Sorry no janitor job here

 I spent the night taking some ugly stuff part and as usual, put the scrap metal out front. I did a practice session too, only because I need all the practice I can get for my weekend sessions. 

I really only had a few things to ship, that could go to the post office so I packed those, and headed out. I had $6 in bills and $5.75 in change with me and I told myself maybe I'd just use my card if I saw something good. 99 Ranch had some coffee on sale that looked worth trying; it was 2 boxes for $5 so I got a couple and some other things, spending about $14. 

I folded up the receipt and put it in the other side of my wallet from where I usually put my money, so I could pull it out when I got back and write down what I'd spent out of my bank account, because I used my card. When I went in there to put it away, what's this? There were two $20's in there. 

On the ride over I'd been thinking, How was I so low on money? I'd made something like $225 on the weekend. I guessed I'd just spent it. I'd also wondered, earlier in the week, what had happened to one $20 bill that had a couple of little tears in it. Spent it, I guessed. 

Well here was the distinctly torn $20 bill, with another one. So that's neat, as I have a trip to Walmart planned for tomorrow. 

I treated myself to boiled peanuts and rode over to H Mart, got my iced coffee, and ate the peanuts sitting in front. No Karen encounters or zombie incidents, just a nice boring day. 

Some time in the morning I'd been awakened by a knock on the door, and it was some Hispanic gal asking about a janitor job? I said no jobs here, try next door. She just got in her car and left so maybe she'd already asked there haha. 

I wonder if people could get used to just using GPS coordinates at their addresses? As I understand it they're just latitude and longitude, but with very high resolution so degrees, minutes, seconds, and whatever they're using for fractions of the angle-seconds. Kind of like how, at Burning Man, everything's set up like a big clock, so you know intuitively where you are or how to get someplace from where you are. I think the city of London uses a system kind of like that too. It might require more numeracy than the average person can handle though. 

 

Psychology Today is still in print?

 I was up packing things, to get caught up. Lots of medium and large-ish things with one large thing to pack today left. 

I went to bed around 6-7AM, OK all well and fine. Then I was awakened by a knock on the door and had to yell for them to wait a minute, while I moved the boxes and stuff I'd packed. It was a guy from the water company saying he has to work on the water and wanted to get an idea of what hours it's in use here. I said I'm generally here until 6 but "Hey, if you have to work on the water, you have to work on the water, don't worry about it". 

I started my coffee routine, when I looked at the clock again and realized it was only 11:30. I thought it was a quarter to 3. So I turned the kettle off and spread my bedding out again and went back to sleep. 

Then I was awakened, this time actually at a quarter to 3, by a phone call. It was some lady who's Doctor so-and-so from Psychology Today asking if I'd called them. "No.........." was my reply. She said something like Oops she'd gotten the digits wrong (that's easy to do with my phone number) and that was that. I wish I'd kept her on the line a bit. Psychology Today is still in print?? I know Boomers read the thing but, like, older Boomers who are Trump-old, like Ken's age. 

Are magazine racks still even a thing in airports?  Fry's Electronics had a glorious magazine rack for a while. It was great; all kinds of niche hobbyist magazines like High Power Rocketry, needless to say magazines about knitting and stuff, the sailing mags, all the computer/tech mags, plus lots of porn, all mixed together. If that was too erudite, there was the same organization in the DVD racks. I picked up a cop of "Restrepo" in the part with the Barney The Dinosaur stuff. 

I'll have to look for magazines in the airport when I get outta here, just to see if they're still a thing. 

Since it was now time to actually get up, thanks Psychology Today! - I re-started the kettle etc. and got going. The big thing I was dreading turned out to be a lot smaller than the photo made it look haha. 

I got going to FedEx to drop off all the big/medium boxes, then the post office for the post office stuff, then went to H Mart for my iced coffee and hang out time on the curb in front with that and some spicy peanuts I'd brought from home. 

I'd parked my bike + trailer how I always do, alongside the "curb" on the side of the building, lined up with the bike rack, which at this time had an adult bike and a kid's bike. I heard a mom say to her kid, something about "Thank our Lord Jesus Christ for yadda yadda...." and pretty soon they came. The kid's bike was blocked in by my bike and the mom's bike but all the mom had to do was move hers, which a normal person would first, then get the kid's bike. Her poor little son had to hear her bitch at me for parking my bike where I did, and I pretty much ignored her. Eventually she just unlocked her bike, then went to get her son's bike but he insisted on doing it himself - I'm sure he's already tired of her. They left, probably with her bitching at the kid all the way home. 

H Mart is on the other side of  Brokaw from some kind of church that has signs out, shows free movies etc. so it's kind of surprising there aren't more psychos from there wandering around, frankly. 

I found some great packing stuff on the way home and got back here, had Korean "Gouda" cheese (which is every bit as awful as that sounds) and olives and a large cucumber for dinner, and got the place cleaned up for Ken. who showed up a bit late but better that than never. 

The property owner's secretary had sent an email saying Ken needs to sign the new lease or we'll just go onto the month-to-month rent which is more, and I'd printed it out for Ken and also told her I'd get on him about it. So that's one of the things we talked about. 

He'll either (a) sign the new, 4-year lease, or (b) won't, and he'll have to pay probably $500-$1000 more in rent than otherwise. In the case of (a) I just need to keep working, keep saving, and get ready to light out of here in one year minus about one week now. Or (b) keep working etc., and try to sit back and enjoy the show as Ken won't be able to pay the new rent probably, we'll fall behind, etc. I don't have to move back to Hawaii right when I reach age 65, I just think it's a neat and orderly time to do so. I can leave earlier... 

 

 

 

This time next year...

 I'll be back home. No more work for Ken. Where will I be, in particular? I'll still be in a hotel room, looking for a room to rent. But I don't plan to hurry, and I'll have probably found something fun to do like visiting the beach I used to surf at all the time (the windward side one) or wandering around "in town" to place I knew growing up, maybe visit the Pacific Trade Center building where my father had an office. 

Repamarations!

 On the radio today is a piece all about the "reparations" being paid to black people. Race-based, of course. And if you're black and a multi-millionaire, you still get the money I guess. 

The right way to do something like this would be to give the "reparation" sum to everyone whose family was here in the US in the year 1900, or pre-WWII, and have an income below the median. That would automatically pay black Americans but not recent immigrants from Africa who tend to be well-to-do, and it would included non-black people who have been put upon for more than a century also. Even if they're white, Oh, the horror. 

This is more Jewish divide-and-conquer policy of course. 

I packed what things I could before I had to go, went up to the post office to drop them off, then over to 99 Ranch and H Mart. I also wanted to buy paper at FedEx but ... every place was super busy! 99 Ranch was pretty busy, OK par for that course. The post office had been super busy, with lots of people who had lots of small packages like I did. 

Fedex was the busiest I've seen it so after using their bathroom I decided to get paper later. And H Mart was really busy, so much so that they were out of hamburger so that's another thing put off. I'm not sure why places were so busy. The 15th payday would have been last week, and I can't think of any holidays coming up.  

I rode back here, not finding any packing stuff but I did find an (I think) almost-new pillow behind the gym. A bunch of stuff was put out there, women's shoes and a bunch of small-kid clothes and carrying bags and things. I'm about due for a new pillow, and while it seems yucky to pick up a used pillow, people don't mind the used pillows in hotels, do they? 

So I rode back here but first went over to the exotic foods place dumpster. There wasn't anything there except a couple dozen liter bottles of some kind of sugary drink, hibiscus and mango flavors I think. I hate to see things go to waste, so I took them out of the dumpster (they were pretty well hidden) and them outside the dumpster where they were easy to see. 

Then I came back here, offloaded stuff and loaded up my old pillow, and on the way back out, gathered up an office chair that's been in the parking lot for a while, and the big bag of trash someone had put on it. Those went with me, with the office chair placed out by the street where it's easy to see, and my old pillow and the bag 'o' trash going into the exotic foods dumpster. The bottles of juice were already gone. 

 

 

$96 Sunday

 I got back last night and after eating dinner and relaxing a bit, was so tired that while I tried to get enthusiastic about listing the 30 things I had ready, I just could not stay with it and went to bed around 4AM

I set my alarm clock for 3 anyway and good thing, since I woke up around noon and then went back to sleep until it woke me up. Fortunately I had everything ready to go as far as the trumpet, tip box, beef sticks, fleece jacket, etc. 

So all I had to do was have my coffee and nuts and head out. I actually got to the bus stop at 5, which meant I was starting out busking at the Sunnyvale Whole Foods at 6. I'd play until 7:30, I decided. 

It was overcast, a bit cold, and a bit windy. But not too bad. I did my "paid practice" and got my compliments and tips. This session's "I want to play trumpet" guy was a guy who was here I think connected with work, because he said he's staying "At Moffett" and is from Wyoming. He played trombone "Don't hold it against me!" and I said trombones are awesome. It sounded like he'd messed around with trumpet and even French horn, and was still in the process of learning what I have, which is to just buy an instrument new and keep it forever. Don't mess with used stuff because you're just buying someone else's problems. 

We talked a bit too long, really, but I was being lazy today haha, and thus I got $86 and a gift card. Still pretty nice! And many, many little kids got to see a live musician, which is a very rare thing these days. 

I considered staying until 8 but by 7:30 I was pretty tired and it had also gotten pretty slow, so I packed up. I got my yogurt drink at Baraka Market and went over the stop and got on the first bus which was a #22. 

This matters because the #22 stops at Maria which the #522 does not, and that's the stop to go to Mega Mart, which is the one Korean market  I didn't go to on Friday. So I got off at Maria and went to Mega Mart to check out their tape situation: Their clear tape is 50c a roll more, and they were out. But, there was a display with odor-free Raid in the red can, the kind that's for roaches. I didn't even know they made an odor-free version. I mean, the perfume is nice, but I don't need to be reminded for 3 days that I'd sprayed a roach, and I don't need that interfering with my meals. So that was an instant sale. 

Other than that, Mega Mart isn't any better than Han Kook, so I'm not missing out on much of anything. And I got the desire to go there out of my system. 

I got on the next #22 bus and at the Santa Clara Transit Station the driver had us get off because there was something wrong with the brakes. So a ton of us got on the next #522 which was there in a couple of minutes. All good! 

I got "home" to "my" Whole Foods a bit after 9, and it was dead, dead, dead there. Good thing I wasn't busking there I guess. I got nuts and stuff and found out that the gift card was for $10 which is a very nice tip. So that brought the earnings up to $96. 

I rode around downtown and it was dead all over. It's Sunday night so it makes sense, it's just sad that Sunday night used to be jam night at Cafe Stritch, and I could have stopped in, bought some food, and enjoyed some live jazz. San Jose didn't deserve that place. 

 

$136 Saturday

 I was up all night getting 30 things ready to list, but got a practice session done, too. 

Thanks to my alarm clock I was up at 3, and out the door at 4:30. Because of the 2-hour rule, I found myself at the Sunnyvale Whole Foods exactly 2 hours later and started busking at 6:30. I played until 8. 

It was windy, but I decided unless it go so strong that the money starts flying around in the tip box, I'm going to stick it out. And commenced a session of paid practice. 

I had one guy put a tip in and then ask me how I learned trumpet, and I told him I'd taught myself pretty much, there are books and YouTube etc. He tried piano, maybe as a kid, and it hadn't worked out. I encouraged him to try different instruments and see what he likes, and besides YouTube there's West Valley Music nearby. 

It was cool if not cold, and the wind didn't kick up too much. Whole Foods has a bunch of boxes of pumpkins and squash set up, in those big boxes called "Gaylords" (for the Gaylord company that makes some of them) and wooden boxes etc., and rather than this create a barrier, it's actually kind of helpful because people stop to look at the pumpkins etc., and now that it's been there a week or two people have learned to go smoothly around it. 

As always I was tempted to think it was slow, but it was most certainly not. There were a lot of people around, and the tips were coming in pretty regularly. My plan was to play until 8, and by a quarter to 8 it has gotten really slow. I kept on, until 8 proper which is good because that meant another tip or two, and in the end I'd made $136. 

As I was counting up a bum came up who I thought was asking for money, but really he wanted to know if I had a cigarette I'd sell him. Sorry, I told him, I don't smoke. But, I said, on Murphy Street there's a head shop and they might well sell loosies. And I gave him a couple of bucks anyway. He wasn't sure where Murphy Street was so I gave him directions, and he was insure about there being a smoke shop there. But I said it's weird, in this total "white bread" area, there's a smoke shop right in the middle of it. 

I walked back toward the bus stop, stopping at Baraka Market for my yogurt drink and some celery, waited maybe 15 minutes for the bus, and had a nice uneventful ride back to my "home" Whole Foods. I got some cheese there and a couple of beef sticks for tomorrow. The cashier said something like, "There you go with your beef sticks again" or something like that, not quite so unkind sounding, and I said it's because I can eat them on the bus, going to Sunnyvale. 

This is true. I'd brought some peanuts but didn't eat them because on the bus it means chancing dropping some and making a mess, getting salt and oil on my hands, etc. So it's beef sticks if I'm going to eat anything on the bus. 

I'd gotten back to the "home" Whole Foods at maybe a quarter after 9, and it *was* a Saturday night but it was really dead. Of course a quarter after 9 in San Jose is the equivalent of a quarter after midnight anywhere else. 

I had a nice boring ride home. 

 

 

Zombiful but productive evening

 I got up at the usual time. I'd been up all night listing things, and was finally so tired I went to bed. 

I actually woke up a bit before 3, due to an ice cream cart going by with the person ringing their little bell so loudly it actually woke me up. I fell back asleep then my alarm clock woke me up. 

I had breakfast and cleaned up a bit and I was out of here at 4. 

I went to the bank and deposited my pay check and my numbers and their numbers agree, so that's good. Then I went to Whole Foods to park the bike, use the loo, and buy a couple of beef sticks. 

If I'd been busking today, I'd have some competition. First there was one of the same zombesses from last week, a gal who has a regulation nearly unreadable sign, and sit her bony ass on the bike racks themselves, and looks down at the ground a lot. I guess it's an act that pays. 

And, although this is on the other side of where I'd be, out by the bus stop, there was another act on. An older, fat, gal sleeping on one of the benches except not really sleeping but squirming around and groaning theatrically. 

Today's mission was to, after depositing my check which I'd done, go to the 99 Ranch market in Mountain View, then on the way back visit Mega Mart and Han Kook, both Korean markets and the last one where I get clear packing tape from. 

While on the bus, I thought a bit and realized I could go one stop more and go to West Valley Music and buy some "Chop Saver" since the tube of it the manager there gave me has utterly disappeared. Now that I've bought another, there's a small chance the first one might re-appear. I've decided I like good old cheap Blistex I can get for a bit more than a dollar a tube at Walmart or Walgreens or a number of places. It's easy to obtain and easy to replace. But maybe "Chop Saver" is really really good for some reason. 

Then I walked back from West Valley Music to 99 Ranch. I walked through the In-N-Out Burger parking lot because that's how you get there, and it was amazing how busy the place was. I used to go there all the time. And they have an armed guard at the door now. I even exclaimed my surprise out loud, and the guy just smiled. A bit further on I saw the reason for the guard: a zombie staggering around, clad in a blanket, headed toward the In-N-Out. 

I hoped this 99 Ranch carried Ibumie brand "Penand White Curry Mee" which I really love, and can't replicate using red curry paste and my own seasonings plus I always get it too salty when I try to make my own seasoning combination for a bowl of soup. And, they had it! I got bags of 4 packages each and some spicy peanuts. 

Now to do something about the bulk, because I sure don't eat the noodles these days. I sat at a convenient table with a chair by the front of 99 Ranch and opened each package, taking out the curry paste, seasoning, and creamer. I put those in a bag I'd taken from the veggie dept. 

Now I had a 99 Ranch paper bag full of 12 packages of noodles without seasoning. I saw a 99 Ranch worker digging through the nearby trash can with more enthusiasm than a worker usually shows, and figured he was digging on his own behalf. So I handed over the paper bag, and instead of taking it, he dumped it all out into the trash, crumpled up the bag, and tossed that on top! 

Well, then. What I should have done, as the worker had then hurried off, would have been to have retrieved the bag, put the noodle packs back in it, and taken it with me to give to someone, but I didn't, As I walked toward the In-N-Out again, there was the zombie again, that had seemed to be headed in a definite direction before, but was actually just meandering around. Maybe getting handed a bag full of noodles to munch on would have had it doing that, and then settling down to whatever sleep zombies get, instead of wandering around. 

I got to the bus stop and saw a rail-thin old guy on a bike meandering through and called out to him. He came over and I described where the noodles are, but in the end he didn't want them, but "I hate to see food wasted!" I agreed, and we talked a bit. He's from Tennessee, and we talked about various places that toss things out and he told me about how, back in Tennessee, he and his "old lady" lived near a small shopping mall and "We ate like kings". I'm guessing the guy probably came out here in the 1960s or 70s for one of the electronics jobs there used to be, then the jobs ended and here he remains. 

The bus I got onto had all kinds of characters on it, and a fair amount of weird shit going on, and I was glad to get off at Lawrence. I didn't even say "Thank you" when I got off, which is the custom here. 

I walked over to Han Kook market and they had 8 rolls of tape so that's what I got. And a can of "Boss" coffee. The lady at the checkout wanted to see what was in the Whole Foods cloth bad I had in the cart, tied closed, so I said, "Sure, sure, no problem!" and got out the Chop Saver, with reciept, and the peanuts, with receipt, and ... and that was enough for her. 

I got back to the Lawrence stop just as the #522 was pulling out, Oh well. There was a guy at the stop hanging out with his bike and a Gatorade bottle in his hand with something in it. He was a laugh-y joke-y guy. So we laughed and joked and I said I was going to be disappointed if he didn't have vodka or tequila in that bottle. The #22 bus came and he stayed behind so maybe he was waiting for someone. 

I had my can of coffee on the bus since I was getting tired, and got off across from Whole Foods and other than using the bathroom, just passed on through to my bike and got going. It was about 8:30 and the Amazon place closes at 9, so I figured I'd go by and see if I can find any bubble mailers. 

I did, obtaining 3. Then I just rode home.