October 6, 2017

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 6, 2016, Hurricane Matthew, the dud.
Five years ago today: October 6, 2012, more on plastic coathangers.
Nine years ago today: October 6, 2008, duck, man, duck!
Random years ago today: October 6, 2011, resistors in bulk.

           First the bad news. Rumor has it that my cellular company is folding. The only thing I liked about them was the lack of contracts and their general unfussiness about everything from mailing addresses and identity that outfits like Verizon go ape-shit over. The difficulty with such an event is that the cell companies rent blocks of telephone numbers. If they go belly-up, the numbers can be sold to other operators. That effectively means your phone goes dead and you lose your number. Then again, it did take my phone people 45 minutes to get my account straightened out from that mess of things the millennial made of things y’day.

           Despite my clear instructions to “put this money on my phone”, she deposited in something called a “top off” account, which had to be refunded, then applied, etc. Nearly an hour of wasted time. I’ve stated it before, the majority of problems I’ve ever had in life have been caused by people wanting me to do things their way without paying me. Did I ask for a DMV? Did I ask for line-ups at the bank? Did I ask for cars that automatically lock the doors when the key is still in the ignition?

           Well, my new car locked me out. It takes a special kind of retard to design a car that does that. It seems to me they could put a sensor under the driver’s seat that does not allow the car to be locked except from outside the vehicle when there is no weight on the chair. I thought about my options, then hiked the three miles to get my spare key. I rode the bicycle back and now much as I don’t like the concept of hiding a key somewhere on the car, I’ll do it. Why can’t these millennials come up with something about that. Oh, that’s right. If they could think, they wouldn’t be . . .
           It was quite a walk for me in the 96°F heat index. On the way, I found this tree limb hanging over the sidewalk. I’m surprised it wasn’t damaged. It grows from the yard to the left, over the sidewalk around six feet high, then curves onward to what you see here. Just before the street, it wisely starts growing upward again.

Picture of the day.
King Arthur.
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           Thinking it would be fun for my day off, I rigged up a wireless doorbell. That was a mistake. The packages they come in do not specify if the pushbuttons and chimes are compatible, so I bought a set from the same manufacturer, making damn sure the store had a return policy. The problem was, the two pieces each had a four position dip switch, making for 16 possible combinations. The instruction manual was so bad, I finally made up a truth table and began systematically trying each setting. I got lucky on step 8, getting a single “ding” but not the “ding-dong”. I got that on trial 13. Let’s see how this works out. The bell says the range is 75 feet, the chime says 120 feet. I noticed the chime is not very loud and cannot be set louder.

           I went over some records for a pal of mine, and discovered that like a lot of people these days, his house mortgage is taking half his take-home pay. When I was in grade school, it was fairly established that a bank would not lend money if the payments exceeded 25% of take-home. Then that changed to 33%, then changed again to 33% of gross pay. I’m old enough to remember when most households had only one parent working and I lived through the transition of women into the workplace. Strange as it seems, the second working parent did not make that much a difference to total disposable income and it destroyed the traditional household.

           When the US government began buying the mortgages, it took away the bank’s risk. That’s where the mortgage I looked at today came to be. The wife splits, the husband gets the house, but with the mortgage. After alimony, he’s working to pay the mortgage only. Now, it can be done, I mean, that’s how I was living in the trailer court. Half my income went to the lot rent and utilities. But not everybody is comfortable with that situation. It means a change of lifestyle that cuts out nearly all inefficiencies, including the ones people come to know and love.
           I’m falling into the same trap. In the past few days, I’ve hopped into the car for trips that would normally be made on the scooter. But, but, it looked like rain. That’s what I mean, people rarely realize how wasteful a lot of ordinary activities become one you accept them as necessities. I’m going to help this new guy out by going over his records to find out where he’s been repeatedly hit with extra fees. Banks will often forgive those if you negotiate.

Quote of the Day:
“No matter how much the cats fight,
there always seem to be plenty of kittens.”
~ A. Lincoln
           Now for some speculation. This is completely off the record, so don’t you go repeating this to anybody. Think back to what I described about the collision. How the other guy didn’t help at all, how he waited to profusely apologize only after a crowd had gathered. How the police arrived and whisked him away and brought me his details to the hospital. How they went over my burnt up motorcycle, like five of them, and how they asked me dozens of baiting questions in the hospital. Was I wearing a helmet, did I have insurance, where was I driving to? How the younger cop returned to the hospital to explain it away. At some point, all of this behavior was curious enough to get me to comment on it, if you’ll recall. That means it was significant, blog-wise, at the time.

           Well, today a single explanation was proposed. I’m not saying this was the case here, but one of the club associates who used to be a fireman reports he saw a similar situation some ten years back. This might make sudden sense of all the above. In that incident, the police also quickly removed the at-fault driver from the scene. Turns out he was an off-duty policeman who had just come from a convention. Now, I don’t know about you, but things are adding up pretty quickly. I don’t remember what the guy looked like, but he certainly acted peculiar and knew how to distance himself just the right amount.

           Agt. R and I went in together on replacing hurricane supplies to get the bulk discounts. We bought a big container of dry goods and each took half. The price was right, but it sure was curious to see what some folks consider survival food. I distrust storing food in plastic bags. That won’t stop the rats and it seems to get wet just before you need to use it. But I am now the owner of two gigantic plastic bags of potato flakes. And cornbread stuffing. It’s all packed away in my own metal cans in the shed. I had a rat eat through a plastic pail back at the trailer court, you may remember the pictures. Metal it has to be for my storage.

           Potato flakes. Other questionable items would be beef jerky, chili powder, canned sauerkraut, and corn syrup. While these things would have been most welcome in my starving student days, a survival situation is not the time to choosy about having variety in your diet. The booklet that came in the box contained recipes for lasagna and hash brown pie. Duh, okay, but I am fully prepared to live for weeks on end with just coffee, canned milk, lemon juice, canned meat and fish (SPAM and sardines), and Raiman noodles. How much comfort do these others want?

           I’ll tell you what. I’ve made mashed from potato flakes before, so I’ll give this bulk variety a fair chance. If I like it, I’ll say so. I’ll try it also in other recipes where I’d normally mash my own. It safe to say I’m more open-minded about potato flakes than I am about women flakes. So if you are still out there Theresa, don’t be getting any ideas. The lumber yard up the road had a free seminar on floors, so I attended. It was mostly a video and with only four people present, I had time to talk to the guide. Good move, he knew exactly about how to install sister joists, although he calls them scabs.
           He had solved the same hurdles I did and in much the same manner. One savings was he said not to bother with bolting the joists together, since he’s never seen one that required unbolting over time. Makes sense. He says instead to use a lag bolt every two feet and don’t use nails in old lumber. But I really knew he was on the money when he advised drilling pilot holes.

ADDENDUM
           Why is the Hippie texting me? I’ve told him a dozen times I do not text. It is step backwards and slower than Morse code. I’ve de-activated texting, but to Virgin Mobile, that only means I can’t send outgoing text. They still zap me 15¢ apiece for the incoming messages, none of which I have ever wanted. What part of “no texting” doesn’t Virgin understand? Shall we say, if they go belly-up soon, the explanation could be that the whole lot of them didn’t understand very much at all.

           I mean, ask yourself, how can a communications company go bankrupt? That requires a special kind of stupid but these days, it would not surprise me. When you can’t do what the customer wants and it takes 45 minutes to pay the bill on the second try, well, shall we say such people’s mental defects don’t cease when their company goes insolvent.

           What, you ask, is the Hippie texting me? His gig info. Unlike me, he’s lived 40 years in one place, so he knows the circuit. We only played Tobacco Road once and that was nearly 16 years ago. That club is gone, but there is another in the same area called Blackbird Ordinary. I still can’t figure out the texts, however. I’m too far away to just show up to play audience. I mentioned he appears to be finally figuring out what counts, but he’s capable of putting that on. The guy is not a born leader; think more of a born musical zoo guide. One who shows you his favorites rather than what you wanted to see.

           Was I dumb for not going out this Friday? On the way back to my car, I went past all the drinking spots in town. It was just afternoon but they were packed, business was booming. You know I have an aversion to going out of Fridays—unless I’m on stage. My dislike of being in the audience is well-founded and it saves me a lot of wasted time and money. Still, Friday nights are still a major deal in these small cities where everybody seems to get paid on the same day.
           Did I ever tell you about Tony? He was a drummer, but he could play enough rhythm guitar to make himself useful in the bars. Tony was an expert on women’s undergarments. And he was shameless, “Victoria’s Secret, Spring 2016, page 11.” He could see lace patterns where the rest of us could not even make out a panty line. He had denim and polyester X-ray vision, that boy. You know, he got robbed more times than anybody I ever knew.


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