Earlier this week, I was telling you about my research into the “winds of luck.”
Which picked up to a gentle breeze on Wednesday as two things happened: A reader sent me a note to be extra careful on our trip as she had bad vibes about us flying out west.
No worries there…this is a driving trip.
But here the story takes a turn. Yesterday on my way up to Tyler, Texas, do take care of last minute banking details (it takes money to go to a casino, right?) what happened? The “check engine light” came on.
So I did the usual…water, oil, tranny fluid, brake levels…and everything was fine.
My next stop was an AutoZone store – which has a dandy service if you haven’t used it. You go in, and free, they will hook up a computer to your car or truck and tell you what the OBD II (onboard diagnostics, level 2) computer is saying. In my case, it as a couple of ABS sensors.
While we’re still planning to continue our trip (the car is drivable) we will be stopping for a couple of hours at the Lexus store (Sewell) up in Ft. Worth where they’ll have the car up on a rack and fix whatever it is…putting a 2-3hour hole in our plans.
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That’s OK, however. We’ll simply find a comfortable place to hang out, hook up computers and we’re good for however long it takes.
But this gets me to the point of this morning’s comment on life.
Once upon a time, when a person went on a trip, they packed clothes, a handful of postcards (blank) and a pen. That was it. If you wanted to keep in touch with the people back home, you’d fill out a post card and in two or three days it would land, thus informing whoever of whatever and that was ‘keeping in touch.’
Nowadays, however, two things have dramatically changed our travel. Medicine and electronics.
The medicine is no big deal. There’s four pills for me, a fifth in case of a gout attack, and that’s it. Except that Elaine and I both do a few supplements, so that by the time we add up the pill bottle its about 15 in all. Once you get over 60, read the research on vitamin C and lysine, and on things like L-arginine, you’ll become a believer.
Oh, sure, you can count out the pills for each day into one of those 7-day pill holders, which is how long this adventure should last, BUT that takes time so it’s easier to toss em all in a case of their own and off we go.
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Now to the point. Electronics. This is a bigger deal than our clothing, for cryin out loud!
It struck me this morning that everything else on this trip is shrinking in significance compared to the “electronics bay” we’ve loaded for the trip. Here’s the list:
- George’s cell phone
- George’s cell phone charger
- Elaine’s cell
- Elaine’s charger
- Mobile power cords
- George’s computer
- Wireless mouse and keyboard
- Gambling software for this luck theory test
- Streets and Trips 2013 update
- Charts data transfer to laptop from home server.
- Fresh chip for camera
- Spare chip for camera
- Back up (portable) GPS
- George’s Kindle
- Elaine’s Kindle
- Kindle chargers
- Batteries, AA.: Camera 4, keyboard 2 (AAA), mouse 2, camera 4, GPS 2… screw it, a 24-pack oughta do it.
- Ham radio
- Charger and repeater directory for above
- Flip video recorders (2) and four more AAs for them.
- Did I mention a couple of backup network cables?
- How about updating contact lists…oh, my head hurts…
And, to top it all off, Elaine’s computer, wireless keyboard and mouse, carrying case and a backup 500 GB drive that we share.
But wait, there’s more!
Before going on a trip, I also back up everything, so I have 1.5 gB of backup files for the UrbanSurvival and Peoplenomics website that were made Wednesday.
Oh…and the electronic web of travel also includes telling our bank that we’re going on a trip. And (in theory) this will make it so we don’t have credit cards turned off part way through the trip by the automatic anti-fraud system. But again, the electronic web continues to tighten around its prey.
With the bro-in-law here, we don’t worry about home security, but without him, we wonder how much other electronics could possible be involved. My son showed me all eight of his online security, auto-recording cameras that monitor his digs, when he was down recently and this morning it all came together.
We’ve gone from the days when Ma & Pa Kettle would pile in camping gear and go to a complete rat’s maze of reservations, deposits, electronics, backups, software, barriers, and batteries.
So much so that if the White House ever wanted to “lock down America” all they’d have to do is turn off hotel wireless routers and lock up the AA batteries.
American travel would die on the vine.
Serious Gambling Advice
As our trip bulldozes ahead, this email gives us plenty of stuff to add into our “research” plans:
1) Gamble during the Psi Window (12:30 to 14:30 Local Sidereal Time).
The Psi Window triples the efficacy of remote viewing, per one study (Let me know if you want the citation). Gambling during this window in games where remote viewing/knowledge would be useful (like poker or blackjack) might result in bigger gains. You could also try gambling 12 hours later than the Psi Window (ie., 00:30 to 2:30 Local Sidereal Time) to see if your luck is much worse.
On 3/6/2014, the Psi Window occurs between 02:40 and 04:40 AM in your local time zone, not corrected by Daylight Savings Time. This should be true within +/- about 15 minutes anywhere on the planet. The Psi Window backs up on the clock face about 4 minutes a day.
“Sidereal Clock” is a free app (on android, maybe others) that tells you the current Local Sidereal Time at your location. From that, you can calculate when the Psi Window will occur in your local time.
2) Work the Fibonacci Ratio (f) into your gambling.
The Fibonacci Ratio is found in everything from the curve of the roots of your teeth to the curving of the spiral arms of the galaxy. Maybe it’s in ‘luck’ too;
It approximates at 0.6180339… You generate it by adding 2 numbers of a sequence to get the third, then divide the last 2 numbers in the series to get an approximation. For example, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144 and so on. 89/144 is about 0.618… 144/89 is about 1.618…
In a room of slot machines, you could put 2 coins in the first, one each in machine 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 etc.
Bet on f numbers at the roulette wheel, or make red=even and black=odd to bet on roulette color outcomes.
3) You gotta play to lose.
So don’t play too long. Casinos stay in business from long-term players.
Have fun–hope you don’t lose too much :-)Trent T, subscriber from Maryland
Fine advice…now, if someone would just work out local sidereal time for us in Arizona, that would be useful. Otherwise, I will be reduced to doing a “sun shot” at noon local time and hopping for the best…
Tom’s Gambling Advice
From the Southbay area…..
To make a long one short, I met up with a pro black jack player (Larry Revere). I learned all he offered in a book he wrote and then hounded him until he taught me his advanced point count system. It was a complex system but it returned an average of 3% year after year. That’s 3% of TOTAL bets across the table. It was normal for me to make 250 to $300hr depending on table conditions and always using sound money management.
This was NOT gambling !
This went on for several years until I got greedy. I finally found some real money and started to put a team together…bottom line….I was soon followed, photographed, and booted from the strip. Nicely at first, then slapped in the head when I returned.
Now for a little woo. Well not really woo, because it was valid, time after time.
At some point during each trip (after profit mark was achieved) I would go search out a table that had a lively, happy, joyful person (pref pretty girls) and I would take x amount of dollars to play until lost, while drinking and just having fun. Well, it went far beyond the odds of chance.
Surrounded by great (positive) energy of other people, it combines with an unstoppable force that would create magic. I made more money a large % of the time by just learning to tap that energy with no fear. This all happened while not playing the system. Granted, at that point in my intense training, I could keep an accurate multiple deck count unconsciously. That was not it though.
I dropped all money management and point counts during those free sessions and just listened to and followed my gut. That energy is there and does work exponentially when combined with other well meaning, no fear, fun loving souls in your playing environment. Years and hundreds of such
sessions proved to me without any doubt whatsoever.One other thing that has proven itself over and over for me, is major transits in your birth chart . For one, I would never miss a $ trip when transiting Jupiter is conjunct my 2nd house planets (7yrs).
Another is your “locational” astrology for gambling destinations you visit. FYI
Tom’s observations really got me to thinking. Remember year before last when Elaine and I went up to have dinner with Robin (and Judy) Landry up in Oklahoma? I went around the casino west of town (Fire Lake) and passed out about $10 in one dollar bills.
I just walked up to people and said “I’m giving out lucky dollar bills…would you play one for me?” And maybe (by Tom’s theory) the reason that worked for me (I won $423) is that people were HAPPY to get free money… just thinking out loud here.
Send me a chart of Payson, AZ locationally, for Friday through Monday though and we’ll try that out, too…
Deal of the Century
Reader Kimberly up in Michigan has found a grand topic. With the high cost of college, have we ever talked about getting a degree through home schooling?
I did a quickie search on Amazon and it turned up a book that fits, Homeschooling for College Credit which sounds like a great start.
But not anywhere as good as “Deal of the Century” on Kindle for How to Homeschool College: Save Time, Reduce Stress, and Eliminate Debt (Coffee Break Books).
Of course, the key thing is to follow the rules, figure some way to get the credits moved around, and how that you can find an employer who is interested in “what you can do” instead of hiring people based on who they can suck up to, who they can socialize with, and who mommy and daddy can afford to have do the babysitting after high school…
Wait….did you see an opinion go by? (Hint: If there’s been all this “improvement” in delivery of education thanks to online and computers and all that, then why are college textbooks around $150 a pop and why is a degree more expensive than ever? And who are the ‘foons in Washington who can’t figure this shit out without help? Don’t get me started.;…where the BP meds.
Aw ‘Chute and Finer Points of Snow-Writing
There are no end of old sayings about people and their circumstances. Just recently my son passed along the two that have been the most meaningful in his life, so far. But at 34, that’s not very far yet…
One was passed along from a buddy of his when they in some kind of tight-spot (the kind of thing dads don’t want to know: plausible deniability). “When I get out of this, George, I’m gonna dance through life…”
It’s a dandy ‘tude, whether you’re in a jam or not. It’s just that shitty circumstances and bad medical reports tends to remind people of what’s really important but most times it’s blown off.
Second saying he’s picked up is “Everyone dies. But not everyone lives….” That’s from his skydiving practice. He’s going through instructor training now that he’s bought his own rig…a brand new custom-made 190.
Of course, his skydiving pals think a 190 is a cowardly & wussy chute. Despite his parents, G2 has started to develop the “common sense” gene.
True, he’s jumped a 140, or was it a 120?, but when he tried to explain his decision ( a sensible discussion of how altitude density works when you’re jumping in hot weather) he’s found that there are men with more testosterone than brains, some with no testosterone…and that somewhere in the middle, maybe shading a little more to brains, is about right.
To make it simple: The hotter air is (for a given size parachute) the faster you fall. The more moist it is, the faster, too. The bigger the chute, the slower the impact. He has yet to bend or break anything 75-80 whatever jumps into it.
G2 has put together a whole “parachute tourism” plan for himself which this year has already included Skydive Spaceland southwest of Houston. His next DZ will be Skydive Arizona in Eloy…where I told him to look out for the Morlocks. That got me a moment of silence…but I promised to explain some day. So here’s a link, G.
G2, being precise as most medical types are, would note that the Eloy of Arizona and the Eloi of HG Wells are differently….That is part of the government cover-up, pure and simple. They’re all a bunch of escapees from Dulce, NM’s underground bases and you know the problems they’ve had up northwest of there, lately…juss sayin…
How does a Dad respond when the son starts actually speaking intelligently about life?
Near as I can figure, just as he’s getting really distant from his childhood and going on man-adventures, as luck would have it, I’m now old enough to be entering my second childhood.
So I though this morning I’d send him a note on the finer points of writing in snow.
Dear Son:
Thanks for sharing your interesting plans in life. Better choice than Bitcoin tourism by a mile.
Glad to hear about the great job review and raise.
Since I’m about to enter my second childhood, I’m thinking about those 10 courses between me and my PhD in business. So I might hit you up for a school loan, maybe next year.
Gotcha! Just kidding, of course, but I wanted you to know how it feels as a reminder to reproduce no faster than your bank account.
Weather’s been cold this week. In fact, we had enough snow down here in Texas that I was able to “write my name in the snow.” The older I get, the more difficult this simple task becomes, however.
For one, seems little point to going outside when all the plumbing works and it’s colder’n shit out there. The whole-body shivering isn’t so bad as the hands start to shaking from the cold. That results in a wider script.
God Bless Texas: it’s a novelty to step outside your office door, pee on Ure own snow and not be busted by a SWAT team for offending the public order. Haven’t seen any deer since, though, come to think of it.
If you ever try this up there, remember to take a double dose of B-complex vitamins so you can write and apply yellow highlighter at the same time.
Also, you’ll thank our ancestors from Scotland for sticking with a short name. G Ure is four-letters. My late friend Jonathan Williamson Christiansenstead, III blew up a kidney when challenged me to a snow-writing contest and I got through it three times still legible. The poor bastard died half way through his second line. I even told him to just write JWChristiansenstead3 to make it easy…what can I say?
Doc Thompston told me I could work on punctuation and underlining individual letters as a kind of male cold-weather keegle..
Elaine says “Hi!” between muttering something about me being a lunatic just because I suggested starting a novel in the front yard snow. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why she’s leading our gambling expedition to Arizona. No doubt thinking her luck is bound to change one of these days…
More tomorrow from on the road….
PS: Call Panama now and then. He’s just worn-out his second rifle barrel from cleaning it to death. I didn’t used to believe such a thing could happen, but the .22 rifle is now chambering .32s just fine. Bates reckons it will be a throw-away when .38s start chambering. Says the barrel will be too thin for heavy loads…
Write when you break even (or if light a candle for poor JW Christiansenstead, III.)
George george@ure.net