Bombs in the Basement - 7/7/16

Somehow I learned to make explosives in the basement when I was a kid. I can now see how the parents of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris might not have any idea what their kids were planning, as I managed to keep this under wraps from my Mom, who otherwise seemed to have extra-sensory powers able to divine what I was up to. I made small fertilizer bombs, utilizing the same ingredients that McVeigh used to blow up that building in Oklahoma. Mine were of course much smaller, the size of liquor bottle minis. If everything went as planned though they made a sizable bang. I enlisted the aid of my erstwhile partner and neighbor Alex. I remember going to hobby shops and general stores to get the ingredients and mashing everything together in the basement. I lit one off in the road in front of the shrink's house down the street, and I think it was that explosion that made him think I had mental issues. He managed to convince my Mom that I needed to see a shrink. If I had never made a homemade explosive and lit it off in front of the shrink's house, would my life have taken a different turn? Or at least if I had waited until July 4th to light them off, when such explosions might be more sanctioned? Why wasn't I commended for managing to cook something like that up all on my own, long before the internet made it easy to find stuff like that out?

Seven Jobs - 8/9/16

First seven jobs. I've had a lot of jobs. Might have left some out.

1) Stock room at Hahn's Shoes at Montgomery Mall. Hated it but it was interesting. There was an entire hierarchy of shoe salespeople.

2) Barker on the Olympic Bobsled ride in Ocean City Maryland. Great job. Unfortunately I got fired for saying "Casey's Games are rigged" over the mic when I thought no one was listening. Someone was always listening.

3) Wrangling 50lb bags of roasted coffee beans at Georgetown Coffee Tea and Spice. Not real memorable, but I learned a lot about high-end coffee years before Starbucks.

4) Telemarketer at Time-Life Books. Lasted (what was for me) a long time at this one. Wasn't good at sales and was moved to "Confirmation" where I did well. In "confirmation" we had to determine if the people who were sent books would actually pay for them. If they didn't, there was nothing Time-Life could do.

5) DJ at Latino gay disco in Santa Fe. Don't recall the name. I remember saying at the interview that I wasn't gay, and the owner said it didn't matter. Didn't last very long at this one.

6) Computer room tech at a TV ratings company in Santa Fe. Very early computer tech at this place- punch cards came in and were entered into the computer and then the data was sent over telephone wires to Chicago. Hard drives were the size of large car tires and were in a rack. I enjoyed this job, but it was seasonal, tied to the TV ratings season.

7) Cheese and meat case at The Winery Deli in Santa Fe. My first and last food handling job. Got fired for letting the restaurant make a sandwich from spoiled lox, eating too much of the goods, and sitting down on the job. Sold corned beef to Amy Irving.
Not listed: A bunch of florist jobs.

ICQ - 9/10/16

In the 90's it seemed like an innocent chat program was changing people's lives- it was ICQ. You could meet people on it, get to know them, become friends. People were meeting other people online, leaving marriages, moving to god knows where to meet god knows who. I remember becoming friends with this one woman online. She was moving to Northern New Mexico and I was living in Santa Fe at the time, and she wanted to meet people in Northern New Mexico. She was moving there from Georgia. So she moves to Northern New Mexico and we keep chatting but she's living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile I am meeting and sometimes visiting other women all over the state of New Mexico, making up for when I was a student living in the dorms at St. John's and never went anywhere. I wanted to see the state of New Mexico and if some woman was in some remote corner of the state I was game for driving hours to meet them. Anyway the woman from Georgia one day says she's met some guy on the chat program in Australia and she's leaving to go to Australia and I can come over to her trailer and take anything I want because she can't take anything to Australia with her except her son and a suitcase. So I drive out to her trailer and it is in the middle of nowhere but it is smack dab also in the middle of this incredible view, one of those New Mexican views where you can see to the horizon in every direction and it's very dramatic. So I fill my car with her book collection, everything except the recipe books, and she asks why I don't want the recipe books, and I say "Have you seen how many recipes there are online?". The son looks dubious about making yet another move, this time to friggin' Australia. So that was the first and last time we ever met in real life. I wonder what ever happened to her. Chat programs seemed like such a big deal in those days, but now I don't chat online much anymore. Probably because I'm married!

Onibar - 9/26/16

Another thing that you didn't know about me: I sleep-walked (slept-walked?) at one of the many sleep-away summer camps I went to. It might have been at Camp Onibar. "Onibar" was the name of the camp owners spelled backward, "Rabino". It was a Jewish kosher camp that my father had went to. For some reason I only went there one summer. Besides the sleepwalking the main thing that stands out about the camp were the huge baseball card "free-for-alls" where they would toss hundreds of baseball cards off the balconies of the cabins and all the campers would scurry around to pick them up. By the end of the summer I had a substantial baseball card collection, even though before that summer and afterwards I never gave a crap about baseball cards.

Food Prices - 10/26/16

Sometimes I will post a comment here that I posted on someone else's thread. Sometimes what other people post inspires a RANT. What inspired this rant was a bunch of posts about how food prices have remained stable since 1980, according to the Consumer Price Index of the US of A Gov't. According to a chart and data the guy posted, the price of food has increased modestly- if at all- over the years. I've heard other people say that too. I call BULLSHIT ON THAT! If you've been grocery shopping for the last 20 (or more) years, you've seen FOOD PRICES GO UP dramatically! Your gov't figures are massaged if you think that food prices are the same now as they were thirty or forty fucking years ago.

You simply can't compare the price of food in 1980 to the price of food today. You're comparing apples and oranges! Back in 1980, who was buying organic food? Who was buying artisanal cheeses and breads? Who was buying lattes at Starbux? The entire food landscape has changed. TheRE is a huge variety now in quality that just didn't exist then. Food just isn't "fungible" like gold- which is why gold makes sense as an economic indicator over time whereas food doesn't. An ounce of pure gold from 500 years ago or 50 years ago or 5 years ago from anywhere in the world is the same as an ounce bought tomorrow. There is an economic indicator called the "Big Mac Index" which is about as fungible as food gets. It compares the price of food around the world based on what it costs in US dollars to buy a Big Mac in those places. The idea being that a Big Mac is pretty much the same in Moscow, Paris, London, Johannesburg, Beijing, Baltimore, and wherever. But when it comes to sushi, for Pete's sake, there's sushi from Giant (which has improved immeasurably over the years BTW) to award-winning sushi from Matsuri here in Baltimore to sushi at Whole Foods (overpriced IMO) to sushi from the corner Chinese hole in the wall (you are basically risking your health with this stuff) to high-end sushi in Tokyo where one fish can go for tens of thousands of dollars. Hell, there are pizza slices that I wouldn't touch with a ten food pole which folks here in Baltimore scarf down by the hundreds every day to very good pizza at Bella Roma in Hampden which is excellent- AND IT'S the same price! But with the government food data figures, over the years they can change what food is in the basket to get any number they want. What could be more politically sensitive than the price of food?

Google Knows Where You Are - 11/2/16

After a bit of online research, it looks like my Nikon D5200 camera doesn't include location data in the exif file it attaches to each photo. Exif data is data generated by the camera that gives you info about each photo- when it was taken, what camera and settings were used, etc. Apparently newer cameras do have GPS data built in but the D5200 doesn't. However I noticed when I backed up the photos to Google Photos, Google was able to accurately pinpoint where each photo was taken. At first I thought the location data WAS in the exif file and I looked and looked but couldn't find it. Finally I did some research into the camera - the D5200 simply doesn't have location data built into the exif, like on a smartphone. Your smartphone does. So how does Google know where your photos were taken? Well from what I can find out, it compares where you were at the time when the photo was taken, using the data continuously broadcast by your phone, and that's how. It's kinda creepy. The way to test this would be to go on a short photo excursion and leave the cell phone in the car.

Woman Who Didn't Buy Paper Plates and Paper Towels - 11/11/16

Last night I was at the grocery store and this woman was buying A LOT of paper plates and paper towels. I put my stuff on the conveyor belt behind her. Slowly I realized that something was wrong. The lady was holding up her cell phone which had earplugs plugged in but they were dangling. It appeared that she was keeping someone on the phone appraised of the situation. The cashier languidly picked up a sales flyer and started flipping through it. The lady buying the paper products was sure that they were on sale but didn't know the price. The cashier would languidly flip through the sales flyer and slowly bag another stack of paper plates. The packages of paper towels were too huge to even bag. I asked what was going on. The cashier says that she was trying to find out if the stuff was on sale. Finally a manager comes over, grabs another sales flyer, and starts flipping through it. At this point I give up and take my stuff to the do it yourself checkout. As I'm leaving the store I look over my shoulder and the paper goods lady is still waiting at the cashier. I'm about halfway to my car when the paper goods lady comes running out of the store with nothing- no bags. She runs to this huge van, jumps in, and speeds out of the parking lot before I'm in my car.

Charlie Nozzle Dream - 11/13/16

I had a dream the other night that I was walking around Manhattan and came across an area where a crowd had gathered to listen to an investment advisor preaching from a balcony of a condo or apartment building. The investment advisor's name was Charlie Nozzle. I had a young boy with me and Charlie Nozzle saw the boy and took an interest in him. The crowd opened a small area so that Nozzle could watch the boy walk back and forth. It was all so real that when I woke up I googled Charlie Nozzle to find out if there really was an investment advisor by that name. Usually I forget my dreams pretty quickly but here it is a couple of days later and I still remember it.

No Car - 11/13/16

When I was in high school what I wanted most was a car. You needed a car in suburbia. I bought an illegal car from a friend for some trifling sum, it barely worked, had no plates, but I drove it around and only got a warning once when I was parked in front of a Little Tavern and a cop came in and asked who had the car with no plates. They fell off, I told him.

So now I'm an adult and have had a lot of cars. A couple of years ago I simply got tired of owning them, after a years long battle with a Volvo 850 with an incredibly exasperating transmission. We're a one car family now. I get to use the wife's car when she's not using it. Do I miss having a car? Sometimes. Then I go to Craigslist and peruse what's being offered. I know that if I did get another car it would be more than 20 years old, because then you don't have to worry about emissions inspections. But once I peruse the listings I soon realize that even if I bought a totally crap car for say, $2000, that $2000 would pay for a lot of Uber rides. If I really really need a car (this has only happened once) I can rent one. Uber actually owes me $5 for a guy who got lost on the way here last winter.
I heard on the radio that there will be even more car ownership alternatives in the future, like car sharing. So no, I probably won't be buying a car any time soon.

Betting on Hillary - 11/15/16

Even though I thought I had blown my wad on Hillary's loss, somehow I managed to come through about $3 ahead. It was because PredictIt gave you $15 if you put up $15, so I bet $30 but only half was my money. I ended up only betting around $15 of the $30 so I didn't lose anything, and even made a couple bucks on Maduro in Venezuela. I'm a careful gambler and although I was lulled into thinking Hillary would win from looking at the polls, at the same time I didn't believe everything was great with the state of Obama's nation either. I saw at least one Hillary supporter that went on how great Obama had made everything, how the economy was hunky-dory thanks to the Democrats, and I didn't believe that.

I've bet twice on presidential elections and lost both times. However after losing on Carter (I bet that he would beat Reagan) I wasn't about to bet everything on Hillary winning. Oh I mouthed off on Facebook saying that The Donald would lose ("You're encouraging people to be complacent!") and some people unfriended me over that, but I was never really completely confident of a Hillary win. I thought Michael Moore made a good case as to why the DOnald could win. In retrospect I would say that the reason he won- even though Hillary outspent him- is that the media gave him a lot of free airtime. It seemed that every time you turned on the radio there was a Donald speech being aired. The only time you saw Hillary was when she stumbled into her van like some sort of kidnap victim. I watched a couple of the debates and I didn't think there was any clear loser or winner there. Hillary made a big mistake by insulting Trump supporters, calling them "deplorable". You don't win elections by insulting voters. It sounded condescending but at the same time echoed a lot of what I saw on FB.
Anyway the idea that a prediction market is a better prognosticator than the polls was proved wrong, as the odds on PredictIt vastly favored Hillary. If you had the stomach for a contrarian bet you could have made out like a bandit. That's the problem with PredictIt for me, I think. In order to make any money on it you have to be a contrarian- you have to be willing to bet against the odds. If you bet with the odds, you're not going to make much compared to what you are risking. You have to be a contrarian to make money on it. I'm just glad I broke even.

Alex - 11/26/16

My best friend when I was a young kid was Cuban- Alejandro Enrique but we called him Alex. His Mom was Jewish from New York. The revolution happened the year I was born. I had a vague outline of their family history. I don't know how they met but Alex's father was a wealthy Cuban, a big estate, horses, pool, servants, the whole nine yards. Mr. C (I'm not going to put their last name on here) took Mrs. C down to Cuba where they had Alex's older sister, and they lived the life of the Cuban upper class. Then of course the Revolution happened, the year Alex and I were both born, and the C family had to leave Cuba and landed in the suburbs of DC, down the street from my house. You could tell they felt it was a big bringdown in their social station. Even though the public schools in my neighborhood were considered the best, they still paid for both kids to attend a fancy private school. You could tell they thought of themselves as a cut above the middle-class suburbs where they had been exiled.
Mr. C ("Pepe") had an unusual deep gravely voice with a Cuban accent, very exotic to me. He loved chess. Everything Alex did I wanted to do. Alex and his Dad went fishing, so I asked my Dad to go fishing with me. Alex had tropical fish, so I had to get tropical fish. Alex and his Dad started keeping chickens in the garage, but we didn't do that. One day local dogs got in and tore them apart. Pepe missed Cuba. I remember seeing how he made Cuban coffee and also he took avocado pits and sprouted them by putting toothpicks in them and placing them in glasses- these cups with avocado pits in them were all over the house. One time I made the mistake of saying Alex wasn't Jewish while in the back seat of Mrs. C's car with her driving, and boy did she get mad. She set me straight. Alex was Jewish! One of the neighborhood kids called Alex a "kikey spic".

As we got older our political differences began to surface- Alex's family were the only people I knew who supported Nixon to the bitter end, and we had arguments about that. As I became more of a hippie the distance between Alex and I grew. Finally the breaking point was when I got Alex to smoke some pot with me. He had claimed (one of his typical outlandish claims) that pot didn't get him high. He said he could smoke as much as he wanted with no effect. Of course, this was a challenge. I found a secluded spot and had him smoke bowl after bowl, making sure he held it in. A week later he calls me in a bit of a panic, asking "When will it wear off?!" He told his Mom and that was the last time I ever saw him.