Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 26, 2019, at the “Rusty Uri-Nail”.
Five years ago today: March 26, 2015, only the advertising.
Nine years ago today: March 26, 2011, on my smartest move.
Random years ago today: March 26, 2016, flat.
Five days of fun made possible by the caronavirus. It was a glimpse of what Miami must have been like before the boatlift. It was also a revelation of just how many semi-trucks are on the roadways. A quick recap while I have time to remember things. The flat tire cost $93 last Sunday. Monday I was in Hollywood and toured the old places. They are gone, replaced by the new American economy based on ripping each other off for enough nickels and dimes to barely survive. Don’t look at me, I was there and they did not inherit this fiasco, they created it. Although Tuesday was a day off, it was all medical tests and the last today revealed a problem.
The eye testing got quite comprehensive when a couple of tests gave varying results. They finally chemically dilated my pupils and shot a nearly painful white light off that left me blinded for several minutes. Plus my vision remained fuzzy for hours. I did not get out of there until late in the afternoon. I forgot to mention, y’day we took the big yard plant over to JZ’s sister-in-law who is quite the bible thumper. I can quote a few of the more popular passages but memorizing whole chapters is for those with nothing else to do or something to prove. So here is an opinion about the gospel.
The other picture is an interesting home-made power hydraulic jack. This was at the tire place and caught our attention because we thought it was mechanical. But it really does have a piston. The connection here is that I am still planning to build a pit with raised sides that doubles as a way to work under the car without rising it and to load the trailer without lifting things to the tailgate. Hydraulics are overkill but the unit as shown was portable, which merited closer examination. In practice, I would find such a tool too unreliable. Maybe for lifting onto jack stands, but not otherwise.
Lilac-breasted roller.
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My eyes were actually sore after the testing. Since I could drive, I took the scenic route north through the orange groves. That north of Lake Okeechobee, which is cane farms. Centered around the town of Frostproof is an immense low valley and a series of small rolling hills. Horizon to horizon of orange trees. It’s criss-crossed by those idiot-inspired little state roads that turn at right angles every few miles for no apparent reason, and rarely go anywhere. I stopped once for gas to find another of those stations where none of the prices are marked. You have to take something to the counter and have it scanned. Millennial marketing again, you can’t decide something costs to much at that point without appearing to be a cheapskate or some broke-ass loser. Not me, I just mutter, “No wonder you don’t print the prices.”
I got a call from the cabin. The other guy cannot find where the buried pipe leads. The faucet, seen in the yellow oval, needs replacing and at that time, we plan to dig up a few of the floor tiles in the white shed to find out once and for all if there is running water out there. Agt. R was over to check the yard and says the second peach tree that looks unresponsive is still green and to wait the full 90 days to see if it sprouts. This water tap is just ten feet from the tree, so yes, I’d like to get it working. Priority is the building interior, however. The 90 days is up April 30.
The living in such places is far healthier than what southeaster Florida has turned into. But, it is what I call “desert island” living which is similar to my “desert island” accounting. It means to live there, you have to bring with you every last thing you need to survive because there is nothing available on site. In this instance, there are very few jobs and none of them pay anything like what is needed to rent even the worse places in town. If your ancestors did not leave you property, you can forget about surviving around there. Some of the businesses I drove past are hold-outs from the old economy as in places that do motor rewinding. All entry level jobs have been exported to China.
One more idea is to use this scare to practice my act. Since the bars are shut down, there might be an opportunity for me to practice to an empty house. Yes, I can hear the joke that I might as well get used to it. Anyhow, the point is Charla might let me set up and video in there. I’ve got around half the material ready but that is always an assumption until you get on stage. Many of the tunes I still have to concentrate to get the right notes. That’s an indulgence not to base much on when the lights are low and the beer is cold.
ADDENDUM
Snowden is watching this whole caronavirus scare with a critical eye. He points out that at some point the virus will be gone, but the surveillance state will remain. He’s right. My position has no major differences. I believe three generations of American students have been indoctrinated, not educated. They’ve grown up conditioned to believe the state knows what is best for them. They have never known an America where encroaching government control was never a part of their lives. I believe the Democrats are using the virus scare to cover a massive power-grab by testing how far they can order our youngest and least-experienced citizenry around. Tell them where they can shop, how close they can stand to each other, make them stay home from work. To the obvious delight of the American bureaucracy, the ass-ender generations are complying. They’ve become sheeple, wasting their energies on non-issues.
In my day, the government knew it could not step too far out of line. That’s why in 1975, the Democrats began taking control of the education system and getting everybody’s ID on file. Now, they have profiling, which is even worse. The sad news for millennials is that once you are profiled, they are not even going to care what your name is. They will know it is you. The lion is known by his claw and the complacent fool is known by his smart phone usage. The sad part is this technology will not just be turned on the fools. They are using the phones to monitor how close people stand to each other and drones with facial recognition (how else would it work?) are patrolling the streets in California. I’m actually waiting for how their drug dealers and rapists are going to deal with that.
I have another question. Where is all this doom and disaster that was to follow from Trump’s tariffs on China? It would seem to be China that is grinding to a halt—and for what news gets out from that totalitarian state, the coronavirus might be a cover-up. Face it, World, to the Chinese, ruthless dictatorships are historically the norm of social organization. They don’t invent, they mostly copy or just discover by chance at the cost of millions of lives for each instance. It takes an outsider to turn what comes out of China into something truly useful. Note I am not saying one is right and the other is wrong.
The fabled industrial growth of their industry is sputtering. Their cities are copies of Western planning and layout. Their motion pictures use only techniques pioneered elsewhere. There are embarrassingly few distinctly Chinese firms. Imitation works for a while, then the cities and industries decline to the same level as everything else they have because they can’t copy the mind-set that make things work over here. I say that is due to lack of constant renewal, but warn that copycatting is often enough to bring the original down. Like India, they are copying the creation, not the creator—and thanks to my brothers, I know this when I see it.
Take away the impersonator’s source and what’s left over is true oriental inventive genius. Thousands of years and billions of lives to stumble across a few basic concepts of minor use until adopted by Europeans. For war, yes, a lot of the time. But wars are hardly the biggest worries of most eastern societies. Hey, I’m only pointing these things out, not ragging on them. know this when I see it.
(Instagram reality.)
