One year ago today: July 7, 2019, I switched to Earth Balance.
Five years ago today: July 7, 2015, trade places with me.
Nine years ago today: July 7, 2011, the “hi guyzzz” annoyance.
Random years ago today: July 7, 2008, the sharp-eyed . . .
Another day cooped up but I don’t mind now that the place is so comfortable. It will be a while, but I’m eyeballing the changes to be made in the kitchen, the final stage of the structural renovation. The major electrical and plumbing is already run under the structure. And I know how to level old floors the easy way, so easy I can do it myself. I half-listened to the new Boss Hogg radio format, it has made a turn for the worse with that obscure jazz-blues of Lady what’s-her-name? And lately, even the Rocket has been playing too many b-sides and one-offs.
And Prince. It’s not that I don’t like the guy, but his music was never distinctive enough to catch my ear. I tune out when I hear disco-bongo-beats. His “Purple Rain” is the only tune I recognize and the guy is just too weird for video work. That music is from 35 years ago already. I like new music but what is on the charts these days is not new. It’s a direct copy of what failed against rock music from the mid-60s to mid-80s. I never liked it then and I cannot be expected to like rehashes of it these days, particularly with the current trend toward computer-generated lyrics and weak vocalists. Every tune sounds like something you’ve heard before.
It’s Ringo’s birthday, I think he turns 80 this year. He even got a cheesy best wishes from Pete Best, the guy he replaced. Not many people know that is because the other three Beatles fired Best for overplaying the band, giving rise to the half-baked rumor that he was just too good-looking. To me, he looks like a cross between Freddie Fender and PeeWee Herman, if anybody still remembers them guys.
Forex trading is again causing losses I don’t know how to limit. It’s the same as before, I see a series of positions that need to be sold now, before they cause deeper losses. But there is no obvious way to do this and we’ve learned that canceling the transaction is a total loss. I’m attempting to limit the loss. Our mentor, on the odd times he shows up for meetings, said to X the trades, I asked him if instead of doing that, please tell the people to send them to my accounts. Their loss becomes my gain, but the guy reacted like I must be joking.
A morning-long drop in the kiwi has resulted in 12 sell orders that nobody is picking up. I’ve halted trading until I can spot the pattern and see the effect of this situation in relative isolation. On paper, I’ve already lost 10.1%. It’s dummy-dollars but that isn’t the point. Despite the pressure to recruit, I will not recommend Forex trading to anybody I know, mainly because the training is too incomplete where it counts. And that is how to get the software to do what it is claimed to do. My parameters, for example, are set to close out the trade when it drops 250 pips. I’m looking at them drop by as much as 400 and nothing happens. I don’t accept that there are no buyers, the market is too huge for that.
As for the extended learning period, 15 weeks so far (which I paid for), I’m aware that up to 90% of people who enter the Forex market lose money. The likely reason is they did not know the ropes. We may still fail at this or just walk away, but it will not be because we went in too soon and too blind.
Now pay attention, I’m going to take a chance, since any chance is better than a sure loss. I’m betting on the mentality of the millennial programmers, not the money market. I’ve got 3,000 dummy-dollars that says they have no real market smarts, they are “programming what they’ve been told”, a hallmark of C+. Return tomorrow for results.
No movement on the lean-to work, the rain has been constant enough that things never dry out enough to get at it. In fact, y’day was one of the few times I never set foot outside at all. This is the weather I intend to defeat with the shed, so it could be Florida just getting its last stab at keeping me from this goal. I’ve decided initially to leave the floor as dirt since the roof is costing four times as much as I originally intended to spend. But after lessons learned on the small lean-to, I’ll shell out for the correct materials. First tool to be set in place is the table saw, which requires a third of the available space for enough clearance to cut 4x8 sheets, although that event is quite rare—and the sheets will be pushed through a slot in the wall to an outside bench anyway. Want pictures? Come back later.
To give you an idea how corrupt America has become, the garbage pickup is now only once every two weeks instead of every week. But the bill stays the same. It was actually not that bad before the millennials because it was only the government that was totally corrupt. It’s when it becomes accepted at street level that society gets rotten. Millennials are so accepting of everything from sneaky cellular contracts to doctored food that they don’t even know a corrupt system when they see it. Oh, are they ever going to get theirs. Previous generations screwed up, but they did not destroy the mechanism to work their path back out of it.
Erosion, White Cliff of Dover.
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I’ve got around four friends who have really bought into this virus boondoggle. They honestly think they are obeying a law and being model citizens. There is no law that says you must stay at home, but as usual in America, there is a law that punishes if you don’t. People can be stopped on the roads and fined if they are more than 50 miles from home. There could be some real backlash over these laws, which infringe on Constitutional rights. But as a test for what happens if a liberal regime ever gets elected, it’s red pill time. Quarantine reflects a lack of understanding how infectious disease operates, particularly microbes (viruses). They are spread so rapidly that they cannot be contained by quarantine or any other method.
There is a school of thought that because viruses can mutate so easily, it is better to catch an early strain. This will prevent you from getting the more severe mutated versions. I believe this is what people mean when they refer to herd immunity. Enough people have built resistance to the disease that it can’t find new hosts and it dies out. I really hope there is some public reaction to the shutdown, which at best can only slow the spread. I say get it over with, take some casualties, and get back to work. I’d rather be sick with a paycheck than sick and broke. What about my co-workers? Hey, the risk goes both ways--they are equally likely to infect me. That's how viruses work, Nancy.
Top story of the day, I got a call from somebody I have not really been in contact with for twenty years. In his place he had a wooden carving of a dragon, it was pretty nice. But I never gave it a second thought, my place has unexplained artifacts everywhere. He called to say he threw it in the trash bin last weekend and I’m like, yeah-okay. Except he can’t sleep and he sounded distraught. Here’s the deal. Turns out when he was a kid, him and a buddy stole it. He kept it out of conscience all these years and is now totally guilt-ridden over tossing it. He’s not a career criminal. The guy needed somebody to talk to about it. I talked him down, but you know, that was a pretty nice dragon.
Now I can identify. Other than the robot club, where anybody can say what they want without consequences, I don’t know anybody I could confide in around Florida. I probably don’t care as much about that as most people, but it’s a sign of our times. Everybody’s in charge, nobody’s in control. Everybody’s has an answer, nobody has a solution. If I had to spill my guts, I’d have to drive to Tennessee, so I can understand why he called me out of the blue. Let me think, yup, last talked to the guy in 1998.
By later, I felt up to working. I told ya, even the little bit of shade already up makes being out there significantly more pleasant. I got maybe an hour’s work in even if it took me two. I must record it. I planted three rows of beets in the raised planter. Without proper potting mix, I used the same sandy soil as they sprouted in the front yard. This time they have the full sun, and how. I chose beets because they sprout quickly, giving me feedback. And they are ready three weeks after that, or the middle of August. No sense leaving the planter empty, I considered onions but they take nearly three months.
Then I reinforced and straightened the beam. The thunderstorms keeps the drones away, I need another 12 rafters and 96 fence pickets. It takes 240 square feet to roof 196 square feet of work space. Initially it gets a double layer of tarpaper and that is it until I can afford enough Ondura. In the budget I mean, of course there is money. But that’s the end of this month’s $300 materials budget. And next month, I have a medicine cabinet to replace.
Then I get a call from JZ, he finally fixed the broken tiles in his bathroom. Dang, that was something I could always catch him on when he said my renovations were going too slow. Those tile have needed replacing ten years before I bought this place. Not only have I not lived here four years until September, this was a far more extensive job. He’s also on about how Miami is expensive and boring. Nothing to do, no nice women, everybody’s a small-scale con artist. Not one to miss an opportunity, I reminded him that I repeated warned him that is how Miami has been heading for the past ten years, not that it was ever that great.
Except the for the universities, which are full of foreigners, everywhere you go in that town, it is full of old boring people who seem to have a contest going on to see who can be the most unaccomplished. I warned him fifty times at least, and he knows that’s why I cleared out of that place. Not that it’s much better here, but at least you get to see pretty women and it doesn’t cost $850 a month to stand still. If you must know, it costs around $280 a month which I can afford in my sleep. That will soon become $350 a month when I get full Internet service. The price gets higher, but so does the enjoyment factor. In Maimi, you get nothing for your $850.
ADDENDUM
So, the EuroUnion says it wants to mine Helium 3—on the Moon. So do India and China, because the stuff is worth a fortune. Don’t quote me, but I heard $25 million per pound. You can read all you want on the space programs, but what is He-3? It’s the famous liquid “heavy water” of WWII fame, where the Allies sabotaged the only plant that made the stuff, somewhere in Norway. It can be used to fuel nuclear power plants. It’s got something to do with it being the only atom with more protons than neutrons. Earth’s supply has long since leaked out of the atmosphere, but the Moon, like Olive Garden, has no atmosphere.
Don’t go rushing out to stake a claim. In typical sordid “liberal” fashion, US citizens require government permission to “go beyond Earth orbit”. Remember that in a liberal-based society, participation is compulsory. There’ll be no Wright Brothers in the Cosmos. Here’s something, did you know Bill Gates has gone gung-ho to find cobalt? His teams are combing everything from satellite mapping to old mining records to find this stuff. Why? I dunno. Most of the world’s supply comes from the Congo and it is a component of lithium battery production. So Bill knows something we don’t.
Trivia, cobalt is from the German word “kobold” meaning “goblin dirt” because if any gets into the smelter, it gives off poisonous arsenic gas.
