It was Mike’s mom’s birthday and we had cake and coffee at the shop. Here is a picture of Fred taking a picture. I was in the shop looking for more music. It would seem that I’ve tapped the limit of usable music from Limewire. Even a series of very refined searches failed to bring up anything much different that what is already covered. Time to make a deal with a disk jockey. He is not a music type, but Jay-Jay has been calling, he is staying temporarily at the Entrada, a motel on Federal just north of Dixie. He thinks the pool is a big deal while I can’t understand who would want to swim there when the Atlantic Ocean is a mile away. He is still putting together that radio show billing himself as a “Sports Doctor”.
I am so tired. I played a four hour gig tonight without repeats; that is for the first time. It was up at Jimbo’s, so I didn’t meet any babes. That’s okay, by the sounds of it I haven’t been doing so great anywhere else, either. Jimbo’s was packed, with an average crowd of 26 at any given time. My guess is half were the Friday dart club. There is no doubt they stayed longer because of the music. I made so-so tips, then got paged to check my email.While logging on, this man walks in with food, I mean a lot of food. My guess is three times the food the people present could possibly consume. Fancy food, too. He owns a nearby restaurant catering place and “donates” the double orders and leftovers. It was great-looking food so I asked if he had anything vegetarian. Yes, a spinach “stromboli”. It was a meal for two people, a roll of spinach in pastry. I finished it and now I can’t move.
The lawyer was totally impressed by the document I typed up for Fred, he said it was exceptional work four separate times. I prefer money to compliments if there is any choice. I plowed through five hours on-line today, just to find out the A/D converter I need is out of stock everywhere within driving distance.
I got several calls from the doggie wig place concerning the operation of the new web page. I am not an expert in that field but I understand how it can seem confusing to people who grew up in a world of tradesmen. When you call somebody to set up a web page, you expect them to do the job start to finish, not create the page and let it sit there because you are supposed to call the hosting service, and so on. The doggie web page has been nothing but a series of fits due to such thinking.
It occurred to me that while a lot of people understand specialization, they do not understand why it occurs, often assuming that education causes people to pursue learning a lot about a small subject. My view is that it is entirely financial and has little to do with knowledge. Let me see if I can put some numbers to it, but I already sense it has a lot to do with the economic theory of Competitive Advantage.
Suppose George can fix two carburetors per hour, for $50 each. Sam can install four carburetors per hour at $25 each. Competitive Advantage only explains why they don’t do each others job (opportunity costs). It does not explain the related customer problems that occur when neither George nor Sam will both repair and install a customer’s carburetor. The ability and inclination to do the whole job for the customer is what once made American great and part of the reason that greatness is disappearing.
You see, it only pays to shop around if you are familiar with the overall procedure. Only a customer knowledgeable of the overall procedure can save money. What is more likely is that a customer will be surprised that George wants $50 to install the same carb that the Sam will install for $25, and that it is going to cost him $30 for a taxi over to Sam’s. If the logic was confined to carburetors, most people would only get stung once. However, inject a completely new and unfamiliar product into the sequence. Computers.
Most consumers over 30 can’t relate to the steps needed to create a computerized system. The familiarity just isn’t there. Too many computer businesses are also over-specialized. The guy who quotes such a low price to “do your web page” may not even own a camera to take the required pictures or know anybody who can host (rent you space on a fancy Internet computer for) your page. In some cases, these specialists appear to not even be aware of the next step required in the process.
In no time at all, the customer gets the impression the whole computer side of business is a conspiracy of jerks who won’t give anybody a straight answer. Every computer step taken results in one more expensive step after another. My guess is there are millions of unpublished web pages out there all unused because the customer finally walked away from it.
Trivia. That sound a diesel truck makes when it revs is called a “sough”, rhymes with “cow”. The big dictionary gives the pronunciation as “sau”. Even so, I strongly doubt this word has many applications in country music lyrics.
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