One year ago today: September 20, 2016, a generic Tuesday.
Five years ago today: September 20, 2012, “Phenix City”.
Nine years ago today: September 20, 2008, the empty streets.
Random years ago today: September 20, 2011, on teacher's jurisdiction.
Was today one of the worst mistakes I’ve made since I got to Florida? For the first time, I insured a car here. The agency took one piece of information about the car, the VIN. Then put me through the mill about my private information, several times threatening to refuse me service if when I asked about the relevance of some of the questioning. For example, why does the insurance agency need to know if I’m unemployed or retired? Why do they need to know where I park the car at night? I didn’t refuse the information, but unless I said something—and then signed a document swearing everything was true, I would have been denied service.
Here’s a shot of the typical roadside piles of Irma trimmings waiting to be hauled away. All this is now deadfall from the surrounding trees, block after block of it. It’s one of the first photos from the new car (Unit 31), now primed and ready for the first big road trip. Ignore the datestamp settings, they are some kind of default I haven’t found where they hid the off-switch yet, as millennials are wont to do.
By noon, putting this car on the road has cost me $2,756. Face it, I know one or two people in the world who can come up with that kind of money in such a short time. That means the rest are operating on credit, what a horrible way to live. The insurance agent didn’t have change for a hundred and I noticed the quote contained six different payment plans. When I asked him about that he admitted he had never had anybody pay for their insurance in cash before. That dude was a piece of work, one of the worst cogs in a machine that I’ve ever seen in real life. I doubt one original thought or word ever came out of his head. He worshiped his desktop computer like it was his own personal god. There he was, a perpetual slave to the “required field”, filling out forms full of information some people on give under duress.
Is it duress? If you don’t think so, don’t expect to be listened to when your identity is stolen. Have you not heard what just happened over at Equifax? Some inside job netted the entire files of 143 million people. How many incidents like this have to happen before some people clue in? You can bet there was one hell of a lot more on those files than credit information. And I’ll bet less than a fraction of those people ever actually did any business with Equifax. But, the average idiot in his average cocoon will never wake up until it is his turn, and by which time it’s too late.
Changing the subject, I’m chewing on a shortbread cookie by the brand of Voortman. Don’t waste your money. I bought it because it listed no ingredients of dubious origin. It completely lacks flavor. It is like eating stale soup crackers. Cookie, my eye. And so you are aware, recent studies do show that three hours after eating genetically modified corn, your own stomach tries to digest itself.
Meanwhile in Mexico.
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[Author's note: the above picture of the day was posted a full 24 hours before news arrived of the earthquake in that area.]
You now get an ID card for proof of insurance. I’ve decided to take the car to Miami later this week to get my replacement syringes. The new cholesterol shots are not the placebos they’d been giving me before. If you don’t recall, I’m the golden boy of the Amgen program, as far as I know. The first totally successful cholesterol drop to normal count on their massive trial. I believe they said 5,200 people. My cholesterol not only fell to the healthy range, it stayed there for years. But this good news should be taken more as an observation than a compliment. Here’s why.
Here's a picture of an Iraqi sandstorm. Because I don't have any pictures of my own this time.
Alaine is packing for the move to North Port. They are going to haul there own things to the new place, so I’m planning to take a load over on the station wagon while I’m there. All is not as chirpy-cheery as it seems because the real estate market is stalled. While prices have not fallen much, nor is anything moving out there. The monthly list of houses sold used to be its own section. Now it is like one corner of one page. Nothing is moving in Coconut Grove. Between the bank manipulations and what is actually selling, I suspect this time there is a more massive cover-up than what they tried in 2006 – 2008.
I also ran through the Polk County market and found that to be along the same lines. While prices have stalled, nobody is buying anything. The lowest priced livable houses on the outskirts and away from industrial zones begin at around $80,000. This is almost double from two years ago. You may recall how I was watching how every how that came on the market was being snapped up within a day or two, often for full asking price. That is not happening this time. Houses are instead just sitting there.
“evangelist = evil’s agent .”
~ anagram
Naturally enough for me, I looked at properties with potential for rental income. The low end rents in this area are $800 to $900 per month. I mapped that against know pay rates and find that puts most people exactly where I was for the first half of my own life. Rent on a safe and decent place was so high that you could never save enough in a lifetime to buy a decent house of your own. There was a time when the formula said a property should sell for 100 times the gross monthly rent. So the numbers have held fairly constant.
That is, a house that rents for $800 per month should sell for $80,000. But I find that the market has been so squeezed from all sides that the equation doesn’t work any more. Expenses are galloping ahead far faster than rents can be increased. Agt. R reports utility bills at a place like his are close to $220 per month. I don’t even run the numbers on houses that fit that price model. Unless I could double the rent ratio, that is, buy a house for $45,000 that I could rent for $900 per month, I don’t even look at the ads.
Logic says if nothing is selling, the prices are too high. But we have seen this situation drag on for years before. Property will often sit vacant because the owner won’t lower the rent. I’ve learned not to trust those factors as indicators of the market. Yet, most renters in this area are families, so the possibility of being a landlord cannot be ignored altogether. There is almost no rental housing in any of the bigger cities around here. And not that many apartments, either. Forget the hotel/motel alternative. They are either flea-bag or priced through the roof. And you will be living next to construction crews who begin firing up their trucks at 6:00AM sharp.
ADDENDUM
Guess who that was on the horn? The Hippie. Out of the blue. He’s playing the old Walkabout, the place in Hollywood where every known musician and near musician in SE Florida has played at some point. That’s the place of the quasi-famous separate tip jar incident, and the last gig we ever played together. The strangest part of talking to the guy is he does not realize he is parroting back my own words from fifteen years ago, when he totally disagreed with me on the same topics. Yes, dude, as a matter of fact, I know totally what it is like to have the other musician insist on playing music that is inappropriate for the crowd.
Could it really have taken him this long to realize I was right? He goes into how the venues have changed, how other musicians are not entertainers, they expect you to learn their song list, they do a lousy job of learning new music. He doesn’t seem to know he’s preaching to the choir.
We were on the phone an hour. I’ve told you, the guy loses every gig he ever gets one way or the other. He also regards anything positive others say as nothing but bragging even if you done it. That’s been his perspective since day one, I’m just mentioning it because it is still prevalent as one-up-manship in his conversations. We were still the best duo mix in the county, though it could not last due to his fixed song list. He can say he learns new music but I have never seen him do it. Every song I suggested he wrote off as my bad taste in music. So strange it was to hear him say today he coincidentally now plays some of those same songs.
Who remembers the bicycle shop on Las Olas? The one with the tall blonde lady everybody liked to admire the shape she was in. They may have thought it was from riding the bicycles, but if anything she rode them to the nearest plastic surgeon. Well, according to the Hippie, he did a benefit there for his medical marijuana cause and raised a few hundred bucks. A year later he’s up in Tallahassee and asks the committee if they appreciated the check. Said they to him, “What check?”
The blonde pocketed the dough. Next time he saw her, he asked why she never mailed the check. She shrugged him off saying she forgot. My conclusion on that one is the same as when I first walked into the joint. It is either a front for something else or a playpen for some filthy rich kids. I got along with them fine, but I would not have mistaken that they were only in the game for themselves. From what I saw, it is entirely likely she really did forget such a pittance.
But that would not explain why she didn’t make good on it anyway.
Last Laugh
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