The cymbals cost $26.50 total, after half-begging the drum people to go check the back room. (That’s down from the $55 [each] which was the best they could do a week ago.) The most complicated part was that rod that slides up through the cymbals, but guess what? While back there, the dude found a set of used rods of the correct size. You have to persevere to get what you want in this town. Since these rods can be purchased alone, I’m going to hacksaw the chromed piece that came with the set.For the last hour I’ve been trying various styles and sounds. It won’t work for every tune but it certainly adds to the right ones. So now it is back to practice until I find as many uses for the instrument as can be incorporated into what I do. It is just mid-afternoon so I’m heading over to the book store for a quiet evening. It sounds insignificant but this lo-hat project was a major two-day undertaking, and that also explains why I didn’t do it in any of the Florida groups I was with before.
Question. Is it true that some people have a chemical makeup that makes them fall asleep when they eat turkey? Or is that an urban legend? I vaguely recall hearing years ago about Thanksgiving dinners having an actual cause and effect over drowsiness. Now I’ve met a few people who state they have such a condition.
The bookstore [Borders] was disappointing. Unlike libraries, retailers have to focus on the books that move well. I walked up and down every aisle of non-fiction, reading every spline. In two hours, I did not find a solitary book worth reading, but don’t get me wrong, there were thousands of books. It is that you’d have to pay me to read most of them. I found today’s trivia. The average bank teller loses $310.60 per year.
I did find some solutions to an alignment problem with my new blog. (The photo uploads don’t float or clear.) Yes, I have finally instituted a new blog that is mainly pictures. Three per day, with light descriptions. They appear in any order and cover a huge spectrum of events from the time I was nineteen until today. All the pictures are my property, so never be surprised who shows up there.
No, I will not plug that blog from here. You’ll have to find it on your own. The new blog does, however, reflect my growing confidence in the Internet in one major way – there are no direct copies of the new blog kept here. By contrast, this blog is derived from my original computer filing system and is highly cataloged and triple backed up.
I found the magazine rack and see that Popular Science has another cover story on another blimp. I’ve more than once had to crack a smile at the frequency of these articles. Read my lips, blimps are friggin’ dangerous. I now suspect it is some kind of standing joke over at the PopSci office. Maybe a running bet to see which hack can sell the most copies with that lame topic?
The Forbes richest 400 in American magazine is always an eye-opener. Ordinary billionaires no longer make the grade and I always like to look for what is not there. For example, Forbes states that 270 of the top 400 were self-made but does not specify whether those include any of the 93 who had degrees from Harvard, Yale and Princeton. I question exactly how “self-made” a person can claim to be when they attended a school where the tuition alone was higher than the average job pays in Florida ($35,616 per year).
What else is not there? No doctors, lawyers, authors, or educators. One interesting inclusion was John Arnold, the youngest billionaire, at 33. That is odd, I think, because he got his start selling Enron oil contracts (Forbes is silent about how he got this senior-ranking job at the age of 20). Except the oil contracts were worthless and I’m not convinced of anyone’s innocence on that one. Forbes’ process is brought into question as something now smells funny and its not the crude. If they are going that route, why are there no billionaire illicit drug importers listed? I mean, we all know they are out there.
This also leads me to logically question sources. A few of the Internet billionaires aside, in every other field, the money was made in a standardized field of endeavor. Oil, shipping, media, supermarkets – reading almost as if the financial world has frozen for thirty years. Further, the majority were players in a single industry. Does this mean you have to be a member? Every billionaire’s source of money was known, there was not one whose occupation was listed as “Other”. Yet we know those are also out there.
So take heart, ye less than wealthy, it may not be your fault. A closer look shows that most billionaires were the unlikely victims of early success, and did so in areas where the public isn’t allowed. Nor was there any evidence that these billionaires had any kind of documented plan when they started. (Forbes has a thing about publishing ages, not IQs.) Oh, and of the 39 women billionaires, the only one who truly did it herself is Oprah, at $6.2 billion. And in her case, it still ain’t enough.
