Whew

 Well, tax papers and big check (just a hair under $3300) sent off, back here blah blah. 

Ken had forgotten his check book (he switches between his truck and his Toyota Camry) so he's supposed to drop off my check today or tonight. 

After he left I got to work packing things until I pooped out around 4AM then it was beer and YouTube before bed. 

It's windy and blustery and supposed to rain on Sunday so no busking this weekend but hopefully some good practices. 

I watched a wonderful BBC documentary from 1968 about their national band championship and the band "Black Dyke" won. They had/have bands the way companies in the US had/have softball teams. Even at the company I was with for a while, we had a guy who was a total goof-off but he could do no wrong because he was a good softball player. Even fucked up his ankle sliding into a base and didn't get fired for it. 

The band musicians in the documentary were amazing, and playing amazing pieces. No doubt they could all read music like it's nothing. And it was all brass, from low tubas to the smallest Eb cornets; I didn't even see any drums. And apparently you couldn't just set up a band, the musicians had to be with some company or coal mine or something. 

Now I really wish I'd hung onto the DVD of "Brassed Off" that was given to me by an old friend who was originally from Sheffield in England and was a regular at the electronics swap meets. It's not on YouTube any more, only bits of it, then you can watch it if you pay. Not putting my financial information on the internet, thanks! But at least among the snippets that can be watched is the scene where the gal plays, as the conductor calls it, "Aranjuez, or as you guys know it, 'Orange Juice'". 

It's a great piece, and I might work on really getting it down. Of course being a dumb ear player, that, for me, will involve memorizing it then practicing to play the "recording" of it that's in my head. Just having the music in my head seems to work OK for a busking level musician like me, and it's not like I'm aspiring to play for the London Phil.

I can't play "Ave Maria" any more. I really put some work into that one. It was the first real piece I taught myself to play and I really worked on the thing, would go over it in my head as I rode my bike around the Gilroy countryside; a real Van Gogh landscape out there. I played it for the land owner when he got back from his vacation and he wasn't impressed - he's only impressed by things he's done, not anyone else. 

But it was "my" piece and I played it at least once every busking session and now I can't play it because The Least Christian Man In The World has adopted it as "his" song, even "dancing" to it with all the grace of a drunken walrus. So it's dead to me now. 

But "Orange Juice" is a dandy. I've played bits of it just from hearing it from memory, off the radio or something, I think bits of Miles Davis having used bits of it, and it's gone over well. 

Financially, things are ... scary. We're doing well on Ebay, 9 and 10 grand months. But I think Ken has an "N+1" problem. N+1 refers to the rule in the US that however many people, N, live in a residence, there must be N+1 cars. A while back, maybe a year ago? - Ken bought his wife a new SUV. It might have been bought with her money, since she has some, and she'd traded in a car her dear departed sister had left her, a car she referred to as a "tin can" and having ridden in it, that's what it felt like to be in. But that "tin can" probably only brought a few thou in trade-in, and there's no way she paid in cash for the rest for the new SUV. That's not the American Way. Nope she financed it, guaranteed. And it costs at least a thousand a month to own and operate the average car here in the US. 

So they're shelling out at least an extra thousand a month so Suzy can tootle to the antique store and the market, and their finances are stretched to the extent that I think that might have tipped things right to the edge. 

I say this because my older sister has a theory that what lost us our Portlock Road house in Hawaii was a real estate agent lady who buddied up to my father enough to learn about his finances, and urged him to buy a sports car, a Datsun 240Z, and that was just enough extra expense to tip our finances to the point where we had to sell the house and move to a much cheaper house up in Pupukea (don't worry we got foreclosed out of that one not many years later). Real estate agents in Hawaii are bloodthirsty.  

I had two big things to pack which exhausted my supply of actually large boxes and most of my bubble wrap etc. I also packed a number of small ones. I got going the usual time; Ken had not come by with my check. That's life in high tech. I wish I'd put all that energy and money into learning how to tap-dance or something actually useful. 

I dropped off the things, got some things in 99 Ranch and H Mart, and really looked for packing materials on the way back, coming back with a good load. I called Ken to tell him an air compressor he brought over last night works, and just incidentally ask if he's coming over tonight. He says he is. 

 

 

Tax Day

 I got my taxes done ... call it 1 hour to print out all the needed forms, 1 hour to do the actual filling in and a calculation or two (much of it was the same) and 1 hour to write out my copies to keep for myself (easier than taking everything to FedEx to photocopy the papers) and write out a check and fill out the form V for Voucher and put it all in an envelope etc. 

The big bugaboo is done, and I think I paid a couple-few hundred less than last year. I'd rather pay the couple-few hundred a year and have an actual government rather than the banana republic shit we have now.  

Once I had everything in the large envelope, it was 5:30 and I took off out of here, dropped it off at the post office and bought some more stamps from the machine because (a) the only reason I had stamps was I had some that someone had left out by the trash at 99 Ranch, and (b) I like the stamps the machine prints out, they look neat. 

Then I went up to Dai Thanh market and got things, bought some beer in the liquor store there which turns out to have pretty decent prices, then went to the Filipino market for an onion and checked out the 7-11 and the liquor store there, both duds. Then went to 99 Ranch for a tall can of Korean IPA they sell, then went home, stopping at the EMT school place where I picked up a big, "luggable" IBM laptop that might be good to put on Ebay because some of the old ones are "collectibles". 

So I got in here and realized I hadn't even taken my trash with me, I'd been so intent on getting that envelope with my tax papers (and check) to the post office, but there's a dumpster out there tonight so I put the trash in there, plus went into the other, closer to me, trash enclosure and took out a box I'd thrown in there some days ago, put a bag of stuff that fit into it in it, and also grabbed a very big cardboard tube, 7 feet long or so, I'm pretty sure I put in there ages ago, and put those into the dumpster also. I'm not going to clean up the pile of stuff others put in there because I've learned that when I do, more just shows up. But I can sure take care of things I'm responsible for. 

I cooked dinner and did odd things, and Ken came by. He'd forgotten his check book so he's coming by  tomorrow again to give me my check, and my 1099 too. I said I have so much packing and shipping to catch up on that if I'm doing things right, I'm not going to the bank until Friday anyway. 

Ken had brought by a very large Subway ham and cheese sandwich and gave me half. Granted I put in extra mustard and mayo, but it was surprisingly good.  

I asked Ken if he'd gotten caught up on things ... apparently he still owes the landlord the $500-odd for that "NNN" fee, which isn't going to help our relations with the landlord. And he says he's got enough for me but is worrying over "some other expenses". That's a bit worrying. 

At least he brought a letter saying I'm still on Medi-Cal which is great. And a voter registration thing and I'd been wanting one of those. I was hoping I'd take care of it when I went to get my "Real ID" but this is good, I can just mail this one in. 

Yes, getting my "Real ID" will be the next thing. 

I don't see much busking going on this weekend. I haven't been practicing, and the weather's been very blustery and cold. There's an inch of rain forecast for Monday. 

 

It's "The Holocaust Industry" by Norman Finkelstein Day

 So go out and buy the book or better yet pirate it somehow. 

Anyway .... 

No I didn't work on taxes last night, I packed stuff. And tried to get to bed early, which ended up a bit past 6AM anyway. It's a fight to move my schedule earlier. 

I got up at 2:30 or so, packed some more things ... and Ken's not updated his financial information on Ebay so his payments are on hold right now. 

There have been more financial troubles like this in the last month or two than in years before. Many years. I really need to get on the stick and be prepared to jump. As I've mentioned, our present lease here runs out on August 31st. 

I'm not going to re-iterate my plan to leave mid-September of 2027 to Ken; I'm going to just keep on keeping on here, keeping the numbers good. And they are good lately.  

The thing is, once I lose (or leave) this place, I'm going to start burning money. I'd rather burn said money back in Hawaii getting settled back in at home, and can't think of any good reason to stick it out here in the most expensive part of the country.  

New Orleans is, interestingly, one of the cheapest parts of the country; a place kind to veterans and trumpet players. But with an absolutely stupendous crime rate, hurricanes, and I'm afraid I'd end up smoking crack, picking marijuana butts off of the piss (horse, and everything else) covered sidewalks, and somehow alienating every other musician who plays anything from the French horn to the kazoo, because that's what happens, right? I'm thinking it's one of the few places that are actually worse than Pahoa, Hawaii. 

 

One fine morning in a concentration camp ...

 There are some Soviet and some Jewish prisoners. The commander tells the Soviets, "Take up those shovels and kill the Jews" and the Soviets say "No, we won't do that". So then he tells the Jews, "Take up those shovels and kill the Soviets" and the Jews pick up the shovels enthusiastically. The commander says, "See? This is why we hate them". 

                                                            - joke/proverb told in Russia in WWII. 

What makes it "funny" is, the Soviets, although officially being atheist, would have come from a Christian background, the story of the Good Samaritan and all that, and would have hesitated to kill fellow human beings. But to Jews, anyone not Jewish is an animal, and would think no more of it than killing fish or chickens etc. 

Anyway .... interestingly, last night the police came around to the illegal night club again, or at least one car, which sat there with lights flashing until it was far enough into the 2-5AM operating hours that it prevented a big night for them, or even just a small gathering. 

I don't know who closed and locked the gates across the parking lot, and me, I'm not going near the gate, the lock, etc. The thing is, those no-good-niks have cameras here and there, these days any car can be assumed to possibly be as festooned with cameras as a Tesla, they could have a sneaky Ring anywhere, etc. 

So I just stayed in here after getting in from my ride downtown. And ... while I packed a lot of things, I also got involved in listening to some interesting podcasts on YouTube so I found a big test instrument to take apart so I'd at least be doing something useful, and fortunately the thing - a real treasure chest full of gold plated boards - didn't have super tight screws like many do, and I got that done in record time. 

Finally I was tired, fuggit. I drank more beer and went to bed. 

I woke up kind of early for me, about 1:30 in the afternoon. Hell, if this illegal night club isn't in my damn lap 3 days out of 7 of the week, I might be able to get away with going to bed earlier and being up early enough to try things like making and keeping appointments with the DMV and the SSA, even busking at lunch times and at farmer's markets. 

But today it was all about shipping, and I packed more things, and actually had everything dug out of the warehouse and packed, surprising myself. One big order I was sure I'd not have time to do, but decided I'd get started, and astonished myself by getting it done in half an hour. Among the things I had packed were two that probably should have gone out Friday and had for sure to go out today. So I was pretty happy. 

It's cold and blustery out there! I hit the usual stops, first FedEx to offload the larger boxes in the big load I had teetering on the bike trailer, then the post office for the small things, then did some shopping in 99 Ranch, then over to H Mart. 

Today's freebee: 2 bags of lychees I gave to Tom, because I know he likes them. They actually looked too good to toss out. 

I rode back here and got back to work, packing more things, because more things have to go out tomorrow.  

Orban is out, is the illegal night club next?

 Well, the Hungarian elections are over, Orban has conceded to .... what's his name. But this is really important because it's an election, rules were followed, people voted, and the wannabee dictator has stepped down. I hope we Americans can do things this well. 

Last night was interesting. The cleaning guys next door had their Mexican music playing loud-ish but not too loud, until past 2AM, Meanwhile the illegal night club started their "day" but there's a twist. 

Someone, I don't know who, had closed the gate dividing the parking lot between the two buildings. This had happened during the day, and there's been a truck loading, or unloading, or something, some boxes or something, at the illegal night club. 

So 2AM rolls around and the gate's closed, and pretty soon the pimps and ho's and johns show up, but ... the gate's closed and they're not up to park on this side and then sneak around the end of the fence. It's a narrow passage and dark and I think people pee there, and that's just not happening. So they'd just turn right around and drive out of this side. 

It was plenty busy on the other side, but because they weren't over here, it was nunna my bizniz, and thus no need to call the cops. This ... could work. 

But, at 4:30AM suddenly 4 or 5 cop cars swoop in, sirens and lights going. All I can think is that, well, all it takes is one shooting or stabbing and that'll bring 'em in like that. And it could even be a shooting, because however much people talk about having a "9 mil" there are a ton of "pimp guns" out there, little .25 and .32 ACP automatics, and this is just the crowd they'd be popular with. 

That whole building is hinky as hell. The unit on the end, officially a cosmetics supplier or who knows what, always seems to have scumbag types on bikes loitering around. So maybe it's the next place the cops are going to focus on. 

 I got up at 2:30 this afternoon and the gate is still closed. 

I had breakfast, looked for things, packed a thing  I finally found and gave up on the other one, and decided I wanted to go downtown. I packed up my trash and headed out, dropped trash & beer cans off, then went down to the Amazon place for bubble mailers and got 5, then a nice guy asked if I wanted his, but needed help opening them (one was textbook easy, the other got some quick Swiss Army Knife work) and thus I got two more. Nice guy! 

I decided that although I'm dressed really working-class, this would be a fine time to try out the sausage rolls at Trials Pub. But they were closed and so was Teskey's next door. Oh, well. I rode over to Nijiya and got veggies and some very thin Japanese spaghetti noodles, angel hair really. They had it in three sizes, like buying leads for a mechanical pencil. 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8mm. Hilarious. Also the package I got has this huge "3" on the front which led me to believe it's 3 servings, which at $7-odd is a bit steep, but once I got it home I realized it's 5 servings which isn't bad. 

My disappointment with "Tangle" oil and garlic flavor led me to buy this, since it's probably just as easy to make actual oil and garlic angel hair pasta as the imitation. I also got some overpriced Kraft "Parmesan" cheese because it's got good flavor and is perfect for things like this, and along with the other stuff was $17 and change. 

I then rode down to U-Save Liquors where I-Save. Their price for a 6-pack of Guinness bottles is pretty good, and they have Baken-Ets pork rinds which I've decided are my favorite, even beating out Da Heo brand. That was another $17 and change. 

Then I just rode back here. Avoiding zombies all along, of course. Lots of 'em out there staggering around. It wasn't exactly warm out, but the recent warm weather seemed to "liven" them up. 

It looks like the gates between the two buildings, which look the same but have different owners, are going to be closed for a while. I'm almost to the point where I'd say the other building is an "attractive nuisance" in that there's the illegal night club, the really sketchy unit on the end with the scumbags hanging around, and the car-repair place which might be OK or might be sketchy. I like to think it's just hot rod guys who like to work on their cars, plus their family/friends/coworkers getting routine car stuff done, but all it takes is one flake-O to decide it's a good base to sell drugs from or something, and there you go.  

Slept the day away I guess

 I woke up at 5 in the afternoon or so. Last night I'd photo'd 20 things and listed 10 of them, did various little time-consuming things around here, read too much Reddit as usual, and watched the antics of the illegal night club crowd and made my usual call to the cops to report the antics. 

I think the phone calls carry more weight than the reports to the police suspected prostitution and human trafficking web site, so I'll just keep with the calls. 

I need to widen the options though. I still need to call Zoning about this, and also call Vice/Special Investigations and see if there's an ongoing case, as I've been told. If so, I can ask them how I can be the best help. 

Those fuckers are noisy as hell. Loud convos in Spanish right on the other side of my door, idling cars same, loud music although that will typically only last a few minutes as they get tired of it too, etc. 

I mean, long in the past, I actually asked ol' Dr. Allison about renting an office upstairs at the Blue Cross Animal Hospital to live in, or I think I was asking about living there for free in exchange for some work, and he wanted to charge me rent which I didn't like the idea of at the time. I think it was $200. Laughably cheap, in other words. And it shows I was willing to put up with the noise of living directly above an animal hospital with kennels, that's right on Kapiolani Blvd. 

So I dunno, I'm not paying rent here. 

I'd sent an email last night to my pal on the Big Island, telling him to let me know when the Amazon gift card gets there. I got the reply today, he got it "weeks ago". In other words, the letter actually traveled through reverse time and got to him a week or two before I sent it. Neat trick. I replied that it may have felt like a few weeks due to the crazy weather there, but I'd only sent it a week or two ago. I'm glad he got it though, and he thanked me. 

The weather there *has* been crazy, with lots of flooding. So in my reply I regaled him with my account of The Flooding Of The Haleiwa River Basin During The 1970s Gas Crisis. Good times. 

The present flooding is worse, though, from the sound of it. And there's more beach erosion etc. Being back there is going to be wild. I"m going to want to go over that island with a fine-toothed comb. Having lived and worked all over the island, when I say I just about know every coconut tree there, it doesn't feel too far from the truth. 

I've investigated to death, I think, all the ways I might leave the US and there just isn't anything available to me other than perhaps a desperation "vacation" somewhere like Thailand or Viet Nam where I connive some way to never come back. And that's only if things get really bad here; I mean worse than they are now. Like, I'm going to be deported to a concentration camp for being insufficiently Zionist bad. 

I'm coming around to the theory that a lot of the stuff the Nazis did, the Nazis didn't actually do. What we "know" about Germany in WWII is largely a constructed world, a sort of lore that's agreed upon and this is vigorously enforced  by people who make a huge profit from it. 

Look at other constructed worlds. What witches do and how. The world of Star Trek or The Hobbit. Or King Arthur And The Table Round. Everyone knows the basic configuration and furniture of these worlds, and they're utterly unreal. 

I believe our knowledge of "The Holocaust" (you know, the thing where Germans are accused of doing what Jews are actually doing in the Middle East right now, with a higher daily kill rate) is largely composed of projections; of things the Jews actually do to their enemies or "inferiors" (and to them, all Gentiles are inferiors) or would if they got the chance. 

Author David Irving has researched all of this and of course there's a kernel of truth, the way a Faberge' egg might have an actual eggshell in there somewhere. But the enbroidery upon this kernel of truth is fantastic. 

Hell this imaginary world even comes with its own invented language, "Modern Hebrew", kind of like Esperanto or Klingon, or the "pig Latin" my parents use to use from time to time. 

And now this parasitical group, which our Founding Fathers innocently allowed to live here and establish a foothold, then power, then more power ... now feels it's powerful enough to strike. Thus what's going on in Iran. Thus new laws against anyone even looking sideways at one of The Chosen, hence the ending of the educations of college students, the ending of professional careers. This is not The Klan or The John Birchers or the DAR doing this, this is the people who did a damned fine job of brainwashing most of us that they were cute and cuddly and studious and not at all violent or genocidal, no sir! 

I can't believe I was going to join this group. I was going to the things, singing the songs (which almost all were, I don't know how, "settler" sounding, to where I could see the covered wagons cross the prairie when I sang them) doing the studies. I aced the Reading Hebrew class and at the end of it knew more than the teacher. 

And I was doing what's necessary to make such a move, which is to basically stick my fingers in my ears and go "LA LA LA!" and only looks at the news and world events from inside a bubble that's exclusive to Jews and useful idiots like evangelical Christians. 

I'm surprised I went as far as I did, because I've survived, especially my rather dangerous childhood and young adulthood, by having a acute bullshit filter. Finally I could just not do it. I could not make myself believe that "All Palestinians are guilty even children and babies". I could not believe that Jews were chosen by anyone, or special except in the way Professor Kevin MacDonald has researched, which is as an evolved parasitical group. 

The idea of One God, the idea of a God, is only good for motivating your own group to go and kill another group, or Anyone Who Isn't You. 

The equations, as I put it, don't need a God. A parallel I see is how what we call Maxwell's Equations today, are more properly the Maxwell-Heaviside Equations. The original Maxwell's version had a bunch of extra variables and were much more complicated. Genius nutball Oliver Heaviside distilled them down to their essentials and a bunch of those variables were not needed at all. 

This is what Buddhism did with religion. Sure you have people who are more enlightened, bodhisattvas like the Buddha himself, or Jesus or Shinran Shonen.  The Buddhist world pretty much explains it all. You've got animals, and Hungry Ghosts, and people, devas, bodhisattvas, etc. And as Rinban Sakamoto said, this is all around us. This is here, right now. I hope he enjoys his retirement in San Pedro, and I look forward to being in his home town, Mo'ili'ili, again. 

So the Jewish god? The proper name is "Baal" and in Buddhist terms, it's a preta, which is a hungry ghost that has accumulated too much power. Read the Torah just read the damned thing, and it's all killing, killing, and more killing. Rivers of blood. The Talmud enlarges on this, in the most gruesome ways. 

The message of Jesus was that you don't have to follow those ways. That you can care for your fellow man even if they're of an enemy tribe, hence the story of The Good Samaritan. Jesus helped, how he could, the poor and the outcast. There is none of this in Judaism. There is no concept of "poor and noble" or passing up personal gain in favor of morality. Christianity is not Judaism + Jesus, it's the absolute opposite of Judaism. The Catholics understand this, while the Protestants seem to be wannabee Jews, esteeming money over morality, happy to cooperated with Jews in American slavery and the rapacious American financial everything-is-a-scam system. 

And that's what this country is ruled by. Because when the nation was founded, it didn't have immunity to the poison pill. It didn't have the ability to see that a poison people should not be let in. So now we're enthusiastically carpet-bombing brown children in the Middle East. 

So I'm reading r/cripplingalcoholism on Reddit, for the stories as always and one guy mentions a Kelley's bar and being in Hawaii so I looked it up. Wow! Looks better than any "Irish" bar here in Silicon Valley and I've been in a fair number. Plus the prices are about 1/3 cheaper. That would be in keeping with the cost of living back there being 1/3 less than it is here. 

This is in keeping with the theme here, of being indoctrinated in a thing and finding out reality is 180 degrees opposite. "Jews are poor, put-upon victims" and "Hawaii is expensive" and the lies are repeated and repeated, but that can't make them true. 

Beautiful Clouds

 I didn't mention that yesterday the clouds were spectacular.

Today, I woke up at 3 because I'd set my alarm clock, and had packages packed, so all I had to do was eat breakfast and such little things and I was out the door at 4. 

There was a strong headwind I had to right against so I really pushed myself. It was a slog! But I wanted to be sure to get to the post office in time and the bank, plus I had to make an emergency stop at Nijiya to use their loo. But I did made great time. 

I deposited my check and their numbers and mine only differed by 50c or so, and that only because I'd thrown away a receipt and wrote down what I remembered. So, not bad! If I'm a dollar off per thousand, that's 0.1%. I really like accounting like an engineer rather than like an accountant. 

I got over to Whole Foods and it was so windy and blustery, I was surprised to see Petition Guy there. He said he's almost done, in that the petitions he's got almost all have enough signatures now. I guess it's kind of a seasonal job. I said I'm not busking this weekend because of the rain and it's a perfect time to get my taxes done. And that I'm going to go on the bus over to Han Kook Korean Market. 

I went into Whole Foods and got some pork and cabbage, and a can of beer, and ate and people-watched. Then ended up waiting forever for the #22 bus and when it did finally show up and we got going, it was obvious there had been some kind of problem with the buses because we ended up right on the heels of another #22. 

Eventually I got to the Lawrence stop and that can of beer had hit bottom. I really had to go, again. I decided to try the Burger King there, which has all these flags and balloons say they're NOW OPEN or something. It was excellent. The loos are clean and not locked, and the whole place is really clean. I decided to see if I could order some small thing because I always buy something, or tip, or something, in cases like this. The kiosk was easy to use, and I had the option of paying cash at the counter which was neat. I got these little cheese jalapeno things which were pretty good and only $2. 

OK all done with that, I walked over to Han Kook Market and could not think of anything else I was interested in other than what I'd come for, which was clear packing tape. They sell tape that's $2 a roll and had something like 3X as much on the roll as the stuff Ken buys. It's thinner but the thin stuff is still very strong, and unlike some thing tapes, this stuff is very well-behaved. I really like it.  

So I bought the 12 rolls they had on hand (I wasn't leaving anyone in the lurch, since there's another brand of clear tape they sell also) and walked back to the bus stop with my Whole Foods bag now holding $25 worth of tape. 

It rained a bit on the bus ride back, and it  was wet back at Whole Foods. Petition Guy was sort of set up at one of the tables under the roof, talking with someone. I went in and bought beer and a bag of frozen shrimp (the ones they sell there are the only ones I've found so far that have flavor) and loaded up the bike and rode back by the Hedding route. I didn't even get rained on. 

There were some beautiful anvil-shaped thunderhead clouds today, and we might get some thunder and lightning. And I'll be inside here, doing my taxes. 

 

Paid

 Ken came by last night. I got paid. Cool. 

I'd taken my stuff to the post office and got some things at 99 Ranch then went to H Mart and loaded up with two 6-packs of beer, hamburger, a package of 4 packages of "Tangle" ramen garlic oil flavor, one of mushroom (which everyone raves over) veggies, things like that. 

I picked up packing stuff and stopped by Tom's. He was in a talking mood and told me the hot pot "kit" I'd brought by, priced at $29, had been wonderful. I said I'll pick up more when I see them being tossed out. We talked about this and that, and then I rode back here. 

I got involved putting things away and various tasks and ended up realizing I'm really hungry, so I ate the package of Borden sliced Swiss cheese I'd bought, with some Kewpie/mustard mix I made. Yum! 

I listed the final 10 of the 20 things I"d photographed, and cleaned the place up, and Ken showed up. He even brought me a burger, a "Bourbon" burger which is a cheeseburger with crumbled potato chips I think, and a sauce almost too sweet for pancakes. And a couple of slices of bacon. You can never go wrong selling something to Americans as long as you slather it in sugar. 

We talked a bit, and I got my pay check for this week and the last, but can't deposit it until tomorrow (bank rule, I can't deposit a dated check before the date). 

So I'll have to go out in the rain, I guess. 

I started taking a thing apart and just plain tossed out some large things, and thus threw out a lot of metal for an appreciative bum at about 5 in the morning. Then it was bedtime. 

I woke up around 3 I think. After too much thinking (it should not have taken that much) I realized the best tactic is to pack the big things, and I had a load of big things indeed, as well as a few small ones I'd packed before bed. I had a good load on the bike trailer today. And, we had a $1700+ day because someone bought all of these things we had a lot of that Ken had gotten for free, that are "hospital grade". I simply took the box of 'em off the shelf, put it in a bigger box with some padding, and off it went. 

I got stuff at H Mart and 99 Ranch as usual, found lots of neat packing stuff too, so again I had a big load on the trailer when I came back, with rolls of bubble wrap galore. 

Then it was just futz around, pack things, cook dinner, pack some more things, look for things that can't be found at least not right now, etc.  

An annoying thing happened, though. I took a bag of trash to the welding place's trash can which will get emptied around 4-5AM. So I was taking a bag of trash, but also I'd found a really cool spider walking across the carpet and caught it in a clear plastic bottle with a thin cap on it, that probably to someone who doesn't know the plot would look like I was holding a shot glass. 

So this red hot-rod car had driven in about 20 minutes earlier and parked a distance away. I'd decided not to worry about them. After tossing the trash and putting the spider in the bushes, a black hot-rod car drove up and the guys in it started shouting stuff about being drunk etc., and they'd slowed down, too. So here I was without a weapon and I've got to fight 2-4 guys, fuck that. So I ran back in here and both cars took off. 

I don't think they were connected with the illegal night club, but more likely with the hot-rod shop up the street. This is just a really shitty neighborhood. And they're the kind of guys who are still living with their parents, paying 39% interest on their car loans, and probably shovel shit for a living. If they live long enough, they'll regret their choices. I know I do, but at least I only got into motorcycles which are a magnitude (10X) cheaper than cars, or at least were. (In the 80s there were tons of used bikes out there, often for a dollar a cc engine size or not much more, plus a lot of really neat new bikes.) 

 

 

A lesson on the US media

 Yesterday as usual, as one of the first things when I wake up, I turned on the radio to listen to our "left/liberal" NPR station. And they were running some piece, some reporter supposed to be over there in Iran, and she was going on and on about how the Iranis want to be bombed, how every Irani she talked to (probably in some Palahvist/expat bar) wants to be bombed, bring on the bombs! 

I was astonished, naturally, but they went onto some other piece and my day went on. Then later, in the evening, I saw some thing on Reddit about how "Mark Levin", a local far-right Zionist small-hat, had been ranting on his AM radio show about how .... the Iranis want to be bombed, every Irani he knows says so, bring on the bombs!

The Iran war grinds on, with Iran winning of course. This is another Vietnam. I know why the US fought so hard in Vietnam before getting its ass kicked too - it was about rubber. Your standard car tire probably has little to no natural rubber in it. But truck tires, industrial tires, military tires... those are a different story. 

I learned about this is an unusual way. Somehow I was reading about these sneakers made by these cool Socialist skater punk kids, I wish I could remember the brand name. It wasn't Black Ball, it was some other name. And they used natural rubber for the soles. Where'd they get it from? Easy! They explained it on their web site. They bought used dragster tires. The guys at the drag strip would go through tires like crazy, and they had to be natural rubber to perform as well as they do. Just ... like .... military ... tires.  

And what was Vietnam a French colony primarily for? Those Michelin rubber plantations. During WWII there was a saying something like, "Our military moves on a sheet of rubber". This is serious business. So serious that it's only by reading about cool skater dudes making their own hi-tops out of natural rubber, that I was able to learn about it. Serious enough that it's not talked about. The Vietnam debacle is always explained away as being for Freedom or Preventing Communist Domino Theory, or something. It was about rubber. 

Obviously Iran is about oil. And do we Americans love our oil! We have something like 2X the carbon production per capita as the next runner-up. An American is not a person, but a person + a car (or two). And I can't be too smug, because I ride a bike on rubber/petroleum tires imported from Germany, on a frame imported from China, other parts from Japan, etc. 

I was a little kid when the Vietnam war was going strong. I remember the name Pnom Penh because ... I liked pens. I remember the STOP signs having "WAR" painted on them so they said STOP WAR and thought this was normal. The adults, a lot of them, must have been freaking out. Of course there was the hippie thing, and "Canadian Geese" which meant that draft dodgers who got up to Canada were given asylum. Imagine Canada doing that now! There was Nixon's "wage and price freeze" and again, imagine any president doing that now. 

Right about that time there was a shipping strike in Hawaii, too, and since our sugar was sent to the mainland to process it into white sugar, we used something called "SugarTwin" which was awful. There was also something called "cyclamates" in food that had to be avoided. And some pretty crazy inflation, hence Nixon's wage and price freeze. 

What I'm saying I guess is the 70s were pretty crazy, and the boringness of the 80s to the mid "oughts" is probably the unusual thing.  

Ginsberg knew what she was doing

 On Reddit again someone talking about If only Ruth Bader Ginsberg hadn't refused to retire when Obama was in office. That puzzled me also, but now that I've Noticed, it's all pretty clear. She knew exactly what she was doing. 

It ties right in with my monthly scheduled talks with the rabbi, Mr. nice reform Jewish guy from L.A., whom everyone likes. We'd been talking about Trump, and he'd said with real fear in his eyes, that we'd have had a civil war if Trump didn't win, so it was good he won.... 

Keep in mind this is from the "left", popularly considered far-left, part of Judaism. Yep, MAGA as hell because Trump's their tool. And Ginsberg, being one of the Chosen, was of course going to keep Obama from installing a possibly too-Goyish supreme court judge. It's all very transparent. 

And on that civil war; I'm convinced the small-hats would have done their damnedest to start one if their prize idiot, Trump, wasn't installed. 

Yes I watched/listened to while taking things apart, the documentary "Europa The Last Battle" last night. And yes, it's quite good. It certainly deserves better treatment; to be re-done by an Oliver Stone or an Adam Curtis.  

Last night, I still can't say whether those big wooden crates were being moved in or out. The idiots with the truck and forklift may have been simply trying to get the forklift onto the truck, because eventually with the help of someone else with a forklift, that's what they did, and drove off, with 4 large boxes as well as the first forklift on the truck. 

The most interesting thing is I got a look into the interior of unit 1663, and it was bare, with just a few large wooden crates. Whether they're boxed up gambling machines, or machine shop machines, and whether those boxes are going in or out I can't say. 

I didn't wake up until 4, cooked and ate 3 eggs and had some coffee, packed a few more things, and headed out to the post office. 

Today's freebee was some bananas and a sort of Korean hotpot kit that was meant to cost someone $29. I stopped by Tom's and gave those things to him and we got to talk a bit. 

I talked about how things are around here, financially. Ken didn't pay me last week and may not be able to this week. He owes the landlord $500-odd for this NNN thing, owes the electric company $363 or so, and this in addition to the usual rent which he may or may not have paid. 

In short, it's getting scary. I said that I guess I could leave a year earlier than planned, mid-September of this year rather than the next. And our lease is up on August 30th so I might want to try to be ready to leave by then, because if things are falling apart I want to make that One Last Move while I can. 

I got into how Ken's money management is like my Dad's, frankly. One school year my father had rented a "winter rental" on Balboa Island which cost, I believe, $700 a month. It was a nice 2-story house. My younger sis and I went to the local elementary school and I did a great selling job of convincing my dad it made more sense to buy us bikes than to pay for the school bus, because on the bikes we could go other places besides the school. 

My father stopped coming around, though, and stopped paying the bills. He'd set up a bank account I could access too, write checks, etc., and I remember bugging him for money and he sent some, and I went around and paid the bills, and then the money was gone so I asked for more and he got angry because I'd paid the bills in full; I was supposed to pay them just enough to keep them from shutting things off or evicting us, not pay in full. 

Of course we were eventually evicted, and my uncle being a good American uncle and thus not wanting to help at all, could not wait to put us on a plane back to Hawaii to be my father's problem (or sink or swim, who gives a fuck, which is pretty much what happened) but this gives an insight into my father's financial style. And I'm coming to realize it's Ken's also. 

 

 

More hilarious shit

 I woke up around 3, had my coffee etc., packed All The Things(tm) kind of surprising myself because I didn't think I had the time but ... I did. 

I got ready to go and there's a pink envelope from the electric company. They mean business when they get out the pink envelopes. They need $300-odd by the 10th. Great. 

I got going and dropped off the FedEx package at FedEx and tried to raise Ken on the phone. He answered, neat. 

I told him about the notice, and it being in a pink envelope so they really mean business. Ken needs to update some payment stuff on Ebay and he said he'd do it but he's not; after some thinking I realized he's been holding off because generally when you update financial information on something, that something will withdraw some money to make sure the new information is good. And Ken's not been paid, so he's been holding off for that reason. I told Ken I understood why he's held off on that, to avoid spending money, and now there's this. $363 I think. I said it's not due until the 10th and I know he'll be over on the 8th, Wednesday, but I wanted to give him more lead time to think about it. 

He says he's "going to see what he can scrape together" and I said Look, if it's between paying me or paying the electric company, I can wait. I can't do any work when the electricity's off. 

Oh, and there's still the $500-odd we owe the landlord for that NNN thing. 

And one might wonder why I drink! At least I'm only drinking beer, and I think I've discovered something. Expensive beer like Guinness and Lagunitas seems to be a lot easier on me than cheap beer like PBR or Bud. I guess if I were eating bread, I'd feel a difference between eating Wonder Bread or eating Dr. Oetker's Health Bread imported from Germany, too. I know I feel this difference in chocolate, with the exception of Guittard pure cocoa powder, milled not far from here, I'm only eating European chocolate and not the low-end kind either. Ritter Sports and Cadbury stuff for the European market is very different from stuff made for the American market. 

But getting back to finances, I know our present lease runs out at the end of August. I don't think we can get kicked out before then. And I don't think things can collapse that quickly although all bets are off if something happens with Ken's health. 

What I'm getting at is, it might be a good plan for me to assume I'm leaving September of *this* year rather than the next. That means sell off a lot of things and prepare to hop on a plane. If things get super crazy here I can split for a hotel and I've got Tom for moral support. He flies all the time on Alaskan and that's the airline I'll take. 

I hung up the phone with Ken and ran the smaller packages up to the post office, got some things in 99 Ranch, some more things in H Mart, dropped off fruit I'd found at Tom's (he wasn't answering the door) and got back today. 

Today's freebees: 11 packages of dried squid, apples and bananas for Tom, some weird white chocolate "enrobed" Oreos I'll donate, and some interesting motorized blinds I might slap onto Craig's List. Also a bunch of make-up stuff, Estee Lauder and so on, and now I've got a whole Lulu Lemon goodie bag of make-up, little bags, all kinds of goodies, to give to Ken to give to Suzie.  

And now I'm being entertained by some guys with a forklift, then another forklift they used to un-stick the first forklift which they'd gotten stuck, running around like The Three Stooges trying to get some big wooden boxes off of a truck and apparently deliver them to the site of the illegal night club. Gambling machines maybe? 

Update: The Three Stooges fucked around for a while and then ... drove off with the boxes? So now I have no idea what's going on. The thing is, when I rode in I happened to ride in from Rogers Avenue so I went past the place, noticed the truck there which had just come in when I'd left, and got a look into #1663, which looked bare except for some big wooden boxes. 

Dinner was a big bowl of guacamole courtesy of the 4 small avocados that were also free. I used pork rinds for chips, and washed it down with a nice refreshing Jeju Pellong Ale, which is pretty good. 

 

Easter

 I got 16 things camera-ready last night, and that involved taking a big thing apart that's a "Heathkit". These are not actually Heathkits or they'd be worth more, but are electronic instruments produced in-house by one of the nuclear research labs, and have their own internal model numbers etc., but are not recognized commercial products. And no one wants the things. But the parts are worth something. 

The illegal night club was noisy as usual and I called the cops as usual and they were too busy to show up as usual, it was Saturday night and they were working on a missing person case. I don't blame 'em, they have to prioritize things. And at least the call goes on the record. 

The best answer I've come up with so far is to simply stay up, doing things that keep me occupied enough or are noisy enough on their own that I don't care. Which is why I grabbed this big thing to take apart and had a fine old time taking it to bits and tossing the bits I wanted to sell in one box and the ones I didn't, in another, as well as a small pile of case parts. The stuff I didn't want went outside the door here at about 5:30AM. 

I woke up around 3 I guess. Now I had a choice about this day. I've been wanting to try busking at my local H Mart, which is crazy busy on Sundays, and/or the 99 Ranch up the street. But I was also curious how Easter might be at Whole Foods on the Alameda. Now, lunchtime was probably great. But staying up all night, that was not going to happen. Best case I could play 4:00-5:30 leaving me a bit of time to shop. 

In real life it was 5:15 to 6, and there were tons of people going in and out but they were all in a hurry, and I made $9. Petition Guy was there and got someone/sucker to sign all his petitions but that had taken him being there all day. 

I wanted to see how it was when Whole Foods was closing and turning people away, thinking I might get a burst of tips but that didn't happen at all. People were in a hurry and that's it. But I got to get some good playing in, so it was worth it. 

I packed up and tried San Pedro Square by the Old Spaghetti Factory, trying to play over the canned music that's always playing there now, from 2-3 different sources. I didn't get a thing. I'm convinced everyone who goes there is dead broke, look like they're doing OK because you can find pretty nice clothes at Goodwill or by just cruising around trash day, and they go there hoping to meet someone who isn't broke. With little success, I surmise. 

I took a little ride around, thinking if there are people hanging around camPUS burger, I might try there, or at Leroy's place by the long-gone Johnny Rockets (famous locally for looking like the neutron bomb had gone off and everything just how it was when people put down whatever they were doing and left, with napkins, salt and pepper shakers, etc., even a Starbucks cup, just how it had been left 5 or more years ago) but there were just no people around. 

I stopped in at U-Save Liquor on 1st, where all the scumbags congregate, got a 6-pack of Guinness in bottles and a bag of pork rinds, and got out of there, to back here.  

And dinner eaten, 30 things all ready to photo, and the cops put on a show outside. It was just after 2AM, and the illegal night club looked like it would have a few people show up, mainly the people running the thing, so it really would not be a bother (although they've had some really busy nights on a Sunday-Monday overnght) and they came in just a bit after 2, and have been chasing people out, honking their horns, siren, lights, etc. They are *on* it. Probably because tonight's probably pretty quiet and so the illegal night club has floated up near the top of their to-do list. 

The best way to manage this problem from my vantage point is, to keep things "warm" for 'em with the cops, and just get used to staying up and doing things that make noise anyway etc., as I've described. I'm probably not going to get to a regular daytime schedule until I'm actually retired, not living here, and besides in Hawaii it's really warm in the middle of the day so there's a tradition of getting out and doing things early, then taking it easy, then going back out to do more things later when it cools off.

Today's interesting ICE fact, courtesy of someone on Reddit. The reason they're grabbing day laborers and agricultural workers and well, workers in general is, they're they least trouble-making, hardest-working people they can grab, and they're being put in prisons and put to work at about a dollar a day. 

That's why ICE isn't going after actual bad guys. Or bums. Actual bad guys have got some fight in them. And bums are, well, bums. 

There was a period leading up to our Civil War where people from the slave states would go up into free states and grab black people. A free black person, a worker, a cook or housemaid or farmworker or cobbler or what have you, made fairly decent wages. And they were proven, healthy, workers. So they'd grab them and if they could get them to the South, they could sell them for a pretty penny and then these new slaves might get  room, board, and probably a small "allowance" and that was it. It's a pretty close parallel to what's going on now. 

This explains why people who came here and got permission to stay, and are going through the long and difficult process to become residents and then citizens, people who work for a living, are being grabbed. I'm all for a process for deporting those who are not here legally, but there has to be just that; a process. 

And ICE isn't grabbing Germans and Danes and Finns and Russians even, who came over and overstayed their visas and have been here for years. They're white! It would raise a huge hue and cry if *they* were enslaved. But brown/black people? Pff! Who cares? 

This is a major hurdle in that it needs to be done, to get people to understand that in the eyes and ethos of those who run this place, we are all goyim. We are all cattle. We are all Palestinians. All but the Chosen are on the menu, some of us are a lot further down than others, but we're on there. 

 

Beery night, $43 next night.

 Between that can of Sculpin, the tall can of "Weekend" or whatever it was strong IPA, then a tall can of Guinness, then downing 6 regular cans of Lagunitas before bed on the theory that the illegal night club would not bother me if I was passed out, it was a beery night. 

I'd taken out $170 in two cashbacks to give me my week's pocket money, but done a lot of spending. On a bag of mac nuts, beer, cheese'n'olives, beer, beef sticks and chips and sour cream, and beer.  

I'd also put $20 on my clipper card so I'd have bus or train fare. 

I have $154 on me right now, so I really only used a bit less than $20 of my paycheck money. And I could sure do with less beer... 

I woke up around 3 I think, and realized I had time to get some large packages out of here and I'd feel horribly lazy if I didn't, so I packed the things, and got them over to FedEx. Since H Mart was out of tall cans of cheap Hawaiian beer, I got a large bottle of cheap Japanese beer, and come home and cooked up fried eggs with hot sauce, and had the beer. 

I got my stuff together and rode the short way, by way of Hedding so I got to pause and relax at the top of the hill and start chewing my sugarless gum to clean my mouth, and  once I got to Whole Foods, all I had to do was use the loo and I could start right in playing.

I played from about 8:20 to 9:30 so I'll just call it an hour, and made $43. Not bad, really. Petition Guy was there and I'd brought 4 Ritter Sports with cashews for him, but he didn't want them. I had a fine time playing, and it seemed like when I tried new songs people liked that more, so it was pretty good. It was nice and quiet so the acoustics were good. 

Petition Guy had me watch his table while he went and got his car and parked it closer, and it being 9:30 I decided I was done anyway, so I packed my stuff up and counted up the money, with a pause for a guy to come up and give me a $5 and thanked me. Just like yesterday, I got some nice compliments. 

Whole Foods is open 8-6 tomorrow so if I get going early enough, I could play the 4:30 - 6 time slot. Petition Guy says it's very slow on Easter, but then on special days there can always be that guy with a $100 bill... 

What I didn't do tonight was hang around with that collection of people; in fact I didn't even see them this time. I did see Kenny, and gave him the latest stats. My aim is to make at least $100 on a weekend, and right now I'm at $98. 

I went in and got my 12-pack of Lagunitas and a tall can of some kind of pils, and packed those away on the bike. A down and out looking Black gal came by and I offered her the bag of 4 Ritter Sports and she doesn't like chocolate. 

So I rode downtown thinking I'll find someone to give them to, since I didn't want to take them back home (I'm eating the ones with hazel nuts, slowly, on my own, trying to give away the cashew ones at least until I get around to trying one, then I might decided to keep them, and have a lot of "johgurt" ones too, which are good.) 

I rode around and eventually came to a sleeping form wrapped in in a dark blanket. I parked the bike and snuck up and put the Ritter Sports near the guy, and out of a group of Sharks fans walking by, a guy gave me a fist bump. That raises the number of fist bumps to 4 for today. 

I stopped at TAK Market for some pork rinds, and got back in here. Time to button up for the night. 

 

 

 

Biff boom bang

 Iran is fighting for all of us, and according to NPR it's 3 US planes down. Probably more, but even NPR will admit that many. 

After a year or more of trying to get myself unsubscribed to Nextdoor, I'd finally gone on there and been free with snark and salty opinions. Jesus was a Palestinian and someone's yappy little dog being almost snatched by an eagle, so we need more eagles, etc. 

Latest was posting a thing about the illegal night club, and that probably did it, because I'm finally not getting their stupid little notices. Mission accomplished. 

We're seriously in the beginning stages of a meatgrinder like Viet Nam, though. Fun times ahead. 

I did some practice last night, and also listed 20 things on Ebay so that's good.  

I woke up with time to clean up and pack one more thing, got my stuff together and took off a bit before 4, and dropped off the two small things I'd packed at the post office. Then I went to Whole Foods and locked the bike. Petition Guy wasn't there and I had some "Ritter Sport" bars I wanted to give him, so I gave them to the Gypsy woman begging there with a sign. At least she wasn't by the bike racks at all, maybe choosing to stay out of the sun, but the sun had down down enough that the space by the bike racks was shady. 

I wanted some food first, and came up with a concoction of olives, feta cheese, a dollop of this creamy dressing, a bit of tabboueh salad, and some ground-up bacon. And I took more than I really needed, too. 

I got some lime flavored fizzy water with this, and sat at a table with a guy sitting there, I dunno, looking at his phone like 99.999% of people do now, or something, I ate, and he did his thing, and somehow we ended up talking and had quite a talking session. He gave me one of the beers he was drinking, a "Sculpin" IPA with grapefruit flavoring, a beer I'd never have tried on my own, and it was really good. 

So we talked and I tried to talk while getting this gop I'd put together eaten, which took a while. I finally finished, and I had to go. He'd been waiting for a friend who coaches softball, and he'd still never shown up. So it was all good. 

I set up and started playing at  6:30, and played until 8:00. I screwed up more than usual because part of me didn't want to be out there, but most of me wanted to make the best of this paid practice session, and to work on things like tone.  I got some really good compliments too.

When I finished I counted up, and was packing things away and organizing my money (I had a lot of $1's to spend) and I'd made $51 but two different people came up and gave me $2 so the total ended up being $55. 

I went in to spend my dosh, and got a 12-pack of Lagunitas, some cheese and olives, and was going to get a pint of Guinness but they were out. Out of a lot of things, and I didn't want to just drink a tall can of Lagunitas, so I got this other stuff, some kind of "Noon Time" IPA in a tall can that was a bit stronger. 

I went to sit down and eat and there was my friend again, with his friend, some really old, ditzy, lady, and a middle-aged street type gal with a guitar, the guitar one I've seen around there, owned by various people, for at least a year. 

The word was my friend's friend wanted to buy the guitar for $40, while I thought the ditzy old lady wanted to buy the guitar. These people had been there a while and "You never noticed me caterwauling away on my trumpet?" I asked. They'd never heard me and had no idea. That's how noisy it is there and it's the quietest Whole Foods. 

So we hung out and talked and after tons of talk about Iran it eventually came around to talk about the guitar. By this time I'd finished my two Whole Foods brand beef sticks and my can of strong IPA, and it was 9:30, when the employees of Whole Foods really want people to finish their shopping because they close at 10, so they made an announcement over the P.A. saying so. 

On the ride home I wanted to pick up some pork rinds, but the place I thought might have them didn't because they were closed. Being open past 9PM even on a Friday night is being open too late in this town. TAK Market had some little hard ones, which I didn't want, and after I'd picked out a bag of Mexican cheese flavored potato chips and a little tub of sour cream, I noticed they had some other ones that might be pretty good, but I was decided. I got the chips and dip and a tall can of Guinness. 

 

 

Nickel and diming it

 After Ken left last night I finished getting 20 things photo-ready, and finally went to sleep. I woke up around 3 as usual, maybe 3:30. I'd gotten out the things that need to be shipped, so I was able to easily pack them and took them up to the post office.

I had a little over $3.50 in change, and I could get something at 99 Ranch and get cash back, or just get something really cheap, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. 

I ended up getting three packages of "Mama" brand ramen; a green curry, a yellow curry, and a shrimp tom kha, and that took care of $3. I'm sure they were glad to get the change. 

After that, I rode to H Mart and I was thinking that just for fun, I'd see what I could get for my remaining 64c, some kind of vegetable probably. But, they were closed! Closed for the day, and with the required mis-spellings on the signs they'd run off on their inkjet printer. with the sign on one door saying "WE LOSED" which is hilarious. 

So, OK. I used the bathroom at FedEx and rode for home. Except I felt like I should gather some packing stuff so I went by Noah Medical and got a nice big bag of that anti-static bubble wrap so that was good. 

I stopped by Tom's to fill him in on the latest gossip, namely the big police situation last night, and he found that mildly interesting and didn't have any info on it himself. And he wanted to get back to watching "Taxi". 

I got back here, cooked up dinner, etc. 

It was windy and cold today, and if it's going to be like this while I'm out busking I'll have to prioritize busking in Sunnyvale because I'm pretty well sheltered from the wind if I'm at the parking structure doorway of their Whole Foods. 

 

I practiced last night

 I practiced last night, yay me. Yep, the same ol' pages in the Rubank book. And as I've started to notice is usual, I have trouble with the high notes at first and then once I'm warmed up, 15-20 minutes, I can do 'em and indeed, this time I could do 'em easily once I was warmed up. 

I woke up at 2:30 or so, and since rain was in the forecast, I wanted to pack things and get them out before the rain, presumably, started "mainly after 5". 

So I packed all the things, and had all but one inside my plastic tub so they'd stay dry. The large-ish box on top, I figured, would stay dry enough as long as I took it to FedEx right away. And indeed it was as it was only very lightly drizzling. 

After FedEx I took the small things to the post office, then went to 99 Ranch and when I came out, it was raining, not just drizzling. I rode down to H Mart and went in there for a couple more things (some more "Frima" coffee creama' and a tall can of cheap Hawaiian beer) and when I came out it was done raining so that's good. 

I'd picked up a couple nice signs made of foamcore after FedEx and that was enough for me so I rode right home. Except stopping at the EMT training place (nothing) and stopping to hang out a bit at Tom's. 

James, the homeless gambling addict and all-around scammer, has been living in a pile of junk and what looks like it used to be a tent, across the street from Tom and as Tom and I shot the bull, sure enough, he came shambling over to bug Tom about something; trying to sponge somehow. 

After James had shambled back across the street, not finding much "purchase" with Tom, Tom mentioned to me that someone had tried to burn James' tent last night. I said, that as much as James had scammed him, stolen small things and tried to sell them back to him, etc., it's almost certainly because he'd done that to other people around. 

James looks a sight - he's wearing not only the usual dirt of a never-bathes bum, but also a layer of car grime from his metal scrapping "job". Even his dog is no longer white, but is grey. Pretty soon a bum-ess came up on a bike and James and the female bum, no cleaner than he, started talking at length with each other in their raspy voices. Ah, bum life. 

I just can't get Tom interested in practicing his trumpet. I told him, Just turn on some TV show you'd watch anyway, and just do little things, half a scale, etc. Diddle-diddle-deedle-deedle. I dunno, he must have been pretty disgusted with high school Band when he quit it. 

Myself as a teen in the late 70s, would be astonished at myself now. Mr. Peyton said, "You will play trumpet" and no matter how much I try,  that's exactly what I do. I sure didn't want to so much at the time; I wanted to play 70s guitar riffs "not boring old Herb Alpert". And yet here I am. 

Tom and I parted ways while James and the raspy-voiced harridan continued their important conversation, probably about who owes who a cigarette butt, and I rode back here. 

Except riding back here was complicated. The cops had the street blocked off where the lunch truck place is, and a bunch of people sitting on the curb. I tried going up onto the sidewalk and sort of going on through, but they told me the road is closed. "OK! Sorry about that!" and I turned around, took the little street that got me over to the end of Junction Avenue, then went through the long parking lot that is shared by a few tech companies, and got out onto Queens Lane. The cops also had that closed off, and one of the the cops looked friendly, an Official Yamaguchi, so I asked him what's up and he said he can't say, and I said that's OK and that I'd seen him around, maybe at activities at the Buddhist temple, and he said Yeah he's around the area. I rode around to Old Bayshore and in here, and the cops had the other building, the one that hosts the illegal night club, all blocked off. 

I put the bike and things away and then went over to Accu-Vac and asked the guy if he knew what's up and he didn't. I filled him in one things, mainly that the illegal night club is still operating. He thought it was gone because he doesn't see the "debris" in the morning. I said No, they just have a guy who goes around sweeping up the broken glass etc. He got a new car, some black swoopy thing that's electric, made by one of the new electric car companies (no not Tesla, one that's even newer) and had sold his Mini. He can charge this at his shop there, and "industrial electricity is cheaper than residential". I congratulated him on the new car and went back here. 

I cooked dinner and cleaned up around here, and Ken showed up at the usual time. We'd gotten an email about a payment Ken owes, $500-odd for "NNN" which is something you have to pay for a unit like this, and I'd emailed back the landlord's secretary and said I'd try to get Ken to write the check and get it into the mail tomorrow. 

But Ken wasn't writing any checks. He's waiting to get paid at his job. I said I can wait until next week and the landlord here will just have to wait too. 

We talked about the usual things, tech stuff and politics, and odds and ends. When he left it was raining again. Good - this area can always use a good rinse. 

 

 

My arm is too many colors

 My elbow, really. First I tried to hide it by wearing my long-sleeved fleece, but that was too hot and stuffy so then I decided to not worry about it because no one's said anything. Hell not even Petition Guy. 

But it really looks awful and I wonder if it's affecting my tips, when I'm out playing. 

Right now I'm allowing myself 5 cans of IPA a day/evening but that might even be too much. I might want to go with four, or even eventually two. Guinness is the healthy stuff, but it's not always easy to get as I found last night, having a Foster's instead. 

I ended up sleeping late, until 4, with weird dreams that even at one point involved Miles Davis, not playing his trumpet, sadly. 

I was glad I'd picked out the things that have to go out today, last night, because then I had time to pack the things, put the smaller ones in the plastic tub with lid I use, and put the big box in a trash bag. But I didn't really get wet, and only a few sprinkles on the way back. 

I got a few things in 99 Ranch, and bypassed H Mart because I'd not eaten anything and just got back here for coffee etc. 

I have two problems right now: My Elbow Of Many Colors which a long-sleeved T-shirt will fix, and I can't believe it, there's a bunch of over-spray that I want to clean up and that calls for some more Goof-Off. Lowe's sells that and Ross will have the shirt. 

I dashed out again and Lowe's had the solvent and a scrub brush, but there was not a long sleeved T-shirt to be found at Ross. Wrong time of the year I guess. 

I parked the bike at H Mart and hanging out in front of the new food/boba tea place was Diabetus Legs Guy. He's 'wayy overweight, and his blood sugar has got to be something like 900. I was sure he was gone but he's still staggering around out there in the world. He told me about having three bikes stolen in quick succession, and also about how he's been left a house in this area and just needs to find out where it is, and something about a house (same house?) having a diamond buried in its wall that's 100s of carats. OK. "I'm going to Ross, be back in a bit" I said. 

Ross didn't have my shirt, but I got a couple of nice regular T-shirts, and some stuff for a cold-cuts dinner at Sprouts, namely some Swiss Swiss cheese, some Italian Italian salami slices, and a Munich beer from Munich. 

I walked back over to H Mart and Diabeetus guy was gone, but it was past 9PM and thus, like it would be at 1AM anywhere else. I got some green onions in H Mart so the security folks would see I spend money in there, and then took off for here. 

The warm weather brings the zombies out, but nothing too bad. 

Today a rather nice sort of cascade thing happened. In that, the cleaning guys next door threw out a rather nice half-height file cabinet, and I'd rolled it in here. It means I could get rid of this pale blue cabinet with drawers thing Ken had brought a few years ago, that was a screamin' piece of shit. And also, I got rid of the thing with drawers in the bathroom, that I'd found, because this new file cabinet being white, I can use it to put all our bandages and tape and pills and unguents, and the new file cabinet fits right under the tech bench in the office, so if someone is cut or injured or just has a nasty headache, they can get what they need without having to go into the bathroom and dig for it. 

This also means bandages and such things I have in the half-height file cabinet to the left of my desk here, can go into the new one and that frees up space for tools etc. So the introduction of one file cabinet can cause a lot of re-arrangement of things around here. 

 

 

Humid, gloomy Monday.

 I woke up at 3 or a bit after, had coffee and nuts etc for breakfast, and packed the things I'd that had sold and that I'd dug out last night. A big capacitor, a big hydraulic piston, and some smaller things. 

I got out of here the usual time, a bit before 6, and got the things to FedEx and the post office. It was very grey and gloomy and at the same time, warm and damp. I decided that if it's to rain the next few days, I should do my weekly visit to Walmart today. 

So I came right back here and put the bike trailer away, and headed for Japantown. I went to Nijiya first, and the thing is, I felt kind of weird, like one down when one is just starting to catch a cold. So I went into Nijiya and got a salmon belly slices (and eggs) on rice bento, and had half a bottle of Coke Zero I'd bought at FedEx. 

I settled down on the steps of the old hospital and ate and drank. I polished the whole thing off except for the parsley garnish and the konnyaku because I just don't care for the stuff. 

I then rode over to the Amazon place and found ... one bubble mailer. Better than none, though. Then down to Walmart where I poked around and found some interesting things to buy, as well as what I came for; mundane things like paper towels and some more little sticks of Blistex because I like to have spares. They don't have the foot powder I like though, and I may have to go to one of the big Walmarts to find it. There's only so much they can stock, and they have a few variaties,  just not the one I use. 

Late night, and in this town 8PM is late, at Walmart is always interesting and there were characters, but fortunately no actual craziness. I spent almost $50, so I'd really gone nuts. 

I rode from there back to Whole Foods, but somehow, by going on a street North of the one I used last time, I ended up much further South, of SAP Center, my landmark. That was weird! 

I did get there, though, and now it was 9, so a real night-owl hour around here. Petition Guy was there and was packing up. He'd been there for the day, and "had two signatures near the end" and seemed to be packing up. By the time I'd used the bathroom and talked with him a bit, it was closer to 9:30, and I went in and got, well, I was going to get a pint bottle of Guinness but they were out. I got one of those big cans of Foster's because it's cheap and you can make a neat camping stove out of the can. Maybe I'll actually do it this time. 

I sat at one of the benches and ate a bag of potato chips from Walmart (they sell these bags of chips that are just right for one serving and are a product of Canada, and only about $1) and had to do that fast because 9:30 is terribly late for this town and the workers were bustling around, cleaning tables, etc. 

In San Jose, you have to even relax in a hurry. 

I finished my junque food snack, had tanked the can of beer, and went out to the bike and put the 12-pack of Lagunitas cans I'd also bought, in a bag and tied that onto the bike handlebar. Petition Guy had set up again, and apparently wanted that one more signature... 

Now, he calls out, "California voter?" But it comes out more like "California voter" and he mush-mouths that. So I hung out there too, called out in a friendly way, "Registered to vote in California?". And in no time we'd reeled in a guy who looked a bit like the dad in "That 70s Show" and he got interested. So I left Petition Guy and him to do their thing, and got the bike squared away, and then brought it over, preparatory to hopping on it and riding off after a few final words. The guy finished up and Peitition Guy seemed kind of disappointed "the guy didn't sign them all". Well, some people just can't give themselves permission to be happy, I guess. I said maybe I should drop the trumpet game and just work by helping him get signatures. 

We had a few friendly words and then I said, "Well, see ya when I see ya..." and rode off. 

A Sharks game was just getting out and a good stretch of the road was blocked off to cars. So I had fun riding with the street all to myself, except for the shoals of fans, which were easy to ride around. And the cops didn't mind because I was being cool. 

The ride home was very peaceful. Traffic was very light today and I'm not sure why, except that this might be the week a lot of people get off for Easter which is this coming Sunday. And I thought, I need to work on some Easter songs. "Morning Has Broken" is a good one, being a Christian hymn tune. And "A Closer Walk With Thee" another good choice. And "It's Good To Be Humble", the Shaker tune that got used in a symphony, so tons of people have heard it. I used to play it a lot, years ago. 

 

A quiet night

 The illegal night club wasn't too bad last night, except the part where one drunk client backed their car into a corner of the trash enclosure, so it's a bit crooked now. 

I took three things apart, after listing the final 10 things out of the last batch of 20 I'd photo'd. So in the dawn, around 6:30 in the morning I got to make noise throwing case parts and transformers and junk out front in a pile, and as I tossed the last bit, sure enough, here came a bum, shambling up like it's a dinner call, to take the stuff away. I turned around, when inside here, buttoned things up, and called it a night. 

 

Bad Scales

 I woke up at 3:30 actually woke up around 1 maybe, went back to sleep for more weird dreams then got up. I thought, when the illegal night club people were making so much noise instead of just leaving quietly and doing burnouts and making noise right outside my door, I got the cornet and the Denis Wick mouthpiece out because it's much louder than my other one, and played "Deutschland Uber Alles" as loud as I could. This seemed to have a small effect, but I really think the way to do is to play scales, badly. 

What I was playing was actually musical, and the idea is to play something that's really unpleasant to listen to, and bad scales have worked well in the past. No one wants to hear someone who apparently can't play for shit, try. The people who were running the illegal nightclub eventually got the pimps and ho's and johns cleared out and it was actually quiet at 6:30AM. 

I washed the piss off of the front of this place, watched some YouTube, drank beer, and went to bed. I'd started a load of laundry, had the cornet all ready grab and go, and went to bed.

When I was up I thought for a hot second about going to Sunnyvale, and decided Nope I'll just play locally. I dropped off trash, stopped in at Nijiya for a bottle of "seasoned pepper" and $40 cash back, then went to the Amazon place for some bubble mailers, and then went over to Whole Foods. 

It was 6, and I decided OK, I'll play until 7:30. But I ended up playing until 8. It was slow, and I tried out some new things that worked out well. "Moonshadow" by Cat Stevens sounds good on the cornet, "Annie's Song" in a lower key sounds good, and "Blowin' In The Wind", ostensibly by "Bob Dylan", went over well - with Petition Guy at least. 

I also worked out "Brother Can You Spare A Dime" and that's kinda fun. 

When I got a chance, I explained to Petition Guy that Bob Dylan probably plagiarized "Blowin' In The Wind' like 99.999% of his material, that he's a huge Zionist, and what disgusts me the most is, that weird way of singing he had, was copied from Woody Guthrie after Guthrie had gotten very ill from Lou Gehrig's Disease and *he* sure didn't want to sound that way. This, the only reason I'll even play the song is that, "Dylan" being a parasite, it's almost certainly not actually "his" material. 

Finally it was 8, and I counted up: $33.50. My aim is to make $100 or better on a weekend, and I've done that. 

Now, I normally take $200 out of my $400 pay check each week and that's my allowance. But, when I'd taken $100 out, the guy at Whole Foods had given me a $100 and taken care to give me a "good" one, so I could not resist stashing that away in the cash stash. So I can take $300 out of this week's check, and so far I've actually only taken out a little under $100. And I've been buying stuff and beer, and have $70 on hand. 

 

Wut protests?

 I woke up at 3 in the afternoon, completely forgetting there were big protests scheduled today. I might have tried to get up earlier and go, just to look around and say Hi to Batman and check out the booths, maybe buy a sweet keffiyah I dunno. 

Well, anyway, too much beer really. But at least I got a big thing all taken apart (I'd started on it the night before) and while the illegal night club did its thing, it wasn't too annoying I guess. 

After waking up and having coffee etc., I masked off my lines again and masked off the other concrete stopper I hadn't painted, and then happily blasted $20 worth of white striping paint on everything. The guy who's the head honcho of one of the cleaning companies, whom I've heard called "Chuey" but I don't know if I'd call him that because it feels too informal, but anyway ol' Chuey had had a few cervesas and kept calling out to me, "Lakota" which I haven't the slightest meaning of the meaning of. Google was no help. Eh, I just went about doing my thing. 

Once I was done, I packed up the horn and tip box and trash and headed out. It was now around 6. I dropped off the trash and stopped in at Nijiya for a can of coffee and a couple of boiled eggs, and got $40 cash back so I'd have some money in my pocket. I sat and had my eggs and coffee with a group of people at the one table in front, which I discovered is a really popular place for people to eat shave ice from next door, and spill the same around, so the sidewalk under the table is a sticky mess. I think from now on I'll be less social and sit somewhere else. 

I chewed gum on my way over to Whole Foods, and got there and got situated and started playing at 7:30 so I'd play until 9. Things started out well with two $5 tips, then it got sparse because of two things: An ambulance parked on the street right by me, and there were police cars with their lights on at the intersection. And this big crowd of people came through, which turned out to be fans of college basketball, who had been at the U. of Arizona / Purdue game. And none in a tipping mood. 

Petition Guy was there, and was not mad at me for the other night. In fact, he complimented my playing a few times. And with the tips not coming, I got into a kind of "fuck it" mood, and worked on things I don't normally play at least so far. 

Once the ambulance had driven off and the crowd was gone, some tips trickled in, but by now it was late and there were not very many actual customers going in and out of Whole Foods. I tried pushing myself past 9 but while it did get me one more tip which was nice, I quit at a few minutes after 9. 

I'd made $28, $3 of it in handfuls of change from a couple different people. And I had some nice interactions with people, and I'm to learn a tune called "Gabriel's Oboe" because I promised a lady I would, and I've heard the title a bunch of times; it might be a banger. 

I grabbed a cart and went in and got a 12-pack of Lagunitas because it's cheaper there than anywhere, a pint of Guinness to have with dinner, and a bag of frozen shrimp. I got to talk with Petition Guy a bit, told him I'd made $28 which sounded really good to him, but is kind of low for me these days. But considering the big crowd of tightasses from the basketball game, and the ambulance and cops, I did surprisingly well. 

Petition Guy and I got to talk a bit, about finances. As mentioned he thought $28 was good for an hour and a half. I said my main job, which gets me what works out to $57 a day, has to take precedence and so this is why I came out a bit late tonight. But that when I'm retired, I'll be able to devote more time to playing music. He didn't think $57 a day is "big money for Silicon Valley" and said engineers make much more, and I riposted with "When they have jobs, and as far as that goes, my boss makes about $200k a year and he's paycheck-to-paycheck, and clips coupons to take to Burger King". Then we got a bit of good old Judenhass in and parted happily. 

I rode home by way of Hedding, I swear that hill is good for my legs. I got back here and removed the making tape on my paint job and looks like there's still some overspray but I'm not going to worry about it. At least the lines are night and bright, the narrow places are fixed, and the stoppers are nice and white and easy to see. Time will take care of the overspray. 

I got 20 things all photographed and listed half of them, the illegal night club was raucous enough that I ended up calling the cops 3X, plus at the time they knock off for the night, 5AM, instead of just all leaving, they hung out and one bunch of them hung out right outside my door with loud music and a guy pissing on the front of this place here.

I need to get one of those air horns so I can pop out and honk it at one of these pissers, that would be fun. 

They also did burnouts in the parking lot, again, around the time they normally just relatively quietly leave. It's like trying to co-exist with Israelis. The burn-outs were the reason for the 3rd call to the police, who were apparently too busy to come by but at least the call was made, and those do get tallied into where the crime hotspots are.  

I'm going to see if I can coordinate with the landlord of *this* building about this, because it's been a problem for them, too, and I'm not the only tenant who's complained. The best outcome is we can trigger an asset seizure of the other building, which is owned by an absentee landlord in Arizona.  

Sometimes the answer is 46

 Ken came by around the usual time last night, I got my check for this pay and the one before so it's caught up, and we talked about stuff. I'm keeping the numbers good and it had been a $900+ day so the mood was pretty good. And I had a bag of flashlights to give to Ken and a couple of cute cat dishes for his wife, so all was well. 

When Ken left, he almost left without his checkbook and the flashlights and stuff and I was lucky to flag him down as he was in his truck and leaving (this is pertinent because now, at 11:30 Friday night, he's just called me from his wife's phone as he's lost his and wondered if it was around here. He's only got 3 messy labs at his work and his very messy truck so it could be anywhere....) 

The illegal night club was a bit busy which was unusual for a Thursday night, but not too bad. I got started taking a thing apart, and drank beers and eventually went to bed around 7AM. 

I had everything done like packing packages, and when I woke up at 3 in the afternoon, I only had to clean up and pack up the trash, gather up the packages, tip box, horn, etc., and get going which I did at 4. I dropped off the trash, deposited my check in the bank where my math and theirs matched to the penny, and headed over to Whole Foods. 

Now, I basically had no money with me. The usual plan is to go to Whole Foods right after the bank, and in the process of buying some things, take out $200 of my weekly $400 pay check, and that's my allowance for the week.  

Since my busking sessions are as much practice for my retirement years as anything else, I decided, having about $6 on my clipper card so enough for one day's travels on the VTA system, I'd do the day as if I'm broke. So, when I bought a couple of beef sticks and a fizzy water and got $100 cash back, the checker gave me a $100 bill and took the trouble to pick out a nice one, I put that in my wallet to go into my cash-stash. 

Being broke means no train when the bus will do, and I took the #22 bus to Sunnyvale. The two-hour rule being unbeatable, since I'd left the shop at 4, there's no way I'd be in Sunnyvale before 6, and indeed, when I'd walked to the Whole Foods and set up and played my first tune, it was 6:18. 

I set up at the front door instead of the parking lot door, as the parking lot entrance had a guy with a table with some signs with stuff about kids and drugs and so on. So I decided it's a good time to set up on the other side and see how it goes. 

It ... didn't go well. I got a $2 tip right away, then nothing. The wind was really a problem, as wind makes people not want to take money out. So at 7 I moved over to the parking lot side, the table guy being away for a piss/smoke/crack break I could kind of justify setting up by the door as always (he was off to the side, on the sidewalk). 

I got to playing and it was slow. The thing is, last Sunday night, I'd put the horn away and not touched it all week. I played along and tips trickled in, and I determined myself that I'd stay until 8, making it an hour and a half. Every time I looked over at the table guy, he gave me the ol' hairy eyeball, and eventually he packed up and left. He'd have been entirely justified in yelling at me, "Hey! How long do you plan to be here?" and I've have said, "I'm only staying until 8, and them I'm outta here!" whereby he'd know that I'm a temporary nuisance, and he'd still have two sweet hours to get the late Friday crowd. 

Finally it was 8 and I had counted up, $46 which isn't that bad. For an hour and a half, pretty good, something like $30 an hour which is huge money in Silicon Valley. 

I walked back out to the bus stop, stopping in at Baraka Market for a yogurt drink. By the time I got back to my "home" Whole Foods, it was 9:30 and since I'd left here at 4, that's 5-1/2 hours to make that $46. And in most of the area of the US, you have to be in the tippy-top elite to make more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour so I have to call this good.  

So I got back to my "home" Whole Foods and offloaded some of the stuff I was carrying onto the bike and went in for some shopping. In the end I got cheese, olives, a 12-pack of Lagunitas IPA in cans, mustard, and put the remaining $7 on my clipper card. 

Petition Guy was there and called out to me. He wanted me to watch his table while he went to the bathroom. I was happy to help, but then instead of leaving to use the facilities, he then stayed here, moving things around and trying to get me to read and perhaps sign, his petitions. I said something like he'd better get going and use the bathroom, and he kind of started to, then went back to moving stacks of things around and I should read all the petitions. ... I put up with that for a few more minutes and then said, "Deal's off" and walked back to my bike, unlocked it, got on it, and rode off. While Petition Guy stood there, staring at me. Funny as hell. 

I come from years of dealing and selling at gun shows and swap meets. There's a code. If you ask someone to watch your stuff while you go pee, your end of the contract is you leave immediately, go to the loo, and come immediately back.  You don't stay there sorting through your shit and trying to get your benefactor to buy some of it. Nor do you tarry after having peed, there's no coming back 15 or 20 minutes later with a bag of groceries. If you break the code, no one will cover for you when you need to go take a whiz, nor should they. And I mean, not just the person you've burned, but word will spread and no one will cover for you other than whatever sketchy types are around whose time is worth nothing. 

Swap meets and gun shows where people all know each other are great; they're one of the closest things you can be involved in where people act as a tribe, and have codes about things like this, that aren't written out on paper anywhere but are known and followed, with consequences if one doesn't. 

And Petition Guy can just stick to having sketchy people watch his stuff for him.  

I got back here and it was something like 10:30. 

 

The US swallowed a poison pill

 I am seeing things like this: The USA swallowed a poison pill, thinking the pill would make it stronger. Essentially in its early days as a set of colonies and then a country, it decided, "We have been told that your People (Jews) are a Poison, but we think that letting you come here and flourish, will Benefit us, as it will bring more Commerce...." etc. 

Bring more Commerce the juicy ones indeed did, in the form of slavery and other grifts. But yes the US did benefit, because a growing parasite wants a healthy host. 

It was to their benefit that we got involved in WWI (we were brought in a Jew who had pull with the Brits) and then WWII, and now the US is essentially a zombie controlled by them. Hence our new forever-war in the Middle East. 

They were sucking Germany dry and the Germans fought back; then we got enlisted to punish the Germans. Now, with worldwide communication and The Great Noticing, those who are wise to, and who are learning about, their parasitical nature, are distributed worldwide. And there's a great interest in bypassing the mainstream media because guess who owns that? 

So now the US is finally in the nascent stages of developing an immune reaction against the parasite. Interesting times ahead but this time around people can't be kept in the dark so easily. On one of the juicy subreddits, some leech was saying he feared for Generation Z, who are more Naturalist or Nationalist I forget which, but he called them generation Nat-Z haha. 

I woke up around 3, maybe closer to 4, and had my breakfast and packed things and got out of here. Plenty of zombies around but no interactions with them, thank goodness. I delivered my packages and then went to Lowe's and bought Windex and Simple Green, putting them on my card and getting cash back, so I have "walking around money". 

 

Am I Right or Left?

 Goodness know, I should have taken a hard right on the bike today. 

I woke up around 3, and had a pile of mostly large things I'd packed last night to ship out, and I packed a couple more things, left here at 4 to take them to the post office and FedEx, and went right back here to pack three more large things that had to go out. I actually got them packed with time to spare, too, so that was good. 

I slogged with those up to FedEx and dropped them off, then went up to 99 Ranch and got a few different flavors of "Mama" noodles because I'd tried the green curry flavored ones and thought they were really good. I got 4 different flavors, including a shrimp one and in the fish department, they had some precooked shrimp. Essentially what they do is take fish that's not sold quickly enough and deep fry it and put it in packages so I got this big package of shrimp for $4. 

On the way back I just wanted to cook up the shrimp noodles dish I had imagined, and I wanted to get some IPA type beer to have with it. I figured I had just enough money. 

I didn't find anything in H Mart, so Sprouts it was. There's a sneaky way of going there which is to park my bike and trailer in the shopping cart area inside, which many who are in the know do, and I did this. I found a tall can of Lagunitas IPA and a smaller but still tall can of some Munich Germany stuff that looked interesting and was a dollar cheaper, I figured I had just enough for both. 

Well, I was 11c short after the checker and I counted out all this change, and the checker said she figures they have that much "around" so don't worry about it. Great. I put the cans in the bike bag on top of the shrimp and packets of noodles, and rode for home. 

Here is where I made a very large mistake. The proper way to cross Brokaw is to go opposite the direction I want to go, to go to the crosswalk at the light, wait for the signal, etc. But what the bums, scumbags, lowlifes, etc., often do is cut across where the train tracks are. I made the bad decision to do this. 

I rode around the back of the building and was coming up to Brokaw, checking out the traffic, and there was a zombess on a bike wandering across, not looking to be moving that quickly so I was paying more attention to the gap in the traffic it looked like I could time myself for. 

Well, the zombess was either moving quickly all along or sped up, somehow didn't see me (on a bike cruiser bike with blinking lights, and wearing a high-vis vest and hat) and blam! We ran into each other. The zombess sputtered, "How do you do that??" and I said, "I don't know, it takes a special talent, I guess". As we got up, I saw that her bike was OK, and I said "Can I offer you a beer?" and she said something like, "Are you drunk? Is that what's going on?" and I retorted that No, I am not drunk, although I planned to be .... and once I got my bike upright and got the handlebars turned around the right away again, I went into the bike bag and pulled out the Munich beer, icy cold, and put it into the zombess' filthy hands. I'd said, while getting out the beer, "At least it's not cars; even the smallest fender bender is thousands". The zombess seemed to be happy to have gotten a beer out of the whole thing and rode off, and I rode off in the opposite direction. 

Beer, along with cigarettes and a variety of drugs, is a universal currency among these subterraneans, and since her bike didn't seem to be harmed nor her, I'd paid my dues and shown good "street" manners. 

On my way back here, I noticed I now have a hematoma on my left arm just below the elbow. Lovely. Not painful at all, just a big bluish lump. Serves me right. Scumsuckers cross at the signals, too, of course. But train tracks are a magnet for zombies and it's kind of a free for all there. 

Being a little more panicky and twitching the bike rightward would have avoided the zombess, and I'd only have a near miss, hardly anything to remark on. The warm weather sure brings the zombies out and they're everywhere right now. Rightward... rightward... 

So am I left or right? Politically, I mean. I am 100.000% for LGBT rights, and since LGBT is a biological fact that's been with us and all the animals forever, and that's Science, and Science is "woke", some would call me Left or even far Left. But some very "Right" cultures have had no problems with LGBT people, it just varies by culture. 

I think people ought to be able to, and to some extent required to, work to support themselves. That would make me, to some, Right or far-Right. 

We don't have a clear Left and Right in the US. And the more I see of the Democratic Party's bumbling, I'm really starting to come around to the idea that they might just be an actual controlled opposition. 

But getting back to day-to-day issues, and by that I mean zombies. I've had a very good idea for a while now, which I call Happy Fun Camps. Your average zombie isn't really capable of working, since their bodies not not very fit, or their minds, or both. So work camps are not the answer. And having them out on the street, stealing and shitting and piling up trash, turns out to be very expensive as well as unsightly. 

Happy Fun Camps are a solution to this. Your average bum can collect Disability which is about $900 a month. You set up a development with little cement block huts, maybe 200 square feet with a combined toilet and shower, and anyone can enter the Happy Fun Camp to stay, voluntarily. They can also leave, voluntarily. Their Disability payment will cover electricity, water, etc., and junk food. This will get the junk food companies on board. Also, each bum gets the drug of their choice, all they want of it. 

This way they don't need to steal, rob, prostitute, etc., to get their drug of choice; they just get it. My model for this is the "Wet House" an organization runs in England. Alkies stay there and it's assumed they'll be alkies forever, so in the Wet House they can live, get their daily dose of alcohol, and they're off the street. 

This would be the same thing but for all drugs, not just alcohol. Since in the US, all the "illegal" drugs are legal at the user level, why not? There will be a doctor in the loop somewhere, and there could be adult education classes, accounting and computer skills and GED classes and so on. The classes won't be popular, but they'll be there. 

Anyone who's in there will be free to leave, but if they're real bums, they'll never want to. And non-bums will hate the place in no time because a regular person doesn't want to be a slave to drugs, wants to work some sort of job, etc. It's a brilliant plan to allow the bums to live their mode of life and those of us who work to live ours. 

There was a kerfuffle recently where some far-Right politician in Arizona said essentially what I've expressed, which is, "Let the druggies have all the drugs they want!" so does this make me far-Right? 

In any case, the shrimp soup I made was excellent. 

Now I'm in a quandary. I just called Ken and he feels better, and will come by this week but Thursday instead of Wednesday, which is tomorrow. So I guess I'll get paid then, and deposit the check on Friday. So do I hold two "no spending days" or do I do some busking, which I should probably not since I have to do work around here, or do I just take some more money out of my bank account, which I certainly can, because I have about $80 left of what I'll allow myself to spend this last pay period. I'll probably do that.