One year ago today: February 1, 2023, why look, a barrel.
Five years ago today: February 1, 2019, a Nashville sunset.
Nine years ago today: February 1, 2015, I write money philosophy.
Random years ago today: February 1, 2001, the Mandarin Oriental.
Not that I’m complaining but there is an extra $54.39 in the Caltier account. It now stands at $16,590. As promised, I will keep you informed of the progress on this investment but I would remind you of a number of points. Topmost is that for my age and this era, this is not very much money. The goal of this is $50,000 by 2030 and the bulk of this derived from other, old investments that I am not renewing. One of the chapters in my planned book goes over the importance of checking the books. It is just as important to find out why when it is over as if it were under.
In good news for the widow Downey (a female downey woodpecker who infrequents my suet feeder), a healthy and probably younger male is in the area. I more hear him than see him. I’ll be on the lookout for a picture as I hear him near the seed feeder. Plus woodpeckers don’t like squirrels, fine by me. What, more good news. One of my investments paid an extra $57 last month. Let’s do something tomorrow, maybe a day trip. See if I can find a working XP computer. The best one I had was burned up in a motorcycle collision.
We’ll get back to what I’d buy if I came into a million., but I would not buy this set of screwdrivers for $45. These are the ones a Home Depot last day. Now think what is a screwdriver. A metal rod with a shape at one end and a plastic handle at the other. There is not much you can to do make it worth twice as much money, short of gold-plating it. And I found the discrepancy with the Caltier statement. They did not correctly display the January disbursement. As I figured, it is beyond the grasp of your average web page coder that changing a figure on one page could have an effect on another. That’s somebody else’s department.
By the way, that is also why your bank statement is so screwy. I mean, “average balance”, there’s a useful piece of data. And make sure the statement is printed upside down. That’s how public school people think. My advice is you can no longer trust anybody in the financial field. Not that there is more or less dishonesty, but there is a huge upswing in both incompetence and blame-shifting. This explains why I watch Caltier like a hawk. Their staff may know how to work a word processor, but that is hardly computer competence.
What would I do if I came into a million this late in life? Not much, I suppose I’d by a small house in Tennessee. Small house, but a big yard for the dogs. Single story, although I’m okay with attic rooms. The rest I would invest for income to take the pressure off the operation of the house. I’ve met too many people who bought a house without factoring in the repairs and taxes. They seriously had to work the rest of their lives supporting the place. I’m lucky, I’ve only sunk $30,000 into this place and a lot of it was upgrades, not upkeep.
Trump sinks old Poon, telling her supporters they are no longer welcome back when she finally pulls the pin. These Democrats don’t get it, Trump is okay to use the F-word and BS-word. They tried to stifle those as politically incorrect but now that has back fired on them as well. According to Democrat-appointed judges at Trump’s hearing, pleading not guilty is now a tort, punishable by an $83 million dollar fine. The Wall Street Journal is canning staff. This adds to the woes of the entire MSM as Americans no longer buy what they are selling. It sure took long enough.
The latest polls show Trump has a 90% chance of winning every primary State, the ones that choose who they want running for President. The left cannot cheat against such odds. Since 2020, there is also a considerable resentment built up against people who supported the Democrats and an increased awareness of the dastardly role of civil servants in all of this. I, for one, would turn a blind eye if justice were meted out to these people. That would include people who claimed their grandmother was killed by others who refused to wear a mask. These types are not backing off just because COVID was exposed a hoax.
Fuzzy Monkey coffee plantation.
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I composed a letter today to the Civic insurance company. It’s a never take the first offer letter, but I argued that their estimates (from an auto auction house) were based on average prices. Therefore, they could not allow for vehicles of exceptional quality. Also, Tennessee isn’t no-fault, therefore if there is a difference between our price and their offer, it should be taken from the other driver. He admitted he was 100% at fault. I pointed out that we had purchased full coverage, not book value, and we had intended to list the car for $14,600 based on actual values from the Internet, not estimates. Bottom line, their offer is $4,000 too low. And they had best not increase her premiums.
The Europeans are being Europeans. They let things go until they boil over and now some governments are turning water cannons and firng rubber bullets at farmers. Expect nothing today, I’m staying put. Sometimes I check the ether for mentions of this blog and today I found some warnings that I was an influencer. It’s probably nothing, since I don’t advertise or push products. At most I recommend a book now and again. I looked up where I fit on the scale, if I was selling something, I would be a nano-influencer. Duh, okay. I’m still tinkering with the idea of doing an avatar with this blog, but that is a separate category of events.
ADDENDUM
The band-formation process is not fun for the person who has to make it happen. I don’t know it all enough to teach it, but I’ve seen most of the pitfalls before. Why the mention? A number of small events in a field where any one of them can be a band-killer means keeping a lookout. Ah, but this is no ordinary band, I put in time during the process to point out the warning signs to my guitarist. I knew at first he would think I’m somewhere between wrong and spiteful. I’ve stated before the most usual reaction to my predictions is shock by even long-term musicians who thought that the problems were just their imagination. They never had anyone define matters before—much less have solutions at the ready. So I have a right to be a little smug when doubters eventually thank me for being right.
Worst illusion of guitarists? That putting the band together is fun. Even if you find a fun situation, that is likely where the band will stay. The only fun worth the struggle is being paid to be on stage and even that is comparative because I know people who enjoy getting drunk in the practice shed and pretending they are in a band. What’s come about lately is band gossip, a loosely interchangeable term for back-stabbing. No names, kind of, but many of the old botherations have emerged over these jam sessions. Mostly in the form of 100% predictable offers to dump the bass guy and join their guitar band. These jokers always appear after all the hard work is done.
And not just internally. The contacts are now around four times more frequent, from musicians as far away as Plant City and Kissimee. For advertising, I post weekly pics on my musician’s account. I admit I do that because I’m aware a large ratio of guitarists who read my ad think it can’t be done. Being guitarists, they know what bands are all about and I’m only a lowly bass player. There’s an element of rubbing their noses in it, here I am in a gigging band whilst they are still plugging their 1960s agenda.
Here’s where I mention that only certain gigs and situations get blogged. I play all manner of stand-ins and jams, but all for promo work. I want a nice manageable duo and house gig or two. I do not specify around two-thirds of the times and places I get around to. This is not secrecy, they are just humdrum and music already dominates much of this blog. Yeah, yeah, if you are going to have something dominate, music isn’t a bad choice. As I was saying, once a band gets to playing out, it becomes a magnet for all manner of wannabes
I first encountered such problems at age 14 and the same remain 50 years afterward. The Prez has all kinds of offers to team up with others. Ah, but now he knows that they don’t know how important the bass is, and he’s seen all of them pull at least one no-show. He’s noted they neither learn new material nor adapt their old to what he now knows are necessary changes needed to play in a group. Memorizing a few chords doesn’t cut it any more. Last evening pulled together a lot of theories and warnings, but best was the end product of was the show itself. The stage presentation was several grades above what they get in that joing. I’ll brave flak from Elliott and claim it had me written all over it. Everybody smiling and happy.
Did I mention Tonya showed up? I didn’t recognize her across the room as I don’t wear glasses on stage. I think she’s single by the different people she knows. They are part of a circle that knows Keith and none will jam unless he’s there. She may be the exception soon, as we saw over the past two weeks that she is paying a lot more attention to our duo infrastructure—and I don’t know where she learned what to look for.
DBradford showed for the first time since before Xmas. I think he might be intentionally avoiding the jam, since he made a big deal about my duo being impossible. Couple that with years of handing him an open offer to at least try. Darn rights when he hears us he knows damn well he should have listened. I’m not ragging on the guy, just using him as an example.
