Man, the guitar world is full of complete morons. Your major first clue that a guitar player is a dunce is that he does not have a friggen clue over the difference between a tab (tablature) and a chord chart. Not a clue, but you can’t tell him a damn thing because he will reduce the conversation to a contest of who can play the better version of “Mustang Sally”. They almost universally belong to the Johnny B. Goode cult. Their supreme belief is that being an ignorant clod is no barrier to becoming a rock star.
Worst offenders? Ultimate Guitar Tabs, 911Tabs, Total Tabs. These sites contain chord charts, not tablatures—probably because tablatures require a little brainwork and thinking in advance. People who can do that don’t often become guitar players. Most other "tab" sites have the same defect, but at least they occasionally have actual tabs, so they are not anywhere near as bad. But the lot of these guitar players who mix these two separate items up are, like I said, pretty clueless. They’d be a funny joke if they were not so pathetic.
I have a theory about why most guitarists are useless hacks. I say that the primary ingredient of playing is a band is not talent or even personality. You must have a good and clear memory. It could be argued that these guitarists must have just that, but not so. That would be overlooking the fact that most of them play the same music and I got $50 bucks says that music was sold to them by a music teacher who was behind on the rent. They learned everything by painstaking rote, which is the worst and slowest brand of memory. Since I arrived in Florida, I have not seen a guitarist who learned even one new song. They don’t have the brain thrust for it.
It gets worse. I thought I’d scan some on-line ads for used books on phlebotomy. I like to read ahead when I can. Sheridan Tech has every used text on campus except, you guessed it, phlebotomy. So I visited various sites and what I found was, academically, beyond a disgrace. Nobody disagrees that children are the future, but this generation is going to royally screw everything up.
No examples because it is unlikely many others would see what I see. Like the dude from Homestead selling a set of management books, but he can’t organize a list or capitalize the proper nouns. He can’t even spell management. It is unclear whether sale is because he graduated or dropped out. Or the lamebrain selling “college books”. No titles, no subjects, just “college books”. I will concede that to most Floridians, the topic of one textbook is just as good as any other book that they won’t read much. But still, by the time you hit college, you are old enough to know that you can’t usually sell textbooks unless you, like, tell people what they are about.
I have the batbike back with the new front tire, but did the guy overcharge me ten bucks? How much was it he said? I’ve got enough on my mind to forget but I always pay for top quality and I have a Dunlop on the rim, not a factory Honda issue. I was in such a foul spirit I otherwise stayed home and worked on the nagging parts of the camper. For instance, I rearranged the locks so that the keyed padlock is on the tool box with the key locked inside the sarcophagus and a combination lock to the entry hatch. That’s so I can never get locked out by a lost key. It’s my temperament that’s off kilter today, not my logic.
The frame for the solar panels is some kind of metric PVC. I’ve discovered I can ream out these ¾” pipes on the club drill press and make them fit around the panels like a small scaffold. This is the final stage of my assembly. After this point, everything on the camper is extra or unnecessary. There are still, after three weeks, minor leakage problems, but very minor.
ADDENDUM
I admit, I’m no expert on what jobs pay and that goes double for medical jobs. Nor do I have any proper idea of what sort of lab jobs are out there. I can explain. You see, all my adult life I’ve never been without a good-paying job. I can walk in off the street and get decent enough pay that I’ve never sat down and investigated what this or that job pays. It is only at this late point in the game that I even pay attention to such things.
And what do I find? Most jobs [nowadays] require school training as opposed to on-the-job training. The financial burden of specific job training is shifted away from the employer to the far less specific (or efficient) schools. To me this signifies a drop in overall standards where most people would think otherwise. I spent an hour looking at some fairly confused websites to investigate the options to get some lab training. The only thing I found out was that “clinical” meant you dealt directly with patients. Right there, I decided I like non-clinical lab work the better.
But that led me to other strange terms and conditions. I watch for such things extra carefully because of my personal experiences getting my accounting degree. In the fourth year they sprung a surprise on us. The very courses we wanted, the 500 level material, they suddenly said our student ID was not “valid enough”. (The 500 level is where you learn how to cheat the
The sheeple in the class complied, the good people all protested. With me as their leader, of course. Turned out the ID thing was, you guessed it, school policy and not the law. In the end, we compromised. I’ll hold up my ID and show it to them, knowing full well what them bastards had planned. I kept the conversation on-going and lively for some minutes afterward, so they could not possibly remember the details to write down later. By the following semester, they changed requirement from merely having the ID to having it on file. Talk about your slimy operators. It may be their record, but it is your information and they will never respect that unless you insist.
So I’m leery of strange rules that amount to vigilantism. (If there is a law being broken, call the police, but to hell with any other brand of “helping out”.) I said the web sites were confused and one of the issues concerned state registration. It is best to find out in advance what the school is saying when they can be interpreted in different ways. For instance, take this common item “Some states require that all lab technicians be licensed.”
Does that mean you could be required to be licensed whether or not you actually work in a lab? Careful, it could mean precisely that. Remember, I’m a libertarian. My definition of records abuse is the subsequent exploitation of any information for any purpose beyond the single reason and time it was originally given by any party unless they contact your for written consent over each incident. To ignore this fact of life is just setting yourself up. So, whereas I usually go along with the rules to the minimum extent, it is best to clear such things up beforehand and know what you are getting yourself into.
I talked with Dee-Dee. If she’ll take the course, I will. But she said it is too expensive though she’d help me with the coursework. So soon I’m going up to the used bookstore at Sheridan Tech. This, despite the fact I know in this town it will be a waste of time.
