One year ago today: December 3, 2023, on the wane.
Five years ago today: December 3, 2019, Waterton.
Nine years ago today: December 3, 2015, silver drops.
Random years ago today: December 3, 2008, early digital cam.
There is snow on the ground. Why am I still here? Even turtles know when it is time to head south. And you may have to wait for the photo of Chooks and the General Lee. Cell phone millennials have made sure one of the more difficult tasks is to download photos. No, I don't want to share with nearby devices, upload to Google, or open an account. I just want my pictures and the old trick of plugging the USB cable in until the correct menu mysteriously appears isn't working. With the cracked glass, even that is impossible. On top of that, I'm freezing to death. How can people live like this? They suffer without knowing it, that's how. That, and the sizeable contingent who don't know any better. I believe the last time I actually lived through a winter was 1978, and that was not long ago enough.
The company had local bands on the big screen, they are the only people around here who ever use it. Anyway, I had him bring up some of my old bands and there is a shot of the Space Hippie. My word, time has not been kind to that dude. It's only nine years since I walked off his stage and he now looks older than me. Anyway, my point was to demo his incredible guitar ability and I have never said otherwise. My exact wording was the mystery of why God would waste such incredible talent on such a social nobody. He has carefully edited out all mention and photos of our duo, the longest-term "band" he ever had, and that was due to my management skills as nobody else ever got along with the guy.
Judging by appearances, that was a very recent photo. He's old, heavier, balder, and his voice has also aged. Much the same as myself, however I never pretended to be immune to any of it. Also from such videos we leafed through, he is still playing the same song list as when I first jammed with him 22 years ago, and his song list was woefully outdated by then. If you bother to listen to any of his solo material, imagine what he would sound like with a solid piano-like bass accompaniment and that is the sound we had. But he was so guitar-centric, I doubt he ever realized that's what was going on. Once or twice he said I was "okay" on the bass, always viewing it as a disposable support instrument.
We had our contentious moments on that issue. He seemed to have immense trouble playing anything that featured a strong bass line but not tunes that had a "guitar" bass line. Consequently, he loved numbers like "Three Little Steps" but not "Hot Dog". To emphasize his hypocrisy he liked to play "Call Me The Breeze" when anybody else played a simplistic blues bass line but not when I played the real thing. "Well, Hippie, that's because you know I'm better on bass than you are on guitar." He always did struggle with people walking up to the stage and complimenting my playing. True, it was all for show, but that's why they call it a show.
By noon it is still below freezing. I read a long article on North Korea. What I never could rationalize is where are they getting the money for such a large military and the infrastructure to build missiles and atomic weapons on such a scale. The middle east has oil but North Korea is largely agricultural, if that's what you can call subsistence farming. I'm wondering as well how our own economy is faring. Historically, with this kind of inflation, gold and silver should be soaring. Instead they have barely budged. That smacks of severe government control. Inflation is beyond what anybody can easily afford. Credit card debt is through the roof. The government usually raises interest rates to cool things down but that also puts a huge brake on the economy. And at this time, it is house prices that could really be hit. Put simply, not enough people make enough money to qualify for the mortgages, so either sales tank or prices come down. I'd like to see both, as my opinion is that it was people borrowing money to excess that caused prices to get so out of hand.
The cheapest houses (not condos or townhomes) in the Nashville area you would want to live in are $350,000 way out in Ashland City. This is the same situation I faced at age 23 or 24, the minimum downpayment of 10% today would be $35,000 and most banks now want 20% or $70,000. Prices would climb faster than I was able to save up the down payment. Talk aboutdebt slavery. My plan for 2025 is to one-up the bank that said they would need a 12-month history of paying my bills on time by opening an account and making the payments in advance for a year, but those payments would be only one-fifth of the smallest mortgage amount. It's the best that can be done and I suspect very few other people could even afford that. A reminder, I am not looking to buy anything, I'm looking for a steal. That $100.000 window where nobody has the cash and the banks won't lend. What I've arranged is for a regular loan, not a mortgage, so pardon if I call it a mortgage.
Slums of Bolivia.
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I'm too old and it's too cold. I took the doggie around the short way, a little over half a mile. Y'know, the dog is random walked up to three times a day and we rarely see other people with their dogs. These pets need a good healthy outdoor stretch every day. Mildred and Mike, the two neighbors on the corner, let their dogs out to poop in the yard, that is it. I'm talking a proper walk, on a leash, at least partly through the woods. I've cut trails and tunnels and we are the only ones who ever use them. Let me count. Six trails which even the deer quickly take to. If others ever walk their dogs, we would see them on a daily basis.
The arctic conditions gave me time to go over Caltier in more detail. Two of the properties reported over a million in rental income this year. (Glenwood $1,400,614 and Raintree $1,104,292. Not all of the properties are owned outright, but even the smaller places report over $80,000 in net operating income. This is not bad and I'm beginning to figure out parts of their buy-hold-sell algorithms. If they sell two properties this year, they will easily meet their goal of 7% annual return in dividends. This does not include any capital gain from the shares which is my real speculation. The shares stay at $5 each until all are subscribed. The total value of US housing is something like $170 trillion (:Reuters) so Caltier isn't even a contender. But since it is all self-sustaining rentals, Caltier would ride the crest of any waves. The COVID hoax caused a slowdown of new rental construction and sooner or later will cause a backlash. There is another sore spot, in that Caltier seems to insist on accredation for the best investments even where it isn't necessary. It causes the suspicion they are more interested in big investors than the small ones they so ardently advertise for.
I reminded of my youth in the frozen prairies. Even in well-heated houses, one could feel cold radiating from exterior walls. I'd largely forgotten that until today. Another documentary on my watch list is the Egyptian missiles (Soviet supplied) that changed the character of the wars since. Both the anti-aircraft and anti-tank missles took the Israelis off guard. They had also underestimated the training of elite Egyptian units that manned those batteries. Footage from the Arab side is hard to find, it always is. You'd think they'd totally document how badly they hit the Israelis. I view it as the first true push-button war.
The Reb was hours overdue when she called from Donelson. She finally called from Donelson, a feat in itself as my phone does not ring. Sure enough, they've blocked traffic for five miles because some pedestrian was killed on the shoulder around exit 218. I advised her to go up to Lebanon Pike and then strike south. She will be over three hours late on what should be a 40 minute drive. Let me explain a couple things. First, you do not block four lanes of freeway over something like this. If he was on the shoulder, arrest the driver and tow his car. As for the pedestrian, there is no easy way to get anywhere near the freeway at that location without something funny going on. There's a quarter mile of impenetrable scrub underbrush on both sides. And no reason to cross the freeway as there is nothing for several miles in either direction. I understand the human element, but the people being needlessly delayed for hours are also humans.
She's home and now it is late and getting dark. Two and a half hours from Donelson, so she was nearly here just past noon. It's like Florida, after a while you know they are creating an unnecessary publicity event. No other reason for it.
As the Biden administration winds down, the last minute grab for the treasury amps up. Biden announced $1B to Africa to rebuild after natural disasters. While Americans in North Carolina a living in tents. Funny that Biden is incompetent to stand trial but can issue pardons, but all is not as it seems. People who are pardoned cannot be prosecuted, so they lose their right to plead the Fifth. If old Hunter is now questioned, he has to answer, though he could opt to remain silent on his own. Silence is neither false nor misleading.
What is going on in South Korea? The place is corrupt as hell, that's been common knowledge for decades. But martial law? It seems the supreme leader, fearing impeachment, ordered the army to seal off the parliament. Enough MPs snuck inside anyway and voted to remove martial law. So the army up and left. But the President has refused to lift the martial law decree and the situation is now neither side will budge. Who cares about Korea, but I see a the potential for the same in January. Too many Democrats fear they will be arrested and they are running out of options. I still believe if Biden declares martial law, the bulk of the military will obey Trump. But the US military under the Democrats has enough mentally ill queers and traitors to cause a lot of trouble.
ADDENDUM
YouTube is on another ad-blocker blitz. I quickly posted the workaround. YouTube posts a screen saying you have 3 chances to turn off your blocker or the screen turns red. I'm not against advertising in its place. The standard hackers will soon have a fix but for now, the trick is to reset the counter to always stay at 1, your privilege since it uses your software. Advertising is fine, but not in-your-face advertising.
I wanted to see any follow-up videos on the original Mars One Project. Sadly, there is very little left of this great idea. The plan was to send ahead equipment to build necessary materials rather than rocket them all the way there from Earth. NASA initially liked the idea but then turned on it when they realized its potential to undercut their massively expensive departmental approach.
