Here’s something novel, a tall but isolated palm tree. This specimen is around a third taller than normal for Florida. When viewing palms in their native South Pacific, the inquisitive mind observes trees of uniform height and concludes this may be a survival strategy. Trees in a grove would form mutual windbreaks during storms. Anyway, that’s what I always thought. One day when the shadow permits, I may triangulate the height of this tree. My eyeball says 48 to 50 feet. (The tallest palms are Columbian wax palms, at 200 feet, but as palms such trees are a local anomaly.)
Internet – the new American wasteland. Question. Why is it all songs with a theme about the “power of love” have a big horn section? Could it be bass and guitar alone can’t get the message across? That’s today’s first world problem. That, and the dipshits who post slideshows with their crappy music on youTube. But you can’t expect a moron to understand a slideshow isn’t a movie. Or those men with small pee-pees who put rock music behind military videos. “Yeah, yeah, bang, bang.”My Ampeg is acting up, some kind of grounding short I can’t find. Ampeg is from Washington, over near Bothell where Marion used to live. I like their amps, but not their policy of keeping their prices a secret. The secret price of the BA-112 is $225.00, but with some retailers selling the same unit for $379.00, now you know why they clam up. One thing I can’t stand is a sales ape doing his spunt dance.
I’m still looking for a friendly open mic in the area. The Sand Bar on Sunrise is plugging their Thursday show, but it doesn’t start until 9:00 PM. Friendly means 7:30, not because I’m old, but because the roadways between there and here are limited and heavily patrolled after dark. You don’t drive a scooter down 17th at midnight with a guitar strapped on your back. It’s nice to know Broward has solved all their cold cases and have plenty of patrolmen left over to keep their streets safe from itinerant country musicians. But, being patrolmen, not from Elvis impersonators.
The 2011 stats are filtering in. I am already doing better than “average” for retirement income. Should I actually retire early, I would be doing twice that. But this tells you little, as there are so many different averages out there, ranging from $10,040 per year (ouch) to $60,000 per year (more wagyu, Guv’nor?). Federal minimum wage works out to $15,080 annually. One glaring omission is that these statistics only include those people who have a retirement income. Those who have nothing, up to one in three North Americans, don’t count. Or put another way, count for the same as they always did.
Interesting to me, the average net worth of new retirees is $96,000. That amount is known as “not near enough”. I used to spend that much traveling every year. And wagyu is Japanese beef made from cows that, like some American divorcees, get daily massages. Except the cows are better-looking.
Do you read Dear Abby? Of all the euphemisms for “deadbeat” I’ve heard, there was an instant classic in today’s column. Quoting the relevant clause, [the loser] “depends on the outside world to make him feel good about himself”. Gag me with a spoon, but let me shake that author’s hand! Eloquent, fantastic words from Laguna Hills, CA. The closest my mother ever came up with was that my brother was “between jobs”. That kind of talk seriously almost brings a tear to my eye.
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