What’s Happening
I caught some of that “protect the poor investor” stuff on Public Radio this morning. In my mind investing is gambling. When I had investments, I actually did at one time in my life, believe it or not, I figured that money was a bet. I was risking it in hopes for a profit, but I knew I was risking it. They were talking about investing like it was a consumer product, talking about setting up a fund to protect consumer’s investments. How silly can they get. They do not have funds to protect you from buying a bad car, nor a bad TV dinner, but they want to set up a multi-billion dollar fund to protect investors????? The government deregulated banks and other financial firms, and now they want to protect the public from the results of that????? How about putting the regulations back in place, and prosecuting the liars and cheats when they are caught????? While we are at it, how about prosecuting those liars and cheats in Washington too.
Let’s see, I reported last time that I fixed the 4wd on my old mini-Blazer. I put one of those exhaust pipe bandages on it as a temporary fix, but the entire exhaust system from the manifolds to the tail pipe really needs replacing. That will cost about $400 in parts, of course I do not at this time have $400. I do not even know if I can get the manifolds off without pulling the engine or damaging the heads. Of course, I know many of you pay nearly that every month to the finance company, so it is not as bad as it seems, and the little truck has been kind to me the only major expense the past couple of years being the new tires. I need to hold back some funds just for vehicle repairs, only there is no excess in my budget to hold back. I do however, have until inspection is due in September to get it done. I want to do it my self as the muffler shops weld it on, and the weld are where it rusts out. They like it because they get you back in every couple of years that way.
I joined Facebook last week, mainly to see how I need to compose photos to work best as I get requests for them. The requesters do not want to pay my fee however, but maybe I could arrange to just do snapshots for Facebook use, if I just met them somewhere and too a couple of snaps I could do it fairly cheaply. If I have to setup the lights for a formal portrait I could not. Facebook seems to be designed to use 4×6 snapshots, a formal portrait usually cuts off the bottom of the subject’s face in the avatar it generates from the photo.
I woke up this morning with a sore throat. Sigh! Oh well, it is a couple of weeks since I had the last cold. I can remember when I only caught a couple of colds a year, not a couple a month. I guess it mostly has to do with getting old, but I have also been thinking that I do not get out much, so probably I do not have the immunities I had when I was in the workforce.
I am, on the other hand, mostly managing to keep a pretty positive outlook. Some may recall, I made the resolution to try and maintain a “Things are mostly going to workout OK” attitude. I am happy to say that mostly I have managed to do that. It also helps that I figured out long ago that “Everything is going to take five times as long and cost five times as much as you think”, so I do not get too upset when things do not come in just as I planned. I ought to collect all those pithy saying I have come up with over the decades some place where I can find them to remind myself.
And just to lighten the page a bit the view out my front door a few minutes ago (blogs on GMT, I’m actually on EDT):
