March 16, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 16, 2015, fear of being average.
Five years ago today: March 16, 2011, IRS hates gift cards.
Nine years ago today: March 16, 2007, the mayor said ok.
Random years ago today: March 16, 2008, old men & instruction manuals.

MORNING
           And another annual checkup says I’m fine. What, another checkup. Yes, you see, I have three different parties. My doc, my cardio, and that fancy cholesterol study. So it only seems like I’m always getting tests. For the record, I am on the weakest dosage of all the meds I take. Good news on these tests means a stop at the Taft Café for a single meal how it used to be. About 1200 calories and all the trimmings listed on the bad side of the charts. I figure once every year I can chance it.

           It’s absolute perfect motorcycle weather and I was 44 miles around town this morning, eventually finding my way to Harbor Freight, where I closely examined their lathe, which I know so little about I’ve been calling it a milling machine. Here’s the grinning idiot video who goes on more about safety precautions than how to use the tool.

           Add another two hours on the phone, to triple-check everything. While waiting for return calls, I clicked on the youTube link NASA’s Suicide Mission To Mars 2015. (Video has been terminated.) There’s your epitome of sad, sad, Millennial grade docutainment. There is no suicide, unless you think robots are alive, and I don’t doubt there are some who do. The even sadder part is there must be enough people to mistake this kind of crap for real science that the job of producing this garbage continues to exist.
           Watch it for even a minute. Very little science, but heavy on the "emotional stress" of the NASA staff, like anybody gives a twit. It is no different than job stress anywhere, poor babies. These boring people mentioned their personal fear of failure 51 times before I couldn’t take it anymore and switched to a real science information video about the Namibian Desert. It so disgusts me to watch these NASA people with their NASA logos on their polo shirts taking longer to introduce each other than to present any new facts or discoveries. Do they really imagine nobody out here knows how important water is for life that they have to baby-talk us through it on every presentation?
           Time to wipe the slate clean and start over. It is evident NASA is populated by bureaucrats, not scientists.

Wiki picture of the day.
Methane lakes on Titan.
NOON
           Here’s part of the trip outbound. If you were expecting lots of commentary, I’m afraid this house thing happened morning of the second day and at bounced the travel news to second place. Here is a picture of something burning out near that plant south of Clewiston. It stinks up the entire countryside. I’ve seen this pillar of smoke in that same vicinity before, so consider it some type of controlled burn. Anyway, whoever is doing it needs to have their head slapped continually until they quit.

           Otherwise, you can see the fine motorcycle climate and the deteriorating condition of the roadways. These are often no more than paved over levees or sand piles between farmer fields. The erosion slowly cracks the pavement, shown here, and you’ll find stretches where shrubs are growing out on the roadway.

           I burned the midnight oil, but emits no toxic fumes. All is in place should I be the top bidder, a dollar well-spent. But let me tell you a few things first. The place was vacant for two years and the power is off. This is another example where the party that was renovating had to cancel out. The did, however replace the windows and they did one excellent job of it. Although I don’t care for their use of aluminum casings. There is water damage, but it appears to be four joists and one spot where a building add-on had a bad flashing job.
           And that electrical panel that was vandalized? I have an estimate. Three estimates, actually, which I will carefully read to determine what we can do ourselves. The bids range from $2,600 to $4,500, but of course, I will pay whatever I have to, won’t I? That is my retirement house. Compare with my lady friend who just spend $400,000 on a place that needed major work. As in replacing skylights and removing tree stumps.

           JZ and I will likely be ready to drive out same day, as he will be supplying the heavy labor. The idea is to quickly make the place inhabitable, which to me means water and electric. The outside of the structure does not require any work whatsoever. You would be correct in supposing I am assuming this could be the big one. So were a few people sitting on my doorstep when I got home. I will have no lack of assistance, I am not the only one who recognizes the potential of a place that size in a strategic location.

           Later, upon reviewing the breaker box estimates, we can supply a lot of our own materials and the basic labor. If I’m able to add correctly, it could be job that comes in as little as $1,400. That would be nice, but I’m getting way ahead of myself already. A close examination of the damaged box shows the thieves didn’t unscrew the breakers, they simply cut the wiring and left the stubs lying there. Hence, an idea may be to look at first finding out where all the wires go and determining if I can use the old robot trick of putting a smaller box piggyback to the main box and run shorter jumpers from there.
           The kitchen is stripped to the drywall except for these cabinets missing the countertops. This is not more damage, but rather the point where the last fixer-up types ran out of money. That’s a low priority for me, but not for JZ, who considers electricity more important that water service. Then again, I’ve lived for years without electricity and most people have not gone more than a few hours of power outage. Ha, JZ is also miffed that despite all the efforts and travels of the past eight months, more got done the one time I headed out by myself. I told him that was an illusion, this thing did not just land on my lap y’day.

NIGHT
           Such was the element of chance on this property that you could, in a sense, thank this broken headlamp. I was going to bypass the library and head north of the freeway to tour places like Zephyrhills and Gibsonia. Wiki and most other sources are useless for learning the character of these towns, they want everyone to think all US places are alike, you know, happy little communities. What, like Clewiston, where the atmosphere after dusk is clear out of here, Gringo, this is Mexican turf.

           I had doubled back to Wal*mart for this bulb and on return, the library was finally open. That’s when I went on-line to check if any of the “sold” properties had re-emerged. Guess what came to the top of the list?
           If you look closely, you may notice the pattern on the headlight glass is set at 45 degrees. Yes, this has been a bit of a problem with this motorcycle since new. The fairing was not available for this year, so it is adapted from a 1980 model. And this is the only way that the headlight retaining ring fits into the bracket.

           Now that I’ve spent a few days in the Lakeland area, I’m able to find my way around the nicer areas and not bother with the less than nice. The area was settled up to 100 years before anybody started building in the swamplands of Miami. Hence, you get a lot of massive farmhouses that have since become surrounded by a town or two. You would not notice it on a first drive-thru, but there are parts of Plant City that are like a storybook. The only thing better would be seeing some lusty milkmaid with a shoulder yoke.

           The location of interest here is rural, although it is the “most densely populated” rural area of Florida. That’s another reason I hope I get this, because it meets my limit of being walking distance to a city of at least 20,000. Though I doubt I would walk it, that isn’t the point. The local population is 2,500 and that is about the size of district I grew up in. And I managed to start a band under such conditions when I was twelve. Here is a stock photo of the boat landing and dock, just a few blocks from my door—if I get the place. And I think you can see why I would like that.

           This is so important around here that you’ll have to put up with a few days of wishful thinking, at least until that bank makes up its mind. I discovered that the last deal they accepted was not just a last minute cancelation, but a series of bounced checks, broken promises, and an outright screwjob. The buyer was trying to stall the bank by saying they had money, something I am hoping got the bank so frustrated that they are willing to prioritize my cash offer.

           I don’t listen to music out on the road, but I do often think through tunes in my head. This is not the same as idly humming along, which is more like imagining listening. I regularly modify the way I play a given piece of music by thinking of a better riff while doing this. And the tune that got the most treatment this time around was good old “Longest Time”, an a cappella number. And that’s what I’m going to do for an hour just to further unwind. It has been a hectic past 60 hours.

ADDENDUM
           The next four or five hours available, I ran the numbers on this purchase, should it occur. To nobody’s surprise, I’m on my own with this one. It’s probably just as well. All those people who said they would be there for you years ago, meant, of course, that was unless they had the day off and they had not promised their older brother they’d help clear out the shed. Last week. I’m fully on to who buys into that scenario and still expects full credit for lifting a finger. They represent the modified corn starch of the American system. And they love it.
           Back to the numbers.I’ll be drained to the limit until May if this flies. If anything goes wrong, I cannot conjure up another penny. Even with the budget, it will come within a few hundred dollars. But, once I’ve got the place, things will quickly tip back in my favor.

           Trivia. You know why Limburger cheese smells so bad? It is fermented (in part) by the same bacteria that cause body odor.


Last Laugh


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