One year ago today: May 30, 2020, no St. Auggie for me.
Five years ago today: May 30, 2016, I like to yodel.
Nine years ago today: May 30, 2012, a mystery lady.
Random years ago today: May 30, 2013, my first drill press.
How about the new tipping tool? It’s where you can tip your musicians on-line, I’m not sure of the details until I look later, but it is different than Applause. It’s an interesting philosophy, where musicians below a certain digital income can share in the pot. But I wonder. In real life, I always empty the tip jar before it has more than $20 in there, for a lot of damn good reasons. And I question the wisdom of having some on-line entity knowing anything about your tip jar, even whether it exists. These are, however, desperate times for many.
They work by instantly triangulating the gun reports and can distinguish brands, rates of fire, and police often arrive before anyone calls 911. This time there is no indication they were called at all. ShotSpotter, a 2010 technology, made the news for being “racist”. The original trials picked up 62 times as many “black” gunshots as “white” gunshots. What? I can’t say that? Okay, then put it this way, there is “no evidence” that ShotSpotter is unbiased because CNN would probably point that out if they’d thought of it first.
Five hours on the roof, averaging one panel per hour. This includes the trim, edging, flashing and cutouts. It’s a great workout. I really did scald my kneecaps and you think I can find the knee padding cuffs now that I need them? I had to improvise out of that stretchy athletic wrap tape. I still suffer, but this has to get done before the summer tropics get here. I need to move music gear and books out of the house.
By 11:00AM I took a coffee break and listened to more modules. These talk in circles and use that Internet format where they try to wing it, creating the content on the go. Um, listen, the majority of you people are rotten at that. You’re playing the ticket you deserve equal time or something. Give me the theory and the training and I can create my own examples, thank you. However, the money-back guarantee is dependent on following the instructions. We plod along, not knowing what will be on the exam.
It’s comical to watch where they must have hit snags by what they stress is important. Spare me, discipline and motivation are not in short supply over here. I do know what it is like to be surrounded by slack-asses and dumb-asses, but I still have my charts and diagrams drawn up before they arrive. Lesson 8, I call it, warns against “how-to” books as being too specific. You aim for why they need self-help, rather than the narrow topic, which they call a variant of how-to. Got that?
I’m amazed by the number of books on confidence. Yoga, weight lifting, money, these things don’t address the problem. What can people do that gives them confidence? I believe it can be learned, but I’m not so sure the process involves buying a book about it on-line. I know, it is lighting the first fire in your new burning pit. Yes, that will give the confidence I need to meet women, play music, and tell people who don’t like me that is their own problem. Sure, I already have the hard bark to do it, but according to the web pages, I also need the confidence. And they can help, for $19.95 plus S&H.
Dad’s.
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Cloudy my eye, make that a downpour at 3:00PM on the button. With three roofing panels still to go. Lot’s of thunder which is my signal to stay of roofs, but seems a beacon to certain types to go golfing. You know, to stand around in the open swinging a lightning rod. So much for golf being a cerebral pastime. Myself, I know if I dug deep enough, I’d find hot chocolate in the K-cup drawer. That’s my plan until things quiet down. Later, a short let-up and I had the final panels down. But I still have to get up there to attach the regulation number of fasteners. Unlike 2018, these panels are going nowhere unless we get us a real storm.
More rain means more lessons, I finally got through the first two where they actually mention costs. And they played the Internet game, low buy-in quotes, and the ubiquitous make easy money angle. I was right, their claim of $450 per book is bogus, my estimate was closer to $1,000 and that is by cutting corners. Like they advise proofreading services and formatting that I can do. Now, if you run the numbers for the books they refer to but never show, the cost is closer to $3,000. This includes the fancy cover design and ad services they advise you toward.
The current lesson is about accounting for publishers. This is a standing joke for me, but their points are valid. People only think they know how to track their money. I have a fifty year history of it and still find errors and novelty. Just last month, I recategorized my entire budget due to shifting priorities. Pants-pocket accounting does not work. The most common failing is unrealistic goals, how many years now has my pal been trying to save up $5,000 bucks?
Darn rights it isn’t easy, and this lesson is the full KenKen effect. People I know will pay $1,000 to listen to amateur advice from 20-somethings who fumble over the same things I’ve been trying to tell them for years for free. Write it down, make cutting expenses fun, a dollar saved is more like $2 earned if you do it right, which in this case is also my way. Don’t do it and nobody will spank you. But five years will go by and you’ll still be renting and broke. The worst concept of the broke and poor is that it is not worth investing small amounts.
My major failing with investing is my rules against inventory and credit. On the other hand, these rules have served me well. They prevent runaway success but make for a solid foundation over all the rough patches. This COVID lockdown did not affect me one bit. Still, most beginners are not snug with the idea of having thousands tied up in vulnerable investments that only produce small returns per month. Remember my backwards calculation, where to have my income you would need a half-million in the bank. I just did it without the half-million. And now you can’t because so few companies have plans any more.
Worst were the female voices. They get annoying when trying to sound authoritative. Like listening to a drug commercial disclaimer. Lacking warmth, like they can insist on being equal sort of thing. This is new, this injected calmness edge and the feeling they think everybody who passed the course is now equal. No ma’am, you got 65% and some of us got 95%, it’s something in the tone-mood that’s not right in those people.
For pure irritation nothing in our era is likely to match the fingernail-on-chalkboard property of the spray-tan hair-gel diaper-faced goofs talking about their own jobs over at NASA. Consider their sweeping statements like the Perseverance will go where no rover has gone before, a pretty safe boding considering they are alluding to the surface of Mars. There is the contingent who point out that there will always be a close second in the staff at PBS where bland is good.
ADDENDUM
How bad are things in N’ville? I know bands are first to suffer in what should be steady town for employment. Not so, it’s like the mining company and the prospector. What, you don’t recall that old saying? The mining company, when times get bad, lay off the prospector. Anyway, a guitarist I chummed with back in 2020 is needing a place to crash, so he may be showing up here until things pick up again. Oh no, now I finally have to clear out the spare room and clean up the kitchen. Wait for news, he’s a soloist but together we are concert-grade.
Kudos to the hairdresser in Palm Beach for banning any customers who’ve been vaccinated. She says her insurance does not cover unknown effects from the jab. Her statements have been fact-checked by such highly trusted sources as Facebook, Instagram, and the Federal Health Department and flagged as misinformation. What, they’ve read her insurance policy? Rumor as it her business has tripled.
