September 14, 2025

Yesteryear
One year ago today: September 14, 2024, Excel has no “copy exact”.
Five years ago today: September 14, 2020, work shed progress.
Nine years ago today: September 14, 2016, after I spent it all . . .
Random years ago today: September 14, 2018, nothing went right.

           All’s I can tell you this morning is if the libtards thought they gained anything with the Kirk assassination, they are sadly mistaken. Since the extent of my politics is sort of Trump Bad Trump Good, I gather Kirk was saying things the Democrats don’t like. So to me the issue is whether or not this galvanizes anything. That, and the murder of the Ukrainian girl, if these are not culminating incidents, they are getting close. I’ve seen calls to have the Democrats declared a terrorist organization. That would be something to see, if only because it would reveal how weak they are when forced out into the open.

           Here is the latest photo of the work bench going in the scooter lean-to. It’s along the right side of this view, with the planks piled up for now. If any of you think that is quite heavier duty than usual, you are right. That is deck planking as this bench is to solidly hold two chop saws in place. You can see the matching set of boxes starting to pile in the upper left corner, and on the lower left is the thickness planer still in the box.

           This area replaces the smaller bench I had along the north fence, the area prone to hurricane wind damage. This new location, which by the way proved to be very dry to wind-blown rain, is sheltered on three sides. Longer pieces can be worked without a tree or wall getting in the way. The downside is this is too far away from my projected vacuum system and that planer is a known dust producer. This view also reveals that the space was built as we went along, no real big picture, no coordination.
           Hence, I’m tempted to put a couple lesser used tools out in this spot as well. If I do it right I may be able to shoehorn that planer into the big shed. Why not just do that? Because right now that is the only space I can cut anything longer than 8 feet 1 inch. This was planned, meaning that spot is 16-foot-1 inch long. It proved most useful when slapping the sheds together, it also being the only dry area during Florida’s almost-daily rain showers. Since then, it has barely been used. I have no plans to build boxes 16 feet long.

           This cycles us back to this new bench. The scooter lean-to is open on the side, that’s how we can look down the length in this photo. That makes cutting boards of most any length I’ll ever need because I don’t care if the other end gets wet. This is big work for anyone my age and condition, so don’t expect overnight results. I may have to sink some new 4x4” posts and do some more wiring. Just now, Sunday morning, the neighbor has started his lawnmower, so we get to play bass until the stores open. Hmmm, this worked out okay, how about that.

           You see, I’m out of air minutes until the kiosk opens in around two hours, so let’s relax this morning and go over some bloggish-like topics. I still have no side-hustle investments. By the 26th of this month, a Friday, I should be on the way to investing again. Yes, I’ve looked at Lofty and similar operations—the roadblock there is that I cannot get a straight answer out of any of these on-line people. They seem to think jargon and contrived obfuscation is something new in this game. Caltier is still stalled and the offering comes to a close in three months. However, the account is still showing some kind of return and stands at over $26,000. Nice, but I would prefer to know how it got there.

           I’ve reviewed my office operations and the pity is that I am very well-equipped to track any investment that pays daily, or even hourly. This is a factor that tempted me to look at Forex. I’m wise enough to know the Internet has bent the traditional business laws, keeping me inclined to seek a company on-line that has a closer affiliation with the downside of such investing. At this point, bank interest has paid me more than selling boxes, it just isn’t as much fun. My budget to the end of 2025 is not much, about $500 per month. Caltier would get it if they’d smarten up.
           This will be a long morning, so how about an overdue review of where best to invest. Tradition tells me what worked before was slow and steady, although that has never stopped me from sticking my neck out. A fast buck when young cannot be beat in the hands of us who know better than to blow it on a big party. That’s why just now I pulled some of my oldest files that relate to planning, in this instance one of my original spreadsheets. It contains embarrassing errors, so you don’t get to see it. Overall, the direction is clear—I knew what I was up against. So here is the long-winded version.

           The overriding principle is that the long range plans that got me here today were haphazard. True enough I refer to them as a solid and unified motive. Nope, I had dozens of paths I could have followed. I tried everything I could afford, all of which failed between 1982 and 1990 except my semi-famous “reverse retirement” calculations. You know about that, how I figured out how to emulate having one million in the bank. Well, today I found the spreadsheet that worked out how to make $1 per day. Some of you will recall over the years how I’ve kept coming back to this formula. Because it worked. And am I right back there?
           For that matter, it is the same challenge 40 years later—there were no investments that paid daily back in 1982. The world was not equipped for that. Daily bank interest was still a concept, as most banks did not have a computer. Realistically, that [daily income] has not changed unless I want to risk the no-answer people on-line. Here are a couple historically odd tidbits from my 1982 work. One is how often planning errors tend to balance out. In this case, I estimated that “tax and inflation” would cost me 30% of any income and got laughed at.

           Instead, my original equations that split monthly income into daily estimates is still in use today, in this case Caltier. I still use the original Win 95 Excel spreadsheets, which I hated at the time. They still work today but you have to know how. For those unfamiliar with how corrupt MicroSoft has always been, here is the original backstory on Excel. The first spreadsheet was VisiCalc, for “visual calculator”. What happened was MicroSoft began tweaked DOS so it produced intentional errors when importing VisiCalc, while simultaneously offering Excel in a bundled package, essentially giving it away for free.
           This is illegal, but it was also new and there was no body of law specifically addressing software at the time. MicroSoft promised and promised to fix the error, and they finally did with a big apology—the same month that VisiCalc declared bankruptcy. Like most at the time, I never did trust Excel, but it had two features that made it far easier to use. One was the ability to lock (F4) a cell in either or both dimensions and the other was replicating became drag-and-drop. Yes, I have 2,400 cell spread sheets that had each formula custom entered—so Excel was welcome on that count alone.

           However, to this day I still check certain Excel functions on a calculator and get a laugh out of those who blindly trust Excel. They have lost the ability to “check for reasonableness” and their space probes still crash which, to them, is a mystery. Then again, it has always amused me how most people seem to have only the barest grasp of what is going on when the do anything on the computer. Talk about blind faith.
           Wow, still two more hours till the stores open, gets me because I was right past there this week and forgot. Rather than wait, I’m driving over to Bartow where the store opens early. Should we make a Sunday mini-trip out of it? Say, go visit the bookstore or something? We have $71 you know. Or wait until next weekend? Check back and see.
           Later, wait for next week. I opted to buy $39 worth of gourmet bird seed, including some special worms for the smaller birds now appearing as regulars. Let’s see if the squirrels like that diet. And a finch sock, is that also squirrel chow? We are about to find out.

Picture of the day.
Boone, longest USA rail bridge.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Here’s a great view of protestors in England overwhelming a police blockade with sheer numbers. Now the lone-gunman theories have already begun. My stance is simple, kneecap anybody found crawling around on a roof near a political event and you will be right most of the time. That was JZ on the phone, an interesting evolution I have seen in roughly two dozen people in my life. It’s where they are nice to everybody and don’t like the way that I treat some people and my attitude toward some strangers. They think I’m mean-spirited. The operative word is “some”.

           What changed with these 24-odd people is that later in life, they decided to get off their asses and accomplish something. Funny, innit, within a year at most, they are no longer nice to people who jerk them around and they don’t like strangers who get in their way. In other words, they now act like me. Not one of them, included JZ, has ever admitted this. Yet, last day he hung up on a secretary who was giving him the third degree because he wanted a doctor’s appointment instead of playing twenty-questions.

           Off balance or not, I got to work in the yard while doing a load of laundry. That is actually a standing joke. I drove to the lumber yard for wood, unloaded the van, and spread the lumber to dry. Then I dug a post hole and got an 8-foot landscaping timber into place. That includes the cross-rails and standing up eleven pickets which I will fasten tomorrow. Then I cleared space in the scooter shed, measuring out the thickness planer. I think it is going to fit unless it requires some clearances not shown in the literature.
           Next, I glued up the next set of panels for the microscope case. This has to be done in sections with a day between. I can now biscuit join lumber in a matter of minutes. The laundry quip is based on a vocalist I had back in the 90s. She did none of the logistics, only showing up to cherry pick and get paid. Annie, the elephant poop lady who starved to death, that one. Your prime example of what happens when you get too far behind to ever catch up and still think you’re the community standard. The joke was how we’d ask Annie why she was always barely on time and exhausted.
           You see, she had been on welfare since she was 24, so that makes 31 years. What did she do all day that took so much of her time and energy? The laundry. And I have, in my time, met countless women who think doing a load of laundry actually compares to real work. Makes you wonder when was the last time they dug a post hole.

ADDENDUM
           ‘Scuze if I got the name wrong, but Scott Adams(?) posts an interesting view. He noted the people losing their jobs over cheering the assassination have something in common, other than being mostly teachers. They all thought they would [get away with hate speech because] nothing would happen to them. Adams compares it to applauding that Hitler was dead—in American most people would agree with you and, indeed, nothing would happen. Ergo, these brain-dead Democrats must believe that most people agree with them—and this is a rude awakening. Makes sense to me.

Last Laugh