January 21, 2020

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 21, 2019, that idiot Petunia.
Five years ago today: January 21, 2015, early health care warning.
Nine years ago today: January 21, 2011, Integrated Development Environment.
Random years ago today: January 21, 2007, I was a leg man.

           What a biting wind today. Enough to keep me inside until past 3:00PM, but I got the last of the lumber. And my third telemarketing call this year, from my old buddy, Paki-Waki. Don’t get me wrong, these people are criminals and the calls are illegal. So, I like to bait good old Paki-Waki because he is so easy to infuriate. He’s got a nearly perfect English accent, but I recognize his voice every time. These days, he is calling himself Logan. He doesn’t know my voice, allowing me to lead him along a little more each time. The scam is credit repair. They have already stolen your credit card number, so they don’t ask for it. Just the details like your DOB, mailing address, phone, and things they can use to impersonate you. Their problem with me is they don’t know I don’t have a credit card. (But I wonder, given they have a number before they call, why they think I do.) Soon [in the conversation], Paki-Waki has to insist I give answers, which is my opportunity to blast the guy with some choice words in Urdu.

           The guy goes ballistic, he’s very touchy about his mother and sisters, and cannot keep his temper. I seem to have correctly guess their names. Especially with Paki insults being thrown at him as only somebody who has been in Pakistan can deliver them. (Actually, I’ve only been in India, never Pakistan, but I worked for a company that hired a lot of them, so darn rights I know the choice words.) He went off his rocker today, threatening to strangle me. I told him to name the parking lot and I’d meet him. Sigh, that was my diversion for the morning, except I left a phone message for that rhythm player out in Haines City to give me a call. Twenty-four hours later, no call-back. Bozo.

           I bundled up and went to work on the coop. This is now day five and the cost is pushing $80, but you do want the hens to be comfortable. The Reb does. Here’s the basic shape of the unit as of dusk today. I finally hauled the stepladder out of the attic and got the roof half done. There are some slats to fill in a lot of the gaps you can see from here. The window is not fixed in place. I found that small ceramic heater which should be just enough to keep the interior from getting too frosty. The nesting box is also just tacked together, it is not operational yet. Check back tomorrow, it just cannot get much colder than it was today. Or they would not be growing citrus fruit all over the place.
           I took an hour to read up on zirconium, the stone used for fake diamonds. I was more interested in its structure and history than as a gem. When it is formed deep underground, it has the property of absorbing any nearby uranium. This is my take on the scientific lingo, so don’t quote me. And it shuns lead. So if you find any with uranium inclusions, it is of great interest to those interested in the age of rocks. What got my attention is some finds in Australia that had inclusions that also contained oxygen isotopes. One of those isotopes if created by life. If I’m reading this correctly, that suggests life existed while the planet was still forming.
           This coincides with my non-scientific theory that chemicals, elements, and compounds places in the right proximity will, in time, create self-generating replicas of themselves. My interest in these matters is casual, but I like to hear when something new comes along. Particularly if it upsets a long-standing scientific rule or principle. Like Galileo did, but don’t forget, back in his day, he had a thousand times the resources that counted. When you stop to think that when he heard about an invention at the other end of Europe, he was able to build his own model. Try that today without a fully equipped shop. Then you’ll know how I feel sometimes.

Picture of the day.
Russian ‘anthill’ cake, mmmm.
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           A blog milestone. Here’s your first view of the interior of the chicken coop. This is looking in from the entry hatch toward the two nesting boxes way in the back. You can still see light through the cracks, and each one is a potential draft that has to be chinked. To the left is the window, which I decided to swing inwards instead of out. Any part of the interior it blocks [when open] can be reached from the nesting box. For cleaning, the front part of the floor is removeable, which allowed me to complete some of the work standing up inside the coop with my feet on the ground. It was significantly warmer inside, more than I expected. The cold weather in Florida is always due to a wind, not the lack of sunshine.

           I have some paperwork piling up here and out west, but this coop has to be finished, or at least inhabitable by tomorrow. Put it this way. The word on the street is that “if those hens have to spend another day out in the cold”, I may experience “a significant decline in my 2020 demand for Xmas tree ornaments”. Roger that.

           I came up with an idea for the open mic. Take along my small amp, or the Fishman because you know how some idiots are about playing bass through a PA system. Maybe a four-song Johnny Cash set on the bass. This would consist of Folsom Prison Blues, Tennessee Flat Top Box, Jackson, and Cocaine Blues. Or I could just go in to see what it’s all about. Arriving mail says I was wise to leave my 2020 schedule so uncluttered. I’ve spent some 80 days last year north of the Georgia border in the winter and it was not that much fun.
           This year, I won’t be much better equipped. I would like to make the trips a wee more adventuresome. The most obvious way is to make the journey two days (see addendum) instead of one, meaning a wider scope of paths to take, particularly through those mountains. Strangely enough, I predicted this situation some forty years ago. That was during my oldest-by-twice, youngest-by-half era of travels, alas, mostly in the pre-blog days. I’ll remind you about it. That is when I traveled extensively between the ages of 25 and 35, so pick age 30, pick a place like Hawaii.

           I would look around me at who else is traveling. In my own age group, nothing but newly-weds or the dreaded couples getting back together hoping travel would inject spirit back into their flagging relationships. Exclude those, and look at who else is in the hotel. Teens having a wild time their parents don’t even suspect, and old people. Everybody else was either 15 or 60, that is, by half and by twice. The most often asked question when I was a bachelor at the phone company was why not just party every day. The answer is the same as now, there are no women to party with. It only looks that way, but the ones who are not stick in the mud have weird hidden agendas. Tell ‘em, Theresa. Their plan is you rent a nice place together and they quit paying their half.
           So expand that concept much wider to encompass my situation. My demeanor, personality, and extrovert stage personality means I meet women everywhere, all the time. Maybe I do have a clue what I’m talking about but, understandably, this won’t make me many friends with the social media crowd. Oh, and before we go any further on that count, let me say that looks are important. Any woman who is still attractive at my age proves it is no passing factor. Most relationships have to start somewhere and looking good should be recognized by now as a universal starting point. And before anybody says I only mean the sweethearts, I tell those same anybodies that they are the same bunch who insist that opposites attract, so go f-f-f-f-figure.

           This is a tricky to broach because it involves value judgments and the loudest critics are on the receiving end. So let’s make it clear that at street level, I side with women, not men. For all my moaning that Taylor is taking her time getting around to me, I still think in the dating coliseum, women remain the Christians. I don’t identify with men who get gussied up and walk in like peacocks. But I often feel a twinge of sadness for women who do much the same. Men can say all the good women are gone, women could, in stark reality, say there were practically no good men to start with. I just passed a governmentally significant birthday last November, so I’m going to take a chance and inventory myself over my “dating appeal”. Like most men, I may not be all that realistic about this.
           What do I, today, have to offer a woman that I would find attractive? Sorry for the heavy restriction there, but let’s be fair. Materially (let’s get that out of the way) she gets a free place to live, free car, free food, everything you’d expect that’s traditional except her own spending money. That last item, gals, is the price of equality. Free money causes more problems than solutions. I’m a bit overweight but holding the line, above average-looking (though I’ve never been called handsome), average height, blue eyes, rarely ask for anything, and don’t give a political damn about anything except a few issues really close to home. Like taxes.

           Socially? You be the referee on that. You can dress me up, take me out. I know how to use a fork and knife. I can sing and dance, say the right things, and know when to hold and when to fold. I’m intensely loyal and change drastically for the better in consideration once a relationship takes hold—the exact opposite of most men. I take little for granted, and although I often take them to new levels, I’m content with the simple things in life. For example, you should see me build a chicken coop.
           The downside of association with me, how would I state that? First, don’t ever scheme anything on the assumption after time has passed, I won’t just walk out the door. I’m intolerant of things like laziness, liberalism, and tribalism, but not so much in themselves as in the consequences they bring. I believe most people should not be protected from learning from their own mistakes. While I’m okay with getting by day-to-day, I’m not so much for people that embrace that as their entire existence. I can and will plan ahead a long way and don’t listen a lot to those who don’t and not at all to those who later demand a share of the outcomes. I’ll judge people by the company they keep, but am quicker to do so with women in public. As for my personality foibles, whose to say? Any woman who gets miffy over anything in this blog would probably not like me in real life.
           So there. Your turn. This inventory is to look back on some day if there is ever cause for it. It’s much the same assessment, I think, as I would have given myself ten or twenty years ago. Before that, no, I had not softened up yet. Thirty years ago, it was my way or the highway. Even now, I’m actually glad so many losers took the highway, didn’t AC/DC write a song about them?

ADDENDUM
           I’ll pass. I found this ad for a 2013 Scamp, shown here. The location given was near Orlando, the asking price was $2,000. The on-line consumer sites said this unit sold for as much as $16,000, but on average $7,700. I e-mailed deanned900@gmail.com for details and got e-mails in return. The needle on my bullshit meter began to tingle. Back came an almost too-perfect story that it was part of an estate sale and that the trailer had been stored in a garage and everything on it was checked out and working. Really? There’s more. The gal was in the Army and was being deployed overseas in ten days. I insisted on knowing where the trailer was physically located.

           Draper, UT, is a long ways from Orlando. It’s in a storage unit she said, but could ship it in 3 days. The needle is halfway. What’s more, she said, since the price was “such a large amount”, she wanted to go through eBay insurance. She says eBay keeps the money until I have the trailer 5 days and am satisfied. Now the needle is on full. Why would a seller be so concerned that I am happy, offer to ship it to me out of an already suspiciously low price (what if I decline, is she going to ship it back to herself), and also, the drop came a little too quickly.

           Other questions. Why was the ad listed in Florida? The trailer as the last item unsold from an estate, that ain’t right. Deployment in ten days, that comes across as a deadline not to be questioned, what are you, unpatriotic? There was no offer to meet in person, so no matter how I sliced it, the deal was that I part with my $2,000 first and get the trailer later. eBay insurance is not scam-proof. Another question is eBay’s reputation is for siding with the buyer, so why did the seller even bring it up? Hmmmm. So, I opted out, but not for the above reasons. Are you curious why? Sure, you are. I know you can’t see the wording of the original ad or the e-mails.

           But ask yourself this. Does any of it sound like a woman? There is just something about the sequence, timing, choice of words, and attention to minor details that tells me this is not a woman, much less the (no pun intended) caliber of woman who would join the Army. This is a slick operator who knows the eBay system inside out. I don’t shop eBay and it comes across as addressing the concerns of someone who does.
           Even the prompt e-mails and perfect grammar had a too-perfect form-letter aura. If I have time, I’ll tell her I know people in Draper, and one of them would like to see the trailer this afternoon, or at least drive by the location where it is supposedly stored. In this second picture showing the rooftop A/C, the vegetation in the background is not native to Utah, nor was this picture taken in the winter.

Last Laugh