November 10, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: November 10, 2022, no new stove yet.
Five years ago today: November 10, 2018, four registers, one clerk.
Nine years ago today: November 10, 2014, my failed eyeglass idea.
Random years ago today: November 10, 1982, when I rarely dated certain women.

           Another slow morning, it’s too early to tell. You want more band gossip, you got it. While we may not have an enemy, we certainly have a critic. Let’s give the fat guy a name, “Dood”, and remember it is not personal. This is music so he represents a type, not an individual. I’m a band manager because I get it right, and I did talk to several people in October about how this new jam session would turn out. To the point, I described how Keith would do all the work, and once the jam was up and running, the guitar players would appear like cockroaches and steal his thunder. He doesn’t have to worry about us because we were never on that stage except by his request.

           Not so with the Dood. I was also accurate that once the show was built even a little, Keith’s lack of administrative skills would wrest away his say in matters. The Prez & I are ready to move on, but in a sense he’s lucky we showed up. Once we leave, he loses complete control of his own creation. Nobody tried anything funny while I was around, that’s for sure. I’m eyeing that sidewalk show, but that is only once per month. Then, there is always Kooter’s. This pic looks like my stunt double is singing, but that’s a swig of brew.

           So who is this critic? Dood, who else? He apparently, before even meeting or hearing us, had a lot to say about the situation. He apparently took the stance it could not be done, but if it was done, his abilities were much greater. (So nobody tell him we went out of our way to achieve the sound he apparently scoffs.) My guess is he’s making his move on the jam session under the guise of helping Keith by convincing him we are the bad guys, or at least along those lines. Where before Keith could care less, he now has a disapproving look on the tunes where the Prez & I have so brazenly edited out the guitar parts. I know exactly where he’s getting that from.
           But Dood was baffled, I hear, when people just nodded their heads and told him I had predicted this would happen. I just didn’t know one fat guy would come along and single-handedly fulfill every headache in my prophesy. It seems the very tunes I named that I would not be playing are the bulk of his song list. From what he got told back, it would be astonishing if he did not take it personal. He’s making a mistake, because he doesn’t seem to know that I know the people he knows. If he takes charge, it will be of an empty room except for Bradford.

           Let’s peek at the news. An Oklahoma city bans feeding the homeless without a license, says the media. The media doesn’t say it’s because the homeless leave a huge mess and the feeders don’t clean it up. The same happened in Ft. Lauderdale not that long ago. The priests who protested the ban got around it by feeding the homeless on their own property. They lasted less than a month. General Motors has shut down its EV plant, with nearly 100,000 unsold vehicles sitting in storage. Trump does not rule out Tucker Carlson for VP.
           I’m finishing watching the Sinbad movie, what a treat. Amazing work with the few special effects of the day. Parts I remember only after seeing them. I began reading a document about BCD construction. This is used to display decimal numbers on things like clocks, radios, and meters. Stands for binary coded decimal, it is a type of ROM, which I have built before. I was wondering about other patterns, when I dropped off and did not wake up until noon. This, folks, is a reward of retiring early. It’s going to happen anyway, so why not enjoy it to the max? For the record, next month it is twenty years since I quit smoking. I don’t miss it. Now, get my arse into Winter Haven, I’m late and the city wants its tax money. They need my $178 for the bus I don’t ride and the school I don’t have kids attending.

Picture of the day.
Parade in Wisconsin Dells.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Back from Winter Haven and we are broke this month. Aha, I heard someone in the back row ask how I can talk about surpluses one post and being broke the next. Easy, once you know how, it is called a budget. If you want to live in a world where all money is equal, nobody will stop you. I’m over on my discretionary budget, mainly from not traveling to Tennessee, which costs nearly $500 per trip just in travel costs, of which $360 is gasoline. If I add non-budget items, each trip is closer to double that. I don’t take the Reb to Taco Bell, old chum.

           But the increased cost of maintenance is biting. Property taxes up $15 per month, phone and Internet up $30, and my grocery items have (on average) doubled. I switch to ground coffee from pods for everyday use and once again keep a rein on extras. Have not had to do that in twelve years. I have more bonds maturing, but those are slated for Caltier. If all goes perfect, I should pass the $16,000 mark by month’s end. These are not significant enough totals to make much difference. A new source of income is [what is] needed, and music is not reliable. The best music has ever done [for me] is take the pressure off somen a where else.
           If there is a picture of the papayas, you are lucky, it means I had the gumption to do all this extra work for you, but you are worth it. In a moment, I'm going to bash the current CD, but to be fair, I examined the jacket more closely. It does not actually say it is a space war story. Rather, an invention that "fires" microwaves down to Earth for electric power. It says Clive Cussler reviewed it as by "the best military writer in the country". Fooled me once, Dale Brown.

           While in the city, I went shopping. Ouch! My favorite hot sauce up from $1.69 to $3.88. I know I’ll get the call from Tennessee in a while and things always cost more there. I am stll listening to the CD-disk “Starfire” and it does not pick up. By disk 3, the war has not started and it’s now about some college kids who propose a solar power system based on panels connected to abandoned military capsules in space. It’s an annoying chapter as it was plainly written to demonstrate the narrator could manage a host of accents. And unrealistic, with the drop-dead babe going after the nerd, who is about to be kidnapped because he’s the dead General’s son. Like I said, no war as depicted on the jacket, but at the same time if there is a sexy babe on campus who isn’t a sleaze-box these days, she probably is from Australia.
           Throwing out food. It’s not a habit around here. Starting tomorrow, I will begin throwing away papayas. I can’t keep up and nobody else wants them. It would be different if it was my special tree and I liked the fruit, but I’ve had enough. It was a muggy day and I’m not happy about my property taxes. Doubled since 2019 with no improvement in services. Then again, I’m happily not paying $1,400 monthly rent in some dumpy Miami neighborhood. Plus, there is the value of getting poorer much slower than most of the others. That’s more than a joke, my net worth has been declining since 2020, but at less than $100 per month and that’s where Caltier comes in.
           I apply very harsh rules when judging an investment. Caltier is more of a nest-egg than most people will ever see, but it has returned an average of only $52 per month. After inflation and taxes, that is an annual loss of around $16 per month in actual purchasing value—which is probably a fraction of what others are losing. I’m losing but at least my numbers are still going up.

           Downtown it was, where there was no entertainment. I got there late, so I wrote a three page letter to Marion. All about music, it’s a writing style we evolved into. You would find it like an intense version of this blog. That’s where instead of telling you what, I describe the situation and you decide for yourself how things are going. Only, she gets the inside info and real names and numbers. Don’t worry, it is in a code called “cursive. For those who have not seen a 3-page handwritten letter recently, here is the actual McCoy.

ADDENDUM
A lawyer in Panama shot two climatards blocking the roadway. These protesters learn the hard way they may be stopping somebody in an emergency. Here are my favorite comments:

1) he changed their climate alright
2) get him across our southern border
3) hopefully this spreads like they claim the virus does
4) quicker than running over them in your car
5) give that man a cigar
6) go Boomer!
7) two new speed bumps installed
8) he tried to warn them
9) road kill
10) first time a lawyer’s done right since Biden was elected
11) it was only a matter of time
12) self-defense, the lawyer was being illegally held

Last Laugh