January 12 has been updated. Nice pictures, if you go back for a look.
One year ago today: January 13, 2025, dictation perfect = 40%.
Five years ago today: January 13, 2021, “does not disclose”.
Nine years ago today: January 13, 2017, my first shed floor.
Random years ago today: January 13, 1982, crossing that border.
It was 44 years ago I began crossing the border every day. Try that now. Due to some imagined Japanese threat, the switching equipment was housed in a bomb shelter on the Canadian side—and they had trouble finding Canadians who could operate the equipment. I wound up working there almost 15 years. Very long years. Silver nears $89 as I finish my third coffee with a tray of chicken baking in the oven. If silver reaches its historic ratio to gold, it would be selling at $240 per ounce already.
Before I got underway, JZ called. Y’know, I don’t have close family, but it also means I never have to deal with who my siblings marry. This is an area of major social friction that does not get a lot of media. Yet it damn sure is factor. I don’t need to know about inheritance law to know it can come back to bite years after a divorce. The rare times I even dwell on the topic is over lottery winnings—and that is where my rules come into play. Do not discuss money with relatives and no, you cannot just confide in one relative because they will blab.
I’m saying nothing except there is a new claim and it sounds valid and it is based on the way the information is shared. This is not anybody’s particular fault and I’ve heard about such claims from the past suddenly flaring up—and in this case, it involves life insurance. Too many people forget to take names off the original policy after a divorce. Sometimes I think insurance companies do this deliberately because it enriches their lawyers.
Let’s end the morning on a happy note. We have an offer on the tubes, it’s a guy with a shop near SkyCraft. We did not talk price, but I’m hoping he can pay at least fifty cents each. Because I’ve got thousands of them. That would sure take the pressure off. This isn’t an easy task, the buyer has a list of what he wants, but it is in PDF format, four columns to a page. It cannot easily be converted to a single sortable column. So I’m thinking to take 500 General Electrics and just eyeball the expensive units. It is unlikely someone without a database would bother to do this, so I’ve got work to do.
That took an hour. I don’t have any of the tubes on his wanted list and I see that for other tubes he pays 25¢. Still, that could translate into a bundle, but let me do some more research. There is always a pattern to these large lists of numbers. We’ll start with the GEs because we have so many. With silver at $89.74, I’ll not be far from this computer. This database reminds me of the failure of an entire generation. Computer voice recognition should be perfect by now. Yet even with my no-accent perfect dictation, it is only right 40% of the time. Oh, it gets the one-syllable words because it is geared for that crowd. Otherwise, it is useless.
I further learned that certain tubes are no longer in demand because of televisions. Unlike radios, amps, and broadcasting, there is nobody collecting old televisions. It was still cold late into morning, so I got around to learning the snip and clip process of the Win 11 PrtSc key, it’s more elaborate because it records on-screen video. If I got it to record and edit, there should be a short movie clip nearby. My Movie Maker can handle that form of MP4. Watch for better video once I memorize the commands.
Kansas, I think.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
That was JZ back on the phone, he went to a barbeque. Problem, they say he has become allergic to some brands of hotdogs. And we have a planned meeting in a week. He should be fine by then. This month is cursed, I tell you. One nice thing about Florida is if have any pans or utensils that are hard to clean, like bristles, just set them outside for a day. Trust me, there will not be a molecule of food particles left. Rinse it and it is new again.
Here's a view of around $20,000, because I have some things to say about this if you return tomorrow.
My interest is totally my own position, but we are watching history. Silver has climbed so high that there is no hope of many banks meeting their short positions. If you are unclear, here’s an analogy. Lend me your house for a month. I sell it for $300,000, thinking it will drop in price. Then just before the deadline, I buy the house for $250,000 and give it back to you. That’s short selling.
The manipulation is the banks were shorting silver and using their vast amounts of silver paper to drive the price down whenever their contracts became due. But this time silver did not fall. It’s been climbing for 90 days and it just takes one bank to default. Here is a picture of a couple hundred ounces of silver resting on a work desk. For those of you who may have forgotten—and it is more shiney metal than you’ll ever see in Ft. Knox, is what I’m saying.
My interest is totally my own position, but we are watching history. Silver has climbed so high that there is no hope of many banks meeting their short positions. If you are unclear, here’s an analogy. Lend me your house for a month. I sell it for $300,000, thinking it will drop in price. Then just before the deadline, I buy the house for $250,000 and give it back to you. That’s short selling.
The manipulation is the banks were shorting silver and using their vast amounts of silver paper to drive the price down whenever their contracts became due. But this time silver did not fall. It’s been climbing for 90 days and it just takes one bank to default.
I’m about to give up on my new guitar player. He is just not putting in the time and he’s no hungry like a year ago. The usual problem is playing solo gigs. Newcomers and naïve old-timers never think past soloing due to the myth it is easier and they make more money. Nonsense, the few clubs that hire them have a waiting list years long. Still, it requires a leap of faith to learn sharing the workload is the right path, you are in a real band, and tips and callbacks make it very competitive. I need somebody with more initiative. A lot more.
Yet another Internet frustration. It’s stupid to think the Internet is a store of knowledge when only the shallow and most stupid searches produce anything. I want to know the name of the regulator assembly that controls the electric motor on the air compressor. Good luck, dozes of sites over-explain the individual parts, but not one gives the name of the entire part so I can check the price of replacing the whole unit. I’ll get it, but again, XYZers, why must you be such pricks about it?
My new internet service is now $70 per month, more than double since I began. It was a two-hour shopping trip that got me to disk 6 of the shrink story. I’m actually getting disgusted with this guy. He takes time describing the peels of the fruit his fruitcake vegetarian son has for lunch and now I think he’s trying to make us feel sorry for his mother. I draw a line between a disease and a condition. In this case, hi mother has a condition that many say is controllable or even prevented by proper mental and physical behavior.
And rich people have access to those things far more than the rest of us. So if you ask if I feel sorry of rich people with dementia, the answer is yes, but not as much as for a poor person who doesn’t have a maid and butler.
ADDENDUM
I claim another new word entered on-line. As always, that claim is based on the fact I have never knowledgeably heard it before and thought it up right here by myself. The word: “expectable”. Usage example. “The liberal media is lying, that is expectable.”
