One year ago today: September 9, 2023, no gig, just boxes.
Five years ago today: September 9, 2019, supernatural.
Nine years ago today: September 9, 2015,so many self-tests . . .
Random years ago today: September 9, 2016, leveling my new floor.
Already, we gear up to the most fake and contrived of American holidays, namely Halloween. This was a minor kid’s day until 30 years ago, when corporations from candy makers to card makers began pumping it as a big deal. This morning I heard an ad for pumpkin spice latte and it is over 40 days until the date, which isn’t even a holiday. Hype, hype, hype, these millennials don’t even seem to suspect what’s about to come down around their ears. A blah morning, so I’ll record what happens and you decide how it compares to other days.
Ah, I left the Coolpad in the van, hang on while I get that SIMM card. Bingo, it took. Part of the screw-up is that the original tower owner Sprint sold out to T-Mobile, this won’t be on the exam. The tower rental was grandfathered in, so T-Moble refuses to allow new accounts, forcing new customers to use and pay for the more expensive tower in Lakeland. I won’t test the line until tonight but if you dial the number and it rings, you’re at least on that far.
Next, over to Winter Haven, where the Dell is ready. There’s a picture this afternoon. The problem was a setting called “secure boot”, which I saw but not knowing what that meant, left it at the default setting. I mean, who would opt for an insecure boot. It cost me $60 to find this out, but the shop donated me a 2TB SATA drive. It’s enough to hold every file I ever had, so we know where that is going. Being a mile from Wal*Mart and knowing the speed at which Florida operates, I went over there to look in case they had not yet shipped all their shop fans back. What luck, they had the exact 20” model I wanted. It is now blasting 7,200 cubic feet of air around the kitchen.
All the economy-priced air conditioners were sold out. Nothing but $280 models with strange brand names. I’ll pass. As I pulled out of the lot, I noticed the Five Guys franchise is closed. This surprises me not, the last time I was there was years ago. Even if I was filthy rich, I’d still balk at $7 for an order of French fries. Yet, I was hungry and the computer came in under budget, so I stopped at Taco Bell for the lunch box. Except they no longer sell it.
The new menu is mostly chicken and mostly more than $8. So I went for a combo, which was about the worst facsimile of Mexican food ever. Small portions. When I got home, I made up a batch of proper refried beans with chicken & onion. I don’t often crave Mexican food and Taco Bell just lost an occasional customer. I mean, eight bucks for lunch, I’d rather spend $10 for the burger plate at the south end market.
IRS agents in police uniforms.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
A big crack-boom right over my roof said stay home and hook up the new hotspot. Your reading the results, but damn, what a hassle. Two hours of trial and error and in the end it just started working by itself. First news item, as the MSM plugs headline after headline that the Harris-Trump polls show a 47% to 48% tally, Modernity news has broken the story that Kamela is in a hotel room equipped as a stage. She is practicing against a Trump impersonator, a tactic that failed Biden horribly. The muted microphone rule means she won’t be able to use her bag of sound-bite tricks.
Here’s the Dell, still on the shop shelf, being tested. The other salvaged unit is working but has no sound card, no video card, that is, about as basic a unit as you can get. I wanted something like that in the silo. For all the shelving I put in there, I am out of space. I contacted the Tube Guy and outlined my plan to list the tubes in tables—and idea he certainly likes. But there is a whole new tracking system the must be set up. The tables can contain any number of tubes, so I’m guessing 100 is a place to start. They would have to be updated after every sale. I also have no idea what eBay might make of this process. They like one item one listing.
We are light years ahead of when we started. We know how many tubes, what brands, where they are stored, and the approximate value. The database forms the basis for the tables. The average price of on eBay is around $8 per tube, but this could be skewed by many factors. It is likely uneconomical to sell for less than $5 per tube and I don’t doubt others have also picked out the best tubes to price individually. Work with me here, this is all new territory.
Why might eBay squawk? Because they charge more for larger numbers of listings and our cutoff point to date has been 250 active. Plainly I can’t sell 3,030 tubes that way. I do not know if the best category is price, or brand, I can do either. The database makes any number of tables possible, which perks my curiosity why nobody on eBay is doing this. My guess is they can’t. The database went through five or six major revisions to get to this form and the tables could not be realistically produced without that system. And I’m not about to tell anyone how it works. I have a penchant for processes that are not easily copied.
Ergo, eBay must allow customer requests by inquiry. My system merely has them inquire about ten tubes instead of just one. Another hour and I have the first table, a listing of 300 Sylvania tubes that average $7 each. Part of this challenge is how one can list so many tubes when eBay searches by the title field. It’s 80 characters max, which could be a barrier—put on the thinking cap. Can’t say the same for Beverly Hills, California. The news is out today that 99% of all businesses on Rodeo Drive have closed down. Return tomorrow for more on this challenging business question.
Digital ATMs. I’ve been unable to get any clear info on how they operate. While bank ATMs are on the decline, a digital ATM makes sense—but where is the info? I would not invest in a physical machine for a host of reasons, one being the amount of cash it ties up. And these days, thieves just steal the whole machine. With a digital operation, I’d have no reservations. I see the blurbs for seminars, which are not based on information, but on sales pitches.
ADDENDUM
The logs I keep on most road trips are, I feel, more interesting than other travel blogs because I reveal the prices. Today I found that missing file on my nine-day trip to Savannah in 2013. My largest expense was $398 for accommodation, I had no camper on that trip. Next biggest expense was gasoline at $174. The Goldwing uses as much gasoline as a small car. Next, entertainment at $147. The total for nine days was $935 of which $18 was on coffee. That was a landmark trip, returning through Macon. If I recall (meaning I did not go back and read my own blog), I had wanted to stay two weeks, but had already done everything there was to do.
There is a whole folder of missing 2013 files, if I find anything unusual, I’ll report it. Apparently I auditioned for a band wanting a “50+” bassist, hang on, now I recall that. Bunch of queer weirdos, that’s the guy who said he had 30 years experience but was astonished when I used a pick. Could not deal with the way I had a list of my bass solos taped on the back of my instrument.
Ha, that was the year the Hippie got us fired at the lady’s club, which he insists was not his fault for playing drug music, but because they all suddenly got tired simultaneously. By 2013 I was arranging my own music, but not composing any. I blocked a reporter from the New Times from publishing a band profile while I was bassist with Space Hippie. I disagreed with sentences such as my country duo arrangements projected ”a solid feel-good act of stunning emotionality” that I would probably be okay with today. In general I like the article, if only because it is a clear record that I was arranging country music long before I arrived in central Florida.
Okay, the closest things to interesting in the folder were a copy of a 1,690 word dating club ad from some guy who really spelled it out. (Nope, no room to publish it here.) And a copy of the only reply I ever wrote to Ann Landers, who in turn did not publish it. I gave advice to some lady in Wyoming who said she could not meet men. I replied stating that she must not be walking up to them and introducing herself, something that is “incredibly easy to do—if you’ve led a worthwhile life”.
That year I also published a lengthy rebuttal to some yahoo who claimed he had proof that the Moon landing was faked. That included his statement that by enlarging NASA pictures “by 5,000%” he could see alien cities. And he has proof the photos were Photoshopped. I pointed out the Apollo program ended 31 years before Photoshop was created. He hates me.
