One year ago today: March 29, 2017, 130 years old.
Five years ago today: March 29, 2013, WIP (address problem)
Nine years ago today: March 29, 2009, low-brows be glad.
Random years ago today: March 29, 2008, remember the retro-kitchen?
I was gone all day, a privilege of retirement. Off to a seminar and a lengthy meeting afterward. I really should write a book. So many people do not realize how channelized their thinking becomes by the system they grow up under. No, the system is not automatically right, and no, maturity is not primarily concerned with how well you learn to behave. Most people never think for a second that there could be an undercurrent shaping and manipulating their environment—and you can’t explain it to them. That would just make you the conspiracy theorist. Now pay attention, because there is a way to get people to question the system without them labeling you are a radical misfit. Read on.
What? A photo of construction adhesives? What’s this blog coming to? Hold up, I can explain. It is from another post that records in more detail for a select group who follow my renovations. I had hardly posted it a few minutes when I get a message to check on-line. Sure enough, the picture was already pirated. Hey, I don’t care as long as they don’t obliterate the watermark. If I didn’t say, the slump in readership from the change with Twitter is now back to normal. It is always about content, you can only take so many cat pictures and so many vegetarians.
The reason I’ll see how far I can get away with things is that they were not up front about that. They obviously want some basis to increase taxation in the future. I have no respect for those who think like that and I’m already paying all the taxes I care to. What I’ll do is covertly make a few changes, pay a small fee to get the drawings updated, and submit that square footage. This gives them no previous blueprint compare. I’ve already finished the blocks and covered them over with an inch of dirt. All the woodwork is prefabbed indoors, so the complete deck, not visible from the road, suddenly appears overnight. Even when somebody eventually notices, they’ll have to scratch their pin-shaped heads over whether it was already there or not.
Of course it was. Why, I have a diagram.
Mennonite graveyard.
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“Pale Horses” is the correct title of the book. Plural horse. It finally gets going but it seems every chapter contains at least one irritating side-mention over the feminist thing. This author seems to think, as so many of her kind, that a detective novel is just the place to plug some of her surplus attitude. The setting is very realistic, being that she lived in South Africa. And she rarely misses a chance to mention how nurturing and tolerant her detective is despite all her hardships, which are far worse than men can imagine. As she shoots the bodyguard in the forehead. All it does is reveal she thinks white males shouldn’t have any rights.
Except for the undertones, this book has the substantive feel of being based on true incidents. No such claim is made, but the nuances of the plot kind of exceed her writing style and she’s definitely writing about things she has seen first hand. She sometimes misses the point that she’s getting eerie about that.
The Donald has come up with a good one. Part of the barbed wire in politics is the people who oppose immigration changes if they think doing so makes them look more liberal. So one has to be careful what is proposed, and Trump pulled a coup with a rule that residency, not citizenship, will be denied to any immigrant who accepts any kind of welfare or benefit while here. As Ann Coulter points out, that money is intended for our poor, not the rest of the world. The entire leftard community is in disarray and making monkeys of themselves already. The beauty of Trump’s move is that they can’t oppose it without inviting disgust as well. As far as the taxpayer is concerned, even putting these people in jail is a free ride.
The fine print is clear. Even if they are resident here legally, such as a student or guest worker, they cannot apply for things like the Earned Income Tax credit on their tax forms. Nor should they, again, those credits are meant for American citizens. The world knows that getting on welfare in America is easy and makes them rich by comparison. And how about those media reports on Mexicans being thrown out for traffic tickets and jaywalking. Hey, you can bet there is more to it and the minor crimes are just the culminating incidents. Round ‘em up, Mr. Trump. And we remind you about your promise to break up the gangs. Wholesale. Start with the face-tattoo thugs. By the busload.
I found out I may be breaking some law. Power of Attorney in Florida may involve having to fill out and file documents. I have never done that, I have always thought it sufficient for the other party to say so. I found out when I went to make a deposit on behalf of a client who, shall we say, needed somebody to manage his affairs for 150 days. Exactly. So yes, I have all his bank cards, pin numbers, mail box key, and I know to the penny what’s in his accounts, where to pay his phone bill and I regularly answer all kinds of mail using his name (typed, not written). This vastly diminishes the impact of certain situations because they can be away for extended periods without anybody getting wise. If the authorities are slimy enough to use embarrassment as enforcement, it just makes my services all the more valuable.
And that is what happened today. Whenever possible, I use the robots, in this case, the ATM, specifically to avoid human contact when it is not necessary. Somebody mistook me for the client. I’ve mentioned how I don’t get haircuts or buy gas in the same town I live and this is why I don’t bank, have a local phone, or any services in my own name either. It dawned on me the other person knew my client by name, but had no idea what he looked like. It was a situation where the other person wanted to see ID, but could not demand it. Of course, I had, ahem, forgotten it at home because I was in my work clothes. I will not use that ATM again.
So I quickly looked up the relevant statutes at the first opportunity and they are unclear. But it appears that it may be illegal to have been carrying around a folder with all the other guys stuff without an officially notarized certificate. I can’t do that because I take clients only by referral and complete privacy is the biggest part of that. Time to review what’s changed since I last looked thirty years ago. I understand this arrangement requires a huge amount of trust, but that is the thing. My own affairs are completely handled by an office 2,000 miles from here. I was hardly a teenager when I noticed most of the system is based on most people not knowing anyone they can trust this much.
Just so you know, if I was a crook, I could swipe $160,000 any time I want. I could just walk away with it. And I could probably sell two houses that aren’t mine. And no, even if I find out there is some requirement to register Power of Attorney, I will refuse. That’s as dumb as the rule that if you change your name, you have to post it in the newspapers. If somebody knows you, they’ll know you changed it and if they don’t know you, it isn’t any of their concern.
ADDENDUM
My gloomy report on the state of the band from last day followed me around all morning. I bagged leaves, boxed up building scraps to the curb, and took more measurements for my laundry room. This too until 10:00 AM, when it already got too warm outside and I was off to the coffee shop. Last year, 2017, I spent $395.04 having coffee downtown. Since I got the tablet, which I use as a laptop, I’ve already spent$281.00 this year. Let me double check if that is really an even dollar amount. Yes it is, here is the YTD totals bar. These are all formulas, so the figures are accurate to the penny. At this rate, I am spending four times as much on coffee. So let’s talk money.
[Author’s note: I am aware these posts are very popular overseas by readers curious what things actually cost over here. It would seem foreign media isn’t a great source for this information. However I caution before you make any decisions based on my posts that most Americans do not live like I do. The average America is a couch potato compared to me. For that matter, when compared to each other as well.]
The entertainment column always gets full attention. Some say it is so little, others think it extravagant. I feel this figure will easily double once I am completed the major work on this house. I am, after all, physically retired since 1996, financially retired since 2010, and have not worked for a living since 1981. Entertainment includes everything from movies to trade fair tickets, and of course, stopping in at the club always adds up. These days, the average cold, crisp Budweiser costs me $3.50. Or about 23 times more than the cost when I turned of drinking age. And I sure as hell am not making 23 times as much money, I guarantee you that. Tell me again about government-reported single digit inflation?
Groceries are reasonable, since I cook everything from scratch. But why isn’t coffee part of entertainment? Ah, an easy question. Because coffee is a serious and ritualistic event for me, a part of all my life accomplishments, and some but not all of my failures. A sit down coffee away from home is integral to my planning, a daily routine away from distractions and often, thinking is my primary form of relaxation. None of that qualifies as entertainment. My annual coffee budget has been raised to a thousand dollars since I moved here, and by the looks, it may not be enough.
Other items of a similar status not included in entertainment are books, which encompasses magazines and newspapers, still my primary sources of new information. I am currently reading four books. “Pale Horses”, the detective novel, “The Eleventh Hour”, a lash-out at politicians by a retired General, a fact book on American history, and still finishing up “Enemy at the Gates”, the generally accepted pro-Soviet anti-German account of what happened at Stalingrad*. Over morning coffee, I will complete three crossword puzzles (21x21 grids, in ink), a Sudoku, the Jumble, which I can often answer just by looking at the scrambled letters, and solve both cryptograms. If this takes less than 40 minutes, I often stick around for a refill, ignoring the people staring in stunned silence. Actually, when I know they are watching, I will sometimes do three puzzles at once. Kind of letting them know who is boss and it is impolite to stare at others, even in amazement. Unless that other is Taylor Swift. Then all is forgiven.
There are times I meet with people over coffee and those are separately included in a budget category named “café”. This is a holdover from my decade in South America, in particular, living in Caracas. That is how business is conducted and meeting on Sabana Grande suited me to a T, in that it was a natural extension of my university days, when I used to study at Denny’s till 2:00AM because of the free refills. Note you can no longer study at Denny’s. Some outright ask you to leave if you open a book, but those tend to be near campuses. The others, no matter what you are reading or how intensely you are preoccupied, will interrupt you every few minutes to annoy you, asking if you want more coffee when it is convenient for them. But nowhere to be found when you are ready.
That gas figure is the one out of line. Prior to last September, I had my annual gas budget pegged at $792, often coming in a few dollars less. It rains in Florida. Household is within reason, it includes all the little non-food expenses of operating a household “as if I were married”. So you get everything together from paper towels, aspirin, birdseed, batteries (non-band), DVDs (which I purchase, not rent), razors, propane, and laundry.
Of course, if I were really married, the totals would be much higher, but I have no intention of marrying a gal who can’t supply her own basics, you know, like Taylor would insist on once she learned to love me. Ha, it is subliminal, you know, this pretend obsession with that gal. This is for future psychology teachers to test which of their students believe it, thus making it easier to decide who passes or fails. Having said that, of course I like Taylor Swift. What real man wouldn’t? What? Did I hear some comment about Dolly Parton? Hey, dud, I mean dude, I said real man, the effectual word being “real”. Not the ones who like what reminds them of their own mothers. Nomsayn?
The other category that is not usual is office expense. I write off my entire computer and office system, but not the floor space occupied in my house. For those who do, keep in mind when you go to sell your house, that percentage you declare as office space is not protected from taxation as your primary residence. I know fools who claim as much as 30% of their condos as a deduction. The fact none of them have been caught not reporting the gain on sale of assets is not a defense. The IRS can reach into the past and get you over anything like that—all it takes these days is a single event to draw attention to yourself. What? That’s true, but I have an entire mechanism in place to capitalize if anything like that that could happen to me. I would turn it into world fame overnight. You have no such strategy.
And office includes stamps, telephone, all stationery, storage, desks, scanners, and every imaginable office convenience. There are no budget limitations on office expense, the figure is representative only. Thusforth, my home office would be the envy of any office worker and most of their bosses too boot. The only thing I don’t keep stockpiled is printer ink, and there are good reasons for that beyond its low shelf life they are never up front about. Also, if your printer breaks, usually any spare cartridges become obsolete by design. Let me count the computers, five of them, including one entire unit devoted to backup copy and an entirely new spare XP unit in the box. XP is still much chided but it remains, if kept off the Internet, more secure than any newer MicroSoft opsys. I don’t put anything into my XP computers that doesn’t pass every scan I can give it.
What I don’t have a category for is vehicle insurance. I’ve been treating it as an extraordinary expense. But at $100 per month and a band that is finally playing out, I may have to institute a formal reserve. This time, thanks to insurance cost and a replenishment check that is already 20 days late, I had to draw one of my more conspicuous accounts down into the 3-figure range for the first time in six years. That was my show account to the world that I can, despite having every one of the same challenges and hardships as the next guy, still operate at a surplus most people dream of. The car is mainly responsible, as I’ve said, it has cost me over $6,200 out-of-pocket in the short six months I’ve owned it. (That’s an inclusive total that is not peanut-buttered, hence it will look better the longer I own the vehicle.)
*the book ignores the well-known fact that the reason the Soviet army collapsed so badly in 1941 was because it was (like the Polish army two years earlier) massed along a frontier, an attack army the Germans could not but have helped to notice. There’s your explanation why so many “Nazi” spy planes were “violating” their air space. The Germans knew what was going on. These armies were poised for for a repeat of World War I where the English and French would draw the Germans into a stalemate in the west. When the Germans were weakened over time, the Soviet plan was to overrun Germany from behind, then continue on to the Atlantic coast, rolling over any equally bled white Allied forces.
[Photo delayed]
This plan was still in existence throughout the Cold War. All Soviet (that’s Soviet, not Russian) airplanes and tanks carried enough fuel to reach the other side of France—one way. In 1941, there was no defense in depth on the Russian front. The Germans broke through a few miles and found themselves in undefended territory. Their advance was so rapid that most millions of Red Army prisoners taken were rounded up not after a battle, but after they were retreating when news reached finally reached them they had been bypassed. Many of them had never seen a German soldier until then, much less fought one.
Please try to remember that all western accounts of the war are published by a media owned by the mortal enemies of Germany and they have not stopped hating Germany since. It is in some people's best interests to ensure there is never a single strong and united Germany ever again.
Back from coffee, I see now that no matter how I shoehorn my planned laundry room between the two hallways, it will be cramped. Some less ideal choices might be smaller stacked appliances and finding some other place for basic storage. The available space is roughly six feet wide and eight feet long.
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