This is a candid shot of my new shed, showing me getting my private library and records organized. I installed the hand-pulls on the top drawer, as it contains heavy parts that made it hard to pull out by the edges. There is a little progress every day now.
Today’s surprise event has to do with music. The last of the French neighbors are heading back north and came to the door. They listen to me practice and they can hear me coaching Jagger on guitar beats. Guess what? They came to the door asked if I would teach them the same things when they return on November 1. These people aren’t from around here, heck no, they have cash money. Wouldn’t that be ironic? Making more money off Canadians than . . . Speaking of more money, I may attend a seminar for people in my demographic. The government has sent me several brochures and yes, I read them. It seems they keep a list of places that don’t expect you to bust your ass, or that pay you for what you know. I fell for that last once before to find out most people don’t know sweet. But this would not be forever, I would not wake up every morning with only the prospect of work for the rest of my useful life. I am allowed work (I do not deny the fact I am physically disabled) but I’ve never come close to making half as much as I am permitted.
I am 27 hours into the file restoration (“restoral” is not the correct term). I used part of the time to completely take apart the software to become an expert in using it. And to figure out what to charge people who need this work. My lowest price has to be $30 per gigabyte. This is tedious, and that pays well. Fact is, I’ve only restored one neatly packaged directory, not an entire drive.
I’ve been watching cable TV while waiting. I love that Open-Aire commercial with all the questions. Do you require portable oxygen? Not yet. Do you worry about running out of oxygen? Only in the rainforest sense. Open-Aire is battery powered. Oh goodie, now you can worry about running out of electricity.
Around hour 32, I decided to take a short nap. During that time, the electricity went off and back on again. This kind of coincidence is Florida itself. By noon I had things running again, but I’m reminded of the time I had the first Apple computer in town, this was back in 1981 or so. Nobody saw me take it into my apartment and would not have known what it was if they did.
Yet that following month, the landlord’s beady-eyed father started driving across town to randomly “test the circuit breakers”. He quickly learned he was doing something that was bothering me. Like most rubes, because he did not have the IQ to understand anything, he felt people were “keeping secrets” from him. You can’t just show him the computer since that would make things worse. My entire family had this peasant ability and they outnumbered me 7 to 1.
Did I ever tell you about my mother’s career advice? She would say that I should “be a doctor”, but the instant I responded by asking her would they guaranty the money to finish medical school once I made the commitment, she changed to saying that I’d already (at 17) “had my fling” and should go work in the lumber mill. That is correct, my mother told her son with the highest school marks ever in that school, that he should drop out and work as a laborer.
Within two days my father would start talking about how he "heard someplace" about the “good money” made by barbers and delivery drivers and that he didn’t think it all that important to go straight to university out of high school. He was too much of a coward to say it directly. (It was well known what happened to those who didn’t go directly into post-secondary school.) Don’t worry, the whole town knew my father and brothers were liars, so I didn’t fall for any of it.
ADDENDUM
Let’s talk about Canadians who’ve been in trouble with the tax department. Revenue Canada is a sordid outfit who’ve succeeded in convincing the entire population that anyone who is even under suspicion is automatically guilty. (The US tax department knows better than to do that, so far. They prefer to beat down your door.) Revenue Canada is a state mafia who use the tax law to publicly pillory people who, even if acquitted, never recover from the bad press and loss of reputation. Who remembers Vernon Meyers?
He’s the Canadian guy who obeyed the law and set up a legal company in Switzerland around 1970 that let Americans buy gold bullion anonymously. The USA had made it illegal for Americans to own gold “anywhere in the world” but missed the concept of the sovereign state. Offshore corporations are legal in Canada, for example, the Canadian railway is Bermuda-based. (The Canadian Pacific Steamship Company.)
However, Meyers was from out west and didn’t understand that Canadian law is written for the benefit of Ontario, Quebec and the Mounties. Not being a lawyer, Meyer did not allow for treachery, which in Canada is the collaboration between the RCMP and the worst judges imaginable (there are absolutely no effective or enforceable professional standards of conduct for Canadian judges).
Revenue Canada arrested Meyer and seized the gold, claiming he hadn’t paid tax on it. It turned he never owned the gold, the accusation against him was the unfounded suspicions of some jealous Italian-Canadian tax investigator. See, I don’t remember the investigators name, but I certainly remember he was a wop. (This type of memory attribute is very common among the well-educated. For instance, right now I can tell you what Wallace's daughter Patsie will be remembered for, and it ain't her computer programming.)
The court found Meyers not guilty.
[Author’s note: I would not remember this case except for what happened next. Canada charged him with the same crime a second time. They had a tax agent block every exit from the courtroom so Meyers could not leave the first trial. Canada then hauled some small-town hick out of a nearby farming community, appointed him a federal judge, and instructed him to convict Meyers on “motive”. Holmes. That was the hick’s name. Red Deer, yeah, it just came back to me, he was from Red Deer, that great birthplace of famous Canadian legislators and movie stars.
In protest, neither Meyers nor his lawyers attended the second trial, the kangaroo court. After convicting him in absentia (Meyer had since moved to the USA), the Canadian government promised him amnesty if he returned for his appeal. The government waited until he was back in the country, then tore up the amnesty papers, refused his appeal, and sent the wagon for him in front of all his neighbors.
I may not have the facts exactly correct, but I’m correct about the behavior of Revenue Canada. I know Ottawa put him in federal prison, that is, debtor’s prison, which is supposedly illegal in Canada. He may still be there for all I know, since in Canada you cannot sue [the police] for false arrest. Socialist countries like Canada have nothing to lose by throwing away people they don’t like.]
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