One year ago today: September 27, 2017, benches, dots, & Richards, TX
Five years ago today: September 27, 2013, the cPod Mk II.
Nine years ago today: September 27, 2009, hmmm, 09/27 must be biscuit day?
Random years ago today: September 27, 2007, Early blog trivia.
Stiff, sore shoulders, that’s how I woke up, and that’s top story because I’ve got to gig tonight. No hard work as in heavy lifting going on here, so what gives? I feel like I’ve been piling lumber. Now, hold on, part of that sounded funny. It leaves the impression that thinking right isn’t hard work, and the little secret is that it is damn tough going, even for the people who make it look easy. But thinking doesn’t give one aching muscles. Only one thing to do. Make biscuits and coffee. Here, help yourself, there’s enough for everybody.
The best regular (non-Polish, I mean) hotdogs so far are a brand called Kayem. And they are a dollar apiece off the shelf. That’s a 50% price increase since I first tried them just three weeks ago. It’s part of the management process to react accordingly and that leaves it up to me. How does that old comedy routine go where the guy determines that all the work in America has to get done by two people, you and him? And he’s getting tired of doing it all himself. Hey, hey, hey, I know the other guy is putting in voluntary time same as me. But I’m not so sure how he reacts to it.
Another gloomy factoid is that these types of business usually don’t show a real profit for nearly a year. I’ve not said that out loud yet because it is discouraging words. The snag is that you should not say it to people who have not run a business past that year, in which case, you don’t have to say it. As noted before, the business tends to smooth out the cash flow and that gives the impression of profit. But if you mistake it for the real thing, it creates the vicious circle. Every time one thing goes good, something else breaks down. Anybody who has chucked a business before a year’s time knows what I’m talking about.
I often thought the high rate of business failure is fueled by how long it takes to get things truly up and running. My opinion is that situation is what is really behind the saw that it takes money to make money. The rich kid running an identical business can live comfortably on the family estate while waiting for things to take off. If this hotdog stand was created with bills to pay, we’d be up the creek by now. Just for the record, we have zero bills. The entire operation has been funded by my dollars. Including the waiting periods and down times. I’ve already got my calendar pages turned ahead to October.
That Wednesday farmer’s market has, I think, more people who talk about it that shop there. I’ve watched it closely and it is very rare to see anybody buying anything. It’s more arts and crafts. I don’t usually go to a market to buy an $80 handmade carving knife, even if the booth accepts pay-by-phone. The city lets them reserve the street parking all around the event, yet you never even see anybody park there. Unless you advertise at the court house (across the street), where is the business to come from? Plus, any stand there would have to buy a substantial sized tent. The trees in the part don’t provide anything like a comfortable degree of shade.
But I’m thinking. The other stands have tents, but not one of them has a second tent to provide a sitting or standing area for customers. This is Florida and you can expect hot sun and rain almost every day. I’m thinking if I put up a tent and some chairs, it would only remain effectual until the others copycatted. How do I do it and keep the advantage? Come on, I say to myself, come on old brain, you have plenty of experience in this area.
Picnic (on deserted highway).
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I played the FUBAR to a mostly empty house. I know that millennial-wise, my act is forlornly outdated. My goal remains to find the right venue rather than change my act. This is, at least conceptually different than going into some place with the attitude I’ll convince the audience that my music is superior, got that, Glen? I don’t imagine I could ever adapt to that dawdling music of today. You see, afterward I stopped at a sort of Yuppie place, you know, with all the wives in table clusters and the husbands at the pool tables. A big night out for people who haven’t had anything new to say to each other in twenty years.
What got me was the music they played on the juke box. More of the millennial pseudo-rap tribal beats, yet as always, they knew the music and bopped along to it. The fun part is about 10:00PM two fat-thighed ones always get up and do a fake lesbo act. For the boys at the bar with their untrimmed beards and top-knots. The kind who pay for their entertainment with plastic cards. Two of the women were doable, but the rest deserved the men they got.
I can’t find a couple of my transformers, but the sing-a-long part of the show is getting pretty close. It’s not like I can’t get the crowd singing, I’ve even done it on the juke box. I accuse guitar players of only wanting to play in their ideal band and yet I feel the same about bass. (The difference is until that happy day, I’ll play instead of sitting at home and dreaming.) But I just cannot be sure how to fit all the pieces together for these other style of acts. Right now, I’m kind of merging what I know from bingo, solo, duo, and the bicycle shop.
More shoulder troubles, but abated, so I stayed up and watched “Crazy Beautiful”, one of those early attempts to portray interracial dating as an American thing. Great poses by Kirsten Dunst, and some fairly decent acting, too. It’s a love story rated PG-13, but like the blog, there isn’t really anything in there that’s inappropriate to that age. The movie industry needs to move on. Get a new rating of maybe PG-10 or PG-9. I have no doubt there are some wusses out there who need protection from sexual themes, but they are the obvious problem cases, which we had in our day just as much. Things have moved on. Youthful romping is no longer shocking to anyone, really.
Dunst is one of those actresses I only recognize when I see her. There was no date on the DVD, so how old is she now, anyway? I did notice a couple of items on her uppers that could have stood some air-brushing. What? Well of course I know actresses aren’t perfect. That’s what air-brushes are for.
The plot is this beaner meets this marginally okay white gal, and they go partying. She is the wild kook while he is the rational influence in her life. The view quickly gets the message. She’s white, so her family is distorted and suicidal. His family is non-white, so they are full of stability and tradition. The plot has slow passages but it’s well produced. Just don’t expect me to identify with kids who run away from home when they have a car and money for motels. It’s not like that at all and this movie has the predictable ending where she goes back home and finds open arms, forgiveness, and a new start.
The once that I went home, my brother stole my car.
ADDENDUM
It’s getting near my year end once more, but I like to keep up with the books, so the trends are already obvious. Even if I spent 200% of my money to October 31 (that’s my year’s end for my personal budgets) it would barely impact the figures. So what is notable since last cycle? Let me go look, just hang on. Okay, here’s the highlights.
Thanks to the food cart, I’ve had no time to spend big bucks on fooling around or buying building materials. September is my second lowest cost month in five years, no, make that four years. The books still carry the estimated amount of rent I would be paying if I didn’t have my own place, but now as an asset instead of an expense. In plain language, this means I don’t show a shortfall or deficit until I go past that amount of money, and I’ll not change that method because it keeps me on my toes. It’s a reminder of how life is unfair in this country unless you have a “free” place to stay. The ultimate proof of that is the number of homeless people. I would not want most people to know how narrowly I escaped that fate.
Operating this household has cost, on average, $151 more per month over last year, but there are more air conditioners, tools, instruments, and appliances (like attic fans) in operation. My entire building materials budget except for $11 went to the food cart. Let me get that total for you. That’s not bad, account 71500 is $168, which makes sense. I average $276 but the cart required mostly labor, not parts. Biggest expense increase has been entertainment. Expect that when your retire. Sure, I’d rather be staying home and making whoopie with my second wife, some 30 years my junior, but barring that, I go out more than I did when I had to watch what I spent in that category.
