One year ago today: January 2, 2024, talking about Caltier.
Five years ago today: January 2, 2020, my first gate design.
Nine years ago today: January 2, 20116, when America was free . . . .
Random years ago today: January 2, 1980, visiting Canada.
There was one good aspect to COVID, but being good, it did not last. It somehow reduced the sheer number of morons, imbeciles, a dumb bastards that got in your way on most given days. Trump is back and the optimism has the cannon fodder back out in full force. Blocking the aisles, the passing lanes, and any hope of getting things done early. I got into town around noon and the only thing that went fast was spending $360 before stopping at the pound to drop off my doggie food donation. This county is getting as bad as Miami-Dade for sheer numbers of mouth-breathers who move a half a mile an hour. Twenty-two minutes at the self-checkout, ten or so at the ATM, and another ten at the Dollar Tree, plus the time it takes to wait behind these people until they notice the light is green. It’s a good thing I had my quota of coffee this morning.
This is the Hyundai outside Derry Down this morning. Think of it as the type of “least activity” that happens when I report a slow day around here. While I have not been able to contact anyone over there yet, the web page has changed slightly concerning the monthly open mic. It now says just show up, sign in, and you get three songs. But this is Florida and you’ll want more information. Is it first come first serve or one of those joints that make you play audience for an hour? What time do the doors open? Is there a house PA? Do they demand membership? Do they require ID? View or copy? I only counted two parking spaces. You can tell I’ve dealt with Floridians before. Do they let people dance?
The last time I drove over there, they were closed without explanation. I don’t need to be moving 200 lbs of music gear and have the band driving 55 miles round trip for any unpleasant surprises. So the dilemma is do we show up, or do I attend the January show to find out the score, then decide if February is a go? Keith-R, the soloist, knows people who’ve played there so I will give him a call tomorrow. I missed the December date but have since learned the hall is similar to the way it worked when I began playing on stage so long ago. A small live venue, where maybe 200 people play admission which you split with the hall. Except now admission is twenty-six times higher.
It becomes much clearer when I’m around, which I’ll delve into a bit here. Isolate Caltier and calculate the daily income. It was $1.99 in December. Most people may not spot the significance of that, but I do. Round that up to $2 and ask where you would be if you had $2 per day put away since you were born and are now 65. This is why I encourage people to learn spreadsheets. I once did every calculation needed for a 12-year period on a hand-held calculator back in 1975. It sure as hell smartened me up. Consider also the average cost of living increase received by social security recipients for 2025. It was $24 per month.
Think about that. I paid into Social security for decades. I paid into Caltier for 2 years now. And on a mediocre month, Caltier paid more that twice as much [as that increase]. But let’s get back to the $2 per day. This, by the way, is a calculation investment managers love to do, but never point out how to do it other than [to say] hand over your money. In 65 years there are an estimated 23,741 days. Let’s also presume the traditional 7% return, compounded monthly means 0.58%. Run the spreadsheet. Can’t? Then buy my book once I ever get time to write it.
I won’t hit you with a spreadsheet that long, but the outcome is a million dollars. Yes, I can tell by looking that is the outcome. It ignores taxes and inflation for a net monthly income of around $5,600. Very few people would look at that $2 per day and see that. I don’t personally know any bankers or insurance agents, but I’ll bet you that crowd is very familiar with these calculations. I once read the Pope almost fainted when he was first shown the power of compound interest.
You just be careful you don’t become “one of them”. This is where my “retirement equivalency” calculations came into play when I was 28. Take a break and look at the time and temperature. It is dropping into the low 40°s and night and that is arctic for Florida. Now back to the money. I mean you don’t become a miser, squeezing the pennies, you don’t sell out—and don’t laugh, that’s what happens to people who don’t catch on about money until too late in life. My method is to arrange your affairs “as if” you had achieved the outcome at the time you started, not when you finished. The idea is to make the $2 per day the cheapest and easiest way you can—then leave the $2 alone.
Saving $2 per day is a daunting task most people never manage. They never learn to leave it alone. Even the $46,000 [of your own money] you would have put away in 65 years is more than most ever see. What I did was calculate the least amount I would need to invest to get a return of $2 per day. And the answer was $10,428, but that is a different story. By age 30 I had found by maxing out my company pension, I could easily beat those numbers—now that I knew how and had nobody to thank for helping me get there. This is the time I decided to add that famous $19.34 per payday on top of the total. The rest is either history or about to become so, because another thing that is numbered is my days left.
That $2 represents something else—the character of those who sneeze at so little. What makes it important is that when properly saved, that $2 becomes immovable. In no time it becomes a slap on the head of those who wrote it off. You know what I’m talking about. After several hundred days, ain’t none of those blabbermouths is ever going to catch up. Wait just a moment and I’ll calculate the total average daily income to date from the $19,500 of my own money now in Caltier. On second thought, let me estimate it in my head. It’s been 750 days, the income is around $2,330, so call it $3.10 per day. That’s $3.10 per day more than most people. Every day. Put another way, I say you should mechancically do whatever you can to put away the $2 per day now and worry about putting away all the money to do it for you until later in life. Then, when you get there, you'll recognize the destination.
Irish dance class.
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I do wish I had more for you. Here was the high point of the afternoon. I took a wrong turn in Winter Haven looking for whatever happened to the Chain of Lakes pub. It is ribboned off as a construction zone. Did they remove a wing off the building? I got caught in that fake-out turn lane off Hwy 98, sending me into that strange mall at the SW intersection. It should be an ideal location but it seems always half-rented. Even then with stores I’ve never shopped. Never been to their movie theater, either. I spotted a Dollar Tree and had a short grocery list on me. I looked, and there was an unusually large craft shelf. That’s where I spotted this tiny box. Here’s a clip of me examining it.
Notice the hinges are on crooked, this is the best of what I found. This tells me the lid and bottom were trimmed after the hardware was bolted on. I don’t know if that technique would work on larger boxes. Remind me to give it a try, I discover that small clasp is properly called a box latch catch buckle and is too light duty for much other than tiny boxes like this. They retail on Amazon for 5 cents each, so right there that once component says I cannot compete.
It’s dropping into the 40°s tonight, so put on the coffee. We are planning on finding a Clint Eastwood movie. Overall, it’s been unpleasantly chilly most times when the sun isn’t overhead. My prime work temperature is now when I have to be driving around. I avoid driving in the dark or working in the cold, so iy id movie time. That reminds me, I tried the new version of Movie Maker. It’s called Move Maker – Video Editor, and it is a piece of shit. Millennialware A series of screens that do not work together. Video editing is always a lot of back and forth. When you apply an effect, you’ll want to see it before you continue. But the playback button disappears on the effects pages (and the title, credit, music, and transition pages as well). You have to back out to do a preview, which cancels the effect. I propose a new term for this crappy code, “Pajeetware”.
MicroSoft has also disabled many of the features unless you purchase a copy, but they are bonkers to think I’d give them anything for such crap. Worst feature is no tool bar. The strip is there across the top of the window, but it is blank. For experienced Movie Maker types like myself, this means having to learn over again how to execute every command, including basics like saving your work or changing the filename. The output also produces gigantic files, around 100 megabytes per minute. And another chicken plant has exploded and gone up in smoke. The $4.50 tray of thighs, my favorite, is now nearly $11.00.
