One year ago today: August 18, 2022, a lively bunch.
Five years ago today: August 18, 2018, baked cheese grits.
Nine years ago today: August 18, 2014, a new term.
Random years ago today: August 18, 2017, something you should know.
I missed some rare footage at dawn. Mr. Red is back, as I mentioned, but we’ve not seen the missus. What I saw was Red feeding what appeared to be a weak juvenile. He was flying between the feeder and the other bird who lacked energy, it seemed. For those of you interested in reverse engineering an A/C compressor, this is your lucky day. Here’s a “full-length” GIF on finding out what is actually inside one of those super-heavy pieces.
It’s some form of axial flow spinner, don’t ask me, I’m no Frank Whittle. Besides, he was centrifugal. Wait, maybe this thing is, too. It has a shaft and two eccentric rings. This was one tough job but total fun. Let this be a lesson to those who dream of a shop to do these things—don’t wait as long as I did. Or actually, as long as I had to in this case. It appears to be a spinning core inside a solid metal tube. That’s all, I’ve got work to do.
Before I get out there, in which case I will work all day, one of the reasons I like GIFs is ease of production, and another is that they don’t surpass the 30MB limit on my e-mail attachments. I admit it, I’m investing again. For a future that is unlikely to ever be mine. If Caltier again pays out a 1% (that’s an approximate) this month, I may transfer in from other weak performers. If so, Caltier will dominate my portfolio—that is, a lot of eggs in one basket.
Here’s a bit more detail. I don’t follow the actual Caltier operations, since I have no source other than their rather flowery blog. How much of their $50 million cap is subscribed? I don’t know. When will they begin to flip properties in the expansionist market? Same, I have no idea. It is their business model I like, not their day-to-day. Buy an undervalued or undermanaged property, right the wrongs, and sell it at the market peak. The downside is a recession, but Caltier’s policy is to never extend beyond what the rental income will support.
The squirrels have completely disappeared. Somebody called pest control, there were just too many of them everywhere. I used up the morning learning more Merle Haggard songs and remaking the video you’ve just seen. It was to large for my e-mail folder. Now, we know each batch of urban squirrels will just be filled with another, so I set the timer. It has been 38 hours. The D-party has chosen Georgia to face off with Trump on election interference—but if public opinion prevails, they have already lost. All Trump did was tell the people to quit cheating and do their jobs. It’s amazing to watch. Joe is at an all-time low, yet the people who did the dirty deeds for him are fighting for their necks.
The charges against Trump could, if pushed through, land him in prison for between 641 years and life. And prevent only the Republican party from questioning elections. The family of a Black shot for pointing a gun at police are saying they should have tried talking to him first. I like that expression that if a law’s only punishment is a fine, that law is meant only for poor people. Or something along those lines. We have news that Trump intends to do an interview with Carlson in the same time slot as the Republican debate. Good. Not only will that wipe out the debates, but it will shake Fox News back to reality. I love it when this happens because the old Establishment sucks. Preliminary polls show the event would have 90 million viewers. That’s enough eclipse all else.
Political map of Ecuador.
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I built another box. The sides were already cut so I practiced fitting panels. I need lots more practice, but it worked. So chalk up nothing to my behind-forever renovations and another day to puttering. The time was needed to ponder, which I’ll detail in a moment because this is my record of things—writing it down clears the baffles. This is the box, the darker wood is the panel, it fits into grooves cut into the sides. These photos make it look nicer than it is. The box does not have the lid cut yet and part of it’s importance to me is mostly it was built with jigs.
There were several videos on how to recover this copper. I opt for the ones that use power tools. Twenty pounds of the wire fetching $75 is worth my while, but it always depends. It would not be worthwhile cracking open the compressor casings. The obvious question is can the copper be melted. Yes, but since it can be almost impossible to tell if you have #1 or #2, you run the risk of contaminating a good batch. Maybe we shall see about these motor windings. Copper’s high price was last year when it hit $5 per pound. This recycling is completely out of any plans I have.
I subscribe to the old theory that an idea is not clear unless you can write it down. NPR was on the radio, going bonkers over the Trump indictments. Too bad, except for their shrinking posse of Biden-believers, piling on these charges during an election campaign is having the opposite effect.
In my opinion, Trump has already won. Their only hope is to stop him from running but they dare not go too far. Worse for them, the tactics they are using are not “democratic” as they claim, but are too evidently aimed directly at Trump personally. Now they want to put him in jail for 725 years over charges that could be turned on themselves. Biden gave a medal to that lady who ran the fake ballots through the voting machine multiple times. She was, he said, fighting fot the right of her people to have a voice. I guess being the most pampered group in human history is not good enough for them.
Here’s the investment choices I will have to make within the next 30 days. I have some certificate maturing that could roll over, but rates have dropped. The news says they are up, but I go by what’s on the prospectus. Oddly, I don’t know the maturity value on these certificates because as long as they stayed above my minimums, I’m okay with that. I also have the two CDs from Tennessee, the first matures in a month, the other in December-ish. They are doing all they are supposed to, but they are a safety net. There are some obscure accounting theories at work here, but they apply to management accounting, not bookkeeping. I’m looking now, for example, at my “best forgone alternatives”.
The certificates may lose their place in line, is what I’m saying. They are a case of “losing money slower than the other guy”, which has merit if you have no other way or you are treading water. The total dollars involved in this decision would be around $5,000. Some might say what’s the fuss over so little? The correct view is that placing this into Caltier should bring monthly returns to around $200 from that source. Even in slow times, I calculate Caltier was paying enough to sustain the investment even if they can’t maintain a 1% monthly rate.
This requires two sets of projections, each of which has a best and worst case scenario. I’ll need time off to run these spreadsheets. That’s one area where I know how much precision is required and a ton of experience also helps. The goal of Caltier is to pay the taxes on any property we may buy, if such a thing is even possible any more. If we don’t buy, it’s enough to make a difference demographically. For statistics, I turn to Forbes. Not because they are right, but because they are reliably inaccurate. They say the average American has $65,100 in savings and we know this is absolute bunk.
The average American cannot come up with $400 cash even in a dire emergency. Nearly 70% live paycheck to paycheck. Average credit card debt is over $7,000. There is nothing average about the distribution of income. The fact is, you should watch Forbes for misleading stats. When they say the average American has $17,000 in a savings account, that is only counting the few who have any savings at all. Fact is, in my age group, the average person has only $6,400. I say that's the average between the 10% who save, the other 90% have $0.00, or as Forbes would say, an average of $0.00. Pathetic savers, but a result of repeated poor decisions. These are the people who will tell us we are wrong.
ADDENDUM
What happened to the other business ventures we tried? There were three. Currency exchange, booklets, and property taxes. All were on-line business and all amounted to buying yourself a job. They would work – provided you put in a sixty hour week and twenty years to see your first real return. Such is the business climate in America. Due to government regulation, all the easy start-ups are gone. You need a ton of money just to open shop.
My point of view is I learned many times more than I spent on how these ventures work, which I consider a profit. To me, they are the “comic book” ads now put on computer, which is plainly enough to fool droves of people who got themselves the wrong education to get a decent job. But, since it is a new way of doing old things, I had to check it out. We could always fall back on any of them, provided their support is still in business, but booklets are the only one I’d consider.
