A good practice

 I was amazed last night,  I had a really good practice. I guess all those years playing trumpet have not meant nothing, and I'm getting better on the Rubank exercises and also found myself able to play things that went pretty high on the scale. 

I might want to give some credit to the horn itself. Student horns can certainly be played up high, but most students never will before they graduate to an intermediate or professional horn. But a professional horn will be judged and judged hard if it's not equally easy to play high as low, as far as being in tune, having no difficult notes etc. 

You get what you pay for.  And as expensive as this horn was, this is all nothing compared to how expensive violins can be, or flutes, or a lot of instruments that need a constant input of supplies and extra equipment, like guitars. Someone like myself who is fanatical about playing with a clean mouth and who knows how to to minor maintenance like replacing water key corks, thorough cleanings, and even things like valve rebuilds and alignments, can have a trumpet or cornet last indefinitely. 

I woke up around 3, photo'd the 25 things I had all ready to list first, then had some coffee and nuts and then went downtown. I dropped off a bag of trash, some books at the little free library, then went to the Amazon place for some bubble mailers, and turned right around and got outta there. It's crowded, and our legion of ugly streetwalkers, as well as various other druggies and freaks, are out plying their various trades. 

I stopped by Nijiya for ginger and eggs and got back here and that's it. I just wanted to get a bike ride in because it's a bit tiring to just stay in here all the time. 

 

 

A bit less bad

I went downtown to deposit my check and buy things ...  I guess I wrote about this already. I got back here in time to grab a big box and get that to FedEx. 

In the early morning, because I was up all night again, I did some more practice and it was ... less bad. Thinking back to when  I was practicing regularly, it seems there was a pretty good correlation between the amount of practice I was doing and how well I could play out on the street. This is what I want to get back on track on. 

The plan is to get back to a regular busking schedule and also keep regularly practicing and reading off of printed music.  

I didn't wake up until a quarter after 3, and I surprised myself by packing all the things and I got them up to the post office and then went to 99 Ranch and H Mart for things. I also went to Ross to buy a T-shirt. 

Were there crazy zombies staggering around? Of course! I even had to detour though a parking lot to get from one end of Rogers Avenue to the other, due to a "zombie clog" in the middle. Zombies just doing crazy zombie stuff, yelling, filling the street with the utter crap they drag around... 

The funniest zombie interaction was inside Ross of all places. I was walking past a rack and there was a tall, blonde Zombess looking at the clothes I guess, maybe deciding what things to shoplift. The thing stepped back right when I was walking past and banged my foot kind of hard so I said, "Sonofabitch!". The thing then said "What?" and I said "Son of a bitch! It's what you say when someone trips you, SON OF A BITCH!!" and that shut the creature up. 

I had zero problems checking out, paying for my shirt, and even had a nice little mini-conversation with the security guard about those coin dispenser things that people used to have, how neat having one would be. Not even a crosswise look because the people working there know a human from a zombie. 

 

Just before the horrors start

 I'm glad I had my packages packed, just two small ones and one very big one, last night. I also did some practice last night, I sounded awful. 

I woke up at a quarter after 3 in the afternoon. That makes sense because entertaining Ken for an hour or more is always exhausting, then I'd packed the things, then practiced etc. 

But that gave me just enough time to get cleaned up, have some black coffee and aspirin as that's a healthy breakfast, and take off. 

I dropped off trash and a bunch of books and 10 "Crunchie" candy bars, bought a can of coffee at Nijiya and then got over to the post office and dropped off the packages, then got over to the bank and deposited my pay check for the week. 

Then I went over to Whole Foods and ate and got things, and then headed down to Walmart to get other things. Downtown is already different, with barriers and tons of police and police dogs. I did my thing at Walmart and on the way back saw something eerie: a large-ish box truck painted all grey, no logo, no numbers, not even some small number or anything. Just the kind of thing you'd expect to see people be disappeared into. 

I went to Nijiya again for a few more things, and got back here, offloaded the things, loaded up the one very large package and took that up to FedEx and got a few things in H Mart. 

There were the usual number of crazy zombies, zombies with zombie dogs (I tried to get the zombie dog to chase me out into traffic but darn it, it obeyed its undead master) and the usual craziness. But now I am set to hunker down until Tuesday. 

 

As the internet continues to enshittify...

 I got up and went right to work packing things to ship. 20 things, and I'd shipped at least that number yesterday. For some reason sales are up. About 2/3rds of the way through, Bill Gates tried to "brick" my computer. 

My response to this was to get out the newer computer with Windows 11 on it and put it on the charger, and to do a "hard reset" on this one by unplugging everything and pulling the battery and doing something else for 15 minutes, then powering it up again and waiting for things to load again on my slow-ass Silicon Valley internet. 

Amazingly it was back to working at least for now. So I was able to finish my packing and get out of here at the usual time and ship the packages. 

I stopped and got chicken at the chicken place, which has the advantages of outdoor tables so I can eat right there and have dinner done with, and also once in a great while their chicken really hits the spot. There was a cop SUV idling there so I ended up eating at a table right near it which is pretty funny. Eventually the cop showed up, got in their SUV, and drove off and it was time for me to leave too. I thought I may have seen the weird zombie from yesterday, the scumbag, ride by on a bike. Going toward H Mart too, so I was hoping I'd not run into it. And I didn't, as I went in there for coffee (out), Yakult (out) and wet wipes (they had 'em). 

I picked up odds and ends for shipping and got back here. 

For some reason we're almost overdue to the electric company and owe them almost $400. I don't know if Ken just forgot to pay the bill or whether this is another instance of tech being a very low-paid field and being in it, a sure way to scrape through life and be perpetually behind on utilities. 

Interestingly, on the front page of my browser there used to be "radio buttons" for commonly-visited sites but those are a thing of the past now, and I have to type in each URL. Kind of like having addresses and phone numbers memorized in the 80s. 

 

the 3rd

 And for some reason I decided, apparently, to celebrate it by sleeping in until 3 in the afternoon. I was up until 4AM OK no problem, that means I should still wake up at noon. But when I woke up I saw one hand on the clock on the 12 and one on the 3 and thought, "Oh, OK, it's a quarter after, good enough" and went around turning on the lights and the radio, and on the radio they said it's 3 in the afternoon. Conclusion: I need a bigger clock that's easier to read. 

So I had my coffee and nuts and got to work packing things, which were one large combination order and another order that was just one large capacitor. 

I got going to FedEx and the post office, and went in to 99 Ranch for some shopping. The lady at the checkout asked me if I'm a "senior" and said I am, and she gave me the 5% off discount they do for seniors on Tuesdays so that's cool. 

As I was taking things out to the bike some big overweight blonde guy, scumbag type, came up and asked if that was my bike or something to that effect. I was it was and that it "does the job" and he asked if it was "all original" and I said yes it is, well, except for the rear wheel which has been replaced by a heavy-duty one as I wore out the original one... " I had no idea where I could have met this idiot before, and he was being really familiar. He said something like, "We're all a bit worried about you" or some such rambling shit. I'm thinking this is a scumbag tactic in the same way that creeps will start a conversation with anyone female with, "Have you lost weight?" As is considered best practice with psychotics, I just went along, while loading my things up and hopping on the bike and getting out of there, without seeming too urgent. "Be careful out there!" the scumbag said, and I said, "I will" and was off. 

Honest as I write this it's hours later and I still have no idea where I'd have seen or met this particular scumbag. Maybe he's a friend of DL's (Diabeetus Legs) the hugely overweight Chinese guy whose legs are rotting off from untreated diabetes. 

I meandered my way back, picking up a few boxes, and got back in here. 

 

Still getting over this thing

 Busy day. I packed 17 things which I had to fund first, and got them to the post office. I didn't stop to get anything anywhere, except to pick up a few boxes. Tomorrow will be taken up with packing and shipping also, I'm that far behind. 

On my way back I came across a dozen "Kinder" something or other bars, which are Meh, and 45 Cadbury "Crunchie" bars which are amazing. It's like Violet Crumble, but somehow the nougat or toffee or whatever it is in the middle, has had an extra toasting making it extra brittle and a unique taste. Roald Dahl wrote about the Cadbury company giving out new types of chocolate bar to the school he went to, and all they had to do was write their impressions of them, and I imagine this one went over very well. 

So I put all the other candy I had out for the scavengers but am keeping the "Crunchie" bars.  

 

I might be feeling better

 I slept fairly well overnight, and into the area of 1-2 in the afternoon which is good. I also read books instead of being up and on the computer. 

Today, I had to get some things out since they were due to actually go out tomorrow and it seems I have to get things out one day earlier or they show up as late. 

There were four things so I started with the smallest which just went into an envelope, and worked up to the biggest, which went in a big box, using up a ton of padding materials. 

On my way to FedEx I saw Tom outside at his place so I stopped and we talked a bit. The bums around his place are going to get cleared away, again. I asked what the stacks of boxes by James' tent were, and he said they were cup ramen, "A lifetime supply" haha. 

I got the things dropped off and went into H Mart for a couple of things, paying using my card (and contactless at that) to avoid passing any of my germs. My lungs were really full of stuff when I got up. 

On the way back I had to do something about my now low supply of padding. So I picked up some stuff here and there, and from Noah Medical I got a couple of boxes of good stuff but even better, I saw they had these huge boxes that held some kind of medical apparatus, with the black foam with fancy cutouts to hold the equipment, and a nice big top piece with no cut-outs at all, just a bit rectangle a couple of inches thick. Just ideal stuff. 

So I took my shopping and the stuff I'd already gathered back here, had some coffee and a couple of aspirin, and went back out to get those. Someone had dug through some bags by their dumpsters and left a big mess, and I know there are cameras watching the area, there's only a sign saying so. So I cleaned up the mess. Then I got to work digging out the big foam pieces I wanted; there were four of the big rectangles and I ended up taking some other stuff to make the rectangles stand up between the sides of the bike trailer. On my way out I stopped at another company for a roll of bubble wrap and one of those big anti-static boxes that are great for shipping large circuit boards in. 

The only other actual work I wanted to do this evening was to take the 25 things I have cued up to list next and make them actually camera ready by cleaning them, making labels, etc., and I did that.  

So a ton of things accomplished for being sick, and I have a ton of things to ship out tomorrow.