09:47 – Barbara had plans to meet one of her friends for lunch today down in Winston. She originally planned to drive down this morning, pack up some stuff at the old house, meet her friend for lunch, and then drive back here this afternoon. The forecast yesterday was calling for snow yesterday afternoon and evening, so Barbara decided to drive down to Winston yesterday after lunch and spend the night with Frances and Al. The main roads have been plowed and salted and today’s forecast is good through this evening, so she shouldn’t have any problem getting back up here this afternoon. Starting this evening and running through Sunday morning, we’re under a winter storm warning. The high tomorrow is to be only 23F (-5C), and we’re to have 12″ to 24″ (30 to 60 cm) of snow.
I see that the Washington DC area was shut down yesterday by 0.5″ to 1″ (1.25 to 2.5 cm) of snow, with many accidents and gridlock on the main roads. I wonder what they’ll do when a foot or more of snow falls over the next couple of days. We might get as much as two feet of snow here. We’re planning to stay indoors, but if we did need to go out it probably wouldn’t be much of a problem. The main roads here, including the one we live on, should be plowed and salted.
With Barbara away, Colin and I re-watched several episodes each of Jericho and Heartland yesterday evening. I would have done the wild-women-and-parties thing except that I don’t know any wild women in Sparta and I hate parties.
5.5 inches of snow in OZ yesterday. UT was closed so I got to stay home. Up to six more inches predicted for Saturday night. Nice fluffy, light, powder snow.
Main roads did not get plowed until sometime last night. Hill out of Oak Ridge to Oliver Springs and hill from Solway into Oak Ridge was basically blocked because cars could not make it up the hill. Oak Ridge did nothing to the roads and thus caused problems. I think their snow removal equipment consists a Ford 600 tractor with three point hitch blade operated by union labor.
Goodness gracious, y’all are getting or have already gotten more snow that we’ve had all winta so fah!
Another sunny day here; wife is taking GG to the airport for her flight to Virginia and then Floriduh. Could be interesting, as could wife’s drive down to MA on Sunday. OFD is staying put by the stove.
Memphis is under a WINTER STORM WARNING and expecting up to a huge 7.5 CM of snow and “icy conditions” meaning anyone on the roads will be driving like maniacs. When I worked in DC we lived near Mananas VA and they would shut down the schools on the slightest hint of snow in the forecast. I recall one time forecast was for an inch, schools shut, and we had nothing, bright sunny day. Virginia is snow paranoid.
Virginia is snow paranoid.
It’s a conspiracy with the grocery stores to boost the sale of milk and bread.
Partly cloudy and 50F in Vegas. Yawn.
Now that Will Smith is boycotting the Oscars, I’m not watching. Well, I haven’t watched in 30 years, but if I was going to, I wouldn’t now. Because…WILL SMITH! Horrible actor. RACIIIST! Shutting up.
“The Expanse. It is Just. That. Good.” by Howard Taylor
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/the-expanse-tv-review
“I’m amazed by how good SyFy’s The Expanse is.”
“It is head-and-shoulders above anything else in TV science-fiction, with the possible exception of The Martian, which was a movie. Yes, I include Star Trek, Babylon V, and Firefly.”
Better than Firefly? No way as Firefly was super awesome. But, “The Expanse” is awesome.
Here on the OlyPen, rainy only; about 1.3 inches since midnight, according to my little weather station. Temps in the 40’sF.
Ordered another automatic power-out FLASHLIGHT. And with gas prices decreasing, will probably fill up another 5-gallon jug for the generator this week.
Let’s see if SyFy can keep Expanse alive longer than Defiance. The ending episode of Defiance sucked dead bunnies. Thanks, SyFy.
”
It’s a conspiracy with the grocery stores to boost the sale of milk and bread.”
Ahh, the french toast people. “Storm comin?” “Buy some eggs, milk, and bread.”
nick
“Prediction #9: Intel starts to become irrelevant”
http://www.cringely.com/2016/01/21/prediction-8-intel-starts-to-become-irrelevent/
I have been wondering about this.
Now that I have my gallon of maple syrup, I say “Bring it!” If I can’t last a week it’s all for naught.
I am sorry but “Defiance” has run its course. There is no newness there.
Now that Will Smith is boycotting the Oscars, I’m not watching.
Nothing more than Hollywood patting themselves on the back with awards for many movies that I would reject at the Walmart $3 bin. Also a chance for starlet bimbos to show off their dress and have it criticized by gay fashion experts.
I have to think there are some kickbacks involved in the decision process.
I also don’t watch the event as reruns of Gilligan’s Island have more meaning. So let Will Smith boycott. Just leaves one more seat for someone else. Meantime I will boycott Fresh Prince of Belair as it had no white actors.
I am sorry but “Defiance” has run its course. There is no newness there.
I hope the way SyFy ended Defiance isn’t a prelude to The Expanse’s end. I predicted this when it started.
Anybody gonna watch the new X-Files series?
When I hear it’s been renewed for a second season, then I’ll begin watching it. I’m tired of falling in love with a show in season one just to find out it’s not being renewed or, even worse, its first season is being cut short. I realize if everyone did that then ratings would plummet, but I don’t care. I suppose waiting to hear about season two will give me a chance to binge watch the original series on Netflix.
Is the new one supposed to be a continuation of the old or is it a complete reboot like the old series never happened?
The Expanse is a series of novels. Read them last year but even with that I had a hard time following the Expanse. I feel for the viewers who haven the books to give them an idea what’s going on because there IS a LOT going on. I do like sets, FX, and casting. However I imagined the Martian Marines powered Armor MUCH larger and more impressive.
How Much Firepower Does Your State Have?
Read the comments.
“Ahh, the french toast people. “Storm comin?” “Buy some eggs, milk, and bread.”
Hey, don’t forget the maple syrup, butter, and cinnamon. Also soak it overnight in all that in the fridge with a big splash of orange juice and some grated orange peel.
On that state/firepower list; the stats are arrived at kinda weirdly; they make Maffachufetts look pretty gun-happy when it’s one of the most restrictive jurisdictions on the continent. And obviously some peeps own small arsenals and a lot more don’t. I reckon there’s somewhere between half a billion and a billion in this country. And there are towns in this state where just about everybody carries.
In re: the sci-fi tee-vee and movies; nothing attracts my interest, and not much has in half a century. It is all too often fantasy fiction for adolescent males. Not trying to be a superior hyper-literate dick; it just doesn’t get it for me. I do have, however, the complete X-Files seasons here, plus the two or three previous movies they did. Haven’t got around to the binge-watching yet, though. I also have the complete Sherlock Holmes seasons that were done with the late Jeremy Brett and I’ve got the complete BBC Shakespeare, too; I’ll probably work my way through those before I get to the X-Files. It’s the thing where you got X-amount of time left on the planet and a choice of what to read, watch and listen to. You may not get to it all.
Back from vets group; one of our ex-jarhead vets from Georgia related a little Greg Allman story; Greg got busted for something or other down there and put in the local jail. This was after the band had started to make it big. He bitched that there was no tee-vee in his cell, so the sheriff said ‘hey, if you buy one for everyone else in here, too, then you can have one.’ Greg said: “Go git ’em.”
X-Files is supposed to pick up xxx years after the movies with the same characters. Rumor is The Lone Gunmen will return.
And there are towns in this state where just about everybody carries.
Religious gun clingers!
Freeze, suffer, and die as their power fails? Not very likely, I suppose, but it’s more likely than winning the billion dollar lottery, and someone won that, so that gives me hope.
“… so that gives me hope.”
No chit, homes; cue up that “Impossible Dream” song. O frabjous joy, to imagine the entire Mordor area buried in several feet of snow and ice, which then freezes over permanently, in direct contradiction of their usual warmist agitprop bullshit. And then the swampland underneath the whole mess becomes permafrost.
“Religious gun clingers!”
Indeed! Not to mention BITTER!
As an atheist, can I be just a bitter gun clinger?
“As an atheist, can I be just a bitter gun clinger?”
For the time being.
But eventually you may have to get yourself right with the angels, because we’ll be surrounded and under constant assault by demons. (bad angels)
In other nooz, wifey, who has made a lifelong habit of going around everywhere at home barefoot, finally got a piece of glass in her foot. I’d long since believed that she could walk across flaming broken glass shards without a scratch, but her comeuppance has comeuppanced. (not a real word, but as a recovering English major and former POW grad student I can do whatever I want). So she is still at GG’s soaking it and trying to pry it out with tweezers; got a piece of it but now it’s swollen and uncomfortable to walk on. GG is in Virginia enroute to Floriduh ahead of the alleged storm, I think. Wife has to drive down to MA on Sunday, so things get increasingly interesting, between her condition, the proposed travel, the storm, etc.
And still hasn’t been paid by her wunnerful employers down in Mordor, now well over thirty days. Only way she’s able to make it down there and have a place to stay is due to my SS payment arriving yesterday. She’s calling them tomorrow and telling them if they don’t pay her, she can’t do the next gig, which comes up right after the one in MA, only out in Kalifornia again. This shit has been going on for years now but it’s gotten worse.
Oh, almost forgot, in yakking about religion, sorta; out of curiosity, and Mr. DadCooks may get a laugh outta this: I looked up my old ECUSA rector who was in charge at All Saints down in Woostuh, MA, during the time I was confirmed there and became a church school teacher and verger, 1980s. He had struck me as Middle Church and kinda liberal back then. Turns out he’s now out of it and working in the Anglican Church of America, one of a good dozen or more breakaway Episcopal and Anglican denominations. They’re “Anglo-Catholic” and using the 1662 BCP. Very big on Scripture and theology. A few thousand members.
Yo, come home to Rome, baby! I’ll send him an email accordingly, lol. Skip the Elizabethan and Jacobean English and rocket on back to early medieval Latin.
Yes OFD I did get a laugh (well more of a chuckle) and could relate similar stories.
And still hasn’t been paid by her wunnerful employers down in Mordor, now well over thirty days.
We finally got a “promise” from a school to pay an invoice for $2,500 from February 2015. I was just getting ready to have the CPA write it off as bad debt. They said they needed a “new” invoice with todays date to pay it. WTF, over! Just pay it derps. Murka’s finest teachers in action.
“Just pay it derps.”
Wife here sez we can’t pin it on the worker bee drones in the office down there; they’re understaffed and trying their best with zero support or backing from the PHB matriarchy that runs the place. Who are more concerned with their PR and marketing bullshit. Tried running a play around and over them to those PHBs and got totally ignored, zero response. So we’re stuck and at their mercy for the time being, and limited by the necessity of wife keeping a job she loves. But love don’t pay the bills, and OFD’s hard-won credit rehab from four years ago has taken a beating thanks to the late paying of bills, etc.
Maybe once or twice where she can’t do a gig because she hasn’t been paid on time will wake them up. Or, they may just pass it off on some rank noob and not give a shit.
You forgot cousin-humpin’.
About 30 years ago I drove from where I was stationed to a family get together, meeting at a county fair. At the appointed place I loitered around a while, then spotted a cute girl also loitering. Started chatting her up and … and I’m sure you can guess where this is going. Yep, she was my cousin. Second cousin, but still. Worse, she was 16, which, no matter how old she looked, is kind of young for a 23-year-old. Worse, she was flattered by the attention and was responding favorably. Fortunately, relatives who knew us both showed up before things got too far, and we were both rather abashed. We hung out together the rest of the day, with both her mother and mine keeping gimlet eyes on us both.
“Fortunately, relatives who knew us both showed up before things got too far…”
Bullet dodged, son, bullet dodged.
I’m a hopeless and lonely paleoconservative traditionalist Roman Catholic:
http://www.amerika.org/
http://bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2016/01/100-years-of-fairy-tales-and-subversion.html
As is said around here “If she’s not good enough for her own family …” 🙂
Eh? Something like half the states allow *first* cousins to marry. Biologically, the risk is comparable to a woman over 40 being impregnated by an unrelated man.
Anathema! Apocalypse!
Well, no longer any risk of that around here…thank goodness!
And speaking of Apocalypse, wife was informing me the other day that one of her colleagues has ELEVEN daughters, no sons. And the parents are divorced. Imagine, if you will, as we cross over into the Twilight Zone, what it must be like to raise eleven daughters by yourself….
Well, yah, but I was about 23 and relatively unjaded (no pun intended). Allow me to retain some minor bit of squeamishness as regards boinking kin. Also, to be honest, her age was a bigger deterrent once I found out, and the glaring mothers bigger yet.
Whee, cold front blew in. Down to 44F and variable gusting. Chilly, blustery night.
nick
“…her age was a bigger deterrent once I found out, and the glaring mothers bigger yet.”
As I’ve heard before in life, “…don’t let nuthin’ but fear and common sense hold ya back…”
“Down to 44F and variable gusting. Chilly, blustery night.”
O I weep for thee…
13 w/winds light and variable…
You know, a nice light and refreshing, invigorating breeze blowing over a frozen snow-and-ice landscape and marinescape….Champ and me did shots by the fire and smoked a bong…nah…just kidding…he or she is hibernating way down…probably at 400 feet or deeper…
In other nooz, wifey, who has made a lifelong habit of going around everywhere at home barefoot, finally got a piece of glass in her foot. I’d long since believed that she could walk across flaming broken glass shards without a scratch, but her comeuppance has comeuppanced. (not a real word, but as a recovering English major and former POW grad student I can do whatever I want). So she is still at GG’s soaking it and trying to pry it out with tweezers; got a piece of it but now it’s swollen and uncomfortable to walk on.
29 years ago, I got food poisoning and stayed up all night upchucking everything I had eaten for the last year or so. Come morning, I decided to take a nice hot shower. Bad idea. I passed out in the shower and nailed the shower door on the way down with my left knee. The shower door was tempered 1/8th inch glass with steel wires on two inch centers. Bad design.
I punched a four inch diameter hole in the glass door with my knee. I come to and the wife is screaming as she cannot get the door open due to the glass in the bottom channel. All she can see is me laying on the shower floor covered in blood. So, I get the door open and she runs to call the EMTs. They show up, bandage the knee, and four firemen carry me out of the shower to the ambulance. The neighbors loved the peepshow. Luckily, I did miss cutting the artery on the inside of your knee by about an inch. But I had two cuts, one 180 degree cut in a three inch diameter and a 270 degree cut in a four inch diameter. I could not move the knee with all of the glass in the joint.
So they take me to the ER and the doc spends over an hour picking glass shards out of the knee. He can not give me any anesthetic since he is moving the knee and I have to feel any shards in the joint. After I pass out the second time, he relents and give me a shot in the knee to kill the pain. 65 sutures inside and 35 stitches outside. For the next five years, I get glass shards working their way to the surface of the knee that I end up pulling out with tweezers.
Last Friday, I am pulling on my sweat pants and get that old tugging feeling across the left knee. Sure enough, I’ve got another glass shard coming out. It has been 29 years! And yes, I dug it out.
Great article on why the SJWs in Oakland are getting their Walmart closed, “The Supermarket Index” by Francis Turner:
http://accordingtohoyt.com/2016/01/21/the-supermarket-index-francis-turner/
“There is little dispute that Wal-Mart’s price reductions have benefited the 120 million American workers employed outside of the retail sector. Plausible estimates of the magnitude of the savings from Wal-Mart are enormous – a total of $263 billion in 2004, or $2,329 per household.”
“Of course the minimum wage campaigners don’t really grasp the thin profit margins that the average supermarket has. They look at the gross numbers and see millions of dollars of sales per location without grasping that most of those millions of dollars go right out the door to buy stock, pay wages, rents, taxes and so on.”
“It doesn’t stop there either. Oakland is considering raising that local minimum wage to $15 an hour, another $2.45 raise on the current level. And that entirely wipes out the profit from the store altogether. And why would investors want their capital spent on doing something that makes them no return? ”
Is it possible that the SJWs are going to cause the apocalypse?
“Imagine, if you will, as we cross over into the Twilight Zone, what it must be like to raise eleven daughters by yourself….”
Imagine paying for bras, makeup, feminine hygene products and weddings for all those girls… 🙁
English friends of mine managed to produce four daughters and no sons. Relatives in Scotland managed to produce four sons, no daughters. There was talk, not too serious *I think*, of swapping the last son for the last daughter, who were born at roughly the same time.
“Something like half the states allow *first* cousins to marry.”
Not a good idea. Just look at eastern Tenn, northern Miss and Ala, and Kentucky too see why… 🙂
Bernie wants a minimum wage of $15 per hour doesn’t he?
I’d still rather him than Hillary. And if he gets in he might, just possibly, let y’all keep your guns.
Just look at eastern Tenn, northern Miss and Ala, and Kentucky too see why
Hey, just a minute. We are not only cousins but uncles and aunts to our half brothers and sisters. Geez, give us some credit.
Disclaimer, I was born in California, raised in Oregon, transplanted to TN. But even back in my youth I thought my cousin was hot. I guess in retrospect TN was in my blood and I did not know it.
“It has been 29 years! And yes, I dug it out.”
Yikes, you got more damage in your shower than I got in four combat deployments to SEA. Jeezum Crow, kemosabe!
Mrs. OFD is accident-prone and there have been many such mishaps over the past nearly twenty years. And she’s suffered more damage than my long-ago capers with Uncle, too.
“And if he gets in he might, just possibly, let y’all keep your guns.”
He’d be more likely to leave us the hell alone; guns are not one of his big issues; he’s much more concerned with soaking the rich and finishing off the economy.
However I imagined the Martian Marines powered Armor MUCH larger and more impressive.
Spaceships and submarines have an item in common. Tight corridors and small holes in bulkheads. Big space armor will not be able to go inside spaceships without blasting your way in.
Actually, I envision two sets of space armor, one for inside spaceships and one for outside spaceships.
This is a perfectly normal reaction to puberty. What isn’t normal is doing something about. What’s just wrong is a culture where it’s normal instead of a joke.
“It has been 29 years! And yes, I dug it out.”
Yikes, you got more damage in your shower than I got in four combat deployments to SEA. Jeezum Crow, kemosabe!
Nah. I’ve got glass in the system. You’ve got metal. Metal trumps glass all day long.
The piece that I removed last Friday was 1/8th inch by 1/16th inch by 1/16th inch. Not much there. But, it bothers me that it is still there at all.
Mrs. OFD is accident-prone and there have been many such mishaps over the past nearly twenty years.
Me too. I’ve lost count of the number of bones that I have broken over the years. Upper right arm, both lower right leg, left index finger, right pinkie finger, left pinkie finger, far right two toes are most of them.
I thought I was accident prone. But I only have a few stitches from a fall on a very slick road 17 years ago, and a broken right radius and ulna from 18 months ago.
How do you break so many fingers? I’m guessing you dropped something on your
foot to break the toes?
“You’ve got metal. Metal trumps glass all day long.”
They picked out most of it back in the day, and a few remaining pieces floated up and out or simply disintegrated. None left so far as I know. They used to bother me during cold and wet weather, tingling, like when your leg or arm goes to “sleep” but that hasn’t happened in ages.
Never broken a bone.
How do you break so many fingers? I’m guessing you dropped something on your foot to break the toes?
right pinkie finger = using a pipe wrench to open a kitchen sink clean out in 1983, the wrench slipped and I hit the house with the pinkie, cracking the first bone. Later had to get it cut open and drained.
left index finger = trying to pull up a kitchen sink from the counter in 2002, overstressed the joint and heard a pop as the first bone and joint separated. Finger joints are so overrated. Bone spurs will hold your finger bones in place after a while.
two far right toes = fast walking through kitchen without shoes, hit the base of the island with right foot and broke two far right toes
left pinkie finger = I have no idea but the first bone is now twenty degrees off center
right upper arm = playing king of hill on stack of bricks in 1965, I lost. Six weeks of traction since growth plate was broken one inch above elbow.
lower right leg = car wreck in 1971. My right leg was under the front seat which collapsed and broke both bones one inch above the ankle. That was a bad day in Navasota, Texas as somebody died at that wreck.
My Dad (B-17 Pilot, over 57 missions, 3 planes) carried flak that couldn’t be removed in his legs. He said he always sat on his Flak Jacket (like the rest of the crew) to protect the family jewels (otherwise I wouldn’t be here). Dad considered his Flak “infused” legs to be accurate weather predictors and said they also gave him a legitimate reason to complain about the weather.
“Dad considered his Flak “infused” legs to be accurate weather predictors and said they also gave him a legitimate reason to complain about the weather.”
Same deal with me until a few years ago. Most of my shrapnel was near the surface; punctures and lacerations, including the top of my head, so I looked at the time like I was a goner. Still got a small hole in my left shoulder and scarring here and there but barely noticeable.
Poor Mr. Lynn has taken a terrible beating over the years, damn. Boy gotta be more careful, esp. as he gets older. Yo, son, take it EASY down there. Luckily you ain’t got to slip and slide on our ice up here; almost took a header yesterday just walking to the post office a block away. Mrs. OFD has taken a drubbing, also; horse threw her off onto a rock a few years ago and left a permanent crease in her hip, just missing the bone. Another horse gave a slight tap with his hoof across her head and knocked her for a loop; the hospital staff quizzed us separately on that caper. Ended up with a swollen black, blue, purple and yellow eye. Very lucky both times. Many other minor injuries over the years.
@Lynn,
Thanks. I’ve always wondered why we pay our plumber so much. Now I know.
Plumbing is very dangerous. Especially if you fall in the poo.
Mr Lynn needs to stay the hell out of the kitchen!
n
I haven’t had any glass or gravel come out of my face or shoulder in years. I’m guessing it’s finally all out.
On the other hand, I’m suddenly having trouble with a thumb joint I crunched almost 30 years ago. I think that bone chip has moved.
“Mr Lynn needs to stay the hell out of the kitchen!”
Yo, that’s right! Tell the little woman to get in there and make ya a sandwich!