One year ago today: September 2, 2017, wash that car.
Five years ago today: September 2, 2013, WIP
Nine years ago today: September 2, 2009, I independently invent webviews.
Random years ago today: September 2, 2010, more modern schools?
There, see the sidewalk brick out of place? It matches my sore toe. Call me Hop-a-long and that is about the pace I’ll max out at today. The August books are closed and I’m over budget. Quite a bit, but when I think of the amount, I’m okay because back at the trailer court it used to be that much every month. September will be equally bad, I have auto insurance and house taxes due. But the quality of life is unrivaled compared to the big city. Guys, get yourself a hobby or two while you are still young enough to turn it into a habit. Sitting around being useless is not a viable retirement plan.
This morning I found a nerf ball in the back, so I walked over where the neighbor has a small storage shed that forms a blind spot in one corner. As I tossed the ball over the shed, I pretended I did not see what his kids were up to. In other news, I’m listening to an audio book about corruption at the tax office. It’s presented as a shocking revelation, but I don’t find it such at all. I’ve always thought all this waste and abuse were going on. The Constitution is designed to ensure the American people that they would never suffer having a strong central government, but that is the opposite motive under which any government agency conducts itself. Like the army, they need a war to get promoted.
Uh-oh, my place is comfortable again, so will any work get done? I oiled and cleaned all the house fans like you are supposed to and programmed all the timers for approaching winter hours, checking the batteries. For me, it is a September thing, start of the school year. I went through a few DVD movies and listened to Matt Dillon on the radio. He shut down the saloon and sent everybody home. I found a sci-fi movie, more great special effects but nothing new. “Serenity” is the old theme of humans colonizing rebellious planets, terra-forming experiments gone bad, and renegade traders riding junkyard heaps through the empire.
I’ll never understand why screenwriters think when mankind manages interplanetary travel, they re-adopt the feudal system. I have a theory on that, too. These guys have a strange concept of high school, that it is the time to behave and get high grades or something. So instead of getting out there, they never go beyond the Dragons & Dungeons phase. It lodges in their brains and when they get out in the real world, the only jobs they can get are script writing the same things over and over. To them, it is original and others just don’t get it. Expand on that and you get every clone movie that came out in the last thirty years. So in the space cadet movie, the two survivors fall in love. Which is good, considering the size of the dating pool on an abandoned space ship.
And next up was “The Craft”, a witchcraft remake, every teenage plain Jane’s revenge on those wicked classmates. You’ve seen this movie at least a dozen times. I’ll leave you guessing. Is it moving into a haunted house, or was it playing that game they found in the attic? Or chanting phrases out of that silly book? Was it lighting candles or selling their souls? This movie picks one and sticks to it, so make sure extra tea or you may nod off. The four actresses actually don’t have figures as nice as you’d expect in such a production.
Actually none of the extras are that shapely either. Hey, in my day, I skipped the Dragons & Dungeons phase and went directly to poinking as many as often as possible. It condemned me to a life of trying to find one that was not the same as all the rest, but it was worth it for sparing me a lifetime of regret over marrying too early because I thought one was special. I’ll say it again, high school is the best odds you’ll ever get. That’s a generalization, since my best stretch was second year of university. By year three, the pickin’s get slim and by year four, the changes become appalling. But I can see it, imagine being about to graduate and still no husband. Argh, working for a living!
Lighthouse candies.
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Ah, I finally found that example I was looking for. This is the “mileage” slip used in teaching tax auditors how to catch a cheat. Is this mileage reported true or false? I’ll leave it up to you to find the answer, but I’ll give you some strong clues. The solution has nothing to do with the illegible numbers, it has to do with the fact you can see the rightmost digit. And you must use a brand of arithmetic nobody thought was important back when I was in college. As reported here, the mileage is not just a mistake, but deliberate lying. The challenge is to show why that is so.
No way I’ll tell you how to do any such thing, but one item to watch for when you report business mileage is to make sure you get a receipt for something that matches the trip. Often, you’ll see me stop for an extra coffee when on the road. The receipt establishes that I really was there during the said period. Reasonable question: does the answer to the above have any practical uses? Well, guys, I knew my wife was faithful to the very end by simply checking the last mileage digit on her car twice a week.
Only one person in a hundred will figure out the answer. Hint: clock arithmetic, 9+4=1.
I fastened the metal trim on the cart, working in the afternoon drizzle. I tested the burners, they work fine but I had to return later. I forgot to turn off the propane, an easy mistake. The final step will be painting the new firebox frame I made from 2x2”. Then that is it, ready to roll. It looks like I will have to pay the full year’s registration now, and again in November. Florida is full of these small-minded rip-offs, it is the way they do business. But I cannot wait another two months to get into production. Then, I stopped for libations while I totaled what remains to be paid. It’s around $1,600.
What? Yep, the registration is $450, the fire extinguisher costs $425, the insurance is $430 and one employee must have the food manager’s course, another $325. I sooner believe the moon is cheese than think the average cart operator in this town came up with money like that. In the end, the paperwork will have exceeded the cost of the cart itself by nearly double. I further tested the burners and they are not identical. The one on the left is basically on or off, while the right side can be very finely tunes. What counts, the heat output, is fine.
I’ll shop around for bargains but am not expecting much savings. The Internet assures all prices are about the same across the state. Then I took serious stock of what songs I can sing and play, I came up with a shaky total of 45. There are some so highly arranged I could only play them as duos and I sadly had to reject those. The bottom line? I’ll be mediocre. My best material will be on a rough par with what the others do as filler music. The solution? Make the act different in some way, probably with patter, comedy, and get those wireless mics out there. I missed this long weekend again, that makes 19 consecutive years in a row I’ve had no band on Labor Day. (That is only significant to me because it was that weekend I formed my first band when I was twelve. And it would be a year before that same band played our first gig. In the church basement.)
So you won’t think I’m lazy, I also copied and tested the bingo music on the tablet. It has a few quirks, like taking an inordinate amount of time to start playing the first tune. And being designed for hipster types, the gadget will not run two of the same programs at once. I mean, why would a hipster need two files open at the same time? Just turning the thing on and checking his social media is already multi-tasking the guy. Instead, I opened the internal player and installed a VLC, problem solved.
ADDENDUM
Yard work. This terrible photo shows the path to the back shed now that I sprayed herbicide to knock back the five-foot tall grass and sedge that sprang up since the rains started. Spraying has become mandatory unless you want the back-breaking chore of trying to keep it cut short. And it is not a matter of spray and wait. Most of the chemical won’t work if it rains within two hours. Florida can go from bright sunshine to downpour in less than ten minutes, so what you see is actually the result of the fourth application.
Here’s a peek at my actuals for August 2018. These are not my total expenses, just a quick view at how an American retiree like me spends his money. And for the record, I’ve been retired a long time, so these are the result of over ten years of experience staying within my own guidelines. Three trips to Miami and one to Tarpon Springs, excluding gasoline, cost $124.07. But gasoline was extraordinary, though that amount is classified. I spent $91.94 on coffee, but I hope the new K-cup will cut down on that. As always, I eat very good and during August I baked a lot, so groceries were a miniscule $77.87. With the new business, office expenses are creeping up, they were $137.94. And I was under budget for books and reading materials at only $35.52.
Business expenses rose accordingly. Loss for the month, as with almost any new business, were over $1,000. For those who follow such things, those are capitalized expenses (carried as a form of asset to be allocated against future income). No matter how you slice it, I picked up the entire tab. We could have cheated and opened for sales, but I’d rather be able to sleep peacefully. So, there you have it, there is no such thing as just buy a food cart and go make money. Mind you, there is such a thing as thinking you did, which only tells you that your books weren’t kept right. In August 2018, the business had expenses of $1,078 against an income of $0. That’s right, folks, things like gas, insurance, registration, health fees, licenses, are all burning up whether you move forward, backward, or stand still.
In the end, it will be close to three months gone by before we officially sell a thing. But man, is Agt. R’s dog ever getting fat. To date, he is the main beneficiary of the staff training.
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