One year ago today: August 26, 2014, if it quacks like a robot . . .
Five years ago today: August 26, 2010, gutting the middle class
Six years ago today: August 26, 2009, I’m not famous.
MORNING
I sat around feeding birds in the rain today, out west of the Turnpike. If you are looking for action, maybe go over to the casino. I’m non-ambulatory. Routine? Not today. I went for morning coffee, then more follow-on corrective surgery, minor but annoyingly painful this time around. Enough to distract me from going to the bookstores and libraries out near my clinic. Other than buying a detective novel at the thrift, this will not be a great day. No productivity.
It’s a novel, a paperback, that turns out to be more of a lawyer book. “Show of Evil”, the usual portrayal of the police/trial system as the “good guys” whose biggest frustrations are perpetually the combination of lack of evidence and prime suspects who make their lives hell by refusing to outright confess over circumstantial evidence. This makes it necessary to go after juries instead of facts, and that, if you believe the movies, can be a bitch.
You get one picture today, a pedestrian bridge in London. I’m impressed. I was drinking tea most of the day, like the English. Actually, I have some trivia. After China, guess which country drinks the most tea? Hint, it’s an average of 330 cups a year each. It’s Canada.
One of the regimens is I must walk a half-hour daily so I hiked over to a nearby strip mall and bought a package of peanuts. The kind I keep telling JZ not to eat in the new truck. And walked along feeding the lady crows. Everybody feeds the tweety-birds, sometimes I feed the crows. They’re not bad birds, you know. We used to keep them as pets, sort of, and they are great until they eventually “go wild”. Like adopted teenagers.
These procedures are preventative, I could do without, but I’ve started thinking further ahead than I dared five years ago. Which is encouraging, along with the revelation that I can safely drive in the countryside. My camper pod is fully capable of being towed with a car, you know. Although for “camping”, I prefer a small station wagon, the trailer turns the trip into luxury. I’m considering all my options.
I’m miffed that Genisys (Terminator) is no long at the theaters. Last month, when it was released, my time was chewed up entirely by house-shopping. Now that I would like to sit down for a good part of every day, it isn’t first-run except at the drive-in in Ft. Lauderdale. Is it me or some kind of conspiracy?
JZ and I, upon review, have formulated a policy to oppose the “house auction” system. This is a direct result of what we learned at the auctions in Arcadia recently. While I understand how ticked off JZ was at the process, and rightfully so, my intention was never to bid against others. Instead, [my game plan was] to analyze and to come up with a plan to combat the banks. That is who has turned the auctions into an exercise in futility. You will have to read back to get the details, but we are now in a position to implement that strategy.
The idea is to “get noticed” by the banks who send their shills to the auctions. I contend that if you consistent cause a bank to spend more money than they had planned, something will give. I’ve said before their obvious plan is to make bidding against them a futile activity. And that just tips me off that they do not want competition. I won’t elaborate, but my idea is to bid against them, not to win, but to watch how they react to such bidding. To essentially take it to the next level.
As I’ve said before, their system cannot be that complicated. That would make it too difficult for them to find reliable, honest people to do their work. Hence, a simple and systematic series of contesting bids would, if nothing else, cause somebody somewhere in their organization to take notice. Right? If you were in the regular habit of buying something for $5,000 (5%), would you not spot suddenly having to pay $100,000? As usual, with me, there is always a way out. But they must always ask. So that they think it is their idea.
Sure, JZ was dismayed by the auction. But I’ll give him the pep talk to remind him we were there to learn, not to buy. And don’t underestimate what we absorbed. We know exactly when to arrive, what motel to stay at, how much to pay, where to park, how much money to carry, where is the nearest coffee shop, where to buy the cashier’s checks, even where to stop for a drink afterward and what time it closes.
And we pretty much know who will be the only other person at the auction. He’s the one who, I believe, will be the most interested in a way out. I repeat, there is always a way out. And this time we are fully-funded and ready to pounce at the first error on their part. Their mistake was assuming not that we didn’t have the money, but that we had borrowed it and hence they could find out behind our backs everything they needed to know. Wrong. (We know they tried.) They also seem very aware that borrowed money can't wait. We can.
I’ve suggest to JZ the middle of September—but for the record, the housing market has dried right up. Everybody is waiting to see? I conclude the banks know the advent of higher interest rates will soon create havoc. They have even (check Trulia) once again begun to withhold address of foreclosed houses. So you can’t look at them before the phony auction. It’s on sale, but you can’t look it over first. I’ve got a way around that, too.
[Author’s note: it turns out you can view the property. But only after an extra step that reveals how badly the system has “tightened up”. You have to create an account to look at the site containing the facts you need, although most of the properties can be found in other real estate listings. Also, you must register with identification at the courthouse to even be allowed to attend the country auctions.
Note that there are plenty of other private auctions. If you think these are attended by professional buyers, you are right. It may eventually be interesting to know our plans, which are really untried countermeasures, we call “the blitz” for that reason. Not because anything is expected to happen soon, but because we intend to win something through superior use of limited resources. Ergo, “blitz”.
We are planning, you know, for another round of silly mistakes. We are fully aware the original blitz of Germany into France in 1940 has often been described as “one massive traffic jam”.]
Last Laugh
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
