One year ago today: March 10, 2020, my tired Taurus.
Five years ago today: March 10, 2016, they’re equals.
Nine years ago today: March 10, 2012, failed to mention?
Random years ago today: March 10, 2018, use MP3Gain, dammit.
Why would a couple plastic bottles of soda make top story? Because what you see here now costs $5.00. A year ago that was a six-pack of the smaller bottles. And this orange-vanilla Coca Cola is all that was left on the shelf. Yep, the gastrozombies have gotten so bad that they can’t even taste their own artificial flavors any more. They have to start mucking around with their own junk food to taste it. Admittedly, this was actually only $4.91 and from a convenience store. About the only thing really being stimulated in this economy is inflation.
I did a three-hour study this morning. The subject lends itself to circular logic due to the interdependence of the steps. Yes, it is confusing, for example, sextant readings, which involve an angle and a time. I have yet to find an author that clearly explains that these readings are not direct results, but they all stress accuracy and leave the reader to think them apart later. This is where I’m at. The angle, when subtracted from 90 is used to find not your latitude but that of the Sun; the time is used to find the Greenwich Hour Angle, which is the longitude of the Sun.
That is, you never actually use the sextant or the time to directly find out where you are, which is the purpose of the exercise. It makes sense now, after five years of part-time study. I always could come up with the answers, but my goal was to understand the process. Now I learn that because of readily available navigational tables, all the difficult calculations are already done. You just use what you measure to look up the answers in these booklets—which have now become rare due to GPS. And if you don’t know how the rules work, trusting GPS is a gamble.
Having said that, I’m taking a morning siesta because I can. After looking at more real estate listings, the conclusion is to watch the market but do nothing. Prices remain insane in relation to most people’s economic possibilities. If it goes up now, it’s likely permanently out of my reach, if it tanks the big buyers are no doubt ready to swoop in again. My guess is that in the time it took me to find this place last round, the big players bought 60 houses in this immediate area. The entire market between $85,000 to $135,000 just disappeared as fast as they were listed.
There are not enough listings in Mulberry to make comparisons, so let’s look ten miles to the east and find the cheapest two bedroom for sale in Bartow that’s not on the wrong side of the tracks. Here it is, built in 1925, and only $130,000.
Typical free Internet download.
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First thing this afternoon I got millennialized. What is it with these people who think there is nothing wrong with putting the “Closed” sign inside the window at the other end of the parking lot. I went to the Lakeland library, parked, and walked into the foyer. There’s this masked millennial there stopping people asking if they are going to the library. No, you moron, I’m looking for some used cars. His job is then to tell people the “adult library” is closed. I asked him why not put a sign out at the driveway entrance to that effect. What? And lose his job? What is it with these people?
Elliott is one character and a half, being English but not in England. He’s quick to point out any imaginary potential shortcuts in the accomplishments of others. So you can image what he goes through around me, ha!. Actually, I’m not that leading edge, the explanation is simply that I look at things a little earlier than most people, which is understandable since they tend to watch a lot of TV. That means I’ve long since formed an option by the time they learn it exists and today I looked into the CosmicScope. This $50 device claims to use nano-technology to achieve the magnification of a $4,000 camera telephoto lens. I’d like to see that.
By later in the day, Elliott and I got into one of our famous rows about our comparative positions in life, which joking or not he is dead serious about. He is especially touchy about music and daily work, calling me a “decent” musician who plays for chump change in seedy bars and he’s always had this preconceived notion that because he “works his own business”, he has money and other people don’t. Now I fully agree, it takes a large float of money to operate a business these days, but that money isn’t really yours until you cease the business. Just don’t mention that around Elliott or the sparks will fly.
ADDENDUM
What’s this, Amazon is blocking libraries from lending e-books? It’s just one more tiny issue, don’t worry about it. You can trust Amazon to do what is right for you. The good news is they are blocking Kean Koontz and Dr. Ruth. How about that fire in France that destroyed some cloud computers. Serves you people right. We all know you kept full backup copies, being way smarter than to trust others with your valuables. What’s this, a new round of sodium and other ion batteries about to hit the market? Hey, Brandon and Tyler, don’t forget to change all the plugs to something incompatible with everything that’s already out there.
