archives
[ * January to 9 March - 2004 * ]
[ * 11 March to 18 June - 2004 * ]
[ * 19 June - November - 2004 * ]
** CLICK thumbnails for larger image, which open in new browser window for convenience
* N O V E M BE R *
12 NOVEMBER 2004 / Friday -- Sorry for the unusually long delay in posting new information -- Kardas.net ran out of space and I have to figure out a way to either increase the capacity with the server it is on, which would entail a greatly increased monthly cost which I am not able to pay -- OR change to a relatively less expensive server, which would mean having to reorganize everything I have in this domain folder, which contains over 3,500 individual files of photos and text, part of which are old originals and things which are not actually on the web site -- I would have to go to each file and web page to see which files are needed for each page, then regroup them all into a new folder and load them onto a new server -- which would take me several months to do!
Briefly, this is what has happened since my last update -- Bernar gave that wonderfully affectionate and semi-wildish dog, Tasha, away -- I loved her and she really enjoyed the times I spent with her -- it was expected, as he always simply eliminates things which do not fit in with his very comfortable and self indulging life style. He went on another trip, I forget to where, and he is presently away for a 10 day break to Las Vegas!
The weather has become a lot colder -- it went down to 23 degrees a couple days ago and I was forced to wear an overcoat, my usual knit hat which my Mother made for me over 20 years ago, and even a scarf in my study, and then decided it was time to turn on the gas heater in the basement on 10 November -- I also put an electric heating pad under the cat's favorite box for sleeping in the kitchen because for some reason that is always the coldest room in the apartment -- it is those damn old windows, which I have to replace when I have enough spare change. I still have 2 kittens left, and they are playful and growing nicely -- the older cats are affected by the temperature change and have hair where there was none during the warmer months, as usual.
I did some reorganization in the garages, making it easier to find things and move around -- I still have much to do there yet. I finally had to replace the toner cartridge in my ancient Canon photocopier -- the last change was on 4 December 2001, which amazed me -- that was almost 3 years of many thousands of copies for different eBay things, as well as many other personal copies! And the freekin cartridges now cost $117, which is a monster increase since the last time I got one, so I bought two of them! Bernar, with all his hypothetical finance savvy does not have a photocopier and always takes things to get copied at an office supply store -- he does have a paper shredder, though, and seems to be shredding things like crazy!
eBay is still painfully slow -- many things do not get bids, and few get more than 1 -- I have done the first major revision of my header formats since about 2001, making them more visual than before, hopefully to attract the attention of potential bidders, who seem more adept at looking at pictures than in reading the text description -- I increased my text areas from 700 to 750 pixels to keep up with the larger monitor sizes more common today -- the new Christmas item listing format is now up and running to get into the holiday swing of things. Many totally new things have been listed, which means that many new scans and digital photos have had to be made -- and to hopefully make the header of each item more attractive and complete I eliminated many of the animated gifs I usually had in them and replaced them with a row of pics representative of the content of the books and items -- I have spent hundreds of hours since about February making thumbnails the old fashioned way, each individually and processed via a couple photo applications -- and as a help to those on the Internut who might find some of them useful on their web sites or whatever, I started what I thought might be a single page or two of thumbnail LOGOS -- it has since developed into seven individual pages thus far, only one of which I have online on another server right now, thus more than doubling the number of files on that web space! -- LOGOS #1 -- even that page will probably change as I organize the others and add more pics -- thus far I have more than 800 thumbnails on the 7 pages, and almost every day another couple dozen pics are added to different logo pages according to general subject area -- it amazes me that I can do all of this and still have a chance to eat and sleep, with little time for other things! I finally shaved yesterday and had a beard already!
Although the for sale signs were taken off of the property I sold across the street, I have not seen lights on after dark, thus far -- assuming that it was sold, of course. The city has planted trees along the newly bricked outer section of the sidewalk, which is nice, but they still have the entire street to repave, which will cause a lot of major problems with resident parking until the job is finished. That police sub station is now gone, as are those very annoying bright lights and the constant sound of that damn generator 24/7 for several months.
I had a nice vote for Kerry - Edwards sign under that new tree in front of the place -- the only one on my entire street, and I mean from where it begins near the train station to where it ends way down at the other end of Trenton! When I went to vote I took a bag of teddy bears, as usual, for the gals who volunteer their services, and a pile of auction catalogs so they could look at the pictures to wile away their more boring moments when few voters come in -- as always, they are not provided with anything to eat or drink except water in the small kitchen and whatever goodies they might bring along, so I brought them large cups of coffee and some containers of donuts, cookies and chips from the nearby supermarket -- they were thrilled to death! OK, so Bush hypothetically won -- mfsoab! Oh, well, the consolation might be that he will not be able to run again, and he better as hell fix up many things he started and which seem to be going negatively. Hey, I never read that all those Ohio votes were finally counted -- what is the true story there? Who really won?
Of course one of the other sort of newsworthy events that occurred was the death of Arafat, under somewhat secretive mysterious circumstances -- some rumors say he had AIDS -- no official word as yet on what medical condition caused his death, and I really doubt that there ever will be -- that always leads to speculation of one sort of another -- usually negatively, of course -- negativity sells newspapers! Hopefully, whoever now leads the Palestinians can do a much better job at reasoned peaceful diplomacy, without all the terrorist hype and bullshit that is usually associated with them in the press -- of course, the Israeli hawks have to change their usual tactics too. It would be interesting to find out where all the money donated to the cause went to -- apparently, little of it went to help the Palestinians or their precarious social / economic infrastructure for some reason. Another curious point to consider in this whole mess is why the USA has to freely give so many billions to Israel every year, with no interest or need to repay?? Will this government now divert all that moola to help the Palestinians rebuild their also artificially created homeland and finally hopefully bring a lasting peace to that always troubled area of the world? How many generations will it take?
25 NOVEMBER 2004 / Thursday -- well, it is -- -- in remembrance of those Pilgrim daze -- -- giving thanks for all God's good things , and a chance to socialize with the Indian maidens --
On this Thanksgiving we can praise the Lord that we are now once again blessed with the biggest, most overfed and pampered turkey hawk in the Universe -- there is a monster turkey in the bush -- watch out, though -- mucho cuidado -- his nasty barky gobble gobble is way more intimidating than his bite, and he seems to snap at everything he does not like -- nobody can afford to buy him anyway (except really big business peeps and other bush wackers) --
so do the best you can with that 20 pound birdy, and -- -- enjoy your Thanksgiving -- I may finish scraping what is left of the flaking paint on the garage doors if it stops raining today, hoping to prime and finally paint them before the first snows fall.
* D E C E M B E R *
6 DECEMBER 2004 / Monday -- Hey, I finally solved my server problems and am back again for more news and stuff! I shall update this as soon as I can -- I now have to get some kitten pics up on my cat adoption page in case anyone might want to get a little pussy for the Holidays. It is raining and coldish today.
I have been really busy keeping piles of treasures on eBay for the Christmas shoppers, as few as they seem to be this year. I already have a batch of $1 Holiday specials for 25 December and the 26th, which is Boxing Day, when they traditionally exchange gifts in Canada -- -- the UK -- -- and territories -- -- I have not yet fished for things to list on the Feast of the Three Kings, 6 January, for all my happy Spanish -- -- bidders.
12 DECEMBER 2004 / Sunday -- OK, so my Holiday cards finally went out, late, yesterday -- and I just started on my traditional cyber web page for Christmas -- -- there is nothing there yet, so wait a few days before even trying to access it. As usual, the season sees me sort of discombobulated, perhaps a tad isolated from warm, breathing peeps, and maybe wishing I had more than only cats to see and talk to all day long -- naturally, it has also gotten a lot colder, which does happen here when winter sets in!
Let me check through my small appointment book to see what significant events occurred during that several week period when I did not update my news page
.......... checking ............
16 September to 12 November -- cleaned the bedroom and kitchen a couple times -- discovered that Tracey was gone -- she loved it when I visited and played with her, but she was a little on the wild side, from lack of attention -- Bernar figured that she was too much work, so he just gave her away = got rid of her, as he tends to do with whatever / whomever does not fit into his highly personalized life style -- he did install a new gas furnace in the basement at the place in West Trenton, something I should do here also because the old one in the basement is 30+ years old and not very efficient --
naturally I took the air conditioner from the window in my study, and covered the one in the kitchen with plastic so the cold air does not come in and make that room even more frigid than it normally is, a couple weeks after it started getting colder -- I finally put on the heat on 10 November, after freezing my balls off inside for many days! I even got around to slightly organizing some things in the garages, and now have all my post office shipping supplies in the same area -- went to Sam's Club a couple times for food for me and the cats -- also needed a refill cartridge for my ancient photocopier, and when I changed it, I discovered that the last time it was changed was on 4 December 2001, almost 3 years ago! I was amazed because I do a lot of copying stuff for eBay and other things -- the copies were coming out very light, though, and I should have done it months ago, I guess.
I started scraping the flaking paint from the garage doors and measured two panels of wood for two places where idiots kicked in the panels -- it also seems that I also have to replace about a dozen other panels simply because they have become warped since I first painted the garages, probably over 10 years ago -- I got the needed supplies at the Home Depot, but have not been very inspired to start finishing off the job. Oh, yes, and the timer mechanism inside the garages that activates the patio light has been sticking, keeping the light on 24/7 -- it has been there since the garages were built, so I decided to get a new one, same make and all -- that will have to be installed, hopefully before the snows arrive, then I have to find another light fixture because the original one is iron and is rusted to shit already.
You might recall that various pets croaked over the last 2-3 years -- Bernie the snake, Hillary the tarantula, some kittens a couple days or weeks old, and Devi, my oldest Siamese -- well, they were all (except Hillary) in cold storage in the freezer in the kitchen, waiting until when I worked on the little garden beside the garages and could bury them there -- but since I did very little to the garden and they were taking up space in the really small freezer part of the fridge, I decided to bury them in West Trenton, in the ample garden there -- it was a totally private ceremony -- as a matter of fact, the only ceremonious part was digging the holes and lovingly placing them in! Devi I kept in the freezer because I would like her to have her final more dignified repose on my property -- Bernie will only sell the place in West Trenton when he finds another place as an investment -- he always was good at things having to do with money, and I know he has been looking around for something else.
Then we come to the damn web space for this domain! I called the virtual host provider a couple times over the last 3 months, asking what I would have to do to change my hosting plan to include more megabytes -- I was bounced like a ball from peep to peep, and none of them had a real clue how to do things -- the plan I had/have is from many years ago, and the company has changed hands several times since then -- they no longer offer the plan I started out with, but I have been grandfathered all this time. My last call was to their technical service department because I noticed that they kept sending me daily emails that my web space was constantly getting smaller even though I neither added nor changed a single thing! It did not seem logical, somehow. To make a very long shaggy dog story much shorter, the really helpful young IT (whatever that means -- I think it signifies Information Technology) dude told me that there was a folder in there that was 3x the bandwidth that my own files took up -- something to do with visitor tracking and something else -- holy, shit, in almost 10 years I never once even looked at that crap! So I asked him would he mind deleting that folder for me, which he did -- so I still have loads of space to work with, thanks to that little detail!
I have been very quickly learning all about the U.S. Social Security system (which I now call the Social INsecurity system!) -- that infamous retirement benefits plan they started over 40 years ago -- when a person works here, a percentage of their salary is automatically taken out for this social security scam -- the government than has piles of money that it shifts from one account to another, because of the way they tend to extravagantly spend billions here and more billions there, they simply cannot print it fast enough -- since I retired from teaching a couple years before I was 65, and with a disability, my monthly payments are only abut 60% of what they would normally be, which is why I never seem to have enough for bare necessities! Most people think that this crap is sort of like insurance or investing in an individual retirement account, and that after paying for it for the decades of their working lives, they would then be able to retire comfortably, which is not the case! Some peeps figured out the percent earnings/return on the social security system, and found that the long term return is something like 0.16%, which is pure bullshit! They would have gotten at least 6x that amount had they invested in government bonds during the same working years! Anyways, it is just the way it is, one cannot do anything about it at this point --
but then it gets even more stupidly complicated when the so-called national health care insurance, Medicare, automatically kicks in (= is forced down our throats) after 65 -- until now, my teacher's pension included free health care insurance, and I have only used it almost in emergency situations, paying nothing for the services. Now, next month when I reach the venerable legislated age of 65, I then must be enrolled in Medicare, which has parts A and B -- one of the parts is for hospitalization and such things, and the other is for general health maintenance. So I have to file God knows what papers before the end of the month to keep the part B, which I already have, and begin the use of the bureaucratic paperwork laden task of that Medicare thing! The politicians have been so-called considering a real, more positive national health care system for decades already, but since they all have the best there is, they never seem to come up with viable solutions for the peons / pawns in our wonderfully technocratic highly commercialized (meaning maximizing gains for big business, in the least time possible, as usual -- and on the backs of the normal folk!) overhyped perfect society! IT SUCKS! Even some socialist or communist societies / states / political systems did things way better -- sometimes!
And one last thing -- I originally was thrilled to become a so-called Associate in that iPod and iTunes Music Store program, and placed dozens of corresponding banners at the top of innumerable web pages on several of my active domains -- after more than 2 months I sadly disovered that although I had thouands of peeps going to the link, I did NOT have a single sale, which would have netted me about 5 freekin cents! What a freekin waste of time and effort! Now I have t remember where I have all the damn links, remove them, and then completely delete my Associate status -- oh, well, live and learn!
OK, I think that about covers all of the missing stuff during that extended hiatus.
19 DECEMBER 2004 / Sunday -- I finally got my usual cyber web page for Christmas started and online -- -- I found a really kewl Holiday web site that allows you to create a snowflake and write a message to accompany it -- -- then other viewers may add a comment / reply if they want to -- further details are on my Christmas page, link above.
I put a batch of 7-day auction $1 Specials on eBay (instead of my usual 10-days, to save a little moola), to end on the 25th -- later today I have a 2nd batch of other $1 Specials to end on Boxing Day.
As you may recall. last month I started scraping the flaking paint from the garage doors -- -- it was then that I noticed that several panels on the doors were very warped and need replacement -- -- this is the left door, and you can see where the nice neighbor's brats kicked in one of the lower panels a couple years ago -- I already have the wood, but have not done that yet -- yesterday I used almost an entire gallon of wood preservative to coat much of the exposed wood surfaces, but it was already dark when I finished -- may take pics later today. I also have to add some roof coating on the front edge of the garage roof, which was theoretically (and very expensively, I might add!) repaired by that dude months ago, but still leaks at the left corner where my new drain pipe is located -- that pipe also has to be painted black, as does the one on the right.
I did a major switcheroo with the cats 6 daze ago, after thoroughly cleaning the kitchen -- Devi and TigerGirl went from my bedroom to the kitchen, and I allowed all the Sphynx free roam of the apartment, except my study when I am working there (which is just about all my waking hours!) It took them all by surprise, but today they seem to have become accostomed to the change -- of course, all the Sphynx crawl under the covers with me, but it took the 2 kittens a while to adjust to the new covered space. Last night I put the two male Sphynx in the kitchen with the Devi and TigerGirl because I suspish that the latter is in heat, even though she seems very discrete about it. After several hours of distrust, they almost seem to like the idea already. It is now almost 06h, and I may try to snooze in bed for 2-3 hours -- perhaps not, because I might probably oversleep, and not be able to get any more work done outside.
HOLY SHIT! I just remembered that I do not yet have a format for my YES 2005!! DAMN IT! Now, hopefully before the New Year, I have to get some kind of a background, logo and other stuff created and ready, as well as change a few links -- and at this point, I do not even have an ounce / gramme / gram of inspiration!
22 December 2004 / Wednesday -- I managed to get each and every pending eBay item won mailed out yesterday, so they will hopefully receive the stuff, including the little gift I have been adding to the packages for 4+ months already) before Christmas -- today, after waking up several hours after I had hoped to (the bed packed with cats is soooooo relaxing!), I did get the ladder out and patched up some places on the garage gutter -- theoretically it should not leak again on the left edge, and I can go on to other repairs --
I have received a few more Christmas cards, so my Grinch List is getting smaller [link on my Christmas page].
I was invited to my brother's daughter's (one of my married niece's) place for Christmas dinner, and Thom, a friend in Philadelphia invited me over for Christmas Eve (I still have not seen his new house / well, it is not really a new house, it is an old one he bought and fixed up, located in my Father's parent's old neighborhood -- matter of fact, it is the same street name, Mercer Street!) --
I have not gotten around to wrapping gifts yet, what few of them there are this year -- I cannot really see travelling a couple hours each way just for food and/or to see peeps who do not come to visit me (the former, family, has not been here in at least 3-4 years already! / including the times I almost begged them to help me with some outside work I wanted to do) -- I can more easily cook up one of my 3-4 day dinner delights in a lot less time, put some Christmas CD music on my almost antique stereo system (if it still works after using it for the last time a year ago during the Holidays, and enjoy playing with my kittys more than usual; they love it -- NO tree again this year -- NO place to put it, as much as I enjoy having one. I do have the Christmas cards received hanging at the window beside my desks in the study -- yes, desks -- one is my oak butcher block computer table, and the other, just a swivel of the rolling desk chair behind me, is the old oak desk my Dad got for me from where he worked, the General Electric Switchgear Plant (in Philadelphia) in the 1950s.
24 December 2004 / Friday / Christmas Eve -- Well, I guess the reindeer are limbering up for a long night ahead -- and I am just about ready for bed, maybe -- I may get a package of Christmas cookies to take to the peeps at the West Trenton Post Office before they close early today -- I already gave them some Holiday baseball teddy bears --
mentioning cookies makes me sort of hungry -- the kids used to call me The Cookie Monster at the school I taught at -- I just found a kewl web page that has a selection of Gingerbread houses and other neato MUNCHABLES -- hey, some computer geeks seem to want their computer and eat it too -- -- I guess the motherboard looks something like this -- -- the mention of this main puter component is found HERE -- and it is amazing the number of really kewl geeky comments about it!
I have not yet decided if I shall go to have the traditional Holiday dinner with brother dearest tomorrow -- I may just sleep extra late, after putting another batch of $1 Christmas specials for New Year's Eve on eBay tonight, hopefully, to end close to midnight, EST, which translates to listing them before 21h, and I still have to reformat a few of them -- I also want to put another batch up tomorrow, which means I have to be here at around 18h, more or less.
OK, I see the Santa.dot's sleigh is just about ready -- --, warming up and waiting for the other reindeer.dots to get there -- if I take a much needed nap in bed and not in this chair, and wake up in time, I want to get to Sam's Club in Delran, south of me, for some cat supplies and stuff, but first have to remove some boxes of goodies that have been sitting in the back of the Jeep for 3 weeks already -- where to put them! -- and if it is still light out, I may start replacing a couple of the garage door panels, but I can do that from inside the garages even if it is raining, I guess, just as long as the temperature is not too far below freezing -- the priming and painting will apparently have to wait for daze above 45-50 degrees, but at least I finally got the work started! I suppose I shall put off formatting the new background, logo and stuff for the forthcoming 2005 edition of my YES for a couple days -- so much to do, and sooooo little time and inspiration!
25 December 2004 / Saturday -- Yesterday I went to Delran, got kitty litter and cat food and oatmeal raisin cookies (my favorite) and a couple other things -- there was a lot of traffic, the parking lots were overcrowded and so was Sam's Club, and the shelves and aisles were piled high with stock to sell, I never saw them so well stocked -- more electronic gadgets than I ever saw there, but they sold out of iPods, which was not a major surprise -- peeps buying slabs of meat, lobster tails, shrimp, and I got a small tray of shrimp to munch on -- after getting back to the Jeep, the damn thing would not start! Not a problem, since I always try to think ahead, so I got out the battery pack, opened the hood, attached the cables and tried again -- NO NOTHING! I adjusted the cables, checked to see if the charger was charged enough -- GREEN light showed, it was theoretically OK -- tried again and again and again -- the fuckin car would not start! Just as I was going to curl up and go to sleep, and spend the rest of the day in the parking lot, I turned the key and WOWSERS! It started, and so did I, but the traffic was soooooo heavy it took me at least 20 minutes just to get from the parking lot to the main road! As usual, I stopped at the Dunkin Donuts on Route 130 and got a large coffee and 4 donuts -- I usually get a dozen, but in these times of economic depression I did not want to appear to be a rich capitalist type -- you know, the ones who got no-bid contracts in Iraq, or nationalize privately owned oil companies in Russia -- or buy the White House.
I finally got home about 13h, took some stuff upstairs, then rushed to the post office to send my last two Christmas cards out, to Joëlle in the Canaries, and to Zhijiang and his wife in Shanghai -- they were closed already, which is weird because I called before I went to Sam's and asked when they close, and was told at 16:30h -- OK, so I dropped the cards in the mailbox -- back at home, as I sat in front of the computer I dozed off, as usual (I had only a couple hours sleep and was quite tired) -- I got online to check the world news, as usual, and just after midnight Terry, a pal from Texas Instant Messaged me to wish me an effusive Merry Christmas -- my first real, though virtual, Holiday contact! He and Humberto were getting ready to open their gifts -- Santa must be coming late to my place because I did not see any presents anywhere, but I do not have a tree to put them under. After a longish exchange of thoughts, I finally reformatted that batch of $1 Holiday specials on eBay just before 03h early this morning to end on New Years Eve, and got them online -- 3 items of the 8 I had listed to end last night sold and I sent my usual winner's emails to the lucky winning peeps -- then, around 04h I went to the kitchen and reheated some of the rice concoction I made 2 daze ago in the microwave, and munched on about half the shrimp -- I recently decided that instead of making a complete dinner that lasts 3-4 days and sort of gets boring after the 2nd day, I would just make a pot of rice with veggies, mushrooms and whatever, adding some different meat or fish each day to vary just a tad. It is somewhat more interesting this way.
Then I started reformatting today's batch of treasures for eBay, but was so tired I did not finish them all and decided to call it a night/day and went to bed with the kittys -- -- I just woke up, at 15h! It is seemingly sunny out, was surprised to see that there were loads of empty parking spaces on my side street, so I guess everybody went somewhere else to celebrate the Holiday, took the remaining half of the cranberry bread pudding out of the fridge and munched it away at the puter with what was left of the coffee in my mug from early this morning, and immediately started this update -- there is a message on my answering machine that I shall eventually get to check on, after I take a shower and a few other things -- unfortunately, I got up too late to get to feast with my brother and his family, but such is life -- I am with them in spirit, and they then have more food for themselves, since virtual guests eat a lot less! So to all my friends out there, where ever they be, here is my heartfelt personal wish for a
Merry Christmas
26 December 2004 / Sunday -- it is now 03:00h -- I just finished the other half of the yummy shrimp and my rice stuff, and am savouring the refill of the supper glass of red wine, which always accompanies by dinners -- I got my batch of New Years Day $1 Specials on eButt before munching, already have my Christmas page updated for the 25th, including my fabulous gift surprises, checked my emails and the posts on the two AOL boards I frequent, looked at the world news -- incidentally, I found a pic on my camera Compact Flash card which I did not include before, of the right garage door -- -- this warping was due to the right drain pipe having been stolen many months ago, and the water simply running down the freekin door! I did have a new pipe installed, so that problem is hopefully fixed -- my patch of the roof drain channel a few daze ago seems to have stopped the leaks on the left side, thank God! So everything is ready for the next step, which is priming, once the temperature reaches at least 45 degrees.
I am now going to send out the winner's emails for todays 6 early ending items on eBay, all of which finished at the minimum or slightly above (the fuckin cheapass bidders!) -- after the Holiday stuff is over and done with, I really should get some high value items listed because I want to finally return to the Canaries for a 3-4 week visit at the end of January / early February , but do not have the necessary funds at this point-- if any of my loyal readers might be interested in accompanying me for a week or more, and stay at my place for FREE (they, of course, pay for their own food and other expenses, but they do save on the somewhat expensive hotel bills)) hopefully with some kind of a donation to the trip cause, it would certainly be appreciated, and I can assure them of an unusually great leisure experience -- actually sleeping with me is optional -- there is a guest room with bunk beds, anyways, and I shall most likely be working on the house at least part of the time, as I always do -- I shall probably rent a car, as I did the last time I was there over 3+ years ago. GAWD, how time flies!
So it is almost off to beddy tyme with me now, hoping to wake up more or less early, and then figure out what I shall do the rest of the day. My next $1 Specials on eBay are hopefully scheduled to end on my birthday on 14 Jan
27 December 2004 / Monday -- I did manage to get the next batch of goodies on eBay -- and was slightly amazed when I looked out the window -- it is snowing, the first time this winter, and everything is covered with a pristine coating of those kewl white flakes! Even the not yet completed street repairs and the bags of refuse on the curbs for tomorrow, which is trash day, seem to be a classic Norman Rockwell winter print -- hummmmmm -- great ice cream weather, nicht wahr? I have not bought ice cream in a couple years already, basically because my freezer is sort of smallish -- do you know how ice cream is made? Here it is, in an easy to understand GRAPHIC explanation.
28 December 2004 / Tuesday -- The early morning temperatures have been dropping to below 10 degrees, so I shall not be doing any work even inside the unheated garages unless the day is a lot warmer than yesterday and the day before was -- when I went to Sam's a couple daze ago I did not wear a jacket, but yesterday when I went across town to leave Bernar's Christmas gifts, I was frozen stiff even with an overcoat!
29 December 2004 / Wednesday -- Late last night I finally got around to making a background and logo for my forthcoming 2005 YES page/s -- you will have to wait until the new year to see it, though -- BUT, those of you who have a clue about these things, can probably already find the trial/tentative new format already on the InterNUT -- I just have not linked it publicly to anywhere yet because I just wanted to see what it would look like -- keep in mind, it may yet change, though!
Yesterday a neighbor down the street said that the city is thinking of knocking down the entire block of homes and other properties, probably for a parking lot for the Arena, 2 blocks away -- it would include me and all the things on the other side of my side street (a sign company, a glass company, a minority thrift shop warehouse, and Erwin's wholesalers, all successful businesses) -- the same neighbor has been saying this for over a year already, and I think it is sort of strange because I have had nothing sent to me about this hypothetical proposal.
I then went to the tobacco and candy wholesaler across the street to see if they heard anything about this drastic change -- the owner and his son were just getting ready to leave, and it was only about noon, which is weird -- they are usually open until 16h -- before the holidays they had stock piled higher than every before and business was really booming more than in the last couple years, he hired more help, and now they almost looked empty -- maybe he was bullshitting me, but he said they are closing for good, that things got way too slow, and that the employees already found other jobs somewhere else! He has somebody who wants all the left over stock, which is not very much, and that he will keep the property for a while, but he already has someone who wants to buy it! Maybe he closed early because they are reducing hours between now and the new year, and new shipments have not arrived because his suppliers are also taking a break?
They have not done a single thing to the exterior for at least 10 years, so the upkeep and repairs cannot be a financial burden -- their sidewalk is cracked and missing in several spots, the gutters leak and are rusted to shit, and the weeds grow to shoulder height during the summer (I sometimes go out and spray them with weed killer, just to make the area look less abandoned) -- their double steel basement door was rusted to hell for many years, and 3 years ago I used some special antirust paint to paint half of it because I was tired of looking out my windows and seeing it so ratty, then gave them the rest of the paint so they could finish the job, outside and in -- the can of paint is still sitting on a steel shelf just inside their entrance door where I left it all those years ago, and they never even touched it -- they have been there for at least 50 years, so they probably do not have a mortgage to worry about. The family lives in an outlying upscale suburb, and their vehicles are a lot newer than mine. Over the years I have had to call them on the phone at home at least a dozen times to tell them their burgler alarm went off -- in all cases it was an alarm malfunction. I do not see any logic in this theoretical closing at all. The owner says he wants to finally retire -- but his son spends most of his time in the business, anyway, so why not give it to the son, lock, stock and barrel? Something does not seem right here, somehow.
Oh, yes, earlier today I faxed my property lawyer a semi nasty letter about the almost $600 in escrow that that other scumbag lawyer still owes me from the sale of the place acros the street -- no reply yet -- and although the FOR SALE signs have been down for many weeks, I have not yet seen lights on at night there, nor anyone entering or leaving the place -- I did get a somewhat surprising phone call from the police last week, saying they were contacted about security at the property, asking if I was the hispanic who owns the place! DUH!
31 December 2004 / Friday -- Yesterday I took the two kittens to the vets to have him clean their really dirty ears out -- the ear canals of hairless Sphynx seem to act as vacuum cleaners for litter dust and anything else that can get in there, totally unlike the Siamese I had bred for 30+ years -- although I clean them when I notice an accumulation, I am always afraid to dig too deep with my Q-Tips -- I did get a lot of crud out myself, but took them because one of the kittys was walking sort of lopsided and shaking his head from side to side, apparently due to the buildup in his ears. I got a Pakistani or Indian vet I had never seen before, and he cleaned the ears and gave me a bottle of liquid ear cleaner -- I have some other stuff here at home that I use, but this new stuff seems better. I then stopped to Bernar's to get a disk grinder that I needed at home -- no leftovers in the fridge, so dinner that night was crackers and Greek hummus, which is always yummy, at the computer, as usual, while doing some stuff -- red wine to accompany it, of course.
I was up all night of the 30th doing my usual thing, plus getting the last few eBay winner's PAID items packed and ready to take to the Post Office today to simply clear out all old online auction stuff -- there are very few bids on the things I have listed, even my $1 Holiday Specials.
I did make it to the post office about 11h, then went to my old place in West Trenton to see if there were any leftovers in the fridge that I might be able to use for tonights dinner, and to feed Bernar's cats because he seems to forget about the poor things lately, but I assume he is very busy these daze at the liquor store he is the manager of -- I filled the cat's water dish, opened a can of food (which the three of them love), and filled their bowl of dry food (it was empty) -- there was only half a store bought roast chicken in the fridge, but since it was not there yesterday, I thought he would snack on it later, and 3 smallish Italian sausages that had been there days ago -- I called him at work and wished him a great 2005, and he said I could take the chicken because he would not be home tonight to eat it -- then back home.
I got out my master box of keys to see if I could find one for the right garage door padlock -- no luck, so I used the disk grinder to cut the old lock off and replace it with a new one that I have the key for --
I posted some of my usual off the wall info and twisted conceptual ramblings on the Yahoo Beanie News List and the AOL Apple Computer Message Board -- I think my last note was mention of a somewhat curious thing I happened upon while checking what someone I know has listed on eBay -- he also sells auction catalogs and is from New Jersey, and in the past has grabbed some of my auction photos for use in his own listings -- I found a somewhat weird photo near the end on one of his listings, which did not seem to have anything to do with the item -- I took note of the URL of the pic and took a couple screen shots, then sort-of randomly checked a couple more of his items. The weird pic (perhaps my eyes are not what they used to be or I am imagining things, but that volleyball player seems to have something in his pants and it is enjoying some fresh air at the beach??) was not on several I looked at, but I did find the same pic on 2 others -- OK, so now back to the first one I saw it at to take another screen shot for my files -- IT WAS NO LONGER THERE! At this time an online friend of many years who I have not yet met in the flesh, Victor, was online and I Instant Messaged him -- he is from Tenerife but is studying in the USA, out in the Midwest somewhere -- I was sort of surprised that he returned to the Canaries for the Holiday, and asked him to check the 2 auction links and the pic link -- he said he found nothing unusual, and the weird pic link showed an error message -- it did not exist on the servers! On weekends and Holidays a lot of strange things happen on the InterNUT, probably because those in charge have the day/s off and/or the office is closed --
the same thing happened after that major earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Christmas night (I have spent countless hours over the last few days checking out news web sites from around the world and what they report about the tsunami) -- seismologists in Hawaii saw the almost record breaking underwater quake register on their apparatus, and thinking it would probably produce monster tsunamis, immediately started trying to contact anybody they could in the affected areas to warn them of impending danger at least an hour before the waves struck -- they got a recorded message on the phone of a seismological station in that part of the world that the office was closed for the Holiday, and some Thai embassy individual downplayed the warning because he thought it would ruin their tourist trade! I really wanted to start a new SPECIAL NEWS page dedicated to those events, but decided not to because the entire catastrophic aftermath was soooooo ridiculously dumb and stupid, for many reasons, but mostly the social / political / infrastructural / religious / financial underpinnings in those affected countries -- what happened was totally predictable, under the circumstances, so why bother! As a geologist I was awed at what happened -- it was over 100 years ago that a similarly destructive event happened in the exact same area, so they were well aware of the possibility of it happening again. I felt sincerely sorry for the human loses, but did you notice the mention of families living in huts losing 6 and more children? Many of these peeps make less than 100 clams a month, but still find time to increase their misery and helplessness by constantly having more children to feed and care for?? Do they get state welfare? They use somewhat primitive boats to fish, for themselves and to sell, and the boats were largely destroyed or damaged -- now they say it will cost more than 35k to replace each of them? Will all the rescue / charity workers donate all of their time and efforts for FREE, or will they demand recompensation, as they did after 9-11?? I find something slightly wrong with this whole picture, somehow.
And the WEB coverage of the whole thing was just as outrageous -- money pouring in from everywhere, many complaints that no country was donating enough, some specialized help was denied because of political differences, and the abundance of the usual photos of babies crying, people distraught at funerals, debris / death / destruction all over the place, and at the same time, photos of seemingly happy, cheerful peeps celebrating in night clubs, bars and discos that were not affected, while all this other stuff was happening just down the road! Some dumbass Indian Ocean area politicians even said that tsunami warnings are useless because they are not 100% accurate! Is there anything that is that accurate these days? Now they are getting tons of money, but where will it really end up? In the pockets of their officials and as salary to some of those well known charity organizations -- they tell me that 80% of money donated to the Red Cross goes for salaries! And they officially call themselves non-profit, and do not have to pay taxes on any of the billions donated?? WHAT A SCAM!
Sorry for the rant -- some might say that I am heartless, which is totally untrue -- the tsunami events were predictable -- the countries involved did manage to spend piles of money for tourism, salaries for their useless politicians, while neglecting basic infrastructural necessities and their own inhabitants and their well being , many of whom do not even have electricity, structurally sound housing, nor the basic ammenities one usually associates with a hypothetical caring, equitable 21st century society -- but, hey, it even happens in the so-called super power, right here in the USA! Did you know that we are theoretically supposed to have the absolutely best HomeyLandia security of any nation? After all, they spent many billions to set it up and pay its operatives -- let me try to find a line I ran across on a news web page, which tells exactly how well we are prepared -- No one at the Department of Homeland Security could be reached after business hours Wednesday. -- OK, enough of this crap!
I was planning on making a simple animated gif for the new year, and actually started working on it (did not finish it) -- I also scanned a bunch of things to add a couple new eBay items tonight, while constantly yawning -- this was at about 21:30h, so I thought I would crawl into bed, finally, hoping to wake up before midnight -- that partial chicken is still in the fridge -- I did awaken, at 04h of tomorrow, New Years Day!
So I wish all you peeps a really great 2005, full of health, peace, happiness and enough prosperity to enable you to do at least some of the things you most desire --
and let us hope that there will not be an asteroid striking the Earth, or an undersea earthquake in the mid-Atlantic which devastates many Atlantic islands and all the low lying areas of eastern North and South America in 2005 --
this closes another year for me and my news for 2004 -- the link to 2005 may be found, below.
hasta Año Nuevo
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