One year ago today: September 29, 2017, NASA's "one-of-each" brainfart.
Five years ago today: September 29, 2013, the train museum.
Nine years ago today: September 29, 2009 a jettison module.
Random years ago today: September 29, 2006, never did like Quickbooks.
Here’s an incident that reveals how things are really going at street level with the food wagon. This is not a critique; I expect mistakes and expect things to go wrong. Think of it as the witness problem. Two people see the same thing and come away with different versions of what happened. Two months ago, Agt. R acquired a fridge which worked fine, a side-by-side with the door handles busted off. He said yes, it would be used for storing perishables and I never gave that another thought. Until this morning. Back up a bit here, when he first said okay for storage, that means an element of security. That is, if I store something with you, that means I’ve been assured things are safe and secure.
Wait, there’s more. Last month, I hear second-hand, that the lady across the road had her exterior fridge broken into. Anybody who is considering forming a partnership or hiring employees should read this report very carefully. The minute it was somebody else’s property, it becomes not worth protecting. But not mentioning a similar theft, not mentioning a change of domestic situation? I was busy as ever, but I stopped and drove over to the store and bought these $10 worth of matching padlocks. One for the fridge, the other for the trailer hitch, since he’s been talking about the need for a lock on that one for the same two months. The trailer may be his ticket to paying off his mortgage, but it is still company property.
Now this does not surprise me, not in the least. According to Occam, there is a simple explanation. My pal is running a hotdog cart, and I am running a business. He’s more than once suggested that all this registration and insurance is not necessary, that he knows people who just bought a cart, set up shop, and were making money hand over fist the same day. Unfortunately, all those people have died or moved away, or are not available for verification. But why argue, I’ve seen this situation how many times in my life? He likes to crow that the cart was his idea. Hmmm, so was the gold mine.
However, business don’t need men with ideas. They need men with cold, hard cash. The oddball situation exists that I could succeed and he could fail. A quick tally shows there were 42 to 44 cans of soda missing. That amount means a determined and deliberate theft. At our cost, that means probably less than $12, but it also means a serious threat to security. And it means unanswered questions. I asked why he had not put a lock and he said be cause he had one, but lost the key, so he had to use a bolt cutter. There was not even a hasp installed, but I guess if there is no lock, that makes sense in a bucolic kind of way.
These incidents have a way of cascading. If we had something come up now, he doesn’t have the $12 to replace the soda. It also means wasted vehicle, gas, and time, which contributes to inefficiency and the mistaken impression that everything is left up to him to get this stuff at the last minute. So, we wait and see. I’m not surprised when people have to learn things the hard way. He discounts the value of office work, with the attitude that it really is not necessary, that it overcomplicates simple things, and gets you in trouble down the line. That’s the exact opposite of what is going on. I suspect my associate not only lied on his application, he is a greenhorn at even operating a food wagon.
Another thing, I’m skittish about how well things have gone with the cart so far. I quickly learned it is much more than a cart with a few fittings. Plumbing, gas, water, electrical, there are far more things that could go wrong. Robot-minded people know this for a fact, it is not a case of pessimism. I’ve gone over the cart enough times to memorize every connection, pipe joint, cotter pin, and drain hose. The entire essential part of the cart is that one burner and one water pan. Yet I suspect I’ve only begun to think of the full potential of the cart as an integrated kitchen unit. This is a terrible picture, but the only one I've got for today.
Typical American dollar store.
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Then I said, screw this. I drove all the way to a Winter Haven and raided the bank account early. I nearly went on to Davenport for coffee. An hour later they found me at the FUBAR. Twelve people, quite the crowd for that joint. I sang a couple tunes, but headed back, citing my aversion to driving after dark. Oh, and Alaine decided to drive to Miami next month, so doesn’t need a lift from me. I’m drawing up plans for a case to mount my music gear, which irritates me because I’d drawn up some excellent designs not many years back and now I can’t find them. Since it is faster to drive all the way down to Highway 60 than to cross Lakeland, I stopped at the old club.
Karaoke night, and I got a request for “Tequila”. That was fun, and what’s her name was in the audience. Oh, it will come to me, the lady in the all-girl band that I almost teamed up with. What’s bloggable is this would be the first time she’s ever seen me perform, since we’ve only ever seen each other at gigs. Dang, what’s her name? And I’ve read another chapter on the Koch brothers. I’d heard the news reports at the time of the big oil spills but didn’t associate them with those guys. I’m around half way through the book of nearly 400 pages, but if so far is any indication, that family is as dysfunctional as mine.
By contrast, if you point at my family, you’ll find no cause, no rhyme, nor reason, nothing gained by the troublemakers. It was pure senselessness, kind of like aggravation because it amused them. It was more my constantly trying to be left alone against their collective iron will to never let happen. Yet, I could not supply you with one single reason why they would do such a thing. Not one. The chapter I’m on has the Kochs getting back together after a big court case concerning a pipeline that burned some people to death.
I’m only on page 235, you just know this reunion is not going to last. Here’s the picture of the truck. A couple of kids were incinerated when the Koch company began reusing a pipeline they knew to be leaking. The fumes collected in the low ground of a dry creek bed. As the teens drove through, the lack of oxygen conked out the motor. So the driver turned the ignition. Game over. They burned to death running from the truck in front of the girl’s father on the day before she left for college. They got around 25 yards before collapsing to a fetal position. The sheriff said hours later the nose and ears were still bubbling it was only possible to tell the corpses apart by examining the genitals.
Largest single settlement in history at the time, $296 million. Yet folks, that didn’t begin to hurt the Kochs. America is hung up on equality, so to the elite, such awards are at most a little on the irritating side. Most of it was probably insurance money anyway. I like that system in Norway, is it? Where the fine is a percentage of net worth. It wouldn’t work in America anyway, though. The rich here have become experts at concealing assets as well as income despite the fact the invasive tax laws already so highly favor them. Don’t get me wrong, America is still the best place in the world to get ahead. As long as you pay your dues, they still grudgingly let you succeed over a lifetime. But as Winnie Churchill said, something like, “Thrift and hard work are admirable qualities. Especially in one’s ancestors.”
And the number one rule of getting ahead? Do not borrow money; do not lend money.
ADDENDUM
Tomorrow, I’m planning an impromptu cookout to restore morale. The guy is probably just as dissed as I am about the sodas, but he’s got other considerations. From what I’ve seen, a lot of the other food stands around don’t seem to have any restrictions on what they sell. What’s more likely is they get underway, realize the inspector doesn’t come poking around much, and soon begin selling everything from ribs to corn. I’ll bet if you dig deep enough into their ice chest, you’d come up with a frosty Michelob. Thus, although I have no plans except to toe the line, I’m getting ready to test how fast we can bake potatoes, get the pink out of drumsticks, and as the head honcho, I need some capability for making coffee. And that is that.
Plus the cart needs to be tested in a more relaxing environment and I need others to become at least as familiar as myself in the setup and safety. Things there worked backwards, where I was supposed to be the last one who set the cart up. But now I’ve done it most, and every time anybody else did it, I was there to assist. This will be rectified, I have to focus on repair and maintenance, not operations.
Favorite line from the book on the Koch brothers so far? “He’s such a shrewd businessman that when he makes a fifty-fifty deal, he keeps the hyphen.”
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