October 30, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 30, 2016, I need a real workshop.
Five years ago today: October 30, 2012, fervently complicated decisions.
Nine years ago today: October 30, 2008, nine lousy peanuts.
Random years ago today: October 30, 2006, the “custom order” scam

           Phooey on relaxing car trips. Not in Florida, dude. You can write today off except for the trip to the Thrift. I scored a brand new 80 cfm silent ceiling fan for $16 plus tax. That exchanges the air every 4.8 minutes using the new square footage. Don’t quote me but I think that is close to twice the recommended volume. What a steal! Here’s a picture that’s meaningless until I give you the background. How long ago I have to thank Denny’s for letting me study at their side counter and pour me endless free refills. Today I found out that Denny’s is still in operation and here is a photo of the interior from their web site.

           This was roughly the view from my favorite spot. I can’t really say I recognize any specific detail, but I remember out west because of the cold winters, lots of restaurants did not place the rows of booths directly against a wall with large windows. This Denny’s was also walking distance from campus, an important consideration for me. I never had a bus pass, they were too expensive unless you rode the bus twice every day.

           From here, it was a hike, but I could walk home. That was not the first time as an adult I was reduced to living in a basement suite. That was a sure sign that things were not working out. Of course, don’t say that to any millennial who is middle-aged and still living in his parent’s cellar. I need something to distract me, so I tried to find a good teaching video of the 7489 chip in action. All I found was mediocrity. Writing down how to do it is not the same as teaching, plain instructions rarely are. And electronics is a bit too deep for simple recipe-type training.

Picture of the day.
Ukrainian bride ad.
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           Another sign of our deteriorating economy. I have a relatively new Zippo lighter. It has all the metal and shape of a classic. But there was something wrong with it since day one that I could not pin down. Until now. Unlike the traditional lighter, this one must be refilled every few days. I had one as a Xmas present from a customer on my paper route and I kept it in my pocket for years. The thing would always light for longer than the can of lighter fluid took to evaporate. (It could be the fluid I’m using, but I bought Ronsonol, the usual.) I tested this “new” model and it gave up in five days. Isn’t that something, it is carefully designed to lose fluid. It is this type of sneaky facet of millennial marketing that I think will define the 2020s.


           They’ve wiped out any possible credibility left in the words “free” or “product warranty” and nobody laughs anymore when half the radio commercial is rapid fire disclaimer. In the public eye, snake oil salesmen have been replaced by millennial trial offers and cellular plans. Their mentality is to get your money and then make it as difficult as legally possible to provide anything promised. They want you to throw it out and buy a new one from overseas while they whine there are no $15 per hour repair jobs. You see, those jobs require reading and mechanical skills and they don’t like it. Fixing things and other regular jobs don’t give them enough “me time”.

           And continue to whine they will, because after generations of their idiotic right-to-work voting, there are no unions left to join. Nor had they better look to me for sympathy because I was there when they denied their left-wing fanaticism would ever have negative consequences. Now they scream like madmen because Trump won’t let them vote the bill onto the taxpayer. Most of them don’t realize how responsible they individually are for not turning the country around ten years ago after the plunge. As if we don’t know they thought they could ignore the immigration problem and get back up on their high horses for another round.
           This afternoon, I looked closely at real estate, knowing full well I can no longer afford a house. Well, let’s just say if another one like this comes along, I could snap it up. I meant on the advertised local market, nothing is in my range. Gone just when I need a bargain. Nor am I the only one who has picked up how many advantages began to disappear just as I reached the age or time to cash in. Look at the record. The government changed the rules as I entered my first company with a decent pension plan. My job-for-life company began laying off just as I turned forty. House prices cascaded just before I entered my prime earning years. How many of these unlucky concurrences have to happen before we see the pattern?

Quote of the Day:
“Every bad situation is a
blues song waiting to happen.”
~Amy Winehouse.
           My [rental] house research continued on into evening. There are only three places under $70,000 on the right side of the tracks in all the big towns of Polk. Their average rent produces such tiny returns I suspect that market is also tapped out. But I did find a few mobile homes on their own land within commuting distance, so I’ll throw together a business plan. Just so I’ll have one in place if there is a turn of events either way. A mobile home on a quarter acre costs half the house price but produces 82.2% of the same rent.

           There’ll be no panic here, I just would like to be ready. With music, whether I play it or teach it, I’ll never starve. That’s why I stifled a smile when I heard the going rate for saxophone lessons is $35 per half hour. When I took my piano lessons at age ten, the weekly lessons were $5 per month. Every third Thursday of the month, I paid Mrs. Crandall until it became so embarrassing for my mother that she finally paid it.

           [Author’s note: not that it was any concession, since that was also the time I passed my older sister and she dropped out. It was really the same $5. Little did I know a few years later I would be held back in school so as not to pass my sister again. Try that today and you’d have a war on your hands.]

           I have a European news feed set up. It’s from Germany, but it is English and I’ve been hearing of their plans for the future. The anti-immigration parties are making gains in the parliament and there was considerable concern that Germany does not having any big Internet companies. There is no German equivalent of Twitter or Facebook, but then America doesn’t really have anything to compare with the German automotive industry. They pay the workers twice as much as the Americans yet out-produce our workers on every scale. You want my opinion on that? Sure.
           You see, it was not the workers in either country that sold out to foreign money. In America, it was the corporations who thoughtlessly exported both the jobs and the technology. In Germany the business structure is different, there is more congruency between both levels as far as job preservation. What’s more, there is plain less corporate greed because they have stronger bonds with tradition. In America there is no guarantee your job, no matter what it is, will still be here this time next year. And you can pretty much bet it won’t be here in the same form in five years.


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