Like it's 1997

 Hm, well, last Monday I woke up with a headache, and when I checked my email, a scary email. It looked like we were late with our December rent, and I figured Ken had just forgotten to mail the check, again. It was from our old landlord, which I thought was our current landlord. I looked them up online, and saw it's just a bus ride to Palo Alto to get there, so I called them up to say I'm on it, will get Ken to write a check and can hand-deliver it tomorrow. The bimbo who answered the phone checked and said, "We've not owned that building for years and what you got was mailed out by mistake". So the mystery deepened. 

I called Ken a ton but he never answered so I finally decided, "Tough, I'll see him Wednesday night". And I did, as he came over at his usual time. I'd printed out the invoice that was an attachment to the email, which appeared to be a bill for all rents plus late fees since 2023 or so. 

He said they've not been our landlord for years, this other one was, and I recognized the name. It's just that we'd had so many interactions with the previous one that I thought they still owned the building. We concluded that the old one had probably tried using AI, and AI did what AI does, which is fuck things up. 

Ken had *not* brought his checkbook, so he had to come over Thursday night to bring me my pay check, which deposited on Friday. 

Through all of this I've been taking a load of stuff from the old storage place, on the bike trailer, back here. I've been taking stuff I can list on Ebay easily as the first priority. 

It's been really cold and windy outside and I've not been even close to doing any busking. Since  I don't drink any more the financial pressure is off, and it's more about gaining skill and experience. 

I got two loads from the old place last night, and Ken was there, loading things up too. I told he he ought to prioritize things that require the trailer he rent, then the rest can be done with his truck without the trailer, and with my bike trailer. I said I'll continue to take a load a day out of there myself, and we'll be out of the final unit in a week. 

Then Ken will just have to $300 to pay for the new place, instead of the almost $700 for the old place. 

I didn't do much over the weekend. Whole Foods is being monopolized by the skinny white guy with his table, hassling people to sign petitions. But there's another sort of area I could play the Hall flute and perhaps add a nice Christmas touch and get tips ... if I'd only get out there. There are also other places like Mountain View and San Pedro Market. 

Plus I still have zero data points regarding whether the flute is more accepted by the public than the trumpet. I have a sneaking suspicion  that I could play the flute a lot of places where I'd get chased out if I played a trumpet. 

The highlight of the weekend was that I went through all the antique shops on San Carlos, looking for those little "10 years' service" type pins, as the tiny things are often solid gold or at least gold-filled, which means at least 10% of their weight is gold. But I found none.

I realized that it's not like it's 1997 any more. Everything in there has been checked and valued - often over-valued - by looking at prices online. A few things I made a mental note to check, turned out to be criminally overpriced. At least I got this idiotic pursuit out of my system.