October 31, 2006

           [Author's note 2016: This photo has no relevance to the blog, it just appeared on a search of 2006 while I was looking for a picture to liven up this page. It says it is some kind of Celtic festival. In which case, cancel Halloween. This looks like plenty more fun. Have you ever noticed there is always a surplus of women whenever these pagans get together? And you voyeurs can look as carefully as you want, this pictue is very carefully posed.]

           Sure, it took me three hours, but I just accomplished something that the factory owners in Jakarta can’t do between them. I built a box. (An ordinary cardboard shipping crate.) Somebody who knew what they were doing would have beat me, but I beat Indonesia hands down. While I could imply that is something you should remember when you go to buy a budget heart-lung machine when you grow old, I note that paying some grade 12 dropout to build it here is not any guaranty of quality either.

           [Author's note: the box was a shipping carton that Indonesia wanted huge money up front to "make a prototype". The old California scam that every inquiry is an opportunity to upsell them to a custom order.]

           Standards have collapsed so badly here that I don’t blame manufacturers for high-tailing it overseas. I’m not exactly on their side, mind you. They are constantly complaining that they can’t find skilled labor, but when you find out what they pay you’ll know the reason why. Ruth did not inform me until today that she had spent $70 [y’day] on the phone to the factory director and have reached some manner of East-West agreement over what constitutes a box. I would have paid admission to hear that conversation.

           Ah, Ruth is also getting tough on the computer, a direct result of my influence. You should have seen this magazine lady trying to get information out of her this afternoon. The bad people have learned to be polite to trick you into being polite back. It still works, just not as well any more. Reminds me of that Polish guy who tipped me $50 last year when I showed him he didn’t have to answer any questions on-line. (Those "required field" boxes.)
           Back to the box. That was misleading about the three hours. That also includes the travel and shopping time to get the thing back here, and the time to design the triangular logo “Wiggles” with the paw print between the G’s. I advised Ruth to hold onto the box, for I am not at all convinced we are done with the Dutch East Indies yet.

           Okay, I’m back. I was called away to Gil, the French Moroccan lady who needs coaching on filling out applications on-line. These can be strange service calls because you meet with strange situations. Example, there is her husband sitting in the living room in front of the TV aware that my fee is $25 per hour. She knows she has hit the jackpot of information while he is convinced that computer lessons should be free to people who never wanted computers in the first place. In that case, we should get free money from the IRS. Why, shucks, computers would not even be necessary if people would just go back to the good ol’ way of doing things.
           It also raises my eyebrow to learn how trusting some people can be about the system. Whereas Gil sees the need for passwords, she has no problem filling out on-line forms that give away information that I would consider highly personal. She is able to deny that there are more crooks than honest people on the Internet because the system or the police or God will protect her 24/7.

           The rain kept falling all day, so I was listening to an audio tape in the car. Gag, I thought it would be a murder mystery. It is called “Theory of Relativity” and it is about the stupid, petty things that bother people who think marriage is the proper way to live your entire adult life. At first I thought it was some lame spoof. I realize once you get married a lot of your behavior is artificial and dictated by tribal custom but I have a hard time understanding those who think it is some pinnacle of achievement to go through the motions for years on end. I know of just too many men who have screwed their wives younger sister to consider it shockingly rare. This story is worse. One entire chapter is devoted to how some 35 year old broad carefully lays out all her clothes on the bed before she puts them on, actually describing the color and trim of each item.

           Reader’s Digest. They have an article on dog wigs coming out in January 2007, featuring Ruth. Actually, it is a new format, a magazine called (I think) “Only in America”. They describe it as humor; I’ll reserve judgment. The articles are limited to seventy-five words, or about one minute’s production time for me. (I don’t know about talking, but I can certainly type faster than a lot of people can think.)

           I made good money today, so I’m hoping for perfect weather this weekend. I think I’ll stock up if the dollar store is still around on Marco Island. That is the place whose lease specified they could not sell food, but they did. Turns out Publix owns the shopping center and you figure out the rest. JP really liked the place, the prices were low enough to justify the trip out there. It was on the last trip back that JP got flashed by three different women (two biker broads and a hillbilly lady). Yet he will not believe me when I tell him we have to travel more often, mainly because women in small towns just never meet men like us.
           Add it up, and I am one tired cowboy this evening. No bass practice as planned. That tune “Momma Tried” by Haggard is still stuck in my brain and will not go away. Don’t listen to it, I warn you. It is deceptively simple.

           [Author's note 2015-10-31: coincidence? The same tune ("Momma Tried") has come back onto my list nine years later almost to the day. I first heard this song as a teenager when this hillbilly at school kept singing the first line. Back then, I didn't identify with "prison" songs. We were taught to think only bad people went to prison. However, I learned quickly enough through reading that prisons are all too often used by the establishment for other purposes. I no longer feel that only bad people are in prison, in fact there are many more bad people in politics percentage-wise.
           Additional note 2016: This tune "Momma Tried" became a big hit on my bass solo repertoire. I can solo all the way through it including the fancy intro and the lead break.]

October 30, 2006

           You know I always get confused buy daylight savings time. The reason is that I once read when I was a kid that it is supposed to make you think there is an extra hour of sunlight. Yet, as soon as the change occurs, it gets dark an hour earlier. I’ve figured it out before, but I never remember.

           There was no time for pictures today, (there was, later) so I’m going to raid a previous file for anything interesting or informative, either will do. There is always the chance something will get repeated when I do this, but I’m sure somebody will say something if it happens. How about this gambling dance party boat? It was empty, undergoing some deep cleaning but the crew had the stereo playing.
           Ruth called this morning, but I will not get over there until tomorrow. Sure enough, we have completely stumped the ancient and wise Oriental culture. They do not know what a box is. That is correct, despite building them a full-size model and shipping it parcel post around the globe, they have written back wanting more information. We have already sent them multiple photographs, dimensions and a set of full-size schematics, but they cannot grasp the concept.

           I have ruled out the old “custom order” scam, these people truly do not know what a box is, since the only other plausible situation is that they cannot imagine what a box looks like even when holding the model in their own two hands. From this point onward, I would start looking for a supplier with some brains. Do not try to second guess what we have done, we have repeatedly e-mailed them to find any box or series of boxes of any material of any size even close, and we’ll pick the one we like. Instead they have stalled and stonewalled the entire project over this, to the point of losing a potentially huge order.

           [Author's note 2015-10-30: this faked inability of box companies to understand what you want seems to be industry practice. I have other examples going back to 1986 of people refusing to state their standard box sizes, so that I could pick the one that best fits my product. It is the old California "custom order" rip-off. They have a warehouse full of what you want, but try to convince you they are setting up an assembly line specially for you. If I tell you this tale from the trailer court more than once, it is because it happens to me more often than most. Remember the "carton or case" toothpick merry-go-round. Same thing.]

           Since they have already shipped us counter-samples inboxes, it is clear to me that somebody is just being truly ignorant about it. I would say if they want to save face, they lost the chance two months ago. I went to Big Lots and bought a box of Xmas bulbs in a box of nearly the correct size. 12.5cm L x 12.5cm W x 7.5cm H. In clear plastic. However, thanks to my brothers, I know ignorance when I see it, so you watch, when the box issue is resolved, they will cook up some other trivial nonsense and we’ll start all over again.

           Well, I mean Ruth will start over. I’d have told them where to stick it after the first round. Nothing mysterious or inscrutable about it to me. What is hard to read is the way Don has his books set up. We are making headway. There is a database there, although it was designed by a filing clerk. It is sort of what you’d get from somebody who read Database for Dummies or Chapter 1 of something.
           The fields are there but absolutely no concept of what a unique key or a one-to-many consists of. However, the true mark of somebody who studied computers but has no aptitude for it is the complete lack of a “single correct path”, a phrase I may have minted. For whatever one’s technical merits, if the system does not practically self-document the flow of work start to finish, time to quit while you are ahead.

           The most successful databases I’ve designed have this single correct path, so much so that I use it to flag departures from what is workable. In the opposite, the most useless databases I’ve seen always include the lack of such a path. I know this fact is not in the manual, but if you need more than one path, consider creating another database.
           Another total amateur giveaway is the use of auto-number. If that is the best you can do, you should not bother. (Auto-number does have a use for restoring data to the original order of entry, as some sorts are hard to undo.) If you are going to use a number, at least try to give it some meaning other than just being distinct. The most glaring omission on this database? The designer did not, for some reason, use the ISBN as a primary key. This means constantly flipped back to find if you have the right book

           I’ve made the rent 12 days early. This means almost a certain trip out of town this weekend. Bear in mind, there are not that many places to go in South Florida, take out a map and see for yourself. A lot of those “little towns” on the map do not even exist, and I suggest that the small towns of Florida are rapidly disappearing altogether. Everything else is to far away, it takes five hours to get to Key West on a good day.

           I see a few people liked the picture [above]. Sure, I’ll get another. I’m in a good frame and I used JZ’s old trick of popping microwave popcorn in a pan. I did it and every kernel popped. That will never happen again. I’m in no rush to get another microwave since I know how to cook everything I consume without one. Okay, a picture.
           How about me leaning on that curiously painted seawall near Bal Harbour? I had rejected this one because it looks like I am hunched over from a cold breeze, note the fronds bending in the background. Don’t believe it, the day was hot and muggy and the wind not really helping any. For those into it, the nude beach is north beyond those trees on the horizon, around a half-mile away.

October 29, 2006

           Boredom came in a distant second today. Dickens will have to revamp the schedule when I tell him what happened. I suppose this means I should tell you first, right? Hey, I didn’t spend seven years in college for nothing. I stopped at Coffee Time on the way in, mainly to goggle at Legs. My God, she was looking good enough to eat this morning, in tight jeans and a see-through while blouse. Tan rica!
           Too bad, guys, for after that promising start I am going to talk more about recipes than women today. Dickens had hopes the new church next door would bring in Sunday business. The fact is it looks like the opposite. It seems nobody asked the question of why a church would be re-locating. I mean, the congregation would stay the same, if logic prevails. I have the answer. Crack-boom! The sound nearly knocked me on my arse.

           Here is a rare picture showing my mid-section. This is me waiting at the counter for my morning coffee. What is unusual is that I first noticed years ago that I was gaining weight from my reflections. If you look closely, you will see my reflection in the shiny brass front of the booth. I don’t look entirely like a tub of lard. Yes, I wear a tie to work in the Florida heat which I can get away with because I am one of the few people who can sweat heartily through the top of my head. I must include the picture because it took four months to get to this stage and I need the encouragement.

           Crack-boom! It’s that noise again. Sounded like somebody dropped a microphone on a PA system that was cranked up to 11. That could be because that is exactly what it was. Now, the music does not bother me because it is twenty year old rock and roll, but it drove all the morning customers right back out the door. Ohhh, that is loud. It is Jesus music all the way, but like country it is just beginning to brush the fringes of two generations ago. Live drummer and a rockin’ muddy blues bass player right behind Dickens’ southeast wall. Also right below that Italian lady’s apartment.

           Heap plenty loud, mon. They would deny it, but it is the same rock music that was supposed to have been inspired by the devil himself in 1965. I can already think of a few hypocrites I’d like to have listen to this. I found my self dipping to the music as I walked around but make no mistake, this church was obviously run out of town the last place they pulled this stunt. They start at 11:00 and quit at 1:00, with maybe ten minutes of sermon. All the rest is, as they say, rock and roll to me.
           I’ll suggest to Dickens we don’t open until 1:00, which would suit me fine. Maybe do a morning bike ride instead of evenings. Even with daylight savings gone, I don’t find enough time at the end, and besides, the evening does have the dust of the day in the air, the more because it is Florida. Sales were dismal but I covered my pay. (It turns out this noisy church has been evicted several times.)

           There is another state park north of Dania Beach Blvd along the coast, but I told the gateman I’ll return in brighter daylight. That's the government, you pay for the park, then you also pay admission to use the park. But other than that, they are here to help you. The admission is a dollar and I joked with him that I was really looking for women. I knew there weren’t any, but “for a dollar, I want hope”. I think I almost killed the guy, for some reason that must have been the funniest thing he’s heard in years. What can you expect from working in a toll booth?

           Here is something new for me. It should come as no surprise unless you’ve never seen one. You know how they will tow your car? They show up with a flatbed truck and skid your car right up onto the deck. Guess what – Florida will do the same with your boat. They can’t have tons of unregistered boats running around this state, you know. Actually, like auto registration, it no longer serves its original purpose but the authorities find it so useful for arresting people they will never let it go. Not convicting people, just arresting them. You get far more self-incrimination out of a person arrested than you ever will out of his lawyer. You may have to look closely, but just like a tow truck, the boat has a flat deck with an open back to pull the victim right up off the water and away.

           The only thing more disgusting than this kind of towing is the people who do it for a living. Fine the guy heavily, but don’t leave him without transportation. Only the sick bureaucratic mind could justify that nonsense. It is like the police impounding your car if the registration expired when there is no reason they could not just let you go over such a contrived crime. They have your number if you don’t comply and registration does not make an iota of difference to most other drivers on the road. It is only a big deal to the police.

           I rode my [unregistered] bike down the entire Broadwalk after closing. That makes it a 17 mile Sunday, and a babe yelled after me that she appreciated my bike light. The few other bikes that have lights use those expensive and mostly useless halogen quartz lamps that are so bright you can’t really see what is coming. I use a flashlight clipped on my handlebars. It would have been too conspicuous to turn around and thank her, so I kept going. Coffee at the Panera, and home.

           Where I have finally made a definitive smoothie, that is, one I like repeatedly with few variations. One banana, one apple and some grapes make up the bulk. Add a squirt of cocoa flavor (without the sugar, it is actually quite low calorie), and your choice of sour orange, vanilla flavor or coconut milk. The flavor lets you taste all the ingredients, although I still add a half can of whatever leftover diet soda I have since I still like sweet drinks.
           Then I boiled some chicken in onions and garlic. While still training myself to like food without added salt, I found something that helps. Flax seed. While it adds a flavor nothing like salt, it is a good flavor that I would like less with salt. That is hard to say, but give it a try in a small batch, it is not for everyone. Just a teaspoon per quart, it also makes a great broth for leftovers and rice.
           I should mention expense over the smoothies. No wonder the health food bars charge so much, it is darn expensive. Bananas are required to bulk it up so you are not tempted to add dairy products. Grapes are costly but worth it. I tried to find a grape juice drink, but most of them list sugar and high fructose syrup as the major ingredients. If you don’t have any flat soda, set it by Dickens’ wall for a few minutes.

October 28, 2006

Here's a prophetic post for you:

           Here is a Time magazine photo that typifies the year 2006. That's a million dollars in US taxpayer benefits hopping that fence. That's a horrendous cost to the nation that nobody is even counting. You call that a border? You call that a fence? This is what will bring America to its knees. This country was not built by Mexicans. Or Cubans. Or Koreans. You can sugar-coat these facts, but every other nationality (not race, I said nationality) is groomed from birth to take more out of the system than they ever put back in. Some just smile more while they are at it.

           Sadly, it is true. The [new] DXG camera uses some dumbass format called ASF that none of the other ton equipment we own between us can use. We are looking for a converter but what a dumb thing for the designers to pull off. It will playback on Media Player so there is hope. It seems to have separate audio & video tracks. ASF = A Stupid Format.
           Maybe it has some advantages but if you can’t tell by looking (at the photo), who needs it? I went into the shop for a few hours but could not get around to fixing the Linux situation. I did tear up a couple of computers and adjust the parts and settings. Remind me to get a video of the CD dance one of the units goes into when booted up.

The CD trays begin to eject and retract by themselves.
           None of us had seen Steve, the cancer guy around, so I went over there after work on some excuse about a minor repair to check on him. Sure enough, he’s been ill. He’s working on a couple of bikes but he is pretty weak.
           Now that I want one of those bike carriers that fit on your trailer hitch, I can’t find one. It was raining but I rode straight through it in the search. Target has four-bike models at $100 a pop; I just want something for two. I was undecided whether to go looking for Brian again or check out that Paradiso theater in Fort Lauderdale. They occasionally advertise some rare or interesting movies.

           In the end I chose to stay home and read. Maybe play a little bass to the new Alexis drummer. It is programmable although I’ll leave that until I have a half set of tunes using the presets. I was doing better playing in a band on the west coast than I am in this supposed tourist town. It is so hard to find good people here that I may even try singing myself. Them Japanese sure have strange ideas about what is a good drum beat.

           I called JZ to schedule a trip next Saturday to Marco Island or Naples. That is if I get the carrier. It may be Key Largo if I don’t. I should buy a new microwave but I have not gotten around to any domestic things in over a week. Call me spoiled but it is hard to have breakfast without nuking things up. I’ll see what comes into the shop tomorrow. You may find it notable that I have been running the shop for a month and have not even seen Dickens during that time. Plus, it pays all bills except rent.

           Yeah, I’m going to play bass for a couple of hours. Here is a picture of a truly twisted tree in Haulover Park. The connection is that I am relearning for the nth time in my life that old Otis Redding hit, “Dock of the Bay” and this tree was one of a series of shots from the pier system on the west-facing side of the Intercoastal Waterway. Of you have an atlas handy, the bay is between towns called Bal Harbor and Sunny Isle. There were actually a few people sitting on the dock of that bay, however there is nothing romantic about wasting time here or anyplace else.
           As usual, the rhythm machine has 49 presets, of which maybe six are of any use. Since this is only 2006, we still have yet to see a drum machine that plays a 12 bar passage with a turnaround so we can play the 12-bar blues. The Alexis does not, it turns out, have any triplet beats, not even a waltz so I could fake it. This country was not built by Japanese either. Great going, you guys!

October 27, 2006

           A perfect day in most ways. The cool winter breezes have arrived and it is dropping below 70 around dawn and dusk. I went into the shop around 9:00 AM and who should show up but Roberto. He went on line with a Linux experts group and they have suggested the slow problem is Mozilla Firefox. It seems there is an anti-aliasing feature that has to be disabled. I’ll have to call Mozilla because I could not find the software switch.

           This is very bad press for people that can hardly afford it. Nobody is going to adopt a new browser if it has compatibility issues with Linux. Often, the entire motive is to get away from Microsoft and this brand of problem can sink you fast. I will move to Opera over this even if I can fix it. Linux and Mozilla have all the features but what good are they if you can’t find them? The Firefox popup blocker is even harder to find than others, and it is a black eye for them for even having build a browser that allows popups in the first place. It borders on retard to ignore a known problem like that.
           Another train went roaring through the middle of town this morning, so I took this picture. Notice the distortion? I don’t know how that happened but it looks neat so I kept the photo. I went shopping for Ruth’s shelf bracket over at Barnett’s Hardward on Hallandale and Dixie. Wow, talk about high prices, around double Home Depot.
Mind you, they have tons of neat inventory where the bigger chains only sell the stuff that moves fast. Remember my quest for one of those pump-up liquid fuel lanterns that you pump up? The ones with the cloth mantels? Found ‘em at Barnett’s. Not cheap as you may have guessed, but far cheaper at $54 than the rip-off $169 they are going for on the Internet. Weren’t computers supposed to bring prices down by improving efficiency?

           That strange masseuse lady was in today, the one who can’t get her printer to work and blames it on the computer. She also wants somebody who will fix it after she gets off duty at 9:00 at night. Good luck. In a way, she is like my brother who’s definition of a jerk is anyone who won’t lend him $100.
           For the curious, here is a picture of where all these brackets and shelving are going. If you recall me saying Ruth is running out of room, wrong. She ran out of room years ago. All I can do is re-arrange. I had to stack the printers two deep. The scanner is now on top of the computer tower and the lid will only open half-way. The phone is on the wall and you now have to answer it left-handed.

           Barbara, my student, is back from Alabama. She called while I was biking around Sunrise after work. It is a town south of Bal Harbour (Ruth informs me that is the correct spelling of Harbor). There was a little Mexican café on 75th and I had a plate of rice, which may be my second restaurant meal this year. I bought some special black grapes at $3.50 a pound to make a smoothie. The bag broke open after I walked out of the store. Well! I stopped for a coffee at the local Starbucks to calm down.
           With the remainder, I’ve discovered a new recipe. It is basically a grape, banana and soda concoction with a dash of bitter orange flavoring. This flavoring is a curious Spanish marinade sauce for meat. I tried it because the label showed all natural vegetable ingredients. I added chocolate flavor. Hershey’s Syrup Lite, and it is lo-cal. I’m no expert but that is great flavor.

           [Author's note 2022: I was unaware at the time of the danger of artificial flavors or that within five years I would be permanently boycotting Hershey's over their abuse of a student work program.]

           Again, I have more photos and footage than I can display here. The quality is low, from the new DXG digital. That does not mean it is not good footage. That camera has some eccentric qualities, especially facing any kind of brighter background. Once you learn to take advantage of these, you get good results. I find I’m choosing which camera to use depending on the lighting.

           The DXG [digital camera] is, I recap, slow to bring into action rapidly, yet it eats batteries too fast to leave in a ready state. Worse, it uses the batteries unevenly so they must be replaced before going completely flat (although I switch those to the trusty Argus for their remaining life). There is no viewfinder, only the power-hungry LCD panel, but one of the worst omissions is any kind of power adapter. It is batteries or nothing. They did not even include one of those jacks for a cell-phone power pack.
           Most of the above points are demonstrated in this picture of a toadstool just outside the wig shop door. The Argus would cause foreground blurriness at this range. The picture tells a story, but if you look close, the brightness washes out any clarity on the tuffet. Did I just say tuffet? A word that is not in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary).

October 26, 2006

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 26, 2005, no link yet

MORNING
           My new bike throws the chain once in a while. Some geeky fag with a geeky fag haircut cut me off yesterday and I had to slam on the brakes so hard the chain flew off. Now it slips off by itself. It also jams against the frame making for one messy greasy flip the bike over repair job. I heard that and may I say in my defense that I would never, repeat never have noticed he was a geeky fag if he had not nearly run me over, okay?

           Wow, another five hour work day. Can I keep up this pace? I may have to if I want to make a trip to Seattle next month. I was over at Don’s this morning and we had a bit of a discussion about the work. He has a bit of selective hearing, but who doesn’t. When I said I did not do clerical work, he heard me to say bookkeeping. Big difference. What I meant is I do not spend my days putting stamps on envelopes.
           However, he likes the phrase “full charge” bookkeeper, and apparently there is no shortage of people who call themselves that in Florida. In fact, that is probably what the last person who messed up his books and his system was. I am kind of glad he already had “complaints” about the new statements because I was able to show him that the cause was people mis-interpreting the old ones. We will likely compromise where I do the actual accounting but only once a week. Seriously, I don’t file check stubs. Well, I do, but that is the secretary's job.

           So what do I do? I set up and administer the system that gets those checks out on time to the right parties. If you want somebody who goes to the store and buys the check blanks for you, get a “full charge” bookkeeper. I hear there’s at least one out there looking for your business.

NOON
           By mid-afternoon I was over at Ruth’s, this time to coach her on attaching pictures to email. She is not getting the practice time in and I hinted that it was most important should I leave for a few weeks. I’m tempted to cash in a bond and drive to Belize for a couple of years. Sell this place and just start out. I figure I could raise $5,000 in a month selling off my junk. Just a thought, I won’t leave here during the winter.

           Another sixty pictures today plus video of a kite shaped like a forty-foot squid. The thing was huge and the motion was very realistic. The rush hour was crawling so I hauled out the bike and toured Haulover Beach. Mostly deserted except for a few regulars. I got some classic photos there, including a dude sitting by the dock of the bay and some cats around the seafood store. I had to go shopping for supplies, making that my only break of the day. However, I drove another twenty blocks and toured Oleta Park.
           This is the State park on 163rd which I didn’t visit because of the cover charge. Why should I pay for something I’ve already paid for through taxes? It was kind of worth it, but that could be when I turned around the ranger said, what the heck, go on in for free. Ah, that is my kind of bike ride.

           I’m going to hook up Ruth’s color printer. I gave it the once over and it is an Epson photo printer. Looks brand new. It has one of those teakettle cords, the one with the figure-eight shaped end. I hate to part with mine but I everybody I know who has one will not part with it. This requires another shelf since there is no room left in her work cubicle, and that will only work if I wire the phone up on the wall. I have a brand new Radio Shack model that will do fine. I had to squint one eye when I noticed that it came with instructions. Then I remembered this is Florida. It came without any wall mounting screws. Duh.
           The park ride was great, I got the bike right out onto the beach and rode through the shallow water. Sorry, it is all video since it was getting too dark for photos. The area was deserted so I did a little mountain bike trip through some back gravel trails. The Jamus held up fine, which is good because I really pounded it here and there.

NIGHT
           I can take a hint. You want to see the picture of the cats at the waterfront. Okay, here it is. To make a game of it, I will tell you there are seven cats in the photo. I can see him because I know where to look. Two cats in the far background, four in the front. Or is it five? Here’s your hint, it is a full size cat between two of the other cats.

           All this means is my quest for boredom is put off yet another day. I’m getting concerned because from what I hear, you don’t derive the full benefits from boredom unless you do it long-term. I’m already over the hill and have not had a boring day since the moment I ran away from home. I wonder, has boredom changed since then, what with all the new things to be bored with? There are hundreds of new inventions to help you get bored and stay that way. I’ll have nothing to do with boring things, but that does not mean I don’t know what they are. My top boring things:

           Lexus commercials
           cable TV
           rap music
           reverse mortgages
           Metro PCS
           AOL
           Internet dating services
           Robin Williams

           Well, okay, so Williams is not high-tech, but it was either him or William Shatner and Eddie Albert together. Add Shatner and Albert to make the list ten long. Now that I’ve mentioned all three of them in once sentence, I am reminded that I have a grapefruit in the fridge.
           Later. Okay, I’m dead. Dead man walking because I just made a major mistake. Remember a month ago when Ruth asked me to scan the model in the wigs? Since then she has finished with Justin and gone back to her old web designer. No harm in that, is there?
           We sent the pictures to the designer. I had scanned and named the files. I never (well hardly ever) discuss the identities of the women I’ve known. I, ahem, kind of named the files after whichever babe the model reminded me of in my younger days. They were never meant to be more than hrefs. Guess what the new designer used for captions? There they were, for the whole world to see. Direct references to the eight most beautiful women I’ve ever known in my life.

           [Author's note: 2015-10-21: That passage is unclear. What happened was when I scanned the model, who posed to look like several different women. I arbitrarily renamed the files after pretty women I've had affairs with over the years. I meant the file names to be used only as tags, I didn't think ahead that the web designer would publish them with my names of real women. To make matters touchier, I had renamed several of the model shots based on how similar they looked to my old girlfriends. Often close enough to mistake the two. I'm dead if I ever get caught.]

           [Author's note: 2023: In the end, nothing happened, since doggie wigs never took off. But yeah, in 2006, neither I or anybody knew who would be reading what on-line. Now, the pictures are long gone and I'm so old who cares what women would get on my case any more.]

           Dead, I’m telling you. Dead. Even if I live, it will be without hope of those women ever speaking to me again. Not that I would even know them after all this time, but the hope was there. Especially Canan, I mean, how many green-eyed Turkish gals are there in my part of the world? Or Pearle. How many red-headed Norwegians babes? Remember me as I was. (Fortunately, years later, it turns out my ex-girlfriends don't buy a lot of doggie wigs.)
           Should I leave you on that note? No, let me think of something cheerful. Okay, how about never give up? I have finally broken below the 170 pound barrier that established itself when I got the bicycle. Two months and nothing. It would seem that that long stretch where I gained weight without it showing (during the late 1990s) is now proceeding in reverse. I looked and felt thinner but until today, my weight never fell. I took several readings to make sure it was not an ordinary daily fluctuation. Nope, and I now weigh 168 pounds.

           [Author's note 2015-10-21: I had not yet learned that it was diet causing the problems. Modified corn starch, carbohydrate-rich food, diet soda, natural flavorings (a lie), additives. These were changes made by manufacturing concerns to food that was otherwise quite nutritious when I was growing up. They are insidious.]

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October 25, 2006

           (This is a gif of Hollywood Blvd, way ahead of its time. I had no such software until 2018, though I had produced gifs manually by then. Enjoy.)

           I truly need one of those bicycle carriers. The Jamus just fits into the back of the station wagon. This can warp the bike frame over time and the Jamus is too nice for that. I cranked it over to the shop this morning and worked half the day on setting up a new browser, Opera. I like it so far but have not found a version that works with my Linux installation yet. I have the new HP Pavilion hooked into place. It will be fun to figure out how to network that with the Linux machines to share the printer. I don’t even know if

           Linux uses workgroups.
Another whirlwind day with the Publisher’s accounting and I’m having serious second and third thoughts about that. The way it is set up, things are almost as if somebody went out of their way to make it as difficult and complicated as possible. Every step has to be handled five and six times and it is often necessary to go back and change things. This type of system cannot be improved without major changes and I don’t think the owner is keen on doing that.

           Literally, each account requires 15 discreet steps and he wants them done in order for each account. Why? Because that is the way he understands it, but having him understand it was never part of the deal, although he says it was. Efficiency, however, says the work should not be linear. All the first steps should be complete before beginning the second step. It cost me half a day doing it the other way. Already I’ve had to go back and redo accounts when I discover it was a co-author arrangement with a surname later in the alphabet.

           Cowbody Mike called to say he invested some bucks into home recording software and finally defenestrated it. Not an uncommon reaction to such computer code. They take a two step process and split it into ten steps. He asked if I can burn the music he’s got on zip disk to a CD. That entirely depends on what format is on the zip disk, which I tried to explain to no avail, but I can probably take care of that.

           Crane emailed back, and sure enough, they want me for jury duty. They have probably heard every excuse in the book, but I will decline by not answering. I have a witness that I only check my mail once every five years and do not accept unsolicited mail from any party. I will calculate the cost of the fine and just pay it. There is also a form they want filled out which I have not seen, but no doubt it is one of those forms designed just to make sure you are who and where you say. I long for an America when one was allowed to stand still and not be molested by the system. Sigh.
           So I went over to Oakwood Plaza to see the movie Borat. It will knock you half out laughing. A great twist on the theme of different cultures clashing with American. It concerns a man who comes from central Asia to learn about America and the incredible scenarios he encounters. It got me laughing out of control for the first time in years.

           It was an original movie, but not an original concept. Around a year ago I flipped through a paperback about a “Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry” that contained many of the kernels for Borat and would not be surprised if there is some connection. I did not buy the book but the humor was exactly the same grade.
           Back home, I spent yet another two hours on the accounting. There is little chance I will continue to do these books his way. If I cannot be allowed to make a profit, I will have to decline the work. It is mindless to do such work the way it is now arranged, by which I mean it is like a ridiculously complicated type of clerical work. I found situations where I had to go back and change my own backup copies.
           There is a slim chance I would put this on a database. The motive there is partly because Don does not know enough about database to interfere the way he does with spreadsheets. He possibly thinks a database will work wonders here but I don’t think he understands the awesome learning curve if he wants to understand even to a limited degree. We’ll start with tomorrow, where he will have to destroy several checks he has already written.

           I should record the cause, in case he denies responsibility. Okay, he chided me for creating a list that standardized the spelling of the author’s names and book titles. As I stepped through this list, he would instruct me to ignore certain items. Authors that died, went insolvent or became inactive. I wanted to wait until all the accounts were checked but he wanted to cut checks for the active accounts as quickly as possible. We cut checks.
           Now, I find several inactive accounts that had balances in arrears. He has cut checks for people who owe him money, not the other way around. There are two choices. Devise some special scheme for the authors where the overpayment applies (a brand of nonsense) or void the checks and start over for, in some cases, the seventh time. Tomorrow we find out which he chooses.

           Did I mention Opera? Yes, I did. It also has a blog feature I will look into soon. Any blog has to be an improvement over the ones I’ve already looked at. If it is a simple and anonymous setup, I will devote Friday to getting something out on the circuits. Fred and Mike were a little incredulous about the extent of this journal. I understand that for everyone who plans or starts, maybe one in 100,000 actually keeps writing. Maybe I’ll give them a sample.
           The new issue of Cahoots is out. I took an extra coffee break downtown and went over the articles looking for patterns. While it is hard to take much of it seriously, it is based on fact. For example, I thought the article of a rich lady getting snagged for rigging a contest was bogus, but Fred knows her and she was really arrested for it. So, that means the humor is a nice mesh for my style. Here is a picture of JZ at the Halloween stand.

October 24, 2006

           Take a look at these sidewalk athletes. They had stopped at the convenience store next door, and youthful exuberance took over. The one was a boxer and he was fast, the one doing handstands. These are captured still from a video. In an equally important development, my microwave finally burned out. Another $28 down the drain, what is this world coming to?
           Interesting – it took twenty-five years for the system to send me a letter which I did not want. Jury duty. I find two things obnoxious about that. One, nobody should have to be on a jury unless they feel like it. Two, other “public” records were used to get my mailing address. I’ll just ignore it and see what happens.

           I have a policy against accepting anything in the mail that is unsolicited. There is a third equally disgusting event related to calling it a “duty”, and that is one American telling another what to do. That alone is cause for another civil war. You mind your business and you allow others to mind theirs. The hardest thing for some people is to admit that some things are not any of their business.

           I got more of the accounting done. Working on my own I got four times as much work done in the same time. Then over to Ruth’s to reset her AOL. She’s getting better, since she had it working by the time I got there. I charged her a half-hour of time for the phone calls y’day to discourage more of the same. Yes, somebody did contact AOL on Saturday and try to change her password. If you detected I was a little miffed by the time I started writing, thank AOL.
           Here’s why. Okay, to get into their system, I had to give a whole whack of information. Therefore, anybody else who did the same would also have to give them said information. (Such as the last four digits of their Social Security and credit card.) I wanted AOL to give me that information used by whoever made the Saturday attempt. AOL refused. Well of course they refused. They are AOL and that is one reason I never deal with such scum unless I have to. I advise you to do the same. The same AOL that lets spammers flood the Ether with Viagra ads.

           In the off moments, I rigged up the scanner for Ruth. She caught on to it right away, that plus it is a truly nice scanner, even for an HP. It works well with photos and she was able to email some around on the first try. I assured her she is roughly 25% along the path to proficiency and not to give up. Things will go a little smoother now that she sees the results can be fun.

           I must report that BellSouth tried to pull yet another fast one. It is obvious they use their demographic information to target new DSL users who can be tricked because they are more unfamiliar with the system The problem today was that I was there when Rick Curtis called from the “Call Center”. We know what that is. He falsely claimed that there was some “discrepancy” with my DSL service on their records, to the effect that another DSL provider other than BellSouth may be providing the service. He needed to “verify” we had the correct service. Wrong move, there, Rick the Prick.
           I tried to use the opportunity to get him to reveal the nature of these records, but it turns out even that was a lie. He lied through his teeth the entire conversation, until I finally got him to admit he was from the “Promotion Department” and was trying to upsell Ruth to the $150 per month shared T1 service. Rick the Prick should have known to back out gracefully the minute I began asking if he was the CLEC or the ILEC. He does not even know what those are, yet, he still tried to continue the bull.

           (For those interested, you can look it up. These are the Competitive Local Exchange Carrier and the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier. In this area, BellSouth is the Incumbent.)

           Back at the shop, I paid Fred for the HP Pavilion, which is set up for Internet access. Oh, in the process, I noticed it was the same computer the G has, which he thought was so wonderful and modern. It is more like better than nothing. Fred has determined that the potential problem on slow downloads is the browser, Mozilla. Don’t look at me, I thought they worked hand-in-hand with Linux. Anyway, that is good since another browser will be easier to find. Maybe Opera.
           Next, to Home Depot to find they are fresh out of those cable tubes, the ones you use to hide all the wires behind your computer. Al’s mother does not like all them cables hanging back there, and there are around 15 of them on that setup. Why Al does not pop down to the store and get it done on his own is beyond me, but he pays cash so count me in. Fred and I have discussed running his cables through PVC, especially that hard to bend cable TV coax cable. My biggest worry is how to get the piping over there on my bicycle.
           Al reports minimal activity on his original adventure into computer marketing. That was the deal where they supplied him with leads for some sales pitch. If you figured out the leads were all picked over, good one. I still cannot figure out how these people who sell these home businesses are able to stay in business with such scams.
           I stopped at the book store on Hollywood for a five-year old National Geo, and had coffee next door. I chat with Little Heather, not my type, but I’ve always done well with waitresses. That should tell you what the average male customer must be like. She is a little cutie and I would not mind at all. The place was a former gambling den and went bankrupt shortly after this.

October 23, 2006

           Much as I like my Bosscruiser, the bike has a preventable problem due to bad design. The kickstand will malfunction. You cannot install a forked model because the chain is in the way, and the regular model is too short. The bicycle leans over too far and any weight, say a laptop in the basket, will slowly begin to twist the front tire to the left until the bike falls over. It did it right in front of my eyes.

           Shame, Bosscruiser (yes, maybe the kickstand was not their model, but the fact that the design allowed a wrong model to be installed in the first place is still their fault). All replacement models I viewed another defect – none of them had a prong that would rest on anything except a solid surface. They would poke through lawn grass. I think I will drill a hole part way through a golf ball and see if I can cap it.

           Due to discrepancies on my DSL lecture last day, I went out and bought “DSL for Dummies”. DSL does not work on fiber optic; I was right and they were wrong, so I won’t mention it. These Dummie series vary wildly in quality and I must mention this volume is very well written and brilliant in passages. If you want to see the opposite, read “CD/DVDs for Dummies”.

           I repaired an HP printer today. It is just not something we repair, but this one was such an expensive unit, the two hours was a bargain. It took longer to uninstall all the drivers I had to install just to test the unit, plus all the junk, web connections, strange applets and virus-like weird files that HP puts on your computer without asking permission first. They are getting as bad as AOL, who have got to be the strangest ISP in history. Here's a picture of a ship just because.

           For example, you had better pay attention to all those warnings they issue about how they will never call you for personal information or to confirm anything. It is their roundabout (dishonest) way of telling you they have a security problem. Ruth called today about her password. Last Saturday, somebody tried to long on to her email. They apparently called up AOL and claimed to have forgotten the password. AOL reset it and now Ruth can’t log on.

           Ruth immediately calls here, she is still unclear on the concept that we don’t have any help desk. You are supposed to learn from us how to repair things yourself, and if you have waded too far out, that does not constitute an emergency. I told her I cannot get out there until tomorrow. At full price. It is her own fault for not learning to log on. AOL does not help much either. They want to know “the last four digits of the method you use to pay your monthly bill”. Maybe Ruth is reading it wrong, I’ll see, but since she read everything else to me (over the phone) perfectly, I have to conclude AOL is the culprit. I did not know methods had a last four digits.

           I’ve decided to re-install Linux on the Internet computers and purchase another desktop from Fred for $200. I’ll operate it as a customer unit that I am just testing. Semi-permanently. I threw a lady out of the store today. You know the type, they come in looking like a million bucks, but when I twice asked her what she was selling, she refused to give me a straight answer. Something about saving money on my Visa accounts. I told her to leave and not come back. It must have been a first for her because she put a screwball look on her face like she had up to that point thought she was so beautiful that nothing like that would ever happen. It did.

           I’ve done some deeper thinking about Norwegian Cruise Lines. I have no doubt they’ve got the computer networking relegated to a no-class job. Yet I was ready to do just that kind of work to get onto the cruise ships when I first got here. There is no doubt the job would be anything but routine and that is where I can thrive. If it is a ten hour day, that could amount to $1500 weeks, and unless you smoke and drink (which I do not), living expenses are practically zero.

           By late afternoon I was in Dunkin’ Donuts working the Sudoku puzzle. The staff, well, I basically had to tell them a big part of the reason I’m not there as often is that there is no place to secure my bicycle. Plus that Columbian babe went back home a month before she turned legal, dang.
           That reminds me, a Columbian guy was in today asking Mike about laptops, so I translated. He seems to want all the older models we have that still operate on Windows 98. Indicating that is the pirated copy they are using in that part of the world. (Windows is so expensive, each foreign area has one older version that dominates.) He also needs somebody who knows how to comply with minimum American tax law.

           Then I went over to Big Al’s. His mother had new tiles put in and the workers yanked all the wires out of the sockets, then proceeded to cover all the expensive equipment with a layer of chalk-like dust. It was not easy, but finally I got Al’s cable TV working. By not easy, I mean he has one of those odd-ball video recorders that you have to turn off to make it work. It actually stays on internally and rebroadcasts all the signals on Channel 3 or 4. When you turn it on, it expects a VHS or DVD and will not rebroadcast the cable TV signal. He paid me full computer repair rates to fix it.

           So I made decent money working 4 hours. The rub is that I had to bike all over town to do it, over seventeen miles. I’d rather work at home and put in those miles along new areas, such as the beachfront in Fort Lauderdale. I was going to get bored, but I had to use the time to learn “These Boots Were Made for Walking” on the new Alexis drum box. Tricky, for I have to reset it during the chorus pauses, a technique that is troublesome on stage but also makes me irreplaceable except by a live drummer.

October 22, 2006

           Here is a shot of me, the bike rider, taken much later in the day. It is to show off the trimming effect of 650 miles of bike riding. It is inserted here for I’ve learned the lesson of putting a picture into the blog early. N’yuck, n’yuck, now I can “backpedal” to the events earlier in the day. Be advised the picture angle is over-flattering, since I am still 35 pounds overweight but it is my journal and I get to pick the best shots.

           The boat ride (y’day) tuckered me out, or more accurately, the whole body workout from snorkeling. I was only out there a half-hour but that was the first time under water in two years [since Ocean Reef 2004]. The connection here is that I slept right through to 9:00 AM and was almost late opening up shop. Now some good news.            Today we turned a profit. That is, after my cut there was money left in the till, in fact, twice as much money. Top items sold were a chrome meat-slicer, brace and bit set [hand drills], scented candles, suitcases, a folding chair and an acrylic antelope sculpture two feet high. While on duty, one of my former students, Howard the author (“In Search of the Perfect Whore”) came in (read the book before you make assumptions) and Alain called to chat.

           Since I’d forgotten my flash drive in the rush over, I had all day to get details taken care of on-line. Plus, I watched a movie written by Tim Conway, the actor on Carol Burnette (?). “Longshot”, about horse racing. He didn’t do too bad a job of it but not good enough by a “longshot”. A lady came in that took a real shine to me, but she reminded me of those 1950’s high school yearbooks where 9/10ths of the women looked really bad. Those beehive hairdos gag me. Sadly, where I lived that look lasted into the late 60s. She must have used the phrase “up close and personal” three times.
The Digital Concepts camera crapped out. Back to the old reliable Argus again. Doubly sad because on the way in, I got some excellent shots of the local police shaking down a street hooker. What is it with police and their strange fascination with hookers? Don’t give me any theories because it is always male cops and female hookers. “Oh no,” said the blonde, “not another breathalyzer!”

           After closing, I took the route home along Dania Beach Blvd and around the beach areas northward. I see they have constructed a beach club on stilts where the old pier used to be. I can’t recall if the pier has been replaced, but it seems to me it used to be on wooden pilings. Anyway, it is now a nightclub that most locals cannot afford.

           I strapped the DXG (digital video camcorder) onto my bicycle headlight bracket to test the view. It works great and nearly fantastic in some ways. Most people do not spot something that small as being a video camera. It looks like a movie chase, me heading down the Broadwalk with other bikes and people cutting in and out ahead of me. I must devise a better bracket because it does work very well and it is something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while.
           The weather has finally turned and will remain perfect for several months, with one cold spell in late December. While at the shop, I looked up Norwegian Cruise Lines. Typically corporate, the site assumes you know how their operations are structured and where to look, the exact things a newcomer does not know. For example, their American operations are separate from their Hawaiian operations. aybe they know something we don’t?

           As feared, the life on board is made less tolerable by having to share a cabin with three other people. However, one glance at the openings in their headquarters makes the on-board jobs look suddenly attractive. No doubt the cabin is next to the engine room and I would get three Filipinos – but what they don’t know is that I’ve already done similar things on land. Many times I’ve shared hotel rooms with native travelers in many parts of this world. Despite that, a private sleeping area would make things better.
           Once on ship, the job goes for seven days a week, ten hours a day. I understand the overtime is great and I know that long days are not that demanding by the hour. They may put you through the paces early on but things always slack off to a routine. It takes close to twelve hours to work ten hours and I sleep another seven. That is one full day. For those of you who don’t know, I used to be a dance instructor, so I will be very careful to make sure I am not stuck “pushing the old ladies around”. Cruises always have more women than men, but go back over what I said about beehives. If dancing is a requirement, I’ll quickly join the band or something.

           The rule is clear. You can date other crew but dating the passengers is forbidden and cause for immediate termination. Damn! With my luck, there will be an oily pretty-boy head waiter o
n each cruise that gets the one good-looking babe on staff. I notice non-Americans don’t have to pay withholding tax. This also means another day has gone by and I have still not achieved boredom.

           I am beginning to suspect that boredom requires more idle time than I have. Idle time turns out to be far more than having nothing to do (because there always is). You must create an entire isolated envi
ronment and the easiest way to do that is to make sure you have no skills. This requires years of greater effort than it does to learn things because I’ve noticed nobody can schedule a time to be bored.            It becomes much like how some people protect themselves from losing anything by having nothing. It works, but in the process they become the worst imaginable disrespectors of other’s property. That, plus they also become the worst complainers about having nothing. See the pattern?

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