The dreaded phone call - "Not yet!"

 I'd just woken up at 1:30 and was deciding how long to lay in bed when the phone rang. It was Ken and he sounded nervous. He wanted to know if I'd deposited the check he gave me last week yet. "No", I said, "I'm about to in a couple of hours". He told me to wait, and he'll tell me when to deposit it. I asked if he's coming over Wednesday night and he said he is. 

I'll have to ask him then, if he got involved in Bitcoin. That particular scam has halved in value in the last 4-5 months and that would fit neatly with the advent of our continuing financial problems. Especially, like a lot of old boomers, he got involved in some form of Bitcoin where they dress it up on a plate with some mystery sauce and a sprig of parsley on the side, figuratively speaking, in other words, it's "leveraged" in some weird way, so he gets screwed even more than those who simply buy the magic beans straight across for cash. 

I guess I'd better have some plans on deck in case I have to leave very soon. It will take a while for Ken or anyone to change the locks, although a hostile takeover by the landlord or an auction company could have me "trespassed" I suppose. 

My plan would be to put a LOT of my stuff into the storage across the street, I think. In any case I have plans to give 95% of the stuff I have, away. There are a few things I want to sell on Craig's List but it's really, really slow because we're in a Depression economy. 

I also need to get my "Real ID" ASAP and I'm not going to try to retain my car and motorcycle ratings because I've not had any use for these qualifications in 12+ years for car, and 15+ years for motorcycle. So I'll just need to show up with some things verifying my legal address, and that I am who I am, which would mean my new passport. 

Then when I get back to Hawaii, I can, again, go to the DMV and get my state ID for there, probably with zero problems because they greatly respect California ID's. 

 

 

 

USS Liberty Day

 I was pretty busy yesterday, listing things but also throwing things out that have not sold for years and years and will likely never sell (keeping in mind also it'll be a miracle if this place is still going 6 months after I leave). 

The illegal night club did its thing but they didn't have tons of cars and noisy people over on this side, so I didn't see any need to call the cops. 

I woke up today and had some mocha coffee and nuts and packed 10 things and got 'em to the post office. I actually got rained on a little bit on the way back. 

 

Reefing the sails

 Last night I: Put things away that had been listed, a bigger deal than it sounds because I've been prone to putting that off until I have a stack of boxes of things yet to be put away that have to be hunted through to find things that had sold. And listed 15 things. And called the cops on the bozos and their stupid illegal night club. 

I have $30 until Tuesday which seems like no problem. I don't think the Owners realize how much we workers can reef our sails, in terms of spending. 

I watched a "Metal LEO" YouTube video; the "GONE Nowwww!" guy. It was entertaining but also a nice virtual walk down good old Pacific Avenue. It brought back memories of hustling my "awareness ribbons" and other things I'd come up with. But thinking back, I'd hustle my shit and then get some restaurant meal. I'm kind of amazed at old-me spending that much. These days, I'd bring a bottle of cold tea I'd brewed here, 3 hard-boiled eggs, something to sprinkle on them, and that would be my reward meal for a good few hours' work. 

(Of course going down there really doesn't pay well on an hourly basis, since it's 2-3 hours each way to go there, plus the time making whatever handicraft I'm selling, then the actual time hustling. It adds up to $5 or $6 an hour.) 

But good old Metal LEO, he does such nice walks. The New Leaf health food store is ... GONE Nowwwww.... The Motif book store is long gone. A whole lot of things are gone. His video was done on a Friday afternoon, and the street was just dead. I think he found one busker. One. I used to count a dozen guitarists, not counting those playing other instruments or doing other things, along Pacific. 

I'd really like to go down there and play, on a Saturday or a Wednesday, since Wednesdays are their farmer's market days if there's still one.  

What I'm getting at here, or what the World is trying to tell me, is that things feel even more bleak than they were in 2008. As bad as things were in '08 the streets were far livelier than now, there was the feeling that there were sectors of the economy where, with training, one could get a job. That all seems to be .... GONE Nowwwww..... 

This is where the owners/small-hats may start to see their comeuppance. We The Consumers can stop buying our damn energy drinks and our fast food and economize, really economize. 

We're starting to ask "antiseptic" questions like, Why does Israel get free health care and free education through postgrad and free this and free that, when the bottom 90% in the US are getting utterly screwed? We the workers are getting angry. 

I propose that the amount of money sent to Israel by the US taxpayer be added up, everything since 1948, and be given back to the US taxpayer in the form of ... universal health care, free education through post-grad, etc. Not one penny more for the small-hats, and the small-hats to pay reparations to the US. 

 

Taking stuff apart

 .... is good therapy I guess. I took a bunch of stuff apart and put a bunch of stuff out for the scrappers. Like some big used motors; we've not had good luck with used motors as they have a way of coming back and we lose money. 

If Ken depends on this operation for his finances to work now, then I have to keep the numbers good. So I not only took some things apart just to get 'em out of here, but also took another HP gadget apart because of the circuit boards with gold plated traces, which sell well. 

If Ken's 14 years older than myself, then he's got to be 77 or 78. Advanced age often brings poor financial decisions. This (I think it's a) reverse-mortgage thing he's taking so much time to get approved might be a good example of a very poor financial decision. 

Or, did he "bet the farm" on Bitcoin? Apparently it's halved in value over the last 4-5 months, and that would sync with the recent money troubles. 

I left here around 6PM, went to Nijiya for some instant dashi and got myself a bottle of tea and a musubi and $40 cash back. Then went back in for tea bags I'd "forgotten" and a small bag of spicy potato chips on sale, and another $40 cash back. So that's just under $100 out of my bank account. 

I went to the Amazon place but it's never that great on a weekend, and I got zero bubble mailers.

Then I rode down to Walmart and got necessities like T.P. and paper towels, a new water filter cartridge, some sunflower seeds and pepitas because they're both good and very cheap as "nuts" go, and a few different flavors of sardines to fill out my "fish library". That leaves me with $30 to last until Tuesday when I can deposit last week's pay check and see if any prior checks have bounced.  

 I know I should be out busking but I'm just not feeling it right now. I can get by fine on $30 for the next 3 days and .... I don't think the owning class really has a handle on how much we, the workers, the producers, can decrease our spending and get by. I see cutting back on spending as good practice for when I'm back in Hawaii and may have to be very thrifty, at least for a while as I get settled in. 

 

 

The best possible way to use this Friday night

 Would be to go downtown in time to drop off the 4 small packages I had to ship at the post office downtown, then visit the bank and check on my balance to make sure everything's OK, then post up at the Whole Foods on the Alameda or go down to Sunnyvale, and busk. 

So of course I didn't do that. I was up all night taking things apart, then slept in until about 4, had breakfast and packed the 4 small things, and took off for the post office I usually go to. 

I was early enough to go over to Dai Thanh market mainly to find some little kitchen tool or something for digging the weeds out of the cracks in the pavement here. Ken doesn't like how my garden grows! He talked about bringing over some weed killer but I said I'll just use boiling water on 'em, costs next to nothing and really works. I found a little tool that will work for 99c and also found a can of cold tea for $1.25 or so, and got a package of peanut butter mochi for $2 so it was a pretty good time on the cheap. And now I can dig out the weeds and then put boiling water on the roots and they'll be gone. 

I went to H Mart next and picked out two things at the bakery, but it had just turned 7:00 and the gal told me that the 2 for 1 after 7 isn't cut and dried, it depends on the manager yadda yadda so are you going to buy that? I said No and put the things back, and went to the hot case at the back of H Mart and picked out two breaded hot dogs that cost me the same and no drama. 

I had those and the tea sitting out front. The Yeo's brand tea is pretty good since it's not just green tea, but green *jasmine* tea, so it's got a really nice flavor. 

I found plenty of packing stuff on the way back, then got in here and found some things to put out front for the scavengers. And spent some hours taking things apart. 

That Ken plays his financial game right up to the edge, really bugs me. Now he depends on me to bring in enough or I guess it's more of what I've been seeing; bills not paid, electricity shut off, etc. This final year or so is going to be a real slog. 

At least I made some noise when he was over about my having come over to his way of thinking, how I'm going to work for him until I'm 67 years old, my full retirement age, blah blah. How surprised he's going to be when I actually get the hell out of here as I'm turning 65, will Not Be My Problem. 

 

Mr. (real estate) Bubble

 Ken came by last night, even called be before and asked if I wanted a convenience store sandwich, I said Nah I'm OK (why spend whatever Godawful prices they charge now for a sandwich when I've got food here?) and he came over with a hot dog and a sugary donut for himself (I might have said yes to a hot dog and they weren't expensive it turns out) and I made him a tea.

He brought over beat-up rack mount oscilloscope with 3 plug-ins and some boxes, and I got my check but he dated it for Tuesday next week. It *should* be OK to deposit, he said, and I said my bank doesn't allow me to deposit a check before it's dated so no worries about my depositing it early. 

We talked about the usual random shit but also, I asked him how he figures he's going to vacation in Scotland in July or so, when he's having trouble (he still hasn't paid the landlord their $1000 what a stupid hill to die on) and by the way, how's the debt consolidation going? 

He said he's still working on it .... he mentioned the name of the company he's dealing with and that was a huge red flag because I'd never heard of them. I'm as advertising-saturated as any Good American, and there are a ton of companies out there and that he's going to a no-name rings all kinds of alarm bells with me. 

He said it's some setup where "They don't want the house until we're dead" so basically whatever they're calling it, it sounds like some kind of reverse-mortgage deal. 

No paying off the house which should have been long paid for. No leaving it to their children. Two sons and a daughter, one son doing well, daughter doing well-ish for now, one son doing OK I guess but he'd better get used to the idea of "urban camping". Something could happen with any of their kids and now, once they're gone, no family wealth to lean back on. 

Ken's wife has savings, but any medical problems and those will be gone quick. 

And also, Ken's leaning more on what I can bring in for him on Ebay than before. Before, this Ebay business just kind of puttered along, if the money was good that was good, if it wasn't so good it was still OK. But now he's playing things super close, hence being given a check last night, a Wednesday, and being told not to deposit it until next Tuesday. 

The end result of all of this is, as always, for me to sell things off, give things away, conserve my money as best I can, and be prepared to jet out of here. 

Ken's assuming things will keep going the way they've been since about 2010. Real estate going up and up and up some more. In reality the real estate bubble's pumped up even higher than it was in 2005. 

2006 was a slow deflation and that's when I had guys coming up to me at the ham radio flea market saying if they hadn't waited to sell their house that 6 months, they'd have gotten $50k more, etc. 

To put not too fine a point on it, we're setting up for another nice real estate crash. And for Ken, it doesn't even have to be a crash. He's got his finances stacked up like a Jenga tower where the slightest financial wind will tip it over. 

 

Steyer vs. Hilton vs. Becerra

 The full results are not in, and the information is hard to get, hard to find online and they're not talking about it much on the radio. But it looks like it's still undecided who will be the top two, to be voted on for California Governor in 2028. I voted for Steyer, because Becerra is endorsed by our evil electric company, PG&E, and Hilton is a baby-raping Republican. I'd rather not have a Sabbatean Frankist in office, thank you! 

Since I plan to be out of here 3/4 of the way through 2027, if not before, I won't get to vote on this. I want to be registered to vote back home in Hawaii so I can vote against my older sister's friends like the evil Ed Case, ASAP. Plus, since I'll be able to walk to jury duty since everything is *not* 30 miles from everything else, I look forward to being a juror.