One year ago today: October 1, 2022, Dunkin gets too expensive.
Five years ago today: October 1, 2018, FLIP insurance sucks.
Nine years ago today: October 1, 2014, daylight savings is next week.
Random years ago today: October 1, 2004, no records for a while.
Cream of wheat is like rice, the serving size is ridiculously small. But it wakes you up and I’ve got a plan to take the 12” speaker out of the Ampeg—unless I can find out why the amp isn’t working. I know it is something simple, but. Last couple of rehearsals I found myself driving home in the dark, so I sent an e-mail to the Prez to see about moving things ahead a couple hours. I canceled tonight’s show at the Pavilion, but hope to bring that in a standard Sunday the middle three weeks of October. This month is my fiscal year, but everything is caught up to date already. Caltier continues to gain favor here, read today’s addendum.
Welcome to the rise of Canna-Tourism. These are guided tours to where you can legally get stoned in the USA. For tourists and locals who get stoned and think these tours are cheaper than just walking over to the store. Speaking of pot, this photo shows my favorite. It’s not really copper but the size and shape are ideal for what I make. The snag is, the metal handle gets hot. The shape shows it once had some kind of wooden grip, so let me see if I can come up with something that works. I have no lathe and no lathe know-how, we’ll have to wing it. And if you are wondering why I’m still at the keyboard nearing noon, the yard is still drying out. We got hit with a good couple storms overnight.
Katy Perry has declared she’s for open borders because we should coexist. However, this does not apply to her $20 million private mansion. America is hometown for such hypocrites. No wonder Russell Brand dumped her after a year. She claims he abused and assaulted her, but her overall behavior says otherwise.
So many houses (30+ per day) are getting past my filters that I’m turning them right off for a week. These are houses that drop in price. These are houses still well above my price range, though I will take a look, but not 30 looks. Nobody cares if a $700,000 house drops by $20,000 when you see in the price history it sold for $200,000 in 2017. Hang on, there’s somebody out in the street racing his car motor for the last five minutes.
It was nothing. Just some asshole making noise. Now in a few moments, I’ll explain we lost the Sunday gig, but here’s a tale from the trailer court. I immediately sent a note to “Peggy”, the nickname I’ve given granny. She’s a vocalist only so I’m banking she knows every social committee twixt Okeechobee and Steinhatchee on a first name basis. (Me, I’m pubs & clubs only.) She’ll find us something and you know vocalists, she will insist on singing something. She’s a Patsy Cline fan, so handing her the microphone is “a small price to pay”.
Getting a granny on stage reminds me of a video I sent Elliott a while back, when I had that granny from Pembroke Pines singing. (By the way, he’s dropped completely out of the picture, I wonder if he finally did retire and move to the Isle of Wight?) He’s one of those crusty dudes who dislikes anybody taking credit for anything, no matter how well-deserved. He practices “mental entertainment”. If you think of anything witty or clever to say today, it was him. Well, he implied the best women I could get with my music were grandmothers. I know how to egg him on, so I sent him other material of my years on stage. Of course, he said, they were all fakes.
See, Elliott (I goad him), “When I was 16 I had dozens of babes around and you had none. When I was 25, I had them by the half-dozen and you had none. When I was 35, I had one around to your nothing. So don’t be surprised when I’m over 60 and there is a grandmother on my stage and you still have none.”
Western Hemisphere’s largest slum.
(City of the Sun, Haiti.)
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This was not the best afternoon, but I work with what I’ve got. Not until after you’ve looked admiringly on my pan muffins from later in the day I ran out of paper cups and the store was sold out of everything except the fancy foil kind, 24 for a dollar. Forget that, not with muffin production being what it is around here. Yep, that’s my favorite “copper” pot again, with raspberry muffin cake. The aroma! They are flavored with real rum, which I do not drink. Just a hint of taste. Is there a secret ingredient? Yes, two tablespoons of melted butter in the batter. The blog that dares to feature a cooking pot.
So, no more Pavilion for now. Tell you what I did, I fired off an e-mail to the Granny lady. If I know my trailer courts, she’s in with all the community centers and from inference of who she knows, I’m guessing she’s in north Lakeland. Get us the gig, I told her, and I’ll get you up on stage. You watch, gruff or not, she’s a softie for flattery. I also have an artificially low price for weddings. Think about it, if they don’t like us, they didn’t lose much, if they do like us, more than once I’ve been handed “the envelope”.
Directing rehearsal back on the existing list, which has proven itself, we used today’s session to begin polishing the details. It was a huge success, since he has now several dozen hours experience on capturing the character of these songs. I compare it to not listening to what you are playing except on how it fits the overall presentation. I could see the light bulb beginning to flicker and he is now getting good at picking tunes that are adaptable. We canceled Wednesdays for now, that was really just a push to get us on stage. He still works for a living so I must keep the demands to a minimum.
We’ve added “Some Broken Hearts” by Don Williams. I’ve taken to coaching the Prez on guitar technique, that curious situation where I can’t play it myself, but as I’ve said often, that’s why boxers have trainers. He recognizes the value of this, that he is actually playing almost a drum part on the guitar, and my rules include 8 beats to the measure, real or implied, and no stops longer than one measure. We can now often ace a new tune using these methods, it shouldn’t be long before I can coax him into playing orchestral arrangements. You know that Blues break in “Moonlight Sonata”?
ADDENDUM
This is a draft of my annual report to the Reb, which is not due until December 1. It shows Caltier in a positive light, dude, on fleek. Enjoy. (This is proforma, not the final report, which includes statistics you are not allowed to see. In other words, folks, do your own math.)
They began paying regular monthly returns in October 2021, although I did not know that until months later when the pattern became established. In October 2022, I made the decision, and the following month (November 2022) I opened the account with the minimum. You may recall I was cautiously testing the water, this whole crowd-funding thing as it applied to REITs. I then and now view it as parallel to a real estate mutual fund, which is how Caltier is carried on my books. Why? Because other funds had buy-ins as high as $10,000 and I balked—but a mutual fund is behavior I understand.
Their web page finally has a better information format than their old sort-of blog. View it yourself, you don’t need an account to navigate the “Learning Center”, recommended reading. Because your investment is calculated as a weighted average (to the 12th decimal point) I state it is okay to use their return figures. I ran the numbers independently and the atrocious delay in applying new money (ten working days) makes it tricky but they are close enough. (Remember in the pre-computer era when it only took two days?)
Caltier is still in the early growth phase, that is, they are buying properties and have not yet sold anything. I am between curious and anxious what a disbursement would look like after a sale. REITs are governed by complex laws, but the one I like is they have 30 days to pay out any surplus. Caltier is as cautious as I am about cash-flow, and every property so far has proven self-sustaining from its own rental revenues. There are two properties I consider likely to be flipped first, one in Utah, the other in Kansas. Here’s the buildings and my reasoning.
The right panel is in downtown Topeka, Kansas. With just 14 units, the ground floor is commercial space and if I was Caltier, it would be sold already. This property was expertly maintained by the previous owner, but that included some deferred upkeep. That has been completed by Caltier and in addition, they had added renovations to the residential units. I must add they do a crackerjack job of that, I’m impressed. They also mentioned fixing up one unit downstairs. But Topeka is Topeka and the building was built in 1924. It is leasing at $13/sqft/yr and I feel while that may increase, the big increases are over and a recession is inevitable. Flip it.
I regard all commercial properties, such as Topeka, as permanently for sale. I don’t trust on-line listings for either rental rates or selling prices, I can mostly just hope. I repeat that one of my primary motives with Caltier is that each property shows a positive cash-flow so there is nearly zero likelihood of a forced sale even if the economy tanks. Caltier predicts 3 million new rental units are needed in the next decade, consistent with Blackrock buying up everything. For now, I will continue to channel most available funds into Caltier as they become available here.
