10:44 – Barbara just finished cutting my hair and cleaning house. I hate getting my hair cut because I always feel so weak afterward. We’ll do kit stuff the rest of the day.
Good news for preppers. Walmart has just started offering Keystone Meats products on its web site, which has free shipping on $50+ orders. Their prices are noticeably lower than those on the Keystone website, which charges shipping. Unfortunately, Walmart is showing out-of-stock on nearly all the products, and low-stock on others. I guess they must have been surprised by a flood of orders from preppers.
11:34 – What goes around comes around. I was just out with Colin and ran into our neighbors two houses down carrying in groceries. Their son is 12 years old, very bright, and interested in science.
O’Reilly/MAKE just sent me a comp copy of a new science book they’ve just published, which is actually a home science book from the 60’s, updated to reflect availability of items and to get rid of or modify some of the stuff we used to do back then without a second thought but which is now considered hideously dangerous. I gave the book to Shane, whom I suspect will be doing a lot of this stuff over the summer. As he walked away with the book, I had a flashback to 50 years ago, when I was his age and guys the age I am now gave me neat science stuff to encourage my interest.
As the saying goes, you can’t pay it back, so you pay it forward.
What’s the title of the book?
Did they ever come out with a physics or electronics book like your chemistry book?
I believe the book is
Make: The Annotated Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory: Build Over 200 Pieces of Science Equipment!
which I already have via Amazon.
It’s embarrassingly funny watching the libturds scramble to cover for the Rachel Dolezal “White Chick who says she’s Black” story.
“Is it possible that she might actually be black?”
it doesn’t matter what her parents say, if the libturds say you are Black, then you are Black. Just like Jenner is now a woman not matter what his chromosomes say.
I don’t have a problem with Jenner. I do have a problem with Dolezal. As I wrote elsewhere
“I don’t have a problem with Jenner. I do have a problem with Dolezal. As I wrote elsewhere…”
That link was taking forever to load in two different browsers; I gave up. The problem isn’t so much with Jenner, who’s clearly a friggin’ loony tune basket case, but the peeps who have manipulated him and the media and the hordes of imbeciles who actually buy this nonsense. More cartoon fodder for the masses. Waste of time and bandwidth.
The other thing with the white chick passing as Afrikan is bothersome to the extent that the libturds, as MrAtoz has said, will attempt to alter reality and history to advance their agenda, regardless of facts staring them in the face. To wit: this bullshit; the warmist jerkoffs; affirmative action; diversity; absolute equality in everything; and how Hitler was the only evil genocidal maniac in human history. So the chick is actually black, no matter what her birth parents say, and her being caught in continuous lies means nothing other than the appropriate response to the fascist and racist patriarchal bastards who are now persecuting her.
Some fine Sunday afternoon reading here:
“…community security and legitimacy; specifically the battle for it. In any power vacuum, whether it’s caused by a catastrophic event or some other collapse scenario, we may end up being locked into a battle over who our communities look to for guidance.”
http://guerrillamerica.com/2015/06/on-the-need-for-legitimacy/
Yep, that’s the book.
If she wants to self-identify as black, that’s her business. Anyone else with any sense knows she’s nuts, but it’s her business.
OTOH there’s nothing wrong with pointing out she’s nuts. That however is what the libs keep trying to outlaw. Perfectly fair to point out that she’s a fraud.
Remember Bill Clinton was declared our first Black President.
Could Rachel Dolezal be a product of spontaneous mutation?
The story of Rachel is also just a small indication of how much Spokane has been infected by the Left Coast Liberals fleeing the manure hole they have created.
Yes she is for sure a fraud just like Sharpton, Jackson, et al. . Be sure to add in Obummer.
Well hell, then; I wish to self-identify as a fierce Klingon warrior and I demand to be a chapter president of whatever Trekkie organization in the world and I want the whole uniform and free language courses in Klingon. After that I wish to self-identify as a fierce Klingon female warrior and demand the appropriate surgery and costumes.
(incidentally, me and RBT are bigger than the actor who played Worf and also bigger than the guy who played Humongus in the Road Warrior flick; just goes to show they’re all friggin’ midgets on the tee-vee and movies…especially the womyn…)
Yeah, I remember meeting Robert Conrad from The Wild, Wild West when I was about 13 years old. I was shocked at how small he was. IMDB lists him as 5’8″, but I think that’s an exaggeration. About 5’4″ or 5’5″ would be closer.
I’ve never met any actors but I have met the late General Westmoreland and William F. Buckley, Jr.; they were tiny. Buckley’s eyes got as big as pie plates when I came over to him in my full-bore city cop rig. Westmoreland knew the exact units I’d been with in ‘Nam just by me telling him I’d been AF security police there during certain times. I occasionally see guys (and one woman) a lot taller than me but they’re almost always Lincolnesque Marfan-syndrome types.
So, one of Mrs. Clinton’s stock lines in her speeches is attacks on CEOs making too much, and hedge fund managers paying low tax rates. She never mentions that her son-in-law is a hedge fund manager. And not a very good one, see this from April:
They apparently thought Greece would come out of their ongoing crisis into a recovery. Heh. I guess he’ll be SecTreasury if she gets elected.
He wore them high heel boots all the time.
Ironically, I played guard on our pickup basketball team because I was the next-to-shortest guy in the group. Our forwards were 6’8″ and 6’9″. Western PA grows very big boys, and NFL quarterbacks.
I remember one time six of us were in the car when some kids snowballed us. The driver slammed on the brakes and I jumped out of the car. I shouted, “You bastards better run. I’m the smallest guy in the car.”
That fugly pig’s hypocrisy is mind-boggling; exhorting union drones yesterday and promising a raise in the minimum wage and bitching about rich CEO’s, etc., etc., while she and her piggish pedophile paramour raked/rake in zillions in speaking fees and from foreign governments. They’ve both been on the government tit their entire lives and we’re apparently stuck with them until maybe somebody does the right thing.
Meanwhile, both of them and the bastard incumbent either ignore or are actually involved in narcotics trafficking themselves and probably think it’s a grand thing that the people who wouldn’t vote for them anyway are destroying themselves:
http://takimag.com/article/the_zombies_of_fishtown_ryan_landry/print
More fun reading on the libturd PC bullies:
http://takimag.com/article/diagnosed_with_liberalism_gavin_mcinnes/print
“CNN Anchor Refers to Dallas Gunman’s Actions as ‘Courageous and Brave’”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnn-anchor-refers-to-dallas-gunmans-actions-as-courageous-and-brave/
Wait, she misspoke. “CNN Anchor: ‘I Misspoke’ Calling Dallas Gunman ‘Courageous and Brave’”
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-meyer/2015/06/14/cnn-anchor-i-misspoke-calling-dallas-gunman-courageous-and-brave
Go ahead, pull the other leg.
And the tempest in a teapot in the Science Fiction and Fantasy publishing world keeps on getting deeper and deeper, “Anger, doubt and confusion at Tor?”:
http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2015/06/anger-doubt-and-confusion-at-tor.html
“They’re worried about their own futures. They say that any serious boycott of Tor will have very damaging effects, very quickly, because the company’s margins are not good. It’s said to have bet its shirt on a recent contract with John Scalzi, and allegedly doesn’t have that much liquid capital left to play with. They’re also afraid that if Tor is driven into the ground by a boycott, anyone who’s worked there may have a ‘toxic’ label attached to them when they look for another job. Apparently other publishers are taking note of the reaction stirred up by injudicious use of social media, and are tightening up on their own policies and procedures. Anyone associated at high level with this crisis may receive sympathy from fellow travelers at other companies, but may find it difficult to actually get a position there, for fear of provoking a backlash from already-offended readers.”
I am on my own personal boycott of Tor books that I will keep up as long as it suits me. I highly doubt that I will have any effect on Tor whatsoever, especially since my book purchases are only 50 to 60 books per year. Actually, most of my current book purchasers are indies that are published using POD (Amazon).
And it gets better, “Why sci-fi authors are angry with Tor Books”:
http://www.dailydot.com/geek/tor-tom-doherty-irene-gallo-sad-puppies/
The whole “Puppies” brou-ha-ha has me disgusted with everyone. The “Rabid Puppies” honcho has some, shall we say extreme views. The reactions on both sides have been pretty off the scale extreme, with lots of accusations and ad hominems. The “Sad Puppy” slate has been a little less contentious, but not much.
It’s ironic that the lefties have been calling, effectively, for blacklists given their reaction to the situation in Hollywood in the 50s.
“It’s ironic that the lefties have been calling, effectively, for blacklists given their reaction to the situation in Hollywood in the 50s.”
Not so much ironic as SOP for them for many years now in the West; it ties in nicely with their PC ideology and the hordes of professional grievance whores and pimps. As Nat Hentoff titled one of his books a while back: “Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee.”
So when evil Tailgunner Joe McCarthy was ginning up so-called blacklists back then, that was absolutely monstrous and a stain on humanity, etc. But when the lefties do it now, it’s ‘the right thing to do.’
The more I see and hear of liberalism over the course of over half a century, the more I believe it is a form of insanity. Five minutes talking with any of them is enough to convince me now, even among family members. They’ve been infected.
Available evidence suggests it is an actual disease, transmitted by cats.
Much better today. With only 10% humidity I can use the swamp cooler rather than the air conditioning.
Current conditions at
Bakersfield, Meadows Field Airport (KBFL)
Lat: 35.43361°NLon: 119.05667°WElev: 509ft.
Fair
103°F 39°C
Humidity 10%
Wind Speed NW 14 MPH
Barometer 29.66 in (1003.4 mb)
Dewpoint 37°F (3°C)
Visibility 10.00 mi
Heat Index 98°F (37°C)
Last update 14 Jun 4:54 pm PDT
The old swimming hole in the back is up to 89 F. Was real nice to putter around in after cleaning out 11 frogs and all the bird poop. Funny, no one ever mentioned bird poop in the spa and swimming pool in all the advertising.
So, for those of you that want to be totally prepped, here are two items:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/11cd/?srp=1
and for BBQ:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/1dbe/?srp=2
My pool is reading 88 which is about as hot as it ever gets. Night time temps are the most significant factor and right now they are staying up there, and of course the nights are approaching their shortest right now.
No bird poop as nothing overhangs the pool. Wasps are fun however.
We get bird poop in the pool from two areas (no overhanging trees either, in fact no trees in the backyard). The birds like to fly between our house and garage and ride the thermals up and do a bomb release when they hit the thermal. They also like to stop on the rock waterfall from the spa to the pool and take a bath. See picture #26 at
http://houstonarea.har.com/2007-starlite-field-dr/sold_77484442
@nick and @ech, you ready for some RAIN?
http://www.wunderground.com/US/TX/227.html#SPE
Looks like we are going to get another 6 to 10 inches this week from that new Tropical Depression. Hopefully the name of this storm will not rhyme with Allison.
The Hot/Crazy Scale
Hunkered down in advance of the rain. Not sure what else I can do. We’ve got lots of food and batteries here at the house.
I bought 12 more cases of water and AA batteries Saturday. I tried to buy more D cells for my Coleman Rugged LED lanterns but Sam’s Club seems to have dropped those. We are good on food and the portapotty is ready to be setup (nasty!).
The Costco in the Land of Sugar is definitely killing the Sam’s Club. I have no idea what this means and if Sam’s Club is profitable or not. I dropped my Costco membership but may have to renew it, although I will get the cheapest membership this time.
I need to get some propane for my gas grill but I have yet to find where the bottles are sold. The two places that I have looked at so far used automated dispensers that did not work.
If you enjoyed medium-wave’s link to the Hot/Crazy matrix, you have to see the woman’s version, the Cute/Money matrix. What makes it even better is the comment below it that points to this graph from OkCupid…
As we are currently loading the car to head home I feel safe revealing that I spent the last four days at a beach house on the gulf coast. We’ve had great weather, despite the pummeling the rest of the coast got.
Need to get some fresh milk for the kids, and test fire the geni, but otherwise in good shape.
Houston micro climates at their finest.
Nick
I feel pretty safe revealing that I’ve spent the last four days at a brick house on the Lake Champlain shore with one or two days of sun and blue skies and driving monsoon rain the rest of the time, with more expected today and tomorrow. The landscape is saturated in all the shades of green and the rivers, streams and lakes and ponds are full and running strong. Corn ‘sposed to be ‘knee-high by the Fourth of July’ is already at that height.
I won’t feel safe until we get moved up to the mountains, if even then.
I think that WSJ article this morning sugar-coats the situation. It claims that cops in many cities are not enforcing “broken glass” crimes, but it’s obviously worse than that when cops are standing by watching as looters and arsonists pillage and burn private properties. I don’t think it would take much to cause such outrages to spread to most large cities and many smaller ones. The trigger event could occur today, next week, next month, or not for years, but my guess is that it’ll happen sooner rather than later. There are just too many things that could be a trigger event.
@Lynn, don’t discount Costco’s more expensive memberships, especially the one with the Costco branded credit card (currently American Express but will be Citibank Visa in April 2016). Between the Costco 2% rebate and the American Express 1-2-3% rebate (which is on all your purchases not just Costco) I net over $1000 a year in rebates.
We don’t have a Sam’s Club anywhere near. There are very few cases where Sam’s Club builds in an area already served by a Costco.
I have the perception that Sam’s (being walmart) has cheaper junk than Costco, which is usually sturdy and well made, and well priced but not necessarily cheap.
I only had a Sam’s membership for a year, and never managed to buy anything there.
I’ll second the executive membership. Even if you don’t spend enough at Costco to completely recoup the cost, you will get a serious discount off the membership price due to the rebates. Their gasoline price alone is a good reason to shop there, and you will see a nice rebate at the end of the year.
I use my card points to get gift cards for Christmas, and for house projects. I can give a much more valuable Home Depot card than I would spend on a gift. BTW, I think airline miles are the absolute worst things to accrue with CC spending, and using them for tickets is even worse. Airline miles are much better used for upgrades.
nick
Hah, I meant that I feel safe to reveal my location now that I won’t be advertizing my vacant home….
I never feel completely safe, except sometimes at Disneyworld, and usually not even then.
Home in time to get ready for the storm tonight. Did get some fresh milk. Will be digging out the geni soon. I have the in-laws here for the next couple of days, and possibly longer if travel is disrupted.
It brings up a couple of prep things. You never know if you’ll have guests on the day SHTF. Depending on the event, you may have them for a while. Have you put extra away for them??
The other issue it raises, they are NOT interested in prepping. They blithely go thru life assuming everything will be fine, and in fact are hostile to prepping. Because of this, my wife and I have not revealed the extent of our efforts. [I’ve mentioned this previously, when they stayed here to babysit the kids. You want to be sure they can cope with an emergency, but can’t reveal the extent of your preps. Quite a pickle.] They are about to get a crash course in dealing with TX storms and may get quite an eyeful of OPSEC destroying preps.
I’m going to do what I can to downplay what we’ve got, and hope we don’t need much of it.
nick
“I never feel completely safe, except sometimes at Disneyworld, and usually not even then.”
Gee whiz, Mr. nick, what’s wrong witchoo? You need to hang out with me during my one-on-one PTSD therapy sessions and we can help you cope with this terrible “stuck point.” They tell me we don’t gots to be in Condition Yellow or Orange all the dam time. I tell them hey, look at the nooz, doc; shit be hapnin all obuh da place, can happen anytime! Why not ME in Condition Yellow/Orange, when I gots all the dam experience and training? Maybe I can save myself or somebody else? I get the impression this don’t cut no ice, somehow…
“They are about to get a crash course in dealing with TX storms and may get quite an eyeful of OPSEC destroying preps.”
Good luck to you, sir, in dealing with all of that, and our best wishes from up here in primo YankeeLand; hope y’all make out OK. Those of us of a religious persuasion will be praying for our southern cousins in the great Lone Star State again. And Mrs. OFD will make a personal visit next week to lovely El Paso.
Geni fired right up. Air filter looks clean. Probably could change the oil and filter, but haven’t gotten to that part of my seasonal preps yet. If needed it will be ok as is. Gotta run some seafoam thru it, there is a little problem with the carb being dirty. I’ll go thru it during my seasonal maintenance.
Although it is looking like the storm might miss me… wouldn’t that be nice?
nick
What is this “completely safe” of which people speak?
Condition White. Take a nap. Don’t worry about chit, hermanos y hermanos.
mm-hmm. I don’t sleep when there’s anyone but my wife and kids around, and I don’t fully relax even when I’m asleep. That’s part of why I sleep so badly, because human noises wake me up. Such as Idiot Boy (normally referred to as Son#1) shouting into his headset while playing an online computer game and waking me up after I’ve been asleep less than an hour and I think I’ve mentioned that I don’t go back to sleep after I’ve been awakened, or the three-houses-down neighbors yelling at each other yet again.
Yes, it’s somewhat paranoid. On the other hand, it’s not just paranoia. People have tried to kill me — me, specifically, not just “the next white guy who comes near” or whatever. Partly this is because of my admittedly abrasive personality, partly it’s work-related, once it was the result of a bad breakup and a too-tightly-wound younger brother who thought he had to avenge his sister’s honor. (Though her honor was maybe not quite as defensible as he thought. I might possibly be ok with a girlfriend having sex with guys other than me, but I’m definitely not ok with a girlfriend lying about having sex with guys other than me.)
Well, got thru swim meet number two with the kids.
Looking at the radar map, it looks like I dragged the geni out for nothing. Nice night with a few scattered showers. I’m not complaining! Now that the geni is out, I’ll do the seasonal maintenance that I would have probably put off otherwise. In fact, I think I need to have a “small engine maintenance day” and get the chainsaw, mower, and geni all tuned up.
Other occasional preps: this might be the year to get a SIM card for the satellite phone. This early TS was a bit of a wake up call. I don’t usually buy one as all the plans have expiring minutes, and most years we aren’t due for lots of hurricanes. The sat phone is definitely an ‘over the top’ prep, but I’ve always been a believer in good comms, and I got a deal on the phone. It would be about $600 for the card, which has minimal minutes. In a katrina aftermath, there is nothing else that will work though. Last time I was in China I thought about taking the phone. It turns out it would have been cheaper than the AT&T international rates I ended up paying. Still, it’s $600 that could be used elsewhere. I’ll wait until the hurricane forecast for the season to decide.
nick
“I don’t sleep when there’s anyone but my wife and kids around, and I don’t fully relax even when I’m asleep. That’s part of why I sleep so badly, because human noises wake me up.”
I sleep like a rock and have been on record as sleeping through rocket and mortar attacks, and bombing/strafing runs less than mile away. Wife wakes if a leaf drops in the woods ten miles away and can’t get back to sleep. I wake up some nights ’cause I gotta pee, and I’m not really awake then, either, and I hit the sack upon return and am out cold again instantly. I dunno if this is good or bad but I make sure doors and windows are secure and the mutt will bark pretty loudly if someone is trying to get in or right next to the house. Wife would wake me anyway if that was going on. Then it’s rock-an’-roll time!
I’m way, way beyond sexual jealousy rages and affairs of honor, other than, of course someone abusing the women of the family here. Then once again it’s time to rock and roll.
And I do not have an abrasive personality and generally get along pretty well with just about anybody these days. I get this trait from my late dad, who could do the same, but both of us could/can have short and dangerous fuses when riled.
the American Express 1-2-3% rebate and I use my card points to get gift cards for Christmas
As a merchant, may I just point out how irritating this is. My wife’s business takes credit cards, of course. To make up for the fees they charge, she has to have higher prices. Some credit cards then, sometimes, in their generosity, may choose to refund some part of those higher prices back to their customers. They could just drop their fees, which would let merchants drop their prices by a lot more than those card points are worth. But…nah…
That’s why I use PayPal. They charge the same $0.30 per transaction plus 2.9% (3.9% for international) of the transaction amount regardless of which credit card is used. That’s cheaper than I could get with a merchant account, not even counting the lack of hassle.
@RBT: Yep, I see that. Unfortunately, for my wife’s type of business, credit cards are pretty much the only option.
Even so, consider that 2.9%. That’s taken from your gross turnover, for basically making a bank transfer. Many businesses run with slim margins. Certainly my wife pays far more in credit card fees than she does in taxes – which is pretty crazy.
RBT wrote:
“That’s why I use PayPal. They charge the same $0.30 per transaction plus 2.9% (3.9% for international) of the transaction amount…”
That’s pretty high. I thought Visa/Amex only took 2%, tops.
That’s pretty high. I thought Visa/Amex only took 2%, tops.
I thought it varied based on several factors: type of merchant, transaction volume, type of sale (in person, phone order, internet order), etc. And I believe AmEx is usually higher than Visa/MC.
Less than ten percent of our sales are via credit card. But, by the time Amex gets through with us, our Amex takeaway percentage is almost 5%. They have a multitude of little fees that really add up. So do the M/C and Visa reward cards.
But when ringing up a sale outside the USA, credit cards are an excellent way to do that due to all the capital transfer laws. Many of our sales are up in the high four digit range and 2 or 3 credit card charges is the easiest way to get the funds across.
I don’t (or very seldom) deliberately offend people, but I don’t take any crap off of anyone. I have no tolerance at all for liars in the workplace, or really anyplace, and very little for obfuscators, artful dodgers, tap dancers, and bullshitters. This is abrasive. I don’t have any “back down” reflex at all and don’t give in to blatant or subtle verbal bullying or to minor physical bullying such as stepping in my way when I’m going somewhere. This is abrasive. I’m as completely honest as I can manage. This is very abrasive.
I used to put some effort into not offending people. Now I don’t bother except in the case of children. The butthurt of sensitive little flowers is of no interest to me. The pretended butthurt of people attempting to use fake outrage as a form of manipulation or of politicking is of less than no interest to me, and I’ll sometimes go to considerable effort to throw their words in their faces.
I’m trending toward more abrasiveness as you describe it in certain areas. In other areas, not so much anymore. Not worth jacking up my BP and still getting no satisfaction. But I mainly avoid situations and venues where that may be a problem and haven’t run into much like that lately. Of course I haven’t been working for assholes and with assholes eighteen months now, so that helps. Closest I’ve come is traffic situations and I generally catch myself in time now and zen out; why get exercised over these idiots; sooner or later they’ll end up dead or roasting on spits.
As has come up in another series of posts here, many if not most of us are pretty sick and tired and fed up with “…the pretended butthurt of people attempting to use fake outrage as a form of manipulation or of politicking…” and are beginning to push back accordingly. The pushing may likely escalate to shoving, knocking down, trampling and shooting or hanging or both.
It’s like a vision of the promised land! -sniff- Brings a tear to my eye.