One year ago today: April 8, 2013,
something abouta new band?
Five years ago today: April 8, 2009, I hate Vista.
Did I tell you it was hot? Record temperatures in Florida since before I was born. If the polar ice caps melt the ocean up five and a half feet, I’ve got myself some waterfront property. (At six feet, I’m moving in with you.) I was researching bicycles to find some guy actually invented a one that was wirelessly controlled (via the Internet) to print derogatory messages about the president on the sidewalks using water-soluble chalk. He was arrested for vandalism.
Ever since I began planning a flip-flop (memory circuit) back in Colorado, I’ve thought about building an adder circuit from scratch. Not constantly, hey, for this is a hobby, not at obsession. After a while I could visualize the components. At some level, a computer is just an adding machine connected to a very fast clock. By fluke, I found a website—and it is a strange one—that contains diagrams of such things. Edutek is once more an English website, most un-American in that it has free and useful information with no advertising.
Today’s blog should be like Prof. Oz’s book. All over the place. I’ll get to that in a moment. I have my own research to do any a hard drive full of six books of my own that I’ve started and never finished. Like most, I want anything I write to be epic start to finish. Well, the start part is the easy section. Once I run out of steam, doing research on the rest will almost instantly distract me and the book never gets finished.
This morning’s meeting concerns Prof. Oz, who does not want to rewrite his unsuccessful book “Caribecana”, nor does he want to pay anyone else to do it for him. He seems to reject the fact that to make it a winner, the book must be redone and he thinks re-wording that fact as “I just need someone to go through and tell me what needs changing” somehow minimizes the chore. We differ on this point. He feels it is something that could be done in a couple of idle afternoons, while I figure it is such a monumental undertaking that will take months. If he could find someone smart enough to do it but dumb enough to do it for free.
What’s more, he feels the problem is that those who don’t like his book is because they have not read it cover-to-cover. Which came first, Oz? But he did bring up an historical point I was already familiar with. In the early days of the novel, authors would often read each other’s books and provide a critique. But that was long ago, when those with such idle time were the offspring of the rich. Being rich, they didn’t steal each other’s ideas. They had years at a time to comfortably indulge in this pleasant diversion, especially since it was before all the great social themes had not yet been written half to death.
Still, Prof. Oz is a former computer student who paid well for his lessons when I was at low tide. I set the book down and asked, “Is it the book, or is it the situation that the book is not selling?”
It’s not a bad book, it is a weak book. How does one sell a weak book? What has been my biggest grumble about the books I’ve bought that were weak? Can these elements be combined to sell Prof. Oz’s book? And why am I bothering you with questions that I have to answer? Well, because unlike Prof. Oz's book, you read them. Gotcha! I’m developing the conclusion that Prof. Oz, predicated on the notion that he does not want to make major changes to the book, should pull a sneaky, dirty, MicroSoft. Re-write the hell out of the first three chapters and dump it on the unsuspecting public. See, by the time they get to the bad parts, it is too late to get their money back.
Wah, I forgot my camera at home. So you did not see the red scooter on the hoist as Miguelito and I tracked down the more pressing problems. Like that sputtering exhaust. One of the bolt holes in the motor casing has been stripped, probably by Mario tightening it when it was still hot. Miguelito wants to affect permanent repairs, where I just want it to work a while longer. He has no faith left in Florida and wants to move back to New York City in July. I told him after July 11, if he buys me a return train ticket, I’ll help him do the drive.
The brakes hydraulics are also getting weak. And I found the reason I could not set the idle right. It has to be done while the rear brake is held full on. I promised when I bought this scooter I would report on any repair of more than five minutes and five dollars. That’s why we get days like this one. His shop is directly behind Jimbos, where I stopped in later to find during a “Wheel of Fortune” round that I was the only person in the place who knew what is called a grade point average.
Wait, if you think all that is breathtaking, wait until you hear what happened next. I stopped at the shoemaker to get a new rivet on the strap of my motorcycle helmet. And talk with Boris, who thinks Belize is too dangerous. But he thinks that about everywhere except where he is living. He did mention he knows a lot of Russian businesspeople who are buying retirement properties in Cuba. And at price tags of $100,000 that he knows of. Can you imagine the sort of reception they’ll be getting from the locals who have not yet ditched communism?
[Author’s note 2022: Boris was right, Bellize reverted to the jungle. Only the larger settlements are safe for white people. Yeah, we've heard it all before, that whites are only rich because they exploited the others. No explanation given that those others had several thousand years head start and showed none of the mercies they now demand. It makes sense, if you move in next door to a lazy bastard, it is only a matter of time until he blames you for everything.]
Boris is the married guy who still, at nearly fifty, honestly thinks it is easy to find a great woman if you are single. He’s the first one in the room to say you are looking in the wrong places, your standards are too high, and you are looking for the perfect woman. He does not need to know any facts, because he already knows those three items are the problem. I once asked him where these places were that I wasn’t looking. He said the churches and the libraries. To which I told him there are 27 libraries and bookstores in the area and asked him which ones I had not been to. Oh, he says, you were there on the wrong day. Married men go strange in the head. That’s why, when they eventually divorce, they die in a bar stool.
And when they are dead and gone, only the barstool remains. They don’t even have the brain-thrust to move into a trailer they can afford and at least write a blog.
ADDENDUM
A quiet evening means trivia. And who doesn’t like trivia? Especially the semi-useful brand you get here, I like to think. Here is a sampling of what tickled my fancy. Hannibal, the guy who rode elephants over the Alps. He had to excavate a landslide so he used fire and vinegar. Modern tests show this would work since the rocks were limestone. Then I learned English blueprints are “left-handed”, whatever that means. I speculate everybody was too proper to point out the error until the entire country was driving on the wrong side of the highway.
Another topic was late war German aircraft design. Did you know when the aircraft bureau put out a request, they received 15,000 volunteers to fly suicide missions against Allied bombers. The idea horrified Hitler who absolutely forbade it. Once again, we in the west have not been told all the facts. There are only 22 countries on Earth, including Mongolia and Sweden, which England has never invaded. Bolivia and Guatemala are the only two in the western hemisphere.
How about some medical trivia, in this instance, gout? I regard the field of medicine to be the purest form of capitalism left in America. And that is scary because the supply of doctors is severely limited by how much the colleges can gouge the parents and the student loan system. Some may say that is a distorted market, but it is also an inevitable consequence of the capitalist system—it favors the already-rich. If even the poor know it takes money to make money, to the rich must have that as a religious philosophy.
So I would not mind visiting a doctor to whom I paid what the treatment was inherently worth. I’d guess that to be around $85 for a one-hour visit, of which half the time is spent with the doctor. Most questions and tests don’t need a doctor. The only doctors who get rich are the ones who graduate without a student loan and their rapacity is as bad as the one who bases his fees on how much money he borrowed. The initial visit is $1,200 and I cannot find a doctor who accepts my medical, which pays a maximum of $760. Capitalism.
How does this relate to gout? Well, we are still not sure I have gout. Zero redness and zero inflammation. The pain abated as rapidly as it appeared, that is, overnight. A sizeable portion of gout victims only ever have one attack according to many sources. Put these together and the sense of urgency is gone. Next, look at the home remedies. Not that I’m a great believer in self-diagnosis, but I know that some things work. Mustard plasters for a cold? Great. I find that most of these remedies that do work are a control but not a cure. Top of the list for gout? Apple cider vinegar. Years later, it doesn't work.
This product (the real unpasteurized type) is already part of my diet. A tablespoon a day in cold or hot water (tea) with some sweetener. The directions for gout say that it can take a few weeks for the effect to be noticeable. Regardless of the “doubt about gout”, I am treating it as gout, the most ruthless type of arthritis. The pain disappeared, but not the swollen knuckles. Those are there forever. Don’t need no doc to tell me that.
This is a self-reversing gear mechanism. Most people conclude it is over-complicated because the bottom gear has to change direction. Ah, look again. It is the bottom gear that is being driven.
