[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.
