What 95% of us do on Labor Day

 Yesterday I did what 95% of us do on Labor Day - labored. I got 30 things photo-ready, then realized I have a lot of shipping to get out, so I spent the night shipping things. 

All in preparation for today's plan, which was to get out of here by 4, with the small post office things, drop 'em off at the post office downtown, then deposit the $1600 check I'd gotten from Ken. That went great - Ken had goofed and dated the check for a month ago but I think checks are good for 90 days. So that went fine. 

Next I went to Sakura Market and got what might be their last two bags of UCC pour-over coffee at $10, because those were what was on the shelf and I have a feeling that now it will go for the going price or a bit more, $14 or $15 a bag. And a single sugar-free Lipovitan and a small T-shirt because I'd wanted to get one. The T-shirt was made by Jerzees so it might be a pretty good one.  

Then I went down to Walmart and got things, and stopped at Nijiya on the way back for a Coke Zero and since they didn't have the baked cold mackerel I was hoping for, just got some salmon that looked good, to portion and freeze, and told myself I'll just have some pepitas with the coke. 

But then I got back I just wanted to get things done so I put things away and loaded up the big FedEx things and took them up there. I had a can of coffee and a couple of chocolate cookie things from the "Try Me" basket. 

I got back here and offloaded things, and loaded up the bike trailer with the stuff I'd left out last night. In addition, the guys had put in what I think is a starter motor, and a big power supply I'd never seen before. Gee, thanks, I think. 

I took it all out by the main road in my usual "free stuff" spot and took some big boxes and cardboard and junk that was there and put it into this one dumpster on the other side of the complex, that they've replaced with a bigger dumpster holding about 2X as much, so these days there's generally plenty of room. And got back in here. 

Before bed last night I'd practiced, and it went really well. I'm starting to get a feel for high notes and it's not a matter of pushing harder = higher. It's more a matter of getting a feel for them and the best way I can describe it is when you're sucking on a hard candy and you've got it down to a small streamlined piece and you have it in the front of your mouth to taste that last bit better. 

There are a million tutorials on high notes and trumpet playing in general on YouTube, especially if you show any interest in them, because then the algorithm serves up tons of them. I think each person has a method that works for them, personally, but while there are generalities that are always true like Don't use too much pressure and Always try for good tone, it's kind of up to each person to work out what works for them.  If thinking about "tasting" high notes is what works for me then so be it. 

The thing is, I need to keep up the work on being the best trumpet (or cornet right now I guess) player I can. When/if something happens to Ken I need to at least have Taps on tap, and preferably both that and Fanfare For The Common Man. 

My having in the back of my mind being a sort of public resource, a person who can play Taps, is what makes me feel kind of cop-proof. Because while I've never been anything worse than smiled at, I'm always thinking I can play at their funerals and ceremonies. 

I know the acronym ACAB but I think the cases where they do good are underplayed. Yeah I think some people become cops because they want to be in power over others, but I think some genuinely want to help, and do. The Right thinks we of the Left want to get rid of them but that's crazy; you have to have them. How they do their work, what training they get,  and so on make a huge difference. That US cops are a bunch of yahoos doesn't mean that cops in general, worldwide, are. And it doesn't mean ours can't improve. 

 

$123.25 Sunday

 I actually got out of here at a bit after 4. 4:30 is what I'll say. I rode over to Whole Foods, left the bike there, and got on a bus, since the next #522 at 20 minute or more out (I'd just missed one) I got on the #22 that was arriving and in the end,  I got to the Sunnyvale Whole Foods and started busking at 6:15. 

I felt like it was slow, but as I always remind myself, it's paid practice and I'm here to learn. As usual I got some nice encouragement and got to talk to some interesting people, some of them ... "interesting". 

Like the homeless lady who came up and tried to talk with me about a guy named "Brazil", apparently. I thought she was asking if I could play a song about Brazil, but no, it was a guy who's street name was Brazil, passed away now and he was nice to everyone, yadda yadda. She was fingering a coin, and since I didn't want to talk for the next hour about this Brazil person, I started in on a song and she dropped the coin in the box and moved on. 

The coin was a 5-peso, kind of neat, but I chucked it into the short hedge that's there, so the next person digging around in there will find it. 

A bit later I heard a sound like something heavy falling down, and it was a guy, not an old guy either but maybe in his 40s, who'd stepped through a little gap in the hedge that people step through, and gotten his foot caught in the little slot between the hedge and the curb. And over he'd gone. He wrecked his glasses, too. With only about $7 in the tip box I felt fine about walking over and making sure he was OK, and helping look for anything he might have dropped. He was a fairly good sport about it, too, as much as you can be when you really hadn't planned on falling over and trashing your glasses on a Sunday evening. 

I played along, most notably a song I had stuck in my head a few days ago, that's one of the ones we played in the shakuhachi club. It's a neat sounding theme song to some anime, and I'm pretty sure the title is "Arigato" but there are a ton of songs named that. I'll had to dig through my shakuhachi music and see if I can find the title because I wrote it down. 

There are tons of kids, because people really like to take their kids grocery shopping and doing general things around there, and "Eentsy Weentsy Spider" seems to be a real hit with them. The Sesame Street theme is a fun one to play also. So I had a fairly good time because after all, other than these busking sessions it's just work, work, work around here. Just like life is supposed to be here. 

Pretty soon it was a quarter to 8 and I was talking to some guy on a bike and telling him to be safe and about how the guy had tripped and fallen and wrecked his glasses so you never know, and it had gone pretty dead. 8PM is late around here. So I played my sign-off song and did a count up: $123.25. That's really good. 

I walked out to Baraka Market and got olives and my yogurt drink, went over to the bus stop and a bus came maybe 30 seconds after I got there, and it was a #522 so it was just about perfect. 

I put things into the bike bags and used the loo and walked around a bit inside "my" Whole Foods but there wasn't anything I could think of that I needed. 

I rode around downtown just to see if much was going on, and there kind of was, and wasn't. I didn't see any other buskers. At Whole Foods while I was distributing things into the bike bags, a bum came up and did a lot of fiddling around with plastic bags and then asked me when Whole Foods closes and  I said 10, and he had to ask this a few different ways, always getting 10 as a reply, then he concluded that he had until 10 (it was now about 9) to set up and beg. So that's a performer, I guess. 

There's been one of those scam booths set up, Save The Animals or something, with one guy who obviously has a lot of "community service" work off or a lot of debt or something, because he's been at it the last couple of nights and I'd hate to have to compete with him. People *do* set up booths at the Sunnyvale Whole Foods but in that case I can always play in the parking garage. So Mr. Bum will have to compete with him, and maybe will get the money he needs for his drugs and booze. 

 

$74 Saturday

 Last night I photo'd 20 things and listed 10, as usual. Then I practiced and it went pretty well. I got decent sleep. I still didn't get out of here as early as I wanted to. It was close to 5:00 when I left. 

I rode right over to Whole Foods and only had to use the loo and then walked right over to the bus stop. There was some kind of concert going on and traffic was at a crawl, including the buses. I got on a #22 bus and got off at the stop opposite 5 Guys because the #522 stops there, and a few minutes later there came a #522. 

I actually got to the Sunnyvale Whole Foods at 6:30 although it took me a few minutes to get set up etc., so it was probably more like 6:45 when I started. 

It went pretty well. I got to talk to some interesting people, mainly an Indian guy who didn't have any cash so I said some people buy gift cards, and he went in and got one. When he came out he handed me one, for $20 which was pretty cool. I asked him if he played an instrument and it came out that his background is in sax, and he's been trying, a bit, to play trumpet. 

And having the hardest time! He can play G in the staff and not much of anything else at all. He bought a cheap trumpet somewhere, and I advised he take at least a couple of lessons at West Valley Music, and get the trumpet checked over too. I explained how he could have one valve piston turned around the wrong way and it might feel OK and play a G in the staff but not do much else. It's just universal best advice to, if you want to try the trumpet, rent one at your local music store and get at least a few lessons. The nice thing about renting is you know the horn doesn't have problems, and unless you do something really dumb, minor repairs are covered. 

At another point I had a family walk by and go up the stairs, and at the tail of the group was a fat kid, who smiled at me and I kinda did the smile with my eyes thing. A few moments later he came back with a tip, and I asked him if he plays an instrument. It didn't sound like he did, so I said he ought to try one, trumpet or maybe try a few and see what he likes, maybe the sax or the drums, who knows. So that was cool. 

I was offered food twice. One tall European-accented couple tried to give me a box of those cookies with chocolate inlaid into the top. I said I'm on a diet, no sugar or starches so I can't eat them. Another guy, later, tried giving me a little package of Driscoll's half and half blackberries and blueberries. I said No thanks. The cookies were kind of neither here nor there and maybe I should have accepted them, to pass off to someone else. The berries, I dunno, I hate the though of depriving a guy of the enjoyment of those berries. 

All in all it went pretty well. I think I'm trying to brute-force high notes less and that's good. And when my tone started getting rough I relaxed and played something really easy and the roughness went away. 

Once it was 8:00 things got dead though. After all, it's getting near bedtime for everyone in Sunnyvale. I counted up and I'd made $74. 

I walked out to Baraka Market and got my yogurt drink and some broccoli, and walked over to the bus. A #22 came and I didn't get on, waiting for the #522. I waited a bit and a guy who was playing rap music on his phone came and asked about the bus. I said I'd been waiting 15 minutes or so but that a #22 had gone by about 5 minutes ago. 

Then another #22 came and I decided Screw it and got on. Mr. Rap Music played his music loudly until the bus driver used the intercom, with some kind of creepy echo effect going on, to play it quietly, and he did, and then got off the next stop or so. 

I got back to "my" Whole Foods at about 9:20, and went in to spend the gift card. It turns out if I buy a bag of macadamia nuts and a bag of hazel nuts, it leaves $1.50-odd on the card. I went out and looked for the pretty rough looking homeless guy I'd seen outside, to give it to, but he was gone. Who was not gone was a homeless lady who Kenny, the Whole Foods worker, talks to. I gave it to her. 

Then I just rode for home but by way of downtown just to see if anything's going on. The answer is, not much. No other buskers. A busker might do pretty well playing in front of the "panda wall" because there were a ton of people around. Or San Pedro Square, assuming anyone carries cash there any more. But, nada. 

I stopped at Japantown and the little yakitori/kushiyaki table was out, and I ordered the pork belly. It's a sort of "pop up" thing being run out of "Aloha Fresh" which is a poke place, but the guy told me they're working on moving into their new place, which I believe is going to be the store front on 6th that used to hold a Hawaiian dance supply place, hula skirts and uli-uli's and such things. That will be great because they'll likely have some tables or chairs or something. As it was, my order was bagged up in a black plastic bag like it's a drug deal or something, and I ate it back here, by which time it was cold, but still delicious. I'd been meaning to try them out. 

 

We're just gonna keep winning

 I can tell how the "Iran War" is going to go. We're just going to keep on winning and winning and winning, year after year, until we're kicked out of there. Just like Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan etc. Perhaps with a bonus of tens of thousands of US service people killed and there won't be any Jewish casualties. 

I stayed up all night taking more things apart, then did a practice that went a bit better than the night before. One thing I'm starting to see is, in trying to hit a night note, there's a point where I'm pushing too hard, and by backing off, the note comes out. In other words there's a sweet spot and it takes quite a bit less pushing than I previously thought. 

I woke up around 4, had coffee and nuts and got cleaned up a bit, and went down to Walmart and paid the electric bill. That went fine. They have a whole sort of menu board on the wall showing what bills can be paid there, like the water bill. Also things like, if you're a jailbird and owe the jail haha. 

 

Playing close to the financial kill line

 The Chinese have a clever saying for how Americans live. They call it the "American kill line" and it's a term from video games. A player is close to the "kill line" when their personal power is so low, that any attack or misfortune will kill that character. 

Americans live this way. 90% of us are one or two missed pay checks, an auto accident, an injury or illness, away from becoming losing everything and living on the street. 

So why tempt this with bad money management? 

The day started with my checking the two envelopes the mailman had put in through the slot, one being a water bill that's overdue and needs to be paid by the 30th, and one an electric bill that needs to be paid before this Tuesday. For the water will, the 30th is far enough in the future to not worry about right now, but while I can work here without water and things just get less convenient, without electricity I can't do any work and that means Ken loses the sales that keep this place going. We piss off some customers, our rating goes down, etc. It's not good. It's approaching the kill line. 

I had 4-5 small things packed and on my way up to the post office I thought this out. It turns out there are places I can pay the electric bill, including the Walmart I go to all the time. They don't take checks but they take cash, which is good because if I pay using my card I'm afraid the electric company will set my card to be the payment account and I'll have to get Ken to reimburse me each month. It's enough of a hassle to just get paid. 

Since I've been lazy and not kept a cash stash lately, I figured I'll do cash backs at places and in that way amass the $248 I needed in short order. Since I got a bit of an early start, I went up to Dai Thanh Market first since they close at 7. 

It turns out Dai Thanh does do cash back, but it's limited to $40 and the cashier really didn't want to give me $40 cash back on the $3 purchase of a can of black coffee and a couple small bundles of cilantro. So I just forked over $3 cash and moved on. 

I went over in front of Tram Coffee where it's fairly quiet and told Ken about the bills and that I could pay the electric bill and he could just pay me back, since things are tight right now. He thought that idea was great, and "I can just pay you back next week". So now to just collect the cash. 

99 Ranch is now limited to $40, so that's new. I got $40 there, cash back on some boiled peanuts. 

I stopped at H Mart to hang out and eat my boiled peanuts and drink my can 'o' coffee, then went over to Sprouts. They ought to allow $100 back since Whole Foods does, right? Wrong. They're limited at $40, although I did that twice, getting some beef sticks for the weekend and then some sausage I've wanted to try. 

I went over to Lowe's next and gt some batteries which I need anyway, and yep, limited to $40.  

This is ... not so great, I thought. I might as well ride over to Whole Foods while it's cooler and the traffic is calmer, so that's what I did. I got some hazelnuts and $100 back there, and counting is all up, I have enough for the bill and "walking around" money besides, plus a $20 bill to put in a new cash stash I can add $20 to each week.  

I'd spent the night taking stuff apart, and as usual had put the scrap metal out front. Overnight people had picked through it but when I left there was still plenty out there. So when I came back here I thought I'd have to hitch up the bike trailer and take the stuff out by the side of Old Bayshore so it would get picked up, but when I got back here the stuff was all gone, so that was great.  

The thing is, Ken told me last night that one of his bank/checking accounts was closed on him because he'd gone into overdraft too many times, and he's changing over to the same bank his employer uses, in the hopes that his pay checks won't be held for so long. So he's been paid, but it's the usual thing with people who don't manage their money well; delays and holds and deciding which overdue bill to pay first etc. 

I wish I'd understood the money game better when I was young. Don't set foot on the huge scam that is every college campus, as college is only worth it if you're already so wealthy that you can afford to toss 4 years of your life and these days, maybe a quarter of a million dollars down the drain. You make the same minimum wage with a degree or without one. And save, save, save money. Never have any debt, and save, save, save, And amass self-sufficiency skills, survivalist skills, etc. But at least I don't manage money as badly as Ken, who seems to never worry about it because somehow, it's always coming in. Except it's not, as much, these days. 

I practiced before bedtime last night, and will spend tonight taking more things apart, and practice, and am glad to be in out of the rain, which started as I was almost all the way back here. 

Wednesday, might actually get paid

 I know, I know, it's high tech (or at least selling high tech stuff on Ebay) so getting paid is not a given. 

I just have to keep holding on until mid-September 2027, then I'm outta here. 

I'd been up all night packing things and was too tired to practice and slept in until 4. Then I woke up, packed more things, and got outta here. 

I dropped off the things, and got some char siu at 99 Ranch which turns out to not be so good, kind of dry. I ate half and ended up freezing half. 

I checked as usual behind the gym and didn't find anything, other than two bums with their bikes and stuff, looking for stuff also. One guy had a big roll of stickers, and he said, "Cheaper than buying tape!". I offered some whole wheat English muffins I was going to leave for the birds to the cheaper than tape guy, which he was glad to get and offered his hand to shake - it was black with grime. I kind of made a little "hi" gesture and said something about germs, that I'm just getting over COVID. Then the other bum came up with some kind of ice cream things, for him and the first bum, which was great. It's nice that the frozen yogurt place is smart enough to buy 'em off with some cheap treats, and keep in good odor with them. And sugar's bad for health so I'm happy to see bums living on it. 

I found a bunch of packing stuff at the circuit board place then, headed home, took a detour to get around some road work and thus, checked the "trackonomy" place, and found a bunch more good stuff there so I had a big stack of stuff on the bike trailer haha. 

I got back and put it all away. Whew that was a lot of things to ship, too! Probably 30 things. 

Ken came by, and I got my check for 4 weeks, so $1600. I'm not supposed to deposit it until next Tuesday, but at least he brought me a hamburger, today. 

It turns out the vacation had been on a cruise ship, yes it'd been paid for by his wife who has her own money and who was a travel agent, and it hadn't been to see the eclipse but just for the heck of it. Ken's own finances are as dodgy as ever, hence the check not supposed to be deposited until next Tuesday. Plus he dated it for the 2nd of August when it's the 2nd of September, but that's not too far out of date. 

Plus Ken's driving his truck because, he told me, he was driving his Toyota Corolla and somehow managed to pop the tires and ruin the rims on one side, due to hitting a curb at about 35MPH. It's a place he turns in all the time but this time .... oops! 

So yeah, it's maybe one more year Ken can hold himself together and then I'm outta here. And I managed to put in a comment, as we were talking, about how good an idea it is for me to stick around here for 4 more years, exactly the length of the new lease, until I'm 67. Not that I will do this, just that it's a good idea. 

 

 

Americans are cars

 I've been thinking this concept over for a while, and over the long term it holds up very well. Americans are cars. 

Someone online did a whole run-down on this; the point that stuck with me was that Americans think of their cars as their bodies. This explains reading all the time things like, "I scraped my oil pan" or "my girlfriend needs new tires". 

It also explains why, when say a bicyclist is bothered by a driver or even lightly bumped, and hits or slaps the car, it often results in an angry chase, the driver getting out to start a fight, etc. 

It explains why Americans are so averse, as a group, to exercise and health. Who needs those when all you have to do is press a gas pedal? 

It explains why Americans are LOUD. It's been observed that cities are not loud, cars are loud. American cities by definition are for cars, not people, and are full of them. Hence American cities are quite loud, and so are Americans. Louder is better, and this is why the quality of music is based, here in the US, by how loud it is as much or more than any artistic merit. 

It's why a friend of mine down in Los Angeles bragged to me about buying a new Rivian, possibly one of the ugliest vehicles ever devised, as if it's some life-changing event. As if I could give a damn what the guy drives.  

I follow Reddit sup-reddits like r/homeless r/povertyfinance and so on, and I read every day how people who are very poor, which it's very easy to become here, are killing themselves to keep one or more cars going. 

I wonder if this is yet another arrangement encouraged by the small-hats since if the US were not so car-centric, we'd not need oil from the Middle East so much and we'd not fight their wars for them. 

I think it's likely also a big thing with Boomers because the Greatest and Silent generations would have grown up with cars, but also many forms of public transportation and also, walking, bicycles, etc. 

The people = cars thing may have gotten a big boost in WWII because an army fights a lot more effectively if you can put your soldiers in vehicles vs. doing everything on foot or even by horse, which the German Army for all their neat tanks and so on, was very much horse and foot propelled. 

So the Boomers would have grown up with parents who were very pro-vehicle. And during the "golden 30 years" from 1945-1975, it was pretty affordable to exist so that you were only a person if it was you + a car. 

My older sister, born in 1957, one told me how rough her life had been, that she only had a small car when she was first out on her own. Somehow I bit my tongue, as I didn't have a car at all, and wouldn't until I was almost 30. 

I was 12 at the end of the golden 30 years, and ended up very skeptical of cars. A car was a thing that sucked up any money that was around, so that my mom's boyfriend had money to try to fix whatever car was sitting on our lawn at the time, but we kids didn't have food (unless I went out and earned some by weeding someone's lawn or something). So from my formative years I was car-skeptical while also yearning to have a car and hating that I had to take the bus, walk, etc. 

I like to think people younger than me are even more skeptical.