07:29 – Barbara’s dad is likely to be released back to the Brian Center in the next couple of days. Brian Center called Barbara yesterday to ask if she wanted them to hold his room. She told them yes, even though they’ll have to pay something like $275/day themselves to hold the room. (Obviously, Medicare isn’t going to pay for Dutch to be two places at once.) Barbara was concerned that otherwise Brian Center wouldn’t have a room available when her dad was discharged and he’d end up somewhere else that wasn’t very good.
We had an all-time record for kit orders yesterday, with 21. Of course, 20 of those were to one customer, a small private school. Still, that means that through the first five months of 2013 our kit sales and revenues are more than 50% of the total for 2012. And in 2012, we did only about 10% of the year’s business in the first five months. So of course we’re desperately trying to get more kits built in time for the summer rush.
16:35 – Geez. Colin just scared the shit, almost literally, out of the replacement mail carrier. The front door was open, with just the glass storm door between him and the mail carrier. Colin acts like a berserker when someone approaches the door. Fangs, snarling, loud barks, ramming into the glass, and so on. I’m not even slightly afraid of dogs, but given Colin’s threat display I sure wouldn’t want to mess with him. A pissed-off dog that weighs 80 or 85 pounds is no joke. Of course, if I’d opened the door and let him out, he would have made a big fuss over the mail lady, licking her hand and so on.
But I yelled at him to shut up and then opened the door and went out. The mail lady summed up her feelings pretty well. She asked me, “Are there just the two of them?”
[snip] Of course, 20 of those were to one customer, a small private school. [snip]
Do you have a price break after a certain n kits?
Nope. There are no real economies of scale at the level we’re working.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/05/22/border_collies_hired_to_chase_canada_geese.html might be of interest
Thanks. Yes, Border Collies have been used to drive away geese for 20 years or more in the US. They’re particularly popular with airports and golf courses.
I was surprised that they’re paying $44,000 a year for two BCs to work 30 hours a week. They could buy a couple of geese-trained BCs for a small fraction of that amount and just leave them on-site. Being BCs, they’d be on duty 24×7 looking for geese to drive off. Actually, they probably don’t even need trained BCs. Our BCs have never been trained, and they’d love to drive off geese. They do it instinctively, every time they see any of them around here. Which is pretty unusual nowadays. After 25 years of us living here with BCs, the geese know not to come around here.
Gee, they yell at me when my dogs chase the geese, and even want to fine me! And she does it out of love for the chase!
In all seriousness, shouldn’t an experimental farm work under the same conditions “actual” farmers do? I can’t see too many farmers hiring dogs at the rate of $44K/yr.
Only in Ontario, where all the politicians must be smoking crack!
The price actually seems more reasonable if you assume that they aren’t hiring the dogs, but rather the person who provides them. From the description in the article, they apparently don’t want the dogs running around unsupervised, so they are paying the person to be on-site 6 hours a day. $44,000 is cheap, all things considered.
Our dogs chase crows. Wish we hadn’t taught them that – they take it really seriously.
even though they’ll have to pay something like $275/day themselves to hold the room
Is that the daily and monthly room rate for where Dutch is staying? For a 30 day month, that is $8,250/month. Wow!
Yep, I assume so. Nursing homes are expensive, no doubt. It’s all that staff they have to have 24 hours a day. I’ve heard of nursing homes for regular people (as opposed to the so-called 1%) that charge upwards of $20K/month.
I guess that I am thinking of the cost of assisted living. The big one here in Sugar Land starts about $2,500/month and has two hot meals a day.
http://www.brookdaleliving.com/terrace-first-colony.aspx
Yeah, there’s a huge difference. Creekside, where Barbara’s parents were living until her dad got seriously ill, starts at under $2K/month. I think they were paying about $4K/month for a two-bedroom apartment and meals for two.
http://www.seniorhousingnet.com/seniorliving-detail/creekside-terrace_3895-old-vineyard-road_winston-salem_nc_27104-563073
As of the end of this month, that’ll go down a bit because they’re taking Dutch off the meals. Barbara’s mom will keep the two-bedroom for now, but I think she’ll end up moving to a one-bedroom or efficiency apartment once Dutch is gone.
Quite frankly I’d rather go out in a blaze of glory if I can’t check out peacefully and painlessly in my own bed and I suspect there may be plenty of opportunities to indulge myself in the coming years. Also, I’d just as soon not bankrupt us and our families just for my sorry ass. So while I am still of sound mind, ha, ha, and body, ha-ha again, I will be on the lookout. Viva la revolution!
Nursing homes are expensive, no doubt.
My aunt was charged (or rather the state was charged) $150.00 a day for the nursing home.
Also, I’d just as soon not bankrupt us and our families just for my sorry ass.
Same here. My plan is to give everything to my son when I get to be 75. House, cars, money, everything. With the understanding it is still mine and if he wants any inheritance he will not touch the money. That way when I turn 83 or so I can apply for Medicaid as I will have nothing of any value and will basically be one of the extreme poor.
I doubt I’ll make it to either 75 or 83, a life of debauchery and dissipation, you see. Amazing I’ve lasted this long.
Maybe I should just hand over everything now and be done with it. Mrs. OFD may or may not outlast me by decades or, God forbid, she could go first; has major medical issue/s. So probably our son is the best bet for this.
What’s going on in Sweden with all the car burnings? Islamists?
“I doubt I’ll make it to either 75 or 83, a life of debauchery and dissipation, you see. Amazing I’ve lasted this long. ”
I’ll either live to a ripe old age or die young. Both my grandfathers died before I was born, at around 60, Some made it well into their nineties. I haven’t had Dave’s life of debauchery, drugs and excessive booze, nor do I have a 20 year old daughter to drive me nuts. We’ll see.
Yeah, Sweden is swarming with islamics. Even the cops are afraid to walk the streets in a lot of Swedish cities.
Besides the stuff in Sweden, there was an incident today in London where a couple of hadji animals attacked an off-duty Brit soldier and beheaded him in the street in broad daylight and then hacked at his body and screamed the usual Allahu Akbar and wanted their pictures taken, etc., etc. by passersby. Several women apparently stood by and sheltered the body from further desecration at huge risk to themselves, and the cops took twenty minutes to get there and shoot the fuckers.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/22/British-Soldier-Hacked-to-Death-Beheaded-With-Machete-In-London
Yeah, and I see that the FBI and other law enforcement personnel were talking to one of the islamic Chechen buddies of one of the Boston bombers when the guy assaulted them. They killed him, thank goodness.
I do wish that governments in this country would declare open season on islamics. No bag limit, and bucks, does, and fawns all legal to shoot.
“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you’: What man holding bloody cleaver said after ‘hacking soldier in Help For Heroes T-shirt to death just yards from Woolwich barracks'”:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329089/Woolwich-attack-Two-men-hack-soldier-wearing-Help-Heroes-T-shirt-death-machetes-suspected-terror-attack.html
I thought long knives were outlawed in Britain now? I guess a cleaver is just a kitchen utensil. Note that one of the animals had a gun also.
I do not have a clue what to do with these animals. Oh wait, yes I do! Drawing and quartering is a fine old English tradition.
The drawing and quartering is done after the prisoner is dragged on a hurdle behind a horse through the streets while being pelted with garbage, excrement, spit and offal from the lovely citizens. Then he is hung until nearly dead and cut down. Then comes the vivisection project. The various limbs are sent round to the corners of the Kingdom and the head is posted on the main gate atop a spike and left there to rot.
I’m sure others can add some refinements for the wonderful adherents of the religion of peace.
Did I complain about Amex refusing to let me save my username and password with the standard Firefox remember password tool?
This fixes it:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/rememberpass/
Apparently there is a thing called “autocomplete=off”, which stops Firefox from remembering passwords with its own methods. A few weeks ago, Amex implemented that. It refused to update my password which I was forced to change due to their policies, but this little add-on fixed that. My computer is more secured than most people’s and I use passwords for startup and to get out of the screensaver, so I do not worry much about someone getting things off my computer. Moreover, I have a printed list of who to call and what to report as stolen, should someone steal the computer.
It has been cold in the Rockies and the West for almost a week—some places only reaching the upper 30’s for highs, not overnight lows. That has petered out as it moved east, and is reaching us right now. Tomorrow’s high will only be in the mid-60’s.
There’s a kind of corridor from Chicago down to the Gulf, and nothing too cold gets past that in summers. The great Northwest is getting another cold wave moving in off the Pacific, with daytime highs in some places of Idaho and Montana not even making it into the 50’s.
Just like last year, we are getting inundated with rain—people north and west of Indianapolis getting severe flooding and house damage last month. The only question remaining is whether or not we will get 3 years in a row of summer drought. Last year started in late June and lasted until late October. Last year was also one of the worst for farmers around here in living memory. Previous drought that bad was back in the 1930’s, and there are very few old-timers left who remember that.
It rained in Montana on the Missouri river all weekend. The fish were still biting though. The farmers were glad.
‘But I yelled at him to shut up and then opened the door and went out. The mail lady summed up her feelings pretty well. She asked me, “Are there just the two of them?”’
I was just in touch with Colin telepathically and he said this was his way of telling you you’re not feeding him enough and that he wants to be allowed to eat the next JWs or Mormons who come to the door.
Most governments would be afraid to do this, ours decided to do so because the cat is out of the bag anyway and want people to know when people might be buying stuff for or assembling an IED:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-23/govt-releases-list-of-household-chemicals-used-for-terrorism/4708948
Yeah, and I see that the FBI and other law enforcement personnel were talking to one of the islamic Chechen buddies of one of the Boston bombers when the guy assaulted them. They killed him, thank goodness.
My first reaction was rather different. This was another case of two FBI agents interviewing someone with no other witnesses and no recording. They *claim* that he confessed to some crime, and then attacked them with a knife when they asked him if he would sign a written confession.
Here’s an alternative story: The FBI agents put the guy under so much pressure in this interview, and made him so angry that he came over the table at them. Being unprepared for such a reaction, they shot him. They then made up a story to cover their asses.
Now, maybe my distrust of the feds is all out of proportion, but I ask you: which of these stories is more believable?
My first reaction was rather different. This was another case of two FBI agents interviewing someone with no other witnesses and no recording. They *claim* that he confessed to some crime, and then attacked them with a knife when they asked him if he would sign a written confession.
What about the stab wounds on the FBI guy?
BTW, they are advising the troops in London to not wear their uniforms outside the barracks. Shameful.
Searching again, I see that the FBI states that one agent was indeed taken to the hospital, with unspecified injuries. Apparently, there were other witnesses as well, but the accounts are very mixed. Three police stated originally that the guy attacked with a knife. Two later retracted this, saying they weren’t sure what happened.
I think someone screwed the pooch, and pressured the cops standing around to vouch for them. Even if the guy really did attack the agent questioning him – if there were really not just two agents, but lots more cops as well, he must have had a hell of a provocation. Just what kind of “interview” was this?
It remains a very fishy story…
Oh, about London: I agree with Lynn totally. The correct response is to encourage troops to wear their uniforms. What’s with the UK lately? Do they want to just roll over and accept Sharia law?
“What’s with the UK lately? Do they want to just roll over and accept Sharia law?”
Certainly seems that way, as in other Euro countries. Not the general population, per se, but the regimes running the show. If I was running the show in the UK I would order all troops to wear their uniforms and I’d assign young hadji males as free-fire-zone shoot-to-kill targets until such time as they either surrender peacefully and are deported forthwith, or their own communities, such as they are, give them up. Ditto in Sweden and France, but I fear the West has lost its will to live, as has been covered in various books and articles over the past half-century or so, beginning with the late James Burnham’s “Suicide of the West.” The masses sit in front of their tee-vees and computer screens while the overlords and masters sell them out, repeatedly.
Our own government here is doing the same thing; and every single episode of State malfeasance or law enforcement shooting or a supposed terrorist attack since 9/11 at least, has been accompanied by a slew of falsehoods, misrepresentations, misunderstandings, and outright blatant lying. Hell, we’re still finding out stuff about the JFK and RFK assassinations! Those happened when OFD was still in skool!
So the Feebie incident in Florida, the events in Boston and Benghazi, etc., are all cases where it is eminently doubtful we are being told anything truthful at all or will ever find out the truth. And meanwhile our own overlords and masters are now taking the Fifth down in Mordor and outright refusing to answer questions, period! This is amazing! They are, in effect, telling us straight up now that we can go fuck ourselves, and laughing while they tell us that.
Those tumbrils can’t start rolling soon enough to suit ol’ OFD.
Yah. I had the same reaction.
But then, I’m a middle-aged white male racist hater bitter clinger, so my opinion counts for naught.
For now, yes, the hired cops and soldiers will do the bidding of their superiors and bosses, themselves at the bidding of the rulers. Once the country goes into the Great Default tank, however, and those pay checks stop coming, your guess is as good as mine, at least, as to how things will then shake out on the streets. Some of these cops and Feebies and other agents who have mysterious deaths on their hands will no doubt be remembered by parties who still care.
OTOH, who knows? I haven’t seen much on revenge being exacted on former Stasi or KGB goons in Europe and Russia, but I suppose that sort of nooz would be kept under wraps pretty well.