One year ago today: August 28, 2017, exciting by comparison.
Five years ago today: August 28, 2013, surprise, you're married.
Nine years ago today: August 28, 2009, Canada didn't crash - yet.
Random years ago today: August 28, 2010, $5 - in the long run.
One year. Today in 2017, I took a first peek at the situation of this guy I’d met when I first got here. Then, noting on the same date 45 years ago, I walked out the door of the shack where I was raised and never went back—in a manner of speaking. The guy who was my business partner for twenty years was back all the time so I was completely aware of everything that was going on. And the consensus has remained the same since that day—that I was the one who got out just in time. Here’s as far as I got installing the new burners between sun-up and too hot. Again, I got zero help. I understand the logic, that the cart belongs to me, so why should they do anything but sit around and wait for me to get it working right.
It’s clear once more everybody only wants to do the fun part, which is run the cart and make money. This means I’ll have to devise a system that they don’t get paid until the unit is returned to spotless clean and ready for the next shift. As for what’s happened to date, I’m now of the opinion running a cart requires about the same management skills as a small office, just not as many hours at a stretch or every day. That’s must come as a gruesome realization to folks who believed all the hype about it being simple and easy. I wonder how many thousands give up at this stage. They don’t realize it is management and they don’t know how to do it. Slap those together and you get mostly wasted time and duplicated effort.
What’s more is I’m a lot more certain about the fate of those carts that disappeared since 2012. I can see many an operator thinking he’s a hero after a spell of good business. He buys his own cart and finds himself standing in a rainstorm wondering why the customers and supplies don’t magically appear like they did before. This month I’ve already lost $968. From what I hear, that would wipe most people out. The cart is being made ready at the pace at which I can determine what needs doing next, figure out a solution, and then go fix it myself.
I got most everything in place by mid-morning, then had to rip it all out when the gas line would not fit without a kink. In addition to management, you’ll need to be semi-skilled with plumbing, electrical, gas lines, and possess at least some mechanical savvy. Buying a new cart would save any of those headaches but my guess is most people who do wind up borrowing the money and that is two steps backwards. The tools you see in the “basement” here are just to keep out of the rain. The ice melt-water tank is normally under the firebox.
Dwarf planet Ceres
(from 25 miles up)
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This is Johnny [Rocket] over at the Plant City studio. He’s quite the character, but he will talk politics and my political IQ remains at zero. I often don’t recognize the names—but the issues are familiar. I have no idea what I’m in for at the interview, but he’s easy going. I’ve already driven to Winter Haven to check out the equipment for my show. It’s major Karaoke gear and it throws a lot of sound, which I don’t care for. It beats packing gear and I work with what I’ve got. The regulars are all married men around ten years my junior, but they do not look like me or act like me. It’s a working class neighborhood, so I know all the moves. The men hit on the barmaid, the women hold a hen party, and if they do anything together it is playing pool. Nobody dances.
Any good news? Yes. During that unexpected lull, many underlying factors came to the surface. First, it was a smart move to keep everything in my company name. I’m on my own as far as the management goes. And I’ve learned a lot about the procedure, another way of saying I now know how to cheat if I want to. The big revelation is that, while it is against the rules to operate at all without documentation, the fact is, the law on these carts is passive and ignored unless you step over some line. One more successful test run, and I’m spending the last $450 for the registration. (No, I’m not paying for that until I know it is a working proposition.)
Then, I have several standing invitations to set up shop. I may sell at a loss or at cost to get the operations side of things moving. We’ve done it already (the easy part) but that did not entail dealing with the public. The proletariat, the drunks, the people who will complain when everything is perfect. Nor have I stocked the coolers. In the same breath, neither has Agt. R found his Sam’s Club card or gotten the signature on the commissary document I got to him five days ago.
I think I’ll make an extra cup of coffee and relax for a few afternoon hours. I rewatched the video on the West Memphis 3, that’s the case where the courts allowed only evidence of guilt to be presented at the trial. It was the court case that opened the public’s eyes to the fact that there is no body of law that states the police, prosecution, judge and jury can’t all be on one side if they bloody well feel like it. You likely don’t remember the trial, but the police hauled three teens off the street and browbeat them into a murder confession. It appears their crime was being linked to Satanic rituals, which were a bit of a teenage kick at the time.
Myself, I side with the convicted teens, that they deserve a new trial. I am not saying I think they are innocent and in fact I have only weak opinions on that point. I want to see the rigged court system changed to hold people who make wrong decisions held accountable. I’m not referring to what I think is wrong, but to what I don’t like. Start with the money the court has to prove guilt. They should keep an accounting and the defendant should have access to the same amount for his defense. No, it would not be expensive because it will keep a lot of innocent people out of jail. Nor do I believe the courts should be allowed to place time limits on appeals based on new evidence. And attorneys who argue that courts can only be effective if their judgment is final should have their licenses yanked. No level of practice makes them into gods.
I don’t think the Judge whose decision is brought into question should be the one who decides if another trial is permitted. The courts should not be the ones who decide what evidence is allowed, because they consistently block exculpatory defenses and facts. They should not be allowed to approve re-trial with only the previous evidence because over time new techniques, such as DNA testing, have shown how faulty that system is. I don’t like it when “expert” witnesses are allowed to interpret statistics. This particular trial exposes the court system at about its worst. The police “interviewed” one of the teens for several hours on video, obviously coaxing him what to say, and then were allowed to present only 41 minutes of that nonsense on tape in court.
If you want to watch a documentary on the situation, there is a movie called “Paradise Lost”. The court system has been allowed to evolve into a monster that oversees itself. I want an annual list of Judges and prosecutors who have punished innocents. I want them, not the public, to pay retributions. The old analogy applies, where the justice system is like a construction society where every contractor need only show he did his job right, so none of them can be held responsible if the building collapses.
The fee to first time register the hotdog cart is whatever the usual fee is plus $225. This is another sickening “English tax”. If you got money for a trailer, then you damn well got money to pay a tax. The amount is another sordid result. I first saw this at the phone company, which was powerful enough in the old days to have the government let it set its rates at level the guaranteed a profit. This is similar to what happens in the DMV. Over time, they develop extravagant procedures that lack the restraints of private enterprise. So when deregulation arrives, they unbundle their prices and pass costs on to the customer. And what do you know? It really does cost them $22 to fill out that extra piece of paperwork. They’ve got a whole department for just that.
ADDENDUM
Whoa, big blow up back west. That missed message of last day had some serious ramifications. If I lose a long-term friend over it, that is not my fault. I sent full and complete directions as always. If you want to base financial decisions on what can fit in a 2.5 square inch phone window or whatever, I cannot be held responsible. You want to flit around, fine, but when you receive an e-mail from me, it is probably best that you read the whole thing. I wonder how much she lost. Probably around $5,000. She missed a deadline that was spelled out in full, but she didn’t scroll down far enough. Most of my business letters will display on a computer monitor.
And another annoyance is jerkoffs who advertise software for free, but put a watermark or trial version on-line. What part of free don’t they understand? Worst place for that? Softronics. I was on-line watching underground video. Germany is at the boiling point. Will they do a Brexit? The Arabs have been trying to take over the greener pastures of Europe since time began. Their declared intention is not to live there, but to destroy it.
It’s not an improvement to diversify your culture if the end result is your people are all dead. My conclusion for today’s viewing was if that is the pile of guns they are confiscating, what else must be out there? The media are screaming “Nazi”, but they would, wouldn’t they? If things don’t change, the emergent power in Europe will be Poland. Germany doesn’t want that either. That is another racial threat to Europe only from the east. And Berlin claims some experience dealing with that.
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