April 27, 2005

April 27, 2005 Wednesday Despite two months of expensive training, I still cannot do anything when a computer refuses to let me into the BIOS. That is the problem with the Compaq 2000, the unit that gave sterling service all through the toothpick era. It just hangs and tells me there is a disk controller error. It should still let me read the BIOS. As a punishment for not insisting these type of things get covered in class (it worked every time they did it), I jogged half-way around the golf course, bumping into the landlord and Vladimir (oldest dog in South Florida). All is not lost, for although I’ve lost my learning mode, I’ve entered another thinking mode. (Yes, for those who’ve never tried it, you can get into the mood of thinking.) So I’m jogging and I think, “Wouldn’t it be nice to get home and soak in a hot bath?” Problem. The overflow cap on my tub only lets you fill the tub about a quarter full, so there is no way to soak and read. Solution, while jogging, actually, in my usual manner, two solutions in case the first does not work. One, remove the screws holding the overflow cap, turn the cap upside down, so the drain faces up. Reinsert screws. Other plan, the screws are not symmetrical, so you can’t invert the cap. Remove the cap. Take one of those plastic margarine cases, preferably one with a pretty pattern. Take off the lid and trace a concentric circle around the inside diameter of the lid centered over the drain hole. Cut out this center piece from the lid, and replace the drain cap over the lid with the lid lip facing out. Now, you can snap the bottom part of the margarine bowl over the entire overflow mechanism when you want a deep bath. It looks pretty, but don’t forget to drill small drain holes in the margarine bowl, just in case. I was going to take pictures but the batteries died, and besides, the first method worked fine. The important part here is that the problem was solved in real time using ordinary tools and at no out-of-pocket cost. I soaked for a half-hour. Thinking and reading. I chanced on a book about investment clubs, circa 1995. There were some interesting prophesies, including a warning over the high-tech bubble. No mention of the trillion dollars that is going to get inherited between now and 2010. Not a word about the complexity of record keeping (I do it by month-dollars, newcomer shares are weighted against the number of months the former dollars have been invested, but this usually requires a computer and a college degree to get it right. If I put in $100 now, you put in $100 in three months and somebody else puts in $100 in six months, a year from how we split the profits 44:33:23, even if a windfall occurred on the last day of that year. If we invest nothing more, in another year the ratio becomes 38:33:29). This confuses some people because they can only withdraw the current value of what they put in, that is, I could not withdraw 44% of the money on the first anniversary, only the value of my $100 investment on that date. I would not join a club as described in that book because one of the articles stated that no member could own over 20% more than any other member. I had to read that twice, because at first I thought it meant more than 20% of a larger club, which I could abide. Do you see what offends me? The rule could mean that, however remote the chance, it would be possible for some lazy person to dictate (limit) what others are allowed to invest. I cannot stomach such thinking. Let them join a lazy person’s club, for Christ’s sakes. I have no use for Canadian-welfare type mindsets. Ah, but that was a good jog. Hippie tends to forget that I still exercise when he is not around and thus tends to admonish himself for not getting good results. Let us see how our philosophies work out. His vegetarian diet and mild exercise to my carefully controlled diet and progressive (but not harsh) exercise. I think you have to get aerobic before a walk does you any good. This is only my theory, but you have to signal your body that you want to use up fat. If you don’t, the body goes into emergency adrenalin mode and you get is cramps and aches instead of weight loss. Tomorrow, I jog one mile if it kills me, ha ha. I slapped the ad in the Auto Trader for the Sunbird, it runs until the car is sold. I’ve noticed it has a few things wrong from just sitting for six months. The A/C has a slow leak and the fan quits whenever it wants. So, the first offer or two gets a good deal. Then I did something I have not done in years. I bought a new magazine off the rack, Business Week. For anybody who doubts my journal is years ahead on most issues, read the article on “Protection Racket”. It details the abuse of bank fees, and even uses the exact wording I did when I complained about a little over 5-1/2 years ago. It covers the same issues, the outrageous overdraft protection fee even after I specifically stated I did not want it. The ATMs showing a false balance by not deducting fees, and at least one state (Indiana) is considering legislation that makes bank fees that annualize out to over 72% a felony. Make that 7.2% and I’ll volt for it. They missed on important law – that banks should only be able to charge fees out of the interest they pay, never touching your principle. (The article lost impact by basing the example on some faggy looking geek named Keeley, too stupid to know he did not have $230 in the bank.) Hmm, I see other articles with other concerns identical to what I’ve already written. That India is complaining about soaring labor costs (although the ones that can do the work are cheap, they also know they are a tiny minority in that nation). Hippie came over and we watched The Big Empty. A low budget video I’d seen before, but it was so boring, I’d forgotten. You know what he did? There is an all you can eat special at KFC. Backsliding, I tell you. He went there and pigged out like totally. He reasoned it was a good balance to the extra log walk on Dania Beach. It is like a smorg, so you can bet he was back to the chicken counter three times. In fact, I have a Barb Kraus (a book that lists calories of finished foods rather than indergrenets) so let me look it up. He says each trip included mashed potato, gravy and biscuits, so that makes it 932 x 3 or minimum 2,796 calories. He is also lax about diet sodas where I cannot remember when I last had a drink with sugar in it. That is not gospel, for I know my tomato cocktail, 44 calories per glass, has added fructose. I mean a drink where sugar is part of the primary taste. Three thousand calories in one meal. That is over three times what I had all day, and I exercise. (There is a separate log of the miles I walk or jog each day, including the route, time of day and proportion of each activity. A normal two mile day is 25% jogging, 75% walking.) I also do leg lifts on this post at the park. Hippie can do it better, but he forgets the fact that he is more limber than I can be totally explained by the twelve year difference in our ages. Hell, when I was forty I weighed 148 pounds and could do limitless pushups and chinups. He was a little leary of that, but I let him go through a box of my old pictures earlier today. He was shocked into disbelief. Yes, that is me. Skinny or what? That’s Kim, that’s Judy, that’s Pearle, that’s Jill, that’s Robyn, that’s Debbie, and so on. Yes, I told you I had long hair, and no, even I don’t have enough money to have, as you suggest, paid all those hundreds of women to pose with me in that manner. I also showed him a handful or two of my certificates, because he still has doubts of some things I say. The fool. For example, people who hear me speak Chinese (Cantonese) assume I know just enough to impress a fool. He did a double take when he saw my certificate of Chinese studies.