Christmas 2020

 

GIMP 2.10

 

Eta 11/11/2020

 

 

 

Maynard picks up a penny.

 

These things are related.

 

What a year...

 

 

 

For sale

Small 2 bedroom 1 bath reinforced cinder block home on high ground just 2 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Excellent drainage with no history of flooding 52 feet above sea level. Public schools K-12, public library, parks and retail mall all within two miles. Located within the number 12 Television Market Area - Tampa Bay.

1971 Volvo 142E

The most luxurious car I ever owned cost me $500. It had 214,000 miles when I bought it and it lasted another year. Leather seats, computer controlled electromagnetic fuel injected 2 liter 4-speed engine, AM/FM radio, air conditioned and custom front air dam. This was the 1st year Volvo introduced the diagonal grille bar / star logo. Retail price $4,500 in 1971.

The con man who conned the con man.

 

Trump was probably duped in his first meeting with the man who made him president

 

    After recovering from a series of financial setbacks in the early 1990s, New York real-estate developer Donald Trump changed his business strategy from borrowing to build and purchase assets, to licensing his name to others. In 2004 Producer Mark Burnett approached Trump about a new television show. Although Trump was skeptical, stating that reality television "was for the bottom-feeders of society", Burnett proposed that Trump appear as himself, a successful businessman with a luxurious lifestyle.

     Trump had an arrangement with The Apprentice producer Mark Burnett, where they would split profits from product placements on the show but when ratings started to drop in 2011, Trump's Apprentice money also began drying up — he went from making $51 million that year to $21 million in 2014, and received less than $3 million in 2018. During the early 2010s, the Times says, Trump began selling millions in stocks and bonds and borrowed $100 million against his equity in Manhattan's Trump Tower.

   Over 16 years, Trump earned about $197 million directly from The Apprentice, and $230 million from licensing and endorsement deals linked to the show, with his face selling everything from Double Stuf Oreos to Serta mattresses to All laundry detergent.
   
   https://networthpost.org/mark-burnett-net-worth/
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apprentice_(American_TV_series)
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Burnett

   
   In October 1982, Burnett emigrated to the United States, where his friend Nick Hill, who had emigrated from the UK earlier, was working as a nanny and chauffeur. Hill knew of an open position for a live-in nanny with the Jaeger family in affluent Beverly Hills. Despite having no experience as a nanny, Burnett went on the interview. The Jaegers, realizing the advantage of having a nanny and security at the same time, hired him. After a year of working for the Jaegers, he moved on to another family in Malibu, California, taking care of two boys for $250 a week. He was eventually given a position in the insurance office owned by Burt, the father of the two boys. Two years later, Burnett rented a portion of a fence at Venice Beach in Los Angeles, and sold T-shirts for $18 each during weekends. Realizing he made more money selling T-shirts, he left his insurance job.

Burnett coached and groomed Donald Trump to play the part of himself, a successful businessman with a luxurious lifestyle. Mark Burnett created the Donald J. Trump we know today.

 

Trump was probably duped in his first meeting with the man who made him president

 Read how he did it:

https://qz.com/1509496/donald-trump-was-probably-duped-in-his-first-meeting-with-mark-burnett/

 

 

Ford v Ferrari

 

Red Box sent me a coupon good for $1.50 off a DVD rental so I logged on and ordered the movie about Carrol Shelby. Final cost was 59 cents. I loved it. The film starts in 1963 and triggered memories of my teenage years strong emotions. If you are as old as I am you might remember the 60s as the era of the muscle cars and how important that was to us teens. See it.

 

Arlo Guthrie 2020

A very good friend bought us tickets to the first show of the 2020 tour. 

On July 10, 2020 Arlo will be 73 years old. He lives almost directly across the state at Sebastian.

With about two weeks or so left to go before we hit the road, we're gearing up for the shows planned for 2020. The first segment begins in Clearwater, FL at The Capitol Theater, and moves up the east coast through Charlotte, Durham and Walhalla. The second segment rolls through Hopewell, Alexandria, Waynesboro, Atlanta and Pelham. Detailed info is elsewhere on this site.

All the upcoming shows have Folk Uke as the opening act — The dynamic duo of my daughter, Cathy, and her singing partner, Amy Nelson (yes, Willie's daughter), is incredibly funny and talented. We'll try out different ways to include them in the gigs, but at least in the beginning we'll throw them onstage at the start of the evening and see what happens. I'll have my son, Abe, and our long time drummer, Terry A La Berry, with me onstage for these gigs.

We'll head farther west playing in St. Louis and Fayetteville before returning to Florida to begin some kind of 60s band cruise I got talked into doing. It should be a riot. I'm looking forward to hanging out with some of my peers and veteran 60s entertainers. For that segment at sea we'll bring back Steve and Carol Ide, who've been most recently touring with me for the last few years.

The gigs with Folk Uke will resume after that taking us to the west coast for shows in Santa Barbara, Solana Beach, Aliso Viejo, San Francisco, Grass Valley, Livermore and Davis. Folk Uke finishes up their stint with me with gigs in Boulder, and Santa Fe. Everyone goes home after that while I finish up May 2020 with a show in Tulsa, OK with the Tulsa Symphony.

Then we head into summer time... It's nothing like summer here in Florida this morning. It was 38 degrees with a strong breeze blowing across the water. That would be cold at home in Massachusetts, but here in Florida it's ridiculous. Naturally it didn't stop me from going out in a light aloha shirt for my usual morning pix. But I didn't last very long out there. They say it'll warm up today. That'd be nice.

           

How many died?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Baghdad_International_Airport_airstrike
10 dead
January 3, 2020 - Nine others were killed alongside Soleimani, including the deputy chairman of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and commander of Kata'ib Hezbollah, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was listed as a terrorist in the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.by missiles shot from American drones which targeted his convoy near Baghdad International Airport.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qasem_Soleimani#Funeral_and_burial
56 dead 212 injured
On 7 January 2020, a stampede took place at the burial procession for Soleimani in Kerman attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners, killing 56 and injuring 212 more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Iranian_attack_on_U.S._forces_in_Iraq
176 dead
January 8, 2020 Iran launches ballistic missiles at the Ayn al-Asad airbase in Al Anbar Governorate, Western Iraq, as well as another airbase in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. The precision strike targeted specific hardware and not people, however, Iran shot down flight 752 by accident hours after the raid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_International_Airlines_Flight_752

242 people dead 212 injured when only one person was intended to be killed, Soleimani. Iraq claims he was working toward an agreement with Iran and Syria to make peace. We may never know. The White House tells us attacks against Americans was IMMINENT. Iran missles may have been so precise the very drone that killed Soleimani was probably destroyed while no soldiers were killed. This is madness.

In 1988 another 290 people died when an SM-2MR surface-to-air missile fired from USS Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser of the United States Navy, fired on them by mistake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

More than 700 dead by MISTAKE? WAR? No. STUPID!
WAR! What is it good for?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Imagine the families of those 700 people.

Curbside freebie

 

This complete 3CD turntable /Dual Cassette AM/FM stereo with RCA speakers and Sony Subwoofer was in a neighbor's front yard by the street with a FREE sign. I took it home.

 

The speakers are not the original Sony GX450 but work just fine.

The subwoofer also works just fine.

CD changer shot (I ripped it out). Cassette players don't seem to work but "GAME" input from my 2003 Acer desktop sounds GREAT! AM/FM receiver works very good! Nice RCA speakers.The computer I got for free, too. 17 year old Pentium 4 running LinuxLite OS on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. CD player and floppy drive. With a CD or online radio from the computer to the stereo the volume is unreal.

These are the Sony left and right speakers. Mine has RCA "Bass Reflex Speakers".

LOUD!

UPDATE: January 13, 2020. The power unit has failed.  System powers up then goes into default mode almost immediately with the on/off button flashing. No change if buttons pressed or reboot of system. Nothing works. Investigating.

St. Pete Pier

City of St. Petersburg Municipal Recreaton Pier November 25, 1926
The Million Dollar Pier
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_Pier

The Inverted Pyramid Pier opened on January 15, 1973 officially closed on May 31, 2013

The New Pier is under construction
http://www.newstpetepier.com/

https://www.fox13news.com/news/massive-hanging-rope-sculpture-being-installed-at-st-pete-pier

Janet Echelman's design for St. Pete Pier sculpture is being installed. Echelman has a $1.5 million contract to fabricate her aerial net sculpture at the city's $80 million, 26-acre Pier District. Mayor Rick Kriseman has raised $1.2 million in private money to pay for the piece. Taylor is among the donors, who include John Catsimatidis, the New York billionaire who plans to build a 50-story tower downtown.
https://www.pinterest.jp/cfggnews/janet-echelman-pae-2016/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Echelman

Boston

Boston

2020