July 5, 2010

           The road crews in this town seem to pick a street off the map and resurface it. The catch is that most streets don’t go anywhere, as the planning committees of Florida love to mess things up royally. I only noticed the paving pattern because I ride my bike across all manner of dividers, one-ways, and medians.
           This street shows up and disappears in two or three block stretches with dead ends (as shown) right across Broward County. As of this morning, the segments had been paved without regard to utility. This avenue, one block south of here, is so useless nobody even parks on it.
           They are still bailing out from the rains and floods y’day, I managed to stay inside the entire time. July 4th, like Xmas, has become a little too commercial for my tastes. Having the extra hours, I ran some spreadsheets on the future values of my net income. The smartest move I ever made (no doubt I’ve already said) was to top up my pension while I was a clone at the phone company. If I live, say, to 75 years old, that racks up to some serious cash. But that is the distant future.

           Right now, I’m broke. Looking back, I’ve traditionally kept $6,000 in reserve but that is history. My working days are gone, I can’t even wield a paintbrush any more. Sigh, and me at such a young and tender age. The focus here is that I know under austere circumstances, the $6,000 would, if I had it now, only last two years, and even that is making some assumptions. The amount of $6,000 was calculated twenty years ago (and projected to 2005) and I have not updated it for inflation. Since 2005, my basket of goods is costing 22% more.
           Yet, I’m not the one who should be worried. I was making other comparisons (concerning price ratios) when I read the shopping list for an African safari in the 1860s. The significance of that era is I feel that is the last point in time when the average American was self-sufficient. That is, he could grow or produce everything needed to survive. I noticed on the list were “6 scotels, 12 reims, and a spokeshave”.
           I was able to determine the reims are strips of ox-hide, and by context, the spokeshave is a tool for shaping wagon wheel parts. As far as scotels, I think we’ll use that as a test to see how self-sufficient you are. Never know when you are going to need one. My point is, these days no American is an island. That means those with zero experience living on a budget or on planning ahead are going to get walloped the hardest. Imagine somebody so trusting of their investments that they’ve never developed any late-life survival skills. El-kabong, with a scotel.

           This next item only gets reported because I have reason to believe it is true. A lady acquaintance of mine went to sign up for eHarmony, the place that trumpets 29 levels of compatibility. She swears she filed out the application with total sincerity. They refused her a membership. Seriously. Told her there was nobody in the world she could, well, you know, eHarmonize with. I heard this from her myself. I really need to start looking at younger women. The ones who don’t need to go past, say, level 3.

           I also priced out contemporary travel costs. I discovered at age 31 the true value of vacationing alone. Double-occupancy is a travel industry scam. Stop and think about it for a second, how many airfares and hotels quote prices per person as half what they would charge for two? At age 30, I actually wound up paying the full double occupancy costs to go to Barbados. Mind you, it was a last minute fling and I had far too much money back then. This is a picture of Acapulco. Keep reading.
           One travels to experience adventure and meet new women. A pre-packaged itinerary inhibits that. Plus, it is very difficult to find an adventuresome travel companion. Most guys sit around getting drunk watching TV in the hotel room and women won’t go sit in the bar if you need the room for an hour or two. Travel alone, my friends. So you’ll know, if you bargain for cheap air fare, you can get six or seven times as much for your dollar and I have never yet got somewhere with no hotel vacancies, although once I had to wait a few hours. That was in Waikiki.
           My only other canned holiday was Acapulco in 1986. It was a bizarre situation, particularly for a couple on the airplane out of Seattle who had brought along their over-ripe teenage daughter to keep her out of trouble. They quickly spotted me as the only single man on the airplane and by pure coincidence, had booked the next room to mine at the same resort halfway around the bay.
           They carefully locked the daughter up in the room every time they went out for the next three weeks. What they didn’t check was that every two rooms shared a balcony. There was a divider, yes, but there was a gap just wide enough for an eager and athletic gal to slither under in a bikini. The ironic part is we were all on the same flight back as they bragged how well-behaved their daughter was for not complaining about being cooped up so long. Parents.

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