I bought a box of little figurines (manufactured in China). A little squirt of plastic into a mold (I assume). But did someone the have to hand paint these? How long could one do that before going insane?
Ten years before the iPad
Apple introduced the iPad in 2010. Does the following excerpt from Neal Stephenson’s novel, Cryptonomicon (punished in 1999) sound familiar?
“Here’s how it works. You are an Overseas Contract Worker. Before you leave home for Saudi or Singapore or Seattle or wherever, you buy or rent a little gizmo from us. It’s about the size of a paperback book and encases a thimble-sized video camera, a tiny screen, and a lot of memory chips. The components come from all over the place—they are shipped to the free port at Subic and assembled in a Nipponese plant there. So they cost next to nothing. Anyway, you take this gizmo overseas with you. Whenever you feel like communicating with the folks at home, you turn it on, aim the camera at yourself, and record a little video greeting card. It all goes onto the memory chips. It’s highly compressed. Then you plug the gizmo into a phone line and let it work its magic.”
You ‘look’ like a dog but you don’t ‘smell’ like a dog
A walk in the woods
Barb and I built our home in the late 80’s, shortly after moving to Jefferson City from Kennett, Missouri. We rented a little duplex for a year or so and Barb started looking at houses. She looked at lot and then persuaded me we should build on a 3 acre lot she found West of town. Have to dig a well… put in a septic tank… I was nervous. But it has been a great 30 years with almost no problems.
Today we purchased the three acre lot that adjoins our property. The woman who owned the land died suddenly last year and her family decided to sell it. We had made overtures to buy the property over the years but the lady just didn’t want to sell.
You can’t call this an investment because we have no desire to ever sell the land. We bought it so we would never have neighbors living there. Sounds tacky but close your eyes and imagine the worst neighbors you ever had. Okay, you can open your eyes now and I’ll take you on a short (8 min) walk through the new property.
In the video I say the original deed is dated 1845 but in the abstract I found a transfer dated 1835.
PS: I took a similar walk ten years ago.
Two good things about winter
A good fire and a good dog. I’m not a winter/cold weather person. I like it HOT. But I do enjoy a good fire. Add a sleeping pup and it’s as good as it gets.
