One year ago today: October 22, 2018, $1.6 billion.
Five years ago today: October 22, 2014, hotpants, sigh.
Nine years ago today: October 22, 2010, I dunno, more hotpants.
Random years ago today: October 22, 2008, a rentable piece.
There’s physically not enough time to finish the bathroom floor. I had to make a trip into Winter Haven at dawn, hitting this fogbank. The polarizing camera lens doesn’t show how thick this really was, and it is a bit weird to those who think a fog means a chill in the air. Not in Florida. This was a muggy heat that dampens everything. It’s some of the most pleasant weather if you like it humid. Anyway, I had to get some chasing around done and I spent $420 before I totally woke up.
Two things of importance for me. Three, but I already told you I did buy the router table. I scheduled my new radiator for tomorrow morning, deciding not to take a chance to Tennessee, since however well that Bars-Leak works, it simply cannot be a permanent repair. And what little heat my core was generating, the treatment knocked that out. Cold air only, this is not a winter vehicle. I think the chemical plugged the core as well as the leak. Secondly, this guy shows up at Agt. R’s saying he’s just thrown out hundred of carpenter’s bar clamps and regular clamps. They are cleaning out a whole warehouse, so I put in my order for 40 or so if there are any left. I’ll take all he’s got. They’ve got to be worth something and you never have enough clamps for gluing stuff. I still don’t have my table saw.
I threw on “The Island”, another world contamination survivor flick. There’s a nice definition of god. It’s when you want something really bad and close your eyes and wish for it. God’s the guy who ignores you. So far, the movie has Scarlett Johansson playing Scarlett Johansson. Ah, to make a career out of being pretty. It wasn’t always so. Did you know that after women’s lib came along, the number of nuns in the USA plummeted by 2/3rds? These science fiction movies seem to always include a scene of people having drinks in a space-age bar. I wonder when that will become as trite as old movies that show people smoking.
My year-ends are in early since not much is likely to change between now and November 30. Financially, this is my best year since 2016 and there are trends that say 2020 will be a banner year. My budget excluding extraordinary expenses, like buying scooters, car insurance, and getting my tires slashed in Nashville, is only $145 more per month than five years ago. Since I’ve moved here, my average materials put into this house has been around $275 per month. Less than half what I’d shell out for rent and I now have something to show for all that money.
I will not be finished the floor by the time I leave. I’ll cover everything over and seal off the bathroom area. That’s how that cat has been getting in. The floor isn’t permanent until that new hot water tank happens. Other than that, I’m looking forward to at least six weeks in Nashville unless it gets too cold. I can’t take cold.
Paris cabaret 2019.
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Birds. The neighbor who lost the hen last week was over. His other hen is laying eggs somewhere and he can’t find it. I’ve heard them clucking by the tractor next door. We went over the area pretty good, nothing. I found out the other chicken was his favorite. They had just discovered a batch of 16 eggs outside. Since the other hen, his favorite, is gone, the other won’t nest in the coop. I helped him look around my yard but they are not here. I would have found them the first day.
Hummingbirds. Finally, they have found my window feeder. Around four females. It’s one of those feeders they can rest on so I get a good look. Beside it is the cardinal backup feeder and that is mostly a juvenile, seems like one of last year’s hatch. He’s a tawnier color and may be keeping Mr. Red away. I’ll mix up a batch of nectar for the hummingbirds. They have lots of flowers around here when I’m away. Sorry, no time to get you pictures. This trip will be down to the wire.
One thing they got wrong was calling $200 million a lot of money. The classic scene is when Johansson gets caught by using the credit card. The swipe is not the card, but the dire warning never to give it to a woman. You naughty boys, you are moments later to believe she did that on purpose to get herself into the enemy HQ. That’s too snarky to break off here, so what can I end the afternoon with? I got it. When I re-routed that washing machine outlet, the configuration means that when I get around to my kitchen nook, which may wind up serving as my dining table, there will be a complete set of outlets including USB rechargers surrounding that space, all on a dedicated circuit.
Now if I could just do the same in the shed for my battery-powered tools.
ADDENDUM
Here’s what foreign invasive species do to Florida rivers. This is a feeder to the Peace River and it has been choked with these weeds for all the years I’ve seen it. Seems it would be a nice river for recreation as it flows through the southeast end of town. The big money section. I drove through there on the new scooter for a look-see. There are at least fifty streets in this town I’ve never seen. Just let this be a lesson to people who think it is okay to let in life-forms that do not belong here.
Some tidbits from the budget, always a curiosity since most people don’t really have one. Not even the basics. Let’s see what can be gleaned going back, say, two years to 2017. Budgets are time and situation sensitive so back beyond that gets into budget fossils. Being retired, it is the entertainment budget that always gets the most attention. During 2017, I spent $294 per month in that category. (This does not include when patrons buy me drinks.) That’s just under $10 per day, which hardly rates me as an alcoholic at today’s prices.
Then 2018 comes along and I’m spending $114 more per month, which for me is nearly impossible. Ah, that’s when my pal in Miami ran into troubles and I was picking up the tabs when we hit places like the Titanic, where draft is $8 a glass. That works out to $13.50 per day. The record tab for that place for us was December 12 last year when we had six glasses each for a total of $107, that’s the day the woman he’d been drooling over all night walked past the table on the way out and told him next time try making a move. (Nobody tell him it was a setup. I asked her to do that when he was in the can.)
This year we drop to $7.50 per day. These are stats, I don’t drink every day, more like a couple times per week, so keep focused. What’s changed there? The Reb. On month’s I’m here, entertainment is over $300 because I’m still paying for my pal and we just found that bar full of country women near his house. But in Tennessee, around the Reb, it drops to less than half that. Why? Am I not buying for two there also? Yes, but the Reb & I rarely drink in public, and when we go out for a bite to eat, that is a separate budget category because I so rarely do it alone.
Let’s see what other comparisons show up. March 2018 was my largest expense on entertainment of $495 that month. Nothing special going on, but wasn’t that the month my band from Combee played the Lake Shipp Pavilion? I dunno, you can look it up here. Last August, I spent $93 on pet food, but with the Reb back in the picture, I’ve had a (defined) surplus in seven of the last ten months. We are not a team, but if we were, buying a house in Tennessee would become not that far-fetched. What a difference she is from other women, got that Theresa? Now you know why her picture was on my fridge, you idiot. She was watching you scheme to rip me off. And Dawn, hug me all you want now, you had your chance when I was first in town. Funny, innit, how your turning 45 switches the perception of who is “too old”? My worst deficit in the period looked at here was September 2017, when I shelled out over $3,100 to get that $1,700 car on the road. The American economy at street level has, as a major component, the aim of ripping off the automobile owner.
Second place for cost over-runs was November last year, the Great Trek West of 2018. That $760 thermostat in Cheyenne and $430 water bill for the broken pipe, coupled with $1,180 in gasoline made that trip memorable indeed. But unless I live into my 70s, I won’t have to drive that again except for pleasure. And for all we know, that might already be in the works. If things remain on this keel, 2020 could be a real treat.
