May 29, 2024

Yesteryear
One year ago today: May 29, 2023, he’s on to me.
Five years ago today: May 29, 2019, doubles my knowledge.
Nine years ago today: May 29, 2015, on berating Germans.
Random years ago today: May 29, 2017, bluejays & drywall.

           Tubes, that’s how today will likely start and stop. These are some of the vast numbers of unboxed tubes, read today’s addendum for more data. We confirmed eBay is intentionally making it difficult to re-activate dorman PayPal accounts. The decision is to use the other guys old business listing, which he just got working again. The plan is later this morning to drive into Winter Haven to have him show me how that is set up. We also talked about the tube inventory and he did not know I was creating a database.

           We don’t look for the tube, we look in the files, he likes that method, but when do we get underway? I’ve been working with that some weeks now, fully realizing it may not make sense to non-users. Such matters can be addressed after we have some sales. There should be a photo nearby of the chair saw cooling down after nine minutes of hard work. Why nine minutes? That is the average time it runs on a single tank at medium duty.

           MicroSoft is not making my work easier. All their products get watered down as their focus is on gearing it to an ever more primitive user-base. The problem there is when things go wrong, nobody on staff has any clue how to fix things. Stupidity becomes the standard because MicroSoft does stop at ease-of-use. They muck around with the internal workings.to the extent a knowledgeable user gets stymied. They have dozens of unfixed real problems and now have millions with experience doing things backwards.

           Thus, I reverted to an earlier version of Excel in order to get things done. Office 2003 never did address the issues such as conditional formatting. I just found out that Redmond did not just cease support for XP, they took away the Help feature. Before it was possible to view actual working formulas, now all you get is Win 11 instructions on which buttons to click. Put your faith in MicroSoft, what could possibly go wrong.
           One simple feature they avoid discussing is how to get one cell to format based on the conditions in another cell. I want the cell with the tube name to change color if the associated cell with the price is over a certain limit. No can do, or if it can, it’s as well hidden as it ever was. Thus, I must design each worksheet
with the price to the left, or risk having the data truncated to the right. Up yours, MicroSoft.
           Delivery is a problem, the post office has take away price layers and made it all the same tier—I think. Because they want $8 to ship the smallest box, which is the CD size. However, Stew (that’s the guy at the shop) says put the box is a plastic slip, which he gets free from Fedex or something, and it drops to $4. Why is this blah material making the blog? Because it is all new to us. We did not grow up in a world obsessed with constantly taking shortcuts at the expense of others. Decent folks do not consider this behavior normal and it has to be relearned from scratch.
           One of my goals is to become familiar with on-line selling even if it means adopting poor principles. Among the first things checked when I took on these tubes was to ask all my friends and contemporaries if they had an eBay account. Nope, not one. Nor did they have any knowledge of how the system worked, that is also a lost art. It’s one thing to not know how, it’s another to not have the foggiest idea how it is done. I’m the opposite, maybe I have not drawn up a navigation chart, but I at least have a very good idea of what is involved.
           As it stands, once again I’ll be learning something from scratch with zero help. There appears to be no simple way to sell on-line and that could not have evolved by itself. What’s this, the vaxxed Princess of Wales has cancelled all public appearances until the end of the year. And the MSM is exploding with the footage of the small crowd of fake Libertarians who booed him a bit.

Picture of the day.
Saudi Arabian seaside garbage dump.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Silver is proving persistent, climbing to $32.40 today. Losing all initiative, I took the afternoon off except for toying with a little of the new database. One of the six larger boxes of mixed tubes is shown here. My instinct is to have make some kind of tray of holes out of cardboard. If I do that today, it will be much later, I am not going outside in the afternoon. My rule says something mus happen every day, don’t give up on me yet. America got treated to the spectacle of Trump asking what crime he was accused of with the puppet Judge saying that was none of Trump’s business. Folks, it’s all over but the cryin’, and if there is no cryin’, look out.

           I used the old Mexican schedule of working early and late, so this afternoon I got quite a bit done in the yard, which requires I explain why that is bloggable. It’s that lean to north of the old shed, supposed to be temporary. But then you add electric light an outlets, and rig up some work space. It was where I had the wash machine before I build the laundry deck, so it has cold running water. The windows are screened, it is dry but needs a new floor, and today I sealed it in completely with a tarp, since it now contains thousands of vacuum tubes.

           So, if I was to insulate and drywall the interior, yes, it would be possible to live in there pretty much permanently if I installed one of these electric shitters. They are not cheap, but times are changing. You see, in November when Trump is in, the first thing that happens is deportations. This poses a problem. The Democrats have let in 11 million illegal military aged males who are living in luxury hotels, with free food and thousands of dollars free spending money. You can bet they are armed to the teeth.

           What happens in November when all that is cut off? Many of them paid tens of thousands of dollars to get smuggled in and they are not going to just sit down and starve. The Left has a plan, so I should as well. Speculating that if I lived in the shed and rented that house, I could get these days. It’s tricky to compare prices because this more comparable to an apartment in size and layout. Such rentals show a picture of the rooms rather than the building, so I’ll compromise that this place has the same rentability as a two bedroom mobile home. And that places it at around $1,000 per month. Yep, I would be quite comfortable if it came to that, since the entire back yard would be mine and there is laundry and parking on site.

           There’s a better option. It is to install a patio door in the hallway, I believe there was one there before. Then, with a simple lock on the back bedroom, the entire front area becomes shareable and rentable, and single rooms in this town rent for $800 per month. And the back bedroom has everything including a double window looking out to the birdie paradise. That would leave the shed rentable and the sheer size and layout would probably make it worth at least $600, but only if it came to that. I like all my work and storage space.

ADDENDUM
           Discussion with Stew confirms my suspicion people don’t trust buying these “raw” tubes. So, dear readers, work with me. This morning’s picture shows around 18 tubes that were in a paper bag. I’ll take some careful measurements, thinking of some way to box the, or at least display them looking pretty. I’m already thinking some kind of cardboard cut-out or dividers. The tubes in focus were mostly 50L6GT which wholesale for $7, so I’m not exactly going to give them away. How about a tray of five nine for $79.99? (I’ll take $50.)
           Not all these tubes are labeled and some are dusty from storage. This means they may take their time getting into condition. The large tubes so far wholesale around $5 each, so double that for asking retail. Their salvation is I seem to have them by the dozens. The calipers show a fairly standard tube diameter of 1-1/4 inches, right when I’ve misplaced by drill bit that size. It was for drilling bird houses. I kept shifting it around until I can’t find it.

           While on-line checking rentals an hour ago, I looked at the Craigslist musicians link. It’s the spring rush again. I’ve seen it often, the sparse winter work dries up, etc, and there is a glut of people looking to join working bands. Especially bass players. Um, if you go on the regular band sites, where they post pictures, man-o-man these characters are a freaky looking lot. They actually look like the failed guitar players they probably are. Let’s see what the ads have to say, now that I’m inside and sitting down.
           There is an increasing ratio of ads for people who confuse programming sequencers and such with being musicians. Several vocalists and drummers looking to start bands, which happen to be in my experience the worst people for the job. There’s the usual smattering of triflers who are only seeking company and you already know my opinion on jerks who wind up like that. And silver stays over $30 an ounce despite some kind of rapid price drop every 12 hours like clockwork.

Last Laugh