Myra came by while I was at the shop. She has apparently been off work for a number of weeks due to some injury. The afternoon was spent with Fred and I trying to squeeze XP into a computer designed for Win95. You’d have to watch us go at it to appreciate the two opposite approaches. Fred, who is all hardware and professionally trained, I am software and never had a day of lessons. You are getting lots of computer talk these days because that is the top events in my world for now.
One thing I studied today was assigning IP addresses. Turns out nobody at the shop had ever done this, although the concept is easy. Normally, you let your computer system automatically assign an available IP address, but I found that this (so-called) Dynamic arrangement does not work well with my monitoring system. I need to be able to trigger events from the command console, which in turn requires fixed IP addresses Fortunately, I was able to get the system to work without much ado.The water problem of y’day is gone. But as Wallace and I conclude, we have not seen the last of that yet. Face it, the Florida utility grid is not the newest in the land and was originally thrown in as cheaply as possible. Wallace got some info that Florida is rated an expensive place to rent. First, let me say that this is a tourist economy and we are less than a mile from the beach. Second, the condo rents are high and force up the averages, as people who over-spent on pre-construction speculation are trying to rent out for ridiculous amounts to cover their mortgages. Third, anybody who lives here can find a decent place for half what the media is saying.
That is statistics for you. Stick to the facts, and the facts are that Wallace and I are spending approximately 23% as much money for “rent” as we were a year ago between us. This is a serious savings and it will begin to make a real difference as time goes by. I believe I fried my video computer. That was a boo-boo. It’s the motherboard. Today was logistics time. I put together the little A-frame sign, at least until I ran out of letters. You know those vinyl letters you peel and stick? They work fine except I think the letter distribution is outdated for any Internet vocabulary. I kept running out of “E” and “S”.
Plus, I got the business cards ordered. Except they are more like advertising cards. The plan is just to get more people in the door as cheaply as I can. Bear in mind the whole thing at the shop is still a hobby that costs me money, but less money than I would have to spend to duplicate all that situation here. The shop is where all the tools, spare parts, and good people are at. How’s that for ending a sentence with a preposition?
The stock market is in the headlines again. You know, I hope the thing collapses from its own weight. Companies have been cooking the books for so many years that I am sure a real market “adjustment” is on the way. A side effect of the aging baby boomers is pulling their money out of speculative stocks and into safer fixed rate investments. The companies who have been reporting record profits will soon run out of steam when those boomer dollars start to disappear.
Last for now, I saw Millie-Belle and Pudding-Tat pass within two feet of each other without the usual territorial fuss. That was the high point of today. That, and I found at least part of a translation from March 9, 1996. I was attempting to climb "Pico Occidente" in Venezuela. I failed when some local gave me the directions to the wrong mountain. Duh. When I clean it up, look for the blog on that date in a short while.
