One year ago today: May 6, 2014, easy reading.
Five years ago today: May 6, 2010, Bryne, the legal immigrant.
Six years ago today: May 6, 2009, rocket surgery.
MORNING
Still no real answers why the tree died at the bakery parking lot. I found out it was not a mango tree, just a tree with red flowers. I may have a picture in my rather extensive archives as I used to park the scooter beneath it in the early days. I today applied some stain to the stump to see if I could bring out the growth rings. Possibly the tree sap is responsible for the visibility of the rings as they are too faint to see. The sap is completely drained.
This picture is hard to see. It is the top of a sawn off trunk. The black line is a strip of dye I applied to see if I could bring out the annual growth rings. No, some kind of fungus has turned the inside of the tree to a solid mass. You can see the rings, but barely.
Prime suspect: elm leaf beetles. This are not the same as Dutch Elm disease, although it looks to me like a fungus killed the tree. I have a photo of a grub that I will circulate soon. The beetles are leaf-eaters but may be carriers of fungus infections. The witnesses say the tree was killed in a matter of weeks. Possibly they were seeing only the terminal phase.
The red scooter battery had to be replaced. That was $67 and took me way out past 441 and Washington. On the way, I reserved a bay for my Honda generator repair. The soonest opening is middle of next week. Then I stopped at the club house to pick up my battery charger to notice the cover plate has been broken and the side pins bent.
This situation of damaged tools has to be completely gone over in detail, but I believe the rate of damage is 100%. Every item lent has been broken in some way for five consecutive years. No exceptions. It will not be a popular review. We are looking for fact, not fault, but as my Supe at the electric company used to say, “It’s his fault the facts are wrong.” Ha!
But that kind of mileage takes five years on a scooter and the cost is widely spread out. It is wiser to compare the cost of operating a car for five years, where the required minimum insurance alone is close to $15,000 over the same period.
As a reminder, the base cost of the red scooter was only $150. The unit was a replacement for a stolen scooter in, when was that? 2009? Not having a car parked in the yard also reduces the temptation to take unnecessary trips. What? No, my vacations are very necessary. That’s not what I meant. It’s people who take the car to the market up the way for a quart of milk.
NOON
“Nothing tastes as good as carrots from your own garden.” --Farm wisdom. I dunno. Have you ever noticed toast tastes better when somebody else makes it?
I glanced through the real estate offerings to conclude there are no bargains, so it looks like another year of tales from this place. The Miami press is again touting the rise in prices, what is with those people? And here is a picture of something you might expect to see if you search long enough on pedal pubs.
Do I go see the only offering at the foreign cinema? It is billed as a story about an aging actress who makes a film about an aging actress who makes a film about, you guessed it, an aging actress. Gee, that’s pretty imaginative, wouldn’t you say? What’s next? A blog about a bass player from Texas who studies robots? I’d go see that. At least because it would have to have a plot.
Elliott writes about a trend in the Millennials to say “thank you” to people who are doing their jobs. Like the bus driver and the janitor. It is okay unless carried to excess or, as suspected, tacky and done only for effect. As Trent put it, the people who clap when the airplane lands. Is there a term for this behavior? Maybe they consider it a substitute for tipping or kindness. Nobody has ever thanked me for the incredibly wonderful job I do of this blog.
That’s fine, I’ve been toughened up by lack of thanks for my bass playing. That’s a double whammy, since most people think bass is simple (only the way they play it) and of that, they think country music is the simplest. Of course, they have it exactly backwards. Except for when the bassist is riffing off, the easiest to play is rock music, followed by blues. Both styles center around roughly twenty worn-out cliches.
Sadly, “new” country is doing the same. Tons of sound-alike tunes that lack originality. I listen to it, but it’s fairly monotonous except for the few that really rise about the pack. Once again I find it is not artists who do this, but individual hits. I like exactly one song each by Tritt and Jackson. Same with Loveless, Yearwood, and Hill. But I like them enough to have arranged bass solos.
AFTERNOON
Horoscopes. Mine, which I read along with the others at morning coffee, says I have to get rid of all old projects. What? I happen to like to have ten or fifteen going on at any given time. One of the reasons I dislike college courses is their insistence that you learn according to formula. Because that formula not only moves too slow, it glosses over the parts that need extra attention. So phooey on you, horoscopes. I’m sticking with the plan. They are not unfinished projects, they are work in progress.
This Terminator is slated to be a trilogy with movies out in 2017 and 2018. Got my fingers crossed I live that long. They’ve replaced Hamilton with an equally dweeby actress, Emilia Clarke, but I recognize it must be hard to find older women who look better than Arnold on screen so they settle for what they can get. I’m considering this movie “Ex Machina”, though I tend to view robot movies differently than I did five years ago.
I’m not keen on humanoid robots either, but give me special effects. My advice to Hollywood is if you are going to go the budget robot humanoid route, stick to making them regular humans. No more queers or hooker robots in fishnet stockings. It reveals too much about your preoccupations that people don’t want to hear about anywhere near as often as you imagine.
There’s a property for sale for $99k on Plunkett. It must be a dive, but I’ll go look. You see, in 2006 there was nothing there you could get for less than $400k. On the other hand, what is wrong with staying right here and playing electric bass for a couple of hours? There is one, and only one country music venue in the entire area that guarantees quality, and that is the Roundup. I would patronize the place except for their $5 cover charge. They make a killing, but I can’t find a country guitarist. You see, the Broward Guitar Mafia will never abandon their Holy Crusade to bring back the 1970s.
EVENING
The crazy neighbor came over with that electric cycle he scrounged when the Frenchies left. He’s replaced everything from the batteries to the fenders. It is all tricked out now. [It] should be, when you put $800 into a piece that costs $1200 new. Have you see a picture of it? Look here. They sell a lot of them to old people to get to the beach.
I like seminars and small meetings. At least the first couple of nights, since it can be very challenging for meetings like writer and robot clubs to hold my interest. But has anyone noticed this uptick in “iPad” meetups? You must show up with a laptop or ipad that has certain apps—and they warn they will check to confirm it is a paid version. I boycott that on principle alone. I don’t associate with vigilantes. If it’s wrong, call the police, but don’t be looking over people’s shoulders for trouble.
The group tours on the Pedal Pub are determined by the operator, who runs the tour when eight or more enroll. Are they going to ID you? You must sign a waiver. No glass, hard liquor, or premixed drinks allowed. And they are definitely Millennials by insisting that “tipping is customary” and quote a whopping 20% since the “staff works hard to ensure your enjoyment”. Well, like, isn’t that their goddamed job? Be damned if I’m going to tip them a chunk and thank them like a Millennial, too.
Last Laugh
Tactical reload.
Return Home
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