got discredited by some agency in New York that must be very good at this discredit thing. I mean, I have no idea what The Hippie is talking about much of the time on that one.
           He read a book about the Mayan calendar, that it is so much more accurate than ours. In which case, how do we know it is more accurate? See my point? How do they calibrate it? The Hippie says the date 2012 is when the Mayan calendar predicts that a new matrix will appear, along with a type god wearing fine clothes, using ‘21st century’ tools and one of the ‘Illuminati’. To me, this means some black dude with bling sporting a battery-powered Craftsman screwdriver and a membership in some Italian men’s club. Now, The Hippie, is that 2012 on our calendar or theirs? What is a new matrix? Was anything wrong with the old one or was it just getting on in years? Whose years?
           Okay, okay, I’ll leave him alone, but I got him on that one because he cannot figure out things like that very well. I can confirm that Office Max will give you a free ream of paper if you take in your old print cartridge. We did it. Also, he did not know when you use that machine in Winn/Dixie to cash in your change, you have to spend the voucher at that same store the same day. By our calendar. So we went racing over there at closing time because he had $20 about to expire. The Hippie owes me coffee on that one.

February 23, 2005

           School was another lesson in how not to learn things. We skimmed over around 80 pages of material, Chapter 16 in the textbook. It was about how to install a network, and while we sort of did look at each feature, we never installed any network. It is like trying to learn to play the piano by memorizing how to read music instead of read the notes. Actually, that is the way I play a lot of Beethoven, so I know what I'm saying here. The picture is a random photo of a walkway to the beach from y'day. Hollywood Beach, Florida.
           We team up with the Tuesday/Thursday class, and what’s this? There are some people in those classes who feel the same way I do – where is the practical part of this expensive course? No, it is not good enough to just drop every menu option and quickly go over what it does. For openers, Microsoft is infamous for not arranging things in a logical fashion in the first place. Yet somehow, in my books, that does not mean it is permissible for a school to offer a course called computer repair if you don’t actually repair computers. Instead we talk about troubleshooting a lot. An awful lot.

           [Author's note 2016-02-23: Learning computers by talking is a farce. Sounds like a farmer vacation, “Going to Disneyland is a hell of a lot of fun to do when you are a kid. And don’t ever forget that I’m the one that told you so.” (This is a standing joke from my childhood when my father used to say things like that whenever we drove past places where other kids were having fun. The incident in particular was one day when I was around six, we drove past a go-kart track.
           That's where the old man made that classic shit-head remark, that go-karting was "a hell of a lot of fun to do when you are a kid." And kept on driving. It was later that same day he said not to forget "he is the one who said so". But the legend was born.)
           Notice that I am also concerned about schools ripping off students on tuition. I did not fall for the "get-a-degree-get-a-job" nonsense, but 100% of the students around me did. Maybe one or two in that classroom had any real aptitude for the work. They were all there dreaming of the money that would never materialize. ]

           Now I am told that all schools do this these days. Then let them all collapse, because cheaping out is not part of the deal. Doing a good job is never expensive and you’ll never go without because the demand is there. Pardon me if I suspect these schools have all conspired to water down their offerings, so that like banks, it really does not matter where you go.
           The Hippie called late. The only repair shop he can find for his amplifier is in Delray Beach. Pardon if I’ve misspelled that name before as two words, Del Ray. It is one word, Delray – unless my sources are also wrong.

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February 3, 2005

           [Author’s note: one outcome of my computer courses is that I was able to recover material that otherwise may have been lost. For example, I was able to rig up a 5-1/4” floppy drive. In case you think that is primitive, remember I was using them when you thought a computer was a background prop on Star Trek. I don’t run out and convert my entire system as soon as somebody announces a new disk size.]

           Here is a warehouse full of used monitors that were donated for free. I drove over to look at them for Dickens, and decided against moving them. My reasoning is that not only are larger monitors available cheaply, these new flat-screen monitors are just too convenient to ignore. Nobody wants to get stuck with a pile of old tube models.
           Still trying to get you something. I see I was a big consumer of databases as far back as 1988. The song words seem to be in that format. I found a document from 1992 that describes a hike I made on the mountains north of Caracas. Here are the first paragraphs, notice the differences in my writing style after 13 years. The forward, not included here, explains that the style is somewhat awkward because it was meant to be used on a then current Spanish translation software package. Notice the speed typing and lack of any spellchecker in Venezuela at that time. I believe the computer was a stripped down Tandy FD 1100, which cost at least a thousand dollars back then. (It was eventually stolen in Venezuela.)

     I received much information and "malinformacion" about the Humbolt Hotel. This beautiful structure is situated on a mountain to the north or Caracas, Venezuala. It stands about 40 storeys tall. It cost millions and millions. And it is abandoned. The city of Caracas is on a flat valley about one mile wide and many miles long east to west. Whoever planned this was undoubtedly a real estate agent.
      The mountain mentioned is part of a chain that forms the Carribean coast along the top edge of South America. The mountain passes are the only route to the coast from the towns and cities in the interior. There is no direct road to the seashore from Caracas, since visitors to the beach must travel around the mountain range. The nearest such place is about 15 miles away. A tunnel through the mountain is no likely to be constructed. The reason I've heard is because the mountains are volcanic. By the way, the mountain chain extends eastward, finally forming the island of Trinidad.
      There are dozens of wild explanations for the Humbolt. Some people say it was built in 1955. Others say 1965. Still others say the construction took all ten years between. It depends on who you talk to. I am curious why it is closed. It is no good to ask around. Every version is different. Among the reasons I've heard are failed election promises, defective standards on the cable car (teleferico), and insufficient bribes paid to government officials.
      The cable car (teleferico) problem appears at first to make the most sense. Yet, even that creates more questions than answers. How could a cable car no make money? Especially in this instance, because it would be a monopoly. My guess is the whole situation is a study of corruption on an unbelievable scale. Except for a helicopter, there is no other easy way to get to the hotel. My opinion is that only a totally corrupt system and a totally complacent population could allow such a monument to remain in plain view of one fifth of the residents in the country for thirty years, with the possible exception of Edmonton, Alberta.
      There is no reliable source of information. If anyone knows the true story, they are no talking. Or no can talk, if you get my drift. The most recent rumor is that the state governor is fixing it up. (Any minor government official who has that amount of money must have fixed many things in his time.) I decided to climb the mountain and have a look for myself. It should be easy to see if there is any evidence of workmen or building material at the site, or near the top. I am not a mountaineer, so I must find a road.
      What happens next will give you some insight into the Spanish character and language. I would bet money the service roads exist. Yet everyone we asked said there were no service roads. Remember that Spanish is a language that seems (to me) to fail when trying to describe exact details. This means there is some discrepancy whether we are being told the roads do no exist, or whether we are being told we no can walk up the roads, or whether they simply do no know if there is a road but no want to admit it. This sorry attitude alone will prevent Venezuala from ever being an efficient country. We have these kind of people in America. They are called liars.
      The total number of people questioned is around a dozen or fifteen. Fourteen Spanish speakers say there is no road, one German says there is. Therefore, I conclude there is a road. Can you imagine having a medical emergency in such a city! The logical first task is to locate that road.
      On March 2, 1996 I walked with a friend to the base of the mountain. The mountains are apparently named ""Avila"". We stopped accross from a deep canyon separating two mountains. There are no good maps, signs or people who know the names of the mountains, although the mountains can be seen from every major part of Caracas. The Humbolt is an easy sight and is situated on the west peak. We saw an old sign saying ""Pico Oriente"" and ""Pico Occidente"", so I will refer to the mountains as ""East Peak"" and ""West Peak"" if necessary.
      From where we stopped, I was able to discern three or four unnatural ridges of tree lines angling upward at about 15 degrees. There are also transmission towers about 2/3 of the way up the mountain. Also, there are electricity lines. The vegetation covers the mountains completely to the top. The mountains are steep but not rugged. All these factors strongly indicate the presence of at least one service road. If the road exists, I estimate it should take about two hours to reach the top.


      The rest of the record tells how I got around half the way up the mountain after being given the wrong directions by the local “expert”, a travel agent who thought I was going to rent a helicopter through him. “All you have to do is get eight people to share.” If I did that, I remember thinking, who needs him? They (him and his staff) actually, if I recall, gave me the directions to the wrong bloody mountain, something that would eventually not surprise me about Venezuela. [Got that? The WRONG friggin’ mountain!] The next day I politely inquired about these directions and he finally admitted that he had never actually been there or arranged any tours to the place. I never did get up there in the next four years. I may not be athletic, folks, but at twice your age I was still hiking up mountains in Venezuela.
     ; That was also about the time I noticed that it became rare to meet people my own demographics [who were] traveling. Now, the reason is obvious, but back then I found it strange. Would not people turning forty give anything to get out of the routine and have an adventure? The common point was a mortgage. Anyone who signed a mortgage at 25 was at 50 a completely un-traveled moronic nincompoop, did I catch any of you in that group? They had a house, but wasted a life paying for it. Their one consolation seems to be knowledge that however wrong they have been, they are in the majority.

      I noted that in 1996, passenger airliners cost $400 a pound and (this was only months before I left the company) that I challenged the ‘50/50’ rule for answering calls. This referred to the next department over who insisted that everything was equal if our department answered half the incoming calls. I maintained it was not equal, and they argued it was. They backed off quickly when I suggested a money test. I’ll pay you a dollar every time you answer a call that is for me, and vice versa. We should break even, correct? Even when faced with such facts, phone company people cannot admit they are wrong. I used to work beside men who would tell people to call back in an hour knowing they were off shift in thirty minutes.
      Since I intend to get most of my writings on disk, I won’t duplicate much of it here. I see I predicted that good jobs “will be at a premium in 2005”. I was inside the pyramid at Chichen Itza in Mexico in 1986 when an earthquake occurred. I felt nothing, I had crawled up the passageway into the center of the pyramid and did not find out about the tremor until hours later when I crawled back out. At that point, I felt queasy because I somehow knew something was wrong while I was inside. There is mention that every major law concerning Human Rights in Canada was passed by judicial rather than parliamentary procedures. The real treat will be those 5.25 inch floppies. There just don’t seem to be enough of them [as I know I originally had a lot more than are there today].

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February 2, 2005

           [Author’s note: again, here is a stretch of dry reading concerning school. To spice it up, I’ve tried to include a series of the most famous photos taken with the $18 Argus camera. All photos are generally in the Dania (DAY-nee-uh) Beach area.]

           Here is the big beach tree near the abandoned pier. The tree is big enough to shade fifty people. That is the Atlantic Ocean in the background. It is not uncommon to see an entire soccer game going on under these branches.
           This won’t mean much to many of you, but I’ve got to record it and I don’t have time to keep separate journals while I’m in school. Okay, MyComputer has some CD quirks. The default drivers work on most CD players and burners, but not that well. Unless a CD is in the tray, the properties show the disk as full, with zero bytes free and used. When a CD is copied, it also shows the disk as full when it is finalized, whether or not it is full to capacity. Also, for some reason you have to go into properties to get this information because clicking on the drive letter causes autorun. All of this is probably changeable, but beyond the average user. Why does Microsoft behave so badly?

           Also, there was a rumor that making your CD burner the slave works better. Let me lecture for a moment. When you are going to copy CDs, it is best to have one CD player and one CD burner installed internally on your computer. You should also have some easy to use software, such as Roxio [Later, I take that back. Roxio sucks because it can take up to 4 minutes to eject a disk], and learn to use the copy part of that software before proceeding. (Even if you have to read the manual.) The reason for the CD player and burner is simple – so you can use a feature called Direct to Disk [I take that back too, how typical of MS to pretend something that should have always been there is an added feature].
           If you have only the CD burner, this device has to read the disk you intend to copy plus it has to burn the material on to a new blank CD. In between, it has to make an image of the copied material on you hard disk drive. You want to avoid that step because the material must be converted to a format that can be saved on your hard disk drive, and then converted back to a CD format when it is burned. The fact is, some things don’t convert very well or very fast.

           When you have both a CD player and CD burner, the software does not have to create an image on your hard disk drive (HDD), but instead copies directly from your source disk to the target disk without involving your hard disk drive (Direct to Disk, right?). That is also the reason buying two CD burners is a waste of money. Only one of the CD drives has to be a burner. Inside the computer, one drive has to be designated the Master and the other drive is designated the Slave. It would seem natural to want to call your most ‘advanced’ CD drive, the CD burner, the Master. Wrong. I tried it and it does seem to work better when the CD player is the Master and the CD burner is the Slave. My guess is that either the software is just plain written better, or since most early CD burners were an add-on, the existing CD player was already designated as the Master. It is not only faster, but there are fewer pop-up windows and settings needed because you make fewer errors (depending on what software you use).
           Further advice: unless you are so totally disorganized even burning a CD is a rush job for you, set your burning speed down to 16x or lower and go get a cup of tea. Even the fastest computers I’ve used can fill up the buffer to 100% on any faster settings, and filling your buffer is not a good idea [or, as it turns out, a bad idea either].

           Later. That practice exam is something else. It is only 80 questions, but it is speckled with material we have not even talked about in class. [Nice try, there PC Professor.] A quarter of the questions are value judgments we are not trained to make, such as in such and such a situation, “Which cabling method is the cheapest?” There are a lot of printer questions that use terms we did not study and which do not start at logical points. The more reasonable among us would realize that even though the printing is a cycle, that cycle logically begins with something like the paper feed and ends with the paper eject. Frames are in the exam, and by coincidence just last class I was pointing out to Don (classmate) that frames are never defined in the textbook. Picture frame? Mafia frame?
           I would never be able to assimilate this volume of information if I was working full time or even part time. It was a wise move to get this underway before the money ran out. I give credit and hold a grudge. While I’ve learned a lot about computers, it was not because of the course, but through independent research I had to do to pass the course. That was not part of the deal, I paid good money so that all that research would be spoon fed to me in a classroom in baby talk. That is not what happened with A+ “Computer Repair”. There is progress, for I can now approach a broken computer with a lot more confidence than before. But just the diagnosis. There is this disappointment because I do not have the practical skills to troubleshoot and fix that computer.

           All I’ve got is a bunch of book-learning.

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February 1, 2005

           [Author’s note: the entries between February 1 and 22, 2005 are somewhat contrived as they concern notes taken about my return to computer school, by far the most important thing going on at the time. It is boring, technical and repetitious—unless you like following how circumstances alter attitudes. In case you ask, yes, there are lots of pictures, many darn good ones.
           But now I suffer for my decision not to categorize them properly and I can't find them. I will try to keep down the number of repeats, but if they happen it will be at times like this. Hurry up, blog, and make me famous, then, I’ll have time to correct all this material.
           The picture is a random Wiki, placed here for color. It is from 2005 but otherwise not relevant here. The lady in the picture is Florence O. Thompson, and this "most famous" picture of the Depression is a fallacy. She's having her car, a late-model Buick, repaired at a roadside garage, and the bill for that can make anyone look worried.]

           By 3:30 I need a nap. The breeze is from the east and that means cooler weather tonight. Too bad this kind of weather is not constant here. I’ve also noticed that my learning speed is tapering off already, so this was not a major burst. I’ll still get a high passing mark. I took the ABC Compaq apart. It seems to have a dead power supply. Then I took the power unit out of the old Tandy, because it also had the split power leads, and it seems dead also. I tested the outlet, cables and plugs okay. Time to take this one in to the shop already. After my nap. Shoot the next technician who says anything more about fiber optic cables being thinner than human hair. Let it go, I tell you.
           It is now almost midnight. It took an extra hour to get home tonight because of all the detours. Florida is really bad for tearing up roadways and then taking years, not days, to put it back together. Class was slow again, and it proved impossible to repair the Compaq. The power supply was shorted out and there were too many proprietary parts. Compaq is very bad for that. There was even an extra set of green wires that seemed to power the CPU, but nobody had ever seen these before. I am again concerned about progress because there really isn’t any. As I foretold, the lectures have become a frustrating trial for everyone who let anything slide past. Now we are told to do something, and when everyone looks blank we are reminded that we covered that. I know we covered it, as in talked about it, but that is not the same as learning it.

           Now, all those things we may have gone over during those 700 pages of material so far are being treated like we all have instant total recall. I’m doing okay but a lot of the others aren’t. Like I said, the way this course is taught, you would be smarter to learn to fix computers first, and then come back and take this course. My lecture notes have become a must-have and I’m printing up some more copies for Friday’s class. What makes them so popular is my habit of placing a question mark near every word that was not defined before it was used. Example. “Every domain is a namespace.” This word, namespace, is not defined anywhere. When it was first used, I tried (unsuccessfully) to find a definition. I'm getting sick and tired of such nonsense, and it is my money.
           Like all schools that are tuition-driven, PC Professor has now entered the phase of giving us practice tests. These tests are [really] to ensure that nobody can say a topic was not covered. This means if you did not learn it, well, that must be your fault for being stupid. My notes are also in demand because I often write down when a topic is not adequately covered in the textbook. This tells the reader not to bother looking further. That is my point. If I have to go down to the library and do independent research to learn it on my own, then for what am I paying them thousands and thousands of dollars? University, yes, but college trade school--totally unacceptable.

           Today we reinstalled Windows on a student computer, and the instructor kept asking questions about what to do next that nobody could answer. Then he would remind us we had ‘covered’ that, and barge on to the next step. This is not the trademark of an effective learning experience. You don’t learn how to read by memorizing the alphabet. In most cases, I remember that we had, indeed, talked about it. But that was all we did. The course is finished in May and I still can’t fix computers. The actual phrase in my notes that people seek is, “The textbook does not pursue this topic any further.” We have done a lot of software troubleshooting but that is not a substitute for learning computer repair. I’m sure it happens, but nobody has ever called me to reinstall their software. [Later, it did happen on occasion.] They call because the computer is broken. I cannot imagine how PC Professor can overlook this fact.

           Still, it is software, and I will have an easier go of it than the others. I just wish it had not all been left to the tail end of the course, when there is no time to both study it and go back over the mass of material that we skimmed over earlier. I showed them pictures of the HP that sold. It pulled in $200 as a matching set, over twice what the components would have been worth. And the demand is there. So much so that Dickens the owner of ABC, showed me his warehouse. He has a few tons of furniture stored there, waiting for sales to open space up in his store. He has no room to sell furniture and is thinking of leasing a bigger place “in the $6,000 range” (rental per month). He says I can clear out a corner and store computer parts there. I quickly called JP with that news. JP has a line of a small display area on Biscayne, twelve miles south of here. It is a cheap office with a kitchenette and bathroom. I should remind him that when we talked about me living in the place, that was close to five years ago. Things have changed.
           For openers, I finally admit that south Florida is not a very wholesome place to raise children. I have not given up on meeting the right gal yet. When I do, it is out of this state for me. Every third person here is a beggar, an ex-con or some kind of grifter. Nobody respects private property yet it is illegal to protect your own. The police are constantly bashing down somebody’s door or running a sting operation in your neighborhood. These locals don’t realize it is not the same everywhere at all. There are no small towns left, but there are places where stupidity is not a way of life. Florida sanctions stupidity, probably due to majority rules.

ADDENDUM
           As I sip my coffee and munch on creamed chicken on rice, I note that prices for many commodities have shot up nearly 50% in the past two months. There has been a general rise in all prices and I wonder why there has been nothing on the news. Not a peep about gasoline hitting $2.41 a gallon. A loaf of bread costs almost the same. This is not the sneaky few percent inflation a year. There are other telltale signs. Have you seen the price of an ear of corn? I notice Publix is selling potatoes individually wrapped one at a time. Candy wrappers now contain a paper spacer, or the candy comes in a cardboard box that is half empty. Have you seen what they’ve done to quality? Chocolate chip cookies used to have chips inside. So did sesame cookies. Now, the chips and seeds are pressed only into the top layer. The other day I bought a tin of mixed nuts and somehow they hid all the peanuts in the bottom. I thought it was chance until I got a second tin of the same.

           [Author's note 2016-02-01: The following passage may seem overly revealing, but I have JZ's permission to record it. The reason is what happened here is a very strong indicator of what would come to pass years later. The original intent was to show how a "rich kid" can easily get by on $60 a day, called in my parlance "Living like Harry". You can spend it all on a good time, because there is always more where that came from. JZ does not live high on the hog, but he is lax with money. Again, I have permission to write this. The pallet picture is from 2016.]

                      JZ also mentioned he has pulled in another $60 in business income. Sadly, he took out another “couple” thousand from his land account, exactly the wrong thing to do at this time. Also, he never mentioned that the $33,000 was not a gift, but from sale of land that had been placed in his name, that is, a living trust. He cannot directly access it. The others got their share cash where JZ’s was placed in a joint account with his father, who insisted he buy the truck. Now this (why JZ never has as much spot cash as I do) makes more sense, and JZ had better see to his taxes in a hurry. Now for the funny part.
           JZ can scrounge anything. He's not a scrounge, per se, but he's lived in the same neighborhood his entire life. So he knows where the extra dollars are, and one of his favorites is pallets. Not just any pallets, but the ones that have a $5 deposit (the usual is $2). Well, he has the habit of on the way home swinging past where he knows there are ten or more. He'll throw them in his truck and he's got $50 the rest of us don't. Problem, this eventually scuffs up his truck and is a source of embarrassment. For instance, I don't let him pick up pallets when I'm around.

           Well, he dad gets him the new truck on the promise he won't do pallets. Are you ready for this? The very next short while, JZ is on the way home and hits the jackpot. His usual stop has 19 pallets instead of the usual 10. He can't resist. But you see, that many pallets is more than a truck bed. So he piles the extras on the roof and ties a couple on the hood. What the hell, he only has to take them a mile and nobody will see.
           Sure enough, guess who is driving down that same road at the same time. His dad and his brother. Try to imagine, "Say dad, doesn't that look like JZ in that new truck you just bought him?" And there's JZ with just a vision slit between pallets barrel-assing toward the recycle depot.
           JZ tells me he has never lived that one down.

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