One year ago today: August 25, 2018, deserts are cheap scenery.
Five years ago today: August 25, 2014, I never saw another.
Nine years ago today: August 25, 2010, shrink-wrapped bales of hay.
Random years ago today: August 25, 2007, Ford tough, my eye.
Some telegraph history. That telegraph key you see in most westerns was not built until the 1930s, it is called a Speed-X. I’ve even seen this apparatus in U-boat movies. This key had gold-plated contacts and springs which accounted for its astronomical price tags. But warehouses of old army and navy parts are still being found which keeps these gems on the market. On this day two years ago the last of these keys entered the supply chain. Production had ceased on August 1, 2017 after a run of nearly ninety years.
Do you know the number of ex-lottery winners who live in trailer parks? Big deal, neither do I. I was in a trailer court, that’s c-o-u-r-t. And don’t forget it. Things got slow enough this cool Sunday morning that I decided to fix the porch fan. That’s if it is fixable. First, walk the dogs.Then, take a look at the porch fan.
Hmmm, I need a set of Allen wrenches. This [fan] requires surgery, the motor casing has to come off. What a job just vacuuming that component, try it. Terrified the cat. Made the dogs snore. Got my clothes more dusty than the blades. I made pancakes and the dogs snubbed their breakfast. We did a two mile walk and they never “went”. Now I have to watch them all day. You just cannot beat Tennessee Sunday Mornings. What gets me is this same jar of T-Rex box turtle food ranges in price from $5.99 at Pet Mountain to $8.79 at Petco to $15.99 at Wal*Mart.
Daily finances started off costing me the same here as in Florida. But once settled, they’ve dropped to as little as 21%. That includes buying fresh dog food and some recent tools. I looked over the books to find any reasons. Nothing really, but since our needs are congruent, one trip to the store is good enough and I save $5.86 per day having coffee at home. Where I can keep an eye on the rambunctiousness. I swear, those dogs have discovered catnip and my natural eye movement hypnotize the turtle into thinking he’s Olympic material.
What I’m thinking is back home I’ll spend money on diversions, where here, I’m not likely to go out anywhere by myself, except out for a brewski. Come on, all you aspiring poets, describe this one for me, how it is possible to miss somebody you can get along fine without. It’s more than companionship and less than love. I can’t be the only person in this historical situation. Tell you what, from staying in, I’ve got $280 unspent dollars on me. Write me a poem that brings this together and I’ll publish it. Having said that, even though back home I have Allen wrenches up the ying-yang, I’m buying again.
Award-winning smooth pavement.
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The houseboat. To me, I’d be leery if only because moorage and mortgage are such close words. The Reb is curious about a 52-foot wide unit for sale in Hendersonville or Old Hickory, the ad does not specify. Like trailer courts, the ads never mention the fees, yet these are often the clinchers. The only reason I’ve ever known anyone to see a houseboat is when the moorage gets insane. You can look this one up on Craigslist, it’s a two-bed, two-bath, comes with a hot tub and speedboat. The boat could be an indicator there is no resident parking. Asking price is $80k, and I’m taking a look for the following reasons.
A houseboat fits the formula of how I got myself the best and last deal in the State of Florida. Half price without even negotiating, who remembers that? Because such properties do not qualify for mortgages, the game changes. This means you have to find somebody with hard money but not in the sense the banks use the same term. Here is means, contextually, cash that is unencumbered. Ordinary cash is often “raised”, so it still has conditions behind it, the most usual is that it has to be paid back. You see, not even the middle class in America has much cash any more. They can raise it, but can’t sit and wait the other guy out.
Something about this deal isn’t tickety-boo, but like my cabin having no real living room, maybe it is not a factor to us. I’m tasked to go check it out. Somewhere below is a picture of the speedboat, probably a good idea if you need to get across the Cumberland in any kind of hurry. I’m running the numbers on this place tomorrow, but it already looks far better for our needs than anything on land. Remember how quickly the Florida place paid for itself—and that money is now available again.
The next Nashville Maker Faire is in October, when I’ll be in Florida. Orlando has a featured event in November, so maybe I’ll make that one. Featured means they are bigger than the mini-fairs and highly preferred for local events.
ADDENDUM
One of the audio book disks I chose to experiment with is called “Betrayal”. Nine disks means roughly 18 hours of listening. I dropped the disk into my Blu-Ray player to see how it reacted, and it plays as regular, with that stupid system that tells you the track number instead of the title. Duh, I like “Track 003” by Shania Twain. The audio book is extremely well produced but the subject matter is annoyingly slanted. I was listening only casually but it seems to start with Fidel Castro jumping into his private reef to save two boys who were blasted by an underwater mine disguised as a conch shell.
That’s the Fidel who said, “I will not live one day longer than the day I die.” Tha, folks, sums up what I’ve personally seen of Latin American politics. Yep, really profound there, Fidel. Allow me. I will not type one more word today than the last word I will type today. Hey, this politicking is easier than I thought. Even Hillary could do it. What? She rigged the election and lost anyway? Okay, she could almost do it. This audio book is about the Cuban situation in the 1960s, so it could be a good laugh. That’s the era where the CIA threatened to close up and burn all its records rather than submit to any oversight committees or account for its activities.
I’m noticing the way the audio CD is arranged. It has the same basic pattern as a music CD. There are around 20 tracks of 3 to 4 minutes. There is no way to tell by looking where the chapters are. I don’t know if this is universal. Seems kind of an unoriginal way to produce the tracks, but then again I’ve met recording studio techs and it would be wise not to spring anything unusual on them.
Back to the audio book. It is transparently anti-American, portraying Castro as a liberator rather than the dictator who took over where the Mafia left off. The facts have been in the open for decades yet this book was written in 2007. It’s the Hollywood version on disk, but they did get it right that the American government is a government of rich men, high-ranking officers, lawyers, corporations, but pointedly leaving out the you-know-who’s. There are glowing passages of the crowds at Castro’s speeches, where his lips “moved beneath his beard like those of a trumpet player”.
Got it, here’s the picture of the speedboat that would be included with the houseboat. It’s probably worth a pretty penny on it’s own. I called this one right. The current owner, a lady, may have to sell. Check back with me on that, it could be my next adventure. Imagine what that boat would be worth in Cuba today, Fidel.
The book is biased, but highly informative in that the Cuban point of view is virtually unknown in America. If you want a glimpse of what corporations, if unchecked, will do to America, look what they did to Cuba. Castro was not initially communist in that he nationalized those businesses which were robbing Cuba blind, starting with the sugar growers who now own all the black earth around Lake Okeechobee. They are prime political contributors whose contacts are at the highest levels of the US government. The Cuban hotels and casinos were all Mafia owned. The plot of this book is a professor looking into these matters, but it is fact-based enough to be enlightening.
As the book says, there are more important rights than speech and equal housing. I know even to this day unless I’ve got food, clothing, shelter, and education, I don’t give a rat’s ass about other people screaming for their rights. They have the time and money to worry about such things and don’t need my sympathy on a daily basis. There are powerful factions in America bent on taking away my right to get ahead by my own hard work. With that going on, I don’t give a flying shit about spotted owls or if some border jumper gets a fair hearing.
