Bye Bye sputter ion pump

I got to ship off a thing called a sputter ion pump, which is very heavy for its size, today so good riddance. I got my post office and fedex business done then dropped off the trailer here and headed downtown.

First I stopped at Nijiya and got some small things to stash away and a small bento an a Coke Zero, and ate at one of the benches a distance away. Next I went to Dai Thanh but they were closed. Maybe they've shortened their hours, or are not done renovating, or something. Then the real reason for going downtown, stopping at the Amazon pickup place and got the book about the afterlife the author of which impressed me so much on the radio, plus a big order of cotton swabs, plus my kilogram of "Vegeta" which Charles Cather had talked up on YouTube.

Years and years ago when I used to go on IRC, there was one person who called herself vegeta, and I thought it was a character from a comic or movie or something, but they probably had Vegeta in their kitchen, so when Charles Cather talked about the stuff, I got right on Amazon and ordered some, and not the namby-pamby American market stuff with no MSG, nope, this has all the ingredients and was made in Croatia.

It's really quiet out there, and most of the sparse population that is out, are of two groups: Dog walkers or bums. There are a few Door Dash type workers, and joggers, but the preponderance of those out on the streets are dog walkers and bums.

I got back here and there was a bum-car, a small economy car with none of the body panels the quite the same color, or on straight, and barely running, in front of the place. I ignored the bums and went in and got the bike in and shut the door. Pretty soon the bum car went up to the front of the complex, waited a bit, then back to the back near one of Ms. Crackhead's cars, then one of the bums got out and fiddled with the engine a bit, then it left. They were probably trying to meet up with some other bums on the other side of the complex. This place is kind of confusing to navigate at first.

And Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the race. I think he made some major mistakes: Not shouting loudly and often that he's not a socialist but a social democrat, not making it very plain that he wants to make the US more like Western Europe, and not pointing out the similarities between himself and past presidents from FDR to Eisenhower, who wanted medicare to apply to Americans of all ages.

So there went my chance to have a Jewish president at least in this country. This will take a plan. Get cracking on learning Hebrew, convert, once past age 62 and able to get Social Security, work on getting over to Israel and becoming a citizen there. Then I'll get my Jewish president.

I didn't feel too great all day because last night I decided I'd make an iced coffee with some alcohol in it to make the instant coffee dissolve better, then I decided I'd have some more alcohol.... I ended up just watching YouTube music videos and the practice I got in was merely OK.

This is why I'd taken off today without eating anything because I really didn't feel like it. Tonight I got all cleaned up and ready for Ken to come over when he called me and told me he's coming by tomorrow night instead of tonight, so I cooked up some dinner and relaxed a bit, thinking I'd do a late-night practice as the only bum around here is Ms. Crackhead and she's not even working on her car all night.

So I was about to do that when who shows up but the two bums in their shitmobile that had been parked right in front of here when I'd come in from shopping. They prowled around the parking lot a bit and are now posted up across from the welding place, doing whatever scumbums do in their shitty bum-mobiles in the middle of the night. So no practicing; they probably know I may be in here but there's no use in literally trumpeting my presence.

But since I'm not sure what these bums plan to do, I got out the two magazines for the .22 rifle and loaded 'em up. So if they're sitting in their car smoking crack or whatever and getting their courage up to break into the place, I can do something about it.

And under the heading of "what did I do to prep today?" I have decided I'm going to handle trash in a more stealthy way. Instead of using large bags in a tall trash can which is taken out once a week, with any observant bums seeing me with it, and seeing it if they check the right dumpster, I've gone over to using a small can that just holds the kind of bag you get when shopping, and that can be taken out every time I go out, and put in perhaps the trash can at the post office or someplace downtown.