Do you have random thoughts?

Do you have random thoughts that run through your mind each day? Of course, you do. I got the idea that I would record my own random thoughts from one 24-hour time period. I was amazed at all of the things that crossed my mind in such a short period of time. Were my thoughts normal? I have no idea. I only know what my thoughts are and I don’t know what your thoughts are. Hope you enjoy the read.

By the way, I share a series of links to many of my previous posts at the end of this message. Maybe you missed one and want to revisit the post. I’m also keeping up with the presidential polls. If you want to see the results state by state and on a national basis check things out below. I can tell you this. There are a LOT of polls being put out by a lot of different pollsters!

Now let’s get started. This is what I thought about one day recently.

In California, we have a lot of freeway on-ramps that are two lanes wide. We have one in our town that I use frequently. What I like to do is come up to the stoplight and drive very slowly onto the on-ramp so the driver behind me becomes impatient and tries to go around in the second lane. Then I hit the gas, so to speak, on my electric-powered Tesla Model X and leave the “wannabe drag racer” in the proverbial dust. I can normally hit 90 miles an hour by the time I get to the on-ramp and my “competitor” is only a speck in my rearview mirror. Wife Carol says this is childish. Er?…so?

I am not a household chores person. The truth is I’m just not well suited for chores. However, my wife loves chores. I know what you’re thinking, “Maybe Randy you’re misreading the situation“. I’m not. That’s the way she rolls.

I needed to take my Tesla into the shop to get the air conditioning fixed. I should tell you this that I never had to do that with any of my Lexus cars. I set up an appointment using my Tesla app on my iPhone. The service experience itself truly was no touch. As soon as I pulled onto the Tesla property I received a text from Tesla. I clicked the link and they gave me a phone call. I explained the problem. They told me to leave the key in the car and park it. They provided me with an electronic $100 Uber credit for the ride home. When they called to tell me everything was fixed I grabbed another Uber paid for by Tesla and picked up the car. That’s about as touchless as you’re going to get.

Is Carol the boss in our house? Well, yeah. She has rules. Yes, I do abide by all of her rules. I guess that does make her the boss. As an example, when she’s in the car I can’t play the radio too loud. However…when she’s not in the car I can play my radio as loud as I want. I guess I am the boss…sometimes.

I am a huge fan of Sirius XM satellite radio. They have several music channels that are designated for one band or another. Here’s what I don’t understand. Today I clicked on the Beatles channel and of course, the first song was performed by the Beatles. However, in all of these situations no matter what the band is the second song always comes from somebody else. Today’s second song was “Sour Milk Sea” performed by Jackie Lomax. I’ve got to be honest with you. When I click on the Beatles channel I’m not looking to hear Jackie Lomax. Maybe that’s just me.

Carol and I have traveled to nearly 100 countries. Often times at the end of the trip we are left with unused foreign currency. Quite a bit of the time Carol just holds onto the currency and we use it on our next trip. That’s what happened when I went to Sweden in March. She gave me some Swedish kroner and I tried to spend it. Whoa! Not accepted. It seems “our” Swedish currency had been replaced a couple of years ago and was no longer good. I did some Google searching and found out that we could send the money back to Sweden and they would give us a credit minus some sort of commission. We’ve been battling back-and-forth with a Swede by the name of Sveriges. Sveriges…you need to know we don’t give up!

Recently I was on a trackchasing trip to Wisconsin. I got a message on my iPhone that my Tesla needed a software update. Somewhat unusually it was sitting in our garage for this trip and not parked at the airport. Carol and I had an unusual car arrangement getting me to the airport for the beginning of this trip. That being the case I simply pressed the button on my Tesla app and over the next 30 minutes my car got its over the air update while I was a couple of thousand miles away. What will they think of next?

We have lived in our home for nearly 20 years. I commonly say to my friends that if they were to offer me $1 million I could not tell them what day the trash people come to our house. I couldn’t do it. Why do I make such a statement to my friends? First, it’s true. Secondly, I think it makes me sound interesting and intriguing. My friends don’t hear stuff like that from their other friends. I’m thinking I don’t need to know when the trash people come. I have people who know that information.

Our next-door neighbor uses that house as his vacation home. He lives out of state. The other night he texted me and said he had forgotten to move their plastic trash cans off the street and back into where they keep them at the house. He asked me if I would do it. I’m always a good neighbor. Sure I would. This was the first time I’ve ever moved trash cans off the street, a distance of 25 feet or so in my life. Why do I say that? Because it’s true.

Am I being spoiled by my Tesla? Maybe. I do know this for sure. I would never ever own another car where the driver’s side door doesn’t open up remotely for me when I approach the car. Then once I am settled into the driver’s seat I simply tap break and the door closes. No, I will never open or close my driver’s door ever again by touch. Then that’s just me.

I believe in the 80/20 rule. It seems to apply in so many circumstances. It is a true statement that I believe 80% of the people in the world are stupid. Do you find that view a little harsh? What were you thinking? 85%? Yes, Carol cringes just a little bit when I say this but I’m pretty sure she knows it’s true. I just don’t know when I first meet someone which side of the fence they fall on with my 80/20 rule. Do I ever fall into the dreaded 80%? Well….yes.

Am I lucky to have such a cooperative wife as regards my solo travel? I wouldn’t call it lucky. Fortunate, maybe. Carol and I often have a friendly debate over who picked whom. We both seem to think we know the answer to that question. Then when I think about it a little more… maybe I am lucky.

I rent 50-75 cars a year from National Car Rental. For that, they give me an executive elite status. One of the perks is that I can call up with at least 24 hours’ notice and ALWAYS get a car even if to others they are sold out. Once in a while, I forget to call up with the 24-hour lead time. Then once in a while when I haven’t given them enough lead time they tell me they are sold out and there is no car for Randy. Wrong?! I don’t relate well to stupid rules. Last night I called up at 11 p.m. looking for a car in 12 hours at 11 a.m. in Minneapolis. They were sold out! No problem. I simply went in and changed my reservation. Yes, I was calling at 11 p.m. tonight. I simply told them I wanted to pick up a car tomorrow at 11 p.m. meeting there 24-hour notice requirement. They gave me a car Then when I arrived in Minneapolis I picked it up at 11 a.m. which is what I wanted to do all along. No, I don’t deal with stupid rules.

I love to multitask. I think I’m very good at it. Carol tells me that multitasking is a bad idea and that I can’t do each task well enough when I am multitasking. Then I tell her that commonly each task performed in life doesn’t have to be done perfectly. She scrunches up her nose. That’s when I think to myself, “Isn’t she beautiful”.

There are two things, amongst many, I need to do in my life. I need to get my steps in, 4 miles a day. I need to charge my Tesla. When I can I like to do both. This morning I was going to LAX and I was a little bit early. I had two options. I could park my car in my parking garage and then get in a couple of miles of steps before I caught my first plane of the day. Or, I could stop at a supercharger near LAX, get a little juice AND get in enough steps to cover at least one mile and maybe more. That’s multitasking. I love to multitask.

I am very much annoyed by people who can’t wait for me to stop telling them about my experience so they can tell me about THEIR experience. I have a conversational rule that I try to use as often as I can. When someone tells me about their experience I try to ask them a clarifying question or two to show my interest. The people who can’t wait to tell me about their trip when I start telling them about my trip I believe fall into my personal 80/20 rule. You can guess if I think they are part of the 80 or the 20.

I’ve got a lot of stories from the unusual travel lifestyle that is part of my world. Heck, you’ve been reading about many of those stories for quite a while now. I love telling stories to people who are hearing them for the first time. However, I feel bad for Carol. She’s heard some of these stories 500 times and she still sits there quietly with a smile on her face. What is she thinking about once she hears the story for the 500th time? Honestly, I really don’t know. Nevertheless, she is a very polite and gracious listener. I wish I had those skills.

I wanna know why I can drive down the freeway at 75 miles an hour following the car in front of me by a safe distance and never tap my brakes. Then the guy in front of me is following the car in front of him at the same 75 miles per hour with a much shorter gap that I’m using…and feels the need to tap his brakes every 15 seconds. Why is that? Is this the outcome of my 80/20 rule?

I’m just going to scream! Using the autopilot self-driving system on my Tesla freaks me out. Why? I know that my car is going to maintain a set speed that I selected. It will stay within my lane never ever touching either line marking my lane. If the car slows in front of me my car will maintain the distance I selected between my car and the car in front. So why am I freaked out? It’s these other idiotic moronic drivers. I am safely ensconced in my space. Then the other drivers try to invade my space on the road. It’s the 80/20 rule!

I just stopped at the Redondo Beach, up by LAX, Tesla supercharger station. It’s six o’clock in the morning. I got out of my car and connected the supercharger connection to my car. Just as I was doing that a beautiful red Tesla Model X pulled in. Two guys got out of the car and began to dance and scream. They had just arrived at the supercharger with exactly zero miles of electric range left. You would’ve thought they had just received an 11th-hour clemency that prevented their trip to the electric chair. No pun intended. They couldn’t stop talking to me about their adventure. I meet the most unusual people. It’s the 80/20 rule. However, I thought these guys were part of the “20” because they hadn’t wasted time recharging until they really needed too.

Oh, one more thing, yes these guys did look like drug dealers. However, as you know looks can be deceiving. Oh, one more thing. When I got back from my 20-minute power walk these guys were gone. What does that tell me? Either they didn’t have free supercharging or they truly were drug dealers.

Today while my car was at the supercharger and I was getting my steps in I came across to dull copper penny lying on the asphalt. I stopped to pick it up. I never bypass a penny. Once I was inside of a Ben Franklin store at the age of 11 years old. I had ridden my bike a mile to the store so I could buy a 1960 Mercury Comet plastic model car. With tax, the price of that car was $1.01. I only had a dollar. The lady at the register told me that I could ask any of the other shoppers in the store for a penny and she would give me the car. I wouldn’t do that. I rode my bike a mile back home without getting that model car. I never shopped in Ben Franklin again.

When Carol and I were newly married we didn’t have any money. Our wedding cost $500. We paid for it all. We took out a bank loan for $200 to cover part of the cost. The first time we ever invited our boss over to our apartment for dinner we had four folding chairs and a card table as our dining room table. We got every piece of fine china that we still use for formal dinners today from the bank. When we deposited $25 into our account they gave us a plate. A $15 dollar addition gave us a butter dish. You get the drill. For the first year of our marriage, we slept on a mattress that sat directly on the floor…no headboard. Those were the days.

Then one day as newlyweds we were walking through the mall. We passed through a Montgomery Ward store. We ran into a person trying to sell us a Montgomery Ward credit card. We didn’t want one but in the end, the high-pressure sales tactics convinced us to make the application for the Montgomery Ward credit card. A couple of weeks later we got a letter in the mail. Our credit card application was denied! We never shopped in a Montgomery Ward store again.

Do you have kids? We have three. They are each different. I’m pretty sure that’s your experience too. I love each of them equally… 33.33333%. Always will.

I told you about that penny I found lying on the asphalt. Every penny like that to me is a lucky penny. However, I don’t carry coins. I pay by Apple Pay via my phone or my watch. If I can’t use Apple Pay I use credit cards and my last choice would be cash. I rarely pay for anything in cash that results in my receiving change. At any point in time, and that would be 99.9% of the time, I will never have a coin on me. If I need to “flip a coin” I simply asked Siri on my iPhone to flip a coin virtually. That works for me. Today I took my newly found lucky penny and placed it on the back bumper of a random car in the parking lot. This was my way of paying forward my good luck to someone else. It’s important to pay your good fortune forward.

This morning while doing my steps I came across a crumpled package of Russian cream tobacco lying on the ground. I wasn’t familiar with that brand. Then I got all pissed off. When I see young people smoking I want to grab them by the neck and shake them until the inner parts of their brain create a concussed personal environment. I want to tell them how much they’re going to regret smoking. I do that without any personal experience. I have never taken a single puff of a single cigarette nor have I have I ever wanted too. Then I think that Carol tells me that this product is not illegal and people should be allowed to do what they want. And I think about my own personal 80/20 rule.

Track with me on this one. I was third in line to buy a soda at LAX. There was only one cashier and the person she was serving was taking up quite a bit of time. Then a second cashier came along and motioned for the next person in line to come to her register. The person being waved at, who was first in our line, didn’t see the second cashier right away. The woman who was second in line noticed the second cashier waving. Sensing her opportunity she tried to go ahead of the person in front of her who was still waiting. This didn’t seem exactly fair to me. Maybe the second lady in line could have notified the person in front of her to go ahead and move to the open cash register. At that point the person who was first in line did move over to the second register. I did too. This moved the aggressive woman up to next in line at register one and me the next in line at register two. Behind her face mask I could see her eyeing me. Was I, a customer who was standing behind her originally going to be served at the second register before she was served at the first register? I sure hoped so! In point of fact I WAS served before she was. At that moment I knew there was a God of fairness staring at us from above. I’m always for being clever. Clever doesn’t mean being dishonest or rude or taking unfair advantage of others.

I have flown approximately 7,000 flights in my lifetime. I estimate conservatively that I have flown on three flights a week, every week since I was 23 years old. Surprisingly I didn’t fly on my first airplane until I was 21 years old. I have absolutely no fear of flying whatsoever. Nevertheless, I always say two prayers before each flight departs. I won’t bore you with the subject matter of those prayers. Now that I’m wearing a face mask I can actually lip-synch those prayers when I couldn’t really do that before.

I do get some people who sign up for my newsletter and offer the comment that yes, according to them, my stories might be long but they just can’t help themselves. They keep reading. They want to see what comes next.

Maybe if my fonts weren’t so big the stories wouldn’t be so long. I guess if I made the font small enough I could fit everything on one page. However, I think at that point I would begin to get comments that my font was too small!

My wife and I are movie lovers. Maybe I should say that a different way. I am a movie lover and I guess my wife loves me. When I tell her that I’d like to go to the movies sometimes I have to put on a sales effort with her and sometimes not.

I’ll tell her that I just heard about a movie that I know is actually going to be fantastic. When I say that she has only one question. I could give you one million guesses and you could never guess my wife’s movie question. Her only question is, “How long is the movie?”

I have some friends I can sit down with at lunch and we can talk for three or four hours. Essentially we can talk forever. I have other friends who, after they have consumed their last bite look at their watch and say, “I got to get going”. What do I take from this? Everybody is just a little bit, or a lot, different.

I am 71 years of age. I am cursed with the feeling that I am only 35 years of age. I do resent it when people much younger than me look at my appearance and almost seem to discount what I’m saying because of my age. On the other hand, I am 100% guilty of sometimes using my older age to an advantage. I never liked it when older people do that but if you’re going to get old chronologically you might as well use the advantages God gave you.

I watch 100% of my TV on a recorded basis. I have no idea when these programs are officially broadcast. Let’s say I want to watch Bonanza. I realize this is an archaic reference. Nevertheless, if Bonanza came on at 8 p.m. on Sunday night why would I need to be in my recliner? OK we don’t have any recliners because our space planner told us that was a poor fashion choice even though I love recliners. Would it be better to watch Bonanza ANYTIME you wanted rather than only on Sunday night at 8 p.m.? Obviously. Wouldn’t it be better to watch a one hour performance of Bonanza in 44 minutes by skipping the commercials? Again obviously that would be better.

My wife has skills. We live in a pretty large house. I’ll just go ahead and tell you right now that I haven’t been in several rooms in our house for years. However, if I were to go to any location in our home and turn a glass vase a half a turn by noon tomorrow my wife would be asking me, “Were you touching that vase?” I don’t know how she does it.

I can tell you, and this is probably something I have in common with several of my readers, but I grew up in very modest surroundings. For the first 15 years of my life, my mother, sister and I lived in a 660-square-foot home. The home had five rooms. From time to time we had problems with mice. When I would leave our small kitchen I could peek around the door and see mice coming from behind the sink and the wall. Then when I popped my head in the kitchen quickly the mice would disappear. One time I was surfing our sofa cushions for loose change. I reached in and pulled out a handful of dead baby mice. Today our house, which was built in the late 30s, still wouldn’t fetch $50,000 on the open market. Don’t believe me? Check out Zillow for the property at 411 Doering, East Peoria Illinois.

Everybody in our neighborhood worked in the factories at the Caterpillar Tractor Company in and around Peoria, Illinois. These were frugal folks. Many of them walked to work, a distance of two miles or so simply to save the “wear and tear” on their car. One neighbor wouldn’t allow the family to play their car’s radio because he thought it was going to wear out the battery prematurely. I had another friend who wouldn’t wear his shoe while driving. He felt it prematurely wore out the heal on his shoe. Despite growing up in a lower class economic neighborhood I never felt deprived for a single second. We didn’t have much and nobody else had much. For me it was an idyllic childhood.

I have no idea what is up with the stock market. I know the market is based upon the price-earnings ratio of the companies in the market. The P/E ratio of many companies during the pandemic is zero. Many companies have huge losses. I have no idea how the stock market can maintain itself at this level and I don’t think it will. Despite that feeling I won’t do a thing. I am not a market timer.

I will tell you something that you already know. My travel lifestyle isn’t for everyone. I travel on average 3-4 days a week. I’ve been doing that during my entire 19-year retirement. Carol will travel about half that much.

Here’s what I really like about that lifestyle. Even though I absolutely love California it’s fun to be in Mississippi or Montana or Michigan for a day or two every few months just to see how everyone else is enjoying their life in whatever area they love. What I have learned from my traveling lifestyle is that everyone loves where THEY live. It doesn’t matter where they live they think that place is the best place.

Another huge advantage of being gone 3-4 days a week is that I’m only home three days 3-4 days a week. Why is that advantage?

Most retired people need to fill up seven days of their life living where they live. They have responsibilities and activities and commitments. For me, I need to take all of those responsibilities and commitments and push them into three or four days, not seven days. That makes me pretty busy when I’m home in retirement.

I’m happy to report that today I weigh exactly what it says I weigh on my driver’s license. How many people can say that?

I have an Illinois tollway pass even though I live in California. I’m traveling in the Midwest or east some 35-40 weekends a year. Having a toll pass is convenient and saves me money. However, the last time I used it I left the transponder in my rental car. National Car Rental couldn’t find it. That was probably a good thing. When I left my sunglasses in a rental car it cost me 30 bucks to have National send them back to me. This time I ordered a brand new Illinois tollway pass and they only charged me ten dollars for the unit and mailed it to me at no extra charge. It’s funny how things work sometimes.

I’ve been with Yahoo Mail since day one. I used to try to limit the build-up of messages in my inbox to 100. Then a little while later I increased the total of stored or need to act on messages to 300. Somewhere along the line, I lost control. I now have more than 12,000 messages in my Yahoo inbox of which 3,384 of them are unread. I guess I am a “hoarder” of emails. There could be bigger problems in life.

No one ever can beat what I’ve been able to do in nearly 20 years of retirement. I’m not talking about travel and trackchasing in retirement.

I’m doing what EVERYONE in retirement wants to do. What’s that? I’ve been able to do exactly what I wanted in retirement with virtually no limitations. Having the health, support from my family, and financial resources gives me the green light to enjoy retirement the way I’ve wanted to do it. If I die tomorrow I could never lose that.

A few Christmases ago our daughter Kristy and her family gave me a large plastic replica of sorts of an Elvis Presley guitar. It was filled with popcorn. I enjoyed the popcorn.

The plastic guitar was also a bank. Each Monday morning I tried to make a contribution to the bank, usually a $20 bill. Once in awhile, I put in a little bit more. This money was being “saved” just to blow on wild luxuries. I think they gave me that “Elvis guitar” 4-5 years ago. This week I decided to count the money and put it in a money market fund for safekeeping. How much was in that plastic bank? $5,600 plus loose change! I left the loose change in the bank because I was too lazy to count it and gave the cash to Carol to deposit. That money is specifically earmarked to blow on luxury items. It’s kind of amazing what 20 bucks a week can I get up to.

On almost every morning when I’m home and not traveling I sleep until I wake up. Who doesn’t do it that way? I normally wake up about 6:45 a.m. plus or minus because I have to pee. Then I go back to bed and check my phone for all of the time-sensitive updates that are in my near term plan. Then I might go back to sleep for another 20 or 30 minutes. With my travel schedule of 175-200 nights on the road there are a lot of logistical plans that run through my head during this morning planning process.

During a typical in-bed morning strategy session done all by myself, I’ll get messages from people from all over the world. They’re giving me this travel trip or telling me about this new trackchasing opportunity. Is this short period each morning the rest of my life is being planned! I never ever forget to take the time to say thank you to each and every person who makes any of these contributions for my benefit.

I only worked full-time in a permanent position for 30 years. That means for 41 years and counting I wasn’t working on a full-time basis. I think I like that ratio and it is getting better all the time.

When I was working I worked for money. As a young man I had jobs in factories, I trimmed Christmas trees (with Annette Benning’s husband….I’m such a name dropper), I was an ice cream man (a bicycle with bells) and I cut weeds with a scythe for the city. Why did I do that? I wanted the money. Why did I want the money? I wanted to buy things. That’s how I did it. I worked for the money, I bought stuff and I saved and invested some of the money.

I am not kidding you when I tell you that every one of these thoughts crossed in and out of my mind in one 24-hour period.