April 1, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: April 1, 2015, buckwheat and brakes.
Five years ago today: April 1, 2011, music, robots, etc.
Nine years ago today: April 1, 2007, an extinct American concept.
Random years ago today: April 1, 2009, Fear River, N. Carolina.

MORNING
           You get lots to read today. It is too hot to work outside and I have to stay near the phone. I’m listening to NPR, so stick around for some bitter commentary on my part. You know, to remind everyone how much I hate Libtards, those subhumans who can only exist where other people are forced to pay the cost. Birdfeeder? Yeah, I like the little finches that live in my backyard tree, but when I put seed on the ground, the ugly pigeons sometimes show up. Like flies where there is manure and Libtards whenever there is tax money.

           Since I know everybody is waiting, here’s the news. I have not heard from the house people yet. This is not encouraging, since if they accept, they are known for giving a reply the following day. This is the second day. JZ gave me the rundown on his finances and although I do not dispense advice to family, I sometimes don’t know if he is talking about family. I’ve decided on my own that the guy needs a hobby. Now before anybody snickers and says this is trite advice, I’m going to say a few words about what I mean, connotatively.
           Darn rights I know plenty of people with a “hobby” that is a waste of time and money, and I don’t buy that line that it keeps them busy. Too many people use a hobby for that, so get it clear in your mind that is not what I’m talking about. A hobby should be both productive and mentally challenging, something you can’t say about golf, stamp collecting, or pub darts. Are we forming a better picture already? Because I count among my hobbies the study of robotics, celestial navigation, and electric bass. I built model airplanes as a child and grew out of it. Over 21, you don’t build kits, you design them. I won’t listen to anyone who thinks all hobbies are the same.

           Problem. JZ figures he is too old to take up anything in a meaningful way. Nonsense, the old you are, the better equipped you become to move fast into unfamiliar territory. You’ll waste less time covering the basics (exception is celestial navigation) and find that good hobbies, although not cheap, are a major bargain in one gigantic sense—they provide something to do besides go out when times are slow.

           So, I know he won’t try music, but let’s watch what he picks up. This could be hilarious, because the one time I showed him how to budget for a hobby, he ran for the hills. Why? Because he realized keeping track would reveal to himself just how much cash he was wasting on a daily basis to keep entertained without a hobby. This overlaps with a lecture I gave him three years ago that he was not spending enough time at home. Beautiful condo on Snapper Creek, marble tables, a galley-like kitchen, dining area with chandelier, and he won’t stay home a read a good book.

           True, staying home is behavior I laughed at until I myself was over 40, but I saw it coming. I made sure I had things to do. And right now, I think I’ll look into building a birdfeeder for $30 instead of buying the same thing at Wal*Mart for $12. Then, I’m checking the oil on everything I own that has it, then I’m going to bake chicken in tomatoes and vegetable sauce, then I’m going to take Morse Code for 15 minutes and 5 seconds, then I’m going to play “Momma Tried”, “Long-Haired Country Boy”, and all the Trisha Yearwood worth listening to.
           Compare to other people’s Fridays when they have no hobby. Here you can examine today’s oil change where you can see the spotless sparkling oil drop at the end of the dipstick. It never even gets a chance to get dirty. That is how you keep a vehicle on the road three times its lifespan. Shown also is the new muffler and the home made oil cooler air scoop. I removed the plastic “plate” that covered the underside of the scooter long ago. There was no chance of gravel damage, it blocked access for repair work, and cut down on air circulation. So off it went.

Wiki picture of the day.
Matterhorn.
NOON
           Forget the bird feeder I was going to build. I opted for a siesta, what a great concept. Except the apres-siesta requirement to get started again. Anyway, I was just going to practice some wood joints as I really want to learn how to make dovetails. It makes for fancy robots. You know, if you want to follow my primary source for easy woodworking with basic tools, go anywhere in this site. They can teach you how to cut anything in half and make bookends. It says nothing about getting permission first. My kind of site.

           NPR, actually I can’t carp because they got told off on the air. A few truly sharp callers were onto their journalistic tactics of tripping up or cutting off anyone who begins to get the upper hand or express any opinion that NPR has trained its people to disagree with. Uh-oh, you see thanks to Mr. Trump, the callers are far less sensitive to being labeled politically incorrect and often shove the DJ back. NPR had better retrain their staff in a hurry, but since they only hire indoctrinated Liberals, they’ve got themselves a rapidly worsening situation.
           The topic was real estate. Funny, isn’t it, how the people who don’t read this blog are just now beginning to catch on that the banks have been holding “middle class” properties off the market. They refuse to grant mortgages, so the only thing moving since 2006 is the high-end oceanfront and luxury pads being fueled by South American drug money. Cash deals.
           This blog can only cover the preliminaries but all attempts to upset supply and demand always backfire. While Miami’s population grows, the number of middle-class buyers has already dropped past the point of no return. Nobody has been building middle income homes in the area for a long time, so what is available has suffered ten years of neglect. Who wants to pay a half-million for a house they move into and have to start repairing?

           The laugh was how the NPR commentators kept getting bested by evidently knowledgeable phone-ins. They could pound back the NPR blabbermouths even when two or more tried to gang up. They kept cutting in on the caller saying thank you for calling where normally this would drop the call, but now they are being told to knock it off. “I’m not finished yet, Roger.” I love it. Even the old disk jockey last-chance fall-back argument that you “can’t judge all Blacks/Syrians/Latinos/Whatever by the actions of a few” is getting ever more flak and backtalk. It was hilarious.
           But you like this blog because of how it is accurate as to where things are going. And Miami real estate is so economically primitive a business that sure, I can tell you that. While it has not made the news in South Florida, soon you will begin to hear another round of “affordable housing” talks. All smoke and mirrors, same as New York.

           The “developers” have maxed out their properties and bribes. So they will start to push for those micro-apartments. You know, the 400 square foot one bedroom, where the shitter and the food counter are 18” apart. They’ll give us the sermon of lower costs for Millennials entering the workforce, blah-blah. In the end, no net improvement. Prices will not be lowered except at first. Once the organized capital gets an inch, they will quickly charge the same outrageous prices for tiny shitboxes crammed by the thousands into the tiny remaining open spaces left in the city core.
           There, could hardly be said better.

           [Author’s note: I call these tiny boxes “cubicle apartments” or just “cubes”. (In Canada, call them "igloos.) The entire concept is riciduous, I cannot be the only one who notices that people who live in confined spaces develop psychological defects far in excess of the norm--same as at the workplace. The fact that there is a “roommate finding service” for 260 square foot apartments in New York tells you those people are already crazy.
           Do the cubes cost less and become affordable to people who have already cut every corner? Hardly. One micro sold in late January for $630,000. Rents already average $2,640. So the first $30,000 you take home every year goes to rent.
           And some numbskulls are going to try this in Miami?]

           And while we are talking about the media, I’ve got a point to raise. When meeting a person like me who writes a blog like this, desist with the comparisons, please. After the first thousand posts, a real author gains understanding of what is out there. So I don’t believe anyone who says they have a blog like this one, much less any wild claims of readership in the six figure range. Bull. It doesn’t work that way. I know precisely what is required to acquire dedicated readership and I can instantly tell who does not have what it takes.
           I won’t recount the parameters. But there is no getting around the prime directive which is to create, not copy, some persuasive inducement for the reader to return. I’m dumbfounded by people who have zero original brainpower, who can’t keep a conversation going two minutes without mentioning drugs or beer, who haven’t read a book since grade school, yet who will tell me they have a blog with a hundred thousand plus followers. Even funnier, it is a blog I’ve never seen in the top lists that I scan regularly to see who is doing what.

AFTERNOON
           Trent called so we are getting together at the club after work. No doubt we’ll be talking more real estate. I am miffed by how Florida agents, who are legally bound to represent both parties, will lie when asked what is wrong with a place. The usual lie is they’ll say they don’t know. Hardly possible in a small town. But at least in Arcadia, they have not figured out we are using their little city to test my theories and learn the ropes.

           I propose a new term. “Occam’s Razor” is where when faced with a baffling situation, you opt for the simplest explanation that fits. My tender is the new phrase “Broward Haircut”, where when faced with any unknown, immediately opt for the most evil, malicious motives on the part of the other party. Anything you don’t understand, blame it on somebody else’s ulterior motives. Let’s try it, see how it works.

           There is a two-hour gap in the tale from the trailer court, and it was spent on the birdfeeder. What, you want heroics and feats of endurance? No way, you get birdfeeders. Like most other robotic projects, I’m more concerned with grasping the engineering than feeding any birds. Though I do like those little finches because the remind me of Memphis. The online schematics are really big on cutting a fancy groove to slide in the plexi-glass part of the seed holder. This pic is the birdfeeder frame, upside down with a weight as the glue dries.
           Groove my eye, I don’t even have any plexi-glass. But do you remember that flat screen TV thing Agt. M and I dismantled a year ago? It had all kinds of layers or plastic laminates and such. I happened to keep them and it turns out the material is drillable. So nix the grooves, I will simply screw the panels directly to the flat surface of the underlying structure. Woodworkers like to cut grooves just because they can. Maybe one day when I break down and buy a real table saw. Why, I’ll even learn about dados.
           This birdfeeder is designed to keep away the pigeons (or larger) and allow only two finches to alight at a time. Maybe see if we can attract Orange-Beak, if she is still around. You know about Nature, red in tooth and claw. This birdfeeder is not an afternoon project unless you are very good at hammering small nails. My version is glued, which requires a lot of hours between stages.

NIGHT
           At the club until 10:00PM, it was a guy’s night out. The worthwhile woman count was zippo, the music was jukebox pseudo-rap, the place was short-staffed again. I told you, the old formula works. The cheapest beer in town and hire only sexy waitresses. The place went from total dive to only semi-dive in a years. At any given time, there are 15 to 18 married men in the place, plus the 1:6 standard ratio of hookers. What? Explain that ratio? Can’t, except to say I learned it at the phone company. Six married men, one hooker.
           The place is a watering hole, nothing else. And of Fridays, the first working class hero who can get in there is going to put $60 in the jukebox and play Millennial loser music for you all night. Because he knows if you get those tribal beats pounded into your brain long enough, you’ll become as stupid as he is and when there’s enough of you, it begets a bigger selection of hookers.
           See, I told you the Broward Haircut was the way to go.

ADDENDUM
           Quarterly review. Gee, April 1 and it is done already. Well because, guys, all I have to do is push a button. It’s the little expenses that kill you, so I’ve been keeping track extra to find out what I’m really spending. I’m not giving you the whole picture. Only what I find interesting. Since the bakery left, I spend nearly half as much on coffee as I do on groceries ($53.24 vs. $123.15). These are 3-month averages, not exact amounts.
           My gas bill, thanks to house-hunting, has increased six-fold since January, and the sidecar gets around the same gas mileage as the truck. I spend $50 more per month in restaurants that I do on groceries, but face it, I eat pretty darn well. But the figure most men will find a surprise is that my total average monthly cost of “going out” is just $228.50. Most of that would be dropping into the club after a hot day on average three times per week, my average tab is $11.50. I often buy for the ladies and play the jukebox, which accounts for any difference. Hey, I know one guy who spends $75 per day just on drinking.
           The sad news is that in the category Misc., which includes everything from scooter drive belts ($80) to the foreign cinema averages $499.10 per month. These are expenses that could theoretically be avoided at the cost of quality of life. I didn’t have to buy band saw blades ($20), but I insisted on the $160 for the new sidecar starter motor. None of the above figures include the rent.
           When I buy a place, my rent will drop to equal the monthly taxes, that is, drop by 82%.

           You been good so here is an Englishman joke I heard in boy scouts. This old English guy gets out of the bathtub with boner, and his valet asks, “My goodness, it’s been months. Shall I summon the missus?”
           “No, no, Archibald”, says the old guy, “fetch my bloomers. I think I’ll smuggle this one into town.”


Last Laugh

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