One year ago today: September 15, 2018, leftover hotdogs, anyone?
Five years ago today: September 15, 2014, differnt fathers, I say.
Nine years ago today: September 15, 2010, bass rhymes with ace.
Random years ago today: September 15, 2006, 258 miles @ 9mph.
I moved too slow to get a video of the feral chickens that have found my bird-feeding spot, the once where I spread crushed bran flakes. These chickens are everywhere in Florida but I’ve only ever seen adults and quite large juveniles. The local tomcat follows them around but I hope he’s too smart to try anything. That tom rooster is fast and there are enough one-eyed cats in this town already. After a Tennessee breakfast of egg, whole wheat bread, and broccoli, I’m heading to Winter Haven. Today, if things go right, I get my kitchen lights working on a three-way circuit. Two-way is easy.
Here’s the Reb and I working the NYTimes puzzle, talk about your quality time. When I think about it, she’s the only woman I’ve regularly done this with, so let history decide if that is a good thing. What’s funny is the number of people who would look at this and say we are playing. Like some who think I play on the computer. Like I said, funny. We sit on the lawn swing together and walk the dogs together. That must be hilarious.
The prevailing talk is another real estate bust. I say that credit-based living has so distorted the market that such things cannot be predicted. Houses have doubled in price since 2012 and wages have not. It takes two workers to even get into the market. The liberal media won’t cover it, but the deportations are freeing up jobs that supposedly Americans would not do—that was a big globalist lie to start with. What’s happening, I think, is those jobs are lower paying and tend to be near cities and larger towns, where rent is expensive. Put another way, affordable houses mostly exist where there are no decent jobs. It will take time for the economy to readjust.
But if you want an overnight solution, so to speak, then let the market fall again. It wiped out a whole class of speculators last time. Left standing, they were, with houses they bought with borrowed cash and could not sell. The survivors had their own money. It’s part of why the rich get richer. I don’t feel an ounce of pity for either group. They represent a part of the Establishment, another bunch I would not cry if they all caught cancer. Or emigrated to their beloved Ethiopia.
I’m pursuing the audio book about the Spanish transportation of the smallpox virus, titled “Saving The World”. There is no easy way to fast-forward past the old lady parts with the equipment in my car. Smallpox appeared around 9,500 BC at the same time as mankind began to build cities and plant crops, that is, to abandon the nomadic life. I’ve thus always considered smallpox to be a parasite that mutated to infect the human species. This is reinforced now that I’ve learned it cannot survive without a human host. So it took 11,300 years for somebody to figure out milkmaids didn’t get the disease.
For all the talk about equality and cultures, it cannot be lost to history that the peoples that suffered the most and longest do not appear to have even attempted to find a solution. Personally, I think the world today is still much too full of cultures who behave that way. The doctor who found the vaccine was from England, a culture that didn’t really exist until maybe 500 years ago. So I’m finally getting some details of the Spanish vaccination ship, but half the time is spent listening to some neurotic Spanish woman bragging up her culture in ways that would bring screams of racism if a white person said anything of the kind.
Today was a shopping trip and as I walked out of Harbor Freight in Auburndale it went from sunny to near zero visibility in a blasting rainstorm. This put an end to my plans, so I drove over to talk to Charla about the hotdog cart. The location is right on the main highway and she is one of the few who listens when I say the cart is not a one-person operation. She’s got the freezers, storage, parking, and importantly in many ways, a nearby source of electricity. It would also spare me the task of having to take care of every detail myself, since she’s a seasoned manager and her daughter is the only “employee”.
And there are the new clamps. This is the blog that dares. Dares to keep you abreast of the things that keep life interesting even in America after you run out of money. This is no joy ride. Everything in the system is geared to separate you from both your hard-earned dollar and your easily-borrowed dollar.
Hurricane Andrew, 1992.
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The rain would not let up, which had me heading for the coffee shop, where I ran more numbers specific to a hotdog operation at that location. I’m anxious to get something underway for some obscure reasons that involve financed in Tennessee. I need only one-fifth the revenue most people need to make a go of it. Alas, other people had found the coffee shop. It was like an anti-Trump rally. Noisy millennials, noisy women, noisy Hispanics, noisy religious groups, noisy blacks, none of whom had a clue about anything that mattered. Having forgotten my tablet charger, I worked till the battery died and drove through the rain for a beer out on Highway 60.
My lawn swing will be a planter. In this hard-to-see photo, the yellow pipes are salvaged from that abandoned trampoline thing in Hermitage. It will be painted green. Right now it is sitting in my back yard because, of all things, the pipes are plugged with red Tennessee muck that has turned rock solid. It won’t shake or hammer loose. I could just leave it but now it has become a challenge. Other than the flowers I already showed you, most of the other plants I’ve put in the yard barely changed while I was away. The devil’s backbone that sprang up so well has just sat still since.
Taking inventory, I noted which plants form a good mat that blocks out weeds. That joist that needs replacing is the priority and I’ve slated the entire next week for that. JZ isn’t answering his phone, or more likely forgets it downstairs in the truck or forgets to plug it in. Oh well, I’ve replaced other joists by myself and this one by rights should be my final, famous last words. I also sketched out the shelter for the back shed, since the city won’t allow me to replace the shed. Well, they will, but the replacement would cost more than the house. Welcome back to Florida.
ADDENDUM
Argh, another millennial sucker job. A DVD with no date on the cover, cleverly done up to look recent. It’s an old movie repackaged. What’s the term? Digitally remastered? It’s an early version of what became the standard CIA movie. Rogue agent whose family gets targeted. Lot’s of clichés that still make the rounds. One thing I never understood is people who run down the middle of roads when there is a car after them. “Hangman”, that’s the movie. Sandra Bullock has a bit part, she is now moved to the headline—and I fell for it. Paid a whole $1.50 for that disk.
I stayed up late to test some wood finishes. I see that is another highly evolved method that will take some time to learn. This is golden pecan stain, picked up on sale. I don’t like it. The effect is too “Elvis clock” and I have not put any poly on it yet. This is my oscillating tool box, so it’s fine for that. This is another box where the lid once fit right but after a week has warped slightly to one side. But not as bad as my first attempts. I see now about sanding the wood first. Both the saw marks and mill marks are visible.
The second box shown is the effect of dark stain on unfinished lumber. It really soaks it in, making the finish darker than smooth wood, if only because there isn’t much excess to wipe off. This box holds small bottles of oil, glue, and other liquids where I don’t need to haul around the big container. The bottom of these boxes is the same material as the sides and lid. The joints are strong because they are glued and screwed. That’s okay for this type of work. But I’m heading back to box joints soon. I have yet to produce a proper box with finger joints or whatever they would be called if all the sources could agree.
The boxes so far are solid and some have already survived falls. I’ve learned to cut the pieces so any butt joints show only on the sides, and I’m going to look for some instructions on making the lids. Up to now, my lids have been primarily guesswork. My assessment of my own work is these are crude boxes, but showing some promise if I keep at it.
I reviewed the gig video and what do you know? Clear as a bell, the guitar player is playing it differently on stage than at rehearsal. We did not rehearse this song, but I was present when the others played it, and it was very accurate. Usually when a guitarist pushes his style, this is the point where it appears. Not in this instance. The style did not appear until stage time, and it was interesting to hear the bassist stilt his playing to match it. Back here in the light of day, it seems so apparent—although I don’t know if any non-bassists would even hear what I mean. It’s kind of a push to the guitar chord changes that makes the last bass note of the previous measure sound funny if played too exactly.
Dang, I knew damn well I was playing it right, but I was new and distracted. Since I like this band, I will not resort to my accumulated bag of tricks I spring on such guitar players. I’ve never played that style directly but I can change and next time, if there is one, I’ll be ready for it. For clarity, this band plays the tunes subtly different on stage than at practice and I failed to adapt on the spot. Furthermore, I am not going to do anything about it, if only because I’m the one who has cautioned others not to play things too technically correct for the situation. On the other hand, I’m sure I don’t cause the other guy to drop half a note now and then to keep up with me.
That sounds odd, because the note isn’t really dropped, but clipped. Drummers find this very easy to follow, not so much a piano player who switched to bass. The tune was “Listen To The Music” and the exact part is the triplet at the end of the walk-up in each verse. The solution for that and other songs is to hammer on the notes instead of exactly picking them, which is my style.
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