December 17, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: December 17, 2022, this cat knows.
Five years ago today: December 17, 2018, the senior choir.
Nine years ago today: December 17, 2014, a duo, you say?
Random years ago today: December 17, 2007, technically, they’re illegals.

           Always be suspicious of anyone with this as a birthdate. All my on-line records show December 17 as mine. Not so and I ran computer workshops and taught with the schoolboards for years, training thousands of people how to create “buffer” accounts using this date. Twenty years ago when BrandSmart had public terminals, I scanned their warranty database and found quite an excess of people born on this day, har-dee-har-har. Also, your mother’s maiden name was Daphne and your grandfather’s occupation was always gravedigger. Good morning.

           This is a properly designed tape measure. (Oops, the photo got deleted, so here’s a nice picture of the plywood I’m about to mention.) You have one now that is crap, the kind where you pull out the tape and lock it, take your measurement, and press a button to allow it to retract. The waste is having to lock it. The damn thing should stay out to the place you pull it until you press the button. It’s a small thing, but life is made up of mostly small things. I pay extra for tape measures that auto-lock but they have become impossible to find.

           I scored the roof and siding of the shed for $18 from the cull cart. Normally the plywood alone runs $30 but I’ve learned after 6:00PM on Sundays is the best time to show up. Here’s the plywood loaded into my van, which is slightly too small to take a 4x8 sheet without shoe-horning them in with a helper. The other sheet is that exterior sheathing made from chips. Give me a couple good hours tomorrow so I can move on to other matters. The two pieces of glass I saved turned out to be 4” too long for the lean-to and the south wall. I’m leery of cutting glass, it never works right for me.
           Let’s grab some news. Before that, here’s the self-locking tape measure, I found it under my desk, this from the blog that dares to headline a sheet of plywood. Netflix flipped on advertising on X, meaning they lost money. A Utah ruling that you don’t have to tell police your password may go to the Supreme Court. The police still have the tactic of a court order requiring you to provide an unlocked device, which circumvents the Fifth Amendment. I agree with Utah, in this case because the court used the accused’s refusal as evidence against him. That is so wrong, “Your Honor, that evil man stood up for his rights.”

           Money management applies in my house. I’ve had the bank account associated with Caltier open for a year. But it is 750 miles away and, others don’t often share the concept that money works better if you micromanage your accounts. Today, I received an email from the bank in focus here that it is “not necessary” to check your investments dailyi—immediately accompanied by a disclaimer if you stupidly followed that advice. I get their point, that people spook easy. Yet, in their entire [bank] literature, I could not find the answer to the question that, if I had been present to open this account myself, I would have asked.
           Most checking accounts have a minimum balance to avoid fees. It’s actually for the bank’s benefit, they lose money if they don’t have that buffer. I regularly check the effect of all out-transfers against that balance, which I keep at twice the highest bank fee rates, then double it, rounded up to the next even $100. In plain talk, that means to keep a minimum balance of $1,000 in this account, I must tie up $200. That means the minimum deposit is $1,200 in reality.
           The unanswered question if, is there some other account at this same bank where I can park the $1,000 that qualifies as the required minimum deposit.? This would allow me to:

1) Invest the $200 protection money into Caltier.
2) Draw interest on the deposit (yes, that is important)
3) Quit wasting time monitoring the account balance.

           To me, it’s funny how many don’t think what I’m describing is important. Or that the interest on $1,000 is too trivial to bother over. With the Caltier account, I check it close to 155 times per year, which I consider barely adequate. I see banks are recommending you now retain nine months of expenses for emergencies, up from six. But if you read the fine print like I do, they are talking minimum expenses, but I’m talking full paychecks. For me, the Caltier minimum balance is easy to compare because I have CDs for the same $1,000 amount. The best [CD investment] is producing $50.05 per year in interest. I guess some folks don’t see that as a free dinner or a free tank of gas, but I’ll take it any day.

           [Author’s note: for the record, the CDs I’m referring to are in my “funeral account”. This was supposed to be a non-investment but since I’ve been refusing to die, along the way it got invested. The account will stop at $5,000 (as planned) but it is a shining example of how all those fancy investment charts work in real life, before taxes. Let me check, yes, there is $92 more in this account than I’ve deposited. I wonder how much my detractors can report? Should they actually report, I’d ask how it compared to their budgeted amount. Mine was 13¢ over.]

Picture of the day.
360º view of Martian suface.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Band rehearsal took up the afternoon and resulted in some positive developments. Leading the list is the ease we now arrange new tunes. There is no pretense of playing it like the original, yet every tune is distinctively recognizable as a faithful presentation. The Prez has caught on to how the guitar fits and realizes strict timing works best. My limit of 40 songs is to prevent songs we don’t play and we now regularly drop tunes that three months ago took a lot of effort. Dropped simply because once on stage there was always something else that better suited the moment. New incoming material is a perpetual task for any band once you get past playing all the tunes you mutually like. Either of us can suggest tunes that are major hits that the other person has never heard of. Before continuing, here's a picture of the other piece of wood. I'm on a lumber roll.

           The other channel [for new material] is going back and replaying tunes that didn’t fit right before we worked on the sound. There was no way we could play “Memphis, Tennesee” that long ago, but today we aced it and put it back on the list. While we don’t play it Chuck Berry style, it’s unmistakably the right song. The Prez now knows the bass line will capture the melodic ambience of the tune well enough and sometimes we’ll jokingly play it regular country or bluegrass style for a laugh. Now, he’s not 100% sold on the technique, but progress is rapid. I’m surprised how well the technique works, but then, I’ve never had a guitarist before who gave it an honest try.

           Today we tacked on the intro the “Counting Flowers” with the bass playing a banjo-like riff and I’ve also been showing him how to show off without showing off. One way is very tight intros and outros where we both make identical moves. In this case, the final chord is strummed and rung and I pretend to do the same motions on the bass. You’d like it. He knows I play most tunes with increasing “sound” toward the end and showed him the stricter his timing, the better it works. You should hear us play “Six Days” now. We have decided to try “I’ve Just Seen A Face” and he’s more okay with the slight bass changes I make to the bass lines to make the tunes “sound more like the original”. Most guitarists get difficult with this.

           The explanation is most guitarists don’t know from Mozart and Beethoven. The Prez had the patience to go through the technique step-by-step as I played the classical version. Now, we use the method in I’d say half our tunes. Our most successful application is how we play Lambert’s “White Liar”. In all, this was quite the productive rehearsal and once again, this Wednesday, we will hit the crowd with 30 minutes of new music, something the entire rest of the roster can’t come close to matching.
           We had a go at “Have You Ever Seen The Rain”, we now call it the weather report song. Turns out neither of us can sing it anywhere near the original key of C#. Reviewing the tapes of the last jam, that big friend of Keith’s may act the gentle giant but the expression on his face when I play “his” parts on the bass says it all.

           I remain off-balance from the stress of the situation in Tennessee, I’m not immune to worry when it comes to my people. The evening off, I made fish salad sandwiches and tuned on the bedroom space heater. I turned off all equipment otherwise to get silence on my side. I’ve got the original book of “Around the World In Eighty Days”, finally. And two other books simultaneously. My big plan is to read and relax, so work with me by not expecting much excitement. Unless you consider the burn barrel to be a gripping event.
           It turned cold immediately after sunset, so I watched parts of two documentaries of southern Africa. Somebody really should produce a documentary of the Boer War that is neutral and not pro-British. One of the most inaccurate themes is that the Boers “forced” blacks from South Africa to work in their mines. Lies, slavery had been outlawed in the British Empire and that includes South Africa. But to hear them wail, you’d think the evil White man built the mines and factories first, then later went out looking for a pool of unskilled laborers living in nearby mud huts.

Last Laugh