One year ago today: April 23, 2019, last I heard.
Five years ago today: April 23, 2015, the Smithsonian budget.
Nine years ago today: April 23, 2011, ghetto Rolls.
Random years ago today: April 23, 2013, two custom rigs.
I’m going for a drive just for the hell of it. I must get over to Winter Haven anyway, so I’ll take a tour to the east. I’ve never much been through that area even by motorcycle. Parts of it are an old bombing range. Yeah, I know, how can you tell? I expect I’ll be driving through a lot of orange groves. I wound upon a road just five miles from here that I’ve never seen. Land continues to be cleared of orange trees. Not all of it is converting to peaches. I saw acres of greenhouses on the Israeli desert model that either supplies the US Army or is the most brazen grow operation of our time. And I finally found “little Mexico” with its cash-only repair shops.
They say you don’t need the 10 inch blade. Not for doing crown work. But I like my other 10 inch when I need to slice a 4x4” post. I’m back home but still trying to shrug my bout with fatigue, so I’ve schedules two documentaries. I’ve got a National Lampoon movie for siesta and I watch trailers since I rarely hear about movies until they are released. I remain amazed at the plugs for HD-DVD. Have they hired all the retired carnival barkers to hawk this stuff? If so, did they have to pick the ones with millie-lisps. And would somebody inform these dullards that instant replay and scene select really are not all that “new and improved”. How many people really have a pressing need at any point in the movie to know to the hundredth of a second how much time is remaining?
I got that shelter finished just in time, working after dark. In an hour I had the rafters up, then the tarp. Another half-hour we had lighting, and ten minutes later, electric outlets and a fan. At which point on came one of those Florida special horizon-to-horizon rain & thunder storm which didn’t let up all night. My incentive to finish that lean-to is moving all the boxes now stored inside for nearly three years running. If I cannot hide the roof adequately from the drones, I may place all my old non-working solar panels up there for looks. The roof is framed from 2x4s but they are 12” on center. If you see any photos, I got brave enough to haul my camera out there in the rain.
There, I got a picture. It shows the rafters with the new tarp sagging from the water. I didn’t have time to put a layer of tarpaper. It is that beam shown across the top that has to be hidden from the street. Now that I see how well the birdhouse turned out, I may put that one in the front yard and build a full length roost to hide the entire west face. A single layer will be good enough, To the left of the picture you see the doorway into the red shed in the process of being framed. The red shed is mostly storage and is stacked to the top with yard gear.
In a disgusting move toward more millennialism, Zillow is now making a habit of advertising real estate by “price cut” as the listing price. So, you do a search on sites under $100,000 and you get ads for $500,000 properties with “price cut: $20.000”. The whole mentality of that bunch is beneath contempt. There are 689 houses for sale (2 bed 2 bath) for less than $40,000, though I am only checking to see who has to sell due to the virus boondoggle. I really don’t know the terrain or how bad the multiculturalism has become in any given area.
Every time I see these listings, I’m irked by how fake they are and how difficult it is to weed out the bad listings. There is a market for a site that lists “What’s wrong with it”. A site that tells you to the limit permissible what is wrong with the house, the neighborhood, who is flipping it, what they’ve done to improve the place, and so on. I was close to doing it that time JZ and I looked at that place northeast of Lakeland that seemed okay until I noticed the water stain marks nine feet high on tree bark in the back yard. Subject to flooding was never mentioned on the listing. In the alternative, charge the seller to not list what is wrong. Then do a telemarket trick and sell the list to somebody else and let them publish it.
Doldrums.
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The Arkansas thrift guy also has some drainage pipe. You know, from driving it, I always half liked Arkansas, it is so close to Texas. They are so dense, they put up monuments to Bill Clinton. It’s one of those “filler” states between places you want to go, not unlike a half-price Tennessee. The guy is looking for the pipe. I had budgeted $100 for smaller 4” pipe, but he says it is 6”. If he has twenty pieces, I can have them for $80, which would also solve the problem of no A/C in the bathroom. Since the cooling system is exterior, I would just add a duct and put the chimney in the attic for extra cooling.
Damn it, my picture folder has somehow defaulted to opening with that idiotic Windows picture & fax viewer and won’t go away. I’ll get it, but it is one of those disgusting settings where to fix it, you first have to figure out what the birdbrains over at Redmond called it. What good is the “always use” button when it can be overridden by a gimp feature.
Speaking of dumb asses, I had a side convo with one of the Auvoria people while waiting for others to show up. It was not my imagination or critical attitude that many of these Gen XYZ ass-enders can be as uneducated about computers as they are about spelling and grammar. She had some unflattering tales and my guess that the average age of these newcomers is 28 was not too far off. She seemed almost relieved that somebody on the outside had such similar observations. You see their profiles ticked “power user” and screen names like “minecraftwizard” yet at the tutorial, they have to be repeatedly shown where the save button is located. What exactly am I supposed to think of somebody who graduated in 2010 but has never before in his life saved a file?
ADDENDUM
I’m going to answer a question that frankly annoys me, because no convenient answer is complete. The question is how much money as a cash float is needed in America these days to live without a credit card? That is, what amount is required to deal with most emergencies, most contingencies, and to live well without resorting to credit? I said most, not all, the idea is make sure you can outlast the pack until the situation is clarified or restored. The insurance and credit card companies have long since put a number on how long people can last. And I’m about to tell you that number.
This is a video of the only thing left moving in central Florida. It’s Matilda, having a late breakfast. The hens still don’t live here, but this is where they dine out. Note the screen flooring in anticipation of when I finally build that chicken cage. Right now, I have my own cage to finish.
