One year ago today: October 16, 2017, frankly, UNESCO sucks.
Five years ago today: October 16, 2013, Gainesville, 5th meanest city.
Nine years ago today: October 16, 2009, dabbling in CCTV.
Random years ago today: October 16, 2007, my cat is spoiled.
It’s 20%, not the watered down number the government gives you. The only way to find out your personal inflation rate is to do a price comparison. There are a number of classic reasons why the official figure of what, 3.1%(?) cannot be trusted. You know the government keeps changing the “basket of goods” on which they base their calculations. They claim it is to keep pace with shifting consumer habits, but really, that doesn’t change all that much in even five years. I don’t buy more or less coffee than five years ago, only the price has changed. Here’s an item I regularly buy that went up 20% this week. It still costs a dollar, but it is no longer a six-pack. Do the arithmetic. (If you get a different figure, you are doing things backward. Remember that 2% + 2% is not 4%.)
And I got a contact back from some guy name’s Paul. He ran an ad saying he’s a sixties guitarist, but can play drums and rhythm. The details are I sent him videos some time ago and he just replied today. That tells me he had other irons in the fire, and they did not work out for him any better than for me. And tipping me off he’s been auditioning the same troop of yahoos I went through. Even if they call back, they last only three rehearsals before deciding they only want to play what they already know. Let’s see how this goes, his ANI code tells me he is in Combee Settlement. He says he’ll play anything but they always say that.
So, let me make a prediction. These guitar players don’t give up their pipe dreams easily. He’ll try some of the duo arrangements and love them, but between sessions he’ll keep reverting to his big plans, which involve bringing in a drummer, then a keyboard, then a rhythm player and pretty soon he’s got his backup band. I tell them on day one that I’m not interested in anything larger than a duo for good reasons, but it never seems to stick in their brains. FYI, when I answer these posts, I bill myself as “a pro gone amateur later in life”. He did not specify if he sings, usually a flag, and I’m ever leery of people who say they play multiple instruments, music is for specialists.
The plus side is he can drum, says he. That means he’s at least aware that even if he plays lead, it is not a free-for-all. You’d be surprised. I threw the ball back, saying call any time, rehearse at his place, commit to three solid rehearsals if we sound good. The rationale for using his location is the number of people who try to ignore my rule that they must have a stereo loud and clear enough to hear the bass lines. Who remembers Russ, the New York bozo wannabe who was using his laptop speakers? The idiot could not understand why he could not play along to my bass lines. “How do you know when the chord changes”, that type of Duh.
For the record, I spend 4.3% of my total income on coffee. I began clearing out the back yard, shown here, for the shed extension. I’ve priced out the lumber already and got a lot of raking done with my new fiberglass handled specimen. And my kitchen A/C can’t get the room below 90 on a super hot day. I’ve priced out the most expensive 115V unit that will fit without getting into the commercial models. It’s a 12,000 BTU Frigidaire at $325, but they say it will turn a room twice the size into a frozen zone almost instantly. But I may eke by the remainder of this year with what I’ve got. It’s not that bad with the fans. Live and learn.
Inside the Tatoosh.
(Paul Allen's yacht.)
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I was watching the European developments. The world has indeed gone for a dump. These crazy people all want the American lifestyle but not the culture. They bleed us dry and give back nothing. They are, simply put, too thick-headed to know they are biting the hand that’s been feeding them. Trump’s on the right track about the trade deals, but he can’t fix forty years of corruption in a term or two. Unless he gets aggressive, which I think he should do. Let the armchair bozos go on about the effect of tariffs, their arguments net sum to zero, just like their personalities.
I offer as proof this broken rake. I bought this only four years ago. Should last for a lifetime. You can see the handle rotted through and I’ve tried to repair it with worm clamps. I suppose it is a big stretch comparing world economics to a broken rake, but hey, they are symptomatic of the same thing, just y’know, but micro- and macro-scales, type of thing. There, I think I pieced this all together rather smoothly, wouldn’t you say?
Now I just know some bonehead is going to say where do I get off comparing a broken economy to a broken rake. All I can say in my own defense is if that is what I did, I must have got that way from reading the Tampa Bay Tribune.
The exterior conduit is done and the trench is filled. That was an amazing amount of dirt that got moved out and back in again. Not only did I keep up a good pace, I did not suffer too much from sore muscles afterward. I told you, losing weight has made me significantly more limber, I used to get aches and cramps from raking leaves. I know there is some connection because I can sense the difference. I grabbed the shovel and filled in the entire remaining ditch without thinking about it, which for me is wonderful news. I was tamping down the dirt before I realized what just occurred. Why, if I keep up this pace, in another ten years I’ll be 30 again.
ADDENDUM
I had an unusual dream. For a few months in high school, there was a red-headed gal in the class by the name of Beverly Krumm. She was a little hottie, but no way would she go out with me. She was farm raised and had notions that “real men” were tall and had cars and bought her things. The opposite of me, but I did like her. I knew all her brothers, they lived just a mile down the road. But she would not even sit beside me on the school bus. I was a hippie, or at least I looked like one, though the only thing I had in common with the movement was a dislike of the Establishment. Unlike the rest of her family, she was not a hillbilly.
In the dream, she went out with her type and become a housewife. I was walking past a house and she came running down the hill to say hello. She said she was divorced three times and was now married to Doug for almost two months. I thought she was glad to see me, but she was glad to see anybody from the old town. However it was a dream because she still had that perfect body from high school. And, friends, I speak with full authority and trained eye, it was perfect.
Come to think of it, Mitch knew her family. I wonder if he knows what happened to her. It would be fun to compare the dream to reality, but even a match would not be surprising. The life-cycle of women who don’t date guys like me is pretty fixed. Remind me to ask, I’m totally curious now. She used to tease me but just a bit even though she was decidedly the most grown-up girl in the classroom. Blonde red hair, green eyes, zero body fat, everything exactly the right size and shape, and perky, too. I kind of teased her back, because in those days I could not imagine how anyone who could not play music and love learning ever thought they’d get ahead. Hmmm, that was shallow of me, but after all, I nailed it.
That’s presuming if she ever got to Nashville, I’d have heard of her. Bev Krumm. Nice Austrian girl. What a pity if she wound up with one of her real men. Because free love or not, in those days you had to still marry any gal you knocked up. For that matter, that’s how most girls got married so young. Gals under 18 could not get the pill without parental consent, and those parents were by and large born at the tale end of the Victorian era. I would have done a lot more than I did were I not afraid to get caught with a not-so-pretty one. Sorry, Stella, Sandra, Fattie Pattie, Alvina, Judy, and Lorraine. I wasn’t inhibited, I was afraid. Mind you, if any of you have kept your figure and would like to try again, I’m game.
[Author's note: Mitch has no idea what happend to Bev. But he finally admitted he had a thing for her, too. He knows her brother, and Mitch's sister seems to know everything about everybody and a penchant to yak about it. Let's us wait and see.]
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