One year ago today: August 29, 2023, it’s a cowbird.
Five years ago today: August 29, 2019, I don’t play keyboards.
Nine years ago today: August 29, 2015, less than 40 minutes.
Random years ago today: August 29, 2004, Naples, FL
Up late, I kind of amazed myself at the energy I could project just 12 years ago. As shown a trove of photos copied from an old backup drive, I was in Colorado. I drove there by sidecar. The adventure of a lifetime, some say. It says I auditioned for a band called “Time Machine”. I have no recollection of that. Finding a recording of myself playing Fur Elise when I was 27, I found I could no long play along on my keyboards. It is now 6:38AM and I’m back from the shed with the first major snag of the day. The drive won’t pick up Win XP. I’m doing something wrong.
SATA, I know very little about. It was a technology that had not yet taken hold when we closed the shop. I’ve never done anything except install them and this one won’t install. Suspect? Suitcase straps. I’ve seen a variety of these on SATA drives with labels like OPT1 , SSC, and PM2. I’m familiar with IDE master and slave. If this is the same thing, nobody told me. And it’s the same old, to look it up, I need access that I can’t get until it is hooked up. The libray opens at 9:00AM. Nor do I remember where my jar of suitcase straps have been stored. We’ll get this. One thing that’s never changed about computers since day one: it’s always something.
Grab a coffee and let’s go through what is on this old hard drive. It is made in Malaysia so my guess is at least 15 years old but there are dozens of folders indicating this drive holds the contents of even older 3.5 floppies. That’s where we’ll start, passing the time any maybe having fun. First nice discovery is the old TV show themes. Even when I did watch TV as a child, I was selective. So I have the theme from “Have Gun Will Travel”, which I thought was the guy’s name. Half an hour later, let’s go get another coffee, this is pretty amazing. There are files in here created in 1984.
Most are MP3s, so they are later versions or copies, but still. And I have music videos from before they were a thing. I found the list of drum settings, something the Prez and I have talked about adding. It’s too obvious to us anyway when we get a tune too fast or slow on stage. By the way, he is amenable to a chick singer who strums. By now our strong points make us an excellent backup group that is not in the background, if that makes sense. What was the name of that lady from, was it Kathleen? That’s near his house. From the Bent Prop or what’s that place in Winter Haven on the lake?
The amount of files kept here is enormous, but they are not the usual my-cat-had-kittens material. I don’t recall giving the Reb $500 on her birthday in 2020, but there is the money order. There were still backups being make to this drive in 2021, as there is a repeat of the photo with the doggies as I was leaving that day. They quickly associate suitcases with somebody going away, This pic is likely a repeat, I don’t remember, but it could have been many occasions with these two. The pose shows their reactions accurately however. If you leave with even a knapsack or briefcase they will lie down right there for hours for you to come back.
How about those trip records? It’s laughable how little things cost then by comparison. There’s the sidecar trip to Savannah for $935, of which predictably the most expensive item is sleeping. Motels cost $397, showing once more that at home or away, the most expensive thing most people do in America is sleep. Whoever took over this country in 1917 sure got a stranglehold on that aspect of life. I have only glanced through maybe 5% of this disk, and now discover my toaster is on the fritz. No such thing as a good toaster in America any more.
As always, one delve into the records around here sets off another. I’ll say one nice thing for terabyte drives, they make legacy backups a breeze. There is so much space I just back up the whole drive. I’m making a complete set of backups, see addendum. One of my most prized collections are my standalone programs. These are hundreds of programs that do most of what airheads think is new on computers, but these versions do not have to be installed. You can run them and nobody in the whole world knows about it. I know, I know, the GenZers won’t see that as important until it is too late.
There are some real gems in there, such as VLC Player and MovieMaker that have no update feature. They work fine without them. I have an issue with people who sell software that needs constant updates, except of course for data files. This photo shows the SATA dock I use for the backups, I have one for IDE drives if I ever find it. Another advantage of backing up the whole drive is even the installed programs will often run on whatever system was on the drive. Most of my drives on the shop computers were between 40 and 80 gigabyes, that was just a limit I imposed back them. Anything larger was for data only. I’ve always segregated programs and data. Note, I tend to call standalone software programs and installed software I call applications. That’s when I know. If I don’t know, I use the terms interchangeably, or just call it soft
Wyoming.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
It’s now 3:30PM and I’m back from Winter Haven. Everything went smoothly which is unusual for Region’s Bank, but then they had a new gal at the wicket. As in not trained to be a witch yet. Focus shifts now back to things such as investing. Caltier is still on pause, [pause is] not any form of official lingo I’m aware of. Here’s news that the first round of ATMs that will not dispense cash without proof of vaccination. This spells opportunity to somebody, since the majority are not vaxxed. Here’s an idea I had years ago.
A mobile ATM, a few surplus machines mounted in the deck of an armored van. There are plenty of county fairs and meets without service. You cut out the middleman, which is the bank. I don’t know if ATM service could be mobile but I don’t see why not. Anyway, that’s not the whole idea, just all I’m going to tell. The first bank to go woke is Bank of America, the one I warned you about some twenty years ago. The loophole bank.
I stopped by the Legion again about playing there this long weekend. Their big night is Friday (tomorrow) but I cleared short notice with the Prez. However, no call back by 6:00PM is not a good sign. They know I don’t fret over bad news or rejections. Something may be wrong, but what? I have no conflicts or enemies around here and the crowd evidently likes us much better than whatever has been there before. Policy? COVID again? Short of bankruptcy, what is the possible stall? The manager, finance guy, commander, all like us and recommend us. This is a curious one but II have this feeling it is not great news.
Next, a mystery. When I visited JZ, I used to regularly take along a box of DVDs, I have hundreds now and pick out the detective and westerns he watches. Twelve disks fit in a handy plastic box you get from Dollar Tree and they are stored over there in the same conditions as here. High and dry. But this time the returned disks won’t play. Carefully checked, all inside the original jackets but they won’t even recognize the disk.
The, guess which file I lost? Passwords. One of the most safe and secure items I have, for reasons unknown, when I went to save one of the Caltier files, which is on a different folder entirely, it clobbered my passwords, which are only backed up every February and July. Guess what did not happen in July due to the van breakdown, tow, new vehicle, and emergency trips to Tennessee? However, the contents are arranged so only the newest passwords are lost should this happen.. Problem, one of the newest are the logons to Caltier. I left copies in Tennessee but not everyone attaches the same priority as I do to backup files.
ADDENDUM
Sorting the old files mentioned earlier today, I found this part (last week) of August back in 2012. I was living in Colorado and I would have stayed longer, but I had to pay full rent while away. This cabin was still four years into the future. This was the time Marion and I went to the da Vinci exhibit, one of the new times I’ve been in downtown Denver. Read late August 2012 for pictures. They had dozens of working models (wooden) of many of the inventions. Never seen anything like it since.
That trip also gave me time to think. Several thousand miles by motorcycle gives you time, age gives you incentive. It was the return leg of that trip, via Muskogee and Memphis, that created the framework of today. I resolved to buy a house so I did not have to pay rent so I would be free to travel, and here we are. Fact is, I was already past my expiry date at the time and realized if I made it to Xmas Eve 2013, I would have beat the odds. I was already looking for a place to buy near Miami but that was because I did not want to die in a trailer court. My motive on that was selfish, you know, and here’s why.
I had this idea if I died living there, the world, upon discovering this wonderful record called a blog fifty years from now, would determine I had wound up in a trailer from failure, which is the usual case. Who would bother to learn I’d lost a half-million in medical bills and was now living small to conserve and save up? Only this time, no mistakes like trusting the system. And sure enough, four years later, I had the cash to buy this place. Let me add to that.
Cash living is viewed as dangerous by some—which is exactly where the system wants them. If, they brainwash you, your credit rating is so-and-so, you could meet with woe. Wrong, as is the presumption of most people that they don’t have enough cash to live on. I’m saying if you have money to pay off credit cards, you have more than enough to live on, plus a surplus you can build on. All you have to do is learn to live within your means—which turns out to be an insurmountable obstacle to most people and gets back to the “brainwashing” point I just made.
Another thing I’ve seen is people highly overestimate their ability to deal with cash, thinking they could do so naturally given enough of it. Yeah, ask people who won the lottery how that worked out for them. Living on a cash basis requires constant learning, self-control, and a clear-headed view of the future. I love being the one to tell dummies you can’t get those elements from television, self-help books, or webinars. You have to get off your own arse. But I can describe the evolution process. First, write a budget and figure out how to pay off your credit cards. Then cut them in half, keeping one with no balance because the system can still force you into a corner. (Like the government office that won’t accept cash.)
As you begin to pay down the cards, each one paid off accelerates paying off the next one. Begin paying cash for necessities like food and gas and you notice a strange effect. It no longer takes all your money, there is now nearly always something left over. What’s happening in you are becoming conscious of your usage. This happens over a long period when you realize you have a surplus ready for emergencies. But you also notice since you are now paying attention, the emergencies are fewer and less damaging. The moment you bail yourself out of your first emergency using cash that you had earmarked, you will be sold. (Not so if you had to peel the cash out of your last paycheck.) You’ve won a victory here, now pay attention.
That’s where you do two things. One, get a feel for how much you need in reserve to last most any emergency, and two, that you must protect that cash as much from your friends as your enemies—and you can decide on your own which side the government is on. All I can add to that is the government will NOT help you unless you can prove you are destitute. If I had known this part in 2003, I’d probably still be driving a Cadillac.
Then you read the third tier, kind of where I got to and stayed. You’ll need around $15,000 minimum for each adult to survive the normal emergencies. Hmmm, those emergencies can often be handled differently if you let the system (which you paid into) take up the slack (because you have no assets, right?) and that the $15,000 is there for you to get back on your feet. Not there to pay bills that in too many cases would not arise if they didn’t know you had it. Brutal, but true, and now you are learning.
[Author’s note: Trust me, when a doctor recommends a procedure, he has already run your insurance and credit cadr—but he is bound by state law to stabilize your condition. Do that first. Once you are stable, then you will make better decisions and he knows it.]
Then another truism crosses your mind. You realize the changed circumstances means most emergencies don’t require all your cash so it does not make sense to leave the full $15,000 laying around. I began with 30-day CDs and now choose only the highest rate 120-day offers. I’ve arranged it so there is a $1,000 CD maturing within any three month period. So the basics are always covered, I will always have food, water, and electric. Oh look, since I’m no longer paying credit card bills (or any other bills since I now pay in cash), there is a margin I don’t need even for emergencies. And you know there is $20,000 of it in Caltier. Not bad for a guy that on May 31, 2016 had less than $2 to my name.
Um, the system will always get you somehow. There is one bill I pay, it is the utilities for the cabin. But the account, around $170 per month currently, is always paid up several months in advance. My long-term readers know about this. I just top the account off when it is less than three months paid in advance. Note, however, this is only made possible because I have the cash in advance.
And about beating the odds in 2013, I’m still here. There is an aspect to it that is not that joyful to recall. That is also the last year the last of the old Jimbos bunch passed away. These are the people I got to know over the years of my house gig during my long recovery to health. The cold fact is, not only did the last of the crew die in 2013, it has been 11 years since that event. Maybe I will make that trip to Tampa or Orlando while I’m able. You see, I must be next because I’m the only one left. Where’s that $65 bucks I put aside?
