One year ago today: May 12, 2013.
Five years ago today: May 12, 2009, Pudding-Tat!
MORNING
Today you get lots of information and very little else.. First, as you see we found a source of bicycle frames and the price is right. But sometimes there is a lot of digging involved. This is only one section of the yard, can you even see Agt. M in the picture? Generally, we pick only the nicest aluminum frames. We found a $500 apartment-size washer in there that was in brand new condition except for the exterior and got that down to $35. My new eBike, only partially finished, has to be brought inside the house every night now. It plain started looking too expensive.
Marion called and we are planning to meet up in around six months in Seattle—but only if a dozen other sequences work out perfectly. She’s as happy as might be expected stuck in a home with people three generations older than herself. And it appears she gets more fan mail than the rest of the ward put together. And has the only cell phone, the one I bought her. All other patients have to take their calls via the switchboard. I did that route twice last year and did not like it at all. Every two seconds there’s something you can’t say because the nurse is listening.
Then I walked into the Amtrak office to get the low-down on bicycle travel. If you’ve read the rule book, compare to my explanation and see which is plainer. It costs $25 to take your bike on the Florida train. That’s $10 baggage fee and $15 for the container. You must remove the handlebars or position them sideways, and the pedals need to be removed. I forgot to ask if that [extra charge] was one-way but it probably is. Thus, it is not economical to take a bicycle on the Amtrak for trips less than several hundred miles or less than a few days. She was not my type, but the gal at the counter took a real shine to me. I don’t do that any more.
Thus, I may be one of the people for whom this home remedy works very well. It’s a needle-like pain that feels like a healing process. I guess you’d call that a good pain. It is maximized by keeping one’s foot above one’s heart level. Only one easy way to do that in a car. Especially in somebody else’s fancy car in their fancy neighborhood, as seen here.
And unless you’re new, you know that I assisted in setting up a business that made wigs for dogs. Yes, doggie-wigs, you can see a tape I helped edit from the Letterman show. Sadly, this interesting venture did not fly and I got a call today things are wrapping up. My final task will be to catalog all the files and copy them to long-term storage. Then to scan that incredible collection of photos on the wall with all those priceless autographs. I initially thought that doggie-wigs was a fast one until I saw pictures of The Beatles (there’s a copy on this blog somewhere). More as it happens, but this closing [of this shop] is the end of an era.
By that I mean here is another example of a specialized business that has operated in the same location for six generations. Now it is closing for good because there is nobody skilled enough to take it over. Like many disappearing shops, it is cheaper to get a knock-off wig from Asia. There’s an accounting term for this type of loss of domestic production that escapes me. It’s like the US Army contracting out the security for their military bases to non-American firms. It’s a way to save money until the trouble begins. And I won’t repeat that ridiculous rumor that the Asian wig-makers get their hair from shaving it off corpses at the graveyard. That might shock some people, so I’m glad I didn’t say anything.
EVENING
Well, it’s true. I heard the rumor and now I have the facts. It is cheaper to buy a castle in France than a house in Vancouver, Canada. The average house price there lists at $684,000 of which approximately $99,000 is hidden government fees. While average castle prices weigh in at $1.7 million, you can get started in the $365,000 range if you are willing to settle for an 11 bedroom 9 bath starter-upper out in Camelot. Don’t start packing, Ken, that’s the Camelot in South Africa.
Okay, that dumb crack I made about the women and the grapefruit isn’t all conjecture, you know. I should tell you that there are no shortage of foreign brides in this town who become disillusioned pretty darn fast, and the scowling Russian ones are probably the most disappointed. It’s as if they had the highest expectations. The streets are not paved with gold. Hell, maintenance being what it is, most are hardly paved at all. It’s sad to see women who found out the hard way that America is the land of opportunity and not much else.
To test the theory of the bike thieves using a cutting tool, we took an old lock with the key missing and tried. Mixed results. It is noisy, really noisy and there are sparks, smoke and acrid fumes. Conclusion, these tools are only used in isolated burglaries. The damp towel does not work as you have to watch what is being cut to get the job done in a reasonable time. Hence, if your bike costs enough, the kryptonite locks are worth it as deterrence.
The club meeting was held here as Agt. M is now moving just walking distance away. I’ve warned him about leaving anything exposed because anyone out on the highway—if they know where to look—can see if anyone is at home. But work here is nice, this is where all the fine tools are. Lots of drill bits, drill sets, wrenches and neat things in matching sets. That’s all for today. Reading is good.
[Author's note: for clarity, I did not edit the video for the David Letterman show. They have their own people for that. My part was here in town, where I edited the existed video of the show down to a convenient size and duration for the web page. The original recording was 22 minutes long, which I like to point out is probably a record for keeping Mr. Letterman on a single topic.]
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