08:26 – Barbara’s Y membership expires the end of this month. She didn’t want to rejoin for a year, so she stopped over at Planet Fitness on Saturday and signed up for a month-to-month membership. She’s headed over there after work for her first workout. She says they have more and better machines than the Y, and that she’d have made the change even if we weren’t planning to move.
Work on science kits continues. We’re down to half a dozen chemistry kits, so I’ll get to work today on building three dozen more. What makes me nervous about this time of year is that we might have two or three dozen of a particular kit in stock ready to ship and then get a bulk order that wipes out our stock of that kit. We could increase inventory levels, but I don’t like to have too many sitting in stock because I want to be shipping fresh kits.
The problem with telling a lie is that things get deeper and deeper. Usually at some point, the lies get so deep that they get exposed, all on their own accord. “Mind-Blowing Temperature Fraud At NOAA”
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/mind-blowing-temperature-fraud-at-noaa/
“The measured US temperature data from USHCN shows that the US is on a long-term cooling trend. But the reported temperatures from NOAA show a strong warming trend.”
The climate and weather are whatever it is outside my windows here in the village on any given day.
Right now it’s bloody hot and humid with a barely perceptible breeze. After our time in NJ, we were wishing for winter again. Or fall, anyway.
The y here is a victim disarmament zone, so I was not in favour of membership. We joined so the kids could learn to swim. We let it drop after that.
Planet fatness seems to be on to something with their month to month plans.
Nick
I glanced into one of those one time, and I’m pretty sure that none of the girls were carrying concealed.
A belly band would work with some workout wear.
There is a girl on you tube who is making a nice living showing of various concealment holsters. Falia photography will bring up her channel.
Nick
My kind of girl. I watched her video on the 1911, and it drove me nuts watching her shoot the pistol dry, not once, but over and over and over. She really needs to learn to count shots and do a combat pistol reload.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTdLBvckb2g
Cooper used to demonstrate rapid fire through several magazines without ever breaking cadence or ever dropping a mag that still had a round in it.
“Loose cobra terrifies residents at downtown luxury lofts”
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Lose-cobra-terrifies-residents-at-downtown-luxury-6409670.php#photo-8373186
Wow, another reason to not live in close proximity with other people. You never know when your moron neighbor has a cobra for a pet. Really?
Yeah, we have some real friggin’ geniuses in this country with stuff like that; reminds me of an incident a few years ago down in Stoneham, MA, where some idiot’s Egyptian cobra (a pet? seriously?) got loose (they ARE pretty slick in getting through tiny holes and small spaces, whoda thunk it?). It went missing for days, but was eventually found across the street: at the elementary school, on the second floor, in a box on a shelf there.
Your humble correspondent in the northland here has some experience with cobras. During my time in SEA, I discovered there are 18 species of the buggers there, ranging from small to very large (King Cobra, out to eighteen feet, raising a third of its body length up off the ground, thus, six feet in the air, swaying back and forth in the twilight, just off the trail…). And including the Spitting Cobra, which aims its venom at its prey’s eyes, very accurately, too.
Our Security Alert Team was out at the off-base bomb dump one sultry SEA afternoon and inside one of the bunkers, where rockets and other neat USAF toyz were kept. A cobra either fell or slithered off a rafter overhead and down the shirt back of one of our guys. He wriggled quite entertainingly, and luckily for him, his shirt was untucked, as was true of ours as well. The snake fell out on the floor, whereupon Wild Bill Hickok spun around drawing his S&W Combat Masterpiece revolver and with one quick shot, blew its head off. It was an amazing display of shooting, I can attest. We applauded, and brought our shivering bro back to the base NCO club and got wasted with him later.
We sure hope and pray it doesn’t get this bad, but what if???
http://eatonrapidsjoe.blogspot.com/2015/07/trading-doomsday-guest-post-by-remus.html
Why do the freaking A/C morons put three AAA batteries in a high dollar Trane thermostat? Our house A/C died tonight and I wondered if the construction guys had somehow managed to kill it. Turned out the thermostat batteries leaked and shorted it out. I have it going again for a while but I get to buy a new Trane thermostat since it is now walking wounded.
Sigh. House maintenance never stops. And I was surprised, I noticed it was warm, 79 F, in the house when I got home but the ladies never noticed.
The son and I went to Home Depot tonight to get the nine new 36×72 windows which arrived. In a freaking huge crate that weighed over 500 lbs! The forklift guy says, where do you want this? And I say, individually in my truck. The dude was going to put the 5ft by 4ft by 6 ft crate in the back and rotate them and push in. Not on my watch, I could just see that crate tipping and landing on my foot.
So we got the crate apart and then loaded the windows one by one into my Expy. Which, carries nine 36×72 inch windows just fine, finest truck with a factory camper top ever built. We now have windows, doors, a massive pile of wood and they are going for it. Plus a hole in my bathroom ceiling where somebody got a little too wild peeling back the old roof.
BTW, some moron teenager just died in Austin after getting bit by his pet cobra:
http://www.chron.com/news/local/article/Austin-police-search-for-highly-aggressive-snake-6388601.php
Why do you have a cobra in Texas? Now that should be illegal.
@Lynn, reminds me that years ago I went to our Home Depot to pick up a washer and dryer with my PU, which has a shell. I had intended to lay them on their backs, which was clearly printed on the boxes. Oh, no! They had cut the boxes open, destroying their integrity. Claimed they had to, to inspect for shipping damage. After I refused to accept them in that condition, they offered to deliver them at no charge, and I accepted. I guess I should have asked beforehand. There are no stupid questions, only forgotten ones.
I grew up around the auto industry. All the insiders firmly believed that the dealers added no value, and would have happily taken delivery right off the end of the assembly line. A few actually did, but how is a very long story. Dealers are one reason why I have purchased cars from private parties as often as possible. So far, I have bought one new car and one used car from a dealer because I was desperate. I still remember those hassles. Recently bought from an individual. Transaction took all of about ten minutes, and was a real breeze. Caution: YMMV. I couldn’t resist 🙂
Lynn wrote:
“Why do you have a cobra in Texas? Now that should be illegal.”
Certainly not! Pet cobras should be mandatory gifts to liberal Democrats.
Yes. Unending effort and expense. Even more importantly it takes awareness on the part of the owner that unending alertness and effort and expense are needed.
Just yesterday I was walking to my car with a co”work”er* and we passed a row of just-completed Habitat for Humanity houses in a “less privileged” part of Albany. I bet him that the very nice looking houses and front yards would be trashed within ten years, probably five.
We discussed some of what’s involved in owning and maintaining a house. He’s lived in apartments his whole life, and there was always someone to take care of things and he’d vaguely seen some of it but hadn’t thought about it.
Now, I’d like to believe the bandied-about claims, that the HfH houses are for good people who just need a leg up. Experience of my own eyes suggests it’s not going to work out that way, that the buyers are going to have good intentions but not the skills or the awareness to keep up the houses.
* Of the 18 H1-Bs on this project, only a few are worth anything. Most are either incompetent or lazy and dishonest, or a hat trick of all three. This guy is one of the competent but lazy and dishonest group. I’d be surprised if he does two hours of work on any day, but what little he does is usually good.
Installing W10 on the Surface Pro. It will be interesting to see how it all works since W10 and the Surface are Microsoft’s flagship products.
I plan to wait a couple of weeks before trying a “real” W10 upgrade. There are still apparently a couple of doofy issues. One is that the W10 “start menu thingie” is now managed by it’s very own service. Which maintains it’s own separate database of installed applications. Which is initialized when you install. And has a hard limit of 500 entries, which sounds like a lot, but actually isn’t nearly enough. Programs that don’t fit into the 500 cannot be started, and cannot even be found by the search function, since it uses the same database.
Through Win7, the start menu was directly derived from directories on the disk. The Win10 start pane includes the tiles from Win8, which need size and position information to tell then where to appear. So MS created an another abstruse database, like the registry, that will get mucked up and require maintenance. What a dumb idea…
Anyhow, after the first wave of installs, where people notice that half of their programs aren’t available, I expect MS will roll out a patch or three. I’ll give them a couple weeks time, before trying myself…
Re house maintenance: it’s not only the work, it’s also the money. I use a figure of 1% of the value of the house, per year. So if you have a $300,000 house, you can expect to spend an average of $3000/year on maintenance. Many years less, but with occasional big expenditures, like when your heating system needs replaced. The figure starts lower for a new house, of course, but only for a few years.
I expect all of us here know: there is always something to do. Little things that crop up all the time, from harmless things like a squeeky door to potentially serious stuff like a roof leak. If you put them off, let them accumulate, the house will eventually suffer serious damage.
People moving into those HfH houses are likely to invest neither the time nor the money to take care of the houses. Moreover, from what I’ve seen over the years, they are a lot harder on their houses than your average middle class types – meaning that the houses need more care than otherwise. There will be individual exceptions, but on the whole SteveF is exactly right: the houses will be completely trashed in just a few years.
Yet another example of cargo-cult thinking.
the houses will be completely trashed in just a few years.
Where my MIL lives it is an old neighborhood, probably 70 years old. Many old houses built to house military people that were stationed at Lackland AFB. Some of the houses are not in great shape, some are nicely kept.
The house across the street from where she lived was in fairly good shape. Then some section 8 people moved in. The state was paying the rent and the people living there did not care. Within six months the place was trashed. Windows broken, siding pieces missing, doors that did not close properly, yard totally unkept and full of trash.
The people were your basic thugs. Drinking at all hours, multiple vehicles coming and going, yelling and shouting at each other.
Eventually the people living in the house complained that the house not suitable for living. HUD agreed and moved them to another house about four houses away. Within six months same issues. So HUD moved them to another part of town.
Meanwhile the home owners had to totally gut the houses and rebuild the inside. Sheetrock had been busted and had holes, wiring was missing, plumbing fixtures totally gone, A/C unit was gone. The losers had stolen the stuff and sold it, probably for drugs. HUD refused to compensate the owners for the damage and said such damage was considered normal wear.
Little wonder that people do not want to rent to section 8 people (law forces them to not discriminate) and people don’t want section 8 people living in their neighborhood.
A friend of a friend builds new section 8 housing. He builds them as study as possible. He even pts in granite counters. Asked why, he says they are harder to f up. Can’t burn them with hot pans, can’t chop them with knives.
.gov is supposed to reimburse damage. Missing plumbing is deff damage.
Obola gets his way, every block will have some section 8.
Nick
Occurs to me that a revolutionary insurgent’s goal is to use terror and disruption to make it so unpleasant that the gen pop will accept ANY change to end it.
Guess we’re in for more misery.
Nick
I think Mr. Ray’s estimated financial outlay for house maintenance is probably pretty accurate, normally, but we’ve been spending three times that figure here because it’s a 200-year-old house, but mainly because we’re fixing things that previous owners allowed to disintegrate.
Right now that’s living room ceiling, windows and shutters, electrical system, some plumbing issues, front and back doors and locks, attic insulation, etc., We’ve already replaced the pellet stove (utterly useless and a PITA) with the woodstove and half the windows so far. Other half and the living room ceiling and doors will be done this fall. We’ll try to fit the electrical work in there somewhere, too.
Roughly $4-6k per year since we moved in three years ago.
Section 8 across the street diagonally from us, standard-issue northern Vermont white trash variety. Almost all smokers, who are up till the wee hours and sleep to noon, beat-up cars, trucks and now one of them has a dirt bike that is loud enough to puncture eardrums with its high-pitched revving and spews gas fumes into the air. The womyn, with two exceptions, are all fat as pigs and the guys all wear that standard-issue Murkan cub scout uniform. Only a couple at any given time appear to have actual jobs somewhere. I haven’t seen the inside of the place yet but sooner or later…
Also one of the derps is obviously a dope dealer, yet drives a cute red Beemer and has a giant wall-sized tee-vee flickering half the night over there.
When we win the lottery, we’re buying and demolishing that building and all non-brick structures in the immediate vicinity.
Hah, that’s what my uncle dud. Not win the lottery, he was a successful small businessman. He bought his neighbors houses and tore them down. Kept one and rented too a kid he was helping get himself established.
Prob illegal to only rent to known folks, but he’s burn it to the ground before renting to section 8.
Nick
We’d tear them all down and landscape our new property and fence it off. Also bribe the town to close off this street. I’d also train and “hire” a security alert team for the village with auxiliary/adjunct citizens serving in it, too. Including myself. Might do that anyway.