I love a rainy night, if it means I’m busy with a project. Or can’t get that song out of my head. Guess what I calculated? The financial difference since 2004 of having a heart attack. Read my words, that is not the cost, only the difference in my income from what should have been. If you just arrived, I don’t disguise that I had a heart attack at a young age, so don’t go thinking I’m crotchety. On the contrary, I live every day to the limit.But over time that limit is increasingly determined by money. I’d like to ride the “City of New Orleans”, but I can’t get there. I’ve never seen the highly over-rated Grand Canyon, or been to Texas in almost eight years. A lot of initiatives had to go on hold, so I figured out exactly how much, in dollars, I’ve had to do without. Not medical costs, but the loss of disposable income when one can no longer perform gainful work, heavy on the gainful part.
Here’s the scoop. Since December 2003, I have “lost” $128,310. That is, I spent that much less enjoying life than I normally would while others were paying off hefty mortgages. If this seems a lot, it isn’t really, working out to just over $2,000 per month, almost exactly what I used to spend traveling. Roughly the price of a worthless university degree. On the bright side, I know exactly what is to be expected upon retirement, an infinite advantage because I also learned most people only think they know. My assets are not measured by inflated stocks, junk bonds or Enron pension plans, but by what is upstairs.
If that’s not encouraging to many, that’s tough. The government estimates over 60% of all people turning 65 in the next two decades will have to continue working after retirement. It doesn’t bother me; they can just borrow the money for that too, can’t they? Let them brag their way through, Lord knows they’ve had the practice.
Who recalls Gary, who used to come by and play harmonica? I’ve wondered a few times why he wasn’t dropping by and asked around. Seems he was hit by a train and killed two months ago. Every just assumed somebody else had told me. This area has an unusual number of people hit by trains, something I find difficult to fathom.
Bingo was another big hit. The ever popular Jules won the jackpot on the powerball, which is as good as it gets. For any non-players, the powerball is a random number drawn as the evening starts. You join by throwing a dollar in the pot, and that pot gets pretty big if nobody wins for a month. If you bingo on that number, it’s yours. Now that the shop has closed, Bingo is my largest source on income. Hell, I may continue to do it, even after retirement.
Today we had the aftermath of tropical storm Bonnie, an alternating pattern of dank sunny heat and half-hour rain squalls. I don’t think any records were set for individual days, but this is this was the coldest winter followed by the hottest summer. Make sure you never move to Florida without fully understanding there can be long stretches of uncomfortable weather.
Trivia. Plastic bullets. What next? Actually, they are intended for a specific purpose. The velocity drops off very rapidly, so they kill only at short range and do not ricochet. Can you guess where they are used? Inside the fuselage of aircraft, by the squads who take down hijackers. Other information on this ammunition is scarce.
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