One year ago today: August 7, 2023, no picture needed.
Five years ago today: August 7, 2019, Zippo.
Nine years ago today: August 7, 2015, house-hunting skills.
Random years ago today: August 7, 2008, that large bird.
Finally, they are calling it a hurricane. Hurricane Debby. With a “y” not an “i” like some stripper. I worked on the shed all morning, getting the highest and most difficult shelf done first. That’s partly because I had to also put in the ceiling, and because the rain worked against me most of the time. Things are slowly drying out but the humidity will sap you. Nothing more to report, although I did try finding a little bit of info on licorice Allsorts, the layed candy, and on of the most unique. Others don’t find it that interesting. Invented around 1850, one of the key ingredients is gelatin. A family called Dunhill was growing licorice on rented land as early as 1760. Licorice was known in ancient Egypt and had a reputation for curing syphilis. It was George Dunhill who, at the age of seven, added sugar to medicinal cough syrup to produce the first candy.
In band news, we are expanding our “old music”. Adding eight tunes that we’ve played before but never arranged. They will now get the treatment. Included are the classics “Margaritaville” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling”. We still avoid the overplayed standards but these are getting pretty darn close. The guitar player tends to play better as he gets more comfortable with a crowd, and this is our third appearance at that venue. I’ll pay him an extra $10 for gas. We are both hoping this leads to something better, I say we were lucky to find anything at all.
We have a strong song list that is different than the “downtown” bands, again I confer with Nashville on this. There is a very strong positive correlation here and if we get something steady at the Legion, I may look at more tunes while remembering it is unlikely we would have been asked back if we had been playing any more modern material For that matter, some of our existing new country is not making the grade.
Autistic spectral disorder. Ever heard of it? It was the defense used by that 270 pound feral nog who stomped a teacher unconscious. He got a lousy 5 years, hardly rates a right of passage in his society. According to his single mother (they adopt as a career to get the welfare), the courts are “punishing his disease”. All I can say is we’ve had enough of the “he’s retarded” defense. If punishment stops the violent behavior, then we are okay with it. Send him to the prison doc and see how far that bullshit flies.
How about the Rolls-Royce nuclear submarine division. To save money, they contracted out software to the Russians. It was not caught it until now because the code was, you guessed it, written in C+ and nobody could read it. A male creep has paralyzed a 17 year old girl at the Olympics. Democrats have been videoed paying $150 in cash for people to pretend they like Kamela by showing up at her rallies. The DHS (Department of Homeland Security) has just banned the term “Illegal immigrant”. They seem unaware the term is written into our law books. The MSM tried to foist a photo of a packed rock concert as a Kamela rally and were exposed instantly. Total loss this round on the stock market approaches three trillion, and the panic has not really hit the USA yet. And we own 70% of the world and its money.
Downtown Shreveport, 2015.
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While hunting up the versions I play of this older music, I ran across my song list from 1990. I can’t even remember the name of that band, the one where I got a standing ovation when the band was introduced. Alas, they were more into recording and endless rehearsal than just having fun with it. I recall the specific tune that brought down the house, so I played it over and over for 15 minutes just reminiscing. For some reason, that was one of the first tunes I ever honed to perfection for audience appeal, I learned years later I had made some studio mistakes, but they were not crowd mistakes.
It was a flashback. I did not know that ovation (I’ve gotten others, but) that was the pinnacle of my bass-playing career. The song was “Last Train to Clarkesville”, give it a liston paying attention to the bass line. I saw myself on that stage playing my old Peavey bass through an Ampeg, the audience just a silhouette and the hall full of echoes. The band was all pros when it came to playing covers and we aced that tune. It was the two bass refrains that stood out, I guess the crowd was not expecting it to jog their memories or possibly it surprised them? That was something like 30 long, long, years ago.
This is the only interesting video I have for you today:
ADDENDUM
Caltier stays on the back burner. I mentioned how hard facts such as I need too often get buried in real estate lingo. Today, I stepped back to dig them out. Amid many tales of why rentals never reached maximums (I’m just happy when occupancy is over 90%), I find Caltier diversifying ever more into bank-like behavior. Which I don’t mind, since why make 7% renting if you can make 14% bailing out some apartment complex. It bears reminding that I chose Caltier because they renovate and rent, adding something like $340 per month to units that are refinished to their “platinum standard”.
Here is a list of the Caltier properties I reviewed inasmuch as they’ve published anything. Raintree, Apex, Hickory Point, Glenwood, and Apple Lane. You may have heard me refer to Apple Lane as “student housing”, although it was far, far, out of my reach as a student. It’s in Kansas with 75 units and one of their best performers. I say they’ve held on to it long enough, and how 18 of the decks need replacing or major repair. I wonder if this is the one they are flipping? It looks like a motel.
I am not put off by statistics and I see Caltier has announced they are shooting to have 100,000 investors in this fund. At $50 million, that means a considerable number of the investments are likely the minimum $500 allowed. We weigh in at 40 times that. You can see some excellent photographs of the properties here. I find it ironic how often I drive past similar properties and wonder if the Reb & I own 1/2500th of that. Recently, Caltier has passed the 1,000 unit mark.
If you find this interesting, too bad, it just takes too long to uncover the facts. While Caltier is not a reporting agency, their system smacks of having nobody in charge who is monitoring the big picture in adequate (for me) detail. The return on this investment has totaled around 6.3%, so far producing around $1,400 of which all is rolled over back into the fund. You can bet I will be watching for that July distribution as surely as Caltier is being tight-lipped about it.
Caltier states they handle 400-500 client contacts per month. They have not handled ours. I’ll cut them slack because over 83% of the accounts are individuals and they physically could not handle many more calls. At the same time, they list 5.6% of their accounts as “Entity” and I think we have a right to know who they are. Blackrock? Catch you later.
