Mr. Diridon

 I used up working time yesterday taking a bunch of things apart, then, well, YouTube, wine, some shofar practice... 

I woke up at 9 and got up at 10. I sorted out 25 of the smaller (but more valuable) parts and cleaned them and wrote a ton of little labels and got them all ready to photo. 

On the radio they had Mr. Diridon, the guy Diridon Station is named after, talking about high speed rail. That was pretty neat, hearing the voice of someone who must have been a real mover and shaker to have a big train station named after him. The Wikipedia entry for Diridon Station is pretty interesting. I just hope the lady who has the little shop can get her popcorn machine fixed. 

Another subject being discussed is how people think we're in a recession and we're really not. Wages are up, inflation is tamed, some places like most famously, Target, are lowering prices. President Biden is providing some student loan relief. What a scam college has been for me, personally, but at least I was able to pay off the 10 grand I borrowed in about 5 years. I just squeaked through. My fixation on going to college has prevented me from ever owning a house, though. And I was only able to squeak through because I had one of the last 5 electronics tech jobs in Southern California, and even then, I was paid less than anyone due to my race (I was told this explicitly) and could work any two other techs under the table. 

Nahhh ... I'm not bitter ... "Never forgive, never forget" I say. American hyper-individualism, setting races against each other. It's funny because when that company moved me to the mainland and I was put to work with a bunch of other techs, all Vietnamese or Cambodian, of course I was resentful. They all got paid more than I did, and did far less work. I felt I had to be more productive than anyone to keep my job. My Stakhanovism made everyone else speed up. 

But over time, I learned of the experiences the people had gone through, the camps, the attacks of pirates at sea when they were "Boat People". Pol Pot and how the Vietnamese essentially rescued the Cambodians from him. Viets and Cambodians are tight friends because of this, and they could not be more different. Theravada vs. Mahayana Buddhism. Utterly different languages. They look at different as can be. 

I ended up not only being a consultant on the quirks of spoken English, with sometimes hilarious results, but also regularly defending my Asian co-workers in talking with Americans, of white, black, or brown coloration. "You don't see *them* driving jalopys!" a Hispanic guy said. "Actually, they drive pretty humble cars, they just take good care of them", I countered. "When they came here, they were given $20,000 and a house!" a resentful white guy said. I said, if you gave average Americans $20,000 and a house, they'd blow through it in a year and sell off the house. I saw that these people, if they didn't have family, they'd make up families. A guy would live, in his 30s or even 40s, in a rented room with fellow Viets or Cambodians, until he got married. 

Americans will never figure out the recipe of the Secret Sauce. The Secret Sauce is working together. 

I got my 25 things cleaned up and made a ton of little tags and took the photos and got 'em listed on Ebay. Now time to get a couple of big things out, one that has to go out today. No time, energy, or desire to busk today. 

Oh, and I got an email asking me to check over how the plaques will look. Haha both of them cost the temple $90 so my "dues" this year are about $1400. 

I took the two big boxes I packed to FedEx, collected some packing stuff on my way back, and settled in for my nice relaxing Shabbat.