One year ago today: April 30, 2018, a generic day.
Five years ago today: April 30, 2014, I withdrew in protest.
Nine years ago today: April 30, 2010, cave man food.
Random years ago today: April 30, 2015, a day in Deland.
Of you have time, please read these “new” posts in late November, 1994. It turns out to be the log I kept of my trip just to before I went to Angel Falls. I didn’t know at the time that was the peak of my travel adventures. After that, most things paled and got expensive. It was also too early to know the connection, but it shows how the Internet was starting to change travel prices and cause a fundamental shift in world travel, toward credit-based prices, no matter how remote your location. I did not know it at the time (but neither did anyone else) that I was already lamenting this “credit card” revolution that would make the world flat again. I’ve used that phrase before, but now you can go back and read first hand what happened.
I’m relating to what I wrote by memory, I recall I made several attempts to get to the falls that failed. Such were the conditions of real travel at the time. Package deals were available, but they had not yet ousted or legally prevented people like me from making the trip on my own. Yes, my journey would have been dangerous, but I’m no stranger to that. This blog didn’t begin until my traveling days were over. I had a lot to say about people who took the guided tours—but you have to read it for yourself.
Let me explain it another way, for clarity. Credit cards have been around a long time, but prior to the Internet, it was possible to travel far enough away cash was king. Nobody would dare extend credit to a traveler, so a daily trip to the bank was part of your routine. (It also taught me the good habit to this day of never buying anything with a debit card. Withdraw the cash and spend that.) Prices were held in check, at least partially, by how much cash the average person would carry. But came the Internet, the lowest street vendor can now accept electronic cash and the cabbies in Mexico City know how much the fare is to La Guardia.
One of the first places I encountered the problem was Chichen Itza, in the Yucatan. I had been there in a rush a few years earlier and wanted to see it again. I’ve told how the pina coladas went from a real pint of milk and pineapple to a canned mix, and the price went from 15 cents to 6 dollars. A Mexican rich kid had got back from New York and bought the only hotel and taxi near the site and started charging New York prices. So, if you go there, it really isn’t the same any more.
The entire world is undergoing the American experience, where credit causes such a surge in pries that many everyday goods and services are difficult or impossible to get with cash any more. Call this progress if you want, but I believe unless you get to some real outposts, real adventure traveling is not really available. The last time I was in Caracas, some of the hotel rooms were now priced at a daily rate that used to be a month’s rental. Careful here, I’m not some old guy lamenting high prices. I am a traveler who has seen an entire system take a change for the worse. I would not want to go to Angel Falls today.
Helsinki Market Street.
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There is now a tacky shelter for the new dryer. A good wind will take it down. This put the bedroom another day back, and we know that’s been happening way too much. The good news is I found the correct connector to tap into the different size iron piping that’s feeding the bathroom. So, that leaves the only real challenge as the drain system, and I’m tempted to Mickey Mouse that. It’s overdue.
The photos are blue-ish because I forgot Sony auto white balance doesn’t work right, so set it manually, which takes just long enough to miss most shots, and I didn’t feel much like standing around in the rain to change it back. This blue tint is for incandescent lighting, but I’ve a mind to reserve it for pictures of Capt. CanOpener.
I’m really hard-pressed to find anything about today worth reporting. One of the tall flowers has begun to bloom, wait for a picture. I responded again to that ad from the NE end, the guy is nuts if he thinks he’s so good he’ll find a ready-made band. I worded it to emphasize if he wants to be out gigging as quickly as possible, call me first.
Yet another data breach. What, 80 million people this time. The thing here is that more private records have been stolen than there are people living here, many times over, and that is only the records that we know about. You think the tax depart will announce when their files get hacked? It’s interesting to see people’s antics trying to undo the mess they’ve made with their privacy. The problem is, that can’t be done if you were using social media. Change your complete system, identity, passwords, change it all but you will soon be outted. Because your habits are as unique as your fingerprints.
Did I ever tell you what set me against “public records”? I’ll tell you the “inaccurate” version to convey the concept. I started school a year early so my older sister by two years did not have to go alone, she was by then third grade. I accelerated a year and caught up to the grade behind her, but was then held back so as not to “embarrass” her. This was an era where bullying was part of the curriculum and I was thus always the smallest kid in the class. We moved around a lot, but the last thing you wanted was anybody knowing you were two years younger than the rest of the room.
The next town we moved to printed up a free calendar that listed the birthdates of all schoolchildren in the district. How sweet. How cute. Except, you were not asked if you wanted to be on it, and there was no provision to be left off the damn thing. The town office did not care if the publication caused you harm or grief, it was “public information”, which in their mentalities, gave them the right to publish it against your will. (The (my) situation was more complicated than that, but you get the drift.)
ADDENDUM
Cancel the property I was looking for with my friend out west. I could not find anything reasonable in a search that included most of central Florida east from the Gulf. But not the Atlantic coast as that area has been overpriced since the first Boomer arrived flush with cash from getting out of Detroit at the best possible time. She has some inheritance money and instead opted to buy the vacant lot next to her existing house. That’s one way to have no neighbors.
Land is always a good investment—if you own it. Her and I had a chat about that. Land is about as sunk a cost as you’ll get, and all land in the USA and Canada has been owned by somebody for the past 100 years. That somebody is often the government. Real estate is the basis of much of the economy, it’s sad how it has been manipulated to control people’s entire working lives for a house they could have built themselves if they could take just one year off. But of course, there are now restrictions like building codes that far exceed the homeowner’s abilities nowadays. And building codes don’t take into account any costs. It’s assumed if you have a house, you have money for any amount of work they deem necessary, which in turn presumes if you don’t have the money, you can just borrow it. God damn them all.
