Sick As A Dog

I came down with kind of a cold a few days ago, and this morning was the worst I have felt so far, to the point where I would have gone to the University Medical Center had I started feeling any more so.

But, sitting up right after the titmouse call, and getting ready for Jeopardy; I texted Jacob.

He had left at around 8:30 in the morning. 

Counseling by a Christian counselor type guy happens every Monday morning for him; and I guess he values that enough to walk about 3 miles to intercept the only bus that goes out there.

And he has gone out to the Lilly Pad to busk every time he was short even the money for that bus, so as to leave nothing to chance.

I actually thought that, with him staying here, he would be impressed by how much I get done in a day; but it is the other way around, with him going out in the morning, and me sleeping in. I could have gone with him and taken the same bus to the Guitar Center, to have them look at the Ibanez; but I had been up late on Youtube..

But, I woke up shortly before Jeopardy and texted him, who was on his way to the counselor's place, to please pick up water on his way back, because I was going to fight this virus mainly by water fasting. I then went into the other room where he sleeps and where the TV is, and there were two gallons of spring water sitting on his table, that he must have brought back the night before.

Just as I was pouring a glass (because nobody is going to begrudge someone a glass of water if they have 2 gallons of it; unless it is a democrat to a Trump supporter, but those dems are inferior human beings, point blank) when a text came in telling me that I could have some of the water in the 2 gallon jugs on the table.

After a day of sipping water, tea, kratom and the super brain food stuff I got, made from ground up mushrooms, to include lions mane, and reishi mushrooms along with 3 others that I don't recall, I felt pretty good by the late afternoon, when a guy whom Jacob calls "Nacho" came and brought us to the Guitar Center.

At least I didn't feel as congested and short of breath as I had last night when I was lugging a hamper full of damp clothes to a laundry room about the length of a football field away.

When Jacob first moved in, it was on a night when he had taken ill, and he just wanted to sleep. It was the typical cold gesticulation period of 4 days later, when I started feeling slightly feverish.

We are kind of hoping that it was the Covid virus, and we are both now immune.

The guy at the Guitar Center assured me that putting money into fixing up the Ibanez would give me a better guitar than 3 or 4 hundred bucks only, could buy./

It makes sense. Why buy a brand new Hyundai Sonata with zero miles on it, when your '69 Camaro just needs a new tailpipe? The Camaro is going to be a joy to ride, regardless of how old it looks.

I just needed to be assured that the Ibanez is indeed that '67 280Z, or whatever. It has just been playing rather poorly because of a shoddy nut installation job done by Bobby, who sold me on the notion of getting one made out of bone. Bone.

For better sustain, and a warm tone, go bone! was the pitch. Only he glued the thing in crooked, after inflicting a few scars upon the wood, knocking the old plastic nut out with a chisel and hammer..

But, the technician made it sound like a simple matter of filing away all the Gorilla glue, down to the wood, and then even filing down the bone so as to lower the action of the strings; but then gluing it back in correctly. So that is a major step towards getting back out there to busk. Now I just need to tie it in so some cosmic purpose...

Chickadee Time

 

Do The Work!

 Eye Exam Appointment

So, I did make it to 4204 Canal Street on foot, late this afternoon, to address the fact that my eyeglasses are being held together by Scotch Tape,  with the tiny screws that hold the "temples" in place having come out on both sides, and after two failed attempts to Crazy Glue™ them back in place.

Jacob Staying Here

Jacob, who has recently become homeless has stayed here the past few nights; and, has actually been active during the days, trying to remedy his situation; to include him going to the Lilly Pad this afternoon with an acoustic bass guitar and a phone with beats on it.

This is going to hopefully help inspire me to knock off the items on my to-do list, which involves everything from getting a money order to pay the rent that I have been charged because of the income that I reported as a "gig worker" -an amount that I am glad that I low-balled, so that now the 10% of it that they want amounts to about 10 bucks a week.

The theory seems to be that, if you are getting money to replace what you are no longer earning, then you should still have to pay taxes on that money, as if you did earn it...

It's like every afternoon you go out and gather coconuts but have to give one to the troll at the bridge on the way home or he won't let you pass. 

One day you go there and the coconut trees have all been burned down by a coconut tree forest fire, but there is a nice man from the government standing there who understands that you have been supporting your family by picking coconuts, and, after briefly lecturing you about vitamin deficiencies that could result from an all coconut diet, he hands you the amount of coconuts that you tell him that you usually pick. But then, at the bridge, the troll still wants his coconut for letting you cross.

So, I have to get cash from somewhere so I can purchase a money order with it to pay the rent. I have to get the vaccine. Fix the tire on one bike; fix the derailleur on the other. I have to go to the dentist that I was assigned to through Dentaquest. And, I had to go to an optometrist to try to buy new frames that I could put the lenses from these broken ones into.

The optometrist said she couldn't sell me frames unless I could prove that the prescription for the lenses was less than a year old. There is some rule against people putting old lenses in new frames, I'll be darned..

But, the place takes medicare and assured me that the money that was taken out of it over the tooth extraction that I had 6 months ago would not count against any available funds for optometry.

So, I need to cue the Psycho sound effect and maybe try to go to the dentist tommorow.

And to start thinking about equipment that I could use to busk.

Jacob is looking into getting a amplifier that you strap on your back, basically, that takes a vocal mic and a guitar and an optional auxiliary input, which can be music that you recorded at home as a backup track. The sky is the limit. 

I am starting to worry about how long it's going to take me to get back into the flow of busking again. I need to look into a guitar that is either easier to play or, more practically, the same kind of little amp.

The ambient noise level is just higher on Bourbon Street than it was ten years ago; more people carrying around powerful sound systems that fit in a purse, type of thing...

But, a Bluebird type guitar, like Dorise Blackmon had, would be nice. She had the $2,500 poly-carbon fiber model.

  

Call Now!

 

I did the most American thing imaginable, ordering the singing bird clock -picking my phone up and calling the number on the screen; calling within 10 minutes, so I could get a field guide to the 12 birds that are on the clock.

It crossed my mind to try to invent a better mousetrap, by making a clock that had 24 birds. The top dial could rotate every 12 hours, changing all 12 birds; it could be done by cutting wedges out of the uppermost dial, and then having a dial underneath that could rotate back and forth to display each set of birds.

It can be done, but the birds might have to made a bit smaller, so as to squeeze all 12 birds in.

Then, you simply wouldn't have the "morning" dove cooing during the evening dinner.

Jeopardy will come on on the white breasted nuthatch and again at the Baltimore Oriole.

 I haven't made the appointment for a vaccination yet. They put me on hold when I called and the "estimated waiting time" incremented from 2 minutes to 5, and stayed at 5 for another 5 minutes. So I just hung up and haven't gotten around to the thing yet.

I also haven't sought out the dental clinic which was chosen for me through attrition, also, based on it being the closest one to me.

I figured I would go down there and ask them what "Dentaquest" is all about and, I am sure, schedule my first checkup. I'm going to have the screeching violin sound effect from the Psycho movie ready on my phone for when the dentist first say's "OK, open wide..."

I probably should have explored the various participants in the program to find a female dentist. Although my self constructed without a large enough sample to prove theory that female dentists never hurt me is largely based upon one Brazilian dentist in Amherst, Mass. who did a root canal on me and I literally didn't feel any pain or discomfort. It was almost as if she was gripping my skull in an acupressure type hold and blocking the nerve receptors.

A Royal Scam? 

I had just started a job as an electronics assembler, and the company had pretty good dental insurance. So, within less than a month of my being hired there, a simple toothache due to a cavity drew the recommendation of this attractive Brazilian dentist that a full root canal procedure be done, and that the above tooth be ground into a base upon which would somehow be cemented , a porcelain replica of a tooth, which I believe was called a "crown" by her.

I felt bad about bringing the resultant bill in to Linda, the human resource wife of the owner of the business, whom I had only known for 3 weeks, for around $1,800.

I passed the blame on to the dentist: "She said I needed a root canal and a crown and cap, and..." But she didn't hurt me at all, throughout. I hadn't even felt the needle to put the Novocaine in. Some kind of rain forest nerve pinching going on there, I suspect..

 Maybe Linda started to wonder if she should start checking the teeth of future job seekers for preexisting conditions. 

But I did wind up staying on that job for about 4 months, and I'm sure they turned enough profit on the printed circuit boards I soldered components onto to offset their insurance costs some.

Your Fix Comes First

I have dallied a bit too long watching videos, and now I can't go out because they are about to render the verdict in that cop kneeling on a guy's neck incident in Minnesota...

I don't want to be near any people of color if the cop guy gets acquitted; because about three quarters of "them" believe they are supposed to physically assault the nearest white person in this event.

I'm glad I live in New Orleans, which is is pretty good at keeping its violence contained to a few areas that are fixtures in the crime reports every day.

The enclave that I find myself in, namely "Mid Town," is a heavily Latino area; and thus, peace, harmony, barbecues and Corona abound (not so much the Covid type) and there is a strong gay presence here, and so tolerance is at least given lip service.

And about 55% of the population is on drugs, to to point that it interferes with what might be a normal life of "protesting," rioting and looting. Getting their fix has to come first...

The biggest blow to Mid Town actually arrived with the commissioning of the Sacred Heart school building in its midst, as The Sacred Heart Apartments in its midst. There went the neighborhood, to the tune of bums suddenly encroaching upon the patrons of the corner bar, and lawn ornaments needing to be bolted down somehow.

I wasn't sure what I was going to get at the store. I only drank 2 beers yesterday, and hadn't even realized that until I was going to sleep.

But, I can almost taste a good IPA now.

I had better tune in somewhere to see what the verdict was, before I decide to go towards Broad Avenue. I might want to stay here in Mid Town, if the guy got a fair shake.

Please, No More Alexander Glauzanov!

 In psychology, impulsivity (or impulsiveness) is a tendency to act on a whim, displaying behavior characterized by little or no forethought, reflection, or consideration of the consequences.

I saw the TV ad for the singing bird clock.

It seemed to make so much sense to me, who had been in the habit of waking up at around 1:30 p.m., when the sun was at its zenith.

Then, more recently, Jeopardy, which comes on at 11 a.m., has had me drifting off around 3 in the morning, so as to wake up in time for it.

But, then I thought about how I want to establish kind of a routine, which would have me practicing all of the arts at least once a day.

There would be reading, writing, drawing, computer programming, exercising, meditation, and the music could further be divided into making beats, guitar practice, recording music to the beats, lyric writing, etc.

All the while continuing to study the video editor so my next video might have animations and stuff...

So, the singing bird clock seemed a godsend, in that I could learn to recognize the hour by which bird sings, and could arrange a schedule around them. When the cardinal sings, practice the guitar with a metronome until the wren croaks, type of thing.

As I can see from zooming in on the photo above, when the Hermit Thrush sings, it will be time for Jeopardy.

Alas, impulsivity was behind me grabbing my phone and ordering a singing bird clock, and doing so "withing the next 10 minutes" so as to be entitled to a handbook of North American birds, at no extra cost.

I could have gotten the clock for about half of what I wound up paying for it.

Like so many other products, it seems like the company is probably making half of their profit by charging way more for shipping than it realistically would cost to ship something like a 1 pound singing bird clock. It was about 7 bucks more, for shipping.

And it happened that I wasn't informed of the shipping cost until after I had suffered through a 20 minute "conversation" with an automated female sounding voice, who offered me bird feeders and to upgrade my clock to one with genuine walnut finish, or for even more, a mahogany encased singing bird clock.

The first option presented was to press either "one" or "two" for which one of the add-on wood finishes I wanted my clock to come in. No third option was mention; one for "just send me the regular old plastic singing bird clock." I had to suffer through it saying "I'm, sorry, I didn't get that; press 'one' to upgrade to walnut wood..."

Please, no more Alexander Glauzanov!!

After a long pause, the thing said, "To reject the upgrade to these beautiful clocks, press 'zero."

The voice even sounded hurt after I managed to pass on the bird feeder that you can stick to the outside of your window.

I initially thought this wasn't for me, because of the building not having windows that open. It wasn't until recently that I thought about just grabbing a ladder from the maintenance "shed" and sticking such a feeder to the outside of my window.

I could probably rig up some invention for getting seeds and suet into it, without needing the ladder every time. It would provide some entertainment for Harold the cat to be able to perch on the window sill just on the other side of the glass from the birds. 

I Won!!

 I'll never know how much of a sap I was for upping my bid a whole 5 dollars with under an hour to go in the e-bay auction for the guitar method books.

Some other dude upped my original bid by 50 cents.

This I surpassed by $1.25, or the cost of a street car, before adding the 5 bucks to it in the closing minutes, in case whomever it was was going to try to pull the rug out from under me.

The seller only has a 50% positive rating, but seems to have learned from the negative review and now ships his books in a more protective package. I wouldn't care if they were bent a little, myself.

I did get to check out Bruce Forman, and he is a "form"idable guitarist who blends chords and melody notes in equal parts.
The tutorial video I saw of him would have him explain something and then give an example, but then he would say, or you could try something like this, and would go on to play 3 or 4 variations, and I would get the sense that he was trying to say that you can just play anything; whatever you hear; so I am interested in The Jazz Guitarist's Handbook.

The Progressive Lead Guitar, who knows what that will be about. It probably depends upon whom the author defines as being a progressive guitarist, out there. At least I hope they have transcribed some progressive solos.

John Renbourn, I have heard of, but can't say I have him anywhere in my 1,100 hours of music...

The Johnny Smith book, I actually had, when I was 15 or so.

That was the age at which I would be snapping up all the books that my "unburdened by the cost of living because I was living with my parents" paychecks from bagging groceries could go towards.

The approach that Johnny took towards music was to learn to read guitar music written in the actual pitches and not transposed an octave so as to fit entirely on the treble clef; or the staff with the "G" clef, as opposed to the "F" clef used by the bass instruments.

And, along these lines, Johnny presented chords and things using the 2 staffs that piano players read. His idea was that it would place the guitarists lower notes into the correct perspective of being bass notes; and he would be able to think more like a pianist, or an arranger of classical music scores.

I guess Johnny would then teach that, by thinking of the instrument this way, you can compose more comprehensively. I don't know, I never got past trying to read one or two notes on the bass clef, and the rest of the notes of the chord a whole staff above. It made even the simple C chord look weird. But I guess it could help you think of an Am7 chord as just being a C chord with an A note in the bass...

Creative Folk Guitar #1 might wind up being the most useful book of them all.

Maybe just to give me some strumming chords to take my mind off notes on the bass clef.

Charlie Byrd, another guy I have heard of, but, it is a melodic method.
It should be interesting; maybe a practice system or some kind of ear training exercises, to get you sounding like the Byrd Man, himself...

The flatpicking book was the one that I went to e-bay to look for, in the first place.

I had Googled the Mel Bay flat picking method and wound up seeing this fantastic offer of 11 books in "acceptable" condition.
I would have paid the whole 6 bucks that was the initial bid for just the flat picking one.
I want some mind numbing, meditative type stuff that thrives on repetition.

Building right hand technique is what I have been focusing on the last year; having experimented with how to hold the pick, etc.

Wish me luck. I will do my best!!

My Latest Watercolor On Paper (On Couch)

The Watercolor

Self Destructive Lethargy

You know, I could actually use the advice of that weasel, Alex In California, because I have bid on e-bay for a set of books from Mel Bay.

The opening bid was a paltry 6 dollars. But, the "shipping" is 12 bucks!

You can't tell me that it takes 12 bucks to mail 11 pamphlet sized books (realistically about 3 pounds max) to somewhere in the same country. And, so with 3 hours left, someone outbid the 13 dollars that I had bid.

By 50 cents.

I have never used e-bay before and I don't know the etiquette; and what someone is trying to say by outbidding you by 50 cents. I figured the books were easily worth a dollar each (plus another whole dollar each for the U.S.P.S.)
I would pay 44 bucks for them. I wonder if I should just bid that amount. Does this bidder want to play cat and mouse, with each of us on the website as the hour draws near, going up 50 cents per bid, like a see-saw that alternately has one of us as the "winner?"

Alex in California would know. I really want the books enough to pay a lot more. What's to stop the guy from putting a dollar higher bid on his screen and then waiting until one minute before the close of the auction to hit send?

Maybe I will place a bid like 5 bucks higher and then just resign myself to mashing the send button one minute before the close of the auction; regardless of whether or not I see him outbid me in real time on the website; better safe than sorry. I would pay at least 5 bucks for just the Charlie Bird method book, just out of curiosity, since I've never heard of the bird man...

I'm pretty sure it is the 12 dollars "shipping" that is the deterrent for higher bids; it's almost like a baked in profit for the e-bay seller. Is that to cover the prohibitive cost of having it returned by a customer and winding up mailing it out twice with the burden passed on to the consumer?

Yeah, that wishy washy never Trump snowflake probably could have given me some decent advice.

The flat-picking book alone, I would have paid up to 12 bucks for.

Somebody outbid me by 50 cents, after I had doubled the opening bid. Surely this indicated that I really wanted the 11 Mel Bay books...or did it?

I think the person is hoping that I would get busy and forget about the auction and he would scoop them up for $13.50

You know, I could actually use the advice
 I keep meaning to pick up a bottle of that Prevogen (sp?) stuff which is a brain food type formula that has memory increasing or aiding; I can't remember which.

But I keep forgetting to get some when I go out.

I know Walgreen's has it, per their commercial.

I think the Orwellian utopia would have me parked in front of my TV the whole day through, absorbing the propaganda and taking my Soma.

I'm taking my Soma, in a sense.

And I have graduated to attempting to watch two (2) daily episodes of Jeopardy, along with watching one (1) airing of "25 Words or Less," a show that comes on right after Jeopardy, and even with a deceptive cadence that has the fanfare of its opening coming right when you think there should be a commercial; like between Jeopardy and it.

That is how I first saw it, and shook my head, thinking that to follow Jeopardy, your show has to be more high brow than 25 Words or Less.

But, I gradually started to like the game, which is like the opposite of Charades, where the contestants can only speak in describing the word they are trying to describe using as few words as possible; but they aren't allowed to gesture; no charades allowed.

I find it compelling to watch and sometimes truly feel embarrassed for the contestants who are clearly not fluent in English, and to hear the clues they give.

Getting someone to say "dog," for instance, you might have to use a 2 word clue like "not cat." That would work, I believe in most cases.

But, to use the 1 word clue of "canine" which is logically a great, word conserving clue, and then to hear the "where do they find these people" contestants start to hurl out guesses: "Incisors, molars, teeth, biting!" can be pretty nerve racking. Then the guy has to burn another word: "pet."

"Snoop blank!"

So, that is 90 minutes a day in front of the tube, with well times dashes to complete errands when the commercials, which you can't "skip ads" past, come on.

Empty, spray out and return Harold's litter pan before the Jeopardy theme begins, type of thing...
And now, though, there is Grit, which is free antenna TV broadcast in high definition, so you can see the graininess which might have looked magnificent on the big screen one hundred years ago.

There was a Western movie on that had Ronald Reagan in it the other night, and I hadn't recognized him; I only thought that that one particular actor, I had seen n some other role.

It was Ronald who was the first foundational move towards making a Donald possible. If an actor can become President, then bring on the actors; let's fight fire with fire. Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on Saturday Night Live stands out in my mind as breaking through some other kind of barrier, for the lone fact that it was Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on Saturday Night Live.

But, the Grit Movies are easily another 2 hours spent in front of the Tube.

The commercials for the drugs, OMG. Stop taking immediately and call your doctor if you start vomiting up blood, this could be an indicator of a much more serious condition for which your doctor can hit up your insurance company for a lot more.

All the while that "Lovely Day" song, by Billy Whithers (?) plays and the man, whose heart doesn't pump as well as it should, but who still wants to be around longer so he can dance in the back yard with his grandchildren to "Lovely Day" by Billy Whithers (?).

But look at this happy fellow, he's going to live longer. He didn't start having blood in his stools, rashes or swollen feet, not even night sweats; so give the stuff a try, your co-pay might even be zero!

I usually get the song stuck in me head on the way out with the litter box and so I'm humming it as I spray out Harold's poop.

Doing the jigsaw puzzle has the side effect of promoting the questionable practice of organizing the apartment by color. I started subconsciously doing it along with the puzzles a couple years ago, noticeable when I would have to look around for a minute for a guitar pick, only to find it almost invisible atop a magazine cover or something, on a spot almost exactly the same color as the pick.

But, this came in handy a couple times when I thought to look for something I needed and hadn't the foggiest idea where I might have put it, but then being able to find it in a spot where a lot of other yellow things, for example, wound up being thrown.

Impulse Buying Stimulated

Sitting there, Sunday morning, I put on "Songbird," by Barbra Streisand.

I needed to open the blinds and let sunlight in the place, and to put "Songbird" on.

I had messed up the night before and looked in shame at the cellophane wrappers, evidence of 3 separate trips to the candy machine, two from white frosted doughnuts and one from a Honey Bun® 

I had been a sugar crazed fool, the night before.

I was brewing strong coffee and washing the frosted doughnuts down with it; this in an attempt to prolong the evening by transitioning from alcohol to coffee, the way the Russians would do, when I lived with them.

They would sit around the table, consuming several "courses" of food, with a pickle-biting shot of vodka in between each one.

My stepson at the time, Michael, showed me the pickle procedure.

It was something like: bite the pickle, then gulp down the Smirnov, then immediately thereafter, inhale the pickle fumes through the nose.

It was something like that; bite, swallow, snort. Or maybe you swallow, then bite. I'm going to have to Google that. Maybe there is even a Russian term for it.

These pickle snorting shots came every 45 minutes or so, like they are supposed to, when one drinks; based upon that theory that it takes an hour for each "drink" to get out of your system. After 3 hours, and 3 shots, they would do a fourth one and then sit around talking, and picking at the food, until some time approaching midnight, when strong coffee would be served, to keep everyone awake while they drove home, of course, and probably as the hostess way of politely nudging the company along.

But, I had switched to strong coffee and powdered doughnuts, at some point, before at some point lying down on the bed and dozing off.

At least I could blame it on the 4 empty bottles of Sierra Nevada Juicy, Hazy IPA that stood on the counter as if watching a nearby lamb roast thaw out.

I had made the mistake of throwing the whole 3 pound thing in the freezer after I got back from the store. I should have cut it into 3 or 4 smaller portions and froze them separately.

It was a 12 dollar piece of lamb, and now it was all thawed out and would all have to be cooked. I suppose I could have roasted the thing, and then cut it into 3 or 4 pieces to go in the refrigerator, and not the freezer. Amazing, to be just figuring these things out at the age of 58.

I keep forgetting to bring my canvas shopping bag type thing with me when I go to Whole Foods. 

This is mostly because I often decide to go there, after having had a couple beers along my journey.

I now take for granted the fact that one can drink in public in Orleans Parrish, Louisiana. This makes it convenient to grab a beer from anywhere and just sip it as you walk down the street on your way. I can remember the police in St. Augustine, Florida actually creeping around the backs of stores that had nothing but woods behind them, trying to catch the homeless people "drinking in public" back there, out of sight of everyone.

So, if I grab a 24 ounce Heineken at the store down the street, and then start walking towards Broad Street, to get food for Harold, probably. I will be just in the right frame of mind, upon reaching a certain corner, to go to Whole Foods to get cash back; for white powdered doughnuts, at the bare minimum. This is when I will wish I had brought my canvas shopping bag.

The paper bags that they give you at Whole Foods is weak paper, because it has been recycled, ostensibly to save trees. So, then they have to double them. TIMBER!!

If you are leaving Whole Foods on foot and it begins to downpour, you might as well make a bee-line for the nearest plastic bags to grab, unless you don't mind having to carry your groceries most of the way home, cradling them like a baby.

I have had a large bottle of "organic" vinegar fall through the bottom of a bag and shatter on the pavement after some frozen item in the same bag's condensation made mush of the paper. I have had the handles on them break just from hopping off a curb onto the road. That's was me, gathering hormone free, fairly sourced items off the asphalt in the rain, while horns honked..

to whole foods "on the fly," not thinking of going there when leaving the apartment, but developing the urge to get cash back from there, after having a couple beers.

This would be for a sack of weed, or worse.

I made a fast recovery, aided by Barbra, and

Universe Taking Shape

 This is the best puzzle I have ever done. It is 1,500 pieces. I would bet there are plenty of people who have given up before completing a puzzle such as this.

This one has a ton of writing in it., But the writing appears both horizontal and at angles, following the arcs of the circles. And some of the same words, like the names of months, appear twice, as you can see. There are tiny clues as to which side they belong on, which might be as subtle as the shade of the background. A damned good puzzle. I really feel like I am going to have the whole universe figured out as soon as I snap the last piece in place. I'm taking my time and working on it for about 10 minutes a day, despite that...

I am working against the resistance of knowing that Harold, my cat, has, at least once, jumped upon the table where the puzzle resides.

One such time, I began to advance towards the table, scoldeding him, and preparing to grab him and remove him from atop the puzzle table, when he reversed his direction and, with cat-like quickness, jumped right off the table.

The only traction his paws could get to help him in this act, were the puzzle pieces on the table, with their cardboard bottoms, and several pieces were scattered from the table.

So, there might be a piece or two missing. That is something that every puzzle builder would concur upon as sucking. Because, at some point, when the pieces that haven't been fitted yet are so few that you can easily survey them, you will see that there is going to be a piece missing. And it will be one that you have had your eyes pealed for; for the past two weeks, maybe. Then, after you finish the puzzle, you don't see the completed puzzle, but only the one hole, or worse, more.

After this puzzle, I have a 5,000 piece one. From the same manufacturer.

 

Truth, Justice and the American Way

The New Look

I'm going to give this blog some kind of facelift soon; or maybe just do The Great Migration, or more accurately become born again, by getting a new Google account, new e-mail, new phone number, new name....

The Migration

I've kind of had the idea all along that I would use Blogger as a "trial and error" platform and then, after I had ironed out all the bugs, would become reincarnated, and would spring up with my own domain, on which I would run a blog that would feature everything that was good in my previous guise, but would not have all of the baggage that has surely accumulated over the course of a 15 year relationship with Google.

Google threatens to become the de-facto "one world government" that the world seems to be gravitating towards.

Given human nature, though, there will probably have to be an alternative government, as an equal and opposite reaction to it. Like the Coke vs. Pepsi thing.

The whole issue of "borders" that is rearing its head now has probably got something to do with the fact that once, say, 88% of all human beings have a Google account, then the king of Google is really the king of the world, and borders kind of become obliterated.

What if the population is spread out such that, everybody is working online in some capacity, and a random person pulled off the street in Sydney, Australia for example, might have only a 50% chance of actually being an Aussie.

She could be a French citizen, who does all her work on her laptop from whatever corner of the globe she happens to be hanging out at. Or...pick a country of origin.

This whole idea of migration has to do with people who have found themselves physically located on a plot of land somewhere, where there is some flag stuck in the ground, and they are citizens of that particular plot of land, along with everyone else who was unwittingly born there.

It is human nature to want to live in the most beautiful spots on earth, like when Joseph Smith said "This is the place!" upon cresting the Rocky Mountains and beholding what is now Salt Lake City, or maybe Provo, Utah.

It must really suck living in a physically beautiful place that has a lousy government, or a war going on. 

I was out in Utah, and the tap water at the little lodge where I was staying came out of the faucet as clear as liquid glass, and was the best water I've ever tasted.

When I walked down the street my first evening in St. George, Utah, I would hear the toot of a car horn, and would turn my head in that direction to see a whole family in a station wagon, smiling and waving at me -happy to see me, in St. George.

The little homeless shelter in that city of about 12,000 is enough to accommodate the entire homeless population of about 16 permanently homeless people. Those lost souls had their own rooms, and had moved in furniture and decorations, TV's etc..

There was one room for the wandering homeless, such as myself. A car which I had bought in Las Vegas for $425, a Toyota that really scooted around in that sea level city, began to lose power as I gained altitude, heading into Utah.

By the time I reached Cedar City, elevation 4,000 feet or so I recall, the Toyota was doing all of 25 miles per hour with the pedal to the floor. And the gas gauge was plunging towards empty at an alarming rate. It was definitely a fuel/oxygen mixture problem, exacerbated by the thinner air at the higher altitude, yet all the kings horses and all the kings men (or at least all six or so car mechanics in town) were unable to solve the riddle of the Toyota.

When I bought it, it had Mississippi plates on it, so I figure it might have run just find in that lowland state, and even all the way out to Vegas on Rt. 10, which is all around sea level.

The first morning that I woke up at The Care And Share, and sallied forth looking for coffee, there were people out front offering odd jobs around their houses. I wound up making 80 dollars that day, staining a deck, which was attached to a the house of a nice Mormon family.

The lady of the house served a hearty dinner of, what I imagine was Mormon food. I seem to recall chicken, so they weren't vegetarians.

One of the other guys on the job was named Grant Sanford.

He had wound up at The Care And Share after having been released from the nearest jail. His car was impounded.

Grant was a devout Christian man. He lived in Federal Way, Washington, where he worked as a framing carpenter. He would make $36/hour doing that, because of the "prevailing wages" in that state. But there would be gaps in his employment when the money would run out, and Grant would begin to borrow against his next paycheck, by driving off without paying for gas, or pushing en entire carriage of food out of the Kroger's nearby his house.

He always settled up his debts as soon as some work came in, but the gas station owners wouldn't know this.

He would sit down and make out checks and mail them, along with letters like "On November 9th, 1999; I was almost out of gas, but needed to pick up my wife, who was pregnant....and I drove off without paying for $17,72 worth of gas.

Please find enclosed a remittance for that amount..." type of thing.

He was a very biblical young man, of about 19 when I met him in St. George.

He had been caught by the Utah State Police, who held the considerable advantage of there being only one highway in and out of Provo; the same one that goes in and out of Salt Lake City; with red cliffs on one side, and a huge-ass salt water lake on the other, this acted to funnel Grant right into the waiting hands of The Law.

He had done something like 10 days in the sparsely populated Mormon jail, for theft of fuel,and then had made his way back to St. George, where his own Toyota was being kept in a fenced enclosure, in lieu of a $350 impound fee, which was accruing at an additional $35 per day.

But, he was a gamer, and was trying to grab work each morning, including weekends (but maybe not Sunday, depending upon how Mormons feel about working on that day) in an effort to catch up to the mounting fee.

This was admirable, I thought.

Grant had had an argument with his wife and mother of their two toddlers, Jacob and Issac (Grant said these were the first two names in the bible, or something).

So, he had just hopped in the Toyota, heading for, of all places, Mississippi.

I can't remember why Mississippi. Maybe he heard there was work there; and was going to work and send her money. Probably the argument had been over money, and his borrowing habit.

He described the Mormon cops and jail-keepers as being the most polite and respectful he has ever encountered. Showing the cops a list he was keeping, of all his "creditors," in order to affirm his intentions to pay them all back had had the undesired side effect of allowing them to see just how long that list was; but it had made it seem like he was keeping track, at least, so as to pay them back.

They might have been impressed by the fact that about the only luggage he was carrying on the cross continental trip was a large bible on the passenger seat, along with copies of a Martin Luther style "grievance" notice that Grant had been disseminating by tacking to the front doors of churches all around Federal Way, Washington, and was hopeful of being able to nail to the front doors of churches in Mississippi.

He let me read a copy. It was pretty scathing. I remember the first line being something I paraphrase as: "Today's Christians ore the most pathetic group of believers since Christ walked the earth!" and it went on from there.

But, after about a week in Cedar City, during which the city's brain-trust of auto mechanics tried about a half dozen procedures on my Toyota with the Mississippi plates on it (I planned to make it legal after I got to wherever I wound up. I wasn't sure where this would be, but thought it was probably beyond Cedar City, Utah) with no luck, and after I had poured some of the 900 bucks I had left after buying the thing into it, for various experimental parts, it was decided between Grant and I that I would take one last sum of $350 out of my money, and would get his car out of impound, with the provision that he would take me along with him, to wherever he was going; beggars can't be choosers; just get me out of here, type of thing...

So, we went to the car from Mississippi, which sat just outside the garage of the mechanics whom I had already paid about $200 to.

The mechanics didn't seem to take much notice of us, as we grabbed my backpack out of the back seat of the thing. There was a cop there, whom they were talking to.

We hopped into the car that never made it to Mississippi, and off we went.

First, a stop back at The Share And Care, because Grant wanted to properly thank the volunteers there, and say goodbye to the half dozen permanent residents who had their own bedrooms there; whom he had befriended.

I guess I said goodbye to the place, too. My most vivid memories of it, besides the crystal clear tap water, were of seeing my first ever episode of The Simpsons on the TV in their little lounge area; and of meeting a woman who was born the same year, month and day as me (I don't know what hour of that day I was born, but she was probably older than me because she knew she was born at 5 a.m. and also, the poor thing looked about twice my age, which was 37 at the time).

After we left there, we went past the garage, where the cop that had been talking to the mechanics was now standing behind the Toyota, staring at the expired tags from Mississippi. A bolt of fear kind of shot through me. I probably wouldn't have made it far, even if they had fixed it; they must have alerted the cop about the tags.

I happened to have that federal fugitive warrant out for me at the time, for a homicide in Jacksonville, and was the subject of an nation-wide manhunt; something which I have blogged about.

I was using an alternate ID, but had actually shown my real one to the lady who was born on the same day as me after she doubted my claim. I had to retrieve it from where it had been well hidden in the car. If they felt they had any reason to investigate me, that lady could provide them with my exact birth date; yikes!

I knew I had nothing to worry about with the warrant, it was just a device to get me to testify in another case; but I didn't want them to catch me; I was going to turn myself in a couple days before the trial..

It works out well for the homeless of Cedar City, Utah, them comprising only about .5% of the community. Generosity outpaces demand.

This was 1999, though, and the Mormon guy whose brand new deck we had stained, which was going to skirt one side of an in-ground pool which was also being constructed, could afford to pay for all that, plus find a couple of in-demand homeless people to strew generosity upon to the tune of 80 bucks each, plus a fine dinner, because he was in one particular room of the house; his office; where he was working as a "web designer."

This was back before templates and dynamically generated code were commonplace, and he was making a fortune just by coding HTML into flat, static webpages that don't do anything...er...kind of like this blog, come to think of it...because the common man by and large didn't have the patience to learn HTML and CSS.

Plus, the Mormons prosper just through clean living, and their nice things are like monuments to their abstemious existences. The beautiful fountain in the front yard? -came out of the money never spent on a pack of cigarettes a day for ten years.

The family snowmobiles? You could buy them for your own family, if you had back all the money you've spent on beer and liquor in your lifetime, type of thing.

The "clean" religions members prosper, it's that simple.

"Oh, where are we going, anyways?" I asked Grant, who was excited about seeing his kids after about 3 weeks away from them.

"How do you feel about Seattle?"

"I feel like I'm headed there..."

And thus began The Federal Way, Washington adventure.

So, I plan on getting one of those "burner" cell phones, like a Tracfone for 10 bucks, which will come with a phone number that I can use to open a new Google account.

I will probably be using the tor browser so that Google can't look at my IP address and know that it's me. Maybe a VPN is in the cards, too.

I can then become reborn, with a new name and a new account; and I will know right away if it worked if I stop getting the same ads and having the same videos suggested on Youtube.

I really do think that Facebook, for one, is shunting people off into little splinter groups, so that they can't organize, perhaps. If you are flagged as being a "boomer," for example, on Youtube, then I think they kind of "disappear" you to the mainstream, so that your toxic attitudes (about truth, justice and the American way, perhaps) don't infect the global community..

Right Now

 I am listening to Beethoven.

The Completed Puzzles Become Pieces of an Even Larger Puzzle

I'm probably going to write something, but right now, I am ready to start walking to the store that I could have taken the street car to, had I remembered to break a 5 dollar bill when I was getting a vape and one 19.2 ounce beer..

But, as it is, I will be getting some exercise, it is about 60 degrees out, a tad chilly...

My food money just came on the card and so I am thinking of getting a lot of things that can be juiced, starting with apples and extending to kale and carrots.

The follow up jam I did after making the "Buzz is Right" video, sounded a lot like the Grateful Dead to me, and I remember doing it without thinking much at all; my mind numb from having spent almost 90 hours on the video.

The music portion took its share of time, but getting all the images to line up and somewhat do what I wanted them to do was taxing.

And, so, I just wanted to, I suppose, use the other side of the brain...
And then, Jacob came over and we jammed a couple nights ago, and I was pretty much able to stay in the same space of consciousness, but this was at the expense of being able to remember how songs "went," or more specifically, how they were done the last time.

Sometimes, you just have to blindly jam on and not hold what you are doing to the standard of it being recognizable as any existing composition...

And, so, off to the store I go. I will get Harold something he likes; and will try to remember to break the 5 so I can trolley my way home, with all the apples and alkaline water and perhaps some B-12 vitamin gummies, and maybe even a bottle of the Prevagen (sp?) stuff that Walgreen's has that I have seen advertised, in between ads for other drugs and for lawyers experienced in suing drug companies for harming people...