One year ago today: May 28, 2015, I hesitate—and lose.
Five years ago today: May 28, 2011, Hawaii, one acre, $8,000.
Nine years ago today: May 28, 2007, authentic Haitian look.
Random years ago today: May 28, 2010, the missing Foosball machine.
MORNING
Gad, I hate it when I forget it is a long weekend. It creates unplanned time, which I can fill with music practice and such. But it’s never as effective as when scheduled in advance. I simply perform better when I know there is a set aside time for an activity. There is also another factor already at work. Merely knowing I can do something, like build a robot, often decreases the probability of it ever happening. Well, today I can afford to do just about anything I’d like. Owning a house outright frees up my “mortgage payments”, in a manner of speaking.
Moments later, Florida decides for me what I’ll do today. Another of those useless after-breakfast drenching rainstorms that wait for the weekends. Here is a 12-ton jack, with your 20% Harbor Freight coupon, this works out to $24 plus tax. I brought one home, figuring no way a corner of the cabin could weigh more than 24,000 pounds.
But even if I’m wrong, these bottle jacks at that price are so cheap, I’m not going to bother owing somebody a favor by asking to borrow. If this one works, I can afford them by the caseload. I’m determined to find alternatives to the current plan of digging a footing along the entire perimeter of the building. Why do I even need such an elaborate arrangement?
We also talked investments, and I have plenty of opinions on that. The system is rigged against the small investor. Banks and bonds, after taxes and inflation, are a guaranteed loss—but the law won’t protect you if you put your money into virtually anything else. That’s what I mean by rigged. If the bank is robbed, the system insures your account up to more than 99% of depositors ever have. But if a business scams you, too bad, you can potentially lose more money by hiring a lawyer. I estimate around a third of all surviving US businesses operate on some kind of skullduggery, if not an outright scam.
That would include AT&T with their pricing swindles to hotels who are always “out of those rooms” to checkout counters that ask for a donation in front of strangers. It’s all one massive swindle but the good news is the victims are the politically correct. Remember, when it comes to seniors who get dementia and people who get foreclosed, I draw a thick line between suffering and those who are getting what they deserve.
I’ll definitely take a look at what’s worth investing in. JZ is sold on stocks, saying the market is up. Well, JZ, there is a reason the numbers you are using are called averages. The telltale sign of trouble is when the market is up, but the majority of individual stocks are down. I’m still more likely to speculate than invest. Investments that pay off in ten or fifteen years aren’t realistic for me.
The Dog.
NOON
Here’s a photo I can’t figure. A friend of mine recently put a new floor in her place. This is the finished product. I look at it, thinking that is nice, but what is it? She said it is tile, but she also told me the price. I hope it is marble or something. I’ll ask nicely at the next opportunity. It was right after I mentioned my floor was wood—the property data said it was laminate, but if so, it is pretty thick laminate.
Hey, I said she was a screwy bitch, I didn’t say I never learned anything from her. (I thought I'd met someone who'd been through as many hard times as myself, that I could, you know, relate to. But no, her troubles, of course, were a zillion times worse and if you're not a loser like here, that just proves it.) Like all appliances, they have nearly doubled in price in the past five years, but my priority is the smallest unit that will fit into the corner where I plan to install a patio door..
There is also no place for a dryer vent unless, and this I don’t know, there is any reason why the vent could not be just under the building, or a hose run 10 feet over to the north side. And why is there never anyone around to ask about these things? Anyway, I found several photos of cabin pylons that were nothing but a carefully laid bed of gravel, then a 18” square concrete paving slab. Then an upended 18” cylinder block. What’s wrong with that? If it looks funny, throwing a skirt around the building is easier than pouring full footing.
I’ve discovered a plastered over old doorway in the hall across from the bathroom door. And it is drywall, an easy fix. The plan is slowly getting better, as this would also make the sun room spot behind this “laundry room” into the correct size for a two person breakfast nook. And in my place, such nooks quickly become the preferred spot for all meals. This works best when there is no TV.
It also specifies the entire length of the vent pipe or material must be exposed for removal and cleaning, but I’ll tell you right now I’ve seen so many exceptions to that rule. What I’m trying to avoid is the need to run a pipe up through the roof.
In fact, you should read that link just because the instructions are so clear. I can recommend it over a lot of electronics matter I’ve read, to be sure. Still, all of these pipes go upward, and that’s not what I have in mind. However, around here, research is free as long as the results are recorded.
Then I had some fun with that old Jan & the Americans tune “Come A Little Bit Closer”. I always had trouble with the bass timing and now I know why. It is not your standard three chord special. And every guitarist gets in wrong unless he can play two chords at one. That took me a while, to realize it is a studio effect or mistake. Because of design limitations, you can’t play both chords on one instrument. I’m thus going to change it to D and play the chords “wrong”.
AFTERNOON
The base is no more than a hole filled with concrete that extends below the frost line. These look to me like a far easier proposition than full footings. For a start, the bracket is not supporting the underside of the hose, it is supporting some type of beam, probably lumber. If that is the case, I can cut pieces repeatedly until I get it right.
This is important, because footings don’t dig themselves. I found this out on my first summer job in college, shortly after somebody handed me a shovel.
So you’ll know, most of the Hamas concrete tunnels in Gaza begin in mosques. It requires 360 truckloads of materials for each $3 million tunnel. At any given time, there are 32 tunnels in construction or in use. Israel allows the importation of cement into Gaza for home construction only. Why don’t they introduce some low level radiation or nanochips into the cement so they can follow it? Then find the person who bought it and string him up by the thumbs. Geez, Moshe, do I have to teach you everything?
Hagop S. Akiskal: Chemistry, 2000, co-winner. Hag was part of the team that concluded love has identical symptoms to severe obsessive compulsive disorder. To make it sound better, his team used the word “indistinquishable”. There you go.
NIGHT
Did I surprise the hell out of myself. I do a sort of comedy version of “Blue Yodel #1”, more commonly known as “T for Texas”. Since I can’t yodel, I do that corny lyric “yodel-ay-ee-uuu” which is talking. I do tiny amounts of falsetto in other songs for effect, but overall, well, you know. This time I was fussing with the guitar strum and guess what came out. You bet, the full yodel. Say, isn’t that how I learned to sing? And if I can do it once . . . .
Part of the barrier was that when I do falsetto, I start with the regular note and go into the head voice. It’s like having a note you can anchor on. What I could not do is launch right into the yodel without the anchor—yet it happened by itself. To make me even happier, a lot of the yodel notes turn out to be my bass favorites, the third of the chord. That’s an interval I can hear automatically after years of my style of bass. Please let this be one of those situations where if I can hear it, I can sing it.
By dusk, it’s been a full day so I glanced through the musician’s list in the heartland (central Florida). There is one thing about bass, it does tend to attract men with secondary personalities. I understand why the majority think the bassist is a dispensable backup to the real musicians in the band. That’s how most of them come across. It doesn’t help that so few bassists can actually sing.
I see there is a surplus of bass players in the new area. We shall see, my background and musical influences are not even close to any other bass player I’ve ever met. Most of them never heard of Carol Kaye and have no idea how the real bass lines go to even a single Johnny Cash or Eagles song. Reading their ads I see they have experienced but not categorized much the same problems I’ve encountered.
They don’t seem either to grasp they will never find what they want, a band with a guitarist that shares the song list with tunes that showcase the bass player. It will never happen east of the river. Every guitarist I’ve heard here has a massive 1970s/80s hangover from the guitar hero era. Desperately trying to emulate his childhood hero and unable to move on. And time has run out, there is nothing left for these people but to change or to experience the law of diminishing returns. Can't have it both ways, guys.
ADDENDUM
May 28, 2016. This is the big day the dollar was supposed to collapse. What? Did most of the world sleep in? My dollar still got me morning coffee and the café had no problem breaking a hundred. Maybe the economy forgot it was a long weekend. I did. Doesn’t matter now, anyway, because I have a house which I value far more than having the same amount of money laying around. The fact remains, I’m set up so by the time I’m hurting, others will be up the creek. These things don’t happen by accident.
Last Laugh
