One year ago today: May 20, 2017, another guitar player.
Five years ago today: May 20, 2013, silver continues to drop.
Nine years ago today: May 20, 2009, my first ten bucks.
Random years ago today: May 20, 2014, free medical, my eye.
It’s another attic photo or this chart of the first twelve Morse code letters in Arabic. Trivia quiz: how come so many of these non-English languages are written right to left? Answer: so the scribes could unroll the scroll with their left hands. How about another lesson, this time about logic that fails? Okay, on a hot sunny day, turn on the attic fan so you can work up there. But on a cool day like today, there should be no problem working without the fan, right? Nope. If the temperature is below 80°F, the fan never turns on, so the attic stays at least that hot, but the humidity gives a heat index of well over 95°F. And I was up there four hours.
Has Patterson’s book “Third Degree” been made into a movie? Don’t ask me because the plot is so thin and the title has nothing to do with the story line. I listened to it on audio tape in the car, which on the whole did little but kill 6-1/2 hours. It’s about a group of those terrible anarchists that live in Berkeley assassinating the rich-greedies. The twist is they are being used, the mastermind is out to avenge his older brother who was killed in one of those government Waco raids.
The crimes could not exist today because their success depends on the bad guys being able to hide in plain sight. They’d be picked up at the next corner nowadays, what, with all the surveillance cameras. Mind you, I found a lot of their grievances to be valid. It most certainly in the best interests of the rich to burn the bridges leading to success. It’s no fun being rich if so is everybody else.
This book also gets a failing grade. It is, at least in audio form, a platform for feminist griping and Patterson isn’t so great at that. He gets a few things right, though it is so unintentional that it’s comical. For example, the women always choose the wrong time to get emotional. They often need an extra half hour to pick the right shoes to appear on a murder scene. And they are utterly convinced we need to know in some detail what they ordered for dinner. Frankly, I’ve never known or met even one woman who is a fan of jazz or classical music, but in Patterson’s world they are all over the damn place.
The cops keep holding meetings to catch the criminals. A serial killer just escaped; meeting in conference room four on the double. The lady cop is not the least interested except in how great the deputy director looks in Kevlar. Not handsome, or sexy, or attractive, but just “great”. How odd that the one thing most men never learn is how shallow the thoughts of women really are. Maybe they can’t see the forest for the tree?
France.
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Here we go, I always wanted to use this word in a sentence. While clambering around for exercise up there, I traced the leaky electrical wire all the way to the hole where it heads down to the panel. I might as well replace the whole thing while I’m working there. The flaw could be anywhere on that wire and it is 120 feet long. On the bright side, I did manage a full four hours up there. I anchored the new bedroom partition with carriage bolts. Almost everything I’ve changed is easily reversible.
Would you like a hot dog? Not from here. The news is the old guy has decided to stay on after retirement. Forty years on the same job and he’s not taking off to North Carolina. Let me give you more background on the situation. This is the guy who bought the stand for his daughter and it is now blocking his driveway. He’s holding out for the full price he paid for the unit: $1,250. A year later, it still sits. I told you, nobody around here seems to have any money. Of course, I mean cash money to spare for such an investment. Otherwise, this is credit card city.
[Author’s note: I was quick to note another local quirk. A lot of attention is paid to people who appear to have money around here, that’s normal. But a closer inspection shows that many of these own small businesses. Places where I never shop. It may be an illusion. They only appear to have money because they can lay their hands on the cash flow daily. It’s hard to put my finger on what is telling me this. I certainly know I’ve seen it before.]
I’ve allocated the full $4,030 to the project of which only $900 is for the wagon. It should dawn on him that he’s only gotten one offer, namely mine. However, he also runs one of those smoked meat barbeques and is popular at weddings and fairgrounds. Thus, we know he has money. He’ been seen buying ribs by the carton. I’m okay, my dollars can just sit in the bank waiting. No time is wasted over here and other things come along. For instance, there is a guy over in Lake Wales who bought an enclosed wagon, sold a couple sandwiches, then parked it. Derek, that’s his name. I’m just saying there are options. Maybe I’ll go talk to him or send Agt. R.
No word back from my estate manageress except a single sentence expressing shock at how expensive New Orleans is. Last time I was there, in 1984, same thing. So expensive that Dr. Jose and I borrowed the TransAm and drove all the way to Florida to escape the burn. We had planned on seeing Disneyworld, but met these babes and got no further than the next town, Fort Walton Beach. I would not get to Disneyworld until the next century, and Epcot was shut for renovations. Hey, that’s ironic. If it’s a city of the future, should it not already be renovated, I’m sayin’?
And what’s a day without music. I surprised myself by singing “Last Train To Clarksville” as a bass solo. It’s got a ton of harmonies so this was not an instance of either you can sing or you can’t. Back so long ago, this was the very first tune I ever really learned on a bass. I chose it to be difficult so anything after that would be easy. I’ve certainly played it enough times but I’ve only ever sung it along with the recording. The hurdle for me is the whole song is 7th chords, which have always thrown me off. To my ear, they sound “unfinished” and it was doing the same to my vocals. But I did it, finding another tune that nobody but nobody is expecting in this format.
Trivia. Your hands are covered in bacteria. But did you know that only 17% of the bacteria are the same on your right hand as your left?
ADDENDUM
Concerns? Inflation, that’s what. Running more numbers shows that I am shy when it comes to preparation for the impending. That’s another case for that hot dog stand—you cannot ever save enough money to win the investment game. The emergency fund was steady at $4,680 for the entire month of April, 2018 and it made 18 cents interest. Before taxes. If inflation was only 1% this entire year, that’s a loss of $3.90 during the same month. And a cheap cup of coffee these days costs $1.80. Ergo, you would need to “invest” $46,800 in a bank account to buy that cup of java. With luck, it would take your mind off the taxes, which for me would be another $1.40.
It requires $1.24 million these days to be classified in the top 10%. That’s not very much money so it shows you the climate out there. The local papers are ablaze with announcements that real estate is back. Towns I never heard of are reporting record numbers of housing flips. It must be the speculators selling to each other, since none but the biggest cities are gaining population in central Florida. And who’d want to live in or near Orlando? Life has enough headaches without looking for them.
Last for today, the new drummer guy has lost interest. You get a lot of that. They lose their last band and want a similar replacement. It doesn’t work that way. He’s also seeking a guitarist. It turns out that while he can drum, he cannot sing at the same time. Thusforth, he’ll wind up going through the same batch of wannabes that I found, not one of whom could learn new music. I estimate the pool of suitable guitarists in commuting distance to be around 20, so I’ve already been through most of them. There is a solution to all this but why can’t I think of it.
And no, the solution is not join up with another clone band and slog it. I’ll run the ad again, I guess. I could haul out my acoustic and strum but how many times has that gone nowhere? As soon as I get to speed, another guitar player comes along and within the split second, I’ll reach for my trusty bass. There’s only one thing to do. Go get a haircut.
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