You don’t suppose some of the customers are getting used to seeing me at the store, do you? I had one man explain to me in Spanish that I was happier and less “military” than the other guy, but then, I’m not stuck there for a long time, either. I sold everything, including the set of matching chairs out front. Even so, sales are too slow to justify keeping the doors open. I’ve seen this before, I’ll bet you Dickens has a large money event looming somewhere.
It is not my business, I am just noting that there is something familiar about the arrangement. Don’t be surprised if in a few months I report that he is selling and clearing out of Florida. The local economy is so over-heated and under-fueled right now that anybody with money is heading back north. The bumper sticker says, “The further you go north, the closer you get to America.”
They have created a system where everybody tries to get rich selling each other hamburgers. There are no real factories or corporate headquarters here, just farms and real estate speculators. Where all this fabled Florida money comes from is not likely anywhere nearby. How it ever got a reputation for being a great retirement area or place to visit is a mystery of the first magnitude. JP called and we may consider going on a boat ride on the weekend, although rain is predicted.
That will be the first time in six years I’ve been on the water. That is another very Hawaii-like strangeness about this place – how come everything that comes from the water is so damn much more expensive than places that are miles inland? Why is the tuna that comes from half way around the world cheaper than the local “fresh” tuna?
I’ve been talking to customers about computers almost daily. I may have a few bites of private computer lessons. I am still finding out that most people want something not offered elsewhere – somebody to show them how to do things without the customary sales pitch. To paraphrase an old saying, ask somebody in Florida what time it is and they try to sell you a watch.
Later I was back over at the Italian lady’s place on Madison. I had intended to just be there an hour, which became nearly two hours. Since they have fancier computer equipment than I do, I thought they might at least know a few of the basics. Wrong. I showed them how to run the anti-virus programs and how to surf a little. The rest is going to cost them the going rate. Wow, like they really know nothing.
That, however, should not surprise me. For example, I’ve seen people with incredibly expensive things in their houses that nobody could operate. A good example is a piano. Around the house I grew up in, pianos were strictly decoration. Maybe an expensive computer fills the same role for others, except that pianos tend to hold their value to a certain extent.
I watched a Harry Potter movie. “The Sorcerer’s Stone” I think, it is a movie for younger kids played by older kids. This is not to imply I am years behind the rest of the world, but that Harry Potter was not any kind of priority for me. Sure enough, the movie bored me except for the excellent special effects. The clichés are appalling, especially what I’ve dubbed “Wizard U”, which is based on an English public school. How original can you get? The plot is sterile and written down to the audience.
One curious aspect is the way the girl is portrayed when in company with two eleven year old boys. I’m not saying nothing, you can draw your own conclusions. But when I was eleven no such things were permitted to happen, and in fact, anyone who did not pretend they never happened could be severely punished. So there.
Last, Fred and I talked about web programming. This has no basis in fact, but it seems that others don’t seem to have a fraction of the difficulties we do learning this material. The only alternative explanation we can see is that they only know the one thing they are doing, that is, a very confined area of knowledge and nothing much else. Do you suppose that could be true? My conclusion is that the next step in web page programming is variables. Fred says I should be the one that writes the code, but although I can program, I haven’t the slightest notion how to go about such a task. (Variables are placeholders in the HTML code, where instead of say a price, I put a variable that displayed data from a remote and easy to update table.)
