I made a simple prototype tablet holder for my car when I am endlessly waiting for everyone. I used scrap materials from other projects and cobbled together this very useful little tablet holder for zero dollars. I find myself using it all the time so I may make an improved version with quality materials. More of the parts need to be softer. The current version has pointed metal parts that could potentially poke someone. It also makes an excellent self defense device if someone breaks in the car.
I plan to upgrade my Pinterest social media account to include some of my gardening ideas and other interests that I have. There are ways to more completely link Pinterest to my blog. Some day I plan to sell succulent plants along with crafted bottle planters and display them on my social media accounts. Definitely not a get rich quick scheme but I enjoy doing it and I might make a few pesos. First I need my dependents to become more self sufficient so I have a little time to implement my plan. Second I plan to have the giant lump on my back surgically removed before I get to old to be operated on. Every time I schedule this surgical procedure something interferes with it. Maybe I am just destined to keep my grapefruit sized back bulge.
I see succulent plants, herbs and sophisticated bottle planters for my future provided God is willing. I like gardening but currently I just don’t have the time to do anything good because I am usually too ill or taking care of other people/problems. I definitely need to spruce up our yard before I try to pass myself off as a gardener or no one will buy. We have a nice alcove type window for indoor plants which might be a future option. Unfortunately gigantic trees shade the windows so some supplemental light will be needed. Also, my wife is opposed to any type of plants in the house because she is worried about insects and allergies. Hopefully I can convert her to indoor succulent plants because they seem to be a cleaner type of plant and are easy to use in decorating. Herbs are also an option but you need to be careful if you start selling any type of consumable that people eat. You never know about allergic reactions or some crazy person with an attitude.
Might also sell any excess fruit we have from the native fruits I planted when we got here. People seem to like cherries, jostaberries and gooseberries. The invading Japanese beetles don’t seem to like the foliage on these plants. These plants could also be propagated and sold as starter plants.
All these enterprises may result in enough cash that I could afford streaming TV someday.
I have been through many job interviews in my life. Most of them were very educational and a few even resulted in a job. In highschool I applied for two different jobs and was relatively successful at both. I can still remember my supervisor at Wurtz Specialty Ice in Mayville singing “Everyone has got to bag ice sometime….” as we bagged our endless bags of ice. You would think working with ice would always be a cold job but that is not the case. Ice machines give off lots of heat and it was exceptionally hot where we worked half the time. This was alternated with subzero freezer temperature which really made your bones feel odd. I was glad to get this ice factory summer job because it paid for part of my college expenses along with working for a farmer and selling my prize winning FFA dairy heifer to a Japanese company. The interview for these jobs went quite well because I suspect I was the only person who showed up on time. Lesson one. Show up for your interview on time.
I had about a zillion interviews at the end of college. I signed up for every interview I could because I was worried I might not get a job and I was very short on spending cash. Most engineering job interviews go about the same. Some old male engineer asks you a bunch of questions and you provide answers. There were some odd ball interviews though.
One company sent two cute young women in cowboy hats to talk to you. I thought I had gone in the wrong interview room when I saw them sitting there. They were pitching jobs for oil drilling rigs anywhere from Alaska to South America. They were more interested in my outdoor recreation activities rather than my Electrical Engineering GPA and the job paid three times any other job offer I had. I took a pass on that one. Judy would definitely have disliked traveling to those types of isolated places. Lesson two. Don’t take any job that would make your fiancee miserable.
I applied at the FBI for some type of technical associate job. The description was kind of vague but it seemed to involve wire taps, electronic eavesdropping and other assorted electronic mayhem. I didn’t expect the FBI to even call me for an interview but I was wrong. I received a very large package in the mail stamped FBI in large bold letters not long after I signed the application. Nina, my sister-in- law to be, brought me the package from the mailbox and suspiciously inquired “What is this?”. I think she thought I was in trouble with the FBI and she might be able to stop the marriage before it was too late. I said it was probably a job offer but I probably wasn’t going to take it. She backed out of the room without saying anything. I already had three nearby job offers so I wasn’t about to go on a distant adventure with the criminal justice system. I would have taken the FBI job if I didn’t find anything else.
Once I was between jobs and I needed some cash. I can’t remember when but it may have been during college or not. I applied for a job at a large printing company that involved manual electrical work on large printing presses. I got the job. I didn’t realize until I started working that this company printed huge amounts of pornography. Workers there would wallpaper the bathrooms with this stuff. I should have quit but I really needed cash. It was also an unpleasant place to work. I ended up getting fired because I was blamed for damaging some machines which I don’t believe I did to this day. Lesson three. Don’t accept any job that will make your life crap because there is always something better.
The best interview and job that I ever had was at a dairy plant engineering company. I had been temporarily laid off by another company so I consulted a “headhunter” to see if he could find me a more stable job. He immediately said I should see an engineering company just across the state line in Illinois but he didn’t say what the company did before I went to the interview because there just was not enough time. The president of the company asked me about my background and I said I grew up on a dairy farm which seemed to make him happy. He asked me numerous questions about the farm which I thought was unusual at the time but may have been a significant factor in getting the job. Lesson four. Use your entire life experience during an interview.
Craigslist is a source of infinite free entertainment for me. I picked up these two obsolete TV’s with digital antennae converter boxes in Slinger for free and installed them in my garage on a rolling platform with a Roku box. They have worked great for a couple of years and only cost me the price of their electricity. The antennae picks up pretty good on the main channels and the old Roku picks up the WIFI for internet TV. All of the old electronics stand up to the temperature extremes pretty good so far. I may need to pay for TV disposal some day but I think I may find an alternative salvage method by then.
The truly ancient kindle tablets in the picture are really from the dawn of prehistory. They can still be used in a number of ways in the garage combined with some equally prehistoric speakers. They make good clocks, weather stations, internet radios, police/fire band radios, YouTube players, Pinterest displays, book readers, movie download players, flyswatters and paperweights in a pinch. They hold out well against temperature extremes so far.
These types of old tech can provide entertainment if they continue to work. A lot of this stuff seems to run well indefinitely.
Camel traveling down a road paid for by regressive taxes
The poor should subsidize the rich sometimes? I have met very few people who like to pay taxes but they are necessary for the continuation of our society. We all need roads, police, firemen and other government services whether we want them or not. Everyone benefits from these types of government services so it seems fair that everyone should pay their fair share of the cost. Some people benefit more from these types of services than other people and are getting a good deal. This is true of police and fire services which are really just a type of insurance because you are paying for a service you hope you never have to use . No one wants their house to burn down or be burglarized but there is always a chance it could happen to you so you pay money just in case your number comes up. There are simply not enough rich people to pay for all necessary government services by themselves so government usage fees (taxes) of less fortunate people became a necessity. We have gas taxes, toll booths, wheel taxes, car impound retrieval fees, fines for speeding and other methods of generating revenue which place a disproportionate burden on the finances of less fortunate people.
An oversimplified example: An ultra rich man named Bill Gates gets a $100 ticket for speeding or a poor working mother named Betty with two children and a dead husband gets a $100 ticket for speeding. Neither person should have been speeding but is it really fair to charge Betty and Bill Gates the same fine (tax). I would fine people an appropriate percentage of their income instead of an arbitrary fixed dollar value . Bill Gates would not care if he had to pay some paltry fine so how will he ever learn a lesson from it? If he had to pay even 4 percent of his income he might wake up and smell the coffee. Betty should be charged less because monetary fines are a severe drain on her limited resources and she will learn her lesson easily. Our current system makes it easier for the rich Bill Gates to speed. Why not take a greater significant percentage of a rich speeders money and use it to fund police and road construction? This would improve public safety and revenue collection.
Health insurance/treatment is similar in some ways because it is a necessity unless you want to take a chance on dying prematurely. Few people choose to be ill. Some people are blessed by God with good health and will never need a doctor’s service or at least not much service. Other people may have severe illness such as diabetes, cancer, stroke, crohns disease or some other severe disease that is life altering and expensive to treat. You pay an insurance company but you hope you don’t have to use their services to pay for some dreadful disease. The insurance company distributes this horrible risk among many people. The healthy people pay for the really ill people and most healthy people do not really directly benefit except by having emotional security from being insured in case the worst happens. Health insurance in essence is a transfer of financial wealth from one large group of people to another small group of people who have done nothing to earn the money. Is that a good thing?
An oversimplified example: Bill Gates gets Crohn’s disease and is insured by XYZ insurance company. Bill will need about $200,000 per year in treatments over the remainder of his lifetime to keep his bowels operating normally. Bill’s premium payments amount to $12,000 per year so XYZ insurance company is losing some big time money because Bill has a bad disease. How should this money be recovered by XYZ? Obviously they will either raise their rates on their other members or find someway to get rid of Bill from their plan. It’s not Bill’s fault that he is ultra rich so I don’t believe it is right to eliminate Bill’s treatment and insurance. Less fortunate people should subsidize Bill Gates in this condition because he paid his money into the system in case this type of thing would happen to him. A single mom named Betty should be treated just like she was Bill Gates if she had the same condition.
What’s the point? Some things require us to work together even when we don’t see the direct benefit to us because it’s for the good of our society as a whole. The United States needs some type of insurance plan that includes coverage for all citizens or it just won’t be fair.
I own several Ryobi tools from Homedepot and I like all of them. The price was right and they get the job done around the home. I don’t know if they are as rugged as some of the industrial tool brands but I have not been able to destroy them with my typically careless attitude. I particularly like some of the 18 volt convenience tools such as the fans, lights and radios. Some of the latest versions have dual 120 VAC and 18 VDC input which is a real good feature.
I use the older style Ryobi fan all the time. The battery powered fan is great for sitting in a car waiting for someone without running the car. Its also nice when you are working on something in tight quarters and its hot.
Ryobi has finally started using led bulbs on a lot of its lighting products. The older lights just used too much juice from the battery so they didn’t have a long run time.
Ryobi and HomeDepot usually have great sales around the holidays so I am trying to encourage my wife to get me the updated radio as a present. Probably won’t happen though.
Ryobi also makes some 40VDC lawnmowers that are kind of attractive. I think they should consider making some type of robotic lawnmower. That’s what I am eventually going to need if my Crohn’s disease becomes worse. I can barely get the lawn cut now so I hope Ryobi implements this type of lawnmower soon at its typically reasonable price. I am also considering planting some type of ground cover on the areas with a severe slope near the front sidewalk so the robot can get the whole job done.
