Easter

 I got 16 things camera-ready last night, and that involved taking a big thing apart that's a "Heathkit". These are not actually Heathkits or they'd be worth more, but are electronic instruments produced in-house by one of the nuclear research labs, and have their own internal model numbers etc., but are not recognized commercial products. And no one wants the things. But the parts are worth something. 

The illegal night club was noisy as usual and I called the cops as usual and they were too busy to show up as usual, it was Saturday night and they were working on a missing person case. I don't blame 'em, they have to prioritize things. And at least the call goes on the record. 

The best answer I've come up with so far is to simply stay up, doing things that keep me occupied enough or are noisy enough on their own that I don't care. Which is why I grabbed this big thing to take apart and had a fine old time taking it to bits and tossing the bits I wanted to sell in one box and the ones I didn't, in another, as well as a small pile of case parts. The stuff I didn't want went outside the door here at about 5:30AM. 

I woke up around 3 I guess. Now I had a choice about this day. I've been wanting to try busking at my local H Mart, which is crazy busy on Sundays, and/or the 99 Ranch up the street. But I was also curious how Easter might be at Whole Foods on the Alameda. Now, lunchtime was probably great. But staying up all night, that was not going to happen. Best case I could play 4:00-5:30 leaving me a bit of time to shop. 

In real life it was 5:15 to 6, and there were tons of people going in and out but they were all in a hurry, and I made $9. Petition Guy was there and got someone/sucker to sign all his petitions but that had taken him being there all day. 

I wanted to see how it was when Whole Foods was closing and turning people away, thinking I might get a burst of tips but that didn't happen at all. People were in a hurry and that's it. But I got to get some good playing in, so it was worth it. 

I packed up and tried San Pedro Square by the Old Spaghetti Factory, trying to play over the canned music that's always playing there now, from 2-3 different sources. I didn't get a thing. I'm convinced everyone who goes there is dead broke, look like they're doing OK because you can find pretty nice clothes at Goodwill or by just cruising around trash day, and they go there hoping to meet someone who isn't broke. With little success, I surmise. 

I took a little ride around, thinking if there are people hanging around camPUS burger, I might try there, or at Leroy's place by the long-gone Johnny Rockets (famous locally for looking like the neutron bomb had gone off and everything just how it was when people put down whatever they were doing and left, with napkins, salt and pepper shakers, etc., even a Starbucks cup, just how it had been left 5 or more years ago) but there were just no people around. 

I stopped in at U-Save Liquor on 1st, where all the scumbags congregate, got a 6-pack of Guinness in bottles and a bag of pork rinds, and got out of there, to back here.  

And dinner eaten, 30 things all ready to photo, and the cops put on a show outside. It was just after 2AM, and the illegal night club looked like it would have a few people show up, mainly the people running the thing, so it really would not be a bother (although they've had some really busy nights on a Sunday-Monday overnght) and they came in just a bit after 2, and have been chasing people out, honking their horns, siren, lights, etc. They are *on* it. Probably because tonight's probably pretty quiet and so the illegal night club has floated up near the top of their to-do list. 

The best way to manage this problem from my vantage point is, to keep things "warm" for 'em with the cops, and just get used to staying up and doing things that make noise anyway etc., as I've described. I'm probably not going to get to a regular daytime schedule until I'm actually retired, not living here, and besides in Hawaii it's really warm in the middle of the day so there's a tradition of getting out and doing things early, then taking it easy, then going back out to do more things later when it cools off.

Today's interesting ICE fact, courtesy of someone on Reddit. The reason they're grabbing day laborers and agricultural workers and well, workers in general is, they're they least trouble-making, hardest-working people they can grab, and they're being put in prisons and put to work at about a dollar a day. 

That's why ICE isn't going after actual bad guys. Or bums. Actual bad guys have got some fight in them. And bums are, well, bums. 

There was a period leading up to our Civil War where people from the slave states would go up into free states and grab black people. A free black person, a worker, a cook or housemaid or farmworker or cobbler or what have you, made fairly decent wages. And they were proven, healthy, workers. So they'd grab them and if they could get them to the South, they could sell them for a pretty penny and then these new slaves might get  room, board, and probably a small "allowance" and that was it. It's a pretty close parallel to what's going on now. 

This explains why people who came here and got permission to stay, and are going through the long and difficult process to become residents and then citizens, people who work for a living, are being grabbed. I'm all for a process for deporting those who are not here legally, but there has to be just that; a process. 

And ICE isn't grabbing Germans and Danes and Finns and Russians even, who came over and overstayed their visas and have been here for years. They're white! It would raise a huge hue and cry if *they* were enslaved. But brown/black people? Pff! Who cares? 

This is a major hurdle in that it needs to be done, to get people to understand that in the eyes and ethos of those who run this place, we are all goyim. We are all cattle. We are all Palestinians. All but the Chosen are on the menu, some of us are a lot further down than others, but we're on there. 

 

Beery night, $43 next night.

 Between that can of Sculpin, the tall can of "Weekend" or whatever it was strong IPA, then a tall can of Guinness, then downing 6 regular cans of Lagunitas before bed on the theory that the illegal night club would not bother me if I was passed out, it was a beery night. 

I'd taken out $170 in two cashbacks to give me my week's pocket money, but done a lot of spending. On a bag of mac nuts, beer, cheese'n'olives, beer, beef sticks and chips and sour cream, and beer.  

I'd also put $20 on my clipper card so I'd have bus or train fare. 

I have $154 on me right now, so I really only used a bit less than $20 of my paycheck money. And I could sure do with less beer... 

I woke up around 3 I think, and realized I had time to get some large packages out of here and I'd feel horribly lazy if I didn't, so I packed the things, and got them over to FedEx. Since H Mart was out of tall cans of cheap Hawaiian beer, I got a large bottle of cheap Japanese beer, and come home and cooked up fried eggs with hot sauce, and had the beer. 

I got my stuff together and rode the short way, by way of Hedding so I got to pause and relax at the top of the hill and start chewing my sugarless gum to clean my mouth, and  once I got to Whole Foods, all I had to do was use the loo and I could start right in playing.

I played from about 8:20 to 9:30 so I'll just call it an hour, and made $43. Not bad, really. Petition Guy was there and I'd brought 4 Ritter Sports with cashews for him, but he didn't want them. I had a fine time playing, and it seemed like when I tried new songs people liked that more, so it was pretty good. It was nice and quiet so the acoustics were good. 

Petition Guy had me watch his table while he went and got his car and parked it closer, and it being 9:30 I decided I was done anyway, so I packed my stuff up and counted up the money, with a pause for a guy to come up and give me a $5 and thanked me. Just like yesterday, I got some nice compliments. 

Whole Foods is open 8-6 tomorrow so if I get going early enough, I could play the 4:30 - 6 time slot. Petition Guy says it's very slow on Easter, but then on special days there can always be that guy with a $100 bill... 

What I didn't do tonight was hang around with that collection of people; in fact I didn't even see them this time. I did see Kenny, and gave him the latest stats. My aim is to make at least $100 on a weekend, and right now I'm at $98. 

I went in and got my 12-pack of Lagunitas and a tall can of some kind of pils, and packed those away on the bike. A down and out looking Black gal came by and I offered her the bag of 4 Ritter Sports and she doesn't like chocolate. 

So I rode downtown thinking I'll find someone to give them to, since I didn't want to take them back home (I'm eating the ones with hazel nuts, slowly, on my own, trying to give away the cashew ones at least until I get around to trying one, then I might decided to keep them, and have a lot of "johgurt" ones too, which are good.) 

I rode around and eventually came to a sleeping form wrapped in in a dark blanket. I parked the bike and snuck up and put the Ritter Sports near the guy, and out of a group of Sharks fans walking by, a guy gave me a fist bump. That raises the number of fist bumps to 4 for today. 

I stopped at TAK Market for some pork rinds, and got back in here. Time to button up for the night. 

 

 

 

Biff boom bang

 Iran is fighting for all of us, and according to NPR it's 3 US planes down. Probably more, but even NPR will admit that many. 

After a year or more of trying to get myself unsubscribed to Nextdoor, I'd finally gone on there and been free with snark and salty opinions. Jesus was a Palestinian and someone's yappy little dog being almost snatched by an eagle, so we need more eagles, etc. 

Latest was posting a thing about the illegal night club, and that probably did it, because I'm finally not getting their stupid little notices. Mission accomplished. 

We're seriously in the beginning stages of a meatgrinder like Viet Nam, though. Fun times ahead. 

I did some practice last night, and also listed 20 things on Ebay so that's good.  

I woke up with time to clean up and pack one more thing, got my stuff together and took off a bit before 4, and dropped off the two small things I'd packed at the post office. Then I went to Whole Foods and locked the bike. Petition Guy wasn't there and I had some "Ritter Sport" bars I wanted to give him, so I gave them to the Gypsy woman begging there with a sign. At least she wasn't by the bike racks at all, maybe choosing to stay out of the sun, but the sun had down down enough that the space by the bike racks was shady. 

I wanted some food first, and came up with a concoction of olives, feta cheese, a dollop of this creamy dressing, a bit of tabboueh salad, and some ground-up bacon. And I took more than I really needed, too. 

I got some lime flavored fizzy water with this, and sat at a table with a guy sitting there, I dunno, looking at his phone like 99.999% of people do now, or something, I ate, and he did his thing, and somehow we ended up talking and had quite a talking session. He gave me one of the beers he was drinking, a "Sculpin" IPA with grapefruit flavoring, a beer I'd never have tried on my own, and it was really good. 

So we talked and I tried to talk while getting this gop I'd put together eaten, which took a while. I finally finished, and I had to go. He'd been waiting for a friend who coaches softball, and he'd still never shown up. So it was all good. 

I set up and started playing at  6:30, and played until 8:00. I screwed up more than usual because part of me didn't want to be out there, but most of me wanted to make the best of this paid practice session, and to work on things like tone.  I got some really good compliments too.

When I finished I counted up, and was packing things away and organizing my money (I had a lot of $1's to spend) and I'd made $51 but two different people came up and gave me $2 so the total ended up being $55. 

I went in to spend my dosh, and got a 12-pack of Lagunitas, some cheese and olives, and was going to get a pint of Guinness but they were out. Out of a lot of things, and I didn't want to just drink a tall can of Lagunitas, so I got this other stuff, some kind of "Noon Time" IPA in a tall can that was a bit stronger. 

I went to sit down and eat and there was my friend again, with his friend, some really old, ditzy, lady, and a middle-aged street type gal with a guitar, the guitar one I've seen around there, owned by various people, for at least a year. 

The word was my friend's friend wanted to buy the guitar for $40, while I thought the ditzy old lady wanted to buy the guitar. These people had been there a while and "You never noticed me caterwauling away on my trumpet?" I asked. They'd never heard me and had no idea. That's how noisy it is there and it's the quietest Whole Foods. 

So we hung out and talked and after tons of talk about Iran it eventually came around to talk about the guitar. By this time I'd finished my two Whole Foods brand beef sticks and my can of strong IPA, and it was 9:30, when the employees of Whole Foods really want people to finish their shopping because they close at 10, so they made an announcement over the P.A. saying so. 

On the ride home I wanted to pick up some pork rinds, but the place I thought might have them didn't because they were closed. Being open past 9PM even on a Friday night is being open too late in this town. TAK Market had some little hard ones, which I didn't want, and after I'd picked out a bag of Mexican cheese flavored potato chips and a little tub of sour cream, I noticed they had some other ones that might be pretty good, but I was decided. I got the chips and dip and a tall can of Guinness. 

 

 

Nickel and diming it

 After Ken left last night I finished getting 20 things photo-ready, and finally went to sleep. I woke up around 3 as usual, maybe 3:30. I'd gotten out the things that need to be shipped, so I was able to easily pack them and took them up to the post office.

I had a little over $3.50 in change, and I could get something at 99 Ranch and get cash back, or just get something really cheap, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. 

I ended up getting three packages of "Mama" brand ramen; a green curry, a yellow curry, and a shrimp tom kha, and that took care of $3. I'm sure they were glad to get the change. 

After that, I rode to H Mart and I was thinking that just for fun, I'd see what I could get for my remaining 64c, some kind of vegetable probably. But, they were closed! Closed for the day, and with the required mis-spellings on the signs they'd run off on their inkjet printer. with the sign on one door saying "WE LOSED" which is hilarious. 

So, OK. I used the bathroom at FedEx and rode for home. Except I felt like I should gather some packing stuff so I went by Noah Medical and got a nice big bag of that anti-static bubble wrap so that was good. 

I stopped by Tom's to fill him in on the latest gossip, namely the big police situation last night, and he found that mildly interesting and didn't have any info on it himself. And he wanted to get back to watching "Taxi". 

I got back here, cooked up dinner, etc. 

It was windy and cold today, and if it's going to be like this while I'm out busking I'll have to prioritize busking in Sunnyvale because I'm pretty well sheltered from the wind if I'm at the parking structure doorway of their Whole Foods. 

 

I practiced last night

 I practiced last night, yay me. Yep, the same ol' pages in the Rubank book. And as I've started to notice is usual, I have trouble with the high notes at first and then once I'm warmed up, 15-20 minutes, I can do 'em and indeed, this time I could do 'em easily once I was warmed up. 

I woke up at 2:30 or so, and since rain was in the forecast, I wanted to pack things and get them out before the rain, presumably, started "mainly after 5". 

So I packed all the things, and had all but one inside my plastic tub so they'd stay dry. The large-ish box on top, I figured, would stay dry enough as long as I took it to FedEx right away. And indeed it was as it was only very lightly drizzling. 

After FedEx I took the small things to the post office, then went to 99 Ranch and when I came out, it was raining, not just drizzling. I rode down to H Mart and went in there for a couple more things (some more "Frima" coffee creama' and a tall can of cheap Hawaiian beer) and when I came out it was done raining so that's good. 

I'd picked up a couple nice signs made of foamcore after FedEx and that was enough for me so I rode right home. Except stopping at the EMT training place (nothing) and stopping to hang out a bit at Tom's. 

James, the homeless gambling addict and all-around scammer, has been living in a pile of junk and what looks like it used to be a tent, across the street from Tom and as Tom and I shot the bull, sure enough, he came shambling over to bug Tom about something; trying to sponge somehow. 

After James had shambled back across the street, not finding much "purchase" with Tom, Tom mentioned to me that someone had tried to burn James' tent last night. I said, that as much as James had scammed him, stolen small things and tried to sell them back to him, etc., it's almost certainly because he'd done that to other people around. 

James looks a sight - he's wearing not only the usual dirt of a never-bathes bum, but also a layer of car grime from his metal scrapping "job". Even his dog is no longer white, but is grey. Pretty soon a bum-ess came up on a bike and James and the female bum, no cleaner than he, started talking at length with each other in their raspy voices. Ah, bum life. 

I just can't get Tom interested in practicing his trumpet. I told him, Just turn on some TV show you'd watch anyway, and just do little things, half a scale, etc. Diddle-diddle-deedle-deedle. I dunno, he must have been pretty disgusted with high school Band when he quit it. 

Myself as a teen in the late 70s, would be astonished at myself now. Mr. Peyton said, "You will play trumpet" and no matter how much I try,  that's exactly what I do. I sure didn't want to so much at the time; I wanted to play 70s guitar riffs "not boring old Herb Alpert". And yet here I am. 

Tom and I parted ways while James and the raspy-voiced harridan continued their important conversation, probably about who owes who a cigarette butt, and I rode back here. 

Except riding back here was complicated. The cops had the street blocked off where the lunch truck place is, and a bunch of people sitting on the curb. I tried going up onto the sidewalk and sort of going on through, but they told me the road is closed. "OK! Sorry about that!" and I turned around, took the little street that got me over to the end of Junction Avenue, then went through the long parking lot that is shared by a few tech companies, and got out onto Queens Lane. The cops also had that closed off, and one of the the cops looked friendly, an Official Yamaguchi, so I asked him what's up and he said he can't say, and I said that's OK and that I'd seen him around, maybe at activities at the Buddhist temple, and he said Yeah he's around the area. I rode around to Old Bayshore and in here, and the cops had the other building, the one that hosts the illegal night club, all blocked off. 

I put the bike and things away and then went over to Accu-Vac and asked the guy if he knew what's up and he didn't. I filled him in one things, mainly that the illegal night club is still operating. He thought it was gone because he doesn't see the "debris" in the morning. I said No, they just have a guy who goes around sweeping up the broken glass etc. He got a new car, some black swoopy thing that's electric, made by one of the new electric car companies (no not Tesla, one that's even newer) and had sold his Mini. He can charge this at his shop there, and "industrial electricity is cheaper than residential". I congratulated him on the new car and went back here. 

I cooked dinner and cleaned up around here, and Ken showed up at the usual time. We'd gotten an email about a payment Ken owes, $500-odd for "NNN" which is something you have to pay for a unit like this, and I'd emailed back the landlord's secretary and said I'd try to get Ken to write the check and get it into the mail tomorrow. 

But Ken wasn't writing any checks. He's waiting to get paid at his job. I said I can wait until next week and the landlord here will just have to wait too. 

We talked about the usual things, tech stuff and politics, and odds and ends. When he left it was raining again. Good - this area can always use a good rinse. 

 

 

My arm is too many colors

 My elbow, really. First I tried to hide it by wearing my long-sleeved fleece, but that was too hot and stuffy so then I decided to not worry about it because no one's said anything. Hell not even Petition Guy. 

But it really looks awful and I wonder if it's affecting my tips, when I'm out playing. 

Right now I'm allowing myself 5 cans of IPA a day/evening but that might even be too much. I might want to go with four, or even eventually two. Guinness is the healthy stuff, but it's not always easy to get as I found last night, having a Foster's instead. 

I ended up sleeping late, until 4, with weird dreams that even at one point involved Miles Davis, not playing his trumpet, sadly. 

I was glad I'd picked out the things that have to go out today, last night, because then I had time to pack the things, put the smaller ones in the plastic tub with lid I use, and put the big box in a trash bag. But I didn't really get wet, and only a few sprinkles on the way back. 

I got a few things in 99 Ranch, and bypassed H Mart because I'd not eaten anything and just got back here for coffee etc. 

I have two problems right now: My Elbow Of Many Colors which a long-sleeved T-shirt will fix, and I can't believe it, there's a bunch of over-spray that I want to clean up and that calls for some more Goof-Off. Lowe's sells that and Ross will have the shirt. 

I dashed out again and Lowe's had the solvent and a scrub brush, but there was not a long sleeved T-shirt to be found at Ross. Wrong time of the year I guess. 

I parked the bike at H Mart and hanging out in front of the new food/boba tea place was Diabetus Legs Guy. He's 'wayy overweight, and his blood sugar has got to be something like 900. I was sure he was gone but he's still staggering around out there in the world. He told me about having three bikes stolen in quick succession, and also about how he's been left a house in this area and just needs to find out where it is, and something about a house (same house?) having a diamond buried in its wall that's 100s of carats. OK. "I'm going to Ross, be back in a bit" I said. 

Ross didn't have my shirt, but I got a couple of nice regular T-shirts, and some stuff for a cold-cuts dinner at Sprouts, namely some Swiss Swiss cheese, some Italian Italian salami slices, and a Munich beer from Munich. 

I walked back over to H Mart and Diabeetus guy was gone, but it was past 9PM and thus, like it would be at 1AM anywhere else. I got some green onions in H Mart so the security folks would see I spend money in there, and then took off for here. 

The warm weather brings the zombies out, but nothing too bad. 

Today a rather nice sort of cascade thing happened. In that, the cleaning guys next door threw out a rather nice half-height file cabinet, and I'd rolled it in here. It means I could get rid of this pale blue cabinet with drawers thing Ken had brought a few years ago, that was a screamin' piece of shit. And also, I got rid of the thing with drawers in the bathroom, that I'd found, because this new file cabinet being white, I can use it to put all our bandages and tape and pills and unguents, and the new file cabinet fits right under the tech bench in the office, so if someone is cut or injured or just has a nasty headache, they can get what they need without having to go into the bathroom and dig for it. 

This also means bandages and such things I have in the half-height file cabinet to the left of my desk here, can go into the new one and that frees up space for tools etc. So the introduction of one file cabinet can cause a lot of re-arrangement of things around here. 

 

 

Humid, gloomy Monday.

 I woke up at 3 or a bit after, had coffee and nuts etc for breakfast, and packed the things I'd that had sold and that I'd dug out last night. A big capacitor, a big hydraulic piston, and some smaller things. 

I got out of here the usual time, a bit before 6, and got the things to FedEx and the post office. It was very grey and gloomy and at the same time, warm and damp. I decided that if it's to rain the next few days, I should do my weekly visit to Walmart today. 

So I came right back here and put the bike trailer away, and headed for Japantown. I went to Nijiya first, and the thing is, I felt kind of weird, like one down when one is just starting to catch a cold. So I went into Nijiya and got a salmon belly slices (and eggs) on rice bento, and had half a bottle of Coke Zero I'd bought at FedEx. 

I settled down on the steps of the old hospital and ate and drank. I polished the whole thing off except for the parsley garnish and the konnyaku because I just don't care for the stuff. 

I then rode over to the Amazon place and found ... one bubble mailer. Better than none, though. Then down to Walmart where I poked around and found some interesting things to buy, as well as what I came for; mundane things like paper towels and some more little sticks of Blistex because I like to have spares. They don't have the foot powder I like though, and I may have to go to one of the big Walmarts to find it. There's only so much they can stock, and they have a few variaties,  just not the one I use. 

Late night, and in this town 8PM is late, at Walmart is always interesting and there were characters, but fortunately no actual craziness. I spent almost $50, so I'd really gone nuts. 

I rode from there back to Whole Foods, but somehow, by going on a street North of the one I used last time, I ended up much further South, of SAP Center, my landmark. That was weird! 

I did get there, though, and now it was 9, so a real night-owl hour around here. Petition Guy was there and was packing up. He'd been there for the day, and "had two signatures near the end" and seemed to be packing up. By the time I'd used the bathroom and talked with him a bit, it was closer to 9:30, and I went in and got, well, I was going to get a pint bottle of Guinness but they were out. I got one of those big cans of Foster's because it's cheap and you can make a neat camping stove out of the can. Maybe I'll actually do it this time. 

I sat at one of the benches and ate a bag of potato chips from Walmart (they sell these bags of chips that are just right for one serving and are a product of Canada, and only about $1) and had to do that fast because 9:30 is terribly late for this town and the workers were bustling around, cleaning tables, etc. 

In San Jose, you have to even relax in a hurry. 

I finished my junque food snack, had tanked the can of beer, and went out to the bike and put the 12-pack of Lagunitas cans I'd also bought, in a bag and tied that onto the bike handlebar. Petition Guy had set up again, and apparently wanted that one more signature... 

Now, he calls out, "California voter?" But it comes out more like "California voter" and he mush-mouths that. So I hung out there too, called out in a friendly way, "Registered to vote in California?". And in no time we'd reeled in a guy who looked a bit like the dad in "That 70s Show" and he got interested. So I left Petition Guy and him to do their thing, and got the bike squared away, and then brought it over, preparatory to hopping on it and riding off after a few final words. The guy finished up and Peitition Guy seemed kind of disappointed "the guy didn't sign them all". Well, some people just can't give themselves permission to be happy, I guess. I said maybe I should drop the trumpet game and just work by helping him get signatures. 

We had a few friendly words and then I said, "Well, see ya when I see ya..." and rode off. 

A Sharks game was just getting out and a good stretch of the road was blocked off to cars. So I had fun riding with the street all to myself, except for the shoals of fans, which were easy to ride around. And the cops didn't mind because I was being cool. 

The ride home was very peaceful. Traffic was very light today and I'm not sure why, except that this might be the week a lot of people get off for Easter which is this coming Sunday. And I thought, I need to work on some Easter songs. "Morning Has Broken" is a good one, being a Christian hymn tune. And "A Closer Walk With Thee" another good choice. And "It's Good To Be Humble", the Shaker tune that got used in a symphony, so tons of people have heard it. I used to play it a lot, years ago.