TubaOrNotTuba

Living on this planet some tasks are very difficult. For example try to imagine not being familiar with automobile brands. We are surrounded by badges and we see them over a period that is staggering. A lifetime if you will. Now a small confession. I have never actually owned a car. I tended more to bicycles and passenger seats. However it is very difficult not to get hit by the waves of advertising and brand recognition. And brands evoke history. So, this afternoon I watched a number of videos about the history of various automobile brands. Starting obviously with the Ford. And if you look at forward you must also look at who were the leaders. So much I did not know. Actually no need to know because as I say I have never owned a car. But it is fun to do the dovetail part. Tying history to what goes on in the world. I wonder what it was like to live in a time when a car was not a major investment. Or when it was. A dichotomy. If I look in my own driveway I will find cars from different periods of time with different badges. All with the common four wheels and a body. I will watch some more of these videos because now I’m curious. The main question is how did I avoid getting sucked into the tunnel of ownership. Oh wait, I know, I had no money. It does not stop others who have financed their souls to have a car at a young age but I managed to resist. It’s funny the roads we take as the saying goes.

Today’s weather was and is wonderful. Sunny with gentle breezes and temperatures that made the air inside and outside of the house roughly equal. Paradise if you will. In sharp contrast I took the time to listen to that station down South that details how the weather has gone off the rails. A whole nation hit with the kind of weather you only write about normally. They’re breaking records almost everywhere. And my only worry is are we next. Will tomorrow’s forecast mean that I will have to start huddling in the basement. Who knows. Obviously things are a little out of control and there are those who want to make sure it stays that way. At least that’s my take on it. Every time someone talks about trying to mitigate global warming those with an iron in the fire rebel. They want their oil money. They want our oil money. Spend, baby, spend. Some people are not rich enough yet. That leaves me with another fear. What if they discovered that the weather up here is nice. Will they invade to take over our pristine beaches. It could happen. Outside the birds are singing and the lawn is growing and I realize that I have lucked out. I could easily have packed my bags and headed south convinced that I too could be rich. But I did not. Most of my family can still visit me because we are all eligible for passports that are respected. Think how much worse that could be. And so I should probably go back outside lay back and listen to the birds while the gentle breezes blow by. Will I? Who knows. I have become lazy. Exactly the kind of lazy that is fostered by ideal temperatures. Not much I can add to that. I live where I want to be and life is good.

We all have things that cause stress. For each one they differ. Right now my own burr under the saddle is that I am missing two log posts. Posts that I know I wrote but I seem to have disappeared after a bit of bad Wi-Fi. An analogy for bad water I guess. Why does this matter? Well in part because I take pride in continuity. I tried to create a new blog post every single day. It is a part of my personality. The difference is that I have been doing this for very close to two decades. No missed days. I have had to do certain work arounds but I’ve got past them. Until now. I think that the two posts exist among all my other noise. The catch is that I do not actually see what I’m writing anymore nor can I easily go back and decide that that page needs to be re-inserted into the continuum. I will require some assistance at the local level. Someone else is going to have to go and read my idle thoughts. I know, this will change nothing for anyone else. But I have this desire to do something that is if you will solid. If I say to you that I have been doing this for two decades I do not want an if in the middle that says except for those two days. I want to fix this and in a world where what I see on screen is simply grey it becomes difficult. I have already decided that if the posts are no longer available I can create new content. I know the dates and I know where I was. Quite easy to tell you a story that is a few minutes long. One of the skills I have fostered in blogging. So what does this mean? Well it probably means that I am compulsive as opposed to creative. You can decide. I know that a lifetime ago creating a single page of text was a big job. Not anymore. I have the skills and the verbosity to make new articles out of almost nothing at all. You can probably see that if you read along. But I want my badge of honour back. I want to look at the title page and say that this represents continuity. Continually. Maybe this weekend or maybe next week. The original articles are still on my tablet albeit hidden from me.

This afternoon I watched a video about evaluation of stocks. Wait, let me correct that. I tried to watch a video about the subject but my eyes started to glaze over within a minute. I actually have no idea about the process nor do I intend to learn about the process. Mark me down as either insufficient funds or insufficient interest. Not that interest rates that keeps fluctuating just the idea that I would want to know how to give my money to someone else in return for unsure partial ownership of the company. My own feeling is that buying a stock does not give me much control over the company and it does not guarantee that I will actually increase my own value. If I buy a stock for $1.00 and that stock increase in value by 2% I really have not gained very much. When was the last time somebody gave you $0.02. Up the ante. I invest $100 millions and it goes up by 2%. Now I have a tangible amount which has been degraded in value by time because stocks tend to go up and down like tides on the beach. Go ahead. Go down to the beach and try to calculate where the water will be in an hour. Good luck. And that is how I feel about the stock market. There is a reason why I leave investing to those who have more time in their hands. And yes as someone who is retired I have a lot of time but not enough to waste it going over the fine points of a company’s earnings and losses. They can pay someone for that kind of fun. I am more interested in the levels of food in my refrigerator which also fluctuates or in the amount of attention I get from friends and neighbours which also fluctuates. No need to play with imaginary money in the stock market. OK maybe I should watch the video. Perhaps I will learn something that will change my life although frankly, I am highly doubtful. If I’ve made it this far without understanding high finance I have probably learned enough in my life. Didn’t Leacock write an interesting short story about that very principle? I mean I do remember something from high school. Perhaps not stuff that will make me more valuable to others but I was there and I did my time on the hard seat of life. Sadly our desks did not come with padding.

Imagine that you belong to a professional group. Coloured a fraternal organization if you will. From time to time you get together for a luncheon or a banquet. And at each occasion there is this one member who spends time making comments about you. About your willingness to dress beyond your means or purchase meals from the menu that are overly expensive. Your plate is full so you say little but it goes great. Now expand that to your group having a world presence. And one member continues to demean you. Comments about your ability to spend money while with the group. I am drawing a parallel here. To an organization that Canada has belonged to for my whole life. A group devoted to peace as long as you are paying for theirs. You know who I mean. A group with the initials NATO. And one of our neighbours continues to make open comments or how we’re not spending the money that we should. We’re talking a lot of money here and if we were to start trying to emulate the spending of our neighbours we would bankrupt our nation. We have issues like everyone else but spending all of her extra cash on toys makes little sense to me at least. I wonder what we can do about such a situation. From what I have read simply not going to the meetings anymore would be seen as an affront. Did I mention that that one member is also perceived as being a bully at heart? Now you know who I mean. I wish things were different. This is an organization which claims to be there for the good of all. What is the point of saying that others have to match spending that is beyond your means at least. Keep an eye on this because the story is not over yet.

I have a reasonable level of DIY mentality. Not that I actually do many of the jobs myself but I want to know if I could under extreme need. I mean, I do have some hand tools and I am willing to try at least once and I rarely end up losing any blood. So when we heard from the RV dealership that we would need to replace something to do with the propane furnace and that there are two options I wanted to know more the options were obvious we could either drive over there which is several hours in each direction or we could have it done locally. That left me with the curiosity to know if I could do the job myself. And so I did what we all do. I watched some videos. I mean i’m not even sure which piece needs to replaced but if they’re going to send it to me in a box i could perhaps figure it out. And so I went watching. Like almost everything else in this world any job that can be done by a reasonably qualified technician can be done by someone who’s willing to give it a try. I could actually turn off the propane remove the out of use piece and put a new one in place. The major test to the tool involves some soapy water. How hard could that be? And so now that I’ve thought the situation through the rest you can rest easily. I will not be trying to do the job but I did want to know what was involved. Would this be an afternoon or a week and it looks like an afternoon once the long drive is done. The other alternative means forgoing cheap heat and remaining with electricity. I want to have both options. I will let you know when the job is done. After someone else has done the necessary work and the necessary testing and we know that we can simply be warm at night. I know, summer takes care of most of that but until we get into the hot days I want to worry about the cold days.

My role today is to sit and wait. Or more correctly to sit and sleep. We are waiting for our big green machine to get some service so we hired someone from the community to come in and lower the grass level period. My only comment is that people who do this for a living develop speed. I could see the flag go by the window much faster then I expected. I do not have a large acreage. Probably just over an acre when you calculate in the area for the driveway and the house. And we bought our more, used, going on seven years ago. As I said a big green machine which means that it runs until it doesn’t. My own guess is that we really need a new oil filter but I know little of these things. In fact I probably could not find the oil filter. What I do take care of is pumping up the tire that goes flat every few days. This is a machine with heritage. Getting it running is a much cheaper plan then going out and buying something with a fresh paint job. Although, that is not yet being discounted. Finding someone who would come in to do the area was not a big challenge. Young people earn money where they can and for someone with a trailer and a mower and are willing to go and wait for payment doing lawns is a good deal. Back in my day we shovelled snow but global warming has removed that position of authority. I suppose there were other things I could have done to earn money and I did find some but having a shovel and a willingness to go up the street meant that I could earn a few bucks here and there. Now going door to door with a lawnmower on the back of your truck is the new way of getting a little bit more cash. As I said, I have been waiting for someone to arrive. There is a man going to come by to have a look at our machine and all I have to do is be here to answer questions. And so I will wait as the afternoon dwindles I wonder if he’ll put it off until another day.

Early this morning right around coffee time I received a question. Where would one go to buy a cash box. An empty one of course. I immediately responded that there was a place in the mall. It was pointed out that that place no longer existed. And then I had a second thought. I owned a cashbox. I no longer remember why or where I had bought it originally by doing one of the cupboards around here there was a brand new blue metal box with multiple keys period. A proper cash box period. The kind you would use if setting up a table at a school dance or something. Happily the box was right where I had left it. I decided to go there by touch and retrieve the article. And so I did. Something needed by one of the neighbours at her school for a garden plants sale so not to run a dance. That is so much a thing from the past. But in keeping with the way that I do not like to throw away things the box was there and in great condition and available to help someone else. Now if I could just remember why I bought it in the first place? I probably have a lot of things like that because over the period of a lifetime we purchase things that seem so purposeful in the beginning and then we lose focus after time. Please, do not ask why I seem to have the corner on the Morse key market. Also old musical instruments. In fact as proof that I do not throw things away easily, I believe there is a T-shirt that I purchased back when I began university. I like to think with pride that it still fits me but that is not been proven. It did have the right colours though although faded and I could have passed myself off as a freshman to someone who did not look beyond the printing on the screen or shirt. What about you? What articles do you have in the back of a closet that are there simply because once having purchased it you no longer have a reason to throw it away. Besides, where would you throw a metal cashbox?

I am not a gambler at heart. However there was a brief moment in my life when I found out how to double my money. Not much money by today’s standards but a half century ago, $0.50 went a long way. And I learned that at the lunch table I was able to put down a bet of $0.50 and from time to time double it period. Able to buy 2 pastries instead of 1 In the school kitchen. Now the mechanism is murky. There are people who played cards every lunchtime and some of the boys would bet on their games. One option was known as double or nothing. I figured out that if I could find someone willing to take my money and lay it down as their own temporarily I could make a bet on a game. I would not always win but I did have the option of deciding whether or not the odds were in my favour. And those days when my money suddenly doubled, I had a better lunch. From where I sit it was not that different from the current schemes that people use to change their money into something more. And not everyone was willing to take my quarter but when they did I realized that luck was something you created not something you were born with. As it happened I never had more than 1/4 at a time because even on those weird days where money doubled I still wanted it at least one pastry. If I had shown up with real cash I know that I would have lost everything and walked away somewhat the wiser. I bring this up because I keep getting these stories of people who bet on something called crypto and I do not understand the mechanism. Maybe it’s because I’ve always had to work for my money one way or another but the idea that your portfolio suddenly doubled in value just because you’re there at the right time makes no sense to me. As you can guess I have no interest in going to a casino or betting online. I learned at those lunchtime betting sessions that you did not always win and that you’re single coin could just as easily turn into nothing. It taught me an important lesson. I am now at an age where I am not apt to bet on much of anything. Not the outcome of a hockey game as some were wont to do or anything else for that matter in fact I can hardly remember the last time that I had a coin in my pocket. We live in a different age.

When it comes to the changes of season, all that really changes is the date. Today was my start to summer. We led it with more than 100 people running by the end of the lane going to who knows where. And then with that out of the way I started moving the deck furniture from down to up. This stuff is heavy. I say that year after year because it does not get any easier. But, I move the big reclining chair first and then the four individual chairs and that I stopped I did try to maneuver the big table into position but I realized that one of us was going to win. An object with four legs probably. And so I waited until I had someone else to help bear the load. All done now. Nobody got injured. This does not mean that I will spend afternoons laying in the sun but if someone stops by we can suggest having a coffee inside or outside. The option is now available. I should have known when I bought furniture that the wind would not move around. If the wind can’t move it neither can I without effort. What else of note? Well the weather is getting warmer before long, we will start getting summer visitors. A matter of weeks. Who will come to visit? I never know. My life is filled with surprises. Maybe someone will come with a dog. That would be a nice change. Someone else did stop by yesterday with food and that is also a great way to come and visit me. You know, from time to time. I am pleased that the outside work is taking shape. The lawn mower has a new battery and sooner or later we will get the choking part figured out. It’s been an easy seven years of maintenance. I wish I knew more about internal combustion engines but the need was never there. I spent three decades following the electrical cord around the aired. Also although I live in the country I have rarely had to shovel the snow. Part of climate change? It might be. I will do an analysis someday and when I do I will add it in here. In mentioning that battery it cost more than I expected but still came within our budget. Is there anything that costs less than before?