September 19, 2025

Yesteryear
One year ago today: September 19, 2024, $57,000 each.
Five years ago today: September 19, 2020, they almost refused.
Nine years ago today: September 19, 2016, all the knicks & scrapes.
Random years ago today: September 19, 2014, well, it wasn’t Jamaica.

           Relax like I did and you’ll wake up in the afternoon. But that’s still better than CrackerBarrel stock, falling from $45 to $14. It’s my recent day off, which I chose since I never make appointments on Fridays. What fun-filled day of adventure can we make out of it. Aha, first I heard the birds going ballistic over the new gourmet seed, then an alert which says I got two sales, of which my cut is $105.74 and I’m going shopping. I need a new 4-foot level, some air fittings, and I have not been out of the house since Tuesday. All Found Money (Account 1134) is pure gravy and there is till $45 left in September’s travel budget. Let’s play this one by ear.

           This pic is of a disappointment. It is the cedar slats from the most recent pallet. Sadly, the wood has become brittle. Instead of several up-scale boxes I had plans for, this will make one mediocre box I will use to try some new techniques. The problem with brittle wood is when it is cut to shorter lengths, it tends to split along the grain. If the wood is precious enough, it can be clamped and glued, but that is not only hard on saw blades and sandpaper, it stains differently and becomes expensive.
           I was short a few pickets. Rather than take chances with the locals [asking questions], I drove to the lumber yard, mulling over the month ahead, budgetwise. It took 18 days for the previous deposit to clear. Such things don’t happen by accident. It pushes my plans ahead into the second week of October, so I decided against any travel [this week]. I was caught by the train and noon rush hour, so I did not get back until 3:00PM, but I have more on my book report of “Holy Ghost”, the Virgin Mary apparition tale.

           Top-tier entertainment [this audiobook] and a revealing dive into just how corrupt the police have become. Oddly, the jacket bears no date, but references to FaceBook and Craigslist put this around twenty years ago. The major talking role is a cop named Virgil and he’s your ideal example of how, no matter how cops start out, they soon begin to see breaking the law, blackmail, lying, warrantless searches, and snooping into people’s sex lives as their normal job. The plot moves along but gets more complicated.

           You learn a lot about rifles and pistols, and how not to sell stolen goods on eBay. You also learn how the simplest of measures will protect your privacy but that most people don’t even try, and the cops know this. By now the storybook cops have a complete list of who is sleeping with who, but no leads as a third Catholic is shot. It’s great writing, I have no guesses who is behind the shootings unless he’s got secret underground tunnels. And that is a good mystery - by now in most books you'd know the suspect is somebody already mentioned. Not here, though it might be. Could even be the cops.

           Here’s Mitch, already out in the freezing Canadian winter last week. That’s the dull overcast of a western prairie morning. There is no snow yet, but the temperatures can easily drop below freezing weeks before the first blizzard arrives. That tryke in the background is his preferred form of recreation. Like my hobbies, which tend toward the cerebral, he finds or meets zero women, especially when he goes cross-country—he can cross deadfall with that machine.
           Another difference is all his social circles are married couples, mostly long-term acquaintances from his years as a mainframe programmer. I know of one or two married couples, including Agt. M who got married years after he became VP of the robot club, and many of my guitarists are married with kids. Mitch says the angle looking like he’s plucking the Sun out of the sky is random chance.

           Can it be true? While there is still an annoying number of H1B (Hindoo) work visas being issued, rumor is they must put up a $100,000 bond that they will not overstay. An excellent idea, but it did not work in Canada where all the Sikhs have the same name. And there is more talk of how the 19th Amendement, taken literally, could be interpreted to mean one household, one vote. Then we could sell tickets to the fights where the husband is a taxpayer and the wife is not.
           Y’know, if there was an even semi-convenient way to upload audio to this blog, I’d have some examples of my bass work for you. While there are restrictions (mine) on publishing every band performance, I do play bass more than an hour per day. Every day. Google has always ignored this potential huge traffic feature. Also, since 1980, long before Internet considerations, I do not even mention jams, stand-ins, or gigs that pay less than $30 per event. And for years in Flordia now, that is most of them.

Picture of the day.
Picking up some sugar at Costco.
(Nothing suspicious here.)
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Ah, man, I did the projections up to December 31 and we are pfennigless. Between the increase in taxes and auto insurance, it’s going to be a pinch. Of course I/we will survive but you can’t make us like it. I’m advising two of my best friends to sell out now. Both have big empty houses and my experience is if people don’t show up to visit you for a year, they never will. They get wrapped up in their own lives and having all that empty spare room goes to waste. Like JZ, he could easily buy a double-wide on the Gulf and live for half what Miami costs him.

           These folks are not in my situation, where the pad rental became half my income toward the end. In Pinellas County, rents are around $500 per month, or roughly the same as condo fees in most of south Miami. I found this place for under $25,000 (see photo) and it is a three bedroom. I bet I could get it for half that and find something for $10,000 in the spring when the Canadians leave. The total cost would still be close to three times what I pay here, but I don’t live on the coast, there is no fishing or swimming pools, and I’m twice as far from the nearest city.

           Browsing the musicians board, there that seasonal uptick of “bass player wanted” ads. Should I not be happy? Nope, and I can tell you why. I keep tabs on who is advertising to avoid wasting time, and it is the same crew over again. Their ads alone reveal these people view the bass player as just short of a necessary evil. That is why they can’t retain anybody. They still think in terms of handing the bass player a song list and saying “learn it”. And find themselves short one band member every year.
           What’s more, a glance at that song list also shows they have zero cognizance of what playing bass is all about. They expect it is nothing to master the goofy tunes they played with the last guy, why should they learn anything new, it’s just a bass player. One of Lakeland’s best bands is the worst for this. I’ve seen their ads for years, and they are good, a five-piece dance band, but I don’t join big bands any more.

           And four of them have a separate group (minus the keyboard) that focus on country music. I’ve seen them a few times, great harmonies. They have no real stage presence, however, more like statues. Seriously dishwater-dull. They would not like a stage darling like me, even though all I do is stand there and play bass.

           I have nothing else for you this generic day, just this bit of extra typing that someday could be a homework assignment. This is post 7,716 in a race where 99% of bloggers never make it to first base. Is my life interesting, or because I think interesting only by comparison? I’m aware this work must be full of inaccuracies and contradictions. That’s because it is based on the life of a real bass player. In the end, the strangest part to me will be that I knew more than fifty years ago I never stood a chance. I just never really totally gave up and the outcome of that is reflected every day now. I cannot imagine being bored, and that, folks, is a big part of why this is the blog that dares. So what if I flub it, right?
           That’s why I included this nothing video of my microwave in operation. To see if anybody notices. BWAAAAAAA-ha-ha-ha . . . .

Last Laugh