One year ago today: January 1, 2019, $784 over budget.
Five years ago today: January 1, 2015, frequency 97.1, Texas.
Nine years ago today: January 1, 2011, it doesn’t matter.
Random years ago today: January 1, 2013 , my NOR gate.
How about that getting through New Year’s and barely mentioning it? I didn’t even stay up till midnight. How’s that old saying go? New Years are like whooping cranes. When you’ve seen forty, you’ve seen them all. You know, let me check how that once nearly-exctinct bird is doing. Hang on. Okay, I’m back. This endangered species numbers 800 with a growing population. One of two native American species (the other is the sandhill crane) this bird’s 5 foot size and bugling call made it a natural target for every shotgun in earshot. Most of whooping crane flocks were raised in captivity and reintroduced.
Here’s a pic of my first vegetarian meal of the new decade, a veggie lasagna with Thai curry paste. Calendar years are one of the few times I employ ‘tard counting (starting at zero instead of one) and only then because of the collating sequence (the way the computer sorts numbers). The daily budget begins a new era as well, where there is a mild attempt to watch for inflation, which could unleash itself any time. The rates have been kept artificially low for years and economists refer to that as a pressure cooker.
It’s the same budget that let me retire over twenty years ago and lets me live as I please, so I trust it greatly. All I’m changing is breaking some of the categories into subcategories along the lines of what I predict will be most inflationary. I’ll soon have some ot the last year’s totals for you. They are not only revealing to the trained mind, for inexplicable reasons, they are a popular blog item. Some examples of the changes are entertainment now has a separate listing for my personal drinks. Gas is divided into car and scooter, there are new categories for health food and K-cup coffee (which has nearly doubled since I bought the brewer), and anticipating who knows what, travel costs will be kept with unsparing accuracy. Travel costs are dependent on how well I keep receipts on the road and too often I find them months later in the strangest places, like the spare tire compartment in the car.
The oddball item for today is my appearance. A while back the Reb commented that I now look the part that I used to pretend. There is unlikely anyone who would remember my father, his memory died when he did, except for immediate family, who will mostly exit the same way. What? Not me, if only because this blog could make me the next Chaucer or Thoreau. Anyway. I have a few people who have seen photos of the man, and I contacted them about this along with current photos of myself. Yep, it’s agreed, I now look like a cross between a retired country gentleman, an Amish coach driver, and Captain Highliner. The consolation says LizJohn is that the women I’ve dated could have done a lot, lot worse.
The US Army said (in their own defense) that the Germans never modified the Shermans as they did with other captured vehicles. The assertion is that the tank was so perfect they could not improve it. The reality is that the Germans didn’t like Shermans because they caught fire so easily, with the secondary reason that they were easy to repair and the supply of spare parts was endless.
Military trivia. Snipers in the Soviet army accounted for 11,000 German dead during WWII. Other news, the Bel-Air mansion a.k.a. the Beverly Hillbillies mansion sold for $150 million, less than half the asking price of $350 million. Property taxes are $1.3 million, or just less than 1%. If I was President, I’d outlaw property taxes, income taxes, and allow most other direct taxes to benefit only those who pay them. Gas taxes pay for roads, for example. I would also turn able bodied on welfare over to the churches, who, if they didn’t take them in, would lose their tax-exempt status. Don’t laugh, the proposed universal income of $1,000 per month amounts to much the same thing. It’s the old minimum benefit over minimum wage scheme. It would be funded by canceling all other forms of welfare benefits. But it will never pass. The Democrats have created too huge a mass of dependents who like things just the way they are.
Near the Dead Sea.
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I also purchased some test pieces of 1” PVC with two fittings, an elbow and a tee. See photo. I’ll price out a PVC gate but if that runs up, I’m okay with an ordinary picket gate out of furring strips or something. Moments later, wood it is. The PVC tees and uprights alone would cost $75 so I imagine the whole gate would be in the $100 range. The wood design requires just 4 pieces of 1 x 3” furring strip, the hinges, and whatever I decide for a latch.
Don’t even try going on-line for a carport kit. You get clobbered by ads for complete sheds starting around $1,000. As for the upcoming week, the weather forecast is 100% for rain every day. I took a closer look at the far back shed, and except for that one spot on the roof and the totally destroyed floor, it is not in that bad of a shape. I threw some bamboo sticks on the ground in the pattern I would like to build a shed. One problem is there is no electricity back there. I tried again to use the upstairs printer, but it is a HP. My experience with that brand is if it does not fire up first time, it can become a grueling experience to get the thing to work.
It’s pretty amazing how persistent these lousy companies can be once they’ve used the American corporation system to quash the competition. In other bad behavior news, the US isn’t the only power that trains their own enemies. Russia is now training astronauts from India. Neither the US nor Russia seem to grasp the consequences of what they are doing.
ADDENDUM
The $10,000 per call fine for robocalls went into effect today. It attempts to stifle the problem rather than fix it. But what else to expect from a corrupt Congress? I could, you know, claim Trump just followed my advice by signing that bill. He just didn’t go far enough. Are all politicians, except maybe Trump, on the take? I don’t know, but I know the entire charade makes more sense if you presume they are. How and where does one report a robocall call? Most people have no idea. Who gets the $10,000?
10:00 AM – no robocalls.
Noon – still no calls
2:00 PM – silence, no robocalls
4:00 PM – blessed silence.
8:00 PM – no calls all day.
Now don’t think them bastards are going to take this lying down. Robocalls does not address the equally irksome problem of telemarketers. The governments point of view is that all telemarketers are doing is “making a phone call which shows you how seriously stupid politicians are. Since when is running a scam legal because it is just a phone call? I get this small operator calls me around once every six months, a recording pretending he is answering my ad about selling my house. He’s the mouth-breathing gimp who makes Forrest Gump sound like Socrates. I always leave an insulting message to that effect, or worse. You can’t get at the guy directly because he wants you to leave your number to call you back. One day he’ll call when I’m not busy.
The do not call list is only semi-functional, that is, much like the people who operate it. Each telemarketer gets to call you once and offer to take you off the list by handing it off to another telemarketer. It remains a mystery why the FCC claims that these annoying calls are hard to trace. At some point, there must be a point of sale. It’s basically bullshit that they cannot shut these people down any time they please.
Of course, the root problem is that there are people stupid enough to give money to strangers over the telephone. You can fool some of the people all the time and I wonder how the robocallers will fight back? The telephone companies are being forced against their will to assist, which should give you some idea of how much they value their subscribers.
The law stipulates telemarketers can only call if the customer has given them written permission to do so, but that has rarely been enforced. It’s easy to get around anyway, like pretending to call the wrong number. TMOR, the problem was out of control with 50% of all calls made by spammers. Today is the first time in maybe ten years that my phone did not ring from an unsolicited call. I’ve been on the no-call list since around 2006. To any robocallers and telemarketers who lost their “job”, tough titty. If you want another job bothering people all day, become a meter maid.
