One year ago today: September 23, 2018, a potentially inaccurate list.
Five years ago today: September 23, 2014, my incompatibility index.
Nine years ago today: September 23, 2010, no caps no spaces.
Random years ago today: September 23, 2004, face it, NASA sucks.
Where is JZ? I’ve taken to calling every hour on the hour and no answer yet as we pass 9:00AM. The chickens have discovered the neighbor’s cat food. They are fat and plump, I taken to throwing them a handful way at the back so they keep out of earshot. Their favorites, in order, are bran flakes, boiled rice, bread crumbs. Speaking of crumbs, the Democrats continue to shoot themselves in the foot (they should aim higher), this time at the UN. Anything for publicity. Other than the fact the UN, as it exists today, should be tarred and feathered. And relocated to, say, the worker’s paradise of Cuba. Where they would fit right in.
What will the Democrats be bellyaching about this time next week and next month? Check Trump’s schedule.
Today I’m multitasking, which has connotation for me. It means nothing looks finished until suddenly five or ten things wrap up in a day. It’s fine for most people but I find it discouraging in the short run. One good part is for almost every project or category, I have a nice wooden box to put things in. This morning I built one with a rabbet bottom panel. See the picture, I’m going to talk about that. This involved some tricky cutting with the table saw and even trickier slicing with the compound miter. I could only have been more pleased with myself if the thing had turned out square or the corners had fit.
If you see, the bottom panel is different material and sets recessed into the bottom, flush with the side boards. It gives the box a better appearance, but as for solid? I wonder, since the bottom is, like a drawer bottom, the weakest part of the structure. Happy, yes, satisfied, no. I’m happy because a month ago this kind of joinery was too advanced for me. This is finishing carpentry which I am barely beginning to learn. Mind you, it has caused a significant improvement in my rough work. Pieces fit the first time and far fewer mistakes. Finishing carpentry gives you incentive to mark the details better.
I used the equipment I had to the limit. If I want fancier work, I’ll need that table saw. Part of today’s coarse cutting was because I did not calibrate the saws. The spin-off is that a supply of these boxes turns out super-handy for renovation work. With a few of these within reach, you don’t have to spend as much time keeping the work area organized. Most of what you’d put in these containers can be seen from arm’s distance because they display in a single layer. See photo. You can’t do that with a pail. It’s not some ideal solution, just one that fits my work style.
Strange sound effect? Despite the sound deadening of the bedrooms, in the back area there’s an odd condition. You cannot hear the door bell or a car pulling up in the driveway. But if you leave the work shed radio on, even at a very low setting, it is audible. If you stand in the yard, nothing, because the white shed is 55 or 60 feet away. Yet inside the bedroom, it comes in loud enough that you can tell if it is music or talk. Only when the A/C and fans are off.
Beale Steet, Memphis.
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Wha? Where am I? I went for the early siesta and the phone rings. No JZ and it is 3:26PM. Back to work, I say. Nothing like company on the way to get the place spruced up. JZ, hell, he’ll sleep in a barn but it means the opportunity of other visitors. Time to pick things up around here. No news of whether he has actually left Miami yet. But I got my October appointment re-scheduled which means I’ll likely be able to make the pet blessing. Didn’t I mention the pet blessing? Very blogworthy. Just think, pictures of something besides plants, boxes, and lawn furniture. Maybe.
Another 12-hour day and I’m fine. I didn’t notice the time passing until that revolting Haitian religion station cranked up its power to drown out Boss Hogg. Every weekday at 7:01PM on comes the monkey talk, always the same blah-blah about “broob-lems so-shee-all” ad infinitum. We got some real cleanup work done, including vacuuming the spare room. Running that appliance is not my favorite. I moved around twenty armloads of stuff out to the shed, where it tends to get damp if I don’t watch out. I was hoping to put a new roof up anyway, which would be simple as the shed frame is still sound.
It was general maintenance. Clean the fan blades, repair the garden hose, spray the car, water the plants. See how domesticated I’ve become. This was the plan. If you thought I was moving to central Florida for the wild night life, you are way off on your aim. That is why people get the hell out of here. The excitement today is in 34 minutes, a Texas chicken pie is coming out of the oven and I’m as hungry as, what, an ox? A horse? A west Texas truck driver? West Texas is where you bring your own toilet paper. The vending machine is going to eat your last dollar and the nearest Motel 6 is two hours away. I think that’s where they train combat troops for desert duty.
By nightfall, no sign of JZ and he hasn’t called anyone. That’s not some idle observation, my procedure to check in daily and confirm arrivals whenever traveling alone has caught on in this area. The primary two contacts are Alaine & I, so it causes anxiety when he just doesn’t call but all if fine. Of course, everybody suspects he went to the casino. In an hour, I’ve got shopping to do. It will be dark and I know he’s as leery as I am of not driving in itself, but by the sort of people who are on the road at that time. Mostly drunks.
I sewered my plans to figure out File Express. I downloaded the trial version of the newest offering, since it had a module called ‘tutorial’. It was a millennial fake-out. It was a sample database with zero instructions meant to be used as a template for those too lazy to come up with their own. However, it boosted the screen display to full size. And I cannot find the setting to return it to the nice crisp little display, even by deleting the new version and using the restoral point. What? Yes, delete. You cannot uninstall a standalone (exe) program because it is never installed. There is a way to set it, but it is now a secret unless you shell out the hundred bucks.
The original manual may be around here somewhere. If I can find it, I’m publishing it for free on-line. To assist those pricks to make a legitimate living instead of devising these two-bit scams. See this picture? It’s the result of a mouse getting into my cupboard while I was away. It represents the mentality of today’s emerging workforce. Somebody else grew the grain, prepared the ingredients, packaged it, and shipped it to the local supermarket. I would like to see one shred of evidence that today’s graduates could begin to set something like that up. Nope, instead, they sneak in, burrow a hole, and feast. Then fancy themselves clever.
Sometimes you hear them blame the public school system for their lack of abilities, but they are far from the first to experience the disjoint between education and the real world. I went through the same slogging routine in my high school, where if you were stupid, they held you back. And nobody handed you an award for participation. It was a tougher haul, but not one that prepared you any better. The stuff you need to learn is in there, but these days it’s like they feel entitled to a certificate.
I foresee another 1980s-style decade of greed for the 2020s. The old system on which the yuppie puppies, the hipsters, and the millennials based their ‘viagra’ scams is tottering and I don’t think their swindles are going to work on each other. They’ve done nothing to prepare or innovate, so while it is a different playing field, greed becomes the winning strategy. Who was it that once said them wanting your money is “need”, you trying to keep it is “greed” and voting in politicians to complete the transaction is “compassion”. My advice for the past how many years now was to get good at hiding your wealth was largely based on this scenario.
We’ve moved into an era where millions of idiots not only gave away their secrets, they willing allowed the state to become an all-powerful surveillance operation. There is practically nothing you can do privately any more. Even mailing a letter, the address and return address are automatically scanned and logged. When the time comes they desperately need to conceal something to survive, they’ll have lost the option, and worse, the know-how.
On the long journey back from Tennessee, I passed a turnoff to Highway 441, and I recalled seeing a spot on the map back when I planned my motorcycle tour of the Georgia mansions, cut short by the purchase of this place. In south Florida, 441 is a semi-major artery. I had tentatively chosen Athens for the start point. 441 goes past near here. By mid-October, I will be some $400 under budget, even after buying the Yamaha. An alternate route? I’m weary of the high speed run through Atlanta. This would take me past where I’d first planned, but the scenery was great last month. Since 441 is a paved over stagecoach trail, that might be an adventure. Who’s with me?
ADDENDUM
Tampa radio is on another verbal diarrhea rampage. Some queer won some kind of award and they are not letting go, as it if is some major victory and top story of the day. Everyone knows the post holes in my front yard are more relevant. Let me explain again that what you hear about “freedoms” in America can largely be for show. In public, people have been mass coerced into pretending all kinds of special interest groups have become accepted. Wrong. People are the same world over since day one on that level. People in America know they are being watched and put on a public face. In private, they curse the weirdos as much as anybody else.
Bear in mind, if you are non-mainstream, America is probably the place to be. The problem is liberalism has bent that condition out of shape. One can be as stupid, as freaky, as degenerate as they want, in that sense it is a free country. It’s when they try to impose unconditional approval of that condition on others that their problems begin. And it is their own fault. I say again, these people are not suffering. They are getting exactly what they asked for, every time, every instance. Is there anyone who can name one right these people do not already have? Careful. (Dictating what others are supposed to think of them is not a right.)
I received an e-mail from Ray-B where he talked about women. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was parroting back what I warned him ten years ago. The ironic part is that Ray-B, being a pro musician all his life, doesn’t know the other half of the tale from the trailer court. He does not know that he is in the best of situations—for meeting women. This is where we share common ground. Other men, who in my opinion are basically scroungers when it comes to sex, will complain there are no good women left. They are guessing, because there are so few good women, they are not meeting them But men like myself, and now Ray-B just arriving, are far beyond that point.
It superficially looks like we are saying the same. Wrong. The difference is, the other men are speculating there are no good women because they never meet any. On this side of the fence, men like me are saying nothing of the kind. We meet women by the score (neat unintended pun there) and we know there are no good ones left untaken. Got that? Both words “left” and “untaken”. I’ll spell that out for guys like Ken Sanchuk. This is an example, so I’ve lost him already.
Ken goes out to a club once a week, sits in the audience, meets two skanky women who won’t dance with him but take him for $40 in drinks. I go to the same club several times a week, get on stage, women buy me drinks and I meet twenty of them per night. It’s a case of two causes—one effect. For distinctly different reasons, both Ken & I draw a similar conclusion.
Like most men, Ken’s sole solution is to go out more often, go to more clubs, that is, to spend more money. And it’s amazingly futile. In a given month, I’ve seen him spend a fortune often meeting nobody at all. At the other end of the spectrum, I estimate I meet around two women per day, a broad average (ooh, another pun). Let me double check that. Yep, around sixty per month. Ten times what Ken manages for a tenth of the cost.
Ray-B is late to the game, but then again so was I. It was around his age I was forced to admit things had changed for the worse. I was surrounded by women at my work place, so it’s not like I have no first hand experience. The issue is way bigger than I can define here, yet I never gave up in one sense. I have met, in my life, enough women to know they are not all the same, but 99% of them are, an almost guarantee those are the ones you’ll meet. I know that people change slowly with age but I don’t care for women who say those changes are automatically to be accepted. No, no, ladies. Change is not the same as improvement. As for the world being unfair, you are simply experiencing the equality you thought was so wonderful.
Eerily, Ray-B mentioned marriage twice in his note. Then I thought about it. His stage personality on stage would attract women looking for support payments. He’s only dated one woman long term in his life and his manner is that which attracts the leftovers. Even rating a woman as “taken” can often mean she just sold out to the highest bidder, but still on the market. (So don’t blame guys who think more money is the answer, it isn’t entirely their fault.) Ray-B’d better watch. I suspect I’m the one who’s warnings have had the best effect in the short run, so listen up guys. “Stay back! It’s a trap.”
