Goodbye, in Stages

It is becoming obvious to me that I know very little about the process of moving from one home to another.

For several weeks, I’ve been packing boxes, giving things away, and throwing things out. I’ve interviewed movers. I’ve found out about having machines and vehicles moved. After all that, I keep learning new things.

Today the movers told me the job takes three days. They pack on one day, shove things into the truck the next, and move on the third. I thought it was a one-day move, which was actually fairly stupid on my part. The drive alone will take them five hours.

If they have a whole day to pack, it takes a load off my mind. It means I don’t have to be prepared perfectly. If there are things I can’t deal with, I can turn them over to the movers.

The Internet issue is still alive. I found an outfit which will sell me a wireless data plan which is not limited to 32 GB, but they haven’t gotten back to me with a price yet. I feel like anything under a hundred bucks is acceptable. The Internet is important. If anything were to happen to my dad, I would kill the TV service immediately, but the Internet is essential.

Throwing out my dad’s ruined 1980’s furniture has been like lancing a giant boil. He paid way too much for it (i.e. more than nothing), so he has always been convinced that it’s fine furniture. The other day I put his sawdust credenza out for the Salvation Army, and he insisted it was a quality piece. Here are some interesting facts about it.

1. The back is hardboard, which is the hard cardboard clipboards are made from.

2. The body is made from sawdust mixed with glue and pressed into flat shapes.

3. Drawers from fine pieces of furniture are held together with dovetails. The credenza’s drawers are held together (barely) by staples.

4. When you bump into the credenza, sometimes sawdust falls out.

I have the 1981 receipt for the credenza. It cost $1000, and it was a floor model. That explains the strange dents and scratches. This is what happens when a divorced man finds a new girl. He buys things no one should ever buy.

Right now, if the right person (someone whose name ends in “Z”) wanted that thing, a fair price would be $150. New. It’s one step up from the furniture they sell at Office Depot, only less durable and more offensive.

Here’s something to think about. His entertainment center is a nice set from Ethan Allen. It’s solid wood. It has three cabinets, total. It’s around nine years old, and he paid $1010. When he bought it, it was new. That was about 30 years (of inflation) after he paid about the same amount for the sawdust credenza. And the Ethan Allen set was not on sale. This gives you an idea of the magnitude of the swindle.

The credenza disaster took place during the Cocaine cowboy years. People in Miami had even less taste than they do now, which is saying a lot. A lot of fake Bauhaus houses went up during that time. They look like tiny versions of cheap concrete high schools. They were filled with glass tables and bright yellow couches. People kept live tigers on their patios, and when they thought of timeless elegance, they thought of orange double knit. It was pretty gross. That’s where the credenza was spawned.

It’s gone with a capital “G” now. I have no idea why the Salvation Army accepted it. I fully expected a rejection note and maybe a bag of dog crap on the porch.

I’m very glad he didn’t see me and my friend Travis dumping his 1987 27″ TV by the curb. I think he paid $1500 for it. In its time, it was the fanciest TV you could find at Circuit City. As far as I know, it was still working when we gave it the heave-ho. You can’t make an older person understand that a 70-pound, 27″ TV that can’t receive a digital signal is no good. As Travis said, even pawn shops won’t take them.

I thought that TV was great when it was new, but then I was also pretty excited about the 512K Macintosh that only ran when it had a floppy disk inserted. What a machine. It had an external floppy drive, and if you wanted to replace the drive, it only cost $385.

I digress.

This weekend, I plan to take my mother’s mink to the Salvation Army. I saw a website that said old minks could bring as much as $400, so I was hot to put it on consignment, but then I found out it was not the $400 kind of old mink. It’s a stole from around 1970, and they sell on Ebay, all day long, for under $30. Makes me wonder why women don’t snap them up. They still look good. I guess they don’t want filthy hippies throwing red paint on them and forcing them to draw their pistols.

If my sister ever hears that I gave away the mink, the ensuing explosion will probably show up on seismographs. Last time she mentioned it, she thought it was worth a bundle. If we were still communicating, I would offer it to her, but when you commit felonies, get yourself ejected from rehab (again), and fall into society’s cracks, you pretty much give up the right to be informed about the disposition of your mom’s worthless old furs. I won’t be giving it to her, so it won’t be going to the dump or the pawnbroker like my mom’s gold Rolex or my grandmother’s wedding ring.

I was going to keep the Mom-era knickknacks from my dad’s house, but the more I think about it, the more I think I should cut a lot of them loose. Some are not very tasteful, others won’t fit in a traditional Southern house, and the rest are reminders of a dysfunctional past. I would throw out the bed my mom and dad bought after they got married, because it was my bed during many unpleasant years, but my dad is still attached to it.

Maybe he’ll forget about it, and if that happens, it’s gone.

The way you look at an heirloom depends a lot on the way you were raised. If your childhood was happy, heirlooms are treasured souvenirs of a golden age. If your childhood was like mine, you will want to burn most things that are over ten years old. The very thought of burning them is refreshing and redolent with hope.

I’m torn about discarding my sister’s college diploma. Obviously, she doesn’t care about it, or it wouldn’t have been lodged in my dad’s house since 1981. She didn’t care about her law school diploma or oath of attorney, which I set out for her when she moved out of the house she ruined. Those went to the dump. She left them where I put them.

When you have an abusive relative or former lover or whatever, keeping objects on which they have claims is like giving them permanent tickets to your presence. That diploma is like a beacon that gives out a homing signal that attracts swarms of stinging insects.

I believe in shedding my skin. Some bits of the past should be preserved, and others should be cleared away, fast. I gave away my mother’s clothes the week she died, as soon as I could get them in the car. If anything happens to my dad, his clothes and every troublesome possession he has will be gone in a week. All the things I wish he would get rid of…out. A house is not a mausoleum. The dead should be remembered and honored to some extent, but keeping things the way they left them is sick and evil. The dead move on, and we should, too. They’re not in heaven, burying their faces in our old jackets and sweaters.

I’ve rambled enough. Time to set about twenty pounds of my own clothes apart for donation. Goodbye, 1988. That jean jacket never came in handy the way I thought it would.

Rural Internet Speeds in my Future

I am finally confronting the one big landmine of moving to a rural area: Internet service.

It’s 2017, right? Internet service is great everywhere. Nothing to worry about.

Ha.

Here is what I discovered. The list of conventional Internet providers who serve my new address consists of one entry. That’s right. One. There are also three satellite providers. Fine. Four choices, right? Not really.

The only conventional Internet provider proudly offers me 1.5 MBPS, and that’s download, which means it’s the fastest figure they have. Upload is always way slower. That means that if I made and uploaded a Youtube video, an upload starting right now would end about an hour after the sun burns out. Youtube videos are huge. Several GB. It takes an eternity to upload them where I am now, and I’m in a suburb with relatively good service. On the farm, with conventional service, uploading would be, in practical terms, impossible.

That leaves satellite service. Great! Problem solved! Maybe.

Satellite Internet is screwed up. The download speeds are good (if posted figures are true, which is almost certainly not the case). The upload speeds are…adequate. Hughesnet, the hot provider at the moment, claims 3 MBPS, so let’s say 2 MBPS. I can live with that, but I’m sure it will seem painfully slow in three or four years, because data usage creeps or leaps upward as years pass. I don’t think Hughesnet will send a new multi-billion-dollar satellite every year just to make me happy. Maybe the farm will have a real phone line in a few years, though, and that would fix everything.

Another problem: satellite providers choke your speed if you go over your data limit, and the data limits are pretty low. I would have to spend a lot on a hefty plan to avoid this.

TV is easier to deal with. I can get AT&T or DirecTV. I don’t care about this, because I barely watch TV, but my dad is elderly, and old people watch the crap out of TV.

Phones should be simple, but they’re not. I want a land line, because I hate cell phones. They drop calls, the batteries crap out, and the phones are uncomfortable to use. On top of that, even when they work, they screw with the timing of speech so you keep interrupting the person you’re talking to. It looks like I would have to get a land line from my Internet provider, if I want the best deal.

I tried to find out who runs the phone system in Marion County, assuming it would be AT&T, but I can’t get an AT&T line there. I know there are little piddly companies that do land lines, but I assumed AT&T would be in there somewhere. It’s not.

If it were up to me, I’d dump TV entirely and put the savings into a big satellite Internet account. TV sucks the life out of people. You’re born, someone puts you in front of a TV, and then suddenly you’re old. You die, and they pry the remote out of your hand and bury you. At least the Internet isn’t passive and completely useless. You can turn on the Internet and learn skills. You can become an engineer. You can learn languages. TV is just man’s way of telling God he resents being given a long lifespan.

Satellite is looking tempting. The latency will probably annoy me, but at least I would be able to interact with humanity instead of trying to view the web through a constricted keyhole.

There is no point in whining about it, apart from the tremendous satisfaction I get from whining. I hate Miami, and I can’t wait to move north, so I will make it work.

Funny thing; I called a rigging company today about moving my machines to Ocala. My dad used to be their attorney, so we know them. I told the boss about the move, and I could actually hear him grinning as he said, “I can’t BELIEVE you’re leaving MIAMI.” Everyone hates this place! In fact, that’s how I responded. I said, “EVERYONE hates this place!”

It’s almost 86 degrees here right now, after ten p.m. In Ocala, it’s 77. And you can go outside and see the stars.

Maybe after I move, I’ll be able to blog from one of the porches and watch the Hughesnet satellite fly past. But I guess they’re geosynchronous? Well. I’m sure I’ll see something.

Won’t Rest Until I have a Green Headboard with Recessed Blacklights

I am getting ruthless with ridding myself of unwanted furniture. There are a number of items I never want to see again, and the thought of having the new house befouled by their presence–and paying for it–is a little too much for me.

Yesterday I took to Craigslist and looked at bedroom sets and dining tables. I found some very nice stuff. There was a considerable amount of cardboard and sawdust furniture worthy of IKEA, but there were a lot of pieces I would not be embarrassed to own. It looks like you can furnish a bedroom with tasteful furniture for $600 or so. I’ll post a couple of photos.

I can’t decorate, but I have some rudimentary clue as to what looks good and what belongs in a cathouse or frathouse. I think the things I found will work okay.

Just for fun, I decided to check Craigslist in Miami. This is not a classy town, so I figured I was in for some interesting viewing. My neighbors did not disappoint. Generally, the furniture was less tasteful, and some was downright bizarre. If you want to sell a purple entertainment center with white hardware, Miami is the place to be.

Take a look.

Lovely, right?

In the Ocala area, I found a very interesting bedroom set made by Berkey and Gay. The owner thinks it was made by Berkley and Gray. It has twin beds. I’m not sure what to make of it. The furniture itself looks pretty cool, and it has to be old, because the company went out of business a very long time ago. Here’s the problem: it has little pictures of fruit painted on it.

I don’t know if it came that way from the factory or what. Being a man, I am not sure whether the fruit paintings are acceptable. If they’re not, can the fruit be removed without ruining the patina?

Maybe it’s a little too antiquey. I can’t tell.

Sometimes a normal sexual orientation is a disadvantage.

I thought it would be a good thing to have in a spare bedroom, in case friends with kids visited. In the South, you can get away with a certain amount of antiques.

I found some dining tables that aren’t scary.

Here’s a bedroom I could live with.

I’m starting to think it might be possible to have a house that looks okay. That wasn’t in the original plan, but maybe I can pull it off.

Things That are Obvious Aren’t Necessarily Perceptible

One of the many things about God that amaze me is the obviousness of his truths. God will give me a revelation, and once I have it, I’ll realize I should have known it already.

I believe the reason God’s revelations seem obvious is that human beings have supernatural blindness. The fact that something is obvious doesn’t have much impact on our ability to see it. Sometimes we choose to be blind or deaf. Sometimes spirits cloud our perception. God’s revelations ARE obvious. Our inability to see them isn’t caused by stupidity. It’s caused by our biases and by supernatural interference.

Here’s an obvious truth God showed me this week: there is no difference between God’s commandments and his advice.

I don’t use the word “commandment” to refer to the Ten Commandments. I use it to refer to anything God tells us to do. After all, Jesus told us to obey his commandments, but we are also told we are not under the law. If we’re not under the law, then he was not referring to the Ten Commandments or any other parts of the Jewish law when he told us to obey. He was talking about the orders we receive from the Holy Spirit.

I need advice right now. I have Dade County real estate to fix up and sell or rent. I have to get a lot of things moved to Marion County. A lot of loose ends are waving in the breeze. I keep asking God to tell me what to do. If someone tells you what to do, what is he doing? He’s giving you a command. Even if you think of it as advice, what’s the difference? God is always right. You should always do what he advises you to do, so surely his advice has the weight of commands.

When we rebel, we must be cutting ourselves off from advice. We spend our lives in rebellion, and then we ask God for advice, without repenting or resolving to be obedient. Does that make sense? Of course not. We’re saying, “I never obey you, but I’m going to make an exception this time, so tell me what to do.”

No wonder we spend so much of our lives lacking guidance.

In the Bible, God told people what they needed to do, and they paid no attention. We are cursed with human government, which is filthy, incompetent, and stupid, because we chose kings over priests and prophets. Jonah was swallowed because he refused to go to Nineveh. The Hebrews wandered and died in the desert because they rejected God’s counsel. Moses was kept out of Israel because he didn’t listen. Look at Adam and Eve. They lost the entire world because they didn’t take God’s advice.

God is still God. We may be forgiven, but we still have to obey, and disobedience still causes terrible problems for us.

Suddenly, I want advice, but what about all the times I decided to make my own decisions with my little monkey brain? I wasn’t interested in advice then. Now I expect God to come running and tell me what to do. It doesn’t make sense. If God helps me, it’s not a reward. It’s patience and mercy.

Something to think about, the next time you decide to make your own plans and do things your own way.

Hope this is helpful.

Making it Rain Rodents

I keep thinking about shooting on the new farm.

The seller told me coyotes are a problem in Marion County. His family raised goats, and coyotes ate kids. They also got one calf. I don’t know if I’ll have any livestock or not, but I hate pest animals, and as long as I live in a rural area where coyotes are pests, I plan to do my part, by sending them to the coyote promised land, which I like to call the Garden of Acme.

Problem: I don’t think my current rifle inventory is optimized for the work.

I know almost nothing about coyotes, but they’re supposed to be very smart, so I figure the best move is to use a scoped rifle. I assume coyotes won’t walk up to me and pose. When it comes to scoped rifles, I have .17 HMR and .308, with nothing in between. I did some research, and people say a .17 HMR will not necessarily kill a coyote cleanly. A .308 will do it, and then some, but it will probably blow out the other side and make a mess. Also, it’s an unpleasant round to shoot. I would like something that will do the job without overpenetration or bruising my delicate shoulder.

It looks like there are two popular choices. One is the AR-15 in .223, and the other is .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire. Everyone pushes me to get an AR-15, and maybe now I have a good reason, but they’re expensive, and I like the 7.62 a lot better for home defense. You can get a .22 WMR for under $300 and spend the rest of your budget on nice glass.

I need to get up to speed on coyotes. What they look like and so on. It would be a big faux pas if I proudly posted a photo of a freshly killed coyote and then it turned to to be my neighbor’s Scottish terrier. That would make for a lot of tense moments when we encountered each other in the aisles at Tractor Supply.

Note to self: don’t shoot anything wearing a collar. Unless it also has tattoos.

The farm also has pest squirrels. Personally, I think every squirrel is a pest. I used to have one that cut mangoes off my trees and then left without eating them. I would hear a thump and then the skittering of guilty feet. I hate squirrels. I’ve even trained myself not to take my foot off the gas when I see one in the road. I am not going to wreck my car or injure someone over a rat that lives in a tree.

It would be fun to kill some squirrels for my dad. He eats them. But what would I use? My grandfather taught me you should shoot squirrels with a shotgun, because a squirrel killed with a .22 may drop in the crotch of a tree and get stuck. He said a shotgun would blow them out into a state of free fall, facilitating their cleaning and consumption. But won’t a shotgunned squirrel be full of pellets? I guess it must not be too bad, because my grandfather used a Browning Sweet Sixteen, which is now mine.

I think shooting squirrels with a rifle is irresponsible unless you’re on a huge property, because you don’t know where the rounds will land if they miss or go through the rats. What if you like your neighbors?

Is it legal to shoot squirrels? Yes it is. I just checked. On my land, I will be allowed to kill 12 per day from October through March, using any gun known to man. In September and early October, I’ll have to use a bow or crossbow. What? Seriously? Who can hit a squirrel with a bow? Did squirrels write this law? Do they have lobbyists? Crazy.

I have 16 gauge ammunition, but it’s burglar-sized. I will need birdshot. Or squirrelshot, as the case may be.

The seller says they don’t get deer on the farm. Pity, but then I’m too lazy to shoot anything that big, so it doesn’t matter. Anything you shoot has to be skinned and butchered. It also has to be dragged home. I have a golf cart now, so the dragging would be okay, but as for the meat…I’m five minutes from Winn-Dixie.

I should add that I have zero hunting skills, so deer would be difficult even if I weren’t lazy. With squirrels, you just walk out, look up, and shoot. I can handle that.

The final candidate for assassination is the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, AKA crotalus adamanteus (unless Linnaeus has changed his mind). This is the heaviest poisonous snake on earth, and it can grow to a length of eight feet. One more item I don’t feel like lugging. The seller says the snakes left when he built the house, but I’m ready for them anyway. I carry a 10mm Glock wherever I go. Guess I should keep some ear plugs on me.

There may be turkeys on the farm, but I am happy to coexist with them. When I was a kid, the mother of a friend of mine roasted a wild turkey, and I have not forgotten the stench. From the odor, I’m not sure if it was wild or merely homeless. Not anxious to eat anything that smells like that.

I don’t think I could ever hunt birds after buying three baby parrots and weaning them myself. Maybe I could shoot turkeys, which are big and ugly, but since I don’t want to eat them, I guess I won’t.

I can still go out with a shotgun and threaten them with it, so they don’t get out of line.

I have to figure out the licensing requirements. The FWC website is not very clear. I want to rid myself of pests, but I don’t want fines or the inconvenience of prison time.

If I get a .22 WMR, of course, I will be here to write about it and post photos of my targets. Assuming they’re not too embarrassing.

Hola, Amigos

I am back in the land of joy, better known as Miami. I returned from Ocala today, and I am already basking in the rudeness and stupidity. As soon as I hit Palm Beach County, other drivers got nastier and less able.

We closed on the new house today. It’s a done deal. The sellers will stay on for two weeks, and then we take possession. It’s still not entirely real to me.

The property is far nicer than anything I thought possible. It’s secluded, it’s large, it has woods, it has pasture, it has a big ol’ shop building, and it even has a huge sand berm which will be a fine rifle backstop. Sonny’s BBQ is five minutes away, as is Cracker Barrel. Tractor Supply is close. The nearest neighbor is a guy who built a gun ROOM in his garage. Not a safe. A room with a thick steel door. Think he’ll complain about me shooting? I don’t.

The sellers kept giving me stuff. Today they gave us the rockers on the front porch. The house has a huge collection of porches. There’s a front porch with a gazebo on one end. There’s a back porch. The shop has a porch. The pool has a patio, which is sort of a porch. Rockers are a necessity. I’m not sure what rockers cost, but today at Cracker Barrel, I saw they were charging between one and two hundred bucks for one.

My only serious whine right now is that my dad doesn’t share my enthusiasm. He truly hates Miami and can’t wait to move, and he likes Ocala and the house, but he’s not excited about it. He doesn’t have that Charlie-getting-the-keys-to-the-chocolate-factory feeling I have. So I pester my friends via text.

Two years ago he thought Miami was just fine. What happened? God happened. That’s all I can tell you. My dad has changed. He complains about the people. He complains about the traffic. He sounds just like me, only without the joy over the impending move.

It seems like he has slipped a notch over the last week or two. That’s the way these things work. I’m glad we finally got the house bought, because it might have been a very strange process further down the line. I don’t know what his capabilities will be in six months. I’m certainly glad he has been able to participate in the house hunt and get involved with decisions. I wanted a place where he would be happy.

I’m fairly sure I can get us out of here in three weeks. I don’t know how often I’ll have to come back. “Never” would be my choice.

I can’t figure out why the sellers are so nice. I could sell the machinery they sold me for twice what I paid, and they didn’t expect me to pay as much as I did. They came down a lot on the price of the house. The appraiser felt it was underpriced already. Maybe they’re just tired and ready to move.

I hope I got a good deal, but I was not trying to gouge anyone. I just wanted a fair price. Maybe I did better than that. There is no way to be sure.

Next time I go up I’ll try to take pictures and post them.

I’m beat. Time for pizza. I’m so tired I’m willing to eat Papa John’s.

I look forward to blogging from one of the many porches.

Written on August 3

Too-Perfect House for a Very Imperfect Man

This must be what the day after you go to heaven is like.

Again, I am forced to post this after the fact, but still.

This is a Thursday. My dad and I just went to the final walk-through at the farm he is buying. The sellers took us through the whole place. I am floored.

The place is spotless. It looks like a new house. The interior doesn’t even need to be painted. Some areas are carpeted, and the carpet is new. The seller gave me a three-point attachment for the tractor, free, with a pointy thing on it for lifting hay. I found out later it was called a “bale spear.”

There is a ton of storage. I won’t have to throw out my toys. Like I was even considering it. I guess I could just have the movers take everything both of us own, and then I could store it all and then reduce it at my leisure. Some of it would probably look nice in the fireplace on a cold February evening.

I’m going to take an entire floor for myself. My dad can do all the damage he wants downstairs. He can turn it into the TV-Watching Shrine for the Southeastern United States if he wants. I’ll be upstairs waiting for the Rapture with my hobbies. The house has an intercom, believe it or not, so whenever he wants, he can summon me, and like Lurch, I will appear and solve his problems.

The area where the farm is located is nicer than I remembered. It has a little altitude, and that supposedly improves the breeze. The land is hilly, although the farm itself is fairly flat. The traffic is light. The roads are in great shape. There’s a lot of green, especially after a rainy July.

I still have to get moved. I don’t care. I’ll get it done if I have to carry everything up there on my back.

My dad is concerned he won’t have anything to do, but since he has had nothing to do for two years, I don’t think his gripe will turn out to be well-grounded. If he’s not bored now, he never will be. I’m looking into opportunities for him to socialize. Marion County is jammed up with geezers, so I’m quite sure I can find amusements for him.

The seller says we can kill the property tax by selling hay or by getting goats. He raised cattle, but they poop the place up. That’s a good thing if you need manure, but it’s not like manure is hard to come by in horse country. He said mature Boer goats would be very happy on the farm, but that it was not a good idea to have breeding stock, because coyotes eat the kids. Down side: no baby goats. Up side: I may have coyotes for rifle practice.

He said he lost one calf to coyotes. What ever happened to the old days, when they stayed out west where they belonged?

Tonight my friends Leah and Scott will be swinging through again on their way back from Sarasota, so there will be a lot to talk about. I’m overwhelmed.

Apparently, God does not mind doing surprisingly nice things for you, when things line up right. I think my blessings are related to the fact that I haven’t given a dime to a preacher in several years. I feel like God is using me to make a point.

Tomorrow we close, and then–wheeeeeee–back to Miami for a while. It will end. I will remind myself of that over and over, the same way I’ve said the same thing to myself when I’ve had the flu or severe diarrhea. Like severe diarrhea, every visit to Miami eventually ends.

I don’t have any new photos worth posting, but you can expect some when we take possession. Believe that.

Now I’ll relax before dinner. Time to lie back and think about tractors.

Written on August 2

Closing is Near

I can’t post this entry tonight, but I wanted to write it anyway, while the details were fresh in my mind. What is the Christian life without testimony? A great product with no advertising. Tonight I will advertise.

I’m in Ocala, at a hotel. It’s more like a motel, but “hotel” sounds nicer. Day after tomorrow, my dad is closing on the new house. We have a walk-through tomorrow. I’m not posting this tonight, because it’s a bad idea to go on the Internet and tell people you’re not home.

I drove us up from Miami today. Not the most pleasant trip. It took quite a while to get my dad ready to leave. He has traveled hundreds of thousands or millions of miles, and he used to have it down to a science, but he complains that he has forgotten it all. We had to get all his stuff packed, and there was some resistance to my suggestions, so I worked with him to get it done his way. For some reason, he didn’t pack last night, so it took us around 45 minutes to get him into the car.

Once we were on the road, he wanted to stop for lunch about 3 1/2 hours after breakfast, and he had to make two other stops, so we didn’t make record time. I have to drive everywhere now, except for little trips he makes in Miami, so today I had to drive us the entire way, while coping with whatever problems he had.

Along the way, I texted some friends to let them know I was on the road. One family I know moved to Orlando a couple of years ago, and another couple moved to Kissimmee a few weeks back. I also emailed Leah, the new sister God gave me several years ago. She lives in Pensacola. Leah texted back and said she and her husband Scott were helping a family move from Pensacola to Sarasota. They would be going through Ocala. She said we should try to meet.

I texted her a little later, during our lunch trip to Cracker Barrel. She and her party were at a Cracker Barrel, too. Funny.

After a while, we coordinated again, and it turned out she would arrive in Ocala about 15 minutes after we did. We made it to the hotel and checked in, and 15 minutes later, I met Leah and Scott in the parking lot. How crazy is that?

We decided to go have food. I was a little concerned that my dad would dominate the conversation and keep it off of God, because he does that. To my surprise, he didn’t want to go. He wanted to go for a walk, which is something he can do safely here. We took off for Bob Evans!

Leah and Scott were helping her friends Eddie and Nora move. Eddie is a missionary. He felt God was telling him to move to Sarasota, which is apparently a fairly Godless area. Not a surprise, given the large number of arty people who live there. He and Nora decided to sell their house and go, and suddenly, over the last few weeks, things fell together quickly, and they were free to go. Their old house sold fast. Here’s something weird: their son and daughter, who look to be about ten and eight, were all for the move. Kids always hate moving, but before their parents were sold on the idea, the kids thought it was the right thing to do.

We sat down and ordered, and while the waitress was fussing over us (same waitress I had last time I went to this Bob Evans), I said I was going to do something for someone, and they thanked me, and I said if God was giving me a house, I could do this for them. Guess what the waitress said? “Amen.” Like it was normal for Christians to come in and talk about God with the wait staff. Because it probably is. I love this place.

We had a great talk, and we shared testimony. We caught up. It was wonderful. And the kids were so well-behaved, I didn’t know what to think. Miami kids scream in restaurants, and they get up and run between the tables.

Here’s part of the testimony I gave. I have a young friend named Travis. We get together for prayer. He studies at the University of Miami, which is close to my dad’s house. Travis knows Leah. Travis is not in the greatest financial shape. I told Leah and the group I had been praying the other day about the problems I would have getting my dad’s house in order for renting after the move, and that God had given me the answer: hire Travis to house-sit. He could let contractors in and make sure no one steals. He would have a little extra income, plus free rent, and I would be released to get the move done.

I said I wanted to take a picture of the group, just to mess with Travis. I was going to text it to him. I got up and took the picture. As I sat down, I said it was going to freak Travis out, and before I could sit down completely or send the text, the phone rang. It was Travis, asking how the trip was going. Of course, I had to send him Leah’s regards. Travis has been watching things come together supernaturally all through my efforts to move, so of course, he was bowled over. I let him know I could guarantee him a place through the month of September, so in addition to the shock of hearing about Leah, he got some very, very good news which took a weight off his back.

Scott and Leah and the crew said their goodbyes at my hotel, and they took off. They’ll be coming back through tomorrow, so maybe we’ll get together again!

I went to my room, and I saw I had forgotten my sleep mask. I need this thing. Hotel rooms are full of big LED’s that burn all night. I got hooked on masks because my rude Miami neighbors have bright security lights under their eaves. I went to CVS (I know the way to CVS!), but they were out of masks. Went to Walgreen’s, and the lady who worked there could not have been nicer. She knew the aisle and shelf where I would find a mask. I got to the aisle and found the masks. They usually cost $9. They were marked down to 99 cents. I bought two! You can’t beat that. Nothing else I saw there had the giant orange sale tag. It’s like they knew I was coming.

It has been a good day. Wouldn’t you agree? By the way, my friend who lives in Orlando called me back and said he was coming to help me on the day of the move, and he means it. It will be great to see the family. I’ll never get his kids out of the pool, though. That’s a given. They may move in.

I suspect more strange things will happen tomorrow. I certainly hope so.

I wonder how wrong we’ve been about God. Just how good IS he? How much should we dare believe?

I forgot to buy dental floss. I wonder if it will be on sale when I find it tomorrow.

I would wish you a great night, but you can’t see what I’m typing tonight, so I guess I’ll just say this: happy trails.

Still Here

Just blogging to confirm that I’m alive. Some wonderful things have happened over the last few days. Can’t go into detail today, but you will read about it soon.

The End is Near!

I can’t put all my business on the World Wide Web, but I can say that the day of reckoning is nearly here. My dad is about to close on a farm in northern Florida. Very shortly, my well-deserved captivity in Miami will come to an end.

The other day a friend asked if “the reality of the move” was sinking in. She was talking about my dad, but it made me think. I have not fully absorbed it, myself.

Physical captivity ends quickly. When they release a man from prison, it takes less than a day to put him on the street. The passage through the prison gate takes an instant. The time it takes for him to feel free inside is longer.

It sounds dramatic, comparing a move between a reasonably affluent American city and a pleasant rural home to being released from prison, and of course, I am not suggesting my time here has been anything like what prisoners go through. I’m just talking about the principle. I felt trapped in this place. It seemed like all my efforts to break free were hindered or cut off. I felt (feel) claustrophobic. I look forward to seeing the horizon once in a while. I look forward to getting away from these rude, coarse people.

In a text message yesterday, I referred to the new place as “the farm,” as if I already owned it. I crossed a little threshold there. I don’t have to call it “the house we’re buying” or “the place we made an offer on.” It’s “the farm” now.

What will I do up there? I only have one friend in the whole county. I’ll be fine. These days, I only have one friend in Dade County. It won’t be much different. I have friends in Orlando and Kissimmee, and I know they’ll visit. Once I start attending a church, I’ll make friends. I don’t need a lot of people to be happy. I tend to pick up parasites and abusers, and a small crowd is easier to vet.

For the first month, I’ll be busy settling in, and I’ll also be taking care of problems in Dade County. I know I’ll have to come back here several times. I was dreading it, but then I thought about it, and I realized it’s much better to visit this place than to live here. When I visit Marion County, I leave an unpleasant place, relax in a nice place, and drive back to an unpleasant place for a long stay. When I visit Miami, it will be a photographic negative of that experience. The pain of Miami will be fleeting, and when I leave, it will be for longer and longer periods, soon to become permanent.

I wish I didn’t have to come back. It would be fine with me if this county sank into the earth. But I can cope with visiting. The pain will be mingled with triumph.

Moving is like settling down into a bath that kills ticks, fleas, lice, and leeches. One by one, I will feel the little mouths and claws let go, and the slime of their presence will be washed away.

We live surrounded by spirits. Miami is a cesspool of demon worship, so I believe things are worse here. The county is full of Hispanics and Haitians who actively pursue demons and pledge their lives to them. It makes me wonder…will I feel better up north simply because I’m no longer living in a demonic hub? I’ll bet I do. I’ll bet things go better up there, simply because Satan has fewer personnel available to torment me, and because God has more people to fight them.

The money for the house will have to be wired. Most people buy homes with loans, so they don’t go through what I’m going through. I have to take a sizeable part of a person’s net worth and send it off in what amounts to a bank-to-bank email. There are all sorts of ways for that to go wrong.

While I was suffering with my continuing legal education [sic], I learned a lot about the ways criminals steal money in cyberspace. Here’s one of the smarter ways: a wire recipient sends you his banking info. A crook intercepts it, substitutes his own info, and sends it on to you. You use it, and your money ends up in Botswana.

When I first received wiring instructions, everyone kept telling me to call the escrow people and read the information back to them. The realtor told me. The escrow people told me. I didn’t know why until I found out about the substitution scam. I guess there are horror stories.

I will be a very happy guy when I get confirmation that the money has been received. I confirmed the information twice and printed out a hardcopy just to be sure. I figure it will be hard for people in Botswana to hack a piece of paper in the USA.

I suppose this will all seem real when I walk onto the land and see the movers carrying boxes in. I may start the tractor and zoom around the yard in circles to celebrate. Is it legal to drink and drive a tractor? We may well find out. I’m entitled. Noah knocked back a few when he got his new property.

That didn’t work out too well, though. Maybe I’ll just have a root beer.

A few days back, I realized I had the same mindset about heaven. I know that’s where I’m headed, but it’s still hard to believe it with my whole heart. Some day I’ll wake up in a place where everything is right. It will be a place where the arrogant, fatuous, transparently false slogans of Apple and Google could be applied without snickering: everything just works, and those who live there are not evil. It’s real. Northern Florida is real, and heaven is real. It’s going to happen.

Hope it won’t be long before I’m blogging via laptop from the north pasture.

John Deere Gear and Lukewarm Decaf

It’s raining, so that means I don’t have to install my dad’s pool pump today. Some people might claim it’s possible to install a pool pump on a rainy day, especially in a shed with a roof. Those people are clearly fools. I am goofing off on the Internet, digesting Egg McMuffins (or as they are called in Miami, “A. Mack Moofings”), and hoping the chicas at McDonald’s gave me decaf instead of the real thing.

I’m still very excited about being a near-tractor-owner. I’m even excited about working on them. My current shop is so jammed, working on anything large is like cleaning the Augean stables (Look how my classical education is paying off), but with the room I’ll have in Marion County, I’ll be able to walk around a tractor without stepping over anything.

My grandmother had a funny expression for small rooms. She said they were “too small to whip a kitten,” and by “whip,” I believe she meant “swing.” As in “too small to swing a cat.” I’m going to have cat-swinging room.

I probably won’t get to work on them a lot. They’re both in good condition, and they’re quality machines. I could always buy a $750 1965 Massey-Ferguson just to have a patient.

I’ve done what every responsible tractor owner does. I went online and ordered a John Deere T-shirt. I also looked at Kubota shirts. They only have a couple of designs that aren’t way too orange or full of heinous polyester. They need to fix that. John Deere has too many green shirts (I don’t wear green), but at least they have cotton.

Someone told me I was not allowed to wear a John Deere hat. Because the garden tractor is small, I’m limited to ball caps. I don’t care. I’ll tell people it’s a big tractor. I’m going to take a fuzzy photo of it, and I’ll hire a midget to sit in the seat to make it look bigger. Either that, or I’ll get the mother of my 3-year-old godson to let me put a fake beard on him.

I found one Kubota shirt that wasn’t too bad. It’s black, with “Kubota” written on the front in Japanese characters. At least it’s SUPPOSED to say “Kubota.” In reality, it may say “Sucker” or even just “Shirt.”

I need to find me a tractor umbrella. The last thing I want is to fry in the sun while running my machines. I wish there were some way to grow grass indoors. Actual grass, I mean.

Time to go look out the window and thank God for the rain.

The Past Never Completely Dies

The day gets weirder and weirder.

God granted my tractor wishes, and then I realized I had to think about insurance. I didn’t know how to do it. Are tractors vehicles? Do you need vehicle insurance? I wondered. Based on my Googling, I decided they were probably items covered by homeowner’s insurance.

I already had a couple of quotes, but I decided to get some more. I tried to get online quotes, and I got the runaround. I finally called a company. I started talking to an agent.

We started talking about the fact that I was moving from Miami to northern Florida. Gradually, he let me know that he and his wife had lived here. His opinion of Miami was about like mine. He hated it. They left after Hurricane Andrew.

He talked about the horrible schools his wife had attended in Miami. Ghetto nightmares where white kids were not safe. He didn’t mention the racist violence; that’s all me. He said she went to Miami Edison for high school, and Horace Mann for junior high. Those are the wretched schools I would have had to attend, had my mother not battled my dad to get him to send me to private school.

He started talking about her elementary school. Sure enough, it was Miami Shores Elementary. My old school. I told him so. I said I probably went to school with his wife. He asked me what year I was born, and I told him. Same year as the wife. He told me her last name! “Elaina!”, I said. I didn’t know her well, but I knew who she was. Too funny.

The school had seven grades and a thousand students, so I pretty much had to know her. It comes out to around 140 students per grade.

When we got done with the call, I told him to tell his wife I congratulated her on surviving Edison, and I congratulated them both on escaping Miami.

It would be funny if I got insurance through him.

It was an interesting experience, but I was also a bit disturbed. I don’t like remembering the old days. I want to feel disconnected from them. I want them to not exist. Actually, moving to Marion County has its disturbing side, because the worst parts of my childhood took place in Tampa, which is more like Marion County than Miami. Tampa and Marion County smell similar. The plants are similar. Some of the home construction is similar. There were a lot of Marion County homes I refused to consider because they reminded me of those times.

It’s way better than Miami. No doubt about that. And I don’t think I’ll be running into anyone from my past there, except for one law school friend who lives in the area. She’s okay, though, and when I think of the darker times of my past, law school is not what I think of. I had a great time in law school.

Hey, here’s another small world item: Reince Priebus just got canned. A guy from my original college class was president for 8 miserable years, while another guy from that class (Stephanopoulos) covered him for NBC, and then a guy from my law school was chief of staff for the next president.

I wondered how Reince got the job. I don’t mean to pick on anyone, and I don’t really know him, but he seemed very unremarkable when we were in law school together. He was a mover and shaker in student government, but I always thought those people were silly. Student government, I thought, was for people who didn’t have the talent to make it without crass, aggressive self-promotion, and I thought it was undignified for adults to run for student offices. When he made it big, my impression was that he was in way over his head. It may be that I was right. In an office like chief of staff, you want a Rumsfeld or a Cheney. Someone sharp and strong. Reince always looked worried and unsure.

Time to unwind. I may go nuts and have an entire beer.

Tractors!

I’m a tractor owner! In fact, I own TWO tractors! I’m the happiest man alive. I feel like my wife just had twins.

I’m exaggerating. I don’t own tractors yet, but I have a deal in place. The seller of the house I’m moving to made me an insane offer on his tractors, plus a bush hog and golf cart, and I just found out he has been made aware of my acceptance. He’s going to get the papers ready.

“Why are you buying tractors if you don’t own the house?” Good question. Without boring you with details, there are good financial reasons for me to buy them instead of letting my dad do it.

This is incredible. In February, I was on my knees thanking God for the opportunity to move one county north and sit on 2 little acres. I’d have pretty much the same bad weather we have here, and the people would be about 30% as annoying. The traffic would be much more bearable, but it would not be as light as it is in northern Florida. Here it is July, and I’m on the verge of closing on a bigger property three hundred miles away. With tractors. Tractors, baby. Not riding mowers. Don’t tell me God isn’t good.

What next? Maybe a Sofia Vergara clone will descend from the sky and tell me she needs a good Christian husband to pray with.

Here’s a bad photo of the new babies.

When I get up there, I’m going to fire them up and ride them in circles. Just so I can say I’ve been out on my tractor all day.

The golf cart is not as cool as a tractor, but it’s still pretty neat. I guess I’ll wear it out. I’ll put a rifle rack on it and patrol the grounds. I would be tempted to put a Confederate flag on it, just to annoy snowflakes who might see it on Google Earth, except I gave up my stars and bars some years before it became mandatory.

Dang. Now I need tractor insurance. I didn’t think of that.

Okay, now I’m a tractor insurance expert. Apparently, you can cram tractors into your homeowner’s policy. Hope that information is correct.

It appears that my vehicle insurance will cost almost a third less up north. Won’t that be nice? Not as low as I had hoped. I guess just being in the same state with Miami has an effect. A Miami idiot might run into you while driving between Miami and New York.

Things are generally cheaper in northern Florida. Down here, you pay extra for the immense privilege of being in Miami. It’s like having a cover charge in hell.

In other news, I managed to fix the problems with my dad’s boat with very little effort. Thank God. With boats, you never know whether jobs will take five minutes or five hours. Here’s hoping no more bad things happen before we move.

If it weren’t so late, I’d go outside and install his new pool pump. I figure it’s a twenty-minute job, so I assume it will take three hours. Ever the optimist.

That’s all I got. But it’s enough.

Out of my Way, You Pillars of Salt

Today is a better day than most. I am waiting for a mechanic to give me a report on the farm machinery I intend to buy. For a hundred bucks, a trained diesel mechanic is looking at a farm tractor, a garden tractor, and a gas-powered golf cart for me. If God smiles on me, soon I will receive his report, and I will be cleared for takeoff.

It’s wonderful to know that when I move, I won’t have to begin my northern Florida experience with a month of tractor-shopping. Buying vehicles is like dating. It’s full of pitfalls and the potential for bitter regret. If I get the machines the mechanic is looking at, I’ll be covering all the bases at once, and I’ll be getting a very good price.

I still have a lot to do here. My dad has rental properties, and one is vacant right now. Yesterday I toured it with the realtor who looks after our properties. It was very depressing. The tenants were slobs, even by tenant standards. They painted the dining room walls a dark rust color, in semi-gloss instead of flat. They painted other areas a sickly baby blue, and of course, they got paint on the white popcorn ceiling. They destroyed the vertical blinds. They were told to patch all of their nail and screw holes when the left, so they jammed spackling compound into them, but they didn’t sand them.

Here’s one of their more impressive stunts: they drove a doorknob through a wall and left a patch you wouldn’t believe. Someone slammed the door and drove the doorstop through it, and after that, I guess they figured it was okay to use the wall as a doorstop.

I knew the place needed new kitchen cabinets, but now it looks like it will need to have the bathrooms done. A contractor had the gall to submit a $30,000+ estimate. Dude. It’s a rental. Granite is for people who take care of things. It’s not for tenants.

I would sell it right now, as is, but then I would have to think about capital gains tax. To avoid paying, I have to have a new rental property in mind, and I have to buy it within a few months. Tall order.

Never buy residential rentals. You have to be out of your mind to get into it. Residential tenants have the same respect for your property that convicts have for prisons. They expect homes to be perfect when they move in, and then they live like animals. Commercial tenants are completely different. They expect nothing except walls, and they don’t ask for much. More often than not, they make improvements which they leave behind. And you can evict them FAST. Try that with a home. Even a squatter who came in through a window can hold you off for months.

Here’s another fun item on my list. My dad’s pool pump died. Couldn’t it wait another year? Guess not. I had one delivered, and now I have to install it. In the hottest weather of the year. That will be a joy.

It gets better. The starboard battery bank on my dad’s boat is dead. Somehow, we discharged it so much it laughs at the battery charger. I have to try to charge it with the port engine, using jumper cables. Won’t that be fun? If I don’t get on it today or tomorrow, the boat could sink because the bilge pumps won’t run.

Guess I should make that my top priority. I’ve gotten used to the lovely emerald shade the pool has turned.

On the up side, the mechanic just called, and he thinks the machinery is worth twice what the seller is asking, so there’s some good news. There are a couple of hydraulic leaks, but they’re easy fixes, and the bush hog has a deck tear I should be able to weld up. Hooray for me.

Time to head for the boat, to erase all the good I did with my morning shower. Pray I get it running, and that I can resist the urge to scuttle it.

Guess I Should Also Think About Furniture

I feel like providing an update on the diesel front.

I finally got some details on the golf cart, tractor, and garden tractor the seller of my new home wants to sell me. The tractor has 1100 hours, and it has a small hydraulic leak the seller can’t find. The garden tractor has 783 hours (Yanmar diesel), and it has a small leak around the PTO shaft. The cart has 308 hours.

The seller says he adds fluid to the tractors after every fourth use.

I looked into hydraulic leaks, and it sounds like I’m not in much danger. When the mechanic looks the machines over, he should be able to tell if there’s a serious problem. Some hydraulic leaks are a big deal, and others are just annoying. The PTO leak on the John Deere sounds trivial. You can buy a new seal for $9.50. The people who sell the seal say it’s easy to install. Which is what you would expect them to say, I grant you.

I told the realtor (our messenger) I would be comfortable at $10K, but if the seller comes back and sticks at $11K, I’ll buy the machines anyway, because that was already a great price.

If what I’ve read is correct, 1100 hours is around 25% of the time a typical tractor will run before needing major work. Given that the tractor is around 17 years old, and assuming I work as much as the seller did, I should be fine for the next 51 years.

The garden tractor is supposedly immortal, except for the mower part, which is called a “deck.” Even that can be repaired, as long as the really big parts aren’t destroyed. I have read about people running them for upwards of 4000 hours. Also, I’m a machinist and welder. Surely I should be able to fix a few of the things that wear out.

According to the small amount of information I’ve been able to find, gas-powered golf carts are good for 5000 hours before they need to be totally redone or scrapped. I figure 308 hours is an acceptable total for a used machine. Even if it blows up, it’s a cheesy 350-cc motor which can’t cost much to fix or replace.

This is exciting. I’m going to have a tractor. Not thrilled at the prospect of mowing, I admit, but…tractor. You can do a lot with a tractor. It’s a tool. And I love buying tools.

The cart will need a radio. I can’t be out there touring the grounds with no tunes. Forget that.

I’m having a hard time finding a mechanic in Marion County who will go look at the machines. Angie’s List and Yelp don’t work all that well in the sticks.

I look forward to posting photos of my farm adventures.