Life lately has been much of the same old thing sandwich, another day - another bite of a somewhat shitty sandwich. Actually, it has been better than that at least a bit it seems. Then again, some things have been very stinky lately. First off, I just registered my car in AR this past week. That was not so bad. I had to get my car assessed for an annual tax on vehicles, boats and such. Luckily, I owed nothing, I think because when I paid it, it was before my last registration expired and the payment made before a year was up since my last payment. They will nail me next year, that is if I still live in AR. Time will tell.
Then there was my 9K+ credit card debt really that knocked me for a loop. I paid off everything today, including charges that are due next month, minus a few small pending charges on one of the two accounts I use regularly. The reason for the very big balances were: a 2.2K+ firearms auction charge, a 2.5K insurance charge for both auto & renter's insurance, and about $1.5K for ammo. Even with all that taken out of consideration there would still be a bit over 3K owed. Even that smaller amount is too much for me; I much hope my cc balances will add up to no more than 2K per month and 1.5K is much more preferable. I do all of my shopping with my cards though; those Hilton Honors hotel points and Amazon Prime points come in handy. You don't get points when you pay with cash and I hardly ever get charged interest on my card balances because I pay them off in full each month.
Getting away from my financial spending sprees, not much else has been going on that irks me. I had a nice day on Saturday as I left the mongrel hone and drove over to Hot Springs, AR to meet my son at a gun show. His buddy Joseph was there with him when I arrived; Joseph's wife Tina was a no show as was Brendan's girlfriend Nikki. Now, while meeting my son and his pal was nice, I have to say the gun show was hottendous (not a misspelling). That was not so much because it was a smaller one, nor that the prices on almost everything were sky high. One jerk was asking for $80.00 per brick of Federal 22 LR and it was nothing special. That dealer needs to come back to reality and back down to earth with his pricing - let's face it this is not the height of COVID-19 madness nor did Biden get elected yesterday. I can buy the same or very similar ammo online at $35.00 per brick. The reason the show was hottendous was because the show was held inside a metal building at the county fairgrounds and that building had no air-conditioning. Damn it, it was hot in there.
I like the particular gun show promoters who ran that show but I must say, I will never attend one of their shows again at the same fairgrounds unless it is on a cool or even cold day. Man oh man - it was miserable in there. Some of the dealers who were just sitting at their tables were soaked with perspiration sweat. I suggested to a few of them that they should ask for a refund of their table fees. Two gents, from whom I bought a box of ammo, packed up their good and left the show shortly after my purchase and there were at least 3 hours to go of showtime and all of the next days time as well.
I walked around the show a few times, as I said it was small. My son pointed out a box of Remington Core-Lokt 30-06, 150 grain ammo for sale at only $25.00. The lowest price I found online for the same stuff was $20.00 on AmmoSeek.com but that had a very high shipping price and would also be charged sales tax. So the price of the one at the show was not bad and I bought it. Now, I also paid $8.00 to get into the show and used up over half a tank of gas which made it a very expensive box of ammo indeed if that had been the only reason I filled my tank. Of course, the gas expense was worth seeing my boy and the entry fee was part of attending a gun show, so the ammo was a good deal. Other vendors had plenty of $30-06, the least expensive being $35.00 per box.
Somehow Brendan had thought, when I showed it to him after I bought it, that I had purchased it for him. Ha-ha-hearty-ha-ha as Ralph Kramden would have said! Heck, I had a hundred rounds of 180 grain federal 30-06 in my trunk for him already that I had brought from home (halft of a case of it I had picked up in the 1.5K worth of ammo sales I mentioned above). He even asked me the next day if it had been for him but I told him he was out of luck. He is happy with and thankful for the Federal ammo, I am sure (especially since he told me so).
One day soon, I'll be going into the hospital for an overnight. Nothing to worry about, just a sleep study to check on my sleep apnea and to give me recommendations for a treatment for it. I am hopeful there are other things than CPAP; I have both CPAP and BiPAP machines and cannot use them due to everlasting complications from radiation treatments back in 2011.
No need for me to comment on politics or the economy in this post - let's face it you and I know both suck. One interesting thing of note, that I saw in Instagram, was a short video clip in which a guy asked Alexa when WW III would start. Alexa, or a faked Alexa, replied that WW III would commence on March 1, 2024 with Chinese nationals already within the USA commencing hostilities. That is to be concurrent with the Chinese military forces invading the west coast of the United States and Russian military forces invading the east coast. Who knows! I doubt Russia will be invading anywhere as busy as they seem to be in the Ukraine but it would not surprise me much if China would invade our country. They have been preparing for it for many decades. If they do, maybe they can get Russia to do it as well. Keep yer powder dry.
All the best,
Glenn B
