One year ago today: January 9, 2015, Vance “The Douche”, Jr.
Five years ago today: January 9, 2011, five meals a day . . .
Nine years ago today: January 9, 2007, was I that skinny?
Random years ago today: January 9, 2013, Matlock “anti-therapy”.
MORNING
Bonus, today I tell you about two things I’ve never seen before. One I saw this morning, the other I have still never seen yet. Are you ready? Okay, this morning I saw JZ eat until he was actually full. This is the guy that ate 38 oysters in Ft. Meyers Beach and wanted to stop at the gourmet hotdog joint on the way home. And that was also just breakfast. Seen it with my own two eyes.
Shown is JZ unable to finish his pancakes. This is an absolute first. Three pancakes and three sausages, and he actually looked like he could not eat more. Okay, I’ll admit they were three big pancakes, but I’ve had them that Texas big before. Cover the whole plate. That’s not the point, which is that JZ actually ate himself to a standstill. Blogworthy.
Myself? I had the catfish and eggs. It was decent but not quite Texas. Something manufactured about it. But not all batter like that joint up in Deland last May. And south Miami, I should add, is rich enough to exclude a lot of undesirable types, so this place had a gorgeous blue-eyed blonde waitress so young (about 24-ish) that she had never heard of the cash register being called a "till". But I'd take that one any day, so sweet, you could tell no tattoos.
That alone makes the trip to Miami worth it, you get that huge holdout of old America where the young women are white, single, and pretty. I’m only describing, not discriminating. But I fully admit I prefer women of my own race, that is only natural. I’ll tell you what is not natural is what I told you about all the major beauty contests in the world now have a pact to never again let a white woman ever get more than runner-up. Now we are treated to distorted spectacles of talentless bone-racks who’d rather be working the stripper pole in Hialeah being crowned Miss Universe.
NOON
This was JZ’s birthday party. Gifts? Yeah, I got him gifts. A bottle of propane, a roll of plumber’s solder, a hand-made pipe burnishing tool I made on the drill press, and a mechanical center-punch from Harbor Freight. The punch is the second item from the left in y’day’s photo. Well that and the most expensive breakfast by twice we’ve ever had, that counts, I suppose. But after I turned 30, I’ve never been big on birthdays.
For example, most of the monkeys are still out there. Then again, they could well be living in East Miami on welfare and food stamps by now and nobody would notice. Here is JZ in the cab of a diesel-electric locomotive, and pay attention to the clarity of this picture. I’ll be getting back to that.
Man-o-man, after building my model compressed air “steam engine”, was I ever able to recognize and describe the parts of a locomotive. (Actually, I was better versed than the tour guides.) But let me tell you about the ticket booth. There were twin sisters working there. They had opposite personalities, which worked against me. You see, they were indeed twins but the one selling tickets not only looked younger somehow, she took an immediate shine to me. These women were both in their early twenties.
I have to be careful at this point, because every loser guy in the world will not believe what happened next. He’ll insist I’m lying, but here are the facts. I moved in for the kill, it was like the good old days. She responded to everything I said, it was there, folks. But so was the other sister. You’ve heard of cock-blockers and the evil twin? Here’s your case study.
Neither the nice one or I could make a move. I was saying things to her like, “You certainly don’t have any apprehensions about older men, do you?” And she was answering things like, “With you, none whatsoever.”. Talk about a perfect body, compressed into skin tight blue jeans, jeans like they used to make years ago that didn’t need to be form-fitted. The form back then was the gal’s natural body.
Sorry to say, I had to move along when the evil sister started giving us the nasty looks. JZ & I bought the extra tickets for the “Ferdinand Megallan”. JZ was “pretty sure” that’s the guy who invented the telescope. It was a guided tour, so the nice twin had to run out to the yard to find us when our turn arose. My god, what a beauty, just to see something like that running toward me, like a dream movie. But by then, the moment was lost. In my day I would have led her straight into a berth on the sleeping car. Instead, it was clear the sister had called the boyfriend with the alert and, well, a smartphone ringing incessantly is a bit of a turn-off. So close.
NIGHT
I said earlier there was still something I had never seen. Keep in mind I am not singling out JZ but take a look at this picture. That’s that handsome actor standing on the presidential platform on the famous Ferdinand Magellan. FDR and Ronald Reagan both stood on this spot. You can almost see the speaker horns on top of the car and you can almost see the ring of microphones on the pedestal. I say almost, because that is the my point.
I’m saying taking pictures these days is so simple, so instinctive, that I’m sure people who can’t must go to a special clinic and have something unhooked in their brains. I would find it humiliating to not master such a simple device, but other people just get a quizzical look on their face when you show them the proof they messed up. Not once, but time after freaking time over a period of decades. It’s like living in Canada.
Cameras nowadays are so reflex-friendly that those escaped monkeys could take better pictures than any Miamian I have ever met. No, I don’t mean just some of them sometimes—every last one of those mother’s sons has never, ever taken an ordinary clear picture. You can show them, you can teach them, you can tell them what not to do and let them practice. JZ has taken around 60 pictures with this camera, not one of them is clear, this one was the clearest of the lot.
Can anyone explain that to me. You point the camera, you click the shutter. Do you have to go to a special school to learn how to screw that up? If I was that bad at something so commonplace, I would go out and do something about it immediately. And yes, I’ve gone as long as five years without taking a picture, so you can’t say I do it every day. I show these people how to take eight pictures minimum, so you pick the best one. So it is not like they only get one shot. In this case, all eight pictures were bad, the rest were just worse than the one shown here.
ADDENDUM
Inexperience. I got the small air hose to connect my compressor and spare tank in tandem. Using the regular nozzle would never charge to spare tank over 60 psi and I need 100 psi. It works, but duh, I never stopped to think how I would remove this hose from both tanks at the same time without letting at least some of the air escape. Right—the hose has two male ends and they are not self-sealing like the female connecting pieces on each side.
I’ll figure something, but for now, just unhook the spare tank first. The main tank drops to around 60 psi as fast as you can remove the second fitting, but it will charge back up by the time you use up the spare. But there you have it. Lack of experience creates a dumb mistake.
But the 100 psi part works great. Tomorrow I fix my wagon tires. You need that 100 psi blast to pop old tires back on the rims. Trust me, owning a scooter, I know exactly how to do this the right way.
And did you know an ordinary roll of plumbing solder these days runs $18?
Last Laugh
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