One year ago today: August 13, 2017, a generic day.
Five years ago today: August 13, 2013, not nearly enough.
Nine years ago today: August 13, 2009, omg, dusty fan blades!
Random years ago today: August 13, 2008, I’ll give you three grand for it.
Here is the process of determining serving sizes. It’s a standard ladle and the pot is two gallons. Earlier I found the practical size and weight to carry in this dimension is one and a half gallons. Here’s a representation of me doing the measuring empirically. No, I don’t trust the conversion and equivalency charts. Each ladle is slightly more than 2-1/2 tablespoons. This is more accurately determined by taking two ladles and averaging the results. What I’ve got in mind is chili, and I would like to do a cost-benefit before we even consider the product.
You should read today’s addendum to be assured the cart is not only a great little project, this might also be a gainful move in its own right. Without music, my social life these past two years has been rocky. I’m meeting too many grandmother types and the spark is not there. It would be different, I suppose, if any of them had money, talent, or looked half decent. So far none have come close on any count, much less all three. Fifty years ago I used to joke about how men who had nothing still thought they could marry the boss’s daughter type of thing. The shoe is on the other foot. Can you just imagine me out on stage with granny waiting back at home?
I just never was the type who could live with somebody and cheat at every opportunity. It sounds n noble, but it just makes me the fall guy. As a consequence, I dump women the moment they flirt too much. I know it only gets worse if you don’t put a stop to it. And too often, that just forces it underground. It’s a jungle out there. And I have not heard from Twood in two weeks. I detect he’s disheartened, so many guitarists don’t grasp that gigging is a lot like a part time job. They want to sit back and have the other musicians learn their song list. The bottom line is that if a guitar player can’t sing, he damn well better resign himself to playing what the rest of the band wants.
This picture shows the fitting from the new Coleman burners. It’s high quality chromed metal fitted for the small bottles. As I said to Agt. R, in the end it is just a pipe and I’ll damn well make it fit. It looks like a solid piece, but close examination shows that both ends of this item are threaded. It may be a bit heavy a chore for robot club thread cutters. You are probably admiring how nice this picture came out when backgrounded by the chalk table. I also reviewed the cart construction DVD to determine the best way to build a new covering for the front of the burners. So it looks more professional than Coleman
What I learned is that European privacy defense works on a different principle than the American model. We tend to think in terms of blanket security. We seek a total defense because any one breach can unlock every file the enemy has. The enemy is defined as anyone who keeps a file on you without your informed consent. In Europe, their approach is to make it difficult in the middle. So those who invade privacy find it so expensive, they won’t pursue it without a profitable reason. It’s starting to make sense to me, but I prefer spoofing as the best defense. Because the enemy thinks he’s got your number.
Foxglove Cottage, Ireland.
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I spent half the afternoon on a failed mission. The new hotdog burners have the nozzle for a small canister, so it should be no problem to find a fitting or adapter that converts it, right? Dead wrong. I tried every piece of pipe in the store to no avail. We will get this thing going but once again it will be no thanks to the system or the people. The motive of the manufacturer to make a product that is difficult to render unsafe is given, but why this time? Ah, because so many people in America make their living by creating situations that give others difficulty, and more so in Florida with it’s degenerate third-world impetus going on. Parts of the state are already like India, where people expect to be paid to stay out of your way. And they’ll walk miles to get in it.
When I talked of using the hotdog cart to test the theories of accounting school, I wasn’t specific. I was not referring to the bookkeeping side, but the cost management side. Our lectures presumed the formulas were applied to big business but I never lost the notion they could make a difference at the smallest level. With that in mind, I got around to a side of arithmetic that I’m no good at—but I passed the exam. It is matrix arithmetic and don’t be afraid of it. The process only looks complicated where the reality is you just memorize a series of simple rules. That’s how I did it. The question is begged, what do matrices have to do with selling hotdogs Answer: more than meets the eye.
You see, selling hotdogs has a lot to do with production costs, product mix, and capacity. Sure, these can be individually calculated. But I vaguely remember that matrices were used to figure out optimum returns or minimal costs. So today I read what I could find on them and wound up just as confused as I was thirty years back. Then I thought, is this not exactly what I bargained for? Is this not a prime learning opportunity? To stress how advanced this is compared to calculating profit and loss, it came to mind one example that was given on my accounting final exam. Want to have a go at it?
Okay, the question was a farmer has two silos that could hold 5,000 bushells. I don’t know that is realistic because I’m making these numbers up. He has 160 acres where he can plant wheat or barley. The wheat costs less to plant but more to harvest. The barley costs more to plant, but lower transportation costs. The question was how many acres of each crop does the farmer plant to maximize his return? He cannot exceed his storage capacity. It was a trick question, but I almost got the answer. I got the highest mark because it was one of those “show your work tests” and none of the other students got as far. You see, I kept coming up with a negative number, which I rejected.
It turns out the answer meant the farmer was to leave part of the field unplanted. I failed to interpret that negative number correctly, which has a lot to do with why I’m so bad at math. Most examples given in the labs required the use of everything in the mix, which conditioned us all to think in those terms. The usual example was how a grocer would mix cheap and expensive nuts to sell at what price. When it is just two ingredients, the answer is comparatively easy. We studied cases where a ketchup manufacturer would use up to eight brands of tomato. So there is a mix of sandwich, chips, & soda that can sell at a optimal price and I am now incentivized to calculate it. There, aren't you proud of me?
ADDENDUM
The writing is on the wall. Things are apparently fine but the budget shows a disturbing growth in auto repair and maintenance. There was no good reason those brakes needed a complete replacement after just 50,000 miles. The vehicle is fairly sound, so the thing to do is establish a reserve for repairs. That’s where the alarm tripped. If you’ve been following, I had not planned on buying and operating a car until November of this year, and I was hopeful of delaying that another year. No can do. Hence, I am taking the last of my planned pension amounts. This is the money I had planned for this very purpose, but not just right now. Then, that is it, there ain’t no more.
This move will provide a temporary surplus of cash until inflation catches up. A fast food meal now runs $7 or $8. I regularly spend nearly $2 on a cup of coffee. What scares me about inflation is the way that it can exponentialize. I’ve seen how it behaves once a barrier is broken. It was a big deal when soda doubled from 5 cents to 10 cents, but the next time it doubled was to 20 cents. This time around, it would be to $4. How do you like them apples? I’m not as worried as others. The American money machine is running on empty.
Why am I suddenly glad I have a hot dog cart?
It’s the association with growing old. I never thought about it until I looked at the finished product, in the bottom panel. Why am I even considering framing this object? I’d rather be partying, but there is nobody to party with. At least not anybody with the same interests, although that is nothing new in my life. My point is, what’s to become of me when I find these puzzles become a passtime? (Not that they would ever be the same waste of life as watching television.) The fact is, I conscious of how it looks to somebody who didn’t know I have other pursuits.
As a reward for reading this far, I’m going to start another of those unfounded beliefs that travel around the world forever. You can help me get it started. Ready? Okay, spread the rumor that wild cherry cough drops work better if you keep them in the freezer. Have fun with that.
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