Dazed and confused for so long it's not true

Monday began this week in weirdness & confusion?

The causation factor, I believe, is due to our local weather being 

Schizophrenic.

One day 80 degrees, the next day 23 degrees and snowing

repeat & repeat until we all go insane from

barometric pressure variances.

This weirdness has even attacked our baby--

Who was also acting out of sorts.

Incredibly unusual for our normally happy little boy.
As the week progresses things have stabled out--
with all of us...
The weather however has refused to stabilize--?
Yesterday was in the 60's during the day and last night it snowed 4 inches?
WTF?

The current weather conditions have in a manner forced
me to take time off from several homestead work projects.
On the single day of nice weather I did manage to complete my 
garage project--photo's to follow soon...
Ten full days of work--interrupted by 10 days of
bad weather and other projects--
but I'm FINISHED with the garage, excepting minor details, for now.

This bad weather pause is forcibly instructing me
how to embrace retired time without direction. 
I do need to take in the fact that i do not have to work
till i drop everyday...
That it is perfectly correct for me to have days without
enforced direction.
To sit, to write, to think, to just talk with Jojo....

Kudos's to the Mayor of Washington D.C.

for telling 

Congressional Republicans to go fuck themselves!

D.C. legalizing Pot no matter what the feds say!

Damn, just Damn

Geeks world-wide are in mourning today..

My personal, have on me, kit has changed so much now
in retirement.
 I carry:
My Swiss Champ knife in a belt sheath--

I wear my Kangol (Samuel L. Jackson model)

hats constantly.

Admittedly one of them spotted with paint from the most recent jobs.

These hats keep my hair out of my eyes and are very outside the norm here,

 a ball cap- is standard issue in my 

area of residence.

For keeping track of the time I have been lately wearing

my

Suunto Vector watch--

most days now--simple, easy to read and --

Waaay tough enough to withstand abuse
while working around the house--
add to all this

 A standard issue black hoodie--constantly--

it's always hot-cold-hot-cold around the homestead 

in the New Mexico winter.

My weight has been re-adjusting to retirement so

Adjustable web belt is now standard equipment.
Actually losing weight--the opposite of most who retire?

Blue jeans, plain blue T-shirt and Palladium footwear complete

the daily kit for whatever i plan doing around the homestead.
This mixture has become my retirement uniform so to say.

My first ever, true boombox arrived!

The Sharp GF-8989

it is just awesome.

There are one or two less than perfect conditions with it

but i am hugely satisfied so far.

It is a big beauty for the collection!

I am very pleased that i started attempting to repair my Panasonic

FM-RX-40 boombox which suddenly stopped playing tapes....

This is my first repair attempt and

figuring out how to open the casing without breaking something..

was like a Chinese puzzle..

Opening these things requires the patience of a bomb tech--

Finally opening the casing I discovered that my uninformed opinion 

as to what was wrong with it, turns out to actually be correct.

The tape player belt snapped.

I have actually been able to determine the official Panasonic 

belt part number and located a supplier and ordered a replacement belt

and additional backups.

Once the new belt arrives replacement and closing the casing back up

are the next steps followed by the "I hope it works" meditation...

Bidding this week on a Panasonic RF 888 PSB FM radio 

on Ebay--massively cool!

Although a simple AM/FM, single 6 & 1/2 inch speaker, portable radio only unit

these are excellent radio's with a really great design factor...produced in 1973.

I am planning on lining into the radio one of my cassette player/recorders.

We'll see how this auction turns out--I am of course

attempting to obtain this item as inexpensively as possible?

This week----

A French police series the title translates as

SPIRAL

and 

the film

"If you're not confused,

you're not paying attention."

Tom Peters

This is the new stuff--I come dancing in-----

This has been a people orientated week.
Forcing me off garage duty.
Visitors, coffee clutch, lunch with friends.
All enjoyable....
I had been locked in the garage working on organizing it
for days now and a break was necessary although i never like to admit that.
I have the ability to become a total hermit if i
don't make a concerted effort to see people.
I really have to watch myself to prevent old guy isolationism...
As you will find out I have spent some time whining,this week unfortunately...

I had a few days recently where--as you will

read below--where,I guess i was just doing it wrong.
Doing everything wrong in varying ways, shapes and forms.

With the garage project interrupted temporarily

I did little things about the place,

but could not seem to get things to work out successfully
on the first try--

I had to take time to recenter, refocus.

To determine what was I doing and how i was doing it?

Once I am back on the clock I'll do better.
I hope to, at any rate.

Do you ever get overwhelmed by the feeling that you talk too much?

I do, constantly.

There is an ever present gauge in my head measuring

the number of words i am saying.

I try to insure that the meter's indicator is balanced---

right in the middle, the correct zone where

I am neither disturbing people by being too silent,

or disturbing people by speaking way way too much.

I manage to fuck it tho almost all the time...

When i was younger i almost never spoke and that 

disturbed the people around me, they let me know how disturbing it was

 in no uncertain terms.

I tried to compensate, and the result is that i over compensate....

which, of course, is even worse---

This has been a very social week and that may be

why this internal judgement is so powerful with me right now?

Perhaps the gauge will return to balance next week?

Weirdness as well this week in terms of boombox collecting.

Monday I bought a mint, big, Magnavox box from a seller on EBay.

Found it, loved it, hit the buy it now button and paid 
but then the seller cancelled my payment...

In checking the box for immediate shipment the seller
discovered the volume control wasn't working properly 
and killed the deal.

While I totally admired the honesty involved---

I was completely, totally bummed by the deal falling through--

Bummed-badly..just mentally bummed.

I never had a real, I mean a real, huge, New York City style boombox when i was younger

first and foremost, they were just way too expensive--then there was the fact that--
My old man at the time was busily promoting the conservative philosophy
of then Vice President, Spiro T. Agnew.
 That long hair and loud music was 
a communist plot to destroy good ole white republican 'merica.
My old man in defending 'merica determined that
 a real Ghetto Blaster was a communist device and never gave up that conviction.
 Why ruin a great philosophy with the fact
 that Spiro T. Agnew wound up in prison?
So no boombox around the family plot.

Trying to pull myself out of the cloud of bummer-ness on the loss of a
potential great retirement boombox,

I grab one of my cheap small boxes and threw 

my new musical obsession mix tape in it to help push me out of 

the not-so-good mood the deal failure created.

The cassette player in the small box died half way through the tape....

Just fuck me you know?

This fail actually motivated me--

I would not allow the forces aligned against me

to prevent me from obtaining a big, solid, properly working

box---denied to me in my yute..by Spiro T. Agnew.

Things, as they say, really do sometimes turn out for the best.
 I re-focused my search, 
located and purchased a much better, much more rare box,

a Sharp GF-8989.

22 inches long, 12 inches high, 13 pounds.

Shortwave and metal cassette tape capable---
a single cassette which i prefer....the perfect New York City box!

These are actual photo's----the box is in excellent physical

condition with all systems functioning.

I found the box denied me by vicious republican politics in my Yute 
I should receive it by 03-02.

My little box that failed which inspired me to not take this bummer laying down,

 will wind up being my first boombox repair attempt once my other required

household projects are completed.

AND:

My newest musical obsession:

CRAZY KEN BAND

A Japanese big band that is really tight, great live,the way 

only Japanese obsessives can be musically, while

playing a strange combination of funk

and Sinatra smooth. 

With all the required moves and personal styling

that only the Japanese can do when they think they have to... 

to be cool...

I've made my own mix tapes of this band off You Tube.

I just love these guys--
So very strange...

From the first episode...

"Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better."

Jim Rohn