July 16, 2018

Yesteryear
One year ago today: July 16, 2017, their biological counterparts.
Five years ago today: July 16, 2013, early cPod work.
Nine years ago today: July 16, 2009, musicians on premise!
Random years ago today: July 16, 1992, livin' in LA.

           Talk about a nothing day. And I’ll write about it. For the love of whatever, I could not get kick-started today. There’s a blog rule about such times. I simply write out what did happen, however lackluster it seems right now. After the way I was raised, there is no such thing as a lost day any more. So let’s get started. The eaglet has landed. Look close and you’ll see the one surviving baby perched on the left of the nest. I’ve heard him before, but seeing him is a first. I could not get wide awake, so I posted all the expenses to date. We lost $387 the first month, if I didn’t say. This is a reminder to all that once you start a business, if you stand still you lose money.

           Now actually, that is true even if you don’t have a business, but my generation was taught from birth to ignore that kind of expense. It is not really a loss on my books, it is a capitalized expense, which gets apportioned against revenue when there is any. But keeping track of things in itself is an eye-opener. The battery cutoff switch is showing its worth in the scooter, I’m putting one on the hotdog cart. That reminds me, get the cart blessed. No, I’m not Catholic, but it doesn’t hurt, and it’s the same God.

           Music rehearsal last day was work, but there is also forward momentum. Twood is now seeing the results of our four weeks work. He’s staid by nature but finds himself toe-tapping and such as he begins to play well enough to listen outward from his own playing. And it was hard work for the guy. Same as me, he had to conquer that ingrained mind-lock against up-picking. Now he’s sold on the concept. I’m so used to others not being able to strum it that now that he’s doing it regularly, he throws me on the bass because Lady Nik got me expecting mistakes and it was stilting my performance. I will recover quickly.
           And here’s something else you’ve not seen before. This is an egg scale, and that’s a jumbo egg on the platter. We’ve had more discussions about the display cases as a draw to the hotdog cart and the consensus is the idea if totally worth pursuing. We have more than enough material to have a constantly changing display, which is more than any museum or showroom in the county can even touch.

           I measured out the floor and kitchen area, once again I am not going to go for fancy flooring. Once it is insulated, I’m throwing carpet down. I’d rather have comfort and functionality, so I may even, at least for now, build some plywood counters in the kitchen. I need lots of prep space to eat well. As it is, one coffee maker, one blender, and I have no room left for my toaster. I’ve resolved to get that kitchen area cleaned up by this weekend.
           The weather report says overcast and showers, meaning I should use the opportunity to finish the attic insulation. There’s at least another day of dusty insulation work, the places where there was any electrical wiring are no done yet. And while I’m up there, I have a couple of circuits I’d like to run.

           By 10:00AM I was downtown for a coffee, and today it was so badly needed I thought I was back in university. I drank 15 cups a day back then and I believe I have a permanent immunity to caffeine. This days I can drink several cups and sleep like a baby. Due to the hotdog business, we have more regular meetings over coffee and last day I added one of those Stok shots. No buzz, no effect, but it made the coffee taste better. I’m telling you, they’ve done something evil to the coffee over the past five years.
           I got an extensive e-mail from back west. Finances are looking good, almost exceptional. There is no fear of the hotdog cart failing from underfinancing. Now that I’m into it, I’m documented every scumbag situation that comes along. It’s the same old story, nobody will be up front about the true cost because then they can’t gouge you once you are past the point of no return. It is even worse when the government gets in on that kind of sting.

           I have now funded this hotdog adventure to the tune of $5,000, but expenses are maybe half that. The rest is operating capital, assets, prepaid expenses, and various contingency reserves. This could be the most highly capitalized startup of the sort in this area. I imagine others may throw more cash around, but they are not startups. And they are assuredly not MBAs. Let me get the exact figure for you, stand by. Here you go, $5,033.73. Without batting an eyelash. Expenses this month are $164.12 so that is running about right. Now we know, it costs around $10 per day to idle.
           However, let’s keep this under wraps. Nobody else knows the exact figures or that any reserve even exists. People work better when they think times are lean and mean. And how about this weird picture, from this month’s Popular Science. The magazine has gone for a dump, I quit buying them because they’ve gone trashy, full of cartoons and editorial too obviously aimed at the latte with sprinkles crowd. It is a “tree ring” depiction of the dominant colors on the magazine covers over the years. The darker banding near the top quarter represents the period of WWII, which I was reading about today.
           So I don’t like the magazine any more, but I think this picture and concept were brilliant.

Picture of the day.
Dubai.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Having time I wrote several letters myself. I read today another zillion passwords and identities were ripped of by some server in Israel. See, whose the smart one now? I’ve always kept my home address private and my mail goes to my business. I wonder how many of my detractors have the guts to admit I was always right about privacy and that the conspiracy theorists were right.
           Here’s a picture you’ve never seen before. These are German fighter planes arriving in Spain during the Civil War. The shrouds are to protect the engine compartments from grit, as the motors are shipped separately and installed at the airstrips. These are Bf 109s, later to be called Messerschmitt 109s. Note how small the and light the early models appeared. They got progressively heavier but lasted the entire war as a front-line weapon.

           I don’t know what’s with me today, it is past siesta time and I can’t get up steam. Could not even deign to go do the laundry, which is a traditional chore I’ll do for the heck of it when things are slow. I dunno, are they this slow over at your place? I threw on a DVD I thought was about a cops and robbers, called “Flywheel”. Wrong, it was about a crooked car salesman who found Jesus. The blogworthiness results from it actually having a plot. The acting is second tier, but believable. That could be the only religious movie I have enjoyed. Alas, like being around these people in real life, you know where every conversation is going.

           Here’s another weapon picture. This one is from a sales catalog. It is called the Predator, or some similar name, I don’t keep up with missiles. This one has a series of overlapping sensors, including a he-res TV that peeks out the little windows up front. People tend to forget that missiles are an embarrassing fragile piece of work. They have to be handled extremely carefully.

           You see, they have to be light enough to be maneuverable to follow dodging targets so the casings are usually wafer thin. They have a small radar cross section, but the rocket exhaust is super easy to detect. This model is further designed with stealth features. They are delicate enough to be the first weapon to be shot down by laser. The failure rate is a close secret. But everybody knows how one of the first Sidewinder missiles stuck into a Chinese jet in 1953 but didn’t explode. A year later the Soviets came out with a copy.
           Then, I went on-line to find out what I could about Dwight Yoakum’s guitar style, not that he has one. It seems there is not a single tutorial on-line about his version of “All You Ever Do”. Yet my trained ear is telling me the riffs in that tune are ideal for faking on the bass. What I found instead is that good old Dwight has recorded a goodly number of songs I’ve never heard of. Once again, you can tell an amateur musician because he is into albums and artists, where I only care if the individual tune is appealing.

ADDENDUM
           I buy my DVDs in bulk from the Thrifts, averaging a dollar a disk. The older releases can be up to six on one platter, so overall it’s a great deal. Looking through the unwatched cabinet, I find the odd gem. I’ve got titles like “The Pelican Brief” and “Bullitt”, unwrapped in the original jackets. Now I’ve got some I never heard of. MI III, “Mission Impossible III” I think. Tom Cruise. The rating says the movie contains “frenetic violence”. Really? I watched half, and it is the old tried and true formula. I like it, but the bad guy is almost a better actor than our boy. And them Europeans sure have some advanced stuff.
           This is all fine, but I require at least some academic challenge, which is not Tom Cruise’s department. In my trunk I found a textbook, “The Nature of Mathematics”. But nothing to indicate what level it is. And math, being my worst subject, means I can’t tell. But let’s see how far I get.

Last Laugh

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