Yesterday—that would be Tuesday, I guess—we did business going first to a broker who confused and perplexed the hell out of us with his talk of genni maes (whatever the hell those are) mars (whatever the hell those are), but Carol managed to get the money her mother her left divided up (between her and her sister) and then we went to a bank to make the wire transfers from another account Mrs. Press had there and as soon as I saw the three women in charge of what was going on I got up and left immediately because I just knew I couldn’t stand watching three incompetents make a wire transfer….and sure enough, when I came back, Carol said it had been hell and had she not been there to direct the three it would never have gotten done, but was done while I was sitting at a Starbucks tired out of my mind and about to scream at all those people screaming over their cell phones many of them in foreign tongues that I could not identify at all.
So finally we got to the little hotel in downtown SD where we planned to stay the night down by the water so we could walk down there and vacation a tiny bit, but—what do you know—their boiler had blown its top and they had no heat at all. We checked out the room but you could have stored frozen food in there so they found another room for us at a Hampton Inn along an ugly strip of motels and fast food joints, right next to the damn railroad tracks. So the room looks ok but the TV goes on and off of its own accord when ever the hell it feels like it as if a ghost is screwing with the remote. So Carol calls down and finally Gustavo comes up, the TV guy for the building, and shows me how to unplug the TV to keep it from going on at night while we are sleeping because he says the TV picks up signals from cells and all manner of electronic apparatus.
So then later on after we had a good dinner at an Italian place, I plug the TV in but we can only get one channel. I monkey around with the cords in the back so finally we get more than one channel but only half the ones we are supposed to get. So Gustavo comes back up and checks it out and decides the thing needs a whole new box and he goes down to get one and get it programmed at the front desk but I mess with some cords in the back because a connection seems bad and bingo we get all the channels though of course there is nothing at all worth watching, except for episodes of that purposefully disgusting Family Guy, which was pretty awful except for one inspired bit with the bloopers and outtakes of that Osama guy making a video tape threatening to take out the Western World. And while we are watching the bad TV people keep trying to break into our room because they can’t read numbers I guess and so they rattle the door knob when their key won’t work, and then people come rapping at the door saying they are all looking for Mr. Kim and Carol says Mr. Kim is not in the room but they might try the door right next to ours because some really popular person seems to be in that room. Lord Knows what Mr. Kim is up to but he is in high demand.
So all and all the trip served to confirm me in my opinion that the United States is falling apart right before my eyes, that things have become far too complex for anybody to manage properly, and that cell phones should be banned from any and all public places. People using them outside of their cars and their homes should be forced to go stand in the places reserved for people who smoke.
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I got a strong vibe from that seagull right outside our hotel window, so I took a pic.
The second one is the fore mast of the Star of India an actual sailing ship in the SD museum of old ships.
The last one is the main mast of the Star. I like all the lines.
