Vinegar

 I realized I needed vinegar. 

My plan for the weekend was to clean all the stickers off of the heavy duty storage boxes I'd scored, then put them on Craig's List. They'd bring a minimum of $500, and that might be just selling the two big ones and keeping the smaller one for myself, which would be the heavy-duty-est rolling suitcase, with wheels and an extendable handle. VERY heavy though. 

I'd do this instead of busking. 

So after taking care of a bunch of other things, I started in on cleaning up the small one, that I might keep for myself, and after a while realized I don't want to mess around with this, and I don't want to deal with Craig's List people. So I put them outside along with some other stuff I wanted to get rid of, and that was that. 

Yesterday was taken up getting 20 things together to list (I managed to list half of them) and I decided I'd not go to the bank today but would get caught up on things instead. 

So I didn't go out today except at about 9PM I realized I needed vinegar to clean the coffee maker. I hopped on the bike and rode up to H Mart, where I got that, and T.P. and a few other things, a bit over $20 and they don't take cash after a certain time in the evening so it had to go on the card. I think it's a new policy of theirs because ... 

The zombies truly own the night. I mean, I packed my stuff in the bike bags and was going to sit for a few minutes and enjoy my can of "black" Mr. Brown coffee, when I realized I'd been fooled again, as it has sugar in it. The really black stuff is in a grey can. Oops. At least it was only $1.29. I gave it to some guys who were hanging out at a table in front of the bagel place and we talked sugar and carbs a bit, and I rode off. 

I went around behind H Mart and there by the dumpster enclosure was a zombie with junk and bike parts spread out all over, working on his zombike. 

In front of McDonald's, there were two more with bike sort of settled in, and one of them called out to a third, rattling up on a bike. They were everywhere. 

I got back here and unloaded and now it was time for neighborhood improvement. I hitched up the trailer and cleaned up a plastic tub and a bucket and associated "bum droppings" (trash, trashed clothes, etc.) and collected up some other stuff and big plastic car bumper and put them in the exotic food place's dumpster. Even then, when I was by the dumpster tossing things in, a zombie walking across the street called something out to me. Night's when they come out to do their zombie stuff. 

I was thinking they're not handling cash after say, 9PM, to prevent possible robberies but now that I think about it, street types don't tend to have cards. A couple handfuls of grimy change, more like. So if H Mart doesn't take cash when the zombies are out and around, it not only cuts down the chance of being robbed, but it keeps them from coming in to buy anything (and shoplift even more). Plus it's nice to walk around the place without smelly bums being all over. 

 

Uneventful Friday night

 I took things to the post office and Fedex, bought stuff, blah blah. I'd gotten a package of Blue Diamond salted roasted walnuts in H Mart, which I remembered as being really delicious, to go with my cup of iced coffee, and the walnuts were so stale as to be inedible. Oops. I ended up going back in and getting spicy peanuts. 

A nice windfall

 I re-photo'd the capacitors last night and can list them now. 

I did my post office and FedEx run, with small things, bought the usual couple of things (OK I spent $1.50 on a bundle of "minari" for tonight's soup) and on the way back checked on something. 

Last night I'd swiped the foam from the inside of these large protective boxes a place had left out. The boxes themselves are of very high quality, but were covered with stickers and looked scruffy as hell. I knew what they are, and was surprised to see them left out by a dumpster. 

So today I went by there again, expecting the boxes to be gone either because someone at that business wised up and brought them in, or someone else got them. But they were still there. 

So I got back here and offloaded things and hitched up the bike trailer, and got 'em. It took two trips, one with one of the big ones, angled because it's wider than the bed of the trailer, and the 2nd trip with the smaller one on the bottom and the other big one on top. I had to hustle because it's generally considered suspicious if one is skulking around a business park past 8 or 9 PM. 

 

Wednesday bank day I guess

 I had such a huge number of things to ship, I put off going to the bank until today. I was up in time to clean up a bit, collect my donations and a couple of packages for the post office, and get going in time. I dropped off the donations and packages, and deposited the check, that I'd gotten last week, in the bank and their numbers and mine added up fine, plus the IRS cashed my check so that's that taken care of. 

I picked up a few bubble mailers from the Amazon place and stopped at Nijiya for a couple of things, and got back here. I was working on packing a large package to take to FedEx and the neighbor from the welding place came over. It turns out the illegal night club had been busted and it had even made the news - pretty much all channels. 

"I don't take a newspaper so I didn't know..." was my reaction. All the news agencies possible doesn't matter in the least to me, because I'll never know. If I took a newspaper, I'd read the thing and have found out a couple of weeks ago when the bust was done. Or, a neighbor catching me up on the latest gossip, that works. 

Ken came by around midnight, and brought me a big hamburger from Carl's Jr. because like any good American, he looks out for his friends, making sure the beef level in their bodies is adequate. Then we had fun hunting for his checkbook, somewhere in the clutter in his car and I found it this time. I got my pay check, to be deposited on Monday. 

He also brought a bunch of stuff to sell that looks like a good batch, so that's good. 

When he was gone, around 1AM, I set about photographing the 22 high voltage capacitors I'd been working on, but the counter in my camera that numbers the photos "rolled over" with the result that, as far as I can tell, the photos are utterly randomized and will have to be taken again. 

This is something that's going to be highly amusing to me once I leave here. Ken will find out how much work this business is, and the whole thing will melt down. And quickly. 

It's nowhere near as easy as it was in 2012 when  I started doing this job. There's much, much more effort in getting things to list because I have to dig around more and take things apart. Shipping is insane now and on large, heavy things, the shipping generally comes out double the original quote that the customer pays. The internet is slower, and so is Ebay itself. Both are buggier. And a lot of mundane things that used to sell well, don't any more because everyone is selling them now. 

I'd also asked Ken how his reverse mortgage thing is going, and he said, "They make you jump through all these hoops" and apparently the company found all kinds of old liens on his house, some going back to the 90s. 

Oh well time to shoot all those photos again... 

 

It's 96 degrees out there

 Yowch! That's 35.5C. 

I've long noted that we've been responding quite actively to global warming, but make sure each year to emit more greenhouse gases than the year before. That's dedication! 

But a few years ago I could not have forecast that we'd not only keep up that excellent record, but come up with a whole new way to gobble up power, emit greenhouse gases, and also, as a bonus, greatly accelerate our progress toward the water wars. Data centers are a whole new thing. 

Apparently if you use AI for one thing,  like coming up with a summary of a book or movie, or coming up with a picture of bears playing soccer, it's the equivalent of driving a car several miles. I *may* be using AI when I do a google search, even though I've been continually turning down their offers to use the AI version. But those are just simple text searches so my use has to be minimal. 

I'd been up all night packing things to get caught up, and had a big load ready to go. I packed the last big box, all pre-staged and ready to pack, and one small thing (someone had paid us $100 for some silly little O-rings so yeah, I wanted to get that right out) and went out into the heat to send the things off. 

Behind H-Mart I found a bunch of ramen packets and about 4 of those ones that come in a big bowl that you just add hot water to, not even needing your own bowl to put the stuff in. In front of 99 Ranch was a guy(?) begging so I gave him (?) the bowl ramen and then when coming out after buying my things, remembered I had two Starbucks cards, worth $5 each, and gave him(?)  those too. 

At H Mart I got some smoked salmon and some kind of sugar-free drink that was pretty good, and came back here to put things away and headed right back out. I went to Lowe's and got the two new screwdrivers I'd promised myself (I take apart a lot of things and screwdrivers get worn) and went to Ross where I found a shirt. 

I got back here and went through my ramen finds, packaging up the seasoning packets and taping up the noodles so someone, wherever I drop the stuff off, is going to get tons of noodles. 

I cooked up dinner with the one set of seasonings I got one of, and it was pretty good. Then worked on the 22 high voltage capacitors I'd cleaned, testing and labeling them all, and installing shorting wires. They're reliable sellers and will bring us a few grand. 

My finger had been strangely painless overnight and only bled a little. I was a bit worried because often if a cut is infected, it's painless. But I finally took a look at at least it's not infected. I painted it with povidone-iodine and let that dry and then bandaged it back up. 

 

 

Viva Espana!

 Spain is the World Cup champion. Sports are often treated as being on some kind of higher moral plane and it's not all that realistic because they're just sports. But in this World Cup there have sure been some good examples of Good winning over Evil. 

First there was the case of we, the US, having a dirty player who got red-carded for, I believe, slashing another player on the leg with his cleats. Diaper Don then "talked with" (bribed) the head of FIFA and Lo and Behold, it was OK for the guy to play in the US's next game. Which the US lost with comically dull and inexpert play. 

The 2nd is this final, where it was Argentina with the star player Lionel Messi, a Zionist vs. Spain, a decidedly non-Zionist country. Well, the Zionists played dirty, then when they lost started a brawl on the field. People all over the world cheered for Spain. Pedo Don got up on the podium for some damn reason and made an ass of himself, which the world saw also. Just a huge, huge morality play. 

I was up all night cleaning up some high voltage capacitors which is the hardest step in getting them ready to sell. 

I was packing this one big thing, and sliced my right-hand pinky pretty badly. Imagine coming in from the side, slicing up through the nail halfway. Yep, cut through the side of the finger and base of the nail. Which is why it's fairly painful. But the main thing was it kept bleeding like crazy and I kind of gave up on shipping anything, sent the buyer a note, then since I'd sat down for a while, the bleeding stopped, I bandaged it up, and took it up to FedEx. 

I got a 4-pack of probiotic yogurt stuff and an iced coffee at H Mart and that was a nice break, but at 20 grams of carbs per bottle of yogurt stuff, I'd better not do that any more. I'm over the runs, after all. 

Now to pack a lot of things and watch out for errant blood drips, to get caught up here.  

 

A Lazy Sunday

 Lazy, haha. Last night I got out all these high voltage capacitors I'm going to go through to list, which means clean, test, and label. That meant making 20+ labels, making 20+ shorting wires, and getting together 20+ sets of terminal screws that have to not only be a certain size but not too long. 

I also got rid of 60+ lbs of these parts that no one, but no one, is buying. I'd even lowered the price to just over a dollar and still not bites for the last few years. So out they went because I can use the drawers they're in for other things. Someone picked up the HEAVY box of them I'd put out too, and hopefully they get decent money for them from a recycling place. 

I also walked out, around midnight, and rolled a trash can that had been "living" behind Galli Produce and that I'd pushed around to an area near the front of Galli Produce, hoping someone would just abscond with it, over across the street where for sure someone will abscond with the thing. I may put things out in front of Galli's for scavengers to pick up, but if it doesn't go I do tend to find somewhere else to put it. 

I was up and ready to go and in plenty of time to go to Sunnyvale, but when I got to the Whole Foods on the Alameda where I usually park my bike, it was kind of overcast, making it nice, the wind wasn't too bad at all, and there were no other buskers, beggars, petition-getters, etc. there. So  I figured, Why do that long bus ride again? 

So I set up and busked there. I actually made it a full two hours, 5:30 to 7:30, had some nice interactions with people, and worked on newer stuff. My "Summertime" is pretty good now, and I'm pretty far towards having a good "O Bla Di O Bla Da" which is a fun one, being happy and fast. By the time it was close to 7:30 I was pretty worn out, and with 10 minutes to go I decided to play the "One more tip" game where I try to play my best, with the rule that as soon as I get one more tip, I'm done. And a guy dropped in a $10 so I finished my song and that was it. 

I was tired enough to not feel like buying anything, and just packed up, not even counting up the money, and rode back here. I didn't even bother with it until I'd eaten and rested a while back here, then counted up. I'd made $66.70.  Almost $5 of it was in change due to two "pocket dumps" for which my change jar is grateful, and I also got a $5 Starbucks gift card plus I still don't know how much is on the mystery Starbucks card I was given yesterday.