May 13, 2015

Yesteryear
One year ago today: May 13, 2014, to Winter Haven, FL.
Five years ago today: May 13, 2010, Guitaritis, the disease.
Six years ago today: May 13, 2009, on gold-bricking.*

MORNING
           Another morning appointment, that’s seven of ten scheduled this month, which effectively cancels any really long trips out of town. For that matter, that aborted run to Naples y’day, since it took me slightly over the 60 mile mark from here (but only 30 from JZ’s place), may have to qualify as my sojourn for the month of May, 2015. You might say I’m “dis-Mayed”. Oooooh, don’t hit me. The good news is that we are finally looking at my difficultly walking. I really miss being able to walk long distances.

           This is what it is like to travel with JZ. Here we are stopped for coffee at that air boat village where Wallace and I took the tour of the sawgrass. That’s JZ with his pointer finger planted firmly on the sign that says, “Do Not Touch”. It helps to remember both him and I are from the generation that abhors signs. It’s “the man” who makes signs and we were rebels without a pause. You always broke the rules and said you “thought the sign meant everyone else but me”.

           Today, things are different. Everybody is on file. You know the old joke, “How do you get fifty Millennials out of the pool?” You hollar, “Everybody out of the pool.” Not only will they mechanically follow orders, they will become food service flunkies and demand job respect. Has anyone seen those posters about “Old Economy Steve”. They are intended to ridicule people from the “old economy” when there were lots of easy jobs around. That’s foolish, there has never been any unemployment amongst skilled labor. There are just more unskilled laborers around these days. New economy, my eye. It's the same old economy except Liberalism has shipwrecked it.
           You see, going soft on the illegals has raised the bar on what is unskilled. I’m wondering how many of these new economy people who can’t find a job think they are cool because they have had all the bad things like racism and intolerance drummed out of them. They have never questioned their parent’s votes that allowed millions of bottom feeders into the food chain to “pick tomatoes”. Now there are no tomato-picking jobs left. Completely random events, they say. Must respect the parents, even when parents shaft you. Leastwise says so in the good book. Grovel if you have to. See if that gets you a summer job.
           I’ll try to post a typical example [of old-economy-steve] in today’s Last Laugh, see if it turns out.

NOON

           “If you don’t have time to write a will, the government will write one for you.” --Farm wisdom

           JZ and I sometime kill time by playing our own version of trivial pursuit. The idea is to see if there are any questions at all that one of us does not know the answer to. (Couch potato questions are automatically rejected.) A name came up that I am convinced is a more sinister character than the history books have been letting on. This Fulton dude, who built the “first commercially successful steamship”. From what I’m suspecting, he did no such thing without a little mischief and monkey business. Let me look into it.

           Meanwhile, what tipped me off is this sketch of a warship. Clearly an enemy encountering a paddle wheel or stern wheel warship would instantly target the paddles. This design shows some advanced care and thinking to shelter the paddle wheel deep inside the protected interior of the vessel. There’s more to this Fulton than meets the enemy admiral’s eye.

           Today was full blast from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM including a dead battery, as bus that did not show, and an impromptu music talk at the café. A page on my calendar did not get flipped and I showed up a week early for my tests. Which was okay because there had been a no-show and I got the spot. That, and getting the batbike into the shop, I just made it in the door. And I'm dog tired. Aren’t I supposed to be retired?
           I just put some chicken on to bake, set some batter to rising, made some real cocktail sauce, and I’m about to sit down and write a rhythm bass line to “Ain’t No Sunshine”, the Withers song. The original bass is a bit of a no-brainer, so instead I’m re-writing it so it could be sung solo to the bass. I don’t really play anything that a beginner would consider easy. And slow songs are the most challenging bass lines to deal with.
           For now, here is your trivia. Yes, I will often read a big book and quote a few bits from the same source. So don’t say I’m copying anything. I re-quote only what I think is amusing, so that’s rarely more than a few items from the same source. Trivia: the Washington monument is the tallest building in DC because it is illegal there to build anything taller.

NIGHT
           There’s an episode for you. The scan I had on my back this afternoon entailed the usual paperwork, except one document which I declined to sign. Turns out in the history of that clinic, nobody, including the doctors, have ever questioned the validity of that document. The one you watch out for is the one that says if Party A gives your protected information to Party B who in turn gives it to a party that is not covered by the disclosure laws, Party A is not responsible. Now hold on. If there is any doubt, you don’t give the information.

           But this particular document went on to say that you were agreeing to this nonsense. No, no, I told them, I have no way of checking these people out so it is 100% your responsibility to make sure they can’t breach security either. Furthermore, I want my information coded so that if there is any illegal disclosure, my lawyers know who to trace it back to. And no, they cannot refuse treatment to any patient who does not sign any disclosure document. (All you have to do is print “declined” on the paper. So if you say no, they have a record of that, too.)

           That out of the way, they put me on this ancient machine that I could hear clunking through each exposure. They said the results will be ready in two or three days. Therefore, I called Deland and asked my lady friend out to dinner soon. What godsend it will be if my walking pain is treatable. I can’t tell you what that would mean to me.
           The picture? Well, it is two potatoes. These are my potatoes. There are many like them, but these two are mine. Hey, enjoy them since the next best I have is a shot of the waiting room at the MRI clinic. Here’s a sad statistic for you. Medical bills now account for just under 10% of the median income for the entire country. That is an unbelievable amount of money now being sucked into a vortex that can only get worse. Obamacare cannot begin to scratch the surface. The choice is simple. Either costs go down or people being dying practically beside the machines that could save their lives. Take your pick which will happen first.

           * the blog says $310 in one day. That’s wrong, it was over month until the novelty wore off. But that was back in 1991 when three hundred bucks could buy things.

Last Laugh
This is the Millennial view of "Old Economy Steve"