One year ago today: October 31, 2024, 40% of your income.
Two years ago today: October 31, 2023, fact: boxes need shelves.
Three ago today: October 31, 2022, every lesson.
Four years ago today: October 31, 2021, legitimate means $$$.
Five years ago today: October 31, 2020, confirmed, Mike is gone.
Six years ago today: October 31, 2019, steals my spot.
Seven years ago today: October 31, 2018, I drove past the club.
Eight years ago today: October 31, 2017, 420 hot showers.
Nine years ago today: October 31, 2016, over the phone . . . .
Ten years ago today: October 31, 2015, glides didn't work well.
Eleven years ago today: October 31, 2014, Australian farm tractors.
Twelve years ago today: October 31, 2013, metals are not investments.
Thirteen years ago today: October 31, 2012, empty shell casings.
Fourteen years ago today: October 31, 2011, the old Argus was better.
Fifteen years ago today: October 31, 2010, until I heard the price tag.
Sixteen years ago today: October 31, 2009, at the opera.
Seventeen years ago today: October 31, 2008, the old 12 max number.
Eighteen years ago today: October 31, 2007, $50k a day, each.
Nineteen years ago today: October 31, 2006, a day in Bal Harbor.
Forty-three ears ago today: October 31, 1982, typical calendar post.
Thus ends not only my fiscal year, but the far end of my planning from 45 years ago. Except for the few hopeful ideas I’ve got, from here on it is likely to be a long, slow decline. And for me, a lot of borrowed time. I have now outlived any male in my family in known history. Not only do I not really have any financial plans left, it’s probably futile to make any changes. Why bother, I would not live long enough to see the effect. Chances are I’ll carry on with whatever has become routine.
It’s easy when one has a journal to reflect on the past with remarkable accuracy. Am I a success, did I accomplish anything, was my life worthwhile? Such questions are easier to answer when you kept track., that is, easy questions where others lack solid mile markers. I’m a success compared to where I started, but if I say I could have done more, I’ll get thrown in the same pile as millions who say the same. Best I can hope for is that long-term projects show that I actually did have the motivation and stamina to go the distance. Sadly, as I’ve said many times, races are not measured by distance run.
By way of explanation, I plan for most predictable contingencies, then pick the plan that has the most potential. What might be confusing is the plans not chosen still exist. If something I report seems off base, it can well be due to my own referral where some current circumstance as allowed for in one of those drafts.
And that is my Friday morning and I’m okay with it. Living in this backwater let’s me realize I zip along quite well. Did I show you the two bubble levels I got for $1 each? At that price I could give them away for Xmas. And that house across the way has the crew still at it all day long. It just is not adding up.
My shopping trip to Hobby Barn was disappointing. They have no rubber stamp blanks or stamping dies, or materials for anything of quality. You can build all the trinkets you want. I looked at their balsa wood section, they had hundreds of boxes. But too cheap to keep anything in and the pieces of wood for sale were way on the costly side. One use of this blog is the variety of topics covered and I believe I once wrote that asphalt floor tiles can be laser cut into stamps. And, as luck would have it, I know exactly where I can find some used kitchen tiles.
Aha, I know that noise. It can wait until the sun is up, that is the rattle of a rat. A rat soon on the way to the west end for a spell in the great Florida outdoors. It’s off season but I also have gaps all around that floor. Reminds me of twenty years back when I tried to learn to enjoy rests and couldn’t. Well, I do believe I’m finally getting there, and it’s productive in that I rarely take even a name without reading something. And I do read more than an hour every day, and that is every day since I was around eight years old. I used to read a lot of newspapers before they all became the same.
Guymon, OK Chamber of Commerce.
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I got my last sample tool box downtown to compare it to the only finished model left available—the one given to Wilford. Which just happens to be at the old club, and it is Friday night. This box was a throw-together of scraps, so while I keep all the jigs, I’m not sure of which jig. The wood is also of unknown sources, it was the leftovers from that one single pallet mentioned last month. I have no steady supply of that lumber. My manageress was there, but does she really live in Sebring? That’s a long drive.
This is a lesson I learned well enough to know that other people have not learned it. They complain the boss makes so much more than they do. Yes, but if they lose their job, they just go get another one. If I lose my business, I have to have enough to start a new one. One point to stress is the capital investment—you don’t have it. These days, if you did, that means you have enough to live comfortably without the headaches. That also explains why so many startups have to use borrowed money.
Kamela (not a typo here) is back. Many hope she does run because of all the money it would save Trump. She is using the debunked “climate change” platform that only worked when the MSM was the only source in town. The Democrat voter rolls are bleeding so badly she wants the voting age lowered to 16. Ah, you want to know how she is tying that to climate change. Well, she says they [teens] will be so afraid of being wiped out that they won’t have kids. Duh, this is America and 16-year-olds should not be having children. It's a jungle out there. It is 12 hours to the end of EBT, with all of "them" screaming for money and none screaming for a job.
Some smart aleck posted that the sharp pain of being cut off welfare does not begin to equal the dull pain that welfare inflicts on the taxpayer for life. The overwhelming mood is that welfare has to be cut off to expose the cheats—people who could work if they had to. Myself, I got no work done today, but I wasted and wore out my youth with work, so I deserve my down time. I played bass an hour, the old tunes I chose are fun to play, bass-wise. The tunes were, and this is today’s list so expect repeats, as my favorites are slow to drift over time.
Lady MadonnaMaybe more than an hour, since if I make a major mistake, I’ll start the song over until I get it right. I do play the lead solos on bass in three of the tunes, again so that the guitarist on rhythm does not break stride. The Hippie was bad for this, expecting the bass to carry the whole backup while he sailed away. He never did glom onto band playing as different that soloing. I should be careful mentioning another annoyance he embraced, because I could wrongfully be accused of it myself. Ready?
Love Me Two Times
Last Train To Clarksville
Memphis Tennessee
Memories (Maroon 5)
I Fought The Law
Leroy Brown
Only Daddy
Diggin’ Up Bones
Taking credit for a great performance—on stage. I will do it right here any time I please—but NEVER on stage. He was bad for that. And not that it is any nicer when he does it in front of the band at any time. To be fair, he occasionally gave veiled compliments. Would you like to hear about that? Well, I’d spend four or five hours developing a custom bass line to one of his tunes, but that always goes unappreciated because he knows “bass is easy”. You know by now how these custom lines “flesh out” chord strumming.
So the next time we play the tune on stage, he’ll say afterward the band is “getting better” with the undertone that it was only due to his masterful tutelage. Gotta like that! What’s this, hackers have taken control of U. Penn and published a communiqué lifted right out of this blog. How they breach security, cater to woketard donors, and are utterly “unmeritocratic”. I’ll be watching this one.
ADDENDUM
Centuries ago, when I was in my thirties, I found a snack I have never seen since. There are dozens of recipes on-line, none of them are the one I mean. However, I came close this morning, in theory. Huh? Well, you see, I used an ingredient that had not been invented yet. During my adventuresome trip in the south Philippines, I’ve already reported how I found a snack of “deep-fried bananas” in the Kalibo market square. It was banana sliced fried in what I took to be honey. Except it was not honey, a food I don’t care for anyway.
Over the years, I’ve tried everything I could think of. Syrup, coconut oil, honey, melted brown sugar, sesame oil, butter, and many combinations thereof. But it is not the same and it is not the banana chunks called “cue”. The food I mean is banana slices that get slightly crisp and glazed when cooled. Today I tried HFCS and got a glimmer of that distant memory, and got a bit closer by making a second banana using added nutmeg.
