One year ago today: November 11, 2020, they break things.
Five years ago today: November 11, 2016, Whoopi didn’t leave, dammit.
Nine years ago today: November 11, 2012, irresponsible women, yeah!
Random years ago today: November 11, 2008, a whopping 1/10 of 1%.
I got the hillbilly up early and we are going to try the quick fix on the van. While at it, changing the oil will be fun since that is whatever oil was in it when I bought the thing. Too many other priorities so I bet it’s real goop in there. The doggies get an extra ration for being good and they lie around here all day anyhow. Keeps the possums at bay. We completely checked the oil, water, and tailpipe for any signs of fluids getting where they should not and everything seems okay. The radiator leak could be attributable to that plastic housing, but that gasket is still the primary suspect.
Here’s a picture of the contents in my left pocket of my work jeans. If anything more sensational happened anywhere near here this morning, tell me and I’ll get you a pic of that. Parson told me how when he was 25, he moved to a small town and applied for a job. He was qualified and could not understand why three months went by and they didn’t call. Then he finds out some local with the surname Peirson had been arrested and people who read the newspaper thought it was him.
As I find out more about the band, usually from small talk, it becomes a long story of bands that never got much past first base. Bands that started terrible and stayed there. One thing we agree on is we are all in it partially for the money. There is a Legion on the south end that offered us $150 plus tips. We unanimously turned them down. We have played for $200 which is pretty nearly breakeven. One item I balked at was getting paid by check. If so, I want mine separately and made out to my trust, a concept most of them cannot follow.
There was the usual discussion of what tunes to play. I vote we pick the ones that fit the band’s capabilities and get out there as rapidly as possible. I am not impressed by the number of youTube hits, which can be faked. Or on-line ratings, same reason. Two guys in the band have never head of Buffet’s “Pirate Looks At Forty”, and compared it to I’ve never heard of certain Vaughan tunes. But that is comparing apples and oranges. I used to regularly listen to radio stations across America and if the tunes were there, I’d have heard them by now.
Not singling out this band, but the situation is another reinforcement of how difficult it is to find people to even hang out with. Is it Florida? Is it my age? Who knows. The problem is, repeatedly, the world seems full of adults who have such little experience dealing with even the most customary and foreseeable problems. Not just mechanical, but social issues, they keep trying what didn’t work last time. There are an infinite supply of such people, so you never really get away.
Here we are, 103 years after the Great War and no net improvement in human affairs. The wars continue, arms sales remain high, Africa is backwards, the US has bad government, the Zionists are still behind everything, and today I saw something unusual—a video commemorating the German soldiers of WWI. This is supposed to be a day of remembrance yet Lakeland managed the usual traffic jams.
Long, narrow hallway.
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A productive rehearsal. I’m getting more say in the decisions simply because my way works, which is why it is my way, so it surprises me not. The trick is always to let the other buy think it’s his own idea, but you know, I am weary of doing that. I never did really like management for that reason, having to treat septuagenarians like they were little kids. Sure it works, but I don’t like having to do it. However, because small inputs like counting the measures pays off with an undeniably widening gap between the tunes where I’ve coached and what they call “the old way”.
Thanks to, methinks, the American welfare system, China now has the largest navy. Since really the only reason to build armored ships is to project power, unless Trump returns you can kiss Taiwan goodbye. What do the communists call it? Reunification? Anyhow, here is a satellite photo of a mockup in the western Chinese desert. It shows an American style aircraft carrier that moves on rails. Target practice, Beiing-style. My thoughts are that the one remaining advantage the Americans have is that the Chinese can only copy, not innovate. Don’t tell me about paper and gunpowder until you read the history.
These products were not so much inventions as accidental discoveries. The Chinese culture is full of examples of finding uses for tailings, leftovers, and byproducts. Few were the result of scientific experimentation. Thus, the US could be several generations ahead on what the Chinese will do to sink ships.
ADDENDUM
What is with all the relationship surveys lately. Even if it is my feed criteria, is there some kind of dating emergency going on? Somebody tell these old ladies to take their own advice. Women over 40 are as invisible to me as I was to them when we were 20. The power flips, in the long run successful men see old women the way beautiful women see unsuccessful men. It’s a question that cannot be answered, but why all at once? Is some magazine running a contest?
