One year ago today: April 29, 2024, closer to 106.
Five years ago today: April 29, 2020, first and last peach.
Nine years ago today: April 29, 2016, writers lack personality.
Random years ago today: April 29, 2001, 862-3149.
Same pattern as before, the trip to Miami puts me in a climate a few degrees warmer and my gumption is melted away for a week. I just cannot get underway. But around here that is not synonymous with doing nothing. I watched the trailer for the movie “Accountant”, thinking it was about some guy who infiltrates the cartels. Now I’m not so sure, it could be a twist on that 1990s loser feminist fantasy about the retarded brat she got off that off-duty bouncer. You know the drill, that the kid is really gifted but in ways you pack of quasi-morons would never understand.
Mitch and his trikke, this photo from this morning. Note the lack of snow and prairie clouds. Since it is still winter out there, this should be considered a major outing. His note points out that water bottle on the steering column is straight vodka. Anti-freeze is very important over there
I just received a notice that my pension plan, one of two fully funded left today, was just valued at over $5 billion in solvency assets. That’s the amount if the closed and sold. Can I pick ‘em or what? You know who needs a plan? JZ. Sure, he’s rotten at attracting decent women, but he’s still been a good pal for a quarter-century. I know he’d meet a nice one if he was here, he’s the type that divorced women sidle right up to. He only needs to pick a rich one. There are advantages if he’d make up his mind, such as a free place to crash and very importantly, a vehicle he can drive.
His license still carries vehicle restrictions. That is, conditions that don’t apply to me. If he was here, he’d insist on paying rent, so my roof and sheds would be finished in a month. And I’d be looking at some fancy siding. What’s this note arriving? My pension plan has $150 million in petty cash. And some wonder why I trust my pension more than I do the government. Arriving at the same time is a notice the pension may pay out an additional $900 one-time stimulus payment.
Personally, I think the plan has enough money put in by the real contributors (the full-time union members prior to 1995) to simply give all the survivors an extra $200,000 cash payout. Why? Because changes to the union rules means that new people after that date show they chose increased job benefits (like daycare) over their own pensions, they contribute measurably less per capita, and I plain don’t like their woke-pandemic bullshit. They’ve voted in their own comfort clauses and just don’t deserve as much. After 2002, there were more part-timers who voted for maternity leave and first-day sick pay. Now comes their turn, let them spend cake.
We have four regular woodpecker visitors. The Downeys and two juvenile females. There is a fifth male juvenile but he has only been here a couple of times. I found out they have a food more favorite than the suet that has such a reputation. You know those oyster crackers? They really aren’t oyster anything except the shape if you apply imagination. More like army hard tack pellets. A handful of these fell on the floor, so thye wound up outside. To the delight of the birdies who swarmed in. I wonder if it might be the salt?
The India-Pakistan war is known as World War Poo.
Banned at U. of North Florida.
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TMOR, the reason for the posters of illegals at the White House was not random. The US fake media loves to position their people in front of the West Wing. The pictures would appear in any such shots. The MSM made utter fools of themselves trying to blot out the array, it was the stupidest move they could have made as the posters were already all over the Internet. One this is certain, the media do NOT like being bested at their own game.
She was from the era when actresses were for real. Blonde, blue, 5-foot-4, dynamite figure and some actual talent. The neighbor recognized her, so I pulled up her bio. She played a role in a series called “Knot’s Landing”, which I have not seen. But I have seen Clint Eastwood’s “Play Misty For Me”, where I may have noticed her, since except for the poodle cuts, Clint and I have the same taste in women.
Fast forward to now, where a big Tuesday is TV reruns and staining a box in the shed. Is this what life comes to? When you finally get to where you can do what you want, you find doing anything is a solitary endeavor. Because 90% of the men and 100% of the women you meet have zero productive activities of a recent nature. Let me explain that. A hobby adopted in adult life is not the same as a childhood pastime carried over. I’ve been to coin shows and writing clubs and the clientele are either newbies or fossils.
Is this important? Yes, because of the rule about years of experience. Fifty years experience too often turns out to be one year repeated fifty times, I’ve said this before. But I would like to presume a hobby taken on say, after the age of fifty, to be over a stronger criteria than just fitting in or idle killing time. It carries a different gravity. Example, my neighbor who paints has been doing it since the 1950s in a field of thousands of painters. Myself, I cannot talk about building boxes back more than maybe five years or navigation back more then ten or so. For that matter, although I go back with music, my formation of a unique duo is barely twenty years old, most of it wasted on flakey guitar players.
Yes, it does make a difference. Take another look at navigation. This represent a massive learning curve not possible without a massive background history of paying attention. Whereas the steps can be memorized and I’m sure that’s how some do it, that is not to be compared with an avid interest in fields like trigonometry, astronomy, cartography, physics, computers, and a good understanding of how pieces fit together. My advice is otherwise don’t even try.
People who have recently undergone the adoption of a new hobby with real character are an immense pleasure to meet. They are not like the others in every way that counts. Sadly, the opposite is also true. Those with both zero or time-worn hobbies tend to be dull and sluggish. I cannot tell you when I last met an interesting person in this regard. I stayed close to my coffee maker this evening and dug out some of the parts I’ll need for the new NOR gate. I grabbed the bass for a couple half-hour sessions, both putting in the time to memorize “Operator”. I can now play the entire chord patterns but the passing notes are going to take a good ten hours of solid learning. They are a little different each time around, a sure sign the bass player was a guitarist from the word go.
ADDENDUM
Okay, as promised, what sort of gal would I take up with if I was to meet one in Florida? Of course, age has lowered my standards, but I would point out to any readers from the future that in contemporary America, it is not, repeat not, unreasonable to expect finding women over 30 who have no children. I meet a surprising lot of them. While I could hash over the deal-breakers (like drugs, laziness, and clinging co-dependency), this time I will lightly go over what I would very much like to meet in a woman. In any order,
a) Not fat, that is where I draw the line. There has to be some spark.These are what I’d like for starters, nothing unreasonable or too picky there. Let me recall the last five gals I met in this month and their status with me. The lady at the bakery up near Prez’s place. Nice but too Spanish, you don’t date a Latina, you date her family. The latest Karaoke lady in my fan club. She’s single, but she’s taken. The new assistant manager at the Sav-A-Lot, spritely, friendly, but probably too young for me. The clerk at the Sunday pub, it’s a job alright, but you can sense the very high body count. The day supervisor at the KIA dealership. Nice but high maintenance. Any of these gals would be a contender if they exhibited any single element that showed real input into making a relationship count. It is a real shortcoming to meet women to whom relationships just “kind of happen”.
b) Self-supporting. If you are over 30, have something to show for it.
c) Some talent, preferably artistic, creative, or academic, something that lasts.
d) A decent education or equivalent, it stabilizes the personality.
In the past month I’ve met, let me guess, around eight other new women. If any had anything going for them other than existing and paying the bills, I could not detect it. Usually, I consider meeting a gal to mean we had at friendly chat of at least ten minutes. I am very approachable and can identify with around 95% of any topic she’d like. If a gal is interested, it’s an expectation that if she has any special attractions, she’d say something in that amount of time.
This has nothing much to do with presumptions or assumptions or too-high standards. Once past a few early disappointments, meeting potential mates is a two-way street. There is plenty of opportunity to say what you like to do and that, in what I’ve met, has been a major disappointment. I have yet to meet a Florida woman with a hobby—and yes, I can knit, crochet, bake, blog, dance, and know a bit about photography and calligraphy. What a treat it would be to find a gal who had a flair for any one of these. Much less one with a fully-equipped dark-room, science desk, or an interest in historical research. I would repeat the best advice I’ve heard in adult dating: beware the woman whose only interest is raising children.
