One year ago today: June 1, 2024, MicroSoft sucks.
Five years ago today: June 1, 2020, a den of thieves.
Nine years ago today: June 1, 2016, the dead weight of relying.
Random years ago today: June 1, 2007, a mystery machine.
Sometimes I don’t know what to make of this life. All I wanted was a career that paid enough money that I would not have to worry and a small family. Never had either. What set this off was a bunch of “inspirational” quotes on my news feed. The problem with that is all this rich bastards (like Teddy Roosevelt) full of bluster about challenges and the thrill of risking it all, when in fact none of them ever had to worry about food or rent. Most of what they had belonged to daddy. I don’t begrudge them a thing, I’m just put off when they talk like they alone know danger and you peasants who stay at home paying the bills don’t.
Today concerns most Tennessee, which means the Reb, which means tons of rapid information, a characteristic of people who put a little more into life. I’ll do what I can to make the day interesting, starting with this smart photo of the Hyundai in the swap meet this morning. I was buying some sidewalk onions, they are about half the price downtown. There should be another photo showing one of the e-boxes with a $15 price tag.
What’s this? 6:04AM and I see we had a tube sale. Meh, just a small sale. If you like 60s rock, this is the tube with that booming bass sound, it was originally a military radio tube. I know this tube because the next consecutive model number sells for 21x as much, but no luck today. Let me take care of that order and put on the coffee. I awoke with sniffles, cough, sore throat, no fever (and the only thing I can taste is the cardboard spine pills). Don’t it beat hell? Will today bring any adventure? Then again, this is 2025, any day not wasted watching television is, by comparison, great adventure.
Before I give you the morning off, we have a problem with Caltier. An accredited investor is one who registers as having the resourced to risk on certain investments that are not overseen by the SEC. Such as startup REIT funds. Most of Caltier’s offerings are for accredited people only. Normally you have to have income above $200,000. The Caltier Fund 1 does not require accreditation, but you may recall I was uncomfortable with the on-line contribution process. With each transfer, there was a mandatory check box that your net worth was ten times the amount. To contribute $1,000, you had to declare your net worth was $10,000 and I was never comfortable with this declaration.
This seems to have been just an annoyance to cover their asses. But take a second look. What is 10% of $200,000? When I look back on my books, my total investment exceeded $20,000 in April of 2024. And when did the “pause” begin? May 2024. I could tell by the change in junk mail they began to think that we were regularly mistaken for accredited investor, and also tipped me off that they have very few non-accredited people who reach the $20,000 mark. I’ve long figured out that other than a couple of MBAs (people with the same degree I have) at their management level, the rest of the staff are, shall I say it, A.I. replacement candidates.
I suspect we have run up against some regulation or parameter in their rulebook that their people cannot reconcile. If so, my backup plan is to pull out of Caltier except for a token investment because discovering how crowd-funding worked was a major part of my goal with their outfit. This is one of my motives for choosing Caltier. To learn the facts about crowd-funding because the on-line community was recognizably nothing but millennialized bullshit. Thus, this situation could be all about some coder accumulated my smaller declarations into one big one and takes a special kind of stupid.
Hail storm damage.
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We have another problem. The landlord has listed for sale the townhouse in Tennessee. Cancel my October trip out west as it was planned (the trip is still on.) There is no way we’ll find another deal like this one. Except in Arizona, but changed circumstances put that out of the question. Other than right here in my yard, most all other motion is centered in Nashville. And, as you know, I have no long-term plans for dealing with this because technically I’m not supposed to be here. This is a real wrench in the gears.
Much later, I made it to the store. The booth lady was away, but I had the staff guide me around, this video clip give plenty of feedback. I do not know what is sold, but I counted only seven boxes remaining. And they were the models with slight flaws which I will take back and rework. Two of the boxes are unfinished, which I will replace with the latest models. She has priced them very carefully, with the best boxes at $18.99. I’m hopeful because the video shows only one box left on the only shelf space left for display. Does this mean 7 sales? That would make my day.
It turns out these pickets are not cedar, but pressure treated yellow southern pine. Not suitable for human or animal food contact, they are, after all, a tool and utility box. But should I put a sticker? This rules out the orchard logo.
However, untreated cedar pickets are available at $1.30 more per unit. It is a minor change to buy a few and see if it makes a difference. Most cedar isn’t treated and I know they sell cedar planks for grilling fish.
The house across the way has had air hammers and pounding noises for another two full days. I rarely get too close to neighbors, so why don’t you go over there and ask them what in sam hill is going on. Trump just referred to Harvard as an “asshole factory”. I proceeded to make some super spaghetti sauce, a lot of coffee, and put in some hours doing something most musicians I’ve met never do. Learning new material. New to me that is. I often learn a bass line I find interesting, then check if someone else can sing the song. When that fails, I see if I can sing the songs. And the last two the Prez & I worked on were the lucky winners.
ADDENDUM
The Reb is back and things went well this tour. With just Chooks and one cat at home, life is not as confined. She can take the dog with her and it is easy to find a cat-sitter. This is your reminder that my travels to Tennessee originated from the need to have somebody not just feed the pets, but to take off the pressure when she was away. That element has been removed for over two years now, but the problem remains: no matter how well-meaning other people may be, they are not family.
She is aware of the strain the Valdosta Disaster put on my system. That was magnified because my other contingencies had been strained for years. It will be 2026 before I can drop everything and go visit again, but I may have to be there for a few days at a time. The situation with us is identical to the story you have heard a zillion times. We are not an item, but we function better today than back when we were an item. That does not sum it all up, but that’s all you get to go on. There is one major difference. We have no history of not getting along.
The theory is that couples squabbled because of the pressures of the relationship and once a split up removed that stress, they became friends. That is not what happened here. Other than that, I suppose it’s a pretty average situation. Ah, but there is something else—complete trustworthyness. I have never found this in any other woman. I’m free to look any time, but you don’t have to be here long to know I’ve failed at that as much as the next guy. Honest women are a thing of the past in my life and possibly in America.
That’s the side-effect of even once knowing somebody reliable—all others pale by comparison. I have honestly and fairly tried to develop relationships over the years to no avail. Most were after money and they could not be weeded out in advance. It was not always theft and begging. These days it is imperative a gal be self-supporting. I won’t list the failures, but it can be things like quitting their job once you let them move in, or refusing to pay the rent, or the worst, outright taking things.
The Reb is the opposite of these money-grubbers. I am not talking about the ordinary events like gas for the car or vet bills, those are the same as most other couples. When I’m there, I pay, when I’m not she takes care of it herself. You see, like myself, she will not spend money that belongs to somebody else. Off the record, I can tell you I have several times handed the Reb thousands and thousands of dollars in cash to make a deposit for me. Others, like Theresa, I would not trust with a $20 bill. I wish it was otherwise, but it is not.
