Did I ever sleep

 Yesterday was kind of productive. I cleared stuff off of a rolling equipment rack and got it into the office, cleaned it up, then put it in an area of the warehouse just on the other side of the office/warehouse door where it's easy to access, and to show to anyone who wants to buy it. 

To do this, I had to move this huge dewar, basically a giant Thermos, that's really heavy. I had to do what's basically a sumo training exercise, to "ninch" it millimeter by millimeter into a space by the breaker box which, surprisingly, it first into fine. Sure it will take some monkey-crawling to get to the breakers, but I can' do that and once I'm gone it's someone else's problem. Not really hard for any fit person to get to. 

I also dragged a big motor I'd wanted to get out of here, out for the scrappers, and took apart the high voltage power supply that had been in the rack (and already had the good parts poached) and took apart another thing, and put those scraps out too. 

Then I photo'd 30 things and listed 17 of them. I'll list the rest today and credit those to yesterday, and for today, plan to photo and list 30 more. 

So the result of all of this is I slept until almost 5 in the afternoon here. And woke up and weighed myself and I'm 3 lbs down from last week. 

One thing I've fallen into lately is watching, of all things, metal detecting videos. It started with watching Robert Ferguson, and I've been following Monterey Magnet Man and Seek And Detect. Just guys who detect on the beaches of Orange County, California, my old home area for many years off and on. 

I had old neighbors (Greatest Generation) who were into metal detecting and for the longest time I thought they were making a fortune out there. It finally came out that, as they put it, they were making enough for their (greatly discounted due to being local residents) parking fees, lunch, and new detectors every few years. 

I know they had a big hoard of gold jewelry because they went off on vacation once for a month or so, and had hidden their gold. When they got back they couldn't find it, and were convinced I had taken it. I insisted I hadn't of course, and after a while they found where they'd hidden it from themselves and I was off the hook. "I told you I didn't want your old gold", I said. So they were saving up the occasional really valuable find, as it seems many detectorists do.  

But the reality is, nowadays as well as back in those days in the late 80s, that metal detecting has as its advantages that it gets a person out getting some exercise, because it pays a little is far more affordable than tennis or golf, and there's the fun of finding weird stuff. My neighbors were very proud of their collection of Mac Tonite toys. 

The present-day detectorists seem to share some characteristics. First, it's very important to live with, and live off of, your parents. Robert Ferguson and Monterey Magnet Man both do this and I'm sure in both cases their parents just sigh and say to themselves, "Well, at least he's not on drugs". Seek And Detect hasn't mentioned living off "the folks" yet but eventually he will, or there will turn out to be a trust fund or disability settlement or something  in the background, funding his realities of life. 

I won't lie to myself, detecting looks like fun. But it's a lot of hours digging up pennies and bottle caps and bits of foil. What I think is underplayed is the natural resentment of the general public who see someone detecting on the beach and Hey, their grandmother lost her ring there a month ago, bet this guy's got it. 

Plus the general equipment is expensive. A person can get started with about $500 worth of stuff but these guys are out there with a couple grand worth of detector, scoop, etc. Said equipment has to endure hours on end being used, and electronics equipment has a way of eventually breaking. 

I *do* have the idea of, once I'm back home, obtaining a "pin pointer" and using it to find coins, fishing weights, and hopefully jewelry in the little bowls and channels created in the rock on certain beaches that I know of. The "pin pointer" wouldn't even be 100% necessary as it sure wasn't necessary for me to dig tons of coins out in the past, but it can make the difference between finding those last dozen pieces of split shot or that gold earring. But that's a simple, $200 a most, piece of kit that is easy to carry to the beaches, by my planned method, the bus. 

If any of these guys I've been following had any musical skill at all they might be out busking, at least in the case of Robert Ferguson who seems to be living on next to nothing. But having musical skill and being inclined to go out busking is a very, very rare skill. 

To give an idea, back when I thought I'd learn to draw people's ugly noses well and be a caricature artist, I estimated that there are probably only about 300 caricature artists making a living doing it in the entire country. That makes that skill/occupation genuinely one in a million. I'd say the same applies to "professional" buskers. Especially after the great acceleration of the killing off of culture that was facilitated by the Covid epidemic.  

 

October 10, 2026

 I didn't get on here soon enough to get the date right. 

OK so I burned the last of the "sensitive papers" last night so that's a big chore taken care of. I still need to organize the papers I'm keeping into the little slots in the notebook thing, but that's going to be trivial. 

I packed two large packages last night and took them to the post office today and wow, today was, relatively speaking, cold. And windy. 

The guys next door have got a lot of file cabinets and things put out into the parking lot and two guys with trucks piled up a lot of metal etc., and took off with it. Not to be outdone, I put out a very long box that originally held some kind of probes but holds nothing, a large-ish motor with some pulleys and stuff, and a bunch of scrap metal from taking a couple of things apart. 

 

Sitzkrieg

 I think we're in what the Germans once called the "Sitzkrieg" or literally sitting war. Where a world war has started but most haven't noticed it yet. 

It's the neo-medievalists in Russia vs. the Jewish octopus in Ukraine, the present consolidation of the media by ZOG in the US, Our Most Zionist President introducing IDF tactics on our streets where people are abducted or even killed carte blanche with no repercussions. It's the US/ZOG committing piracy on the high seas, which is barely being covered in our Jewish-owned media. Yep fishing boats are suddenly major drug shipments, better shoot everyone! Same as in "israel" the Jews have done to fishermen there. 

The whole thing's a powder keg just waiting for the right spark and meanwhile, we sit. Sit and wait. 

I was so tired last night I went to bed around 4AM and still managed to sleep until 3 in the afternoon. I got out of here at 4 and took my pay check to the bank, and the numbers agree so that's good. 

Needless to say downtown has tons of zombies, with the weather just right, not too hot and not too cold. Honestly we need Zombie Control just like we have Animal Control. Go out and catch 'em with a big net, stuff 'em in a truck and put 'em in a kennel with some water and kibble haha. 

I packed one heavy box and took it up to FedEx. The weather's really pleasant out there and that seems to mean the zombies are all out enjoying it. I had to dodge zombs right and left even just making a normal little trip up to FedEx and H Mart. 

I got the stuff done and took a nice circuitous route back here, haha, this because there's a big land-yacht RV full of bums that's set up behind Galli Produce so it behooves me to keep it a bit on the QT that I'm living in here and not just passing through. 

I helped a customer wade through all the Ebay shit and complication, and the result is just under 2 grand in sales today. BUT .... the last big order of capacitors, that came to over 6 grand with the shipping, was educational. After the shipping, it still came out that Ebay's various fees and the sales tax took almost half. 

So Ken thinks he's making 6 grand and he's actually making 3. 

This is why I've long believed that holding a sign by the freeway on-ramp is a more viable career than Ebay. The problem with Ebay is, you need a big place to store stuff, you need a car, you need to spend a few hours a day driving said car around finding things and shipping things. You're not making big money out of a rented room or a pup tent.

That's how I see things these days. Can an occupation be done out of a pup tent? There's scamming, grifting, pickpocketing, begging, burglary (although this last means you'd better only steal small things like jewelry) murder-for-hire, all sorts of occupations. Keeping the heat of the Law off of oneself makes it a bit more restrictive, because you're restricted to legal things, but there's still begging, street performing, working a job if you can hide the fact that you're living out of a pup tent, etc. All of which pay more than Ebay. 

Ebay *can* work if you do it like I used to, 1-week auctions only, if a thing doesn't sell out of 2 tries it's scrapped. It still requires an apartment or if in a rented room, a storage unit. And a car. By the time the dust has settled, begging (non-coercive panhandling is actually legal) or street performing still pay better with far less worries. 

Having a job used to be the ideal, but there's no progression that way. I make the same in absolute dollars that I did in 1986, 40 years ago. Except 40 years ago I had a medical and a dental (and I think a vision) plan, and a 401k which didn't appreciate at all but while it didn't grow, it still at least existed. So a job is just another way to just survive, along with begging, street performing, etc. 

The only "progress" for at least 90% of us is to get better over time at living on less and less, and any savings have to be kept off of the grid. Burying a coffee can full of silver dimes under the old oak tree etc. 

I remember an old (literally, he was Silent Generation) friend of mine complaining that for a while after the crash of 2008, only being able to find work as a painter's helper for $60 a day. That's 18 years ago and I don't make that much now. 

And I'm in that strange area between being the youngest of the Boomers or the oldest of GenX. I'd say myself, my older brother and my two younger sisters are GenX and my older sister is about as pure Boomer as they come. 

I remember her complaining about how tough she had it, that when she was first out on her own, she "could only afford a small car". I didn't have a car at all until I was about 30. I remember our being out together around Waikiki and we saw a young Asian girl selling T-shirts on the sidewalk, and my older sis staying that young girl "should be put in jail". She's utterly forgotten that she sold stuff on the side of the road back in the 1970s. 

She's petty, spiteful, extremely thin-skinned, and very, very insecure which is why any conversation with her includes her constantly reminding me that she went to Punahou* (the expensive private prep school my father utterly torpedoed the family finances to send her to) and/or what expensive purse or whatever other ostensibly high-class trapping she's agonizing over buying from (name-drop) store. Like, who fucking cares? I got sick of her obsessing over some dumpy-looking purse and I finally said she ought to just buy the thing and live with it for a few days and then take it back if she doesn't like it. 

*No shade intended on Punahou which is a great school. I just wish all schools could manage to educate all kids in the state as well, and it makes all the sense in the word to send one of your kids there if you're not shafting the rest of the family by sending them there. 

But as bleak as it was for me, I've had it better than younger generations do now. This is why I, and a lot of people, think we're in a powder keg; that WWIII in earnest or civil war are just waiting to pop off. 

At least the younger people are Noticing. They're not brainwashed by all the Jewish propaganda we olders were. 

Even  in the 80s and 90s, sure I'd make jokes etc., but I could not honestly, in my heart of hearts, believe the Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov and all these Jewish scientists and writers would be anything but angelic. In the US it was always Jewish scientists and SF writers who got promoted and publicized. 

Now I know  that Asimov probably left every penny to "israel" and Sagan would gladly have worked on rockets not to explore other planets but to bomb the neighbors of "israel" and all these lovely characters who have been lionized, are good at putting on, or having put on, a good face while they hate the goyim and any benefit they've done for the goyim is incidental. 

And this is all becoming really obvious lately, on an accelerated timeline, and the younger people are Noticing.  

OK Boomer

 I got "OK Boomer"'d but good. 

I'm not sure if I mentioned it here but a few months back Ken bragged to me about a sterling silver dish he'd bought for something like $5 at the Goodwill on Coleman. He showed it to me, it had a bunch of hallmarks, etc. 

So from time to time I'd thought about that dish, I guess because I'd been kind of jealous. 

So last night after I got my check and we talked and the usual, he asked if I knew someplace that would buy the dish. He had it in his car. I said "I've got a guy" so he handed it over and after he'd gone I weighed it and did some math. Ken wanted at least $300 for it and I figured, since my match seemed to show a melt value of $540, that there was a fair chance I could skim off a bit after selling it and then give ken his something-more-than-$300 and he'd flake off a bit more to me, for my time. 

So as usual I didn't go to bed as early as I should have, and since I set my alarm clock for 1PM I didn't get much sleep. I packed a few packages and basically was up at the time I'd set, cleaned up a bit, and headed out at 2. I dropped off the packages and went to Whole Foods where I got a couple of beef sticks and $40 cash back. I put $20 of that on my clipper card to be sure to have train fare, and got on the train. 

My place was up in Menlo Park so the train's really the only practical way to get there. I got there and after watching the guy fork over a few thousand dollars to a guy for a coin collection, I handed over the tray and he got out the XRF "gun" and tested it and said, "I'm gonna pass on this". 

The thing was plated! Sure it has a bunch of little hallmark-looking marks on it, but for the first time, I looked closely and one is "SP" in a circle which even I know is "Silver Plate" and the others didn't look like anything, and it was also stamped, "Made In US America" like who stamps that on something? "US America"? So all in all it was a bit of a laugh, and the guy, who I think gets them for free, gave me a still-warm cheese steak sandwich which I tried once I got to a bench to sit down outside and, well, I'd have had to be a lot hungrier and have a lot of hot sauce .... But  I digress. 

It was a kind of fun trip in that the new electric trains are always nice to ride, and I got to look at the pretty coins and bars and stuff in the display cases at the shop, and the guy was in a nice mood. The mood in there changes with how silver's doing and it's kind of "meh" right now. So the mood was nice. 

I went to the Starbucks to use the loo and get a drink and I called Ken and told him how things had gone, and about the XRF gun and Ken was like, "Oh, those are nice, they cost thousands though". So he's pretty lah-de-dah about the whole thing, and I told him we might be selling some big capacitors that might bring in a few thousand, so it's all good. He, in turn, said my ballot has come in the mail so I'll get it next week. 

So I'm out an afternoon and the train fare but I think the whole thing is kind of hilarious. Ken thought he had one over on the Salvation Army folks and in the end, he only fooled himself. And he's the one who has his life set up so he's always chasing after money like a junkie. 

I got back downtown and went down to Walmart for TP and paper towels, and got back here and that's that. 

I probably will not busk this weekend since I want to work on this new technique and I haven't been practicing. It's not like guitar where you can just bang away and blargle out some nonsense "lyrics"  and get tipped if you play until the wee hours of the morning for the drunks and if one of 'em gives you guff, you've got your guitar and they get the "KA-BONGGG!" just like Quick Draw McGraw. 

Happy Birthday, Herr Himmler

 I looked to see if he was in fact a descendant of Heinrich The Fowler but sadly, no. Although he considered himself an avatar of, or spiritual successor of, The Fowler and that's good enough for me. 

"We fought the wrong side" - general Patton. 

I can't think of anything else notable about this day. If the USS Liberty can be forgotten about, then I can't think of anything else of any note. I guess if I'd planned ahead I might have gone to Teske's downtown and celebrated Herr Himmler with some Schweinshaxe and a good bier. 

Last night I had hamburger on top of asparagus, and also cooked more, courtesy of 5 bundles of it that had fresher tips than I often see in the supermarket, for free. So I had delicious chilled asparagus today. Plus I got two large packages of blueberries and with all the warnings lately, plus there's a reason they got tossed, I put some time into picking out the good ones by hand, rinsing those, and cooked them along with one of those little boxes of coconut milk. I also added salt, I think a bit too much, but hey  a lot of "sweet" things are also salty. Lookin' at you, instant cocoa. 

So today after dropping off packages I bought a can of whipped cream at H Mart, which should be perfect with the not too sweet and somewhat salty cooked and now chilled blueberry ... soup? 

Plus I got a bunch of hothouse cucumbers, small ones but fresh. So I got a good batch of freebees last night. 

Today's the day the EMT training place throws out stuff but when I got there there wasn't anything, but there was an old Asian guy collecting bottles and cans. I dug out a couple for him. That's a hard way to make money, since they're only worth 5c-10c each. 

I got back here and the guys hadn't taken the box of scrap I left out, but had put some heavy greasy car part in, haha. So once I was back and had put things away I put in another old car part that had been living under the bench in front of their door for a while, and took the box of stuff up alongside Old Bayshore where someone will pick it up. It's kind of funny how sometimes, in fact most of the the time, the stuff will be picked up and not a trace left, and other times the stuff will be untouched and there will be *more* stuff. It all works out in the end. 

Also, last night, I got a good practice session in. I felt rusty as hell having not practiced for over a week. I really wanted to work on this "aperture" idea that one Japanese guy I watched on YouTube went on about. And I think I'm on a very productive track. I was actually able to do high notes easily, when I could get away from using too much pressure (both breath and mouthpiece against lips) and I've found I can play some super crazy high notes and yes they're actual notes not just squeaks, it's just a matter now of filling in the notes between those and the ones in the staff and slightly above the staff. 

Dennis Hasters and Jim Bakker, GONE NOWWWWWWW.....

 The "GONE NOWWWWWW" in the voice of "Metal LEO" on YouTube, who loves saying that about closed businesses, of which there are so many, he sees in his walks around US cities and towns. Haha! 

I burned up some of the "popcorn", crumpled up sensitive papers, last night and was doing various things when I found out the water was off. I called Ken to ask if he paid the bill and he said he'd check, then I got the bright idea to just get some water from next door, where they have a hose set up. But theirs was off too so I called Ken back and said it's not just us so don't panic. 

I set out to go buy some water, and remembered that there had been work trucks around this place at the front of the complex where it's always wet. I'd even smirked and said, "Welcome to the perma-puddle" as I'd rode by earlier. They were really working on it now. 

I decided I'd go to the 7-11 on 1st, because being a franchise store, for some reason this would mean water would be reasonable. Well, it wasn't. I got some, but the main thing about that place was the BUMS. There were bums on the corner and one bum in front of the store, and when I went out with my water, there were about 5 bums hanging around my bike. The bums were, as bums do, quarreling among themselves and muttering and jibbering etc., under their various drug and mental illnesses. There were bums inside too, also arguing among themselves, and acting crazy in various ways. The Indian guys inside have to put up with this shit every night. I can't begrudge them their high prices because of this. It's a war zone. 

I got out front with my 2 liters of water, put 'em in the bag and unlocked the bike as quickly as I could manage smoothly, hopped on and got out of there without even bothering with the lights, just get me out of here! 

I decided to swing by the place on 1st and Brokaw, just to see what their prices are. There was one bum-ass / zombess with a cart of some sort loaded with crap, holding quite the lively conversation with herself, out in the parking lot but at least I didn't have to go through a screen of bums to go in, and there weren't bums inside. Their water prices were a bit less, and they had pork rinds. So I got a bag of pork rinds and a liter of water there, too. 

I had a bit of a conversation with the Indian guy there, who said they call the police but they never do anything. I said Yeah, unless the bum is being violent or trying to break in, they can't do anything. I said unfortunately you can't just take a stick and whack 'em and chase 'em off.  It's not like the old days, we agreed. 

As an elaboration on this, I said that back where I grew up, when I was a kid, there were very few stray dogs and cats, and no stray chickens. Now there are tons. The difference being, in the old days, people ate 'em! Even the dogs and cats, I didn't care and don't now. But now there are tons of stray animals, chickens all over the place. 

(Likewise there were very few homeless. People didn't eat 'em, it's just that your family took care of you or the state mental hospital did, or you just plain fucking straightened up and flew right. Not taking drugs was a major factor, I'm sure.) 

So I got back and got through my night using up almost all of the water, and although the water was still off when I went to bed around 7-8AM, it was on when I woke up at 4PM. 

 

Papers conquered

 I spent the night doing what I'd taken the weekend off to get done. I had the packing out of the way, and got out the 5, not 3, banker's boxes of papers and sorted out the things I really want to keep, the latest 3 mailings with my home address on them to take to the DMV along with my expired license and passport to get my "Real ID", and had a huge mass of stuff to throw away or burn. 

That was what took up most of the time, making "popcorn", crumpled up balls of papers with sensitive information on them, to burn. 

I also found application papers for Medi-Cal which I'd been sent over the years, but never filled them in haha. I still have Medi-Cal and I'm sure it's pretty easy for the powers that be to find my income and such information. 

I also saw, on one of them, that I can, and am encouraged to, apply for Medicare when I am 64 years and 9 months of age. I'll need to look into that. I've heard there are some kind of penalties for applying if I'm much over 65, so I need to research all of this. 

Two bags of non-sensitive papers went out in the Post Office trash, and burning up the "popcorn" may take a week or two, doing it bit by bit. 

There's a lot of personal stuff that mattered once but just doesn't any more. The copy of my high school newspaper with my picture in it, sure. Stuff about the sport I did, doesn't matter and no one cares. Even shit like my amateur radio license; I'm just not interested. I find listening in on strange radio stuff to be interesting, I'm not that interested in transmitting. 

It was kind of fun looking at some of the old stuff though. Apparently it was the Outrigger Hotel snack bar that I worked for, long ago, serving up hot dogs. It's apparently been gentrified away now. 

I've been watching a lot of fishing videos from people in Hawaii and those are fun. I'm also currently into watching videos from three different guys who metal detect around my old stomping grounds in Orange County, California. I've got some metal detecting ideas of my own back in Hawaii which should only require one of those "pin pointers" that people who dig for coins in parks use. 

But fishing is something I really look forward to doing again. 

I'm also looking at prices for things, and fools on Reddit keep nattering on about how "food is 3X as much" in Hawaii and it's just not true. It's about 30% less, if one eats a normal, local, cuisine. Even a lot of fancy imported stuff like Swiss cheese from Switzerland at Whole Foods, is probably no more expensive than it is here and I'd not be surprised to see it 10% - 20% less because they base their prices on what the market will bear more than on their cost. 

It *is* expensive to live what I call an Orthodox Suburbian lifestyle in Hawaii. To do so, you must only eat foods that are standard "suburban" foods on the mainland, tons of "diet" or "healthy" foods that are 99% sugar and carbs, etc.

It's a lot more expensive than my diet, to follow the Orthodox Suburbian diet here on the mainland, too, in all fairness. It's kind of required to be at least pre-diabetic if not full-on diabetic, and Ken recently told me his doctor says he's going from Type 2 to something close to Type 1. That's an achievement and it takes a lot of work (and insulin). You have to hog down a burger and two bags of fries as your "snack" before you go home to dinner, waffles or pancakes or a mixing bowl full of sugary cereal for breakfast, and so on. Fast food, sugary cereals, prepared frozen "hash browns", etc are expensive here, or there. 

My point being, I yawn at the supposedly expensive prices I see, looking at the online "sale flyer" from Foodland, Hawaii's answer to Safeway. I actually worked for them for a bit. It was ... not great. But I'll sure shop there, seeing that they have things I'll buy that are 1/2 the price they are here. 

Speaking of old times, on Friday night I rode through San Pedro Square and there I saw Ron, the guy who used to play a recorder (he had about three of them, including one I'd given him) and this little bippity-boppity wooden box drum. I'd seen him off and on for at least a decade now, I think a bit longer, so I was interested to hear how he was doing. 

He was no longer playing any music of any type, and was dirty, dirtier than I've ever seen him and that's saying something. He's still living in a friend's (probably friend's mom's) kitchen for $420 (tee hee) a month. But he's lost his job washing dishes for The Old Spaghetti Factory. 

This last, Gee I wonder why? If he seemed to have some shred of self-respect, playing music, before, he's fallen far below that now and has gone full bum. He even had a bum-specification sign, barely readable. He said he's just "doing this" (begging) now. 

He said they'd cut his hours down and down, finally scheduling him none, at The Old Spaghetti Factory and it's obvious why: The guy's filthy and not anything you'd want anywhere near any place where people eat food. If he's living in a guy's kitchen at least in theory he's got access to a shower, maybe even laundry facilities. Worst-case the kitchen is a place to sleep and he could use a laundromat for laundry and join a gym or something for a shower.  

I have a sneaking suspicion the guy's smoked a ton of pot and that's why he is the way he is now. Pot was considered harmless then I was a kid/teen but it's obviously not and I'm glad I simply didn't care for it. 

 https://www.reddit.com/r/lostgeneration/comments/1wy96m4/the_son_ate_5_meals_a_day_to_save_his_dad/ Wow this worked! OK it's about an 11-year-old kid in China who was a bone marrow match for his father, but could not do it because he was too small. So he ate 5 meals a day, gained 33 lbs, and was then big enough and was able to save his dad. Hero kid. But also, fantastically wealthy kid compared to 11-year-old me, growing up here in the US. 

When I was 11 there was simply not enough food around to gain 5 lbs much less 33. My dad would have just plain fucking died and that would have been it. I dare anyone to try telling me China is some kind of loserville and the US this great, wonderful, nation. 

I want to live a long life for a number of reasons, not least of which is to see China take its rightful place as leader of the world.