December 5, 2016

December 5, 2016
Yesteryear
One year ago today: December 5, 2015, it’s worked right since.
Five years ago today: December 5, 2011, on retirement and illegals.
Nine years ago today: December 5, 2007, my coffee shop closes.
Random years ago today: December 5, 2009, first look at 3D printer!
(And first mention of the Italian killer lady.)

MORNING
           Top news of the day, JZ says they are finally closing the restaurant. This time they mean it, he says, and he’s going to focus on fixing up his place. He can’t do that and buy a truck the same month, so I’m on my own with the house repairs here until after the season. I’ll commence again tomorrow against JZ’s advice to not do it alone. He thinks I’ll be getting under the building. That’s not the case.

           Sigh, life without Quizno’s. It’s like the end of an era, but what an era that was. They opened around the same time as I left my last job. The place seemed so permanent. I’d have to ask Alaine but I’m sure we visited there just as often as at the house. It may be another month before final day, but it won’t be long now.

           That’s why we need this tranquil picture of the batbike at the Peace River Park. Or one of the parks, I think I’ve passed others. This is along a side road that winds up to near the top of one of the mine tailing piles. That’s as close to a hill as you’ll get in Florida. As far as parks go, meh. There’s no picnic tables, just parking spots. Nor does the road go all the way to the top, so the only view is more sand and a look back the way you just came.
           This is the same park the broadwalk was closed. It looks in ill repair, though some people were braving it. Not me. I hauled out the binoculars but there was no wildlife, not even birds. There has been some local concern about drinking water quality from these huge mounds of overburden, but without some public review, who’s to say. Right now it is like the police cruelty commissions. In Miami alone, they’ve investigated themselves 150 times and found no wrong-doing. Case closed.

           This means JZ will be out of work a bit, but I cannot wait. He is adamant about the danger if I proceed myself. The alternative is to wait until he returns, but folks, my house is divided up on the inside by dust barriers and sections full of insulation and other building materials. The work I can manage on my own is already months behind. I’m getting worried, though just a bit. I can’t pursue my hobbies until I’m totally unpacked and moved in. So far, that’s been asking too much.

Picture of the day.
Gibraltar.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
NOON
           I reviewed the rehearsal last day and I think we may confine the tunes to light gigs for a while. The last thing I want is the new guy wondering what he’s got himself into. I have to let him play things his own way and I know right off what the difference is. He’s only got the average 2,000 hours on the instrument. But that is nothing fatal. I’m going to have to learn ten new songs in a couple of weeks or we don’t have enough. Since I don’t expect the guy to play any major breaks, that eliminates all my top production numbers. For example, “Momma Tried”.

           The shortcut is for me to learn a quick ten of his songs. But if the one he’s mentioned, “The Bug” by Mary Chapin Carpenter (also a release by Dire Straits) is any indication, it will seriously deteriorate our overall presentation. Learning it takes time and energy away from tunes that have a broader appeal and generate better tips but this effect cannot be measured.

           We got us another warm spell, so during siesta, I had on an old James Bond movie, “Octopussy”. I’ve never seen it before, or even parts of it. It comes across as an early Bollywood production, I mean, if one needs extras, where could one find them any cheaper than India? The place is populated by extras. The package says 1983. The women are nice, but there is still something off-putting [to me] about the James Bond type of women. Almost as if they intentionally include an imperfection with each, even if it just the way her fabric wrinkles at the wrong spot.
           Imperfection is fine, there is nothing wrong with it. But why do they so consistently bother? Queers, single mothers, druggies, and traffic cops. We all know they are there, but is it really necessary to remind us all the time? Is it really required to put them in the movies? When I see a James Bond woman, I instantly wonder what she was like in her prime. The label isn’t clear, so I’ll look up Maud Adams. Never heard of her before or since.

NIGHT
           Is Trump selling out? While he doesn’t take over for a while yet, I’m not referring to that gap like some of the media who are already jumping on the issue. I’ll grant Trump some inexperience, but is this being offset by his business skills? The Carrier deal says no, rather it reflects how businessmen’s thinking gets altered when they gain access to public money. Another case is the deportations. I always knew self-deportation by cutting off free money was a factor, but now he’s talking like it will replace the actual arrest and expulsion of these illegals. That would be selling out.
           And the crowd is back with the family breakups. No, don’t break up the family. Throw them all out. Send the message loud and clear. If you are illegal, the American people don’t want you here. Folks, wake up or you are going to become displaced in a country that was built by white people. This is fact, not racial bias. The country will only survive if the people who come here are incentivized to dump their old ways and become like us. Very few Americans want their children to act like Ethiopians.
           As for this glop that immigrants enrich our culture, I’ve seen little evidence of it in 50 years. I ask in what way has the flood of Cubans improved America? As Ann Coulter points out, the odd success story does not change a statistic. I suggest that places like Miami have been dragged backward by immigration and those who think otherwise are full of bunk. In what way has the place benefited? The odd Cuban restaurant does not count for much against the broad swaths of neighborhoods on welfare and make-work civil service jobs.

ADDENDUM
           Here’s an amusing incident. Women, particularly waitresses and servers quickly pick up that I’m a safe bet. I never joke about sex, I don’t hit on anybody, and I’m usually up to something new and interesting. That’s why I’m always carrying a notebook and a camera. The other aspect of this is women also know when they are around me, other men leave them alone. This also means other men notice this going on. You with me so far? It is not uncommon for a lady to simply sit next to me just to be left alone.

           I’m still hunting for the cartridges so tonight I had the point stapler with me again. For some reason, it became a momentary focal point for all the women, who thought it might be some useful tool for decorating. There was the usual crowd of men, upon seeing this, announced they could tell what it was and hauled out their smart phones. They have a problem, I know it isn’t on the Internet, at least not in a form they could find. I often wonder, could they possibly be that stupid they think I’d leave an opening like that?
           So, one by one, these guys drop out in failure saying, “Who cares?” Sour grapes anyway. Ha, they set themselves up. I left after a half hour but the pattern was set for the evening. Whenever that bunch opened their pieholes about something on the sports TV, you got it, the women said, “Who cares?”


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