One year ago today: June 21, 2016, these people are not your friends.
Five years ago today: June 21, 2012, I know I can’t afford it.
Nine years ago today: June 21, 2008, all had fashionable clothes.
Random years ago today: June 21, 2010, I’ve been in a Russian sub.
See this array of rocks? This represents the failed guitarists I’ve met in Polk County. The bigger the rock, the bigger the flop. If you want to get in, as you see, there is still room. Very funny, but this is actually the display of the first set of “railroad rocks” from three weeks in the tumbler. They did not polish much, just a slight smoothness that wasn’t there before. It was a learning experience. I had formerly thought the rocks would naturally knock each other into rounded pieces, I mean, isn’t that what happens in the riverbed? More or less obviously not. I have not yet put these rocks under close examination but as far as rock polishing, this initial undertaking was a no go.
An example of that is how others refer to this board as a “display” where I call it an “array”.
Music. Back to square one. The last guitarist concluded playing in a band is as much work as a part time job. With me, it certainly is at least as first. Most of these difficulties arise from people who don’t properly read my ad, then combined with human nature—their nature, not mine. I find the regular guitarist thinks in terms of months to get a band started. The fact is, if you did your practicing and homework when you were young, like you were supposed to, the band takes weeks. The exact wording in my post says, “Must already know, love, and play the country classics.”
The fine print clarifies that unless it is more than 25 years old, it is not a classic. As I said y’day, I was talking to the staff at the clubs out on the highway. Not the management, the staff. Because who knows what’s really going on? You know what is neat? These staff often endure the lousy solo guitar acts for years until they meet me. Once I vocalize the problem and they realize they are not alone in putting up with terrible entertainment, they become advocates of who is a proper performer.
So, I’m on my own. You’re getting tired of hearing it, these guitar player episodes, but do bear in mind for me each instance is different. I rarely get fooled twice the same way, so for me each guitarist is new potential. And all wind up the same disappointment, but by a wide variety of paths. It’s the sameness of the results that seems tedious, I know that. However, I’ve exhausted the supply of local guitar players who even remotely meet the minimum standards.
Operation Iron Wolf.
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The second box didn’t fit the jig right. The jig concept is still worthy, it beats the daylights out of assembling the boxes by had, but it needs improvement. The next plan is to find a plate of aluminum 1/8” thick and cut it to the dimensions of the glass plates. Or maybe just an outline, but something to hold the stiles in rigid position until the glass is inserted. Also, I cannot find a replacement 1/8” router bit for less than $20.
This photo is the Rebel visiting the Winter Haven library or vicinity. Not the sculpture in the background. Also evident is the rear fender on the bike, see the position of the brake light and signals. I want those moved back to the edge of the fender to make room for larger saddlebags and possibly a larger seat and luggage rack.
And how about the $5 coffee and cookie? Welcome to Richards, out in Winter Haven. Hi there, blue-eyed counter lady, I meant what I said about blue eyes. They are the true feature that everybody envies so much they don’t want to headline it in the media. Hair can be dyed, boobs can be pumped, but blue eyes are the feature that still can’t mean anything else. I meant what I said about how it opens doors, gets you the promotions, and keeps the good guys on your side—but only if you play your cards right.
It turns out that coffee shop is in the library building, but I always parked at the north entrance or they’ve been closed. I worked the crosswords and then remembered that is the library that wants a dollar to use the computers. Naw, not when it is free everywhere else. I have been tipped of that the system is now after trusts. I ducked the searchlight on wills, because more than half the states have now perfected legal systems to send everything to probate—which ties your estate up for a year and your heirs have to pay the lawyer’s fees.
Now I’ve heard that the trusts are under attack. This tells you a number of things about the system. Inheritence laws were fine as long as they protected the ultra-rich. But now, the bulk of value is resting with the middle class boomers and that’s a vast untapped pile of money. If the powers that be don’t grab as much of it as they can now, it will pass to that historical fourth major generation after the founders. If you have not heard, family wealth normally lasts just three generations before the inbred weaklings fritter it away.
But if it lands on the fourth generation, the wealth has staying power and the rich now have “newcomers” to contend with. They must either accept these incoming barbarians, or else stop that final wealth transfer. We’ve seen the growth of crippling estate taxes and now rumor is the states are changing the laws to remove protections of trusts from your children getting divorced or sued. If the state can do that, they are surely after removing other safety features as well. Time to bone up on the facts.
الثورة العلمية ومعلولهاوليست شرطها وعلتها”
الثورة العلمية بقرنيين على الأقل وهي نتيجة
“فكرة الحداثة والعلمانية والتنوير فكرة متأخرة عن
أبو يعرب المرزوقي, صونًا للفلسفة والدين ~
You want some bad news? After just an hour’s reading, it seems that death is no longer final. It used to be if you died, so did all your unsecured debt. I see now that was only because the system did not yet have everybody’s name and everybody’s assets on file. As soon as they did, death now becomes a form of bankruptcy. Your debts no longer are abolished, they become part of the liens against your estate. Chapter 9. Even if you have an airtight will distributing your assets, the estate still goes through a probate-like process.
This takes up to a year and anybody with a claim against your estate can file. In some jurisdictions, the state is publishing your final list of assets on the Internet, so you can bet not all of those claims are legit. Worse, you heir have to pay the lawyer fees. The title to your house can’t be changed over to your son’s name, for instance, without paying for it. As I said, death has become just another type of insolvency. There is always the option to give your assets away while you are alive, but that gives somebody else a reason for wanting you dead.
This could only happen when the entire ruling class makes a grab for it. The implications are far beyond what I can imagine. The fact is most people die without a will, but the move is now against the few who do put it in writing. Last will and testament used to be sacrosanct, now it has not only changed, it has done so silently. So silently most people are unaware of the change. I’ll read more but folks, even if you have nothing to hide, something tells me you are going to wish you had not so willingly surrendered that option.
I watched one of the worst DVDs imaginable this evening. “The Devil’s Tomb”, a cliché flick about soldiers going to rescue a scientist and they bring along his daughter. I wonder if that has ever happened in real life? Anyway, it’s the standard plot the whole way. Underground passages, unreliable radios, and captives who only talk in circles. The monsters don’t die and can assume shapes of the soldier’s children, ex-wives, you name it. Worst are the constant referrals to the Bible, which get really annoying in no time. It’s the same old good and bad angels sealed up in a tomb now unleashed by excavations.
Plenty of gore, the same old zombie virus or whatever spread by vomit. You got combat veterans believing their dead children have come back to life and bodies in fluid tanks, frozen in ice, and hanging on the walls. This movie breaks no new ground.
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ADDENDUM
Listening to business radio, I was not surprised to learn that 75% of single proprietor businesses are struggling and half of those were already at the breakeven point. The stats were from a large consulting firm who necessarily take the view that there are no bad businesses, only bad managers. That’s an outdated adage from a different climate and era. My take is that the American government has completely gutted the frontier spirit that motivates people to take financial risks with either their money or their time.
That’s except at the realm where people are outright gambling, should you consider gambling a business. To me that explains why, on-line, you get only a few businesses that win and they win big. The day of the small but enduring startup may be over. The current trend of business is to see if you can tap into a fad or get out fast enough to cut your losses. I know my dream business has no employees and works out of a cubicle at some obscure library. Here are some mussel shells from the gold-panning idea that fizzled in the face of scientific research.
Don’t confuse safety regulations with laws that protect idiots who don’t know how to climb ladders. I’ve pointed out for decades how the fundamentals of all these laws are the same—it is not about safety, it is about getting everybody on file and monitoring their activities. You may even think of the anti-drug laws in this country as yet another effort to ID and regulate the operators. The police are just the enforcers. Identical to the government, they ignore the big thieves at the top in preference to chasing the small fry, always fingerprinting and documenting, the parallels are immense.
The laws were rarely established to act as disincentives to small businesses. We regularly hear how these wonderful mom-and-pop stores are the backbone of the economy. That’s a rosy picture when 3/4s of them would be better off getting a day job. The obstacle is the way those same laws are enforced for different purposes. Look at that lady who ordered the raid on the Gibson guitar factory. (Gibson had stockpiled their rosewood years before it became protected.) She later admits she had no reason to do so and was only advancing her career—and she got away with it because as a federal employee, she can’t be sued for damages.
Furthermore, if you take a look at the businesses that have started in the past twenty years. These are hardly the heavy industries on which to base an economy. It’s mainly risky, shallow, get in and get out service type ventures. Stick it out only as long as there’s a quick profit, bail the instant anything goes wrong. It is no wonder the traditional outfits finally go bankrupt in such a climate. They aren’t near spry enough to sidestep regulation after regulation. The terrible situation of small business in America has been imposed from the top down.
What businesses are thriving at street level? The ones that can’t be controlled, that’s what. True, they tend to be the very businesses that have survived every corrupt government administration in history. The casinos, the drug dens, the whorehouses, the DMV. I did not include loan sharks, because that would offend you-know-who. I personally think the official estimates of the size of the underground economy are vastly short of the mark, maybe even intentionally so.
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