Damned headache

 After getting back here and having dinner and staying up all night taking stuff apart, I developed a headache. I had visual disturbances too; haven't had those for a while but it's geometric patterns on the left side of my field of vision. 

In other words, I'm pretty sure I get a relatively painless, benign, version of the migraines that have been the bane of my older sister's existence. 

I really wanted to practice but I could not bring myself to, with the headache, so I went to bed. I had a weird dream where I was going to write the history of some big Asian market/company, like 99 Ranch but not 99 Ranch. Something like Yaohan maybe. I don't really have nightmares, just ordinary dreams but sometimes they can be kind of weird. 

I had two very large things to ship, both overseas. Both were above the weight/size limits and with one, the guy didn't even supply a viable address so I got to cancel both orders and have ending those listings. I'll just part the things out. 

I ended up packing two small things to go to the post office, taking those there, then going over to Nijiya Market by way of Oakland Road, to buy some coffee. Then stopped at the Amazon place for bubble mailers and found none. So those are going right out of style. 

Then it was down to Walmart for the shipping trip there I'd been promising myself. I had $60-odd on me and ended up speinding $41, leaving me with a $20 to put on my Clipper card. Of course it's OK to dip into my money in the bank, but the game is to do so as little as possible. 

When I got back the big pile of metal scrap from taking things apart overnight was still outside the door here.  

 

One year and one month

 Right now it's basically one year and one month until I leave. 

 I listed 20 things last night so that's good. 

I did some practice before bed and it was awful. I'm thinking I should not take one day off, but should take a day doing long tones and such exercises for my rest day. 

 

A little trail of Big Macs

 Pedonald is so brave, he was so unafraid of the Iranis, that he hid out in a catering truck while Air Force One flew without him, and he flew on some smaller plane. 

No other US president has done this kind of shell game. Not during wartime or peacetime or any time. 

I wonder how his handlers got him into the truck? I imagine it's like getting a cat into a cat carrier, and imagine them making a little trail of Big Macs to lure him in. 

I did a lot of packing last night - overnight - because I had something like 30 things to ship. And also, took the 8x4 foot sheet of fiberglass, which is VERY heavy, 100 lbs easy, and "walked" it because I could not drag it, across the parking lot and got it stashed in the trash enclosure where it's essentially invisible and no longer our problem. Yay! 

I did my shipping run and didn't find much of anything for materials on the way back, just a couple of useful small boxes. 

Dinner was "freebee beef broccoli". How that works is, I found a nice big head of broccoli behind H Mart so that was the broccoli, and as for the beef, that's an interesting story. 

After my last busking session on Sunday, when I got on the bus there was one pair of seats, the pair I like to sit at, with a paper grocery bag sitting there. So I decided to just sit on down and put my stuff next to the grocery bag, and have a little look to see what's inside. Trash, probably. 

Instead I saw a couple of bags of chips, some kind of potato chips fried in avocado oil or something like that, and some other kind. And underneath, a package of bacon. The bacon was not as cold as it should be, so the bag had been sitting on the bus for a little while at least. So I just played it cool until I got to the Diridon Station stop and got off, and gave the chips away to a couple of guys; "I'll never turn down free food!" said one. 

I now had an opportunity to dig in the bag more, as it was pretty heavy for just a package of bacon left now. Under that, was what felt like a big cold burrito, but a quick glance told me it was a big package of hamburger so again I just played it cool and walked over to "my" Whole Foods and stashed my goodies away in the bike bag, did my shopping, and rode home. 

One home I could really investigate things. After all, if the stuff was bad the birds would always eat it. The bacon was the "sugar free" type I'd been considering trying, and the hamburger was the Whole Foods store kind, that had been on sale. There was the receipt in the bag and it was from Sunnyvale Whole Foods. The place I'd just been busking at. 

This makes for some very puzzling logistics. The original owner of the stuff had bought it at the Sunnyvale Whole Foods. But the bacon was not as cold as it ought to be, and if it *was* as cold as it ought to be, it means the buyer would have walked to the other nearby bus stop, by the PF Changs, and then gotten right off. 

The only way it all makes sense is if someone bought this stuff, got on the #522 going *North* and forgot their stuff somewhere along the line, then of course the bus would have turned around in ... Palo Alto. And come back, now being a Southbound bus, and then I got on. No one would have disturbed the bag. 

I know this last because those bags of chips were in it, and chips are  a classic hand-to-mouth food, the only kind of food bums can consume, as it's beyond them to cook or wash or peel or prepare in anyway, anything they eat. They live, and eat, at the animal level like a squirrel or a stray cat. The chips *were* below the level of the top of the bag, so it would take someone actually peering inside, and I guess no one had had the opportunity. 

Since  I gave the chips away to a couple of bummy guys anyway, let's say a bum had glommed onto that bag of stuff. Well,  again, bums don't prepare or cook their food in any way. They'd have thrown away the bacon and the hamburger. Or let's say no one had disturbed the bag until the bus went off service for the night. It would come down to the driver or whoever cleans the bus to do something with it; eat the chips and by now, discard the now-too-warm bacon and hamburger. 

So my taking the bag kind of looks like the best case scenario. I put the bacon in the freezer until it was firm enough to work with, and cut it up into portions and those went into the freezer. And likewise the hamburger, cooled for a while in the fridge and then portioned out into 6 portions since there was a pound and a half of it. 

And tonight I cooked up one of the portions, and it's fine. I like the hamburger from H Mart the best, but it's hard to beat the price for this stuff. 

I kind of feel bad for whoever bought the stuff, but if they're buying chips cooked in avocado oil and fancy bacon, they're not hurting too bad. Public transit giveth, and public transit taketh away ... years ago I bought a nice table easel and left it on the light rail. 

 

 

I'm down

 2-1/2 lbs woot! Yeah it doesn't sound like that much, since a person's weight can fluctuate more than that on a single day. Which is why I only weigh myself on Mondays, right after getting out of bed, so it's a consistent time and at least in theory, set of conditions. 

 

$88 Sunday

 Standing out on the sidewalk at the Sunnyvale Whole Foods *is* better, even if the wind gets tiring. I played the same 6:30 to 8:00 time slot I've been doing, and it was all out there in that wind except a couple of times where I moved to the parking structure to get out of said wind, and moving back out after a few minutes. 

 

$49 Saturday

 I got out of here a bit later today. 4:30 instead of 4. 

But, if I took the shortest route, by way of Hedding, cut across a tiny part of the Bellermine campus, then right over to Whole Foods, that might help. And it did. I got over there, bought my two beef sticks and did a visit to the loo, and walked over to the bus stop by the SAP Center. The #22 and the #522 came at the same time, and a bum at the stop went for the #22 and I hopped on the #522. 

There's a difference; bums go for the longest ride while some of us are actually trying to get somewhere. And I did, in fact, I was at the Sunnyvale Whole Foods 15 minutes earlier than I was yesterday. Insight No. 1: Get the #522 bus when possible, it makes a real difference. 

Since I had a bit of time I checked their olive situation and it's the same as at my home Whole Foods so I didn't get any there. 

I set up down in the parking garage and it was really meh. It was not very busy, and I started to feel kind of abandoned down there. 

So I went up onto the sidewalk and while there was wind, and a lot of people just walking on by, I got more tips and more interactions, and all in all it was better. I may have done well in the parking structure, but Insight No. 2 is that I might well have done even better out on the sidewalk. 

Although the parking structure is good to know about in case of rain, excessive wind or noise, or if someone else is already set up on the sidewalk. 

When I was done I went to Baraka Market for my yogurt drink and a package of olives, and the guy greeted me, so I'm a regular now.  I'd made $49 and was glad to spend some of the many $1's I always end up with. 

The bus back was the regular old #22 so it was slower but still got me back to my home Whole Foods pretty fast, and I spent a whole $2, the $2 bill someone had given me, on some broccoli. 

 

$82 Friday

 I listed 20 things on Ebay last night, and when I was finally done I practiced, and it went really well. There's nothing like regular practice. 

I finally got to sleep and woke up at 3 in the afternoon thanks to my alarm clock. I got my stuff together and took off, dropping off trash and then some packages at the downtown post office. 

I was going to get my usual beef sticks at Whole Foods to eat on the bus, but hey, here was some beef jerky on sale that adds up to the same price, let's try that. 

On the bus I read the label and saw that the whole package (rather small; it wasn't a huge one so normally a person would eat the whole package) has 24 grams of carbs because here in the Land Of The Free, everything but everything has sugar in it to help us keep our trademark American physiques. 

Well, I ate it anyway, but I'll have to be more careful. 

I played at the Sunnyvale Whole Foods from 6:30 to 8:00 and although it felt slow-ish, I had some nice interactions with people. One guy wanted to film me and I said that's fine, as there are cameras all over the place here anyway, what's one more. He wanted to know my name and my back story and basically was one of these people who will donate a dollar (or nothing at all) and want to be talked to an entertained for half an hour, keeping everyone else from donating because you're busy talking to the pest. So I remembered I "had to" practice my pedal tones, which sound awful. A bit of that and he was off. 

And a delightful family, father, mother, and two kids, the kids and mom staying out by me while the father shopped, and wanted to know about my instrument, and about music stores, and I told them about West Valley Music for winds and Heaney Strings for violins, and even though as far as I can tell they only put in a dollar or two, it was nice. 

I even worked out that "Doo doo doo lookin' out my back door" song which has some weird lyrics but is a nice tune. I worked a bit on "Sunny Side Of The Street" too, but it turns out to have a ton of range, and will take more practice to sound good. 

In the end I counted up and had made $82, which is pretty nice for an hour and a half. 

It seemed to be getting dark earlier than I'd gotten used to as I walked to Baraka Market for my yogurt drink, and over to the bus stop. The next bus was a #522 so the ride back to my "home" Whole Foods was quick. It was still a bit past 9 and the employees were moving plant displays in and in other ways getting ready to close at 10 on the dot. 

I had a can of black coffee and some seltzer water since I'd been starting to fall asleep on the bus, and it was pretty dead there. And slightly cold, and windy.