Just the various things that happen around here

 Yesterday I'd been working on reasons to go out, then found out the water was off. I thought maybe Ken hadn't paid the bill, but once I was all ready to go and getting the bike out, I went next door and asked the guys and their water was out too. They were probably puzzled that I was happy to hear it wasn't just me. 

I went out, then, and bought a few gallons of water and some cilantro, and on the way back picked up tons of these little flat boxes from the computer repair place. 

I got involved doing things, had dinner, and around midnight, as I was re-arranging things, decided it was a good idea to go back to the computer repair place and pickup the last of the little boxes and did so. It was good to get out of the heat. 

I ended up staying up, taking a thing apart and rounding up small things and packing them and finding things that go into large combined orders, and stayed up until 8AM. This was actually kind of good, because that's when I got a knock on the door. It was repairmen asking about a repair request for the A/C. 

I said I don't use A/C and for that matter, the guys on each side, they don't bother with it either. But as we puzzled over this, I mentioned the name of the place directly behind me, and it turns out they had the initials of the company on the repair order and didn't know the full name. When I mentioned the full name they realized it might just be them. So I was helpful, after all. 

They run big machines and might use A/C but I'm guessing it was a matter of the spinny things on the roof not working because when the wind's been crazy here I've not heard them spinning, and they probably make a real difference. I saw that the repairmen had gone up onto the roof with a big ladder and went to bed. 

And before beddy-bye, the water had come back on and I started a load of laundry.  

Another practice

 That's what matters, that I got another practice in last night. I also photo'd but did not list 30 things last night like I should have. But at least I photo'd them. 

The heat is annoying but hey it's summer. 

In the practice I started to go into the next page, further than I had before in the Rubank book. The thing is, as nearly as I can figure, is (a) I need to put in the hours because that's how endurance is developed. And (b) there's a sort of bad habit of tensing up too much. This can come from (a) not enough hours so muscles get fatigued, and also a sort of bad habit to be trained out. What beats it all is consistency, practicing regularly every day. 

The thing is, I honestly don't know from week to week when this job, this situation I have, is going to fall apart.  Ken doesn't even know, because he thinks, like any Boomer, that he can keep re-financing and setting up this or that thinly disguised reverse mortgage, never reading the find print, and everything will be OK. 

Interestingly, it was another quiet night last night, as there was a cop car stationed again at the entrance to the other building where the illegal night club operates, and it was really, really, quiet. It was nice in that respect. 

 

A good practice

 I got a good practice in last night, and interestingly, the police stationed a car at the entrance to the other building from about 1AM to 4AM, long enough to make it nonprofitable for the illegal night club to operate, so it was a nice quiet night. 

I was even able to play a high C which I hadn't done yet with this cornet and its conical mouthpiece. 

I decided I had reasons, just barely enough, to justify riding downtown. I dropped off trash, dropped off donations, used up the mix of bird seed I'd made of millet, chia, roasted sesame, and flax seeds by sprinkling it on a large bare/weedy area by the freeway bridge where I heard a lot of small bird chirping. 

I went to the Amazon place and found two or three bubble mailers, that's all. I rode down to Walmart and got a bottle of instant coffee and a package of notebook paper and a rather nice wooden ruler to use in photos because the orange one I recently got shows up closer to red in photos and really steals the show. 

The ruler was 97c or so, and yet when I got home and peeled the sticker off, it had an RFID thing in it, so I guess Walmart can bust a kid for stealing a ruler. There's also a video camera in that area and a screen which I played with for a bit, watching the little green outline stay on my face however I moved my hands and arms around haha. 

So I got done at Walmart for only about $14 and almost all of that was the coffee. 

I went over to Whole Foods and only bought a bag of buckwheat flour. I love buckwheat noodles, called soba, but 100% buckwheat ones are very expensive. I'm thinking I might try making crepes, which I can spread my nutritional yeast + butter + olive oil mixture on. In the interest of this, I bought a frying pan yesterday which cost me almost $20, and that was the best deal in town, I know, because I checked the prices at Ross and Homegoods before  buying the pan in H Mart. 

The yeast is a pain in the rear to eat on its own. It's great spread on bread or something, but I'd rather not add a lot of bread to my diet. I can buy these really flat Indian/Asian tortilla things, as well as just buying flour tortillas, but I'd rather try to be a bit more healthy. Hence the buckwheat flour. 

So here I was, going to Whole Foods and just buying one staple thing. No extras, no bottle of coffee or snack from the hot bar or anything. That's how the economy is now and I hope they're getting used to it. 

 

 

How the math is mathing

 Since I can't post links on here, I can only describe what I was just reading on r/hawaii on Reddit. 

People are talking about who moved from Hawaii to the mainland for cheaper living. Right away I started laughing internally because in my experience the mainland is more expensive than Hawaii, by quite a bit. 

But they're talking about having engineering jobs and such jobs, jobs that take special connections to get and a quarter-million or more for the education to get started. Jobs that apparently it's against the order of the Universe for me to get, no matter how smart and hard-working and I know; I tried. 

So horray for them, I guess. 

In my experience, if you're making the same $5 or $10 an hour in Hawaii or on the mainland, your $5 or $10 an hour will go almost twice as far in Hawaii. This is because in Hawaii you can live like a local, which means no A/C because no real local ever needs it or misses it, maybe in a 2nd or 3rd floor walk-up with an extra charge for parking but who cares because no one in their right mind would have a car, given how expensive they are. 

So for one instance one commenter talks about topping out at $77k for his engineering job and the same job starts at $90k on the mainland but is generally $125k, well, great for him. 

The most I've made, with my own Ebay thing going, was a gross around $70k. Taxable income was about half that. So the most I've made is $35k, which is just a bit more than minimum wage pays here in California. But then there are California expenses, 2X Hawaii expenses, for everything. 

And my Social Security, about $1400 a month I think, or $16k, will be the same here or back in Hawaii. I'd be a fool not to go where expenses are 1/2 or at most 2/3rds what they are here. Plus it being easier to get around, this area being arranged where everything is 30 miles from everything else. 

What's funny about Social Security is, I'm allowed to make a bit more per year than I do now, about $20.6k, before they "claw back" some of the monthly payment. And even then, if my understanding is correct, the money "clawed back" is kept for me and added to my payment at age 70. 

I actually practiced last night. I need to get back in shape to get out there busking regularly. 

 

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"

 I finished a load of laundry and hung it up, did my Mop & Glo routine in the bathroom and on the plastic chair shield thing under my desk, vacuumed, had the place all spiffy, and right on time, Ken showed up. This is becoming the exception to the rule. 

He'd brought a hamburger for me because Real Americans must eat at least one hamburger or... they turn ghey or something. Ken had one too and fries, and his blood sugar alarm kept going off because his blood sugar was high. He told me he's forgotten to bring insulin so he'll just have to deal with it. 

We talked a bit and then I raised the subject of a pay check. This started a big search through his car and he was sure he didn't have his check book, and I said, "Let me get my flashlight and be a second set of eyes" and started searching myself when, miraculously, he found it. 

So I got my check, but dated for Monday. So I guess if I'm lucky, each week I'll get the pay from the week before. 

I asked again if he'd gotten involved with Bitcoin or "crypto" of any type because it's halved in value over the last 6 months and would fit in well with the money problems we've been having. He said that no, it was more a matter of timing. He throws money at problems, on credit. So he's paying a loan on his new furnace and on some other things. 

I asked about this reverse mortgage thing he's getting into, and he said it's an HEI, and mentioned the name of the company again but they're so dodgy I don't remember the name now, only that it's an "HEI" and totally, totally, not a reverse mortgage. No, this is better because it can be traded on the open market ... wtf? Anyway he's waiting for an appraiser to come around and put a value on his house and that's why it's been taking so long. 

He said the main reason to get into this is to pay off high-interest things like credit cards. and I said that might be one of the very few "use cases" for something like this. Ken, myself, and a friend of ours have all gone through this, where credit cards at say 6%, went up to around 36%. 

I talked about how, when I lost everything in the crash of 2008, I was sure I'd have to do a bankruptcy, but I hit the books and learned that a bankruptcy only makes sense when one has an asset they want to protect, like a house. In my case it made more sense to just drop off the grid for a while. Ken can't do this, of course. 

However Ken pulls his fat out of the fire, the effects should last a year or so and that's all I need. Of course I made more noises about the eminent sensibility of waiting until I'm at my "full retirement age" of 67 to retire, which means a little over 3 more years. 

I packed 10 things and took them to the post office, went up to Dai Thanh Market for a few things, then to 99 Ranch then H Mart, then on my way back found a bunch of neat stuff behind the gym, like 4-5 different kinds of seeds (millet, flax, etc.) to make a bird seed mix for the birds, and 4 kinds of instant dashi, 2 kinds of katsuobushi, and ryukakusan for if I get a cold plus some health food store cold tablets, probably homeopathic but who knows may they'll work. Plus a few things I decided to toss or donate, plus I left behind a lot of things I didn't want like tons of toothpaste and medicines, flour, dried figs, things like that. Instant dashi is great for soup, better than salt. 

 

A trip downtown.

 I woke up around 3, got ready and went downtown. Dropped off trash, dropped off a couple of packages at the post office, got a few bubble mailers at the Amazon place, and deposited the check I was given last week, in the bank. 

There were what looked like a father-son pair trying to do something, maybe set up an account for the son or transfer his old account at Wells Fargo to this bank, something, and it took forever. But I finally got to do my deposit and the numbers agree to the penny. 

I had some chicken and Indian spinach stuff at Whole Foods, and got $40 cash back. The food was rather pricey though and I could have gotten my favorite banto at Nijiya and spend a dollar less. And I only got one bubble mailer from there. 

I hit all my favorite places to find free stuff and found nothing. Of course, I thought, it's a Depression economy. I'm glad I sold off those silver coins I had, maybe a month ago, as silver keeps dropping every day. It wasn't any sort of a grand plan; it's just part of lightening the load in preparation for having to leave on short notice. 

That's what I have to do. I have to keep Ken thinking I'm set to stay here for about 3 more years, while actually planning to be out of here in one, or less than one if things get worse. 

 

 

The dreaded phone call - "Not yet!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

I gave myself a haircut and got cleaned up and went downtown anyway. I dropped off USPS packages at the downtown post office, dumped a bag of trash, picked up some bubble mailers at the Amazon place, and checked in with my bank - my last payment from Ken had *not* bounced, whew! 

I went by Whole Foods to buy a bag of macadamia nuts, and that was that. It was windy as hell, but I suppose if I were busking I'd just do so at the Sunnyvale Whole Foods where there's some shelter from the wind, or down in Downtown Campbell, where there's an ex-movie-theater with a nice large recessed area in front where I've had decent luck. 

Other than picking up a couple more bubble mailers, that's all I did at Whole Foods. Use the loo, pick up the mailers, buy the $12 bag of nuts, and be on my way.  

On my way back from Whole Foods I scanned the streets for little free libraries I might not know about, and things left on the curb. I stopped at an almost-uninteresting bunch of bags and found three "upscale" purses + three coin purses, plus a big "Sports Sac" bag to put them in which I'd also call upscale except for a small tear in a mesh exterior pocket. But all the other stuff fits in it so it's useful too. 

I got back here and loaded up the FedEx packages and took those to FedEx. I called up Ken to tell him to be sure to come by tomorrow because I have three purses for his wife, Suzy. He said I can deposit the pay check now so I guess I'll go back downtown tomorrow and do that.  

$3.50 in H Mart got me two "Sesame donuts", actually sesame flavored balls of glutinous rice that are deep fried, and a can of seltzer water. So I had my nice little snack, sitting out front. 

I got back here and among other things, took care of the rest of the "weeds" growing in the cracks in the driveway. Ken does *not* like the way my garden grows. I was happy to let 'em go, as once in a while some people come around and trim them so they never get huge. But Suburbians hate to see green things growing other than manicured grass so they had to go. 

 

 

 

USS Liberty Day

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

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

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

 

Reefing the sails

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Taking stuff apart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

The best possible way to use this Friday night

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Mr. (real estate) Bubble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Steyer vs. Hilton vs. Becerra

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

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

 

Election Day

 It's the mid-term election day. This is where we see if voting is enough. This is what people outside the US are saying; that people in the US think they can just sit back and vote, or sit back and sit out the vote and that's enough. What they're saying is we need to develop some guts, like the French. 

There's also this 250th anniversary thing going on, which the present regime is trying its best - and it's very good at these things - to make it something people will try their best not to remember. 

I was up all night packing I dunno, 35 things in 4 different boxes. These combination sales are really not much less time-consuming than if the things were all individually ordered by different customers. 

The talk today - anything to distract from the Epstein files - is about taking people off of Medicaid, which in this state is my beloved Medi-Cal. If the present regime gets it wish, this will kick in January 1st, 2027. I'll have to prove I work at least 80 hours a month, which translates to 20 hours a week. I certainly work that, but there might be some form Ken will have to fill out saying I work that many hours for him. 

I believe I'd be out from under the requirement once I turn 65, so just add that to the pile of magical things that happen like half-price bus fare and college courses for the cost of the student activity fee. 

I got the packages sent off and found a ton of packing stuff on the way back, then came back here and unloaded and went back out, this time without the trailer, to go to Lowe's for another ruler because the one I was using got stained with blue ink, and a new table cloth for a photography background because the grey one I've been using is still too dark I think. So I found a white one in HomeGoods. 

I had a couple of corn dogs (2 for 1) at H Mart too, and by the time I was back here it was almost 10, the equivalent of almost 1AM in any other town. 

 

What a hill to die on

 I woke up around 2:30 in the afternoon. Packing that 15-item order had taken a ton of time. 

I checked my email and yep, Ken's still not paid the $1005.00 to the landlord. I mean, the rent's like 4 grand, why has he chosen this hill to die on? 

I packed all the things I could and headed out to the post office and FedEx and called Ken from behind FedEx. He said he'll call the landlord tomorrow but right now he doesn't have enough money in his account. 

The thing is, as is required in  the Suburbian religion, he has to spend all the money he gets and a bit more. 

I have a ton of things to pack, something like 60 things, almost all going to 3-4 different buyers, plus I need to keep selling things off and getting ready for the big move back home, which may be with short notice. 

One nice thing is that I've made it all week without using any money from my bank account. All busking and selling off some flutes for $50. So maybe I'd have taken $50 out of the bank. The main thing is to save all I can, while I can. 

I'm rather proud of myself that last night, after busking at Whole Foods and going around with Petition Guy inside Whole Foods, I didn't spend a thing. There wasn't anything I needed, so I didn't spend anything. 

 

 

Zombiful afternoon

 I woke up around 3 or 3:30, packed one thing, and took off to take it to FedEx. I also had some stickers I'd made last night to "enhance" one of the political signs that had sprouted up. Sunday's a good day to do that, less people around. 

I was able to do both things, send off package and deploy stickers. I rode outside my usual route to find any signs by the particular politician and found a few more than I'd have otherwise, so that's good. 

But there were zombies just everywhere. The warm weather brings 'em out. My zombie avoidance skills had to be really on point. 

I got back here and decided my trip downtown would be dual duty. I had a ton of over the counter drugs and bandages and stuff I wanted to donate, so I put those in two large bags, and got the cornet and tip box and so on, and headed out. 

I wanted to donate the stuff to the "Peace And Justice Center" and I was happy to see a NO WAR WITH IRAN sign up front. You know the local Zionists hate 'em haha. They had their back yard fenced off so I just threw the bags over the fence. 

Then I rode over to Whole Foods and got settled in. I started busking at 8, and it went fairly well. No Feet and other beggars were not there, and while there were hinky types wandering around, I had my eye on 'em and they knew it, and by 9 they'd drifted away. 

I got a $1 tip right away, then tips were slow but trickled in. A young guy came up with a slice of pizza from Pizza My Heart and tried to give it to me, "Have you eaten today?" I said I was fine. He said he was giving out pizza to homeless people and I said he should look on Santa Clara street downtown because he'll find takers for his pizza.  

I wanted to make at least $20 since I'd spent about $14 at H Mart, and by 9 I had $19 and a Target gift card I was told had $5 on it. I wanted to hand it off to one of the hinky types but they'd all left. I decided I'd try to busk until 9, and made it to about 9:30. 

Whole Foods closes at 10 and I think there's a sort of attitude among the later shoppers that anyone out playing music that late deserves a tip. And Petition Guy showed up, not to set up his table or anything but to shop. So I packed up and accompanied Petition Guy while he shopped. He just picked out some yogurt and juice, something like that, and got in a discussion that might have been an argument with a Black lady who was shopping in that area too, that he knew by name. 

It came out that Petition Guy had been happy when Trump was first elected, but has since changed his mind, hard, like so many have. But she's under the impression that he's a Trump supporter. "She's got a bad attitude about everything", he said. I said, "Some people are like that", and said he should not worry about it. Truth is, he has a bad attitude also, which is why those two seek each other out to fight with. 

I got a chance to count up my money and I'd made $28, plus the $5 Target gift card which I'd given to Petition Guy. The ride home was peaceful, as it should be, as it was past 9PM which is the same as past midnight anywhere else. 

I was up all night, besides making and eating dinner, there was "playing with my food" by which I mean dividing up and freezing portions of beef and pork I'd bought. And then I packed an order of 15 things for one guy. He's bought a lot more than that, but doing batches of 15 or so things seems easiest and even then it's not easy because I've got three customers all making these big orders like this, then all the normal, 1-2 items orders, all of them all mixed up in order of when they were ordered. So it's a lot of keeping track of things. 

 

 

A quiet night

 Last night I got 30 things photo-ready, and decided to make it an "early" night and actually went to bed by 6AM. I stopped fiddling with things around 3-4AM and got some practice in. I need to practice every day and make progress, because being able to play music, and on a "difficult" instrument at that, is the major thing to differentiate me from the horde of NPCs staggering around. 

(These days I don't consider trumpet to be difficult. It doesn't use up strings, doesn't go out of tune, laughs at rain, doesn't need an amp, is as easy to carry around as a violin or ukulele and is much more durable, and there's a lot of neat trumpet repertoire.) 

Well before the illegal night club normally sets up, around 1AM, a cop car posted up at the entrance on Rogers Avenue with its lights on and the cop presence kept up until 4AM, so, long enough to make sure nothing happened and only a couple of potential customers came by on my side, circled around, and left. I'm certain they have something like a Ring camera set up that they can access online, so they can see if da copz are there and stay away. 

I started in listing the things and then after 8 or so, realized I needed to get cleaned up and go out busking if I'm going to. 

I got to Whole Foods at 7:45 and started right in. No Feet was there too, yelling at people to give him $5 or $10 and yes, he directed his yelling at me also, at least at one point. He has no memory of me from when we hung out and talked at the bus stop, I'm just another ambulatory dispenser of money, if he just yells persistently enough. 

So I just did my thing, and he did his thing for a bit, then the Wolverton-esque Stella showed up and wheeled him off, leaving a Target bag full of empty cans which I moved over by the trash can. 

Tips were slow but it was kind of cold and windy (official busking season isn't until June, and lasts until the last day of September, so four months which have not started yet). 

Plus pretty soon a couple of police cars were flashing their lights right across the street, then eventually a fire truck, and then an ambulance. 

I tried to last until 9:00, but by 8:45 I was not competing with the ambulance very well, it had gotten fully dark, and the zombies had started to show up. There was one, a tall Black guy, lurking, pacing up and down on the sidewalk behind me. And another, a crazy looking old White guy with an Amazon box under one arm, wandering around to the front of me to no purpose. 

I made $23, went in and got a couple things I'd have bought anyway, and so it's a nice feeling going out and practicing for an hour, buying things, and heading for home with $10 more in my wallet than when I'd started. 

I took a little ride around downtown to see what buskers or performers might be about, it being Saturday night. And there were none.  

 

Made it to Friday again

 I woke up just in time to get ready and go downtown to the bank, I made it a quick out-and-back mission. My idea of my balance and the bank's idea of my balance agreed to the penny so that's good. 

The guy at the bank and I got talking, as we often do, and he's no longer commuting down here from Sacramento, but lives something like a 12-minute drive away. We'd gotten talking about vehicle costs, and of course he drives a truck (his girlfriend or wife  I forget which will have her own car, and like 99.9% of traffic here it's one person in each vehicle) and I guess it's unthinkable for him to take the train or get a bike or something. Probably his girlfriend or wife, I forget which, would leave him and his PP would fall off, in no particular order. Gotta have that truck!  

I didn't take any money out by my usual method of cash-back at Whole Foods, since the name of the game is going to be to keep as much in there as I can, and get by day to day on busking income with maybe a little out of each pay check. 

I got back here with enough time to pack a few things and I'd filled in my ballot last night, and rode up to the post office to drop the things off. Then I rode up to Dai Thanh market for some things, picked up some packing stuff on the way back, and got back here. 

It was pretty crazy out there between the numerous zombies and the bloodthirsty drivers. In fact I learned a lesson a few days back. Normally when I'm at an intersection where there's a left turn lane on each side and the green light applies to the left turn lanes and the straight ahead lanes, I'll wait and made sure I have a car or preferably something big like a truck, going straight. That way, the attacking car or cars in the left turn lane have to go through them to get to me. But even that's not careful enough, as I learned the other day. 

I made the mistake of riding out ahead of the vehicle that was "running interference" for me, and the fact is, the blood-lust of the attacker is often such that they won't even look out for their own well-being; their urge to kill me is so strong that they don't care if they get T-boned, as long as they can cause my death. 

In this case, the attacker stopped, right in the perfect position to get T-boned by the vehicle running interference for me, but sadly, that vehicle stopped also. I'd have loved to see a car-ghoul get taken off the road, preferably on a stretcher with the sheet pulled up over its head. But no... In any case, I have to keep in mind not to go out ahead of the vehicle I'm using to block access to me by an attacker.  

 

 

Fucking Scotland wut?

 Since it rained so hard overnight and the forecast today was 60% rain, I decided I'll take my $800 check to the bank tomorrow (Friday). 

Ken told me he's "still working on" his debt consolidation. He's still not paid the $1004.95 to the landlord. What a hill to die on. But, he said my check should cash OK, and that he's planning to vacation to Scotland and I guess around England in July or August. 

There's the old saying that the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, is this something like a Boomer can keep coming up with money, mysteriously, longer than any normal (GenX like myself or younger) can conceive of?  

I'd made my noises about coming around to Ken's way of thinking and might as well work until my "full retirement age" of 67, yadda yadda. The *real* plan is to stay and save up money, and be prepared to leave when things get too bad, but hopefully holding out until my planning time of mid-September 2027 when I'll be turning 65. 

Now, I could go back to Hawaii and maybe between savings and earnings be OK and still not collect Social Security until I'm 67, but the main thing is eventually the planes *will* stop flying and I want to be home before then. 

If we're heading into a 1970s or worse Depression, I forecast a lot of people will leave Hawaii. 99% of them think the mainland is some kind of cheap paradise where you can buy a house at 1960s prices and the jobs all pay $50 an hour. Tons of them want to go to Las Vegas, Nevada, or Texas, or Florida. Again, Americans love and crave the stupid, and gravitate to where it's thickest. 

This will make rents and property prices even lower than they already are in Hawaii. After all, who wants to live where you're eating local foods and getting around by bicycle? The way I plan to live, even pre-Depression. 

 

Worth the paper it's printed on

 I was up around the usual time, and had time to pack two boxes, of 17 things each, and get those and all the other boxes onto the bike trailer and got them to FedEx and the post office. 

I got some groceries at 99 Ranch a little package of chicken at H Mart which I ate sitting on the little ledge in front of the building, in time-honored fashion. 

I'd called Ken from FedEx (it's relatively quiet in there and up near the front window, I'm not near anyone) and he answered, so he's alive. I asked if he's coming by tonight and he said Yes and I said "See you then!" and that was it. Of course his word is worth the paper it's printed on and he says plenty of things he doesn't follow through on so we'll see. 

Oh, and still no reply back from Pat, "Mr. Logic", on the Big Island. I think he's still trying to comprehend the idea that our disagreeing on support or being against "israel" could actually not be a logical fallacy but a simple difference of opinion. 

Oh, and while out and about, I found a phone. It was lying on Junction Avenue just north of Brokaw. I had to park the bike, run across the road and grab it on the run like those kids who grab errant balls at tennis matches, then run back to my bike. 

I got back here and put things away and tried to figure out the phone. The thing is, these phones tend to have irreplaceable photos on them and such things. I figured out the owner was employed by Terminix, OK is there a Terminix near there? Yep, just in from the corner. So I rode back with it and since no one was there, hung it, in a bag, from the door handle. It had been run over once, but if I'd left it, it would have been turned into dust by the traffic.  And it was getting messages, too, about the owner's Feit Electric door camera and such things. So he'll get his phone back, in condition to at least get the photos and data off of it. 

Update: Ken came by and I got my check for this week and last week, and I made some noise about "coming around to your way of thinking and keeping working here until I'm 67 so you can sign another lease" haha. And it started raining overnight and it's good and wet out there so I'm glad I put the cell phone in a plastic bag so it will be dry when the Terminix staff come to work in the morning and find it. 

 

 

$11 and a bag of chips

 I took off for downtown the usual time, with a load of small things for the post office, and the cornet and tip box. I dropped off the things, then went to Whole Foods and busked from 5:00 to 6:00 which is too early on a weekday but I had a meeting from 7:00 to around 9 I wanted to go to. 

It was windy, and still kind of warm so while I'd brought my fleece I didn't need it. Tips were slow, as expected, but that's OK. I could play much better than yesterday, so I was pretty happy. The thing is, this early on a weekday isn't good because people are rushing around, and haven't had time to get a beer or two into themselves. Later, they're more relaxed. But I was busking for the principle of the thing. 

At one point a guy who'd parked his fixed-gear hipster bicycle came back for it, and had a big bag of Doritos with him. I said it's a lot more fun buying "bicycle fuel" which those chips are, than buying gasoline. He said the chips were for me and handed me the bag. Cool! 

Pretty soon No Feet showed up and started begging. This didn't cut off my tips, so I stuck it out the whole hour. Then I packed up, and went inside and bought a little tub of sour cream and some fizzy water, and sat down and had my chips and dip. 

When I was done I walked back out to the bike for something or other, passing by No Feet. He muttered the same begging patter he was giving to everyone else, not even recognizing me.  He hadn't remembered our hanging out at the bus stop and talking about all sorts of things at all. OK then. 

On my walk to the meeting, I still had half of the Doritos to find a home for. There was a Black guy sitting at the bus bench, and I set them there on the bench and when he looked up quizzically, I said, "Oh yeah, this bench comes with chips!". He was glad to get them and started chowing down enthusiastically. 

(I like modern chips, because they've devised a way to make them taste salty etc., but instead of using a ton of salt, they use a thin layer of salt/flavor on the outside, so they're tasty but you don't feel crappy after eating them because it's half or less the salt as in chips made the old way.)  

The meeting was OK I guess. A few people making plans to leave the country, and medical care seems even harder to get these days. 

When it was done I walked back over to Whole Foods and bought some cilantro for my soup tonight, and thought about busking since I had almost an hour left before they close, but it was very cold and windy and there were all kinds of bums hanging around. No Feet was gone, but these were other bums. 

I was glad I brought my fleece to wear because it was rather cold. Today's freebee: 8 cans of no-sugar "Polar Seltzer" grapefruit flavor. 

 The TL;DR for this day is, Went out, Did things, Came back with $3 more in my pocket and 8 cans of seltzer. 

After dinner and some relaxation time I found and packed things until 4AM and that's enough - I'm tired. I have a lot of packages to get out, and may run one set up to the post office and FedEx, then come back and pack two large boxes of 17 things each, and run those up to FedEx. 

What I don't get is that the better I'm doing, the less I'm effectively being paid. I honestly don't know if I'll see another pay check. I'm being ghosted, as the saying goes. 

Hence my being back out there playing music, and being careful with my finances. I'm not getting any nibbles on Craigs List for my instruments, so I've got a plan. I'll see if Starving Musician wants to buy my student "concert" flute and the two glass flutes. There's a fair chance they will and although I won't get much for them it will be something. The shakuhachis and associated stuff will be donated to a store in Japantown. And the clarinet stuff, books, plus at least one trumpet book I don't really want to keep, will go to San Jose Jazz. 

I also, before coming in and cooking dinner, took a big tub of stuff I was going to donate to the Buddhist temple boy scouts, and since I'd noticed I'd have to get the stuff there at noon next Saturday, decided to just stick it out by the side of the road and see if it's all gone when I head out tomorrow. It's all the same to me, and if I'm up that early on Saturday, I'm getting out busking. 

In a Depression economy everyone's trying to sell off their stuff, so it's hard to sell stuff in a sea of stuff for sale. Busking still holds up because buskers are just about extinct here. So people are pretty tickled to see someone playing actual music on an actual instrument, and one that's not a guitar. 

Ken's supposed to show up tomorrow night and then maybe I'll get some hint as to what's going on. I'm thinking I'll tell Ken I'm really coming around to his line of thinking; that I ought to work up to my "full retirement age" which is 67. And thus am going to stick around. And thus he can sign another lease. And like hell am I sticking around here until age 67. Nope, in September of next year, my older sister back in Hawaii is going to get sick, and want me to come see her. And I will go. And I will not come back. 

Meanwhile, the most time I can spend on the horn the better. That's the one thing that differentiates me from every other poor, down-and-out bum in the upcoming bigly-est Depression.  That's another thing that irritates me about the situation here. I've been putting work before busking, but I'm getting paid for the busking and not paid for the work. 

Welcome to my wheelhouse

 Yesterday Pat, my "friend" on the Big Island, told me in an email that I've committed a lot of logical fallacies in, I dunno, I guess being anti-Israel where he's pro-Israel. 

So I said since I don't know which ones I'm committing, I depend on him to tell me which ones and how. Go! 

I haven't heard back. 

I took a college course in logic and while it was just a 100-level course, I probably know more about logic than 99% of the population now, whereas I doubt ol' Pat could tell the Pons Asinorum from his own ass. 

Then there's Tom. I last hung out with him a few days ago and as he's taken to doing, he harangued me about wearing a bike helmet. He said he'll lecture me on it every time I come by. I said that's OK, I'll just stop coming by. Because it's obvious that his standpoint is, "I make more money than you and thus I know better than you and thus I will tell you what to do, because it makes me feel better about myself". 

It's a variant of what high-on-his-own-supply Mark, who owns the Gilroy place, is on. Living there meant being a part of the Mark-Is-Cool Club. I really screwed the pooch, as they say, when I mentioned being in MENSA. It turns out Mark had tried a few times to get in and could not. He's not a dummy by any means, he just couldn't qualify. 

Hell, the only reason I got into MENSA was, someone else ponied up the $10, a huge amount for me, to take the test, and I thought it was help me get a job somehow, which it did not. The test was fun, although I was terribly hungry at the time I took it, as I was terribly hungry a lot of the time then. I was 18 and the solution to my life's woes turned out to not be MENSA but the US Army. 

So getting back to Mark, he seems to invite people to stay at his place who are hard up so he can have people around to feel superior to, then he likes to get the different people to be in conflict, kind of like a kid who puts different kinds of bugs in a jar to watch them fight. 

I guess Tom's like this too, because he befriends the most amazing assortment of bums, then gets all butt-hurt when they con him. So my interactions with Tom will now be just observing from afar. 

The only real good I'd gotten from knowing Tom was borrowing his water-shutoff tool, but if I need to shut off the water again I did work out a way to do it with two adjustable wrenches we have around here so that's not a problem. 

Getting closer to home, Ken is acting strange. I don't know why a mere $1000 he owes to the landlord is the "hill he chooses to die on" but as far as I know, he still owes it. I got that one call from him saying he'd been up late testing, and would call again to let me know if he's coming by, but then nothing and that was last week. 

His last check didn't bounce, amazingly, and I have the $360 check from the clarinet I can deposit tomorrow. 

With Ken it's got to be (a) money trouble, (b) something at his day job that really requires a lot of his time and energy, or (c) something with his health. I don't want to call and bother him, but will wait until his usual time to show up, because if he's under a lot of stress he doesn't need me bugging him.

I figure I can afford a "package" of a flight and two weeks in a hotel and that will cost about half of the $5k I have on hand. In those two weeks I can start looking for a room to rent.   Or at least find a storage unit to be a home base. 

While I was able to sell the clarinet back to the music store, due to their policy regarding student instruments bought new, I'm not getting any calls or emails about the other instruments. I'm starting to realize I'd be better off getting back into busking and just donating the instruments, than trying to sell them in this Depression economy. 

I got myself cleaned up a bit, oiled the valves on the cornet, and got my things together including some stuff to donate to the Japantown little free library, and headed out of here around 6. I stopped at Nijiya for a bottle of tea and a couple of hard-boiled eggs and a bundle of cilantro, which came to something like $9. 

As I rode along The Alameda towards Whole Foods I saw, standing at a bus stop there, no other than the non-ironically named Rabbi Magat. Yes, his last name is actually Magat. He called out "Hi!" and I sort of raised my hand in acknowledgement, but that was it.  

I started busking at Whole Foods at 7 and held on until 8. It was hard. Taking time off to drink beer every night was not a smart idea. I sounded awful. Plus it was cold and windy. Tips were slow at first but picked up, and I might have done quite well if I had been able to hang on another hour, but by the time it was 8 I was too cold and tired to even count up my money. I packed up and went to the Amazon place where I got two bubble mailers, then rode home, fighting the End Times wind. 

I counted up once I got back and it was not bad, $42. 

 

Run, run, rats!

 I was up all night listing 30 things on Ebay, and I'd called the cops as usual, who got around to this place around 4AM but it was still glorious. Seeing ho's running with their skirt flying up, pimps 'n' johns making the run for it, hilarious! 

I did discover that classical music tends to make 'em make less noise, though, and if I'm able to last out my final year and a few months here, I might invest in a "work site" radio to lay on the classical, put it in the warehouse by the roll-up door. 

The cops of course have to take care of more dire things before rousting the local whore house, but they *did* come around. People diss the San Jose cops but so far I like 'em pretty well. 

I think I'm voting for Steyer for governor, since Do-Nothing Mahan is apparently just going nowhere, Becerra is funded by PG&E, Porter is out, and Steyer although a billionaire, is at least self-funding and shows the best promise of being able to do things. Maybe he'll have some practical solutions. 

Hell I might even be able to write to Steyer and tell him some of my practical solutions. Like the idea of taking the huge halfway finished development south of this city and turning it into what I call a Happy Fun Camp, call it a place to stash the druggies and keep 'em in drugs, a vast mental asylum, whatever. The thing is, the average street ghoul just wants its drugs, and if they have a place to go with free junk food and free drugs with a doctor in the loop somewhere, their own little "tiny house" or room at least, ping-pong and laundry services and classes to finish their GED etc., a place they'd be free to leave but being druggies, will never want to, would get 'em off the street. They'd no longer be in our hair and we'd no longer be in theirs. 

Here's my solution for Cuba: Immediately reassign them to "Move Favored Trading Nation" status or whatever it's called these days. Immediate airlift of medicine, food, materials and equipment to get their electrical, water, etc., working again and then improve those. Allow Americans to visit there needless to say. If it's Communism we don't like, well, under my plan Communism will last a red-hot week, if that. This is what Obama was starting to do, but then we got our present ZOG or Zionist Occupation Government. We should be helping Cuba be the Switzerland of the Caribbean, healthy, wealthy, and independent. With, I need to emphasize, nothing expected in return. But yeah .... the Zionists would never allow it.  

I woke up at 3 in the afternoon which makes sense, having gone to bed at 7AM and being really tired from working all night. I had time to pack two large and annoying things and so I took 4 large boxes to FedEx. I forgot to ask them what their hours are tomorrow but I guess it doesn't matter because it's a holiday and I won't be shipping anything. 

You can't fucking make this shit up

 I was up all night taking things apart, and mostly finding things that were junk and only worth putting out for the bums. Old rolls of wire no one will want to buy, stuff like that. 

I got some good parts out of it though. There's always money in the junk pile. 

I finally went to bed around 8AM because I got all involved in this documentary about how Koko The Talking Gorilla really wasn't talking at all etc. 

I surprised myself by waking up around 1:30 in the afternoon, and was all ready to go. I had some black coffee and aspirin and got out of here a bit after 2. I also had the Yamaha student clarinet I'd bought new, with me. I parked the bike at Whole Foods and went right over to the bus stop. 

It took the bus a while to come, and meanwhile, up came up No Feet, my name for the Black guy in a wheelchair who has, well, no feet. He's got a good racket going, having no feet, and begging. I said Hi and hoped he'd made a lot of money, and we made small talk, and then he started shouting to someone. I could not make out the name. He said it was Stella so I did my best Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Called Desire, "STELLA!!!!" a couple of times. 

Presently an actual Stella materialized. She was maybe 5 feet tall on a good day, pug-nosed, waddling, why, it would take a Basil Wolverton to come up with an uglier personage. So I waited, with No Feet and Stella, while they made small talk, and soon I smelled a cigarette. 

I turned around and it was No Feet who'd lit up the cig. I said how funny it is that you don't smell cigarettes any more, and then we all talked about how our moms all smoked Kools, and how we'd buy cigarettes as kids, "You needed a *note*? I just bought 'em" - Me. 

Then we talked about all the other joys of growing up when we did, like riding in the back of a pickup truck, although Stella was one-up because she did it when her father, driving the pickup truck, was drunk. Perhaps in sympathy, No Feet pulled out a bottle of vodka and had a few glugs. Good times, good times. The bus came and Stella helped wrestle No Feet onto the bus.  

I got to West Valley Music exactly the 2 hours it's required to take to get from my front door to theirs, and Craig was there. He looked over the clarinet, and went in back and wrote out a check for $362.50. Then I asked about a copy of Cichowitz's "Flow Studies" but they were out of 'em and he said it's a good book to study out of. We got to talk a bit about trumpets and mouthpieces etc., and I noticed some "Chop Saver", a kind of fancy chap stick, at the counter. He said it's far better than my $1.25 Blistex, and I felt like risking the $5 or so for some. He gave it to me for free. 

So now I have the check to deposit on Tuesday. I took the bus back as far as Mega Mart, where I wanted to see if they sold packing tape. They don't. I did, however, get some fried potstickers, pork and kim chee flavor, that hit the spot. 

I took the next bus to Han Kook which does sell tape, got some cilantro and ginger and 6 rolls of tape there. 

Then I got on the bus, again, back to Whole Foods. I got a $12 bag of frozen shrimp and $50 cash back in honor of the $62.50 part of the check. That way I won't feel pressured to busk tomorrow if I don't have the time or don't want to. 

Besides the "street comedy" of No Feet and Stella, the only other interesting thing was, in front of the Sunnyvale Tesla dealership, they have one of those flailing-arm inflatable figures, but theirs is "dressed" in all black except for the face, and has one arm tied down so all it does is Elon's salute, over and over. You can't fucking make this shit up. It'd be really funny to sneak up and install a little square mustache on the face of the figure...

Now, if you're buying a Tesla these days, you're really committed because tech-wise they're behind the other electric cars, and you can't really convince anyone these days that you know nothing of the politics. So I'd say an eternally saluting Elon figure out front is a selling point for them these days. Let's get the last bit of money out of the most convinced cucks before the last of them go broke. 

Besides, the ADL said Elon's salute is by no means a Nazi salute and the reason is, Elon's one of them. He's one of the Randlords, a pun on the word landlords, but the Randlords were a bunch of rapacious Jews who swooped in and made South Africa the wreck and ruin it is today. 

If you ever wonder what the Jews have planned for the US and its people, there are plenty of videos of contemporary life in South Africa to learn from. 

 

The new regime, I guess

 Ken *did* call last night and say the reason he didn't come by the night before was he was up doing some testing until 1AM. He'd call again and let me know if he was coming by last night. He never called. 

I did something I'd wanted to get done for a while, scrubbing the bathroom floor and then putting on a couple of coats of Mop'n'Glo. It looks a lot better now and I should just have to go over it with Mop'n'Glo every couple of weeks now. 

I also took a couple of things apart, getting some parts to list on Ebay. 

I woke up early enough, about 1:30, to go to the music store in Mountain View *IF* I did nothing else, and *IF* Craig would be there until usual time, 6PM. But I called them and he was only there until 4:30 but he'll be there "all day" tomorrow which means something like 5 or maybe even 5:30. 

The reason I called was to see if they'll buy back my clarinet for half of what I paid and since it's a student instrument I bought new, they will. That will get me about $350 and since I paid with my card, they might just zap the money right back into my account. 

Meanwhile, the name of the game is to not take money out of the account if I can avoid it. I'm glad I stopped drinking beer because I was spending a LOT. 

Before I got back into drinking beer, I was getting prepared meals and especially with busking, I was being really free with my money. I thought nothing of spending $6 or $7 on a couple of hard-boiled eggs and a can of iced coffee at Nijiya to start my day, for instance. That $4 pint of beer at Whole Foods seemed OK, because it didn't seem like that much money. 

It all adds up fast, though, especially since beer just leads to more beer. I was keeping within my budget of $200 a week, but that took really economizing on food. So now I'm not spending money on beer and loathe the idea of spending a whole $6 or $7 on a couple of hard-boiled eggs and a can of iced coffee at Nijiya. 

Since going to the music store wasn't happening today, I packed 4 small things and took off at a bit before 4. I dropped off the things at the post office downtown, then went to the Amazon place where I found ONE bubble mailer. Then went to the bank and checked my account balance and it looks like my last pay check didn't bounce, whew! 

I went over to Whole Foods and found one more bubble mailer, went in and spent $12 on my customary bag of macadamia nuts, and took off. There was a Gypsy woman with 2-3 drugged-up kids begging there, lovely. Although, it was sunny and windy and if I were to busk tonight, the gyppos would be gone by then and the wind settled down. 

But this week it's all about selling the clarinet, and I'll try to work in some busking too. 

I don't know when I'll hear from Ken or when/if I'll get paid. This is why I'm in a hurry to sell or donate the musical instruments I have. I may have to jet out of here pretty quickly and I don't want to leave any loose ends. 

I can keep going on busking and selling off some of the scrap metal I've been throwing out, I guess. But I'd have to work a bit less on the Ebay stuff which would send this business into a steeper downward spiral than it's already in. 

I just don't understand how everything could go fine as far as my being paid, the utilities paid for, the rent paid, until a few months ago. But then, Ken is a fine example of Americanus suburbiensis, and among that species it's the norm to never save and always over-extend one's finances. Instead of just going along in a sensible way, putting money into savings, building up resilience, the idea is to build things up taller and taller and steeper and steeper until it's too much to sustain and some slight wind blows the whole thing over. 

I've been really hoping that Ken will get his debt consolidation thing done and that will buy us about another year, during which he'll build up more debt of course, but things will hold together, held up by ever more debt, but my pay checks will cash and I'll have another year to save up. 

While my ideal is to leave mid-September of 2027, I could leave a few months earlier and that would work too.  

One thing that's changed since the 90s is, apparently once I buy a ticket there's a "magic number" I can print out and I will plan to bring a clip board with everything I can possibly printed out, printed out, in page protectors. But it seems that these days, they just look at your passport and that tells them everything about whether or not you have a ticket, what seat, yadda yadda. That's pretty nice.  

 

Some time to think

 I had plenty of time to think about things because I had two small orders to pack, one order of 4 things, one of 13 things, and one of 20 things. So I was up all night finding the things and packing them. Whew! 

The main thing I thought was, I was looking at flight and hotel packages involving close to a month in the hotel. But, I could look them up for 2 weeks in the hotel, about half the time, which would cut the cost down by quite a bit. In two weeks I'd have my feet on the ground, have found a storage unit if I feel I need one, and then if I haven't found a room to rent I can always do more hotel time, give the capsule place a try, or something. The Y's cheap too and actually comes up as an option. 

I wanted to get the things packed because these customers have a way of adding more and more things and in the case of the 20-item order, that took a wheel box to fit all the things. It's pretty handy having a wheel and tire place nearby with customers who order big rims.  They come in nice big boxes.

Before finally going to bed around something like 7AM, I thought of something more: When I had an apartment just a block off of "the strip" in Waikiki in 2003, it cost me $600 a month which means $20 a day. Now I know that easy money to hustle up in any of a number of ways. What made me feel I was in an impossible situation was the fact that I had bought a car, thus had the expenses of the car, parking for the car ($200 a month I think it was) and the fact that having a car means only seeing the world from the vantage point of one who depends on a car. This meant passing up on a lot of places due to lack of parking, etc. 

Being here in the Bay Area has taught me how to live on very little, live without a car or running water or even without electricity if needed, and at least a dozen ways to hustle up money. 

Before leaving the place in Waikiki, I actually paid up the rest of my lease so I'd have had I dunno, several months paid free and clear. If I was going to eventually default on my credit cards anyway, I could have done it there. I'm kind of glad things went the way they did, though, as long as I can get back there. 

I woke up at 3:30 in the afternoon, actually woke up around noon but decided to try to get 8 hours' sleep so went back to sleep then got up, turned on the radio, and the latest banana republic thing going on is El Dumpo and his circle of Chosenites have rigged things where there will be zero investigation by the IRS of Donny Diaper-Filler, or any of his family or Chosenite buddies. 

Now, this should piss off we goyim. Everyone but everyone has to deal with the IRS, and a lot of us believe tax returns are public information. I know I did until a moment ago, the law was changed in 1976 to make them confidential, and 1976 is only 50 years ago, the blink of an eye, politically. So most people should be outraged and it will be interesting to see if they are. 

I took the packages to the post office and FedEx, and after getting some sliced pork belly at H Mart that I wanted to try, a bundle of cilantro, and after going around the back and getting a couple of packages of manju for free, I circled back around and searched the store and bought a "tub" of salad greens, which I've just eaten, because I found a jumping spider in the parking lot before leaving, and put it in a little jar, and want to make a nice little habitat for it. 

It's a Phidippus johnsoni,  one of the common ones around here. I don't know how long I'll keep it, but the salad tub will make a great little terrarium for it. 

I made the mistake of turning the radio to NPR, where they're telling a tear-jerker fiction about some poor, poor little Chosenite who was kept in a box for 2 years during the Hollowco$t(tm) and thus at the end his arms and legs would not work yadda yadda. 

Here's why it's horse shit: Someone kept in a box needs to poop and pee, so he was getting exercise to go out and do that multiple times a day so he *was* getting exercise, or if he were kept in a box that long and not going out to poop and pee, he'd have died from sheer despair if nothing else, and it would have been a stinky nightmare, letting everyone within a mile know they were keeping a Jew. This shit is all fiction, it's one of their many, many grifts. 

So I thought, What if, given that the US gives about $32k to every "Israeli" man, woman, and child each year, while here in the US we do without health care, public transit, decent food, etc., what if all the money taken from the US taxpayer and given to Israel were totted up, from 1948 on, how much would be the check written out to every US man, woman, and child? Might it be a million dollars? 

The Jews have money, there's no doubt. They'll cry bloody murder but they certainly have it. Chosenite Michael Bloomberg spent $500 million on his failed presidential run in 2020, which means he could have given every US man, woman, and child a check for $1 million and had a good amount left over. 

I take comfort in the fact that the dozen or more ways I know to hustle up money do not involve the internet at all. The internet is dying. It's slower than ever, my connection drops out and re-connects constantly, and regular pages are either unreadable or inaccessible. Go to any newspaper's site with the possible exception of The Guardian and it's either paywalled or covered in ads or both.

As for private pages, here are a few examples. Marvin Naylor's nice little busking blog. You have to first know to Google "Marvin Naylor Busking Blog". Then you have to know to scroll down (it's not intuitive) to click on the center "button" that says "start here". That will take you to his very first post, 10+ years ago. Which is fine but if you want his latest, the page will let you see that the first time you click on the latest in the sidebar, then ever afterward that's the latest you'll see *unless* you know to go through the procedure and then click on Marvin's name, in smaller type, above the buttons. Then you can see his latest. 

The New Orleans crackhead's blog. First you have to know how to Google for him, using specific keywords. That will get you to his page, to a post that's getting to be two years old now. You have to know to click on the "masthead" then that will take you to his latest. 

Ran Prieur: You have to know about Ran Prieur and if you don't then tough. I think he's only being publicized by word-of-mouth. He's kept his page very, very simple which is rare and refreshing. But if you don't know about him you'll never find him and if you weren't reading his stuff 20 years ago you won't know about him. 

I used to quite enjoy the Bison Survival Blog. However, Bison has realized he can do better selling printed newsletters so now he does that. 

 

 

Rest in Piss, Barney Frank

 Yeah yeah great guy, champion of LGBT etc yadda yadda. Except like a true member of the Tribe, really only on the side of the G, not the L, and spent his last few years slagging on the B and T. AIPAC approved! So bye-bye.... 

I slept a bit better last night, and am amazing at how much money I'm not spending by not buying beer. I (over)spent $4 on some mustard today and that was it. 

I got back here, had some dinner and did other things like clean the place up, wash out the shop vac in preparation for putting in a new bag, and expected Ken to come in while I was still doing that, but nope. I called 2X and no answer. So here I am, waiting, and no pay check, no call no nothing. 

This would be less worrying if I hadn't gotten an email from the landlord saying he still hasn't paid the $1000 or so he owes them. 

Being evicted is a funny thing. In theory you've got a month, some even say longer. Some others say you can get kicked out in 3 days. The reality seems to be somewhere in between. When the economy crashed in 2007-08, I suddenly was only getting in about $1500 a month instead of the usual 6 grand. That ... was a problem. I would have been evicted and liable for what was left on my lease except (a) I arranged somewhere to go, and (b) I found someone to take over my lease. So in reality I had something like a couple of weeks. I wasn't delinquent any rent, either. 

The thing is that if Ken is really crashing out, things are going to get strange and quickly. I really want that extra year to save up money. 

I looked at the airline I want to fly on and for some reason I can't buy a one-way ticket, but one thing they have is a "package" of flight and hotel. Some of those are interesting. Like the YMCA and a capsule hotel. Some are regular conventional places. But it looks like I can get the flight and just under a month in a hotel for 4-5 grand. The trouble being I only have about 5 grand in the bank right now which might be where that capsule place comes in. 

 

 

Not fuck all.

 Last night was interesting. The illegal night club didn't set up at all. There were only a couple of cars with confused pimps and ho's that came around, and left. Maybe they nabbed someone really important to the operation last night. Just not fuck all went on and it was very quiet, like it used to be. It was really nice. 

That didn't keep me from staying up all night, finally going to sleep around 6-7AM. And was awakened by the guys next door messing around, and then starting up their pressure washer to clean up what looked like a lot of tables for a restaurant. It sounded like it was right outside my door. I took a peek out and well, they kind of were, but if I'd had to get out with my bike there was plenty of room so I couldn't fault them. It *is* an industrial area. 

I kind of went into half-sleep until 3 then got up. I turned on the radio and it was on KPFA and the Background Briefing guy was talking about how much Our Most Zionist President is fucking things up. Australia running out of jet fuel because they normally get it from Chinese refiners. Things like that. 

 

My idea of fun

 Well, the hip's just about all better. I'm glad it wasn't going to become a chronic thing, like my sore back. 

I listed 20 things on Ebay last night, and the illegal night club, despite being rousted all to hell the night before, set up for a rousing night. By 2:30 in the morning there was a group of 10 or 15 having loud arguments right near me, two guys had parked their cars right in front of my door, and the overall vibe was that this night there'd likely be a fight. 

That's their idea of fun? OK well here's my idea of fun - calling da copz. I told the operator about the big crowd and the vibe, that I'd seen it before when people are more "aggro" and there was a lot of young guys, and pretty soon here came da copz. 

Now, at any given time da copz have priorities, and there are a lot of things more serious than shutting down the local whorehouse. But, if a given location gets enough calls, I think it moves up on the priority list a bit and da copz are probably starting to get almost as tired of these idiots as I am. 

(I keep putting off calling Zoning and Vice, thinking that well, maybe things are tapering down now. But they're not and during the week I have a couple of phone calls to make.) 

All these idiots had to do was leave me the fuck alone, and I'd not care one least bit. With the gate closed now, they should be able to keep their craziness over on their side but nope, they're like Israeli settlers* and the only reasonable thing to do is push back. 

*I'm exaggerating. If they were like Israeli settlers they'd have taken over that whole building, its erstwhile occupants in a lime pit somewhere, and this building would be a flattened pile of rubble with my bones under there somewhere. 

I'm emailing back and forth with Pat on the island of Hawaii and he's so full of Fox News crap it's unbelievable. I finally said that there are only two people who believe in this rosy vision of Israel; Zionists and boomers. And we boomers are dying off at a good rate, and the world is turning against Zionism. 

I went out to do some shopping, and the End Times wind was really riotous today. It was windy the last couple of days too but today was really nuts. This same weather system has made it to Idaho by now, hence a couple of airshow planes had a spectacular mid-air collision (fortunately all 4 crew, pilot plus so-pilot for each plane) got out OK. The planes, F18 "Growlers" are not being made any more but all they have to to is mention to Pete Kegsbreath that a "growler" is a name for a large container of beer and I'm sure they'll start making them again. 

I locked up the bike at H Mart and walked over to Home Goods - they don't sell luggage. Then to Ross, which does. There are tons of nice new pieces of luggage and if I don't mind spending a hundred or so, I can get kitted out nicely. It's tempting too. Get a nice "travel backpack" and a larger case to hold the cornet in its case, the cornet gig bag, and odds and ends like clothes to fill it out, have the important stuff in the travel backpack, and sell my fancy European made backpack and fancy messenger bag and will come out even. 

I got more Kerrygold butter, some soft Kerrygold butter with avocado oil in a little tub, more chocolate powder for my morning mochas, and one tall can of IPA. I went to sleep on 3 regular cans of beer and that was plenty last night. Tonight I'll go to sleep on the one tall can of IPA and after that won't buy any more beer. 

As usual there's discussion on Reddit of how the orange diaper-filler is fucking over his own constituents. He looks like a populist, but he's really not. Hitler, when he came into power, did tons for the regular working-class German. Huey Long, "The Kingfish", appealed to the working class and he meant it. If he'd come into power the working class would have made out well and our Great Depression would not have been so hard on the average person. Charles Lindbergh, same. 

In all of these cases, of true populists, yes, you'd do better if you were white, but in the case of Zio-puppet El Dumpo, his policies are hurting the white working class the most. What was that J.C. said, something about knowing a tree by its fruit? 

I've been puzzled at myself, lately. Why was it that when the financial troubles started, and Ken wasn't able to pay me, electricity off, etc., was my response to get out there busking? And why hasn't it been the case more recently when I've been barely even practicing? 

I think in the first case it was a combination of the "false summer" we had, and also, I honestly thought we had at least a year, more like a couple more years, on the lease here. So I thought times might get tough but I'd have a place to stay for at least another year. Then one day the landlord and his secretary came around and knocked on my door by mistake; they really wanted to talk to the people next door. But I had a chance to have a nice little chat, and Oh incidentally, when's our lease run out?  A quick look on her phone and the secretary told me August 31st. 

That's what makes the difference. There's no promise I'll have a place to live past August 31st. And while I could probably make a go of things here, in the most expensive place in the country, where if one is lucky they see the ocean once every 10 years, I don't really want to.  Living here in the Bay Area has taught me a lot about scrounging, living without running water or power, living on next to nothing and having about 10 tricks up my sleeve to make money, but I'd rather practice those skills back home than here. 

 www.archive.ph/iPDTU OK I can't post a clickable link, but if you cut and paste this into your browser, it will take you to a WIRED story about how horrible it is to work in computers/on the internet now. I'd rather collect cans! 

 

Am I getting old?

 Sometime last night or more like yesterday afternoon, I twisted wrong or something and amazingly, my left hip hurts. It doesn't feel like the bone or anything, but more like one or more of the muscles/ligaments that move my leg at the hip joint. 

My evening's work consisted of digging out 15 things a guy had ordered and packing them. Between that and dinner an a later night snack because I felt pretty hungry later, that was it for the night. Then I got involved watching an interesting documentary on early cartoon animation and had 4 beers and went to bed. 

Since it was Friday night and I had the package I wanted to go out all packed and done, I'd kind of given myself permission to sleep as much as I want, as surely I'd still be up in time to get the package to FedEx. And I was, although I woke up at almost 4 in the afternoon. 

I didn't feel great, but my hip was a bit better, and I had  a couple of aspirin and some black coffee, and got out of here just a bit after 5. I dropped off my very neatly packed box at FedEx and my trash to the trash can, and parked the bike by H Mart and looked around in there for quite a while. 

If I'm to take 2 rounded tablespoons of nutritional yeast a day, well, the concept of putting it in a smoothie type thing is just gross. And putting it in soup is just kind of weird. I've sprinkled it on buttered bread and it's delicious that way, although it's really easy to make a mess with the powder. 

So, I figure, the thing to do is mix it with butter and spread it on something and what would work really well is some sort of bread because that can be used to wipe every last bit out of the bowl I'd mix it in. 

So I was looking through H Mart for some bread, dammit. I didn't find any (although I didn't look in the little bakery that's in the store but actually its own thing) and settled on a package of 5 frozen "puff parathas" which I've had before and are good. Hell I even looked at the different flours, thinking of making my own pita bread or something. But 5 nice little flat breads with green onions in, for $2.50 and I can fry up a fresh one each day, sounds like something that will work. 

A good part of why I felt like shit when I woke up was, not only did I eat that huge flour tortilla I'd gotten from the halal truck, but I'd also cooked up the teotkebokki (sp?) which are just rods of pure rice flour, and then since the sauce was so spicy, once I'd eaten the little rods, I'd boiled up some spaghetti and put that in. So it was a huge carb-fest. And the 4 beers sure didn't help. 

So if I'm going to have a paratha or a crepe or a slice of bread or a roll or something daily, I'll stop having my chocolate quatratini's with my morning mocha, because the cocoa in the mocha is probably enough. 

On my way back I found packing stuff, and at the laptop repair place a huge orange anti-static bag, bright orange, large trash bag size so I used that to carry the bubble wrap etc I gathered up. I can cut it up and use it to wrap around circuit boards later, and carrying this huge bright orange bag was kind of hilarious. 

I rode back along Rogers Avenue, and on the way back, I decided to check out these dumpsters I go by all the time. In prime bum territory. So I stopped there and as soon as I did, a nasty dirty zombess of the type that never-ever washes its hands, came out and said Hi in its raspy voice. I said little pleasantries, and looked in the dumpsters. Not worth visiting again, but one had a box of salad type stuff, lettuce etc., in it. So I told the zombess, who said she could not lift it, and I said that's why to always have a knife on you, you can cut open the box and take some of the contents out. 

As we headed back to the street, I commented that the the teapot the zombess was carrying is the same one I have, and that it's a great little tea pot to use on a butane stove, and she said the guy who gave it to her wanted her to recycle it, but she wanted to keep it to make tea. I said that's a great idea and rode off. 

Once I'd covered the distance in the time it took for the zombess to get across the street and confer with the gaggle of bums there, she called out to me. No doubt wants to sell me something, or has made up something to motivate the gaggle of bums to attack. Maybe say I'd stolen something from her, or she's seen a lot of money in my pocket, anything that would motivate a bunch of druggies to gang up and presumably share the spoils. 

So I kept riding, speeding up a little, and hoping none of the bums were able to pursue, maybe on a faster bike or one of them has a car somehow. But none did. And thanks to the closed gate on my side of this complex, I had to ride around the far end which helps to be that much more misleading about where I'm going. I got in here and put things away and This, Kids, Is Why You Avoid Zombie Infested Areas. 

Ahh, the closed gate ... it's been really helpful. And interestingly, the cops seem to be if anything more eager to shut down the illegal night club/brothel. They seem to know the two buildings are under different owners, and the gate being closed emphasizes this. As always I'm ready to call the cops if the brothel and its clients cause trouble for me, but it looked like it would be a relatively quiet night, and then about half an hour after the place started its operation, the cops swooped in and shut that shit down. As always, it was hilarious. Sirens and lights, and the brothel participants apparently staying inside the place hoping the cops would go away, then eventually doing their "rats leaving a sinking ship" routine and swarming out of there. 

 

Nakhba day

 Some good things: First, Hawaii won their case against "Citizens United" which would be better called "Zionists United". Secondly, it turns out that in Hawaii, their Medicaid, called Medi-Quest, apparently will pay the premium I have to pay for Medicare. Something called Part B. I know there's something called Medicare Advantage which is mostly bad unless one is on a ton of medications then it's good. 

Ken came by last night and I not only got my pay check but ... my ballot! It was at the last minute, him searching through his car for any other boxes etc, to leave here for me to use, and I said something about "any mail...." and there was my ballot. Beats the hell out of getting it months after the election like last time. And now I don't have to go to my polling place in person, I can sit down with my DSA voting guide and some other studying and fill it out and mail it in, well in advance of Election Day. 

I spent the night getting 20 things camera-ready which was more time consuming then I thought. That's the big change; in the past the stuff I put on Ebay didn't need a lot of fiddling with, just clean it if needed and put it on. But these days I'm taking a lot of stuff apart and just putting a lot more time into the things. 

But all this situation has to do is hold together until mid-September of 2027 and I'm outta here.  

After working on the batch of things, I relaxed and had beers. Eventually 4 of them, but overall I'd still drank less than the day/night before. I got all involved in watching these YoutTube videos about motorcycle flat-track racing. Now it's all these old guys. It's crazy; one guy even proudly races a Bultaco lol. The glory days of Gary Nixon, Dick Mann, and bad boy Bart Merkel it's not. Hell they even had Bart himself on camera, he was super old and talking about how Gary Nixon put away more alcohol than anyone. "I'm surprised he could get up to race in the morning", he said in his Canadian accent. 

Long ago, in the 80s, I had two books I'd found at the local used book store. One about Dick Mann and one about Gary Nixon, both by the author Joe Scalzo. I must have read each 100 times. Dick Mann (1934-2021) was one of the older racers, while Gary Nixon (1941-2011) a bit younger. They had their heyday in the 1950s and 60s, a time when the US was at its peak and you could go and be a motorcycle racer and do fine. Many other racers were talked about in these books, and some worked jobs when not racing and some just winged it and that was possible back then. 

That was life before the internet. Many an afternoon I'd just lay back on the bed in my mobile home in Costa Mesa, about 100 yards outside the Newport Beach border, and read one of these books, again, with the window open and the fresh breeze coming off of Newport Bay to cool me.  It was escapism, the allure of imagining a life where all one had to do was race and get to the next race. 

I got as far as having an SRX-6 I'd safety-wired myself, a set of Z leathers custom made for me, and going up to Willow Springs a time or two to spectate. And creating a certain amount of havoc and annoyance on the streets of Southern California, on a few different bikes. 

I got to bed around 6AM  I think, drank 4 beers, and somehow managed to sleep in until 3PM anyway. I was glad I had the packages I wanted to mail all packed, so all I had to do was having some breakfast and get out of here. 

I dropped off the post office packages at the post office, went to the bank and deposited my check, then dropped off the FedEx package at FedEx, then adjourned to Whole Foods. I found a can of nutritional yeast that was $30, and some iron pills for $10. I also got some chicken wings and a can of seltzer water and that meal was $10, some macadamia nuts, etc. 

After eating, I packed up the bike. It was really windy and I joked about it being a good day to fly a kite to the Save The Children booth guy, but a guy with a bike thought I was talking to him since I was nearer to him, so he joked back. 

I rode over to the Amazon place and got a nice bunch of bubble mailers, then over to Walmart for TP and paper towels and things. I always lock my bike by the Big-5 and there was a homeless guy sort of camped there by the bike racks. I talked with him a bit, asking him if there's anything he wants from Walmart since I'm going there. He said he has money and doesn't need anything, and we got talking about things. He was sure I had bought him some food some weeks back, and I was pretty sure I hadn't, but could not dissuade him so I went with it. 

Like so many of the homeless people here, he used to be an electronics tech, for DEC,  and we talked about old stuff, old computers, etc. 

I wonder how you go from being a 'tronics tech for DEC and end up on the street, homeless? I mean, I used to be a tech for a company that's still around although they don't need techs any more since it's cheaper to just swap out a circuit board or just a whole new unit. The guy gets Disability so if he's OK with living outside, he can pretty much live a life with no money worries, though. 

I went in and got my stuff and found a 1952 10 Swiss Franc coin in the Coinstar, not worth anything but cool anyway.  

I got back to my bike and the homeless guy had stayed around to watch my bike because I'd left a bag on it, that was a cloth bag holding empty Amazon bubble mailers, tied to the handlebar. I told him it was just bubble mailers and no one steals those, but thanks anyway, it was nice of him. He wanted to talk computers some more and I did a bit, but then said I had to take off and did so. 

As I passed through downtown, I saw, in front of the 7-11 that's known for the junkies nodding out in front, a decent-sized Free Palestine protest. I cheered and yelled "Victory, Victory, Iran!" and showed my support. It turns out this is Nakhba Day, a day I will not forget now. 

I rode home, only stopping at one little free library which didn't have any books I wanted, but the knob on the door (which I'd installed months ago) was getting a bit loose so I tightened it up, and there was food in there so I picked out a small bag of potato chips and an instant ramen teottebokki (sp?) bowl because I've always been kind of curious about it. 

On the way home, I thought, how am I going to take my 2 rounded tablespoons of nutritional yeast a day? It seems best to mix it with butter and spread it on something. I thought I'd stop in at the halal truck on the other side of Old Bayshore from me and get some pita bread because fresh pita bread is awesome. 

But when I got there, they said they don't have pita bread. It was $2 for one, or 2 for $3. I said I'd just get one, but they didn't have it? But, the guy said, he could heat up a tortilla for me and for free. OK, I said. While he was working on that, I took the two $1 bills I had and stuck them amongst the things on the tiny counter there. The guy handed me a very hot, aluminum-foil-wrapped thing, and I rode back here. 

I ended up putting pats of butter on the hot tortilla, and sprinkling on the yeast, and rolling it up. Yeasty butter still dripped out, but it kind of worked. 

 

 

Backsliding

 Somehow I got an unusual number of things done yesterday and then today... not so much. I drank less beer which is very good, got in bed by 6AM which is good, but then slept until 3 in the afternoon for some reason. 

I was all caught up on shipping to where all the things that had to be shipped, could wait until Monday. So I relaxed a bit, considered staying in and just getting things done like a haircut and laundry. 

Then I realized I had one thing that ought to go out today. One. Thing. So I packed it up and took it up to the post office, and didn't buy any beer because beer's on the way out, and only bought some eggs on my card. 

I got back here and had "egg ramen" which is, well, ramen with veggies and then after cooking it, I fried my last three "old" eggs and put those on top. So that took care of dinner. 

Then I did my haircut, got all shaved and cleaned up, cleaned the bathroom and office, and that was a nice feeling.