March 31, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 31, 2015, just not my type . . .
Five years ago today: March 31, 2011, some mobile home.
Nine years ago today: March 31, 2007, Costeau’s favorite wreck.
Random years ago today: March 30, 2014, interesting paragraph on illegals.

MORNING
           I’m waiting for the “bank” decision, so you get some filler this morning. First, the book, “Swallowing Stones”. It leaves you hanging. It turns out the kid who fired the random shot in the air was so guilt-ridden that the book ends with himself ready to turn himself in. But you don’t know if he did, because several witnesses said while he ducked into the bushes with the Italian girl, he had left the rifle standing against the wall for 20 minutes. Anybody could have fired the shot that killed the neighbor and nobody would have noticed the report during all the fireworks.

           Um, this book is written kind of as a fable for teens and would tend to make most sense to those cultures, which I do not specify here, where human life is valued most. The lesson would not really get through to those with a street-gang mentality. I’m just sayin’ this book is so ultra-white I’m surprised it got past the Oprah-Whoopie censors. After all, such women are the only members of our society who know anything about suffering at all. And boy, do they relish the opportunity to tell Ann Coulter about that!
           There’s a card in the back that says Silver Trail Middle School. I looked it up, it is right out here on Sheridan. That would make sense. There is no silver and no trails in the vicinity.

           I finally systematically did several navigational plots so I could compare the various methods side-by-side. There are two categories of plots, for exactness, when I say plot I mean the process of drawing lines and angles on a blank chart to “fix” ones position on the ocean surface by means of sextant readings and the use of special booklets containing look-up tables.
           There seems no standard way of doing this, my five books show five methods. By comparing them, I see there are two common threads. One is to draw the chart with your AP (assumed position) at the center and plot your fix from there. The other is to put your DR (dead reckoning) spot at the center and use an offset distance to draw your line of position. Both will work, so I arbitrarily chose the AP method to practice with. It is more intuitive once you grasp that the tables are all based on how well you select this point.

           Allow me to say something good teachers are not supposed to say. This AP is tricky, and can easily baffle the beginner. One is not supposed to “scare” the student by saying things like that. But listen to me, if you spook that easy, then do yourself a huge favor and stay the hell away from celestial navigation. It is not your imagination, the process is arithmetically complicated, at least when compared to cost accounting or advanced trigonometry. It was months before I could wrap my brain around it enough to become comfortable with the western hemisphere.
           My advice to the new learner is to learn the math first. Why? Because if you cannot do that, you can’t navigate. Period. The snag there is most people who write the books want money for the effort, so they leap immediately to the flashy part of reading the sextant on the rolling deck. You too, can be the next Fletcher Christian.
           But the sextant is the least challenging segment of the process. And once you get the math, it makes using the sextant almost instinctual. You’ll automatically reject the countless spurious readings that all users, even experts, are often dogged with. It is amazingly easy to get a wrong sextant measurement and only by having a grasp of the math can you reduce this type of error.
           By the same or similar token, I round-of-bout admit most people could not possibly learn the math part first. Wow, I think Patsie finally agreed with me on something.

Wiki picture of the day.
Buffalo skulls.
NOON
           The waiting game continues. Here’s today’s mystery. I had two slow leaks, the scooter rear tire and the sidecar tire. Having time, I got out the water basin and was intending to find and plug the holes. Um, when I got out there this morning, both tires were inflated. Do you think the tire fairy came by overnight and filled the tires? It is now past noon, and they are still full of air. I don’t think it is supposed to work that way.
           Just like I intend to do if they sell me the cottage, today I will sit and read a lot. I’ll continue my dissertation on celestial navigation. Now pay attention because none of this is in the books. These are my musing as I inch my way through material I find deep and difficult. This time, I stood back and looked at the Nautical Almanac instead of in it. Here’s my conclusion.

           There’s a presumption the Almanac gives the sun and stars positions all over the planet. Well, forget the stars, you should not be sailing at night. If you think about it, the sun doesn’t really circle the whole world. It only goes around in that narrow band near the equator, between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Now here is your chance to use that imagination mom always said you had. The sun doesn’t move very much north or south in a day, but it moves westward at, what is it, 4 miles per minute? So that is 1/60th of 4 miles per second, and so on. Easy Newtonian physics. Distance equals rate times time, d=rt. Anyway, don’t quote me, figure out the speed yourself.
           Some clever dude got to thinking, you know, why calculate every position, which would require 436,000 books. Why not just calculate the position every hour? There’s only 8,766 hours in a year, we’ve run these numbers before right here in this blog. Then, in the back of the book, just put a table with the minutes and seconds, and let the navigator add these offsets to the hour results. That’s your Almanac. Hopefully, this makes it easier for some of you to read the thing.
           And that is my most advanced thinking on the topic at this time. The Almanac only lets you calculate exactly what spot of the Earth the sun is over and any given day, hour, minute, second, and tenth of a second of the year. You don’t need a sextant, just a damn good clock. Any quartz crystal is ideal, as you may be aware, I’ve been getting amazing theoretical results with an ordinary stopwatch set to Greenwich time, a.k.a “universal time”.
           Wait, I can do better. That is not Greenwich time, but the average time between the two meridians in the time zone that Greenwich is located between. And everyone knows, the average is the arithmetic mean. Greenwich Mean Time. If I keep repeating it, I will eventually learn it.

           Let me tell you about another operation that is getting pretty damn slippery. Adobe, we already know they are intentionally releasing countless updates that force you to download the code. Force? Yes, Adobe never makes the updates backwards compatible, as do reputable software firms. Adobe also seems to have the collusion of sites like youTube, which will not play even the oldest videos if you don’t have the latest update. What’s that smell?
           So over a period of time (not specified), I compared the number of bytes of code in each of these so-called “updates”. Many were virtually identical except for a few fragments that appear to do little except look to see when was the last update. When you think about it, Flash Player has been around so long that updates are basically meaningless. So what is Adobe up to?
           What first set off my alarms with Adobe was the amount of time you must remain logged into their update sight for amounts to a tiny few lines of new code. The update should load lightning fast and then drop the link. But when Adobe began to open Internet Explorer on my system without permission, I lost all respect for both companies.

AFTERNOON
           We all know those Windows people are gonads, but nothing proves it like their license expiry notice. I have a question for those azzholes: How can my Windows license expire soon when I’ve never had a Windows license? BWAAAA-ha-ha-ha-ha. I hope all of you MicroSoft people choke on a fart so some good company can get a chance to produce software that actually works. Oh, and take your corporate ethics with you. Actually, you have little choice since no way could you pull it out of where you’ve got it stuffed.

           Many people hate MicroSoft as much as I do, but few have hated them for so long. Remember, I lived through the era when MicroSoft used every dirty trick in the book. They did not get ahead by producing a superior product, my god, that much should be obvious. They did it by cutthroat quashing or absorbing of all other startups using tactics perfected on the battlefield by IBM’s diabolical regiments of crooked lawyers.
           I watch with glee, by the way, at each notch Windows is taken down. I also have no love for Linux, which the creators turned into space cadet code. But Windows 10 apparently has Linux command lines. Ah, another instance where the great assimilator becomes the assimilated.

           And don’t be thinking MicroSoft is alone at being pricks. They are just the entity that’s most proud of it. Did you know some sources teach Millennials that MicroSoft is a successful business model that should be emulated? Proves that history is re-written by the victors. MicroSoft has no shame, at least even Nelson Rockefeller had the decency to time and again publish that he knew his dastardly methods were wrong to the point of evil but government policy left him no choice.
           Heck no, MicroSoft has plenty of company at the top of the dung heap. Let’s see who rivals MicroSoft for long-term just plain being douchebags. Immediate the people who invented the quarter pound butter wrapper. You know the one, that you cannot unwrap the stick of butter no how without touching it or letting it flip an extra time and miss the dish. That’s been around before the war. And it took federal legislation to put those bastards out of commission that were cranking up the commercials on late night TV. There has never been a scumbag shortage in America.

           Mind you, I also acknowledge that like the gangster era of 80 years ago, we also have another political situation that once more leads an entire generation with no real prospects of getting ahead unless they resort to crime. This time around, the crime is necessarily small-scale at the actual level theft takes place. You might say, crime has become digitalized. Instead of robbing you for thousand bucks, the new breed of criminal uses the system to steal a penny each from 100,000 people. It diminishes the chance of an individual pressing charges.

NIGHT
           Brainstorming session. The spring buying season is over and it was a disaster. As for whoever is buying up all the property in Lakeland, we now speculate it might be some government agency. I mean, who else has the money or inclination to buy 37 houses per week? And the talk is the Canadian loonie is about to plunge to 40 cents as the oil market stays below production costs. I calculate from Kitco pricing that Syncrude needs to sell for $83 per barrel to break even.
           So let me run that number. A loaf of bread will cost $15 loonies. You see, if the Frenchies quit coming back every year, the economy between Jupiter and Bal Harbor is doomed. That strip was precariously overdeveloped for tourism in the 1990s, but the number of Europeans has dwindled to, well, I’ve seen one this year. It is reliant on the stingy Canucks, who this year arrived in December and were leaving already weeks ago. I can tell you, they ain’t spending no $15 a loaf. Not with their own pending real estate bubble.
           It would be freaky if all of it happens at once, but the pressure is on. Ottawa has been bluffing the world for years that their dollar was “resource-backed”. They kept prices so high the world has switched to substitutes and no way Canada can survive as a service-based economy with the east bleeding the west dry. Canada is the soviet union of the west.
           Trivia. Texas requires that certain types of flasks used as regular equipment in chemistry labs be now registered with the government. Sadly, this ill-conceived “war on drugs” will result in a lack of trained chemists right when nanotech makes a breakthrough. I hypothesize making nanomaterial is too expensive, that chemicals will be manipulated to “grow” sheets of fabric or substrate.

ADDENDUM
           Here’s something controversial. The media is again misquoting Trump to say he’ll allow rich Muslims into the States. But in a real way, that makes sense. It is well known, at least around here, that in third world countries the major trajectory to getting rich is to adopt our American social values. (The American way is to hire people rather than tax them.) Ergo, the rich ones come pre-assimilated.


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March 30, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 30, 2015, their plastic jar of nickels.
Five years ago today: March 30, 2011, a you-know who won’t you-know.
Nine years ago today: March 30, 2007, now that’s a kickstand.
Random years ago today: March 30, 2013, concerning opportunity costs.

MORNING
           Here is part of a convoy of sugar cane harvesters on the move at dawn. You have to see the scale of these things to realize what a big operation sugar is in the Okeechobee area. This entire multi-billion dollar operation is privately owned and keeps itself off the media with an amazing degree of success. This scene is rough 66 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale, FL.

           Few things will pit you faster against the American system that trying to spend more than a few thousand dollars without signing a credit application. On top of that, you get the totally brainwashed real estate dead-heads. What, you only have half the money, why we’ll just sign you up for the other half and get you “approved”. Everybody wants to be “approved”, do they not? Why, there is no such thing as somebody who doesn’t want to be “approved”. By whom, they can’t say. largely because they have no clue. But they are certain with all the approving that has been going on lately, somebody must be in charge.

           And Trump surges on to victory after victory. The establishment created him and how they can’t control him. The tactics they use are the same politically correct blasphemy that would have worked on every insider candidate, now their only [remaining] hope is to use their brains, something they cannot even dream of accomplishing. There are few things more stupid than an educated politician. ("If you're stupid and you know it, clap your hands.") Maybe Trump is an idiot, but compared to the jerk-faces who are against him, he is pure business savvy. It’s an America about to vote for the lesser of many evils and it will be a tsunami for Trump. About to kick establishment ass, big time, Trump is going to trump the entire political arena.
           Trump needed only kick in the front door and the whole rotten structure came tumbling down.

           And the road system isn’t that much better. JZ was two hours late getting here and we were not in South Bay until 10:30AM. This time, we took the scenic route through La Belle and into Alva. That’s where that low-lying canal property is located (see y'day's evening segment). I’d called the real estate office to get the price, but got a recording. Sorry, I don’t do call-backs. Answer your phone or you lose.
           There was a nosy neighbor to the south, very political, Scottish accent. We pumped him for information, which JZ is not very good at doing at all. He’s easy to get off on a tangent, like I’m trying to find out what the asking price is, while JZ is suddenly fixated on whether or not he can burn trash in the back yard. In the 15 years I’ve known the guy, there has been no discussion of burning trash, but now it was a fantastic obsession.
           Now, this is the place I figured might be worth $8,000 at most. It is an old fishing shack, tarpapered over and rickety to boot. So, when the neighbor said the guy wanted $67,000 I was ready to leave. Between a major discussion on burning trash, I was able to pick out the reason for that astronomical price tag was this was the “only rural property left in the area”. Nonsense, the entire countryside over there is rural. I was later able to determine the property was bought two years ago for $34,000 and the seller, a real estate agent, was trying to double his money.

Wiki picture of the day.
Seattle, WA
NOON
“The more creative you are, the more things you notice.” ~ Various. Huh? What?
           Before long, we were inside the cottage near the Peace River. It’s in rough shape and needs a lot of work, but it is also plenty of space. The floor is uneven and the roof is sagging, but both sets of timber are in good, dry condition and repairable for anybody not too lazy to tackle the job. Best of all, it is livable immediately, which is a major plus for me at this stage. That’s a shot of JZ walking around the perimeter, he is not that impressed by the place. He keeps thinking I should buy a house, not a cottage, but remains a little vague about where I’m supposed to get that kind of money. (He still works for a living while I retired in 2005. Same age. But then, he likes fat girls and I don’t.)

           Thus, I put in the offer, and once again have all the documents signed and ready to go. The agent says they normally give a reply within 24 hours. And they have a preference for somebody to live in the building rather than commercial buyers who intend to flip it. Since it will take all my income for the next year to fix the place up, I had no problem signing an affidavit that I’d be living there myself. I wouldn’t have much choice.

           Then, we went for lunch at the same place I was Monday morning. And there was a new waitress, what a total knockout babe. I had to shackle JZ to his chair. I mean, this lady had legs that just did not quit. We then returned to the property when the agent was back at the office. I stopped a local gal passing by and got the real story of the premises. It was not a [marijuana] grow operation as I had suspected. Are you ready for this?
           Some old guy had two daughters and an adopted son. There was a good daughter and a bad daughter. When the old guy died, he passed the property on to the good daughter along with the remaining mortgage payments. Not being able to afford the place, the good daughter rented it to the adopted son for the mortgage payments. So he moved in and had seven kids. Unfortunately, the money he was paying to the good daughter, well, she wasn’t so good. She was pocketing it instead of making the mortgage payments. So 41 days ago, the bank repossessed the house. (And that was the good daughter, the bad daughter is in prison.)

           Only to find out the adopted son had done a lot of fairly Mickey Mouse renovations to the place, one of which led to a leak in the roof. That’s the soffit and sagging ridge line I had spotted, and inside it was also causing the ceiling to fall down in the kitchen. So it has been patched over, but I would still tear it down and replace the entire ceiling. After an hour of discussion, we decided that although the place needs work, it is inhabitable and all the repairs are items we can handle ourselves, including the needed fumigation. (JZ’s brother has one of those bug smoker gun things.)
           The fact we were looking garnered us a lot of attention from the street. That includes a blonde lady who rode her bicycle past twice, saying, ”Welcome, neighbors.” This fascinates JZ. But I want information. The neighbors to the south arrived recently from the Keys, getting out of South Florida for the same reason myself and most good people are. Across the street is a lady bank president. On the north, a mother and daughter who (I think) own a major antique business. And west, across the alley, the place has a huge backyard swimming pool.

           The building is situated on two already rather large lots, and part of that land is a completely fenced off private area to the rear north of the house. You could run a used car lot in there and have room to spare. For that matter, the antique lady asked if we were planning on using that space. I said I’d have to think about that. Whether or not I get this place, you can see how I’m getting closer every time. This trip, with two of us going directly there and back in one day means we only stopped twice for fuel and food, plus a couple of beers, means this trip cost a mere $59. It’s just 2-1/2 hours by cruise control and opens up the entire area, a welcome change to the rat-race of Miami.

NIGHT
           We stopped for late chow and headed back via the high speed route through Moore Haven, Clewiston, and arrived back here twelve hours after we left. If I get the place, it is the last major hurdle of my retirement. A place I own that cannot be taken away as long as I pay or attempt to pay the annual taxes. And they are a fraction of the $6,400 per year I’m wasting here in rent. JZ has a very difficult time with this concept, that I don’t want to buy a fancier place for the same money and pay the lower rent in that area. He seems unaware that rents never stay low. Mind has doubled in the past five years without severe inflation. If it doubles again, I can’t afford it.

           Here’s the dude standing under an old oak tree in the storybook village of Alva. It will soon be just a suburb of Cape Coral, but for now, it is a sleepy spot. Until further notice, it is just another Florida town where a single real estate company has bought up everything and is sitting and waiting. And as for whoever is buying all the houses in the Tampa-Orlando axis, I am now suspecting it could be some government agency.

           The only areas of contention are that we disagree over fixing a few of the uneven areas of the flooring, and he has some outlandish theory that the power company will refuse to connect the electric. Like the trash-burning just hours before, this comes right out of the blue. The fact is, the entire electric panel had been replaced to the demarcation point. This is the place that legally limits the liability of the supplier, so they have no beef connecting to that point. You’d think a construction-savvy dude like JZ would know that.

           I was all for staying up there a couple of days, but instead, we dropped into the Longhorn for a beer, then high-tailed it back here. Since I have the cash, if my offer is accepted, I could be up there for extended periods within the upcoming few days. I resented having to declare such things as my marital status and certain other personal details, but was able to get away by giving innocuous answers. This would be an interesting culmination to ten months of house-hunting, but let me clarify a few things.
           First, this was not my first choice. It is not mine yet. The idea is the compromise of having a cheap place now, so that it becomes possible to pounce on better deals in the near future. Prices will not stay the same once Trump is in, so if they plunge, I’ve still got a place that did not break the bank. Except for the roof line, I can do all the repairs myself. And the place is on a quiet crescent in a nice part of town. I will be very disappointed if I don’t get this one, but face it, I’ve been getting closer every time.
           And the price is a lot less than was paid for Wally’s Folly.

ADDENDUM
           So it is on record, I had one heck of a time getting any answers out of the real estate people on this property. I finally bought it from the fourth contact, because she had limited knowledge of the building. The first three seemed to very conveniently not know if anything was wrong or needed repair, yes, I know, then why in hell are they trying to sell the place. Also, I was led to believe that getting an inspection was contingent on showing proof of funds, which I ‘ve now learned is so untrue as to be nearly illegal. While the other did not say specifically I needed proof to inspect, they worded it so I believed the events had to happen nearly simultaneously. False, if a bank is the seller, they are obligated to show.
           And don’t finger-wag either. The people around on this deal, many of whom were born in Florida, didn’t know about this either. For now, the offer is in, I’ve got my detective novel, and I’m sleeping in the comfy chair tonight. Um, if this deal goes through, I’m going to have only $565 to last me until the first week of May. Mind you, things will rapidly pick up after that. Very rapidly.

           During the proof of funds chase-around, I find out that the reason they were so resistant to my cashier’s checks is fraud. Apparently in Sarasota last year, somebody had gotten hold of some real but blank cashier’s checks and ruined things for everybody. I got around this detail by making the check out to myself instead of the seller. And since I know my own check is good, I had no trouble “accepting” the funds, thus proving I had it. From the reaction of this wheeling and dealing, I once more got the impression I’m the only one left standing with any cash.
           This is not as advantageous as it sounds, since whoever is snapping up all the property to the north has a seemingly unlimited supply of credit. But they are also not ones to buy anything they have to work on. Only property they can flip. I’d probably do the same if I had the means. For now, this place needs a lot of work, but I’m not afraid of a lot of work. My plan always was to live in the back and fix up one room at a time.

           Keep checking back for details. This is still a maybe, but the closest maybe in the ten months since I started viewing places. This would be a good time to recap for the reader that although this blog is fictitious, it is Michener-style, that is, based on actual events. It would be foolish to apply anything here to actual persons or places. The fact-based part means very few things ever work out as planned. Such is with any property that I finally buy.
           This property is not a house, it is a summer cottage. It is 52 miles away from the nearest point I really wanted. But it is livable and in a nice area, walking distance from everything, and although it needs major work, that said work will handily triple the value of the place. It has been neglected for about 15 years. You’ll learn to love this place, considering I may get it for half-price. Soon I may be be concerned with finding out who the bad neighbor is. Every place has at least one. A good security system is a priority as the place will have a certain percentage of vacant time.


Last Laugh
This one dedicated to TV watchers everywhere.


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March 29, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 29, 2015, making too much sense.
Five years ago today: March 29, 2011, Windows 7/Vista sucks.
Nine years ago today: March 29, 2007, Jay-Jay, the sportsgoof.
Random years ago today: March 29, 2009, a trip in planning.

MORNING

           [Author’s note: I am still off kilter for the day, so the pictures in today’s journal are random shots of the trip to Arcadia on the weekend. It’s a rural setting, I saw one house only, so these are stock photos. You can see the sandy substrate of the big yard, and the fishing shack on the canal. If that shack is only five grand, I may pick it up as a hobby.]

           Where am I? It’s a good thing the scooter knows the way to the coffee shop. I’ve decided on some improvements and modifications to the cPod. While it was comfortable, I want another half foot of headroom and there were two things I had to contend with that are not present in South Florida. Fog and morning dew. I get this jet lag in batches, then I can go for months and be fine. It is vertigo, not dizziness, evidenced by my hobby of doing celestial calculations over morning coffee. Never confuse dizzy with dozy. And check back later, I think my new starter arrived.

           Nope, it did not arrive. I was still over there when a call came in from the property up north. Looks like we’ve figured out what was going on. Some over there are miffed, others are impressed. Actually, and this is off the record, I had just finished explaining the situation to all the police that get their motorcycles worked on the same place I do, and one of them looked up the real story on the place for me. I was right 90%, and in this life anything over 51% is good enough.
           JZ was on the horn within five minutes and unless something goes horribly wrong, we will be on the way to central Florida by this time tomorrow. We can repair rafter damage. This will be made the more expensive by the fact somebody tried to shingle over the damage. Asphalt shingles, as if that stuff could disguise structural damage. I must have mentioned that both JZ and I have truss building experience.
           Then I went to the Russian store and had brunch on garlic dills and made my own pork and paprika sandwiches. And counted the money. Yes, we have the cash if this one goes though. What a relief on my system if we get this place, since ownership frees up a lot of cash I won’t be wasting on this joint. This is a major move, but it’s been in the planning for years now. I’m not forgetting whenever this has happened before, I make it up so well that in no time at all, I’m back in a new city with lots to spare.

Wiki picture of the day.
Portland, Oregon.
NOON
           I’ve checked in with everybody in the chain of command to know exactly that I could be out of here by end of next month. But heads up. If my offer is accepted, I don’t have to move. Now or later. And I backed the $275 out of my former offer, making sure the seller understood the reason for that is because they had failed and/or neglected to give us factual information about the property, necessitating the expense to go see for myself.

           Over toast and coffee, I calculated the Sun’s position to within 2 nautical miles just now. I’m still weak on plotting, since I don’t have a nice big flat work area to spread out the sheets. This was a needed mental exercise, because despite 12 hours of sack time to early this morning to get back into local time, I keep thinking this is Wednesday. So I bought me a nice detective mystery book and I’m about to sit down under the air conditioner (89F out there today) and drink raspberry tea.

           Don’t we all hate those for-profit reverse telephone outfits that have squeezed out the free but perfectly adequate “white pages” . Especially that “Intelius” scum outfit that advertises under fifty different names. It is so obvious they are tracking the trackers but people must be falling for it. And that slimy Google chrome is forcing all other searches to be “compatible”. If I knew how to write search software, I would put something out there and adamantly refuse to comply with Google.
           So the book I’m reading is called “Swallowing Stones”, I find it an astonishingly realistic style. I’ll give away the plot, since it is unlikely any of you will ever read this book. A kid fires a rifle into the air on July 4th and the bullet kills a man shingling a roof a mile away. This is a recent book, since it mentions the kid’s fear of being questioned by the police because it would kill his chances of getting into a good college. And how even if it was an accident, he would be convicted of manslaughter. So he buries the rife in the back yard.
           The title is from the way the kid becomes paranoid of every accidental death. A few years earlier, a girl his age had died at the lake, where she and her girlfriend had been playing a game of picking up stones with their teeth. The one girl accidentally choked on a stone and there had been talk if she had swallowed it, she would have lived.

NIGHT
           A day indoors but I can’t beat this jet lag. You’ll probably notice a lag in reporting time until the episode with this latest house is over. There is a travel budget of several hundred dollars not even touched yet, so I would not mind if it becomes a bit of a real holiday. The woozy condition rarely bothers me on the trips, but waits until I get back. I’m stuck with it and NPR, Libtard radio. No matter what they say, Trump is a tidal wave and there ain’t a thing they can do. They’ve preached for years about these changes but are now stuck with somebody who has a good chance of doing more than talking about it.

           I pondered the plan of slapping a 35% tariff on Ford and Carrier and Nabisco. That’s one of the conundrums forming a staple of macroeconomics. If the tariff is charged, the company cannot stay in business long without passing the full cost of the tariff on to the customer. This makes the product uncompetitive unless a similar tariff is charged on all similar products, again an increase in the cost of the product.

           However, the other side of the coin is that if the manufacture was not done overseas, then the company would have used American labor and the resulting rise in cost would likely be similar. I don’t believe, as Trump states, that these companies maliciously closed down their American operations. They probably took a solid and sober look at the costs of foreign labor and realized they could not compete with the Walmart formula.
           The solution? Raise the tariff on imported products to match the prices of domestic production. This smacks of regulated monopoly, because it gives local producers a bit of a free hand to raise their prices knowing the competition can’t undercut them by much. Either way it goes, America is headed for a terrible round of inflation. Prices have been artificially kept low for decades by the importation of “cheap Chinese junk” while our own labor force became less efficient and more “service” oriented.

           I think if left alone without having the government allowing the flood of cheap labor across the southern border, by now American average hourly pay would probably be in the $40 per hour range. That’s a guess, with semi-skilled prices touching on $60 per hour. But that labor force would necessarily be highly efficient in order to keep those jobs—and as a result the individual product would not be that much more expensive. The plants would keep re-tooling and automating to stay economical.
           As it is, my experience is with a unionized atmosphere. Yes, I worked in a union, just like Frank Roosevelt said to do. Unions are not concerned with efficiency and had many policies that I disagreed with. I won’t go over any examples, but once you get into the company, you find that the majority of the union “benefits” are not equally beneficial to all and, importantly, are least beneficial to single white males. You’ll quickly conclude that you are not getting the annual raises you deserve because the company is full of soccer moms demanding equal pay.

           It was not with sexism that I used to remark how I agreed with equal pay—that any man doing a woman’s job should have his pay cut back to their level. I was being sarcastically realistic about the facts. I was there, you were not. I was many times more productive than most of my co-workers of either sex, but we all were paid the same. You could look it up in the shop manual, $28.67 per hour in 1995. Part of my performance was explainable because I never called in sick, never had bad days, never needed time off, and continually got better at things. There is nothing sexist at all about who did the better job.
           Um, there is something I can add that isn’t so nice. Just like my family when I grew up, being mediocre was not a comfortable thing around me because it invites so much comparison. You might say it can be hell on a lazy person to be my brother or pull a shift with me on in the repair department. It’s going to become obvious to the world if even one shortcut has been taken. Of course, the company was prevented by the union from acting on it, but only the deaf and blind would not be aware. And Patsie. Patsie and Wallace. They’d convince themselves they were just as good as I was, fooling only themselves.

           [Author’s note: this is where I get to say, in a rare chance to borrow from Mr. Trump, without being braggadocious, the company did have to hire eight people to replace me. The department staffing went from 18 to 26 people to cover the same total amount of work once I left].

           And job performance or not, there was also the aspect of money management. You cannot get around this one, I am a top level money manager. Everyone made the same as me, but I did the best. I drove a Cadillac, lived in a mansion on the south slopes, took twelve vacations per year, and ran a very lucrative payday advance scheme on company time, often doubling my income on seasonal holidays. I was the moneybags, running the office lottery, and paying cash for everything. It was well known I did not have or need a credit card.
           I also played in a band that I had created and at one stretch, banked my paychecks for three years running. (I had nearly $200,000 cash in my savings account.) That was before direct deposit and I often had several uncashed checks waiting for a chance to get to the bank. Yet, I went out every night, never missed a party, dated only the nicest of women, and a host of other telltale signals that used to really irk others of a certain disposition. Yeah, the disposition of my family, if you must be reminded.
           Show me your union card, and sure, I’ll lend you a hundred bucks till payday. Those were the days.


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March 28, 2016

March 28, 2016 Monday
Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 28, 2015, they insist . . .
Five years ago today: March 28, 2011, liberating your neighbors . . .
Nine years ago today: March 28, 2007, I never got paid.
Random years ago today: March 28, 2013, moaner-droner-groaner . . .

MORNING
           And it is another jet-lag good morning to you. I had a completely restful night at the Walmart campgrounds, between to RVs. I have a habit of relocating before store hours, but I slept in until 6:30 today. My usual symptom is vertigo and I had trouble walking across the parking lot. My head felt like it was seven feet off the ground, a classic indicator I’ve had life-long. What a dire affliction for someone who likes so much to travel.

           I made it into downtown for breakfast at the local diner, where a complete hush went over the place when I walked in. Normally, I would have made some kind of gesture to liven things up, but I headed straight for the stool nearest the coffee machine. I could not believe how queasy I got just crossing the street.
But two coffees and my B&G (1/2 order of biscuits and gravy) found me sort of half back on this planet. The restaurant is under those two lights atop the sidecar in the photo. There is no sign, hey, don’t need one in these small towns. You’re supposed to know already where everything is at.
           Just in time to find out the library is closed on Mondays. Okay, so I zipped out to the Peace River park for a morning nap, only to discover my starter has finally given out. It is too easy for the reader to forget I view these breakdowns on the road as part of the adventure. I knew what I was getting into years ago when I bought a 30 year old motorcycle. A quick push start, another tour of the town, and I headed back. Total cost of this trip, less than $60.

           Here’s another shot of the place I looked at, with the sidecar slouched in the driveway. The lot is sand soil, unsuitable for either a hedge or a lawn. The whole neighborhood is has the same terrain, that bald spots are the summer sun burning away any vegetation that might get a toehold. Alas, I won’t live long enough to plant shade trees.
           I met quite a number of people this trip, including a couple who had just moved here sight unseen directly from Illinois. That’s how I found Florida, I just got tired of the cold weather one day and started driving. I had planned to stay a few days and even a quick trip up to Zephyrhills to say I’d been there, but that starter is and electrical problem and I’ll err on the side of caution.
           There are police everywhere in Arcadia. I think maybe there is a training academy nearby. I found there is yet another prison, on the road to Ona. I drove five miles out and back on all the main road leading in and out of town. It was strange to see road crews of prison inmates cleaning the ditches. Five or six inmates and eight or ten policemen. Doesn’t seem like an economical way of tidying the roadsides.

Wiki picture of the day.
Buffalo Bill.
NOON
           Having no schedule, I took the Babcock turnoff and went through the wilderness area. It doesn’t match the big forests of the west, but for Florida, it was rugged. The existing maps of the area a inaccurate, I wound up halfway back to Clewiston before noticing the sun was behind the wrong clouds. I doubled back and presently found I was on that same road Wallace and I had gone to see the alligator wrestling. The whole outback was virtually uninhabited, I averaged maybe 25 miles per hour, stopping only for gas and a pint of milk. And a push start from some passersby.

           Hold your nose for this photo. I could really have zoomed in but I’ll be nice. After all, I’m the one who was queasy this morning. Dead alligators turn upside down, and as you see, it was Easter dinner for a flock of turkey vultures. I picked up the aroma a mile away, this was one of two seen on this trip, both on the Cypress Indian reservation.
           As I neared Alligator Alley, I realized I’d been puttering along for over six hours, so I cranked up the speed and was back in Hollywood by 3:30. Directly to the motorcycle shop where they confirmed it is the started gone kaput. The replacement was ordered ten days ago, so how’s that for good timing, guys?

           It seems longer, but you know all this intensive house-hunting has only been going on for nine months, including a three month delay late last year. I’m so used to riding the batbike down country lanes I don’t even really use road maps any more. Was this trip a success? I can’t be sure, but it was nice to find that area around Alva and it was a great driving holiday. I’ll wait a day or two before making any decisions on the property, but there would be parking for sixteen or twenty cars if you ever had to hoist a reunion.
           And as stated, it was ideal motorcycle weather stop to finish.

NIGHT
           Jet lag found me again as I walked in the door. Zonk, I was out for four hours and now I keep glancing outside at sunset expecting to see sunrise. Okay, who spiked my coffee? Seriously, gang, this has followed me all my life, I get can get seasick on a ferry crossing. But counterbalancing it all is my absolute tolerance for all food. I never get tummy-aches unless it is a virus. Food everywhere agrees with me. Sorry, I can’t report any feasts on this trip as my appetite didn’t follow along. Oh, I just remembered, I had one of the grilled hot dogs at Burger King. Not bad, but just a hot dog.

           Here’s the old electrical panel from the house, I found it stashed behind the shrubbery. Until otherwise proven, I regard this house as a drug growing den, then the big bust. This also means the agency could be highly motivated to move the property. I’ll judiciously await for the real estate lady to reply to the information I sent her about the conditions I found things.
           I know they can only convey my offer to the seller, but if there is even a chance her telling them I have become aware of the circumstances, well, it only takes one bureaucrat up the chain of command to panic and say dump the property now.

           The house has two fireplaces, both of which seem functional, if dirty. For those who don’t know Florida, Arcadia is south of the frost line, a requirement for orange groves. You don’t really need any heat, but you do just fifty miles north, near Bartow. Or is it even that far? Ah, the wonders of the Internet; let me look that up. Arcadia to Bartow, how about that, exactly fifty miles. Well, when you drive a motorcycle, you drive every one of those miles.
           And let the record show of the $60 cost of this trip, $11 of it was for anti-freeze. I spent an additional $32 for entertainment, but that does not show as travel costs. The treat was finding these excellent areas on the outskirts of the west coast cities. I must drive through there again. These may seem off the beaten path, but at the same time, the Florida Atlantic coast can be a real disappointment to all but easily impressionable tourists. Seriously. The Florida east coast is all hype. Old people hype. If I live to be 100, I still don’t like beaches full of old people. It’s yucky.


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March 27, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 27, 2015, first photo, new truck.
Five years ago today: March 27, 2011, Europe rejects Google.
Nine years ago today: March 27, 2007, the decimal comma.
Random years ago today: March 27, 2010, Hallandale’s first school.

MORNING
           The starter is acting up, the sidecar tire still has a slow leak, it’s running warm, and the new clutch cable has not been adjusted. But never one to back down from adventure, mid-morning found me just west of Clewiston. You know that fancy overpass that replaced the stop signs? Well, today I thought I’d see for myself what is down that road. The sign says Ft. Meyers, but that is not where I’m going today. Get your atlas.

           Welcome to Hendry county. There’s a small imaginary band of undeveloped territory that haphazardly divides Florida into east and west, but by less than 30 miles anywhere. In this case, the pavement worsened and narrowed to two lanes. If you’ve driven the freeways, which most people do, you get the impression this is an uninhabited wilderness. Not so.
           Not that long ago, it was major business shipping through the Lake Okeechobee canal. That’s gone, but the farming community remains, and it is predominantly beef country. And rich. Every ranch is a multi-million dollar operation, with names like “Serengeti”. You know there’ll be no roadside fruit stands in a stretch where the even the farms have names.

           I tanked up in La Belle, one of dozens of formerly canal-side towns, now completely in the clutches of an historical preservation society. So you get picture-perfect mansions leaning to one side because nobody local has the cash to restore it. Years ago, in my twenties, I worked at a mill with a ratty little broad with the surname Hendry and beyond that I have no idea why I’ve never driven through this beautiful area before.

           It is too far out to be on my list, but all is price-dependent. I crossed the canal via drawbridge at a place called Alva. There I quickly found old Highway 78, so knowing where I was, sort of, I toured the town. Pretty sleep little community, nearest town in Ft. Meyers and Cape Coral. There are a number of old “fishing shacks” for sale and I looked closely at several, including this one. Now, because of that sticking starter, I left the bike running and in this picture, it began to overheat. Where am I going to find radiator fluid on Nowheresville on Easter Sunday?
           Just look at those shade trees, this place was one of those added onto and added onto cabins, I’ll phone for the price. Yes, for $5,000 I’d live there. You can make a lot of trips into town with the $30,000 you don’t spend. I cruised the old Highway 78, where just west of town I passed a convoy of around 70 motorcyclists out for a drive. The day was glorious motorcycle weather and I got thumbs up from the whole crowd. Folks, I just drove past two million dollars of motorcycles, easy.

           Pressing on, I go lucky and found a convenience store at the Highway 38 junction, north of Olga. And they had fluid on sale for ten bucks a gallon. The heating problem was solved by only a cupful and I was quickly northbound on the last leg into Arcadia. The map says the route passes through Babcock, where there is nothing but an intersection. What’s with that? I know, I know!
           Apparently Babcock was the name of an historical ranch that reverted to the public or something an is now a wilderness area. Ah, here’s the Wiki on it, ‘twas the Babcocks of Pittsburg, bought themselves 73,000 acres so they could go fishing, which apparently never happened. There was some lumbering, but the area is mostly a mix of wet and dry prairie.


          Trent has also been touring the area, including Lake Wales and Haines city this last week. He likes the easier pace of life. I hastily called him about the area around Olga and Alva to make sure he includes that. Both places are around the same travel distance from here, but those little towns along the old canal are hard to beat for scenery. Don’t make any decisions until you’ve seen both places. That, and I can’t really find any reason for Lake Wales even existing. It isn’t the rural area setting, because that is adequately served by other nearby cities.

Wiki picture of the day.
Icelandic power plant (geothermal).
NOON
Just past lunchtime I pulled into Arcadia, the city that started it all (July 15, 2015). This is the location we arbitrarily chose to attend a house auction last year. Where we found out about cashier’s checks, fake auction sales, and fed the squirrels on the Peace River. This is the city that claims to have invented the rodeo, depicted by this mural, a must for all touristy types as a photo op. It’s also a classic of the new cPod camper and completely digital lighting system, this was actually taken just before sun-up the following day.

           I found the property I was interested in on the first try and it was immediately obvious what was wrong with the place. The roof is damaged and somebody tried to just shingle it over. We learned from the big Punta Gorda trip of August 6, 2015 to immediately distrust a real estate agent that says they have not personally seen the property, so “don’t know” if there is anything wrong with it.
           That was the line of the slimeball who tried to hide behind “due diligence” about the house that had no water service. Remember that joker. He insisted he was not lying when he said the place was inhabitable. All you had to do was dig a well first. Ethics is not a big part of the Florida real estate trade. Arcadia is a small town and for the lady to say she did not know anything about the place was despicable.

           I snapped 172 pictures of the damage and e-mailed them to her, you know, to help her out about saying she had no idea if the place had anything wrong. Then, realizing I had skipped breakfast and had nothing but a coffee at the Okeechobee Inn back in South Bay, I found myself a local Burger King. They had no coffee, the gal at the counter explained that, believe it or not, nobody had ever asked for coffee before. She explained all the staff had training on how to make it as part of Burger King training. If she made it herself, would I taste it to see if she did it right. Yep, it was delicious, and no, it is not easy because I know places that do a terrible job of it.
           Since she also gave me free cookies and mentioned she was off work in an hour, I stayed put and went over my photos. I also went over to her place for the afternoon, but this is a family blog. To those who say it is PG, hey, I said family, not dysfunctional family, Patsie. For all you know, I just had a shower there to get off the road grit and we had tea.

           Shown here, you can see where the roof line is uneven. I followed the water path down to a patched over opening in the soffit just above that small bathroom window. You can make out how the read of the house was added on in later years, and then the whole shebang covered over with that siding. However, this is very typical of budget Florida housing. This is not the Babcock Ranch, you know. This is a distorted iCool picture, they probably think this is normal.
           I’ve determined it is damage that we could repair, but I still want JZ’s opinion on all of it. There is a room in the attic which, if you go back to noon on the 23rd, you can see there is a beam in the middle of the floor propping up the ceiling. Again, this is nothing we cannot fix, considering the remainder of the structure seems to be in reasonable shape. There is also an unfinished rear deck.

           The yard is big, two city lots, but it is also weird shaped and the house sits where it prevents subdivision unless the house is torn down. The rooms are large, so if JZ says we can repair that roof, I will keep my offer at 55% and not budge. As the place is located in the rather more desirable north east end, it will already have been rejected by quite a number of flippers. Saying goodbye to my new lady friend, I located the library, then toured the entire south-east end of the city. Little Mexico. The city limits don’t go very far into that area, and beyond that is a large area of low-lying land full of old houses. More like sharecropper houses, but not rickety.
           Trivia. Much of the Leaning Tower of Pizza lacks guard rails. Over 260 have fallen to death out of it. Don’t panic, Ken, it has been closed to the public for over 25 years.

NIGHT
           Here’s a picture of the view into the front window, the flooring has been replaced, another hint of water damage, this time, a grow operation. When they water the marijuana plants, there is always spillage and the aroma is rather distinct. Hey, I lived in Seattle long enough to know exactly how this goes. But, if you squint, you can see the flooring job has been done very professionally. The place has potential.

           Last time JZ and I were in town, we had a heck of a time finding a place to have a nightcap. We went to the Rattler, that’s the joint where the 300 pound door lady came after me when I paid the cover charge with a c-note. Since it was early, I went around a found all the drinking spots, kind an orientation session. There are only three in town, so I stopped again at the Rattler. It was empty and about to close, but the bartender was talkative.
           And he knew the area, so I got the inside tales from the trailer court all about Arcadia. Also, he mentioned he had sung in a barbershop quartet. Other customers trickled in over the hour, so I put a couple bucks in the juke box and told the bartender to harmonize with he. Damn, the guy has talent. He can to the third above, either to me or the jukebox, or the fourth below, a harmony note that I just cannot fathom. Before long, we were the entertainment. A small crowd filtered in and stayed.
           He is also the guy who hires the bands but the venue is wrong for any duo I could put together. I left and found the other two spots, stopping for a beer in each. I have misgivings about a three-saloon town with JZ in tow. The agreement is, finally, that he will stay six months, or rather up to six months, in a small town before he sells his condo and moves to one.
           And it took a lot of near-argument to get that concession. It’s simple, he’s finally realized that nothing is ever going to happen if he stays put in Miami the rest of his life. Miami has been going steadily downhill since 1990. It is not the fun tourist destination still plugged in the travel mags. The Cubans have turned it into a shit hole, and that is not my opinion so don’t lecture me until you go there and see it for yourself.

ADDENDUM
           Two mysteries cleared up. First, the missing nautical Almanac. My black travel case has a hidden pocket. No, I did not spot the weight difference, because the case permanently contains a complete duplicate set of my toiletries, plant and animal reference books, lots of maps, and a backup set of chargers, batteries, adapters, and sunscreen. I went to open the case upside down, and lo, there’s my Almanac. The sun was in eastern Kenya at the time.
           And Cowboy Mike called. He is still in town, all he did was move his fifth wheel trailer to the establishment next door. We’ll be getting together over coffee soon, as he finally got rid of that disk recording system and invested in a Tascam with secure date (SD) cards. Of course the conversation will center on music, but there is some sad news.
           Like so many, Mike says he retired with what he thought was plenty of cash. He is now about the twentieth acquaintance who has told me about this. You see, people around me are starting to retire, but without the ten or twelve years practice I have. Nothing but hard reality can teach the money management skills, and it is no surprise that in the long run, I’m the one coming out ahead. Mike decided to go back to work. He’s still with the airboat company and he won’t say, but I’ve heard that outfit runs you ragged.
           Now be clear about this, Mike did not make any mistakes and he is not a spendthrift. He is conservative in his manners and outlook. But folks, when you retire, it is not how much you have, but whether or not you are situated so you will always have a small income that you can tweak to match inflation. That is why I want those extra bedrooms in the house I buy. Mike now reports what so many of my contemporaries are saying. Even having a few hundred grand tucked away is no longer enough to retire. You need a small but reliable income and the money management skills of an Ebenezer Scrooge.
           Or, you could just have listened to me all along, Wallace and Theresa. Then it would be you making these house-buying trips. Instead of sitting wherever you are stewing in your own juice. Serves you right. Let me give the two of you some advice. If you want to be con artists, the first requirement is that you have to be smarter than your quarry.


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March 26, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 26, 2015, Sony and Angel Falls.
Five years ago today: March 26, 2011, the photo is posed.
Nine years ago today: March 26, 2007, Florida, the moron state.
Random years ago today: March 26, 2008, retirement ain’t worth it.

MORNING
           My, aren’t we up early? 4:49AM. It would be nice to get that clutch cable fitted today. I can live without the new starter. There are several ways to start the sidecar without the fancy parts, including running a cable forward from the cPod. I can explain [being awake at] the early hour because I didn’t go out for coffee last evening. I usually have an order of toast, sigh, muffins are a thing of the past. Anyway, by middle of the night I was famished and here we are. Wondering when I’ll get that cable happening and this blog can get back to the high adventure of open road travel.

           Here’s a picture of a flat tire on the sidecar. Why does it get the headline today? Unusuality, that’s why. Statistically, only one American in 16,000,000 (sixteen million) will ever, in his lifetime, see a sidecar with a flat tire. So this is your big chance to be unique among your peers.

           [Author’s note: this sidecar flat tire is a separate issue from the clutch cable. That cable repair was successful and you can read about it in the Addendum. ]

           I’ve discovered a quirk in the sidecar design. The tire is on a spoked wheel, which is fine except same as a spoked bicycle rim, it is never quite round or quite straight. Hence, a slight nudge from a curb or even a swift kick can break the bead. The older the tire, the more it goes a little brittle and doesn’t like to flex with the rim. It’s apparent when the rig begins to pull to the right, but pro drivers will instantly fly the chair slightly off the ground all the way to an air pump. I went past pedestrians today who saw the sidecar but did not notice the wheel wasn’t turning. Ta-da!
           And after a day of rain, the next day it is 97F out there and I don’t feel like fixing a flat. Of course, there is no shade in the front yard and I can’t use the back because the last Frenchie is leaving and needs the space to pack up. This just has not been my day. Only one thing to do. Take the scooter to the Aventura library and bask in the government air conditioning.

           The Wiki picture of the day is a dying commodity. I initially tried to link to the articles, but they were not all compatible with this blog, so you get just the pictures. Anyone who reads a lot of Wiki has spotted the tendency toward truth by majority rules. Put another way, that means truth by whomever conducted the most successful propaganda campaign. Wiki insists on too many versions that long been disproven, but as for the link, only one picture in 17 is blogworthy.
           It is the same old story, that author or photography starts off with a big idea, but can’t sustain it, and before long the pictures reduce to his lowest common denominator. One may rightly ask the question of whether it is even possible to produce a non-news, non-porno, non-political blog over a period of years and still keep up with material fresh enough to hold anyone’s interest long-term. I suspect I will be out of Wiki pictures that make the grade before the end of this year.

Wiki picture of the day.
South Dakota, 1936.
NOON

           “Compliment women on their intelligence, not on their looks.” ~ Me, I said that.

           So one of the Frenchies threw out some small drawers, which I grabbed to salvage for the wood panels. I figured I’d just chisel apart the pieces but when I hit the first one, son-of-a-gun, this isn’t laminate or glued up. What a score. The panels appear to be shaped out of solid 5/8” red alder (I’m no expert). I matched the grain and color to some on-line charts. They are too thin for whirlagigs, but I’ll find something nice to make with this. I wish I knew how to make dovetail boxes and such.

           What’s this, the anti-Trump crowd have been saying for a while that there is plenty of time left to find something on Trump. To dig up some dirt, or conduct a smear campaign. Ah, but they seem to have forgotten that process works two ways. Seems Lyin’ Ted has had his hand in the cookie jar a time or two, and the Donald didn’t have to do a thing. Sweet.
           I know little of the politics going on, but I certainly know the mannerisms, expressions, and inflections of a professional liar when I encounter one. And this Ted and Hillary reek to high heaven. Again, I know zero politics, but I would not sit next to these types of people at the local saloon. Whereas this Trump guy, after one beer, he’d hire me as vice president. That, you know, fits my philosophy of never being the top guy. Be a little down the chain of command, but be the real power while somebody else takes the heat.
           So to be somewhat fair, I listened to a speech by this Sanders guy. There’s your personification of the old school hard line say-anything-to-get-elected type that will do nothing if he gets in. These sort always see politics as not solving problems, but “addressing” them as an on-going way of life. He has that measured tone perfected by countless bureaucrats but he ruins his own chances by over-criticizing Trump. Example, Sanders says Trump will never be president because the people will not vote for anyone who insults Mexicans.

           This is your typical political double-talk. He never actually said Trump did the insulting, or showed that what Trump said was false. Instead, Sanders made a direct appeal to the lowest mentality of voters, those who instantly associate Trump with “insult Mexicans”, which Sanders knows is not true, but he’s counting on the segment of the electorate that thinks it is. And it is twisted double-talk, because the people who do vote for Trump will still not be voting for anyone who insults Mexicans.
           I listened to the old guy for nearly a half-hour before I fell asleep. Bernie is too politically correct to ever be a serious contender in a world of terrorism, feminism, and narrow self-serving agendas. Even if Trump insulted ten women who desperately needed it, that is not the same as insulting women in general. Plus, Bernie, there is something that needs explaining to you. Trump is not a career politician. So what he said or did before he became one is not as relevant as you would like it to be. You don’t seem to realize how trite you sound by bringing up Trump’s past when he had no intention of being politically correct.
           The average American now realizes full well that if either of the parties had been able to come up with a viable candidate, Trump would never have entered the race. Funny how none of the candidates argues the point when Trump calls them do-nothings and lightweights. But the real self-inflicted wound of the other candidates is the millions they’ve spent, not on getting elected, rather on trying to find that one accusation they can make that will bring down the Donald. Not prove anything, just be the one to make the accusation. We are curious why they are not bellowing the Hitler comparisons.

NIGHT
           It took until after dusk, but the sidecar flat is fixed—I think. I say that because I won’t really know until the morning. I used the spray goop, which is ten bucks a can now, you know. That’s tripled since I’ve owned the motorcycle. What I would like is to one day go through everything I own here and find all the missing pieces and parts that I can never find when I need them. Because I don’t have adequate storage and I wind up stashing things where they’ll fit, and forgetting them. Then like today, I had to make a special trip to buy #10 metric nuts, even though I know there is a package of them around here somewhere.

           You can see the gathering shadows in this picture, whew she was a warm one today. I had to wait till the day burned away. You may also notice all the proper safety gear and procedures, including the rinse bucket in case of any spills. That tire goop is no longer flammable, so who knows what kind of chemical it could be now.

           It was now too late to go out, even for coffee, so a quiet Saturday at home. It comes to this sooner or later for everyone. While I don’t go touring on Fridays, Saturdays were always a party day. I don’t think I missed a single Saturday for decades at a stretch. It’s not lack of gumption, but that I’d go out in an instant if I knew where there was a nice place to go.
           Which broaches the question, what would I consider nice? A club with a small country band, no cover charge, no sports TV or obnoxious sports fans, female staff that doesn’t hover, and fair prices. Sure, the old Jimbos was a dive, but it had all those things and thus it was also a safe place for single women to show up. Also true, some of those women were a little too single but you did get the occasional gem. Which never happens anywhere else I’ve found in this arena. Yes,even at my age, meeting women remains an important aspect of a successful evening.

ADDENDUM
           The clutch cable repair. Except for the way it is threaded through the frame, it’s straightforward. Here’s the photos, I got it right the first time. Allow an hour for this job, more if you are not mechanically inclined. I’m not, but building robots is not a game for mental midgets. If you look in the lower right photo, you’ll see the string tied to the front tire. This was to pull the old cable out and to pull the new one in via exactly the same path.

There’s an ancient Chinese saying that to build robots, you can be crazy, but you can’t be stupid.
           Notice the job was done with the assistance of my sparkling new magnetic parts holder. Okay, so there were only two parts, but you see, I also got to use my custom made “ice pick”, consisting mainly of a sharpened bicycle spoke. The rest, you can see, it has to do with figuring out the cable is not really attached to the motorcycle. Rather, it “floats” between the two end brackets.

           Now listen up. Last day I described how I drove the last five miles home with no clutch. I think I need to tell people not to try this. It is bloody dangerous. I did it because it was late, there was little traffic, I knew the shortcuts, and the stop light patterns. I could have been in big trouble if I’d hit a red light along the way. I did run a flashing red. So I’m saying, don’t try this at home.
           I find out later this kind of driving is called “cramming”, as in cramming it into gear. However, I did not know that when the cable snapped and take full credit for figuring out the solution that got me back to base. But I’m recommending that you do NOT even try such a thing.
           And I had reported on the high quality of the replacement cable. This turned out to be an illusion caused by fancy rubber sheaths on the new part that were missing from the old. The cables were otherwise identical.

           As for Google removing your option to cancel counting your own blog visits, there is more to the story. It turns out the feature worked by adding a “cookie blocker” to your browser. Note, that if you worked on your blog from more than one browser, you would have to activate the feature on each browser. Well, it turns out people were doing just that, and the blocker was persistent. It stayed in place even when you were not working on your blog, preventing Google from tracking all your usage. And, as you know, Google is not going to put up with that kind of nonsense. Everything you do on line is their business and they have a God-given right to record it.


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