I dropped in at the shoemaker’s today and stayed for nearly an hour. Face it, the place is full of interesting people. Alfredo is there out of habit, Boris has some real tales about his arrival in America. Like how the Soviets confiscated his wife’s wedding ring at departure because it weighed more than six grams. And how he bought his first house less than two years after he arrived with nothing. I miss the old joint. As this photo shows, when this shop closes, it will be the end of an era.
For variety, I stopped at a Panera, this time way out on Hiatus Road. Their prices have skyrocketed. I needed the stop to recuperate, see below. One coffee and I was out of there, to eventually wind up at Kiss’s for brunch. My left arm feels like a pincushion, my hands like I was wearing boxing gloves, my perspiration smells like sour oranges, and I’m too tired to nap. That’s the setting for the rest of Friday.Bad news, and Wallace can tell you the only way to avoid bad news in this blog is to not cause any in the first place. Ray-B was moving down the beach when he sees the Hippie at a gig. Instead of the professional stand-offish hello, the Hippie starts calling him down and adding hand gestures, all of this in front of the audience. Something to the effect that Ray-B has a day job and is crowding out “real musicians”. That’s funny, coming from a bottom-feeder who survives by undercutting everybody.
The real issue appears to be the Hippie’s hypocrisy. Nobody believes he pays his rent and car with his own money. It is easy to take sides and I’m with Ray-B. A big part of the Hippie’s problem is he won’t admit he is nothing but a street musician who screws up whenever he tries to rise above that. Ray-B tactfully placed a tip in the Hippie’s jar and walked away.
My lab results are beginning to arrive and should be complete by the 26th. It looks like my having good days was more than just imagination. Except for cholesterol levels, everything seems under control. And that includes my archenemy from the phone days, blood pressure. I was under observation these past few days, but trust me, this round was nothing compared to the seriousness of how bad it used to be. Really, I’m fine.
On the return trip, I looked around the Broward College campus on Sheridan. If I am stranded in Florida, I’ll make the best of it. I cannot intellectually accept I will be here year-round forever. I have an unspent training allowance but I’m staying away from outfits that demand enrollment as opposed to taking individual courses that spark my interest. (Besides, there were a lot of particularly ugly women between classes, from what I could see.) I signed up for some classes out in Plantation. Which ones? You’ll have to come back for that information.
I see gold is at a recent low. Trivia, did you know 44.1% of all gold is held as an investment? No other single use comes close, I think dentistry uses 1%. Except for the unverified rumor there is gold in Ft. Knox, I know of no country with a substantial reserve. There’s a pile of it in S. Africa, but it isn’t a gold reserve, it is private for sale and awaiting, well, awaiting something I’m sure.
It’s always been a mystery to me where a massive crop of people appeared on the scene in the 1990s who knew how the Internet worked. If I could have found that school, I would have signed up. But even today, I don’t really know where these service providers and such learned their trade. I was reading up on VPN (Virtual Private Network) operation concerning the recent legislation that requires them to log activity.
The anonymity is achieved by basing the servers in countries where privacy is more respected. Again, where these businesses learn all this is beyond me. I do know that countries like Canada are pushing for the legal right to examine all Internet traffic. That means they can read your email and track your usage without a warrant. Oddly, this does not significantly decrease the rights of Canadians. For instance, in Canada the police only need a warrant to tap your phone if they want to use the recording itself as evidence. If they only want to listen in to set you up, they don’t need any warrant at all.
