September 11, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: September 11, 2025, get out of Miami.
Five years ago today: September 11, 2021, the guitarist.
Nine years ago today: September 11, 2017, actually, I do play it.
Random years ago today: September 11, 2009, the shoemaker.

           This is the Day of the Doorbell. Not many blogs pay tribute to this wonderful invention, so unappreciated. Now, just because a doorbell works on the shop bench, doesn’t mean it passes muster. With robot club thoroughness, the unit must pass a series of field tests. Shown here is the temporary wiring to the existing circuit. You see exposed wiring because the system uses a AC to DC transformer positioned behind the wall that derives power from the same box as the kitchen light switches. This test worked perfectly.

           While this is going on, I make extra pancakes for the cardinals, it’s a rainy day. I was on-line scrapping with some dude who maintains he was born poor and “worked” his way out of it. Of course that’s bull-donkey, it simply means he was not poor. He takes exception and says it means I did not work hard. Gosh, what if he is right and I should take measures to apply myself. No, folks, if you are really poor, there is no working your way out.
Once you hit half-way, 35 years old, and you are still poor despite every effort, there is no room left for theory. If I had stayed at the phone company, I would not be making $180.000 per year, assuming I kept my old            position. But that would have meant an empty and meaningless life. I hate to say it, but the trick is knowing when to quit. Put another way, to learn to think like them without becoming one of them.

           On the same site, I was amused by the crowd that claims Taylor is a tranny who cannot sing. On they go how she has an Adam’s apple and “knocked up” her high school girlfriend. Now they are on about how the dissenting juror in the Clancy case was a black man, but I don’t see how they got that information.

Picture of the day.
Near Quitaque, TX
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           By late evening last, my spreadsheet tests steered to some grim conclusions. See addendum. The Internet is saturated, it exists as a mercantile entity in the narrow sense that every gain is now associated with somebody else’s loss. Matters like innovation, hard work, and quality have become secondary to carving up the pie. Everybody I deal with in business these days has this attitude, constantly trying to make sure if they screw up, you got to pay for it. One of the worst is the music recording industry. The industry is probably fine, but it has been taken over by spineless bad operators. In other words, business is no longer done “The American Way”, but has degenerated to Third World gouging.

           Next, the Reb called and we have decided to give the studio one more go. After that, they are jerking us around and you will get the report. They have tacked on a host of sub-conditions that were not part of the original negotiations. Now they want money for something I know we could do ourselves for far cheaper. There is also the aspect that meeting these surprise conditions has caused us a lot of expense on their say-so and it simply has to end somewhere.

           Let’s get back to today’s main event. The doorbell is receiving its hard wiring in this photo. I’ve decided to run the wiring through the attic. This ambitious plan has me climbing into the attic sometime this weekend, if not sooner. For unknown reasons, all the attic light bulbs are burned out, so add that chore. See that yellow bell? The date on it is 2014. I knew I kept it all these years for a good reason.
           The final wiring will be exposed along the upper bedroom wall, so I thought why not drill the needed hole while I have the 18V drill in the house from the fence repair. I like the shed, but it is 60 feet away. I have a nice stepping stool, then uh-oh. Gang, I did not have arthritis before that hospital stay. Well, that’s not strictly true, I was told I had touch years ago. But in the absence of pain, it was not an issue. Then I tried to step up onto the stool.

ADDENDUM
           We have a problem, and most people have an even bigger problem. My goal of 7% investing is also a breakeven point in the long run. The formulas I used forty years ago when most folks had never heard of a spreadsheet are just as valid today. At 7% inflation, your income will drop in half over the next ten years. My opinion is one best get something off the ground now, before everybody else comes to the same conclusion. This familiar territory for me, I’ve seen how every time the economy shrinks, the guitar players start appearing.
           Failure is always an option, in fact, let me expand on something most of the world won’t tell you. The reason most rich people look at money differently has a simple reason—they did not earn it. That is why most of them are so leery, cautious, and suspicious when it comes to money. Because they know if they lose any of it, they do not have the wherewithal to get it back. When I met JZ, he would not leave the city limits without $1,000 cash on hand.

           There is a parallel attitude that gets half-explained at best. It is called the “Suvivorship Syndrome”, the attitude of someone who is successful that anybody can do it. This is simply not true. Like the rich kid who did not earn his money, the successful person almost always had more help and luck than they would ever admit. So, what is the other half of the explanation?            I start by pointing out that it is fine and dandy for people like Edison, Ford, and such to ladle out advice about failure. But in reality, most of what they did came after initial good fortune. Most people do not have a fully-equipped laboratory or factory which can absorb the conditions and losses of repeated failures. That is the other side of the coin, the part they are not telling you. Failure has other costs, including social, emotional, and intellectual losses that must be compensated for.
           It is easy for people who can absorb such losses to make broad statements about learning from failure. You know what most people learn? To play it safe and never try again.

Last Laugh