One year ago today: November 9, 2024, JeePee arrives in Florida.
Five years ago today: November 9, 2020, a right-sized tree.
Nine years ago today: November 9, 2016, called it a year ago.
Random years ago today: November 9, 2013, 483 miles due south.
Who will make the first Sunday sound? I predict more crews on that nearby house, shown here still boarded up. I used the quiet time to look closely at those 50-year mortgages. If, by some miracle, you came up with the required $120,000 down payment at age 35, the house would almost be yours by 2075. I know there is a lot of complaining going on, but if you are over 35, don’t expect others to listen. This trend of house prices rising faster than it is possible to save up a down payment was first mentioned in this blog in 1982. While I can’t speak for everyone, I can tell you quite precisely the biggest reasons I am deaf to these complainers.
My conclusion is a 50-year mortgage is a scam for the foolhardy. Almost any existence is better than that. Debt slavery is where the banks and market have been heading since living memory. The solution is painful—everybody go live back at home for two years and don’t buy. A couple years of putting up with parents pales next to fifty years in a cube. Let the market collapse. Realize that, like myself, you do not owe any favors to anybody who supported this degenerate market by borrowing money.
To those who scream the economy will collapse if people lose the equity in their homes, too bad. That segment is based on borrowed capital, so let them flounder. I did not get my own first non-shared apartment until I was nearly 30, and that still took half my pay so I could live commuting distance from the job that could afford all this. At that job, every person my age who had a house had acquired the down payment from daddy. There is nothing unique 50 years later.
Around midnight a black plowed his car into a bar in Ybor City. The authorities, strangely, posted his picture. But then claimed the killer lost control, that is, not his fault. He had been pursued by police way up on 275, speeding straight toward downtown for ten minutes, so “lost control” my eye. Folks we are heading for a culminating incident. The only reason Whites have not done anything is because they know once they do, their old world is lost forever.
The air traffic controllers are quitting, which makes the news because it is one of the rare government functions that people actually connect with. No, I’m not concerned they will become door-dashers. The first thing I did when I got a good job was head back to night school to train for a backup career. This is what smart people do, although I must admit, judging by who was in the local college classrooms, there must not have been very many of us.
Dandora.
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Planning for only a look, I got a late start searching for the kitchen stove and left my camera behind. Then on the fourth look, I found what I wanted, but no pictures for you until at least next Saturday. I bought it at the swap meet, 60 day guarantee. It is a GE with everything I wanted except front mounted switches. Talked the guy down from $550 to $340, could have gone further, but way below budget. What did I get?
Here’s a neat depiction of ten years changes. It was by coincidence(?) ten years ago I cut these rough Xmas ornament with my then new scroll saw. Many hours, as the blade had to be reset for each cutout through the wood. Now forward to this piece made in a half-hour while I was grabbing a coffee. More research finds I can use old scroll saw patterns like this one, with a hitch. They are not vector files and take a half-hour to cut each one, that is, four 800mm/min. passes at 100% power and they are not scalable.
There are vectors available, but they are terrible. I now refer to the font as “Dollar Tree” The attraction of most scroll saw files is they are simple and can be produced by us mere mortals. I experimented with more intricate designs but found the wood I prefer, around 1/10th of an inch balsa or plywood. (Yes, Ken the redundant quote marks for inches is intentional.) Extra care has to be taken when cutting as I found the wood isn’t really consistently the same thickness and it burns at differing rates.
Later, I don’t have the correct ornament cut for you. The laser quit by itself 86% through the cut, probably while I was working with other graphics. I suspect the laser will require a dedicated computer, another GenX gem not in the operator’s manual.
They are also building that new fourlane northwest from Highway 17, but there is nothing out there. Unless somebody has sold Lake Hancock, the road will be another useless Florida highway that goes to nowhere. There are least two new multimillion dollar over passes, so I figure the only place it can connect to is up to Winter Lake road. That’s less than 7 miles, and the sign said $257 million. That’s $40,000,000 dollars per mile. Mind you, they say 60 people a day are moving into Polk County.
This evening, I looked into something that I’ve followed over the years, the futile Florida program to eliminate the Burmese python. They can’t, but I was impressed by the various methods. One that worked but was too expensive was using trained dogs. Pythons leave a scent trail. And the dogs loved the sport. Some sharp dude over at the Wildlife office got to thinking. It was the female snakes who left the strongest trails. Wait, there’s more.
What do snakes need soon as they are born? Food. And somebody also noticed that all the rabbits near the nests had disappeared. Not just a decline, but denuded of the entire marsh rabbit population. Ah, now we are getting somewhere. I found several videos and I’ll be. The rangers set up some rabbit cages that attracted hundreds of pythons, but animal activists shut it down because "it scared the rabbits". The Karens don't care about 18-foot reptile predators in their back yards so long as the rabbits stay calm. So the rangers came up with some fake rabbits. Fake scent, fake fur, but with servo motors that made the decoys move and twitch their ears.
Result? Major success so far. I say, because this is new, just since July, and information is sparse, that is, the kind of information I would want. The “robo-rabbits” appear to best spoof the females, both the snakes and the activists. Data is appearing that the females approach the fake rabbit, but leave when they can’t get into the cage—and then head back to their nests. If the nests can be located, that could tip the scales in a very long and dirty war against these intruders.
10:00PM, hot chocolate in hand. On the drive today I listened to the audiobook, our protagonist has hitchhiked to Paris. I take it this must be just before Paris became Europe’s shit-hole. At times I feel this juvenile behavior that passes for "European refinement" a bit annoying. Have you ever phoned someone and a pre-schooler answers?
“Hi, Timmie, can I talk to your daddy?”Exasperating. You will never convince me this is elegance and at least most American children eventually grow out of it.
“Maybe.”
“Can you give him the phone?”
“No.”
“Why can’t you give daddy the phone?”
“He isn’t home.”
“Is your mommy there?
“Yes”
[Prolonged silence.]
“Timmie, can I talk to your mommie.”
“No.”
“Why can’t I talk to mommie, Timmie?”
“Cuz she is on the potty making kah-kah.”
ADDENDUM
It says here Algeria is buying some Sukhoi-57s. This is now a 15 year old design, itself a 1999 copy of an F-22. It is the first Russian airplane even moderately stealthy, and they only have around 30 in their own airforce in the middle of a war. The Chinese have their copy of the F-22, called the Mighty Dragon or something. It’s designated their J-20. And every one of these copies possesses weak spots very well-known to Americans.
