09:52 – Eric from Blue Ridge Electric Co-op just called to say he’s on his way to install the propane tank and hook up our gas cooktop. Sadly, they are out of the 220-gallon propane tanks we ordered, so they’re going to install a 330-gallon (~ 1,250 L) tank instead. My heart is broken. Now we’re going to have 50% more propane stored than I thought. Call it 30,000,000 BTUs. Enough to run the large 15,000 BTU burner in our cooktop for 2,000 hours.
It was about 19F (-5C) with snow flurries when I took Colin out at 0700. There’s a strong breeze with gusts of 30+ MPH (~50 KPH), which takes the wind chill down well below 0F (-18C). And the really cold weather isn’t supposed to arrive until this evening and tomorrow. We’ll be staying indoors as much as possible.
I’ve seen a couple of articles lately talking about how the number of preppers is declining hugely because of Trump’s election. Sales of LTS food, guns, ammo, etc. are falling precipitously because a lot of folks supposedly think Trump is going to fix everything. I don’t doubt that the general mood of the country is more optimistic with Trump as President-elect, nor do I doubt that sales of those things are declining, but I don’t believe anything has changed significantly. Other, perhaps, than that Trump is much less likely to get us into a nuclear war than Clinton would have been. But all of the country’s vulnerabilities remain: a very fragile electric power infrastructure that could be severely damaged by any of several events; a transportation infrastructure that is wholly dependent on continuing supplies of fuel, which in turn are dependent on an aging and failing system of pipelines, which are themselves very vulnerable to terrorist attacks. A society divided in half, with each half literally hating the other half, one of those halves totally dependent on government handouts and the other, productive, half sick and tired of being exploited to benefit people they despise. And a financial infrastructure that is teetering on the edge of collapse. Keep prepping, because things are going to continue to get worse, even with Trump in charge.
14:58 – Our propane gas cooktop is installed, kind of, and working. The tank has only 200 gallons in it because the original work order called for installing a 250-gallon tank, which they fill to only 200 gallons (80%, presumably to allow sufficient expansion space), and they could fill the 330-gallon tank we got only with as much as was specified on the work order. The next time one of their propane tankers is out this way, they’ll stop and top up our tank.
I say “kind of” installed because the existing cutout in the granite counter top on our kitchen island was a bit larger than needed for this cooktop. There’s no gap around the cooktop, but it overlaps the hole in the counter by only a couple of millimeters on each edge. It’s in no danger of falling through the hole, but I’m still going to brace it underneath with a couple of 2X4’s under the base of the cooktop. Then we’ll use either black RTV silicone caulk or a thin black rubber pad to seal the edges.
Also, the only electric power in the space under the cooktop was the 240VAC connection for the former cooktop. This new cooktop has an ordinary 120VAC cord and plug, but no receptacle to plug it into. Which is okay for now. I’ve called an electrician to come out and install a standard receptacle, but for now we just ran an extension cord to a receptacle on the outside of the island. The auto-igniter works fine, as do all the burners.
Eric commented that they use a propane cooktop at home, and they very seldom use anything but the smallest burner. He says it heats pans very quickly, and that we probably won’t need to use the largest burner, other than perhaps for canning. He also said that their average customer who uses propane only for a cooktop and oven uses only 25 gallons of propane per year, so even if we do a lot of cooking a full tank should hold us for 10 or 12 years. Of course, once we get the generator set up to use propane, if we ever need to use it it’ll go through 0.5 to 2 gallons of propane per hour, depending on load.
We won’t get to try the new cooktop for dinner tonight. Barbara is volunteering at the historical society from 1330 to 1700, and we’re having leftover chicken Alfredo, reheated in the microwave.
The mood of the country, especially business, is more positive and the stock market is BOOMING. But the underlying issues of excessive debt and insane investments driven by a 0% interest environment are still there. We are in a bubble and like all bubbles it WILL burst. So while the feeling of urgency may have abated, we still need to be prepared. Earthquakes and Solar Flares (not to mention EMP) are still a threat. Don’t let down your guard.
When we lived in (near) Sparks OK, pop. 213, in the 90’s we had 80 acres with a small spring, 40 acres in woods, and a fireplace insert with forced air that kept the whole house toasty on just a few ricks. I enjoyed the exercise of chopping and splitting with a maul and wedges. Providing heat for my family literally by the sweat of my brow (and elsewhere) was an empowering experience. We leased 40 acres to a local cattle rancher for 1/2 a beef a year and him keeping the fencing up. It was isolated and I could go out on the back porch in my underwear and practice with my pistol on targets on back fence. It was almost ideal, a great place to bring up our two boys, and I sure wish we still had that property. But when our youngest left for college we moved to the UK and eventually sold the land while we lived abroad. Now we are back in the US and getting ready for retirement I am looking for a place like that.
“Heroin now kills more people than guns: Drugs overdoses claimed 50,000 lives in the US last year
The number of heroin deaths rose 23% to 12,989, more than gun homicides
Fentanyl – a synthetic opiate – claimed 16,000 lives, equivalent to 44 per day
Heroin claimed the lives of Hollywood actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2014
But the majority of those killed are ordinarypeople in smalltown America”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4015536/A-grim-tally-soars-More-50-000-overdose-deaths-US.html
Quick, we need some common sense heroin control legislation! We need to restrict access to a reasonable amount, and control who sells it to who, and how much, plus we need to regulate its strength. after all, if it saves JUST ONE LIFE….
Oh, right, already illegal, banned, completely illicit. And still———————-50K dead.
nick
From what I have heard in interviews with one of the Trump economic plan drafters is that the two key points are cutting corporate income taxes (probably to 10% for small business and 20% for large) and streamlining regulations. The individual income tax cuts will probably include a paring back of deductions, much like Reagan did. They predict a return to 4-5% GDP growth in 2 years.
Does anyone else here still subscribe to Scientific American? I’ve been getting it since 1981 but it seems to have gone down hill. I’d like to download the online issues going back to the beginning, don’t know how much work that would be.
I also noticed a long while back that Scientific American magazine had gone downhill, and it had also gone lefty.
I also agree with RBT’s assessment of our Current Situation; it’s a little breathing space, a little window, or bubble, if you prefer. Absolutely no reason whatsoever to slow down or stop our prepping activities.
Mine are nowhere near what they need to be because we’re hamstrung by several factors here, but they are better than probably 98% of the population. That gives me scant comfort, because we’re not even as prepared as we should be for NORMAL disruptions, such as winter storms. So small steps will have to suffice for now.
Overcast again and the sky looks like a snow sky. We shall see.
“Houston’s flooding issues are important because more people die in Houston from flooding than in any other city. No other urban area in America has flooded as much as Houston in the last 40 years.”
http://spacecityweather.com/houston-tx-tribune-flooding/
Who would have thought ?
Seriously, Houston has a deadly flooding problem and usually at least one 10 inch rainfall over an hour or two per year. And all of the new construction to the northwest and northeast of the metropolitan area are making things worse. When the authorities say that the new houses, roads, and businesses are not making the flooding worse, they lie.
And when the authorities blame the flooding on climate change, they lie. I’ve lived in the Houston area since 1972, it flooded back then and it still floods. Each new flood seems to be a revelation to certain people. And in 1972, the metropolitan population was maybe one million, it is eight million people now. But, that has nothing to do with the flooding according to them.
Have a plan to get out and have a plan to stay in place. Know the signs of flooding occurring and know which streets are low around your home and business. And have a tall vehicle ! I cannot remember how many times my mother and I sat on Stella Link in her dead Volvo station wagon in eight inches of water while the trucks were passing us. And the waves were rocking the car.
WRT heroin (and other) drug deaths:
If all drugs were made legal, in very short order the Darwin Principle would eliminate the abusers.
I have been on long term opioid treatment for more than 10 years. I am smart enough to have at least quarterly contact with my doctor and we work together to see that I get enough to be effective when needed and my dosage reduced when I am maintaining. To be perfectly legal in WA State I have to call him every month to refill my maximum 30-day supply and go to his office in person to pick up a paper (very special paper) prescription that I then have to present, in person again, the prescription to be filled and then listen to the Pharmacist recite the addiction warnings.
The other day when I was at my Veterinarian, she was lamenting all the new regulations (which includes much more record keeping and paperwork in addition to new restrictions) on the drugs she dispenses.
I repeat, that there should be absolutely no illegal drugs. I know @RBT has a contradictory view as it relates to antibiotics, but people need to take personal responsibility. If a person chooses to be uninformed then it is they that must suffer the consequences. That also means that I am not going to pay for the uninformed’s medical bills and/or rehabilitation bills.
“That also means that I am not going to pay for the uninformed’s medical bills and/or rehabilitation bills.”
Au contraire, my submariner friend; the State will simply TAKE your money in the form of taxes and REDISTRIBUTE whatever percentage to the junkies’ med and rehab bills and of course their return to “productive roles in society, etc.”
And the frosting on the cake is that the rest of us with legitimate uses for various drugs have to jump through countless hoops and be humiliated in the process and most important, simply keep paying and paying, if not for the actual drugs, then for drug company subsidies and of course taxes.
None of mine are habit-forming so they come in the mail, for blood pressure, potassium deficiency and the Gabapentin, which, come to think of it, they don’t want me to stop taking suddenly. I don’t know offhand what the VA procedure is for getting hold of pain-killer and potentially addictive medicines is.
“I repeat, that there should be absolutely no illegal drugs. I know @RBT has a contradictory view as it relates to antibiotics, but people need to take personal responsibility. ”
The reason I’d make every drug completely uncontrolled EXCEPT antibiotics is that misuse of antibiotics does not affect just the person who misuses them, but everyone who later is infected with a pathogen that has become resistant to antibiotics. It’s a Tragedy of the Commons situation.
“If all drugs were made legal, in very short order the Darwin Principle would eliminate the abusers”
I doubt it. Alcoholics and drug abusers breed just as prolifically as casual drinkers and users. Drug (including alcohol) abuse is a long and drawn out affair that doesn’t peak until well after onset of puberty and full fertility.
Even if the tendency to abuse is purely genetic (I personally think it is a combination of genetic propensity and social factors) and it took the person out of the gene pool before puberty it wouldn’t necessarily disappear e.g. It has been estimated that about half of all type 1 hemophilia is new mutations. The tendency to abuse drugs seems to be part of a percentage of the human race and it will probably always be so. To me the legal vs illegal argument is a separate political debate.
I’m definitely not a fan big crowds. Never have been and much less so in the last couple of years. But when you are offered a couple of tickets to the Monday night football game you don’t turn it down. A friend and I will be whooping and cheering with 65,000 of our closest friends as we watch the Patriots defeat the Ravens.
I’ve gotten so used to my EDC gear in the last few years I’m going to feel practically naked with out my stuff. I will only have my phone, car key, license, credit card and a few dollars with me. I doubt I could even slip my little P38 can opener by security. And the consequences of doing so make it not worth trying.
Sometimes you just have to take a little risk to have some fun.
Oh, right, already illegal, banned, completely illicit. And still———————-50K dead.
A large percentage of deaths are caused by them being illegal. They are sold by criminal scum who don’t care if their customers overdose. A junkie can get a fix with 10% heroin one day and the next day the heroin is 100%. If they were legal, the junkies would know how much to use each time and overdoses would be reduced. With the drugs legal, they would cost less and the junkies would feel less need to steal to support their habits. 50K dead are strong evidence that the current prohibition has failed.
The strongest drug I normally use is ethanol in either beer or Merlot, and I live in a state where cannabis is legal for recreational use. We even have billboards advertising it.
Rick in Portland
The reason I’d make every drug completely uncontrolled EXCEPT antibiotics is that misuse of antibiotics does not affect just the person who misuses them, but everyone who later is infected with a pathogen that has become resistant to antibiotics. It’s a Tragedy of the Commons situation.
One of the great dilemmas we libertarians face. There really are a few things that need control. The trick of course is to keep the control from becoming out of control. Sigh……
Yep, and the other obvious problem is vaccination. We already have too many recent examples of what happens when too low a percentage of the population is immunized for herd immunity to work.
“Windows 10 is coming to ARM again, with win32 emulation”
http://www.osnews.com/story/29537/Windows_10_is_coming_to_ARM_again_with_win32_emulation
I’m not sure why Microsoft is doing this. And one wonders how good the Win32 emulation is.
I am 64 years old and until last year I never had anyone I personally know die from drugs. In the last year I have gone to two funerals for friends of our granddaughter who died from Heroin overdose, called 911 to get help for another who had overdosed, and heard of two acquaintances whose children had overdosed. Was I insulated or is this an epidemic. We all see the damage done by heroin and meth yet people of all ages continue to take it up every day. In the 80’s I read a science fiction story that posited the existence of a drug that simply removed the high from cocaine and heroin. I believe I have read that such a compound has been developed. Would that be good or not?
I am 64 years old and until last year I never had anyone I personally know die from drugs.
I am also 64. About 25 years ago my best friend’s brother died from a heroin overdose. He was from an affluent family who tried to get him help a number of times before he died. I knew him from when he was a kid until he died. He might still be alive if not for heroin’s illegality.
Naloxone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naloxone) is a drug that blocks the effect of opioids and can reverse the effects of an overdose quite quickly.
There is a drug to combat alcohol usage, Antabuse. Makes you throw up when you drink alcohol. I’m not sure about any other drugs.
http://www.addictionsandrecovery.org/antabuse.htm
Antibiotics need to be regulated globally. In many third world countries, they are handed out like candy. India is a prime example. The resistant microbes are much more common there than in the U.S. In the U.S., some of the worst abuse is in agriculture. We are rapidly approaching the end of the antibiotic era with current practices and the paucity of new classes of antibiotics.
The third world problem is not new. In the mid ’70’s I was in Brazil and wanted a decongestant. I went with a friend who was a native Spanish speaker and was reasonably fluent in Portuguese to a pharmacy. He asked the pharmacist for something for a cold and the pharmacist offered tetracycline.
Rick in Portland
If you use Wikipedia, it’s time to make a contribution to support it. I normally contribute $25/year. It’s worth far more to me than that.
They don’t run ads and it is an invaluable resource. It’s not perfect, but it’s worth supporting.
Rick in Portland
In Florida, the current heroin epidemic (and I hate that use of the word) is a by-product of the crackdown on ‘pill mills’. When people couldn’t get their legal, USP standard opiates, they turned to the street pharmacology type. I’m certainly libertarian enough to want to legalize it all, and let the market forces determine the winner. As another poster notes, I just don’t want to have to pay to un-fuck someone else’s life because they are foolish enough to use heroin, meth, etc. I did that in real life with my nephew, who died at age 40, almost 4 years ago, from the long term effects of meth use (organ failure).
If you use Wikipedia, it’s time to make a contribution to support it. I normally contribute $25/year. It’s worth far more to me than that.
I contributed $100 from my business a week ago as they allow me list our software in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_II_for_Windows
Note that they are responsible and encrypt their communication with their users.
In Florida, the current heroin epidemic (and I hate that use of the word) is a by-product of the crackdown on ‘pill mills’.
The “pill mills” started to be neighborhood problems in Tampa prior to the crackdown. I used to drive by one on the way to work every morning, 7 AM, with the parking lot filled to capacity (30 cars) and more stacked up on the neighborhood streets. Not many of the cars featured Florida plates; most hailed from the Midwest. Just about any location within 24 hours driving time of Tampa had no lack of representation among the clientele, and we’re not talking about “Chamber of Commerce” folks.
As for antibiotics, there hasn’t been any effective control of abuse among the migrant farm worker communities. I saw scary stats for Central Florida in the *90s*, and I can’t imagine things got better in the last 20 years. Fortunately/unfortunately for Tampa, the most productive tomato fields in the world, just outside of town, were plowed under for Amazon’s new warehouse (among other new development), and the problem has been mitigated in the area somewhat. Progress.
Antibiotics in ag is fast being changed by the market place. OTH then there’s gluten free…
“…Scientific American? I’ve been getting it since 1981 but it seems to have gone down hill…
I stopped subscribing around 1985 or 1990, because I thought it had become very superficial. I can’t imagine what has happened to it since then…
“If you use Wikipedia, it’s time to make a contribution to support it.”
Any thoughts about the alt-right branch, InfoGalactic?
“Sometimes you just have to take a little risk to have some fun.”
Given free tickets I would probably go, too. But I’d also carry my tactical pen and credit card knife, and have the full pistol EDC out in the car locked up tight. I’ll be watching that game here on the tee-vee so wear some nice red-white-and-blue Patriots gear and wave so I can pick you outta the crowd, lol. Meanwhile you might enjoy this site:
http://townienews.com/
On heroin usage: Your humble ex-junkie correspondent in northern Vermont used nearly pure heroin in smokable form while stationed in Thailand 1974-75, five to ten bucks a pop for these little plastic vials and you mixed it in with the tobacco in ciggies, preferably Kool menthols, and it produced a notable smell which I can still remember. I once mixed it with Thai sticks pot in a bong and sat downtown above a bar that some friends owned, on a chair and couldn’t move for about four hours. Barely conscious, probably a near-OD. If you tried injecting it, you’d be dead in seconds. And guys went back to the States with babits that were now $300/day. I went back and kicked it cold turkey on the 21-hour plane ride to northern Kalifornia, where I was honorably discharged at Travis AFB in Sacramento. I had severe stomach cramps and flu symptoms for a while and then switched to alcohol. Case of beer per night for a year, to try to stop or suppress the nightmares. And then, of course, kept drinking until about seven years ago. Ironically, I mostly quit having the nightmares, lol, joke’s on me.
I’d at least decriminalize most drugs except stuff like crack coke, crystal meth, fentanyl, etc. For dealers in that stuff, 5-10 at hard labor in max security. Second offense, death.
I’ll think about contributing to Wikepedia; I note problems occasionally with the political slant of some of their articles, and something else I read a while back about their financial condition and some discrepancies. I don’t remember when and where I saw it, though, you know, CRS Syndrome.
The tickets weren’t free, I had to pay face value. If you can find tickets at all you will usually have to pay way above the face value, so I consider this a good deal. They are from a coworker with season tickets who couldn’t go since he’s traveling for work. It has been awhile since I went to a game. I’m looking forward to it despite the restrictions and crowds.
The camera might find me since I will be wearing a jacket with hunters orange on it (I don’t hunt but I walk in the woods where hunters frequent and it’s the warmest jacket I own), a wide brimmed gray hat, mittens, and earmuffs. A total nerd look but given a choice between warm and stylish, I go warm. Who am I trying to impress, anyway.
“The tickets weren’t free, I had to pay face value.”
I still might go but I wouldn’t be as motivated. Same deal with the Red Sox.
“…I will be wearing a jacket with hunters orange on it (I don’t hunt but I walk in the woods where hunters frequent and it’s the warmest jacket I own), a wide brimmed gray hat, mittens, and earmuffs.”
I’ll keep an eye out for ya. Tell me the section and I’ll watch the camera angles they use for the crowd shots during the game.
“Who am I trying to impress, anyway.”
C’mon, dude; Patriots cheerleaders!!!
http://www.patriots.com/cheerleaders/roster
I hope one of these big-ass investigations is going on now with the Mordor and Babylon and Hollyweird areas, but I doubt it:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/nearly-400-children-rescued-348-adults-arrested-canadian-child-pornography-f2D11599561
To the wall with them all. I’m dead serious. Waterboard them first for more names, places and passwords.
I’ve been getting it since 1981 but it seems to have gone down hill.
The tipping point for me was in the 90s, when they stopped having all the articles written by scientists in the field and started having journalists write them. When I was an astronomy student in the mid 70s, getting published in SciAm was a notch below getting published in Science. One of my profs had an article on thunder published and it was the tipping point to getting promoted to full professor.
Looks like BlueHost and JustHost (same place) are having massive problems. Tons of sites are down (mine included), and the ‘pitchfork and fire’ gang are complaining of revenue loss.
My opinion of those complainers? If their revenue is so important to them, then why don’t they have a backup/mirror plan? “All eggs in one basket”, etc.
Me, my sites are not revenue-rich (much to my dismay), so I can deal with it.
Jerry’s sites are down, also. Widespread. Not sure if DNS or DDOS issues.
And in 1972, the metropolitan population was maybe one million, it is eight million people now.
About 2.4 million in 1972, about 6.6 million now according to the census data. The first flooding I can remember, and I have lived here since 1959 with an exile to Dallas from 1978 to 1984, was in 1968. We had a strong rain in April or May and the streets in Sharpstown flooded.
The developments out to the West are the main problem, especially the ones that predate the detention pond requirements. Combined with few improvements to the bayou system for quite a while and you have problems.
At least one Fed site (studentloans.gov) was down last night for many hours.
I agree with Mr. RickH; backups and mirrors if you’re making $ off your site/s; WTF? But I remember all too well trying to convince PHB manglers about things like that and IT security and getting exactly nowhere. Then they’d get hit, and at least a couple of them were fired. Dint listen to OFD.
scientific american went hard left some years ago. I canceled my sub after some egregious article. The quality was way down too. I remember one article that tried to cash in on the Maker movement, and had some EE building a remote controlled power strip. Not being an electrician, he switched the white leg (or neutral for AC in the US) when you are supposed to switch the black (hot) leg. Really dangerous. I’d expect better from Instructables, not to mention an edited and reviewed mag.
WRT heroin, yes it’s an epidemic. Last time it came thru it was powdered, and kids were sniffing it not knowing it was heroin. Don’t know what’s driving this route to addiction, but they know about Narcan, and expect to be saved if they OD (according to the EMS folks I read.) I think part of the problem is that they don’t have indirect experience of it, knowing people whose lives have been destroyed. LSD has the same thing periodically. I was of a generation that had older cousins, brothers, and friends that had bad experiences and it warned us off. People aren’t getting the warn off.
WRT sportsball- no interest. They don’t want me there (ban on CCW nationwide at NFL games) and I’m happy to oblige. That feeling of nakedness means you’ve internalized the need for your EDC. This is a GOOD THING.
nick
Fuck sports.
I’ll reserve judgement on that until I hear some more detail, like ages. I can’t get very worked up over “kiddy porn” pictures of a topless 17-year-old, but they’re enumerated the same as pictures of a toddler being raped. Also, keep in mind the witch hunts which rise up from time to time over child porn and child molestation, which years later turns out to have been no such thing.
On the flip side, there are long-running and widespread cases of actual abuse which were covered up for decades because the abusers or pornographers were friends of important people or were of a favored group. I don’t know enough about this report to know which side it falls on, though cynicism suggests the former.
For what it’s worth, I used to work with a guy who had to register as a sex offender, I think for the rest of his life, because when he was 20-ish he peed out a bunch of beer and some of the people in the group were under-age girls. Through a series of unfortunate events (the details of which I’m fuzzy on) he was reported and sentenced and briefly jailed and now has to register just like a guy who got a series of 12-year-olds pregnant. A criminal system of justice, indeed.
Really? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that. It’s always been the peons, or maybe a low-level manager, who got sacked. Especially if the peons were contractors, as is often the case; contractors have no job security whatever, and make convenient scapegoats. (I’ve filled that role several times myself. It’s annoying, but I’ve never noticed any job security as an employee, either, so I’ll take the higher hourly rate and not feel obligated to give a damn about the client and their problems beyond doing an honest day’s work for my pay.)
Almost. Fuck watching other people do sports. I don’t have any objection to others who want to participate themselves, so long as I’m not paying for their hobby.
“LSD has the same thing periodically.”
Your humble ex-junkie, ex-drunk correspondent from northern Vermont also did a bunch of acid trips in high skool, some of them out of this world and/or in another dimension, or so it felt. Like today’s VR, sorta. But there was also bad acid and several of my friends never came back from it. Mentally, that is.
I’m gradually weaning myself off my NFL addiction, but it’s taking longer than the other drugs.
I view sports like pornography. I am not interested in watching, but I like to play.
Rick in Portland
“I’ll reserve judgement on that until I hear some more detail, like ages.”
Good point; my comment about sending perps to the wall meant those found demonstrably guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, of course. The report has nearly 400 arrested and supposedly it took the “authorities” three years to run the investigation. We shall see.
“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.”
Yeah, in one case the company’s IT Director (who I’d warned several times about the lack of security on the machines there, and who I also clued in about blade server and virtualization tech that was available even then for his crowded server room, but blew me off on both counts), and a state government manager who I’d similarly warned and then the governor’s web site got hacked and other sites were penetrated, including the department running the correction system’s infrastructure. I was basically forced out of my state gummint job and good riddance, too.
That’s right, employees have shit for job security, too, no more than contractors. Which I’ll be again if I get the Fed job, don’t really care either way, just doing the usual due diligence here. I feel like I can haul ass for PHB manglers for just a few more years if need be and that’s it, otherwise I don’t give a damn and will find other sources of revenue.
If our tax situation wasn’t so bad, we’d be in much better shape here, but I’m slowly getting a handle on that, too. What a gigantic PITA it is.
Wife just called and it still hurts to talk; she’ll be home tomorrow at around 4:15 and then gone again Tuesday for a few days, almost a week.
So combine them, rick. Mattress wrestling is a long-running favorite. Just make sure all participants and judges are using the same scoring system.
Where does one sign up to be a judge?
/full monte quote
“There you are.
I should have guessed
when you started wearing totty lotion.
You never put it on for me, did you?
– Jean?
– Or this? [holds up red g string/nut bag/banana hammock]
I never had you down
for this sort of caper, David.
It explains a few things, at least.”
//full monte quote
/Hyper-literate quote:
“How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure. ”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
//Hyper-literate quote
Yeah, we had a pill mill problem in this part of Florida, too. The pharmacy at a Wal-Mart in a small town north of here was dispensing the expected number of Oxy-Contin pills of a town of 250,000 people. Ugh.
The main dope problems up here are associated with our white underclass elements, and they are pills and heroin. The pills are the opioids, of course, and the heroin danger is when it’s cut with stuff like fentanyl. Some cretin on the latter fell asleep behind the wheel up on the interstate and crashed, and somehow survived. There is also some meth activity and the one-pot stills for it that get busted occasional by “law enforcement.” And pot is always around.
But the main substance problem here, there and everywhere is alcohol. As always. Which is legal.
DadCooks wrote:
“I repeat, that there should be absolutely no illegal drugs. I know @RBT has a contradictory view as it relates to antibiotics, but people need to take personal responsibility. If a person chooses to be uninformed then it is they that must suffer the consequences. ”
The reason antibiotics shouldn’t be abused is that *other* people might have to bear the consequences. I might die because of my neighbour’s abuse of antibiotics.
I say “kind of” installed because the existing cutout in the granite counter top on our kitchen island was a bit larger than needed for this cooktop. There’s no gap around the cooktop, but it overlaps the hole in the counter by only a couple of millimeters on each edge. It’s in no danger of falling through the hole, but I’m still going to brace it underneath with a couple of 2X4’s under the base of the cooktop. Then we’ll use either black RTV silicone caulk or a thin black rubber pad to seal the edges.
It really torques me off that 30 inch cooktops do not have the same counter top cutout.
DH wrote:
“C’mon, dude; Patriots cheerleaders!!!
http://www.patriots.com/cheerleaders/roster”
Some of them look reasonably okay, for Americans. Might even be enough to wean SteveF off the sheep…
“Fuck sports.”
With the exclusion of women’s beach volleyball… 🙂
It was a dark day for you when you heard that syphilis originally came from sheep. And a darker one when you heard about the rise of antibiotic-resistant diseases. And the darkest day ever when shepherds started chasing you away from the flocks because you were spreading it to other sheep.
With the exclusion of women’s beach volleyball…
With the exclusion of naked women’s beach volleyball…
FIFY.
Wimminz don’t need to be nekkid to be attractive – a little concealment works wonders, especially Democrat wimminz like Madeleine Albright.
USA olympic beach volleyball is only about 6 in sq from being ‘naked’ volleyball. Contrast with mens beach volleyball- when they are more covered than the mooosllimm team.
n
(and yes I did watch womens beach in about a 4:1 ratio to mens….)
Okay folks, I stand thoroughly chastised regarding my opinion on the unhindered availability of of ALL antibiotics. I will accept some restrictions.
Part of my frustration is that while I have had access to a doctor, that is MY doctor, for many years it can go away at the whim of the gooberment. The majority of folks only have access to some sort of CLINIC, at best. They never see the same doctor twice and even with “electronic medical records” their care is at best mediocre.
BTW, add me to the “Fuck Sports Spectators” column, the opiate of the masses just like ancient Rome.
“…the opiate of the masses just like ancient Rome.”
Just for laffs, watch a game or two of any of the sportsball events and check out the spectators in the stands. There’s two kinds: peeps just there to have a good time with their families and friends and cheer on their “home” team, and don’t mean anything other than that. Then there’s the rubes and bumpkins for whom it mos def IS an opiate and who act like jackasses and clowns, screaming like idiots over every single play, some of them clearly there just to be noticed and cause trouble and maybe a fight or two, where they invariably gang up on some hapless derp out of sight of security and/or out in the parking lots. Usually drunk.
The day is coming, though, when the televised sportsball stuff and the phony Olympics are falling by the wayside; fewer viewers, more advertising clogging up the bandwidth, and declining revenues. They’ll go the way of the nooz-papers and other information dinosaurs.
Up this way, and in many other small-town areas of the country, it ain’t tee-vee but high skool sports that is the huge audience draw, by orders of magnitude. The whole second section of our local rag is devoted entirely to that, every single day of the week. They’ll even include extra sections consisting entirely of photos of their high school team activities and heroes and heroines. People FLOCK to these things.
Back in the day when OFD ran indoor and spring track events, NOBODY showed up, other than maybe a handful of family members who’d had to give us rides to wherever else in the Bay State League the stuff was going on. More so for our football games, taken VERY seriously, and nobody wore funny chit on their heads or screamed themselves hoarse or ganged up on somebody else out in the parking lot.
It’s all shit now, like the culture as a whole.