March 5, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 5, 2022, silo siding.
Five years ago today: March 5, 2018, fake resumé outfits.
Nine years ago today: March 5, 2014, I have “motorcycle neck”.
Random years ago today: March 5, 2007, those who underspecialize.

           We awaken to news that Google & Facebook have been handing personal information over to police. If this surprises anyone, they have serious cognitive issues. Tracking people is now a reality with Vintra, the company that doesn’t care. It is being marketed as a way to “find out who your friends are” and has been purchased by police and the IRS. Good morning. Here is today’s 7:30 AM sharp breakfast. Mini-French toasts, double dipped. Not shown: coffee. Today we get some work done, so need that hearty start-up.

           Strange for America, but one of the hardest things to do is to invest and keep it a secret. Yet the biggest mistake most beginners make is to tell people where they have put some extra money. I’ve been looking at putting some cash into a few A.I. startups, with no sensible data on which of them is any good. History tells us good ideas are useless without marketing and A.I. will follow. One aspect I find hilarious is EQ. It’s a take-off on IQ applied to A.I. software that is supposed to probe your personality and predict your thinking. Emotional intelligence. Duh, okay.
           Will I invest? Let’s be realistic. Remember TurboTax? They could not make it work for people, so they changed the tax laws to fit the curve. If EQ is right often enough amongst the stupidest people first, that makes them a prime candidate to become a dominant player. I don’t like crowdfunding because it turns out these people all know each other. Nobody these days can be trusted at that level.

           I’ve had it with the squirrels, gobbling up my birdseed. There is plenty of food in Florida, no need to be snacking on my gourmet seeds. Baiting the Hav-A-Hart caught the family in an hour, both released moments later in the cemetery, the traditional export destination except for varmints. The critters are lively and healthy and now they are those things around a half a mile away.

           Later tonight, I got the burn barrel going and cleared up two loads of scrap lumber and limbs. The table saw canopy makes things easier all round, partly because you can sit under it and get things done keeping an eye on the barrel. I found three Miller’s in the shed fridge, so we also got in an hour’s target practice. Again, I report rotten results. Used to be I’d get 40% bull’s-eyes at 30 feet, this evening I managed only three hits out of 150 rounds using a scope. Like most modern optics, the scope has a personality but even allowing for that, I had trouble keeping inside a six-inch circle. I’ve lost my touch, keep reading.

           Not that I ever had a talent for this. Never did I take any lessons or theories, in my day marksmanship was something you had or not. I was able to shoot quite fast and accurately. How I did it is thus a mystery and now I’m borderline terrible. The only thing to do is invite JZ out because I know he is totally out of practice and I’d get the trophy by default. How’s he doing, anyway? Not so fantastic. He’s having a go at a more conservative lifestyle, same phase I went through ten years earlier. You remember, how I failed to train myself to watch TV. Well, JZ sleeps with the TV on.
           My opinion is that he’s missing out on the very best part of his life. Great place to live, bills paid, and spending money. But you know the rest, like 96% of retirees, he did not plan for an interesting time later on. Trust me on this one, folks, after you are thirty, the fun parts of the world begin to seek you out less often. By the time you are fifty, the world doesn’t care and after that any real fun costs money. You have to track it down and capture it, no way it comes looking for you, especially if you are planted on a bar stool.

Picture of the day.
USA – oldest gas station.
Altoona, PN, since 1908.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           By mid-afternoon it was too hot so I took the van for a spin to the post office, which is rare for me on a Sunday. So rare, I did not know the Thrift was open and I stopped in. Always check there for any new tools though nothing today. So I stopped at Wal*Mart and replaced my 6V cordless screwdriver. I figure the old one burned out because somebody used it as a drill. That’s what overheats them and burns out the circuit board. And that’s why I now keep such small tools in tiny locked boxes. If it rains tomorrow, maybe I’ll build one for this new model.

           Who should I run into but Mack, the guitar player. Haven’t seen him in months and that is because he left Winter Haven and moved out to Tarpon Springs. On the map, that’s just over on the coast, but from motorcycle trips, I can tell you there are no direct roads twixt here and there. It’s a 90 mile trip unless you take the dreaded I-4 and average 15 mph. I got his new e-mail addy but that distance is way out of guitar-commuting distance.

           In that vein, how did scheduled rehearsal go today with Bradford? Let me say, you can tell a lot about a person by what they consider to be adequate notice for cancellation. At 4:29PM he texted cancel the 5:00PM. Having anticipated this, I had some more yard work lined up until dark. During this period, I discovered another three Millers in the big fridge, so we had another burn barrel and target practice, listening to Tampa Magic, I think it’s 104.9FM, they are a little easier on the disco-rap than most.

ADDENDUM
The United States has six major welfare programs:

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP)
Supplemental Security Income
Earned Income Tax Credit
Housing Assistance
Medicaid.

These six welfare programs are not to be confused with the four entitlement programs:

Social Security
Medicare
Unemployment Insurance
Worker’s Compensation

           I’m writing this in response to news and social media that claim immigrants are getting Social Security. That’s false, you need 40 work credits minimum to even apply. What they are getting is SSI, which is a different animal. It’s the initials that are confunding the issue, and we know how much attention today’s journalists pay to detail, unless the issue is race.

Last Laugh