May 18, 2009

           They say sporty cars are marketed by an appeal to individuality. In that case, here are three identical individuals, as it were. Nor should it surprise anyone that in this part of the world that most individuals are clones. Cars are sold on credit and credit is known to keep those who use it on an even keel. I have no idea what this model of car is. I’m just not unique enough to appreciate them, I guess. But you gotta love the “what crisis” mentality of anyone who would buy a convertible in Florida.
           My car is parked on the side street and Cowboy Mike gave me a lift up to north Ft. Lauderdale. I bicycled back down Andrews and was going to take the long way home via the beach. It was a perfect day and I stopped for a cafe con leche near Sunrise. At this point Arnel called, so I took the Airport road. Total bicycle mileage today, around twenty miles, more than I rode in Seattle in that many years.
           Sometimes a printer will just not behave. Arnel has one, a Hewlett-Packard. HP is the company that has some 1,400 different printers in production using around 600 different print cartridges, all of which do the same thing. Try as we might to print up business cards, it will not properly feed the stock. For reasons unknown it works properly with ordinary paper (18 lb.) but would not line up with the perforated card sheets (22 lb.). I am very intolerant of printer quirks. My take on it is they have had forty years to iron out the problems, so those that remain must be intentional.
           A computer milestone for me. Monday is backup copy day and I finally have now filled up an entire CD with text from this blog. Do they give awards for this? For clarity, this is a different proposition than filling a CD with music or photos. That makes 700+ MB of text only. This was never my goal since optical disks and blogs were not invented when I started, and my motive was to record the unusual. This is where I get to remind everyone (again) that less than 5% of my material is on computer. Like Fred Astaire stated (when it was suggested he was “sending messages” with his feet), “All I ever wanted was to not come up empty.”
           Alaine called and they need my help in Miami on early Sundays. I had to decline the offer, it is just too distant to commute (23 miles through the city). A late Saturday gig would make me unreliable but at the same time I know how hard it is for them to find somebody who can do that job right. Alaine attended the wedding without me and I truly regret having to miss that one. My decision on the car, since I can get it to run, is to now drive it until it craters completely and then sell it for $50. That car has been a gem with 162,000 hard city miles. The car that toothpicks bought.
           Cowboy Mike and I talked about the economy. I know computers and he does not, yet we both find the going a little rough. This is not to be confused with the straights of people who are unemployed. Mike put it right, either of us could do better than what jobs are available by just setting up a booth at the local flea market. What we lament most is the lack of traditional job prospects out there. It used to be a standing joke that if one got desperate, you could always go get a job in construction. The last such job I had, before I started with the phone company, paid over twice what it does today.
           And I had a reliable car.