09:39 – The unfinished basement area is still cluttered, but we’ve made a lot of progress on getting it cleared out. We’ll work more on it today. By the first of the week, I hope to have things set up and functional in there for building more science kits.
In moving stuff around, I found myself impressed by just how much food we have stored. A lot of it needs to be repackaged–bags of rice, boxes of pasta, and so on–but (and Barbara will be delighted to hear me say this) we’re in pretty good shape as things stand. I do want to add more bulk staples, but that’s not a top priority.
I also need to do some work on our network and get a working desktop system set up. Again, that’s not a top priority, but it does need to be done. I’ve been surprised by how well this little Dell notebook is doing. Not much processor nor much memory, but it’s getting the job done for now.
One of the things that does concern me is making sure that Barbara is happy here. Other than when she was away at college and grad school, she’s lived in Winston-Salem all her life. This is a big change for her. For me, not so much. I’ve lived in a lot of places, and I’m perfectly happy with just Barbara and Colin for companionship. Barbara, on the other hand, is used to seeing friends and family frequently. Eventually, she’ll make new friends up here, but for now it must be kind of hard for her to have just Colin and me to look at.
So I’ll encourage her to get out and meet people here, to make trips down to Winston whenever she wants, and to invite friends from Winston to stay with us up here for a weekend or a week or whatever.
Back to work on the unfinished area of the basement.
I’ve found over the years that most guys can move around and live just about anywhere; it’s evidently harder for women, mainly for the reasons you mention, family and friends.
Four inches of heavy wet snow followed by ice; now kinda overcast and dark with snow fog. Gotta figure out the cordless snowblower, which won’t start now, natch, or start shoveling the cars out.
Women are genetically programmed to befriend people and form close social networks; men are genetically programmed to mistrust strangers.
I’ve often wondered how many Jews would have escaped Germany and the death camps if the wives hadn’t insisted on staying in familiar surroundings. I imagine tens of thousands of Jewish husbands and fathers unsuccessfully trying to convince their wives that it was time to get the hell out while the getting was good.
OTOH, normalcy bias operates on men as much as it does on women.
New military wives have this problem a lot. They marry a solider/sailor/airman. They move to whichever base/post/fort he gets assigned. He gets busy with work and makes friends instantly due to military camaraderie. New wife sits at home hundreds or thousands of miles away from family and friends. Loneliness and depression set in. It’s even worse if the soldier gets deployed. Hence, the military’s higher than average divorce rate.
New wife sits at home hundreds or thousands of miles away from family and friends. Loneliness and depression set in.
My nephew just retired from the Navy and his last stations were Jacksonville, Pearl Harbor, and Anchorage. His wife is very active on Facebook and Instagram. From the comments I’ve seen there, she is in touch with quite a few of her friends from previous stations. So maybe Facebook isn’t all evil. 🙂
Some things for military spouses may have improved in that regard during recent years thanks to technologies like Skype and the social networks and of course cell phones and tablets. That’s probably a two-edged sword, as deployed troops get to hear about every single “crisis” at home but can’t and don’t want to talk about their own where they are, a situation that continues when they get back. You can get a quick look at how that works in recent flicks like “The Hurt Locker,” “Stop-Loss,” and “American Sniper.” In my day and earlier it was all snail mail, or if lucky, a phone call through a MARS station on base.
But we’re gonna see a lot of families get stuck if and when SHTF down in Megalopolis because the women didn’t and wouldn’t make a move in time, case in point being my married siblings and the two other siblings who don’t think anything bad’s gonna happen and get all their nooz from the Fox Network. One married brother knows better, but wifey has all her sisters and brothers and aging mom down the Cape and drives down to them almost every friggin’ weekend and is otherwise married to the shopping, noise, crowds and traffic and can’t imagine anything else. Mention up here to them, and it’s “too cold” and “nothing to do.”
Okey-dokey; you’ll have PLENTY to do if the balloon goes up down there. PLENTY.
where is my flying car?
http://xkcd.com/1623/
I’ve seen plenty of people on youtube who would be willing to try out those jetpacks!
Eventually, she’ll make new friends up here, but for now it must be kind of hard for her to have just Colin and me to look at.
Can you build a house on your land for her sister and husband to move to when they retire?
“where is my flying car?”
I don’t care about all them sci-fi gizmos; I had my fill of flitting about CONUS and SEA long ago. What I’m interested in is teleporting, like in the Star Trek series, and/or the related ability to walk through walls and other objects. Hard to do at my height and weight, though. Unless it’s done kind of destructively.
And I can foresee just a shit-ton of lawsuits and tied-up court cases when all them robot cars really get going, along with the fleets of drones all over the place. Maybe I should go to law school, or “read law” like we can do here in VT, and pass the bah exam and start nailing down the big bucks.
Pretty sure most lawyers make about $35k starting. There is a serious oversupply, and most do not come out of a good school.
Good grades from a good school, good summer associate experience, with some connections, and you are more like $90k starting.
Besides, do you really want to be first against the wall when the revolution comes? Or more despised than used car salesmen?
nick
Yo, I was just funnin’ about goin’ to law skool or reading law; ex-wife is a lawyer, one of wife’s cousins is one, and another one is a judge. In order to do that kinda work, you have to rework/rewire your brain and also be OK with mutilating the English language, which I have too much respect and love for. Also, I already rewired my brain a few times a long time ago.
So, no, I wanna be the guy that waves the sword and gives the “FIRE!” command when we have lawyers, financial speculators, politicians, banksters, gummint bureaurats, and college humanities professors up against that wall.
So, no, I wanna be the guy that waves the sword and gives the “FIRE!” command when we have lawyers, financial speculators, politicians, banksters, gummint bureaurats, and college humanities professors up against that wall.
Sure am glad that I am not on that list. Oh wait, I am a financial speculator!
At my house I have a router with wi-fi connected to the internet fixed
wireless. Call the router EDC. No cable or DSL here. I have another
wi-fi router in the house set as a hot spot. It, dlink, mostly works
in the house, but pretty much sucks…. when I get usually get a better
signal from the EDC which is 120 feet away. (EDC is aka the incubator
building. The emu incubator is gone but the fancy name “Embryo Development
Centre” stuck. Yes, it has to be spelled “centre”, that’s part of the joke.)
I had an e-mail from Provantage last week pushing a Cisco hot spot for ~$48.
Er, but I’m not a “preferred” customer and I need to call the 800 number.
For a big up-sale pitch, I’m sure. Like I’ll get an answer at 5:30 am Central
from California? Google! The Cisco gets pretty bad reviews.
I looked on Amazon for the Cisco and one of the suggestions (what other
people bought) is a Ubiquiti UniFi AP. Other than a few reviews where
it reads like they have /no/ clue about networking, the reviews glow.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HXT8R2O $64.
I have it at the far end of the house and in the kitchen my Kindle and
Gs2 have 5 bars wi-fi. Through three walls of sheetrock, siding, and
insulation. Actually, I have 5 bars all over the house. A bit better
than 1 or 3 bars from either dlink or EDC. I’m going to play with placement
to get as much range as I can towards the EDC and the boat shed. I had 3 bars
halfway to EDC from the house yesterday. But right now it’s too damn cold.
122 m range. Even if that 122 range has the unit in the center…. that’s still
200 feet out from the unit.
It supports 4 (?) SSIDs. So I have one secured and hidden for my LAN and I
have a guest SSID for things like phones and kindles and company to use for
internet access.
Another cool feature is the units “talk” to each other. I can add another
(via wi-fi, even!) to extend range or fill in a dead spot and as far as my
phone knows, it’s all the same hot-spot.
Yeah, it is a bit different. IP addy of “192.168.1.124” puzzled me. And how
to set subnet to 255.255.255.0? Oh, that’s the 24 part. They didn’t teach
that when I did my MCSE. Er.
I’m still figuring it out. I prefer fixed addresses. But so far, it rocks. Pretty much works right out of the box.
“Man charged with setting Houston mosque afire says he was a devout attendee”
http://www.chron.com/houston/article/Federal-officials-arrest-man-in-connection-with-6727623.php
It is getting weird out there when the moslims are getting arrested for supposedly torching their own mosques.
“Oh wait, I am a financial speculator!”
You speculate on your own stuff and take your own risks; you don’t take money from people and do risky chit on their alleged behalf and then screw them and lie about it and get off scot-free from the gummint. You’re not on my list.
“It is getting weird out there when the moslims are getting arrested for supposedly torching their own mosques.”
Haven’t we seen this movie before? Like when black peeps torch their own churches and then claim it’s the KKK or angry white menz? Or phone in threats to themselves? Hang themselves in effigy with scrawled hate mss. and claim again it’s the evil Whitey? Or when fugly mountains of femflesh claim they’re being harassed and abused by mysterious nonexistent males?
Which reminds me: Cankles has some nerve whining about Chump’s sexism while at the same time exhorting us all to automatically believe any and every woman’s claim of rape or abuse, but apparently this doesn’t apply to the women and girls her big lovable lug of a hubby has boffed or otherwise overwhelmed with his manly manliness over the decades. They’re a “bimbo eruption,” to be laughed off in public while she hits him and throws stuff at him in private. (see Roger Stone’s new book on all that stuff) Then there are still the rumors of her abuse of female subordinates.
They both belong in fluorescent orange jumpsuits at hard labor for life, assuming no capital punishment.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/g3-strong-geomagnetic-storming-likely-31-december
OK, when do we get ready? G3 (probably not), G4 (not yet), G5 (run for the hills)?
From
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/powerful-solar-storm-hit-earth-years-eve/story?id=36010574
“NOAA classifies solar storms on a scale of one to five (one being the weakest; five being the most severe). Today’s storm is forecast to be a G3 event, meaning it could have the strength to cause fluctuations in some power grids, intermittent radio blackouts in higher latitudes and possible GPS issues.”
“The storm is the result of a coronal mass ejection — basically a flare of charged protons and electrons — that burst from the sun earlier this week. Once they reach Earth, the particles interact with the planet’s magnetic field to paint the sky in dazzling colors.”
I guess that solar storms travel at way less than the speed of light. Way less.
I got that CME alert a few days ago but have not noticed any unusual magnetic or other phenomenae here except additional stress levels inflicted by the presence of our lovely and brilliant daughter. I did notice, however, that upon arrival, she almost immediately began to monopolize every single electronic device in the house. Her cell, my cell, her iPad, the Winblows pooter, the Kali Linux laptop we’re using to stream classical Xmas music from Montreal, her mom’s Winblows 7 laptop, plus the Roku/tee-vee config. All at the same time, mind you. While also practicing her harp and violin. And talking. Is this what they mean by “multi-tasking?”
Oh boy, peace and quiet tonight; Princess gone; wife and MIL down at the latter’s place with the mutt. Just me and the three cats. Very nice.
Oh boy, peace and quiet tonight; Princess gone; wife and MIL down at the latter’s place with the mutt. Just me and the three cats.
How do you fit four people, a dog, and three cats in your place? 1,200 ft2, right? Do you hide XXXX hang out in the basement then?
One master BR for two of us; one spare BR for GG, and couch or air mattress in LR for lovely and brilliant Princess. Dog with her and cats usually with us. Otherwise, beyond the Holiday Season Formerly Known As Christmas, it’s just we two and the animals. More like 1,400 SF. House was built for our hobbit ancestors, so low clearances in attic and cellar and stairway going to second floor. Not as bad as Paul Revere’s house down in Boston, though; I practically had to crawl on my hands and knees through there.
Cellar is being readied for mostly storage; attic for radio shack/workshop.
Gee, it’s so friggin’ quiet here now it’s eerie. Maybe the paranormal stuff will kick in later.
Ubiquiti networking stuff rocks. IT ROCKS.
They do carrier grade fixed wireless, and it really shows in their consumer and pro-sumer gear too.
Never had a problem and their gear SOLVES problems….
nick
The Houston area had 189,634 new homes (2/3rds single family and 1/3rd apartment) built in 2011 to 2014. That is an average of 47,409 new homes built per year.
http://www.chron.com/business/real-estate/article/BUILDERS-6723673.php
I can tell you that all of the these new homes are occupied with about 20 or so people (slight exaggeration) and they are all out driving around the place. The traffic here is bad and getting worse by the day.
“I can tell you that all of the these new homes are occupied with about 20 or so people (slight exaggeration) and they are all out driving around the place. The traffic here is bad and getting worse by the day.”
IMHO, that is flat-out INSANE. I couldn’t deal with it, and neither could Mrs. OFD. We think it sucks flat-out in the summer here when local yokels and touristas are whizzing by a couple of dozen times a day.
Just the mathematical odds would indicate that a percentage of all them derps are bad nooz, hombre.