One year ago today: February 4, 2022, The Great Die-Off begins.
Five years ago today: February 4, 2018, Bluetooth™ blues.
Nine years ago today: February 4, 2014, every damn talk show.
Random years ago today: February 4, 2004, every year’s a record.
Amazon tacitly admits coders are crap and announces it will only hire recent grads. This won’t work, and I’ll explain. What they really need is programmers, the difference (once again) is that a programmer needs to know inside out how a process works before he begins. A coder just starts grinding out code with the intention of producing results that look good, often regardless of the underlying process. Again, the best example is GPS, I doubt whoever wrote that code even knows how to use a roadmap, or what all those symbols were for. Another early morning, chilly again, enough that I’m taking a ride over to Winter Haven.
Pakistan has banned Wiki for “blasphemous” content, but Wiki can’t remove it because Pakistan won’t say what it is. Yes folks, once this generation of Boomer taxpayers dies off in the USA, the world is in serious fooking trouble. Who will they come begging to when the Boomer money is gone? The administration is redoubling efforts to get its hands on that retirement plan money and no way the Boomers are going to just hand it over to either them or anypack of sniveling soi-bois. In this regard, we are treated to spectacles of 80 and 90 year old people blowing the last of their money on singles cruises, to the horror of expectant heirs. Then again, I know precisely what it is like to be proud of hard-won accomplishments only to have deadbeats accuse you of self-worship. Or worse, demand a share. They will get nothing.
Fish & Chips, I’ve got a craving for a big order. The Catfish place north of Bartow was, if I recall, frighteningly expensive. But so what? My mood says I should sit down and have a restaurant meal. Take a good book, so I can ignore the other diners, but not any attractive babes that happen along, this is still a small city and it happens sometimes. That narrow window between leaving home and going full woketard, such a rare and precious time nowadays.
There it is, the $25 meal at the catfish place. Done to perfection, but you pay for it. That includes the $5 tip. I did note that I was early, just after opening and several single women were there. The staff, thoughtfully I suppose, sat them in booths so it would not be conspicuous they were alone, not waiting for anyone. Thus, they sat me in the same section. I immediately brought out the crossword puzzle shown here. Let them mingle with each other. However, I am still single so if the Reb moves away, I’ve made up my mind to date locally. Who’s gonna be the lucky gal?
By way of explanation, I like Morse code but I don’t like Morse code people. Does that make sense? I get asked why I don’t belong to any societies. Tell you what, have a look at what what these places transmit or what their prosigns mean, prosigns are abbreviations similar to texting. It’s simple—I don’t normally engage in meaningless chatter. Where are you? What’s your name? What brand of antenna? I suspect the last exciting conversation sent by Morse code may have been the Titanic. Morse isn’t the greatest for long-winded exchanges but if I want endless blah-blah, I’ll talk to a guitar player.
Australian heritage farm gate.
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It did not take long to realize I was not working today at all. I drove to the shop and got an appointment to fix my cruise control, and ordered two new keys at $100 each. As for the spare tire, it seems KIA made 2012 a special year and the part can only be purchased as a kit. That’s looking at $335 for a spare tire. I did not dare ask about the door handle. I’ll do the books and create the money for the cruise control and keys, the rest can wait. I’m not planning any trips this month.
I stand by my statement that coders are a pack of half-educated eggheads who think truth and fact are subject to majority rule. And I double that because I was quoted for it, though not exactly. Babylon Bee liked the post. By now, it is mid-afternoon and siesta time. I’m still reading the Lock Artist, an interesting look into psychology. It gives insight into how not to get caught. For example, it is no mistake the police ask you if you understand your rights. Don’t say nothing, but then again, I always advise not talking to the police ever. The days are gone when they are the good guys, everybody knows it. I’m also listening the BTK audio-book, which took place while DNA testing was still experimental. A thousand men gave samples to clear themselves, not knowing those samples were not destroyed afterward as they had been promised. Read my lips, the police are allowed to lie to you to get information.
This Chinese balloon is something else, the US finally shot it down (they say) over the Atlantic. If so, they spent an easy $15 million dollars in the process. Biden is making wild claims. I’ll say it again, modern wars are lost by the side that runs out of money. Here’s something to spend your money on, Thomy. It’s a spread in a tube of ketchup and mayo. It comes out like Stripe toothpaste. It sells for nearly $30 a tube on eBay.
Then, I watched a documentary on which planes the Germans shot down the most in World War Two. My assumption is that it was a bomber, probably the B-17. Wrong, but close. It ranks third, behind the Spitfire and the Sturmovik. In all, the Germans shot down over 65,000 Allied aircraft, not bad considering.
US credit card debt is $930 billion, not far from the trillion mark. Good, let them drown in debt. They were warned. I know people who are such bad money managers they cannot imagine getting by without a credit card. They think people who don’t have credit cards are inferior. Funny thing, though, these credit card junkies all share another set of common characteristics. Like not questioning the jab. My guess is same as on-line, that close to a thousand of them are kicking the bucket every day.
ADDENDUM
Caltier Fund 1, another update. This is a small company of 11 people, started in 2019. Their target market was identical to my concept of real estate. What caught my eye was their statement that the house you live in does not count. It may appreciate in value but it does not produce a steady cash flow, in fact, a mortgage is a negative flow. The standard idea all along was to fix up a place and flip it, which places one squarely in competition with people and money who have been at it a lot longer. Plus, if you rent, you have the problem of tenants, although Internet blacklisting, er, I mean data sharing, has curbed that to an extent.
Shortly after my birthday last year, I opened the account with the minimum $500. Thence, I proceeded to curtail all other draws and dig out all sources of unused or under-performing cash in my entire system. There was $137 of quarters in the bucket. $61 of pennies. I determined my historical cash emergency needs and lowered that by $1,012 and so on. Caltier was on a slump at the time, but so was most of the industry as Blackrock was driving the market. By the end of November, I had $650 invested, by December $2,150, and end of January $4,200 with another $700 in transit.
On paper, I lost money up to now, but only a few dollars. For the record, month 1 I lost 82¢, month two loss 52¢, and last month loss was $2.57—on paper. During that stretch, I purchase more than 7x as many shares, getting rid of anything else that could not produce at least a 5% return. Actually, I have on bank account paying ½% interest, but that is a special category, I may even put some of that into CDs. That’s a case of making money by losing money slower than the next guy. Do not overlook this concept.
Back to Caltier. Including some year-end totals and budget overages, I expect to have $7,200 invested by end of February. I need six months of returns to develop a spreadsheet of what to expect, but this month we’ll show a tiny positive return. That return is reinvested to adjust for “inflation”. It is the shares of Caltier that I’m watching, not sure how they deal with an increase in value, but I do see the box with that figure on their home page. Sadly, there appears to be no blog or website that keeps running score on what the company is buying and selling but unless I have more than $25,000 skin in the game, I’m not too worried. Caltier is the right idea at the right time and they can hardly lose unless the market itself upsets. The rental market, not the real estate market.
The reason for the initial push to get the Caltier total to over $10,000 is conceptually simple. The plan is to have $50,000 invested during the 84 month lifespan, this being the amount projected to produce, after taxes, the funds needed to pay the property taxes on a property I just know is going to fall into our laps (the Reb & I) in this business cycle. If that sounds obscure, I remind the reader the largest single failure in the housing market is people who buy without calculating what they need for instrastructure—and I “spent” $1,500 recently studying how that happens. Properties lost to tax sales.
Why $10,000? Because once the investment is at that level, I don’t expect to have any more sources to tap, and there must thereafter be a monthly contribution for the remaining period. It is wise now to make that as low as possible. At current rates I hope to get it down to $250 per month so if I die, the Reb can maintain at least that momentum on top of any expected mortgage. You cannot win by playing the game by the bank’s rules. End of lecture.
