One year ago today: July 8, 2014, the Festus Show.
Five years ago today: July 8, 2010, follow-on crimes.
Six years ago today: July 8, 2009, my invisibility theory.
MORNING
One of the great things I forgot to report was the lightning strike on the drive back from Naples last week. The bolt hit a power pole maybe three hundred yards from where I was driving JZ’s truck. It zapped an electric pole, and held there with both an electric bolt and a glowing contact point. A short examination shows this was not a transformer or a taller than usual pole. The lightning bolt lingered for a good two seconds before we heard a “pop”, and continued driving past.
Nope, no photos, there was no chance we could feasibly have reacted fast enough. But we saw it and recognized it as a once in a lifetime experience. JZ reports that similar strikes have fried the car’s electrical. That makes sense, since there are now more electronics in a car where there used to be electro-mechanical circuits.
[Author's note 2021: for an actual video of this event, follow link to March 5, 2021!]
It was a single bolt, no forks. I scanned thousands of stock photos trying to find something similar. This picture is the closest I could find. The bolt lasted nearly a full second and was blindingly white. It was dark out by late afternoon, as we were in the eye of one of those characteristic summer rainstorms that hit west Florida.
The beam was crooked, like the photo, but only around fifty or sixty yards away. There was no sound during the hit although we customarily did not have the automobile radio on. Seconds later we drove past the pole at around sixty miles per hour and saw no apparent damage. It was a concrete pole and seemed untouched. Like the bolt shown here, it was nine or ten inches in diameter, consistent along the entire length. Scary. Highway 17, north of Ft. Myers, Florida.
NOON
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” ~Winston Churchill. He had enemies.
I drove to North Miami to meet with JZ. It was mostly business, but it turns out he knew the guy who went sailing last month that disappeared. The focus is our intention to attend a house auction to see what really goes on. There is no getting a straight answer out of anyone on this topic. My feeling is that I would not care if the procedure is complicated. That serves as a barrier to entry by the rank and file.
That is, if the lender doesn’t like the amount, they keep holding the auction over until they do. Corruption at its legal finest, I’d say. But, I say to JZ that the way to find out is to be there. For example, the instructions clearly state the offer must be in cash. Does that mean I have to plunk a pile of cash down and wait 30 days to find out if the bank accepts? That’s bull, since I could not use the money for something else and I would have to make a second expensive trip to get it back.
I am intensely interested to find out. Such goings on might seem unfair to the buyer, but I would be okay as they also serve as a massive disincentive to the public. Not that many people have ten or twenty thousand dollars they can leave sitting with somebody else for weeks on end. Wait, there’s more.
Sorry if anything is repeated here, again this is a complicated situation. My wider investigation shows that in a given venue, all court auctions are at the same time. This makes it difficult and expensive for anybody to cover all the bases. There are eight auctions in surrounding areas on the same day as the one we’ve [arbitrarily] picked. We will be there as observers only, but with enough of an offer to be taken seriously if an opportunity plunks down beside me.
While we have a specific property in mind, only a miracle will help us. Trent indicates the lender is striving to get their outstanding loan back, which I calculate to be $48,937.78. There is no way I could afford to pay that for the place, hence, it is off to the auction.
EVENING
What? You want to know how I know what the guy still owes on the property. Gee, I thought I mentioned I was an accountant—who intentionally stopped one course before I graduated. My former career was already a success and I had no intention of starting another, so I never applied for the degree. But if I had, I would be a CMA, but the real thing, not the el-cheapo CMA you see advertised as an 18 month evening course at Miami-Dade.
That is the preliminary work, there is much more to be done. You must know, at the least, everything your potential adversary knows. And make certain he knows as little about you as possible, and that what he does know is carefully orchestrated. As for the financials, they are all calculated now, several days ahead of schedule. And I am going out for a quiet drink. I’ve earned it today. As for the accounting degree, I have many other accounting certificates and qualifications that would net me a job instantly, just not as an accountant per se.
What's this, I've already received requests for this spreadsheet. Hell no, figure out your own. Hint, use the "what-if" goal seek to find the total payment. And don't be too fussy about APR (annual percentage rate). Just use the given rate divided by 12, it's close enough. Okay, one more hint. Every line in the spreadsheet is nothing but formulas and it is the same formulas in EVERY LINE, except the first line, which carries the seed numbers.
[Author's note: I am fully aware there are programs and applications that do the above calculation for you. But, as with all math, I do not trust them and neither should you--unless you know and understand the formulas in use. The process is too complicated to wing it, there is no easy way to "check for reasonableness" than from experience, which is not the best substitute for knowing the equations.
In my instance, MKTG 351, a 16 week course on TVM (time value of money), my mark of 100% remains the highest and only perfect score EVER attained in that course on the Pacific coast. That is also the course where it was discovered the campus computer had to award me 99% because it could not print three digits. Further, it was the course where the campus argued to not give anyone a score of 100% because that would "mean that you saying you are perfect". And my famous rejoinder that it did not mean I was perfect, but meant that I did not make any mistakes in that course. That was in 1988.
For the record, this performance was never repeated, for the college hence devised tests that could never be aced. One simply does not get 100% in MKTG 351.]
ADDENDUM
Here’s a laugh. Two bands are advertising for a bassist for next week. Gee, there are always six or eight bass players perpetually seeking bands on the lists. I don’t find that out of place, because I know exactly what the problem is. But these bands caught my eye because they say things like, “Must learn 30 songs.” By next week?
That’s the humor, they plainly don’t have a clue what a real bass player is. They are just more “bass is easy” attitudes. They think the bass player only has to “follow” the guitarist. I’ll tell you why that is a joke. If a bass player can do that, he is one piss-poor musician if you ask me. Hey, what do I mean by that!
Well, until they meet me, whence they quickly learn that bass is a separate instrument and they are just my accompaniment. I will watch those ads to see how these bands fare as their gig dates draw nearer. Just remember, when you hire a bassist who can “follow”, you will inherit every last “guitar mafia” syndrome and bad habit that is stuck in his brain.
I, on the other hand, cannot play guitar.
As for the picture, this tendency of bands to consider the bassist as only one step above drummer in the musical food chain explains, at least to me, why you get so many female bassists these days. They are a guitar player’s dream because they tend to do what they are told. Seriously, and don’t argue with me unless you’ve seen what I’ve seen.
Last Laugh
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