OOne year ago today: October 6, 2023, I’m avocadoless.
Five years ago today: October 6, 2019, doesn’t apply to whimps.
Nine years ago today: October 6, 2015, MSN sucks.
Random years ago today: October 6, 2007, XP computers.
Another hurricane and it is headed this way. Harris held a rally in an arena for 6,500 in the Democrat home turf of Michigan. Forty-seven people showed up. It’s over, it’s really over. Since I abhor libtards of any political party, I would gladly dance on their graves—and from what I hear that may not be too far-fetched. It would be fun to watch them run like chickens when confronting anything more than grandmothers in the White House. And I stepped out to fill the birdfeeder into another dead calm. Here we go again. Tropical storm Milton, 365 miles away. As long as it waits until after our Monday open mic, I’m okay with that.
Nutmeg and pecan pancakes this morning, and I logged another $815 in tubes, that’s a wholesale price. Not one sale in weeks. Shortly I will have a complete inventory and decide what to do. The tentative plan remains as before. Sift out the tubes above some arbitrary price (right now $10) and sell the rest to a dealer in bulk. Watching on-line how difficult and slow it is for them to respond to anything, we know they don’t have a database, so they will hopefully presume nobody else does, that is, that any bulk sales have not been cherry-picked.
For the report on the after-hours zoo in my work shed, see today’s addendum. Most of this morning will be logistics, for instance the new Peavey PA has not been tested except here in my office. It has an annoying mute switch right beside the equalizer that sticks in the off position. I don’t need this, as I also have a low tire on the van, another shelf to install in the shed, and band rehearsal this afternoon. And I would like to find time to at least drive past that house over in Winter Haven. Anybody who tells you their retirement consists of long lazy days must be one hell of a dull fellow.
I have a theory on dull old people. Because you’d think with several decades of experience they would have learned a few things that are not dull. Nope, most of them can’t even play the harmonica. I picked up on this by the time I had my paper route, so it isn’t like I decided after I was fifty that old men and old ladies were boring. Worst are the ones who know they are boring and still get over-opinionated. They seem to have shallow viewpoints on every damn thing, including what they know nothing about.
That’s why there is nobody to hang with in these smaller cities. They can get away with living that zero flat existence so long that they could not change now if they wanted to. It’s the sort of behavior you’d expect in the Montana lumber mills, but not in a relatively built up area like Florida, where they cannot claim they were not exposed to things that would make them interesting. Over time, I increasingly detect I get tarred with the same brush. We’ve gone over that, where if you don’t know how a gadget works, it must be because you are old and have not kept up with technology. Mind you, in my instance, that just gets them to put down their guard—and they never learn.
Music is a good example. The sign on the juke box downtown says no trap music. Most of the seniors who imbibe there have no idea what that is. They don’t need to know because they never play it. But not liking it is exactly the one-dimensional sort of opinions I just mentioned. Myself, I don’t like it either, but I know what it is, where it came from, and why I don’t like it down to the individual notes, chord patterns, lyrics, and beat. Some people say knowing that makes no difference. Maybe that’s why tens of thousands of people don’t read their blogs, might you think?
E. African locust swarm..
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The rain was not bad, we had a quick rehearsal and checked out the gear, discovering a hum from inside my bass. The PA will work fine, we have an hour of our best material ready. I’ll remember today as the decision I dreaded more than fifty years ago, the decision to play sitting down. It was symbolic to me, a sign the best is over. We talked it over, its consensus. I’ve known forever that I play better sitting down but it was not looked forward to. He knows times are slow. There is no signs it will pick up. Makes me realize how tired I’m getting. The size and w
eight of the PA was also a factor today. Reviewing the prior year shows, like it or not, health has become part of playing music. Turns my guitarist also has an injured shoulder and it is his strumming arm. I have the same injury and I’m lucky playing bass does not strain the same tendons or muscle group. But I’ve learned such injuries demand a lot of respect. I will consider the amount of gear to be moved booking any gigs from here on in. I knew such days were on the way, but I was kind of hoping not until after 70 or 80 years of age. Yes, I was warned to slow down. Just not by how much.
Stopping for café con leche and a snack, I took the side roads to Winter Haven for a closer look at the property. It’s exactly what it looks like. Some type of workshop on the ground floor with living quarters above. The ad was wrong, both bedrooms are on the top floor with an exterior flight of stairs to get up there. The upstairs was locked up, but I saw what I wanted. While it is livable in a pinch, it is primarily a Latino neighborhood and they do not respect quiet or customs. The old, if you were really tired, you’d be able to sleep through the noise.
My suspicion of what is wrong is the place may be condemned. I don’t think so, there isn’t anything falling down. But these days, City Hall can be downright nasty if they don’t like something. To me, that property is worth $40,000 only if I could use the downstairs for my own storage, rent the upper, and use that big front yard to park something.
I also drove past Derry Down, it’s a small hall kitty-corner from the music store. A flash rain shower kept me in the van. Their phone goes to recording, so I’m trusting what’s posted on-line and I’ll show up an hour early to see what the score is. I’ve been right past it a dozen times but thought it was like a wedding or catering service. If I show up and find it is really venue for professional bands to showcase, I may call it off. According to the web site, it has been a teen activity center for ten years. Being that it is also near the library, I have never seen anyone enter or leave and there are rarely any cars parked outside.
Good old COBOL, still used in something like 90% of ATM transactions. When job ad in Orlando offered $52 starting salary, I took a look. Nope, it’s mainframe, not my specialty. Still, that’s decent money. What kept my interest was the comments on the ad, it seems the change in the education system is rearing up. How so? Well, I found COBOL to be one of the easiest languages ever. Yet the twenty-somethings of today say they find it very difficult. I scrolled through 30 pages of comments to make sure I didn’t land on some crank. Nope, the majority complained about the same thing—that there was no documentation.
Well, that’s a load of crap. COBOL code is so close to English that it is almost self-documenting. Being that I last programmed COBOL in the mid-80s, I changed my filter to those jobs with no experience and the pay quickly dropped to $16 per hour. (About half what I was earning in 1996.) I read a lot of the descriptions. One thing I do have experience at is taking any job to get in the door, then quickly rising to the upper ranks. Let’s look at the jobs with two years experience only open to US citizens who can pass drug, literacy, and security tests.
That’s better. Top pay for my qualifications is a job that wants both COBOL and RPG (which I can do in my sleep) paying $184,000 per year. Make it $200,000 and I’ll dust off my old notes. But that says it all, that people who consider themselves top-tier computer savvy cannot read sixty-year old code. It must me something in the drinking water. For those who don’t know COBOL, the code is placed into five or six divisions that define the operating parameters, and a procedure division that does the heavy lifting. The code is elegant, clean, and structured. The commands resemble sentences, even having periods at the end. No wonder the public school graduates hate it. But the funniest part was reading on-line critiques of COBOL where the detractors hated the very things that make COBOL great. Takes a lot of years of conditioning to think excess punctuation is what makes good code.
I liked COBOL but it is not a language that can be easily adapted to graphics. Mind you, that is, in my opinion, because nobody has evolved the code. The main attribute of COBOL for industries like banking and insurance is that it is immune to hidden routines and inheritances. None of the authors who rag on COBOL mention one of the best reasons it is still in use—all newer languages are too risky and so are the people who use them. To a classical programmer like myself, anyone who does not like highly-structured and readable code is automatically a suspicious character. Put another way, when you have a million-dollar operation, do you really want some $9 per hour hire in your office writing code that you can’t read? How long does it take to
learn COBOL? Around 18 hours, but I would spread that time over at least three weeks. Each step takes time to assimilate and as with any real programming, there is no substitute for hands-on experience. There is usually only one right way to accomplish most any task in COBOL. Thus, unlike the C+ family, one cannot pretend to know the language.
ADDENDUM
Now we know what’s with all the animal tracks. This is a few stills from the overnight videos showing a total of five different individuals. My workshed has become a major overnight animal artery, a crossroads you might say. There are at least four raccoons, probably quadruplets. They avoid each other and seem to all like this spot on the dirt floor. The camera seems jammed on the 15 second setting but that was enough to capture two full minutes of critters overnight.
This earns you today’s trivia. Most mammals, including those shown here are red-green colorblind. Raccoons are the leading carrier of rabies in the USA. Did you know all mammals have sweat glands, fur, and three middle ear bones.
Speaking of vermin and rodents, an increasing number of on-line scam businesses are getting though my e-mail blockers. It’s all sucker businesses who want your money before they tell you anything. Yeah, as if anyone in today’s climate who found a legitimate way to make money would plaster it all over the Internet. Junk like, “Ask me how Jacob D. from Utah 3X his bitcoin account overnight.” I’m still a paid up member of Bob Diamonds club, but he does not tell you it’s just buying yourself a job.
