One year ago today: June 3, 2014, the writer’s meeting.
Five years ago today: June 3, 2010, another guitar player.
Six years ago today: June 3, 2009, after age 55.
MORNING
Even as we speak, the price on the cottage-cabin combo just dropped $3,000. Seriously, just nine minutes ago. It is 6:05AM, so something is going on over there. Sounds like somebody has to sell. Should I throw in a low-ball? Is JZ right and there is something wrong? Unpaid taxes? Or should I just go to the bakery for coffee? Answers to these and many more questions later today.
Bear in mind if this goes, it pulls me years ahead of schedule. I had not even planned on having a decent cash offer until the spring of 2016. JZ has not seen the pictures yet. The possibility exists of getting a simple line of credit and paying it off within the year. Again, this makes the blog only because it is unusual. We have committed to nothing yet.
The decision to get the negotiator was a result of the real estate ad. It listed only an 800 number. That’s a sign of trouble. I traced the number back to Seattle. Real estate agencies don’t hire the most reputable people and they have a nasty reputation of using your inquiry to run background checks on your credit. That’s like telling the enemy how many soldiers you have. And if they don’t sell you, they throw your personal information on to their sucker list.
My best hope? Please let it be an estate sale where the grandkids up in Indiana just want the money asap. If you think I don’t trust real estate outfits, you should hear what I have to say about banks. Keep checking back, as the potential of that property is eclipsing my other plans. Or tomorrow, since rarely a day goes by here with nothing to report. Yeah, tomorrow is a better bet.
NOON
“One the toothpaste is out of the tube, it’s hard to get it back in.” –H.R. Haldeman (I think that is the same Haldeman who went to prison over Watergate.)
I got the hatchet. Here’s the picture. And it wasn’t cheap. A $35 tool, but it is a quality item, see the leather holster. And that’s a leather-bound handle. Time to go build my log cabin. I finally bought one of those keychain digital picture display. From a company called “Digital Décor” it turns out to be a remarkable device. A wonderful idea to recycle older (and smaller) digital camera display screens. This is also a clock and an alarm, but most impressive is the excellent quality. My cost? $1.99.
Judge Judy. There is a radio program on her work with child support cases. She is considered a champion of getting judgments against fathers and issuing arrest warrants. Never the other way around. She is not known for fairness and clearly favors the mothers while pretending to have only the children’s interests in mind.
We all know there is no accounting for how much of the child support actually reaches the children. But I’ll bet it is very little beyond basics. Thrift is not a premium quality of any divorcee I ever met. I’ll wager money is a factor in the majority of marital breakups. Why do I think that? Easy, if not, there would never be any lawyers involved. If you missed that one, you are probably reading the wrong blog.
I’m all for a float system, where the father makes one initial payment and each passing month it gets replenished by the amount of receipts the mother can provide proving what was spent on each child. Not a penny more. And payments should cease instantly if the mother takes up with another man. Hey, they wanted equality, give it to them. I do not like unilateral awards like child support and in any case nobody should ever have to pay more than they originally committed themselves to. Which is usually about half.
And please don’t hit me with that “she sacrificed her career for the marriage”. That is sheer speculation. I know more single women with degrees that got nowhere than any success stories. And did not the man forego the potential of all the money he plowed into the marriage in his early years? Again, I’m not picking sides, I’m just against one-sided awards of any nature.
But to be fair, I’ll tell what I’ll do. I’ll read that book she wrote (I’ll get the name tomorrow). I understand she is fair-minded and does not tolerate a lot of crap, but the crap she does tolerate is the wrong brand. For example, that instance where the rapist said he would only consent to an AIDS test if he got a reduced sentence. Judge Judy said no deal. Is that fair?
No. Judge Judy gave absolutely no guarantee that the results of the test would be used ONLY to check for AIDS and nothing else. I would never consent to such a test for any reason, much less in a criminal proceeding. Why? Because Judge Judy is not extending any guarantee the the samples will be used only for that one test and nothing else, or that if the test is negative, the samples will be destroyed and all records of the test purged.
I got a thousand bucks says you give that sample, they will test for everything they possibly can--and you have a constitutional right not to testify against yourself. Even if you are innocent, the record of the test will taint your reputation for life and the sample will be kept for potential future use. And you have no way of knowing what they could make illegal by tomorrow. Did you know Canada can change the law to make you guilty if they can't get you any other way? As the system is set up, you cannot consent to one small thing without consenting to everything--something only a fool would do. Or somebody being blackmailed, plea-bargained, or worse.
As for support payments, I do not believe there are any more deadbeat fathers than there are deadbeat mothers. I doubt any father intentionally does anything to be separated from his children unless there are some other factors at work. Something is causing all the "deadbeat" fathers that the systems whines about. It is all too evident that if you are going to be a deadbeat, you are smarter to be the mother, not the father. Is what I'm saying.
The system is too corrupt and she knows it. Never consent to any test to prove your own innocence. You ought to know when you are being set up. The next thing you know, you get hit with child support for some women you haven’t seen since that frat party twenty years ago. Remember my newest legal phrase, “Forensic prosecution”.
AFTERNOON
Judge Judy's book is called "Don't Pee On My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining". I found it in paperback, so I'll read it in a day or two. I never said she didn't have common sense, only that she is inclined to favor one side from what I've seen and heard. Judges are not supposed to do that, particularly in civil cases where no crime has been committed. I wonder if she really says "pee" in real life.
EVENING
Never a dull moment. My lady friend in Orlando got sideswiped in her Cadillac Coupe, what do they call them, an XLR? I think that’s it. I thought, “What?” This is downtown Nowheresville, and the guy took off, a hit and run. She followed him and caught up. He ran a couple of stops signs, but she pulled up and he waved a gun at her. No, I’m not making this up.
She immediately booted it to the police station and the guy is locked up. I think this might be the car, she has several. If so, this one was in showroom condition. She estimates the guy sideswiped at close to 60 mph, so she’s lucky it was only paint damage. I snapped this picture while we filled the gas tank this last April.
This doesn’t settle my nerves. It is supposed to be one lazy little backwater town. I looked at the Trulia crime stats for the area and it was like nothing in the past months. One incident of a police chase and a domestic dispute on the other side of the highway. Now this?
I’d like to check in on her, but you know, JZ and I kind of overspent the budget last time by staying an extra day. He’s a real hit with the East Indian community because he gave them some mangoes. Actually he wanted $5 and so I gave them the mangoes, but by that afternoon they were knocking on our door asking for more. Oops, no more. He brought them from Miami.
Anyway, this news has just arrived so give me time to assimilate what’s going on here. Peggy has a license to carry, being in the jewelry business. But she was unarmed because it was the middle of a nothing afternoon. Strange, or what?
