One year ago today: September 8, 2024, why I distrust “updates”.
Five years ago today: September 8, 2020, terrible daytime jazz.
Nine years ago today: September 8, 2016, settling in.
Random years ago today: September 8, 2014, at the junkyard.
Some band from Texas has stolen my 40+ year old band name, “Not Half Bad”. I checked what I could and none of them seem to be my original members, so they probably think they are the first. I’ve decided to spend money to get the KIA door handle fixed. Remember that? Big fancy van with plastic door handles. The birdies got me up early this morning and here is the best video I can show about that little birdie who picks the mealworms from the feeder. He’s lucky, he’s about to become my first non-seed eater. When I was last filling the tube, I noticed one worm was twice the size and this little guy found him.
Yes, I told the customer that was not real leather, and that the damage was from water, and that it was likely now that his other shoe would shortly need repair. So take that, people who say that there is nothing exciting about retirement in Florida. I sent an e-mail to Steve, who is still in the process of unpacking. Like myself, he has an eye for the prettier gals and has correctly surmised that you meet them when you entertain. Now, no telling I said this, but like many men he is 40 years behind me catching on to this.
And it is lost time, meaning just because you start meeting women wholesale, you don’t have my 50+ years of dealing with the situation. Like getting rich overnight, you only think you know how to make it work. I’ve lost many a bandmate to the first pretty gal that turned his head. The only thing on her mind becomes getting him off the market.
The other picture this morning is my own documentation, this is a “swollen” biscuit. The wafers are compressed wood that expands on contact with glue—or any other moisture. Some of them go bad in the plastic container they come in. Why some are affected and not others, I could not tell you.
I toyed with Forex just long enough to see how all the big-talkers fared the first crash, it was the New Zealand dollar if I recall. All the top Forex people disappeared instantly. When I stopped laughing, I admitted to losing my $1500 participation fee. This is very cheap tuition to find out any facts these days. Ain’t no straight answers on the Internet. Next I tried the quickie publishing business with the twins, only to realize you needed the organization skills of a publishing house to compete, for only the first dozen people made any money on that. I forget, but that was another $1,500. Who cares, again, cheap tuition.
Three is a charm, and I went for the tax overages business. That’s buying yourself a job, it took weeks of work to find one lead, only to find somebody else got their first. So there you have it, around $4,500 gone—but nothing is a loss if you learned something by it. And I learned just like brick-and-mortar business, anything on-line requires an extensive and expensive logistics system to weather the storms.
In that sense, I retired early because I had built just such a scaffolding for my funds, though I hardly recognized it at the time. I lost plenty trying to get something going before I realized all “cheap” business startups are reliant on skimming off the top. Zero durability. Yet, two of my ventures which might arguably not be classified as businesses, are the most successful, namely my own retirement and music. Both took decades of sacrifice—until all the foundations were laid. Overlook one thing and you are doomed, some sources call this fact “competition”.
Nor does even that guarantee a thing, except that when you fall it won’t be flat on your ass. I’m no millionaire, but my system has survived inflation, traffic tickets, real estate collapses, surging taxes, vet bills, house and vehicle purchases, surprise travel costs, legal fees, and seven years of no income and incredible medical co-pays. To name a few.
And music was hardly different, except that instead of generating any steady income over the years, it stopped me from ever spending even one paycheck on entertainment. I know plenty of people who are “broke by Monday”. Yet, in my adult life I’ve never yet had what I consider a successful band. One that lasted and went the distance. Adult musicians are cranky.
I can narrow down my description of failure even more for you. I’ve found that a lot of people do experience a lucky break in their lives. Just not me. What I mean is, most peple do not have the momentum to survive a single disaster. But they have their microwaves and cell phones. What happens is they lack any preparation to exploit a breakthrough when it happens. Instead, they behave like lottery winners. But it boils down to the same factors—to be prepared means having unutilized resources. The average person I know could not sleep right if they did not spend every dollar the minute they grab it.
How to tell it’s Nebraska.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
For unknown reasons, when I had more important things to do, I took out the old storage shelf in the scooter shed and roughed in a work counter some nine inches lower. It’s more shelters for the chop saws and I would like to get that thickness planer set up somewhere, preferably in one of the older sheds so it is well sheltered. I glued up some panels for the microscope case using biscuits. That actually goes pretty fast once you get the hang of it. What does not go well is the boards staying flat. This takes longer than the joinery.
Keeping me company was this colony of wasps or hornets. You can get close enough to tell the difference if you want. These were setting up shop in my most traveled path, that is, to the back workshed. They get the spray, it’s not an endangered species. That’s the fifth nest this summer.
Next, this complicated-looking set of pictures is the biscuit panels. The microscope box has to be 15-1/2” high in the interior. I don’t know if you can see it, but these are the side pieces clamped in two dimensions. One, pressing the glue joints together, and two, clamped to stay flat. Most of what you see are clamps. Between this and the shoe repair, the requirement was twelve clamps. I sought to be extra careful, as glued-up panels this large are prone to cupping.
My chain saw is gummed with bad gas, where will I find the energy to fix that? Soon, since I also have to test my emergency gear. I have just one hurricane lamp, the theory is if I’m down to that, it’s all I will need. Other items like camp stoves and such have proven too much to store and keep for the few times they get used. This area does not get the same storms as Miami. I know there’s always danger, but it’s not like I have to be prepared to go off grid.
I like that hurricane lamp, remind me to get some oil, I’ve been out for two years. Just never got to it. If you are new to the game, you want a “cold blast lantern”. These are the most common anyway, I have not seen a hot blast in thirty or forty years, but they do exist and you don’t want one. For those of you thinking ahead, yes, if my first stab at building a microscope case fails, the box will be the right size for the hurricane lamp. How clever you are.
Aha, I have some trivia for you. The shape of the glass globe on these lamps is not random. Almost all wick lamps have a bulb around the combustion chamber, but then a taller and narrower chimney on top. This is functional, the heated air rises and has to move faster through the opening, creating a venturi effect. The lower pressure causes fresh air to be drawn in through the ring of holes around the base of the wick assembly.
Our audiobook with the 30-year-old valley girl is finally a murder mystery. It is still capped by her asinine outlook on just about everything. Her best friend, a sleaze, used to be married to a detective who finds out the maybe-dead husband might have been raiding the hospital medicine cabinet and shot his dealer, who is an ex-con who now wants part of the $5 million life insurance policy. This book presumes the average reader knows an awful lot about drug symptoms, opioid treatments, probation regulations, lock-picking, and the dark recesses of the criminal mind.
Normally, I’d stop for a late club meeting (there is no meeting unless I show up), but when I looked back, I was moving around for nine or ten hours by the time a sat down. And fell asleep in my chair for nearly four hours. It was like being a Texas senator. It is now past dark, let me check for news today, there was another murder that, if not for social media, nobody would have heard of. Zero reports of a felon who was let loose and stabbed a blonde girl to death on the bus. A professor has been hacked to death by a car thief while walking her dog. Both murderers were black. The deal here is that Americans don’t get angry all at once. It looks like nothing, nothing, nothing, until one day. Lynch mobs.
ADDENDUM
Maybe you’ll have better luck, I can’t find the Eugene Lang College listing for their “How to Steal” course. Based on the Marxist theory that any value possessed by others was stolen from you and you are just stealing it back, the course costs students $10,000 (duh). Something about field trips to grocery stores and museums, the school also offers a course on how sexuality is portrayed in video games.
