One year ago today: June 3, 2016, the new digs.
Five years ago today: June 3, 2012, another band that went nowhere.
Nine years ago today: June 3, 2008, total head count: 38.
Random years ago today: June 3, 2010, don’t need not infrastructure . . .
[Author’s note: the pictures today are not in order, they are here to cheer up an otherwise pictureless day.]
First, here is the bottle found in the yard while raking leaves. It is twice the size it looks in this photo, and the glass is roughly twice as thick as an ordinary bottle. Sadly, the label is too worn to determine what is was designed for. I’ll put it under the lens later, once it dries out. It was in the ground so long, it had filled with sand.
I had to cut out the drywall over the window opening to get this done and managed to get coated in drywall chalk. Next, I had to call Agt. R over to manhandle the big dressers and mirrors, at which point we remembered he still had the $10 for the drywall corner bead. Which got us downtown and back. Then, having the time, we headed for the library and set up the business account e-mail. I was appalled at the amount of “required” information these days to set anything up. You see, I recall when the allure of the Internet was its anonymity.
What makes all this bloggable is I had intended to stay home and read the new mystery novel. I meant all day. I was hoping it would rain. Instead, we reviewed the rock polisher output, now two weeks old, or meaning the rocks have traveled 270 miles. The results are not impressive and it means Agt. R should now have given away that tile saw a few months ago. The trick is to saw the stones into roughly the shape you want and then polish them as a final step. Once again, this information was independently acquired by me, none of the on-line experts said a thing.
I did see a video of a Chinese lady cutting stones, but I still had to put the ideas together. Then we pored over the second batch of river detritus, the set from the trestle. I did not know Agt. R had never found shark’s teeth on his own before, so I told him he probably had, but watch me go through the pile. It’s a matter of patient chunk-by-chunk sifting and he found five or six. I thought of them to be too small, but he reports that you put the small ones in a little bottle and sell them all together. I’m new at selling teeth, but I’m not new at calculating profit margins.
As for profits, here’s a stat for you. Since the beginning of this year, not counting planning, purchasing, delivery, gas, or any activity not related to direct improvements on this cabin, I have put in the equivalent of seven 40-hour weeks. And this is what, week 21 of the year. I don’t have the direct materials total handy, but supposing my time is worth only $1,000 per week, that still adds $7,000 in sweat equity to the place. Gotta love that.
New Zealand.
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Is this a repeat photo? It’s the bathroom being lit up by a propane mantle lantern during the big March power outage. Again, a photo for looks today. I was trying to get a snap of the cardinals feeding at the newly modified birdfeeder. It has two entrances, so I blocked each a different way to ward off the blue jay, who can empty the hopper in less than a day. However, nature photographers can tell you how uncooperative Nature is wont to be at picture time. My plan is to see if the narrow or the shallow entrance is the more effective.
I needed three full hours at the library to get my paperwork done, which includes sending off those sunglass I broke to the Costa repair department and failing again to get a straight answer of how much money I get when I turn 65. It’s like they want to keep you guessing. Yes, I know about the on-line calculators but they all carry a codicil. They don’t access your actual records, but do a calculation based on you continuing to work to age 65 with the same or greater income as now.
Why don’t I just call the people and have them check for me? I’ll answer that. Because I’ve heard too many people say when you do that, it flags your account. It is tantamount to applying, but if you change your mind, it gets difficult to cancel out. The advice I’ve received is accurate and matches my own experience that if you are over 50, do not draw government attention to yourself. Apply for things only the shortest possible moment in advance. It gives them less time to snoop around and still meet your deadline. I’m not hiding anything, but the advice makes damn good sense.
The alarm went off when I found out I could not get an estimate without revealing my identity. Who was it that said you will never get an honest opinion out of a man if he has to reveal his identity in the process. Well, apply it to this situation. There simply has to be a drastic reason why they absolutely insist on knowing who you are before answering basic questions that have nothing to do with your birthdate, etc.
Next, I need to do about a $200 food shop, but my fridge is still acting up. This morning, for the first time in history, I made some great pancakes. I like to have everything on hand and without a trustworthy fridge I’m not so sure about buying perishables. While this is going on, I’m listening to adultery radio (Bushnell, FL) to the Wallstreet Watchdog guy. I did not know that the bill for businesses to comply with government regulation tops $1.2 trillion per year. Most people don’t understand a number that big. That’s just haywire.
He also discussed a topic covered in this blog 30 years ago or more. It is how regulations benefit the rich and established and punish the startups. The example given was if you wanted to build a car factory today, the cost would sink you. The big companies have pushed through so many “safety” rules that you’d never make it. The commentator says the rule book is 93,000 pages long. Note that I don’t think anybody any of us know of were ever asked by the government if we wanted this regulation, always gift-wrapped as a safety concern.
“If I love you, what business is it of yours?”
~Johann van Goethe
This is the back yard where the African spike plants are being raided for the front yard hedge. Note on the far right, you can actually see the fence again. This growth was taking over the lizgarden. There is still a stand of the plants dead center here, but they are a different variety. Instead of leopard spots, these ones have yellow stripes. Can you see them? This is not a great photo, so I purposely left in parts of the chain link fence to give some perspective.
Sadly, Trump is now approaching mission failure levels. People don’t care if the wall costs $20 billion. At least get it started in the worst areas. And nobody is rounding up the gangs. If Trump doesn’t start keeping his election promises, even though that is the same as all the other presidents, he will be judged far more harshly. And go down in history as a scoundrel.
Worse, he has set another cause in motion. He has proven that an outsider can get elected. There are still millions of liberal types who cannot accept that is what happened, but they have been do despicable about it, they’ve united the opposition. The door is now open for somebody who will keep such promises and that, my readers, is one scary situation. Because the person who can battle the establishment that is still blocking Trump will require near dictatorial powers. We all know of other democracies that were pressed to the wall and wound up electing virtual autocrats to get their country back.
With Trump, the same circumstances now prevail here. The message is clear to the voting majority that even electing a president cannot change the terrible path the country has taken, cannot shake the grip of the big money people—and we know who they are. Some new and more powerful type of leader needs to be found. How will the bankers play this one? Will the people fall for another Lusitania or Pearl Harbor?
Meanwhile Trump is not firing opponents or naming names. But Trump has rearranged the scenery. The next elected leader is not likely to be so benevolent to the opposition. It is evident the real power people got to him [Trump]. They leaned over to him wearing red sunglasses and whispered in his ear, “Oy, pretty boy. You only think you have ten billion dollars.” Even if just the conspiracy theorists believe in the New World Order society, there may soon be millions and millions more of them. I hope I live long enough to witness it.
ADDENDUM
Tomorrow the move begins. I’m moving into the bedroom, seven months late. That’s a lot of moving, since I’ve been settled in a while. It will be cramped but still three times the size of the room at the trailer court. Finally, we are underway on that. It will dominate the blog once more. I found time to go over the other guy’s music, but once more we have a hesitancy to give me a list. This is an almost sure sign that he fudged about playing in a country band. He also tends to suggest tunes that he likes rather than my criteria of whether in can be successfully adapted to a country duo and still sound like the original. Does it have audience appeal? Is if fast dance music? Is it novel in this area?
Examples, don’t you love the way this blog gives so many examples? He wants to play Merle Haggard’s “Working Man Blues”. There are two possibilities here. Either he never played it before (it is one massive and complicated lead break) or he played it and sloughed through the chords. The first situation is double-plus-ungood because we won’t live long enough for a guitar player to begin learning songs from scratch. The second option I can live with for one reason—I will walk all over him on stage.
Since the latter seems more likely, I took an hour and picked out an entire rhythm-bass pattern on the keyboard, including the instrumental break, and transferred it to the bass fretboard. The bass in the recording is a studio injected special, a real challenge to attempt live. But I have no doubt Haggard does so, if you’ve ever seen the terrified look of his back-up band on the streams. They look scared twitless of making a mistake.
The other tune, I aced, so much so that it can now be added to my bass solo list. I can double the instrumental part, playing both the lead and bass parts at the same time, my specialty. You wouldn’t know this, but I am also a true disciple of volume dynamics on stage. I am not a loud bass player, in fact, I know very well which parts to play so quietly the audience strains to hear it a second time—and it also lets any too-loud guitarist know he’s wrecking the show.
As stated, I am an aggressive, assertive, very competitive bassist and musician. My purpose is to take the best gigs, make the most money, and score the prettiest women. If I couldn’t do that, I’d suddenly be as mellow as the others, if you know what I’m sayin’.
Not only that, I got to get in a band. Lately the only women who have expressed anya interest in me are the fat ugly ones. This will never do. They are also ordinary types, and when have I ever liked ordinary women? Personality? Don’t make me laugh. That’s a fantasy for high school guidance class. I have a theory that for people who work toward something they way, they will get it sooner or later. The problem is, once you are past 45, it is always later.
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