lonecity.com

I don’t really know if winter gets harsher during some years as compared to others, but it seems this year winter is just plain miserable.  All I want to do is hide in my house, and even then its cold.  Bitter cold…

I’ve re-lit the pilot light in my water heater twice this year as it has spontaneously gone out.  The heater seems to run constantly, but the house never seems to be warm.  There were even a couple of days I left work early to head home because the roads were so bad that I didn’t want to travel after dark.  Just between us, there was a sick day that the only sickness was being sick of going out and shoveling a path out the driveway and onto icy snow covered roads.  I’m the type who goes to work regardless of how bad things get, but one storm this winter just went beyond where I felt it was safe to even attempt to leave the house.

So I’ve been sitting back and thinking about doing some remodeling to my old’ish house.  Probably shouldn’t be since I don’t have any money to do any remodeling, but still Its on my mind.  Today I did internet research on radiant in floor heating, and on tankless water heaters.  I plan to tile my kitchen in granite, relocate the cabinets to the opposite side of the room.  Switch to a cooktop and wall oven versus a conventional unit, and put in an island.

The majority of what I want to change about my kitchen I can do myself, but there are a few things I wonder about.  I could build my own cabinets, but I want to make this happen inside of my lifetime.  I just can’t see myself completing the task before I get bored and move on.  I can tile the floor and countertops, and I can handle the electric work and moving the water and gas lines.  I’m just not sure about what I should do before I get to putting down the tile.

I would love to install radiant in floor heating and from all that I read today I could do the task easily.  However after seeing all the “spin” and sales pitches, and thinking about how much it will actually be used, I don’t know if its worth the cost.  It seems electric radiant heating will likely cost four times as much as the vent system I have now to operate.  I was thinking radiant heating was a must because I’d read that granite tile floors are awefully cold without it.  I’m wondering how much I really would use that system though given its usage expense.  I’m a realist and putting on a pair of shoes beats a few thousand dollar improvement cost and a few hundred bucks a year in usage.  The problem is that I have to decide before I tile the floor.  I’m not spending a boatload of cash laying down expensive granite tile and then tearing it up next year when I decide the floors are freezing and I want to add heat.

My home is old enough that it has virtually no insulation.  I have full access to the underside of the structure through a crawlspace and I am thinking that a better investment would be to buy a few rolls of pink panther and staple it up between the floor joists beneath the kitchen.  One of the goals of my kitchen remodel I mentioned was to move the cabinets.  Right now they are located on the inside wall of the kitchen adjacent to a bedroom.  I want to move them to the outside wall surrounding a window.  The thought is that an extra two feet of cabinet covering the wall will provide more insulation where the cold litterally seeps through the wall and window area.  As a part of the process of putting in new cabinets I plan to tear the sheetrock off that wall and put the pink panther stuff in it.   I’ll then paint and finally hang the cabinets.  The cooktop and the kitchen sink will both sit side by side under the window.  The wall oven will sit to one side and the refridgerator to the other.  An island in the center of the room will serve as cooking preparation area as well as on the reverse side a dining table.  My whole design is based on making the kitchen attractive, and in refocusing the solid mass in the kitchen along the coldest wall.  Thus the dilema on the in floor heating.  I want the kitchen to be warmer.  I want the whole house to be warmer.  But the reality is I don’t want it to cost more to operate.  That beats the point of adding efficiency with improvements.  Also when it comes down to it I’d rather the kitchen be a bit cold than the living room or bedrooms.  I guess I’m just missing the real life experience of how cold a granite kitchen floor really is.  If I knew firsthand I could make the decision in a heartbeat, but all I know is wives tales I’ve read. 

I guess the solution might be to spend the extra $2000 for an electric system and then not use it when I realize it is costing me so much to operate.  That really sucks though concidering I can’t afford the $2000.  That 2k would be better spent on a tankless water heater that “will” pay for itself and provide benefits I can actually use.  (like a warm shower that lasts longer than five minutes.)

This week I thought I’d tell you all what I got for christmas.  Yes I am a bit old for santa to come a knocking but I do occasionally have someone I have not alienated completely stop by with a gift.  Trust my I tried, but you can’t chase away everyone…  Someone always gets in!

Anyhow, my gift this year was the Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess game for the wii.  Yes there was a bit of hint dropping there as thats a pretty specific request.  I bought my wii just a few months after the console release.  I’m not one who would wait in line through the coldest nights or the dork who calls every store in town every day trying to get one.  Instead one of those “dorks” managed to get his hands on a couple of them, and was hoping to turn around and resell them for tons of green.  I’m also not one to pay tons of green if it can be had for less.  So I waited patiently until this fellow discovered that supply was closer to demand than he thought and when he was strapped for cash having spent all his dough on wii’s I bought one from him at the price I would have payed at the store.  (patience is a virtue)

After I got my wii, the whole family played wii sports for a couple of days then it set unused for months.  Finally I broke down and bought Mario Galaxy.  Every mario game I’ve ever bought has always been worth the money.  They’ve all had enough replay value that I don’t feel bad having spent the cash, so when mario galaxy was released I didn’t feel bad about buying sight unseen.  I’d say its exactly what I expected.  I didn’t get way more than my money’s worth, but I also didn’t get ripped off. An all around OK game with plenty of replay value.  I burned through a couple packs of AA batteries with that one and then bought a rechargeable batteries.  After that the wii set unused for a few more months. 

Next came Boom Blox.  This game had incredible reviews and looked really fun on tv.  I should have known better than to trust that the reviews of a steven spielberg game were unbiased.  Quite frankly had I rented it I never would have purchased it.  In fact the entire game can be played through in one night, it has NO REPLAY VALUE, and though it was touted as a party game, nobody wants to play it.  Everyone who I convinced to play it got sick of it within a half hour. (not much of a party)  I had the same experience with lego starwars.  It was just plain stupid…  (here comes the hate mail)  I don’t think I’ll ever buy a steven spielberg game again regardless of what kind of reviews it gets.  They’re all terrible!

So the wii has been mostly unused up until christmas and then I dropped a few hints and finally got the zelda game.  I’ve been eye’ing it since I got the wii but I never put down the $50 because If I’m going to spend that kind of cash I like to get games the whole family will play.  Zelda is a game that only I will ever play, at least in my family.  I watched and watched to see if it would eventually go to a bargain bin price 19.99 or so, but a full two years later the game is still at the premium game price.  Honestly its worth the fifty bucks, but I just didn’t want to spend that much.  I tried to get it when my store started liquidation, but apparently I ain’t the only one who didn’t want to pay fifty bucks for zelda.  The only copy we had sold the very first day we started liquidation.  In fact ALL of the wii games sold before the price ever dropped below 10% off.  Its funny to see HOT titles like rock band and guitar hero sitting on the shelves after xmas for the ps3 and xbox, but even the most low budget crap titles for the wii sold out almost immediately.

Well anyways, for anyone else out there who’s been eye’ing zelda for a couple of years now I say give it up and pay the fifty bucks already.  I’ve been playing the game every day for more than a week including all day long on my days off, and there’s still no end in sight.  You will definately get your moneys worth.  Very few games can churn out a solid 50+ hours of original gameplay without becoming outright boring.  The legend of Zelda Twilight princess is one of them.  I’m still deciding if I like it better than the old Zelda ocarina of time though.  So far the bosses haven’t been as hard as they were on the old N64 game, and the puzzles not quite as difficult.  I’d say they’re close. 

If you haven’t played ocarina of time, and you’re debating on spending the $50 for twilight princess, spend the five bucks to download it from the wii online services.  Its worth the $50 so get it for five and when you’re done you’ll know just how good twilight princess is.  Then maybe you can justify forking over a full days pay for this great game.

I haven’t been around long enough to say I was a part of the good old days just yet.  I have been around long enough to have known my fair share of old fogies who were.   Some of the things I’ve learned from them it just might surprise you to know.  One example of that lost knowledge is that cats weren’t well thought of here in the western united states a hundred years ago.  I’m sure there were cat people and dog people then as there are now, but as a general rule most people were dog owners.  It comes from simple logic though and has less to do with loving your pet.  Around the farm cats are a nuisance who don’t help out, eat your food, scare your fowl, and only want you to love them when they want you.  Dogs on the other hand are loyal and obedient companions who will round up your sheep, fetch your paper and are happy to have your attention when you have time for them.  I learned this little tidbit through someone recanting what I concider horrific tales.  Stories about how the old folks used to catch the strays that come around in mesh potato sacks and toss them in the river hoping they’d drown or float far enough away not to come back. 

I have never cared to own a pet though I have several.  Somehow one always manages appear at my house and I end up bieng its owner.  Our housholds most recent aquisition is a little black dog that is probably nearing death.  (you can see just how old she is in her eyes)  She’s a happy little dog and her previous owner obviously treated her well enough to potty train her.  (though they obviously didn’t care enough to give her a collar and a name tag)  This dog found her way into my back yard through a hole in the fence and it was obvious she hadn’t eaten or been taken care of in days.  (maybe weeks)  When she found her way to us she was barking constantly and wouldn’t approach a human.  Must have been trauma.  Once we got her calmed down and with us for some days, she’s been as gentile as can be belived.  She has never barked since, not even once.  (I’ve tried to get her to.) 

I’ve always been more apt to like cats than dogs.  The reason there is simple.  Cats don’t want anything to do with me, and I don’t want anything to do with pets, so we get along great.  I leave a bag of food open and we cross paths from time to time. 

Over the past year one of our two cats has moved on.  She came home one day rather chewed up, looked like she was half eaten by a dog.  We nabbed her and did a bit of first aid.  She didn’t like that, and took to not coming home nearly so often.  Then after a while she didn’t come home at all.  Thats another trait I like about cats.  They know when they’re done for so they find somewhere quiet to wander off to and pass on.  I’d like to think we have that in common.  I’ll probably crawl under a rock when I hear the death rattle and feel sorry for whomever gets stuck finding me.

I mentioned before I leave a bag of cat food with the top open so they can get at it when the are hungry.  That doesn’t mean I don’t feed them, just that I always leave it out so If I’m away a while they can.  Our oldest cat prefers to stick her head in the bag instead of eating out of the cat dish anyway.  Go figure?  This habbit of mine has had some less pleasant consequences though.  Neigborhood stray cats have gotten brazen.  I used to keep the cat food in the back room and they would wander in through the dog door for a snack.  I don’t mind it, but I had to stop that because it freaks my family out to encounter a stray when they pop back to do the laundry.  This prompted me to move the cat dish into the kitchen and the bag into the dining room/pantry area. 

Up until last week I figured moving the cat food meant problem solved.   Then the harsh part of winter set in and one of the strays became more brazen.  It comes through the back room, through the kitchen, and into the pantry to rifle through the open bag!  Well, as I said the stray doesn’t bother me, but then the problem progressed.  This big yellow stray cat (who scares my old cat half to death) went and got herself chewed up.  She went to find herself someplace quiet to die and that place happened to be my pantry.  Luckily we discovered her while she was still alive.  (imagine the stink)  But I had to call the pound and have them come catch her in my pantry.  It wasn’t much of a chase, but I doubt they get called to catch stray animals inside the house very often. 

Well from a pot full of dead kittens three weeks ago, to a mean old stray ally cat bleading to death in my pantry, animals have a strange way of finding their way into my life.  It seems the less I want to have to do with them the more often they come to me. 

I’m still waiting on the terrible clamaty to come at the behest of the pot full of dead kittens.  Winter is tough on cats round these here parts.

I probably haven’t mentioned it on my blog yet, but I happen to dabble a bit with domain parking.  Basically I’ve bought up a few doman names that recieve regular type in visitors and I am selling the traffic to advertising companies.  I watch the domain name auctions closely, because from time to time a fantastic name comes up and occasionally I think it might be worth buying.  This domain was one I bought that didn’t turn out to be worth what I expected.  win some/lose some

Anyhow I thought I’d write today about the biggest thing to happen to the domain parking industry in the last two years.  Google has decided to enter the domain parking business.  Well actually google has been there all along, but the way it worked is a third party ad company would purchase your traffic and match it with google or yahoo’s advertisers.  Essentially google was behind the racket but as a domain owner you never really delt with them.  Last week google announced they are going into direct competition with the parking companies and allowing you to park your domains directly with google.

Now when I say its the biggest thing to happen to parking I mean it, but I don’t mean its the best thing.  Realistically its a huge step for google twards monopolizing the online advertising industry.  The domain parking industry is a complicated web of buying and selling.  Its heart is similar in nature to that of the stock market.  People bid high or low from one day to the next based on trends and magic numbers they seem to pull out of the air, but in essence beneath it all there is real physical property.  (the domain name)  Each property has a real base value which equates to the number of people who visit that domain multiplied by the amount of money you can soak out of each visitor. 

Take for an example yacht.com  I didn’t even bother to look and see what is there, but I can already tell you that name is worth oodles of coinage.  Why?  Its simple.  If you are John Doe Rich F*c(R and you are looking to buy a yacht you might think to do a bit of research on the internet first.  You might just stumble on Yacht.com.  With a name like Yacht.com and a half decent looking website you almost instantly trust their oppinion on what makes a good yacht, and better yet you trust their oppinion on who to buy one from.  So now Joe’s yacht company pretty much has to pay $20 - $100 for a lead from you if they want to be the company you tell everyone makes the best luxury yachts.

Prior to now, Google set the pricing of what a click would cost joe’s yacht company.  They’d use active bidding between Jims Yacht and Joes Yacht and Teds Yacht and come up with a price strategy where whoever was willing to pay the most got the most clicks and when they ran out of money the next guy gets what is left.  (there’s a finite number of people looking to buy a yacht each day)  So if google decided that Jim was willing to pay $8 for a lead and Joe was willing to pay $10  Leads would cost $10 until joe ran out of money then they’d drop to $8.  Now google takes the $10 and keeps $6. (ever wondered exactly why their stock is so damn valuable)  They pass on $4 to the parking company who recruits the owner of Yachts.com at whatever cost they can get away with.  He could get anywhere from $1 to $3.50 from the parking company depending on how hard they have to work to keep his valuable traffic, and on how valuable his traffic is.

So how is google cutting out the middleman a good or a bad thing?  Well the owner of yachts.com may only get 10 people a day visiting his domain.  Its a fantastic domain, but when you look at the big picture $35.00 a day isn’t enough money that google is going to bend to the domain owners will.  If google only wants to give hime $.10 a click and google wants to keep the other $9.90 all he can do is advertise elsewhere.  Now google has made a move in an attempt to bankrupt all of the “elsewheres” he could go to.  They guy who owns yachts.com doesn’t have much to worry about because he has a valuable enough domain that he could approach Jims Yacht directly and still get his $3.50 per visitor pretty easily.  Its just alot more work.

The little guy is the one going to get stamped out in all of this.  While yachts.com might survive, concider the owner of a lesser domain like say wheatflour.com  They probably only were getting $.10 to begin with, and its likely they don’t see enough traffic to make it worth the time for Jim’s mill to deal with them direct.

Earlier this year google already nearly stamped out Yahoo in the failed Microsoft Yahoo merger.  Now google is stomping out all the smaller online advertising companies.  It won’t be long before google is truly a monopoly.  Things don’t bode well for online advertising’s future.  Pretty soon Jim’s yacht company may find themselves being charged ten times as much for a lead because there is no other way than to pay what google asks.  In turn the owner of the property who provides the lead will recieve pennies and google will keep all the reward.  Googles monopolistic instinct is similar to Walmart in the retail trade.  They’re your best friend now, but soon they’ll be your undoing.  Be prepared for the future everyone here comes Google-Mart.  Once they merger we will have officially been bought out and no longer a democracy at all.  We’ll be a dictatorship with king GooMart controling our every move. 

Perhaps someone wants to run out and register GooMart.com!

I believe very strongly in the principle of karma.  One good turn deserves another.  I also believe in balance or equilibrium.  For every good thing there is a bad one.  Last week I wrote about how things were finally starting to go my way with a pretty good run of luck.  It carried on after the last blog post and I litterally stumbled onto a stainless steel cooktop to accompany my new refridgerator and microwave oven.  Like the fridge it needs a few hundred bucks to make it useable, but also like the fridge it was totally free.  Even better its brand new.  All in all I expect the cooktop to cost me about $300 for a unit that normally retails for $1200.  (its a VERY nice cooktop, normally I wouldn’t concider investing $300 in a stove, but I’m positive this one is worth it.)

Well following the principal of balance though something bad has got to be in the works.  It didn’t take long to find out what it was.  As a part of the process of closing down the retail store I’m working at, it falls upon me to get the building prepared for turn over to the landlord.  I spent the last few days of the week cleaning up outside and sadly I made a grotesque discovery.  In one of the flower pots that decorate the side of the building santa left me a surprise. 

Under a tarp on the side of the building I discovered a fresh born kitten who couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours old.  Mom must have heard me working and booked it out of there.  I took it to someone I know who can take care of it and the kitten is doing well.  She’s sleeping for about five hours between feedings and is dragging herself around.  (I assume its a she)  I went home feeling both bad and good that day as I am sure I saved that kittens life, but I’m also pretty sure the work I was doing might have been the cause of her losing her mother.  It was inevitable though.  Even if I hadn’t moved the tarp, someone would have because its got to be done.

Well I was off the next day and when I returned to work later that week I made the flower pot discovery.  A whole litter of frozen kittens, some of them half eaten.  By the factor of balance, any good karma I earned by saving that one kitten just got buried and I’m in for a rough future.

I’ve got a photo of the kitten that is alive.  Once I find the time and motivation, I’ll get it off my phone and onto the pc.  Then I’ll probably come back and update this post with the photo.  She’s a solid black cat.  I haven’t seen her eyes since they were closed when I gave her to the “cat lady.” to be raised.  She’s said they are golden though.  The cat lady’s daugter is planning on keeping the cat and is going to name her twilight after the movie.  I don’t know much about it but i guess its about a vampire with black hair and golden eyes?

Anyhow, look foreward to my next post as its bound to be a doozie.  When Fate, Karma, and Balance get together to deliver payment on this one whats coming for me is going to be a doozie.

I’m pretty sure nobody is actually following my blog.  Well at least I hope not, its pretty damn uninteresting.  But if you happen to have stumbled across a post a few months back about buying a new refridgerator, you’d know I decided against it.  Ever since I payed over a grand for a new fridge that lasted me only days past the warrenty I have felt cheated.  I managed to find a dinousaur of a fridge and its gotten me by.  It was pulled out of an apartment by a slum lord who decided it was too old to keep in service.  (that should give you an idea of how ugly this fridge is…)  Anyhow I’ve got a story to tell today.

I’ve eluded to the fact that I work in a retail establishment a number of times in my blog.  Most recently I mentioned how I am among the 533,000 people who have been laid off so far due to the recession.  Technically I’m still employed until january and there is still a possibility that my company will have a position open up for me before then.  Not that it matters much, I can do much better.  Anyhow, one of the things we sell is appliances, and I wanted to relate a refridgerator story to you all.

I’ve wanted to stop drinking soda pop for many years, but every time I’ve tried I’ve failed miserably.  I just like it too much, even though I know its killing me.  (addition?)  I made up my mind that the only way I’m going to be able to do it is to have a replacement on hand.  I can’t seem to keep cold water in the fridge.  Its just too much of a hassle.  I can’t seem to get myself to take it from the tap.  I’ve been thinking the solution is one of them fancy $2500 - $3000 refridgerators with ice and water dispenser built into the door.  Of course I know the reality of my attempts is that I’ll probably spend the 3k and then it won’t work anyway.  So I’ve just told myself I’m not going to do it.

A few nights ago some folks came by to purchase a new refridgerator.  One of my guys who helps people with carryouts among other things wasn’t too bright.  When these folks came by they had a refridgerator loaded on their trailer.  Now its obviously not new, perhaps two or three years old, but he asks them if its a return.  Then he kindly helps them get it off their trailer and onto the ground.  Theres no way we’re taking a return on a refridgerator thats a couple of years old.  Even if it was still under warrenty we’d send a service guy out, not take a fridge back into the store.  They head on back to the appliance department and buy their new fridge.  I don’t know whether they made an attempt to return the old one or not, but either way there was no way it was getting refunded.  I guess these folks weren’t any smarter than the guy I’ve got helping with carryouts though, since this fridge was a very expensive model.  Stainless steel doors, Ice and water in the door, all the bells and whistles.  I guess when they realized they weren’t getting a refund for a fridge thats a year or two old, they decided to just leave it in the parking lot! 

I’m the guy to fixes everything.  Both in the sense that I fix things that are broken, and in the sense that I fix problems when they come up.  Well having what must have been at least a $2500 fridge dumped in the parking lot is a problem, so I came in the next morning to find it stuffed in my office door.  I guess I could be bitter or happy about it.  The unit has a bad compressor and it will take a good $300 to fix, but its free.  Actually after it set in the hall a couple of days they begged me to get rid of it.  Its in remarkably good condition and well worth the money to repair as opposed to junking the unit.  These folks must have ether been out of their mind or just plain damn filty rich.  Either way, I got my new fridge and so far its cost me nothing.

I gave it a good look over and I can see why the compressor burned out.  There’s a regular maintenance for this model about every three to six months you have to take a vacuum and run it across the coils at the base of the unit so it has airflow and doesn’t overheat.  They must have flooded the room it was in, and that coupled with the fact that they NEVER vacuumed the coils caused the condenser coils to have lint caked onto them.  So thick that I had to remove it with a bathroom scrub brush.  Ive run it through its paces and it is going to need a compressor so I’ll have to spend the $300 to fix it.  It can set in storage a few months until I get that built up.  Still that beats spending even the $500 or so it would take to get an el-cheapo fridge.  Let alone a top of the line $2000+ model. 

As luck would have it, our microwave gave up the ghost a number of months back.  I had procrastinated in buying a new one because I eventually want to remodel the whole kitchen.  I finally broke down and I bought a stainless steel microwave from wally world the week before thanksgiving on a super deal.  We can’t do the whole thanksgiving dinner thing with no microwave.  I was very hesitant to buy the stainless unit because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t want to buy all stainless appliances when the time came to do the kitchen remodel.  Still it was too good a deal to pass up and I decided it would have to go to the thrift store once it was time for a kitchen makeover.  Now I’ve got a stainless steel microwave, and a stainless fridge.  That changes things since to go all stainless will be a few thousand dollars less. I’d be replacing only half the appliances with stainless.  (A much more do-able thought)  Things were really going my way this week.  Now I just have to live through the whole job change thing.

Somewhere along the way I got a stink about me that just doesn’t wash off.  Like your own smell, this smell is something I can’t notice, but everyone else around me seems to be able to sense it right away.  As best as I can tell its not actually a smell, but some other sort of sensory effect though.  People I barely know or have just met seem to believe I know all about computers.  I don’t believe I know that much, but this funk has got people asking me to fix things. 

Usually I know how to fix their computer problems, but it baffles my mind to wonder how they knew I would know.  I don’t go around wearing a jump drive on a chain, or carry a laptop, or really do anything computer related in my daily life.  Still word seems to get out that I’m the guy to talk to when you have become infested with spyware.  Of course the problem is compounded when its someone close to me because I can’t fake my way out of it.  They actually do know I know how to fix their computers so denying it won’t help.

Anyhow, what I’m getting to is that recently a relative dropped by with a pc infested with trojans and asked me to kill them.  As I was spending hours of my time doing something other that what I wanted to do that day, an old thought came back to me.  Why are the people who create this adware crap getting away with it?  I know they are violating at least a dozen laws here in the USA, and there are similar laws in pretty much every country in the world.  It really wouldn’t be hard to find them.  (I’m talking to you now FBI folks.)

The purpose of the adware spyware trojan is to hijack peoples computers and make their internet box show webpages that the hacker wants people to see.  Then the hijacker collects money from ad revenue.  Now I’m no fool, I know somewhere along the lines there is someone who actually gets that check.  I also know that while the hackers may have control of millions of pc’s, they don’t control the banks.  All the feds need to do is ask the ad companies who’s bank account the ad revenu is going into.  Even if the hackers establish a virtually unfollowable path through the computer networks they are easily exposed by following the money.  A couple of warrants and I’d say 90% of this computer terrorism could be eliminated. 

Its not widely known, but the first world trade center bombing was funded by gains from a coupon fraud ring.  Now the feds monitor coupon redemption for fraud.  It seems to me that the ad fraud that is going on opens up alot more potential for some terrorist group to buy truckloads of chemicals.  This money leak needs to be stopped and our government needs to do it.  I just wonder why we have to wait until after they blow up the white house before the feds figure out where they got the money and plug the hole?

Anyhow, just a passing thought.  Why are the folks who aren’t smart enough to install their own software bieng taken advantage of by cyber terrorists and our government doing nothing about it.  Instead the beurocrats are wasting time trying to pass bills about anti-phishing suits that will do nothing to curb the problem.  Theres plenty of legislation, its time for action!

It wasn’t until well into adulthood that I realized that thinking about how I might die probably isn’t completely normal.  I know I pictured falling from an airplane numerous times throuought my childhood.  It didn’t seem to be all that strange until one day I had an epifany.  I had thought about it so many times that I had a pattern of what I believe would happen should I actually fall (or leap) out of an airplane.  I’m not saying I planned to fall, but just that one day I came to the realize that I had thought about it an inordinate number of times. 

What brought about this realization is watching an anime series on television.  Wolfs Rain is the show that brought about this revalation.  I won’t give away much because I hate it when someone ruins an ending for a show I haven’t watched.  I will say that at some point cheza goes over a cliff.  I guess my idea of falling was influenced by hollywood movies.  Drop zone and the like.  I always pictured myself in a straight arrow arms calked back diving headfirst into oblivion.  It never occurred to me that I’d be flailing madly kicking and screaming or any other of the millions of possible bodily positions. 

Cheza’s influence in the series is that she is genetically modified to be part plant.  A flower to be exact.  When she goes over the cliff the artists who created the show envisioned the flower and came up with a sequence that is just astounding.  She falls kind of like a dandilion.  Feet down arms stretched out like a ballerina and twirling gracefully into the chasm.  Its an absolutely beautiful scene.  It also makes me wonder how they ever managed to think of the idea of making her fall like that.

Its this difference in perception that I find most interesting.  A while back a new lock was introduced into modern automobiles.  Locksmiths everwhere were looking at this and wondering how they would deal with the issue if they had to open one of these new cars.  With every lock there has always been a way to pick it.  Sometimes many ways.  This lock of course proved to be no different in that an easy way locksmiths could open it was found.  Its just different in how it happend.  Lock picking and lock bumping are both long used tools of the locksmith and both are the result of thinking outside the box.  Neither of these will do the trick though.  The real leap of outside the box thinking was solved by (of course) some thieving carjacker kid.  Air pressure.  Instead of trying to unlock the lock all that is needed is to open the car.  by applying air pressure to the inside of the door rapidly the button that you press down to lock the car pops out.  The door is unlocked without ever using any kind of mechanical tool.  A common tennis ball with a hole poked in it can do what thousands of professionals couldn’t figure out. 

I won’ t say going to school is a bad thing, but the reality is that when you send your kids to school you are starting their training on being average.  Even graduates from the highest grades are only ever trained to fit a mold.  What about creating something that doesn’t fit in a mold?  Thats why I like stoners.  I don’t agree with drug use, but the real stoner type is horrificly ingenious.  Not because they have or haven’t baked away half of thier brain.  Its because they have to be.  To get away with doing drugs they have to think of things that we “normals” would never percieve.  So the carjacker brat and the stoners have something in common.  Bank robbers too.  (not the stick em up kind)  There is a need to think of things other people wouldn’t concieve and a result to create something wonderful.

So for the future of mankind how do we go about creating the influence needed to go beyond the typical box that education creates without the evil part of the influence.  How do we keep our children from going to school just to become working class grunts with no concept of more?  What can we do to make them great?

America has begun to stagnate.  fifty or a hundred years ago people lived on a farm or plantation.  Things were invented or created out of necessity for survival.  Society has almost reached the point now where survival can happen even without creation.  Welfare, social security, ect allow almost anyone to survive regardless of their worth as a human bieng.  We’ve developed beond the point where natural selection can continue to advance civilzation.  So I’m wondering what is that next leap?  Who is going to find the out of the box solution that puts us back on the right track?  Or perhaps a cataclysm needs to knock us back to the middle ages so that our advancement can begin again and we can continue on.

For the last few months my blog has been a monologue about how bad things have been getting for me.  who am I kidding, thats all its ever been…  Two days ago I got proof of my insipid whining.  I’ve bitched about wanting to find a new job and failed to actually do it.  I’ve complained about how little I make, but failed to do anything to make more.  Well the jig is up.  My company made the announcement that I will need to start looking for a job because by the time christmas is done I won’t have one anymore.  (merry freaking christmas to me…)

So are you all wondering how I feel about all this.  I feel FANTASTIC!  I’m an atheist so I never was expecting the christmas cheer that most people probably would expect. From that I’ve not had to deal with the downturn in mood that most of my co-workers have.   I’ve known I was worth more than what my company could offer me all along, but out of some twisted sense of duty or responsibility or maybe even pride, I’ve stayed with them.  The announcment that they are closing the facility where I work and that my job goes along with it is GREAT NEWS!  Finally I can shed this feeling of guild for wanting to leave and just tell them to go f*** themselves.  I am free to move on.

My only real regret here is that this happened in a particularly bad economic downturn.  (though thats why it happened)  See, it would have been nice to have a little more money put away before having to make the move.  I can see myself bieng forced to accept a job that isn’t up to my expectations because I just can’t go too long without bieng employed. I don’t want to find myself in the same trap that I just happened to fall out of by sheer luck.

I can see now that my home business is just as strongly affected by economic downturn as my company was though.  I’m making ten percent of what I used to be doing the same amount of work in my spare time.  I don’t feel my business has lost any value, but I do see that the income is going to be a while in returning.  I had hoped to use that extra income as a pad while I made the transition.  Really I had hoped to not have to make the transition except to living strictly off that extra income. 

Again though I don’t feel bad about this.  In a way its the best thing that could have happened.  Had I quit my job and then this happened I could be in a world of hurt.  Now I have a better idea of just how low the bottom is so I know where I need to be before I can safely depend on just my home business income.  I got a reality check before I got stung. 

I don’t know if there is a name for this phoenomena.  I do know people are not supposed to be happy about losing thier job.  I don’t know where I’ll be working a month from now.  I don’t know how I’m going to make the house payment.  Still the little bit of fear there is far outweighed by the massive sense of relief.  For the first time in forever I see clearly the path I must take. 

I’m going to start job hunting much closer to home.  (no more driving 50+ miles a day.)  I’m going to sell off the extra car since I won’t need a backup car if I can ride the bus in an emergency.  I’m going to focus more of my efforts into growing my business and less into researching where I should be growing my business.  And lastly I’m going to spend more time not doing any kind of work.  Hell part of me hopes I don’t find a job until after the building closes.  I could use a few weeks drawing unemployment.  I’m able bodied and more capable than nearly everyone I meet.  I am very employ-able.  I’ve always known it.  Now its time to prove it.

It is unfortunate that life has become so busy for those of us living below the poverty line that we don’t really have time for the simple things.   No longer can we enjoy a visit to the countryside or a day at the park.  Time off is more often spent doing odd jobs “on the side” than resting and recouping strength in preparation for the next work day.  I bring this up because this last week I took vacation time from my work.  I’ve situated myself to where I am so un-expendable that getting the time off means that things will have to go unfinished.  There is simply nobody else to do them.  In the past I’ve lost accrued vacation time because of inability to take it.  I vowed to myself never to let that happen again.  Whatever didn’t happen this last week that should have, my employer can suck it up and take it as a loss. 

Instead of doing the things that I should have done this last week, (pay the bills, go to work, ect) I spent the bill money on gasoline and took a drive across the west coast to visit my dad.  Gasoline is at the cheapest it has been in years right now, and still it is expensive. It has me wondering what I would be willing to do to avoid using it. What would you comprimise for a gasoline alternative? 

Living in the heart of this giant city I’ve watched over the past decade the sprawling out of people to everywhere.  There used to be empty fields stretching to the mountainside west of here.  Now there are houses all the way. I’ve long felt that overpopulation and overdevelopment are a major threat to our society.  Seeing the barren country side on a long (14 hours each way) drive at least put my mind at ease.  Is overdevelopment still a threat?  Of course it is, but its nice to see that there are still places where you can’t see the city lights at night.  (Even if those places exist only right in the very middle of a dessert.)  I also see land that ten years ago would have never been concidered for a ranch, developed into residential plots.  Why anyone would pay a lifetime’s worth of housepayments for a shack in the desert without even enough room to stretch your legs is beyond me.

Truth be told, the downturn in our economy is largely due to the developers building these houses.   It seems like a great business model to go and buy 500 acres at $100 per acre.  Break it up into 1000 half acre lots and build a thousand homes.  After fifteen to twenty thousand dollars worth of materials and labor per unit you end up with a thousand homes each worth $250,000 dollars.  (well at least according to the puck who is selling them)  In my oppinion you have a thousand homes worth $20,000 each, but thats just me.  The other half of the folding economy is the banks willingness to lend money to poor people who are duped into buying these overinflated homes. 

Do you really think there is less money to be had today than there was last year at this time?  Are americans producing less products?  Is less work bieng done?  So why would there be less money to go around?  Its simple.  The banks and credit unions gave it all to a select few real-estate investors and lost their shirts.  Then they cried to the government and in turn we as americans got the bill.  These investors are probably happily living in a mexican villa on their billions while we scrape for food and gas. Do the math.

All in all, I’ll be turing off my cable this month because a few days of sanity has cost me more than I can afford.  I’m not sure what I’m going back to when I return to work.  I’m positive I needed to take a few days off.  I had to break the monotony.  Still I can’t help but feel it may have been the last straw.  I’ve been barely keeping afloat for so long that I’m sure its only a matter of time before I drown. 

I look foreward to meeting you all at the bottom of the river!  The recession is going to take us all down eventually.