October 4, 2007

           Ten-four, as I sometimes like to call today. Since nothing interesting happened all day, let’s see what I can rustle up. How about a picture from just over nine years ago? This is Ivan, with his new and pregnant girlfriend, later his wife. This must have been the late 90’s because this was at the beach just northeast of Caracas. He had relations in that area. You can see the Avila mountains rising out of the Caribbean. Around thirty miles inland is a valley where Caracas is located. Ivan was the manager of my small taxi company. Eventually, all the cars got wrecked beyond repair and no insurances paid up.
           Well, Howard called from Jamaica, in case I forgot to say, so I got my first international tech support call. Hey, it qualifies as international just like the real ones, but without the accent.
           Let me think of my worst troubleshooting call to date. Well, there was that guy who wanted me to fix his cell phone because he had call block activated and he still kept getting calls from “Low Battery”. That’s the same guy who digs the way I play that “Kosuvo” song by the Beach Boys.
           Speaking of music, I’ve changed my advertising slightly to indicate I am amenable to other musicians, particularly vocalists, showing up. It will still be a while before I’m ready to form a duo, but I don’t mind part-timers. It works like a talent show but instead of three tunes, I rehearse with you and get you up there for an hour. I’ve had two successful bands (defined as made money and stayed together over a year) that had two guitarists who played on alternate nights and sometimes in shifts on the same night. Florida seems to have never considered the concept.
           The job hunting is going slow. I answered an ad for a technical writer in Ft. Lauderdale offering a good starting rate. The research on NR University went nowhere, as their site is meant to sell, not inform. Maybe they’ve taken lessons from Broward Community College. There is a rumor that you can get DSL service without paying for a phone line. The people who called for it got upsold on some six month plan, the weaklings. (BellSouth got them on the old “you won’t be able to call 911” hard sell.)
           Speaking of false advertising, who’s heard of Net Detective.? They are advertising a drop in price. For $29.00 you can go to their home page and you can have access to the same databases as Law Enforcement. (See the trick?) Those are two separate clauses. For the $29.00, you just go to their home page and that’s about it. It costs another $29.00 per month to use the Law Enforcement databases.
           What’s this, I got an email from that little hottie I met at BK. Nothing happened, but what can I say, she had blue eyes and that’s enough to get me interested. Pity, though, she says she does not sing or play music. Can’t have everything, but I gave her the directions to this blog, so if you are reading, call me.