08:36 – It was 25F (-4C) when I took Colin out this morning, but a stiff breeze made it feel a lot colder. Barbara is due back from Winston sometime this afternoon. Colin and I never did manage to find any wild women, so we mostly read, played ball, and watched videos. Colin did get a chance to do some small-rodent pouncing in Bonnie’s back field when I took him out this morning.
Here’s the view from our back deck.
Well, actually, it’s the title card from the BBC series Cranford, but it’s the same view except that our cows are Black Angus and there are a lot more of them. Same rolling hills with cattle grazing, same trees, same mountains disappearing into the mist in the background. Have I mentioned that I really like where we live?
* * * * *
Email from Cassie, who has another canning session scheduled for this weekend. This time, she and her friend are doing it at Cassie’s house, using Cassie’s new Presto 23-quart canner and a second canner that her friend is bringing along. Cassie is supplying the canning jars for this round.
They’re not doing ground beef this time, because it wasn’t on sale yet. But the pork roast and sausage was on sale, so Cassie’s buying a bunch of it. She’s going to use her slow cooker overnight to make pulled pork using this recipe and then can it in her favorite homemade barbecue sauce (for which she didn’t cough up the recipe).
She really, really wants to do bacon, but like me she’s very concerned that the USDA recommends against it because they haven’t done the necessary testing to develop an authoritative, guaranteed-safe procedure for doing so. But, as Cassie says, they do have such a procedure for sausage, and she and her husband both like it, too.
* * * * *
I’m still waiting for Trump and his Republican congress to do something about our ridiculous gun control laws. I signed an on-line White House petition the other day that calls for the repeal of the National Firearms Act, which would be a good start. Next, they can repeal GCA68, and we’d all be able to order guns on-line. But the really major thing they need to do is start issuing federal permits that allow concealed and open carry anywhere in the US for any adult citizen. As a first approximation, they should declare that any citizen who has a valid state-issued driver’s license is now authorized to carry open or concealed using only that license as proof of authorization. Those citizens who do not have driver’s licenses should be able to visit any US Post Office, present proof of identity and citizenship, and be issued a carry permit on the spot.
44Fwith 90%RH this am. Can see my breath no problem. Sunny and calm though.
Gonna go look at some ham radio stuff this am. Looks like it was a nice complete station, for 1970.
Cool enough for me to do my attic work today too. We’ll see.
nick
Did you try your Nido?
Oh, forgot, lemme go now….
n
Ok, my can is marked best by Jan 2015, and has been open probably since the ebola infections. Closed only with the plastic lid, stored in a cool dark cupboard.
Power has a very faint “cheezy” odor, like a lite version of mac and cheese powder.
Mixed by directions, except with cool water instead of warm.
Result was still kind of grainy despite using a wisk. Color was good.
Flavor was very mild, almost like nothing at all. Put it on Honey Nut cheerios and it was like using 2% or skim.
I remember that it had a very good milk flavor when fresh, so I’ll have to open a new can later and compare.
Unless I get sick in the next hour, I’d have to say that even opened, it is drinkable and usable a year past best by, if a bit grainy.
nick
That’s kind of what I figured.
I bought just one #10 can of Nido, on 1 June 2015, for shelf-life testing. Its best-by date was a year ago and I just opened it. Mine had no strong odor, just a slight “dairy” smell. I mixed it in warm water, and it went into solution with no problem. Even though it’s not homogenized, it seems to stay mixed pretty well. The liquid tasted a lot “milkier” than the 2% that Barbara buys fresh. I think it’s fine.
I’m going to buy more, and keep it in the sealed #10 cans. If we end up having to use it, I’ll transfer it to PET or glass bottles or foil-laminate bags.
Gun licensing SHOULD be that easy, but it will never happen. It is much easier to control the cattle when they are not armed, or at least you when know where to look for the weapons they have.
A gun is no different from a hammer or a screwdriver. They’re all tools, and there’s no Constitutional basis for recording ownership, let alone controlling it. I’m probably in a minority even amongst pro-gun folks, but I don’t see any reason to restrict convicted felons from owning firearms. That’s too big an opening for the government. The Bill of Rights guarantees the right of the People to keep and bear arms. No mention of any class of People who do not have this right.
“But the really major thing they need to do is start issuing federal permits that allow concealed and open carry anywhere in the US for any adult citizen.”
Why only citizens? If I ever visit the US again I want to be able to protect myself from libs, progs, randy females, atheists, Latin rite catholics and other miscreants… 🙂
The Constitution and Bill of Rights no longer apply today and will never again until ALL of the treasonous scum in gooberment office and in the gooberment bureaucracies (and by ALL I mean ALL) are hung with a short rope.
Until the Constitution and Bill of Rights are properly taught to the populace (you loose your right to vote until you pass a test too) things will not change.
Sorry, I am in a foul mood this morning. I see no hope and only a very bloody civil war in our near future.
I’ll be holding my ground, this is my hill.
I don’t think a civil war in the near future is very likely. Years ago, I read an article about the state of weather forecasting. The most accurate method then was to forecast that tomorrow would be the same as today. And I think that’s true for forecasting the general course of things. Tomorrow will be the same as today, but perhaps a bit worse. The same is true for as many days out as you care to forecast. In other words, a slow slide into dystopia. Sure, there are any number of Black Swan events that may occur that would turn that slow slide into a fast plummet, but BS events are by definition unpredictable.
So I continue to prepare, not in the expectation that any of the supplies, knowledge, and other resources I’m accumulating will ever be necessary, but for the comfort level that having them provides.
I guess I’m somewhere between RBT and Mr. DadCooks; I also think that the Constitution and Bill of Rights have become birdcage liner for the Cloud People and their minions, and that this particular class of rulers needs to be rooted out and eradicated, along with a system-wide reboot before we have any chance of returning to first principles. But for this to happen in an orderly fashion is probably way too much to dream about.
So I figure that yeah, for now we have a slow slide into dystopia; four or five years out I’m not so sure; too many factors militate for development of a “perfect storm” of events, such as a national/worldwide financial collapse of the house of cards; violent urban upheavals; increased polarization and friction between Normals, the elites, and the swarms of non-assimilating peoples they’ve opened the gates for; and more acts of terror committed by hadji scum and the subsequent violent retaliations and then further escalations.
All of that is grist for the mill of the hardcore Left and Soros minions; foment increasing violence and state repression until their vanguard cohort can rise to the top and seize power. The trouble for them is that this is a huge country, and it ain’t full of totally ignorant masses of peasants and serfs; most of us can read and we have among us not only half a billion to a billion firearms and mountains of ammunition, but also probably at least half of the police and soldiers on our side.
Given a messy and violent civil war, it will probably end up in victory of sorts for us, eventually, but open to later rule by either another right-wing junta and/or some version of autocratic tyranny.
I sadly do not see any return to the Articles of Confederation and a coast-to-coast federal republic. We crapped all over that and now it’s probably gone forever, unless we can break up more or less peaceably into a loose confederation of regions.
Partly sunny after another several inches of snow overnight and 26 currently, with more snow showers coming our way and then rising temps into the weekend. I’ve decided to bag the vets group meeting today due to messy and slippery road travel and I have a ton of chit still to do around here, which takes me three times longer than someone in full possession of their flexibility and endurance without pain.
Certainly won’t see The Articles of Confederation back. No funding and unanimous decision required to amend. Never happen. Besides, what did Samuel Huntington ever do?
What us Normals do have going for us is Progs/BLM/SJW/LGBTXYZ peeps are 99% pussies. If they resort to outright violence to “get their way”, the streets will be lined with their carcasses. Don’t bring a #hastag sign to a gunfight.
I remember the 1980 election, when Reagan was elected. There was a protester at the inauguration carrying a big sign that said “Shoot Bush First”.
I think the same is true for Progs. About 99.9% are useful idiots. It’s the 0.1% that are the hardcore organizers and rabble-rousers that need to be shot first. Without them, the whole thing falls apart because, outside of BLM, the masses of protesters have hardly a drop of testosterone among them. Without their organizers, they’d all just go back to their parents’ basements and cry themselves to sleep.
I’m still waiting for Trump and his Republican congress to do something about our ridiculous gun control laws. I signed an on-line White House petition the other day that calls for the repeal of the National Firearms Act, which would be a good start. Next, they can repeal GCA68, and we’d all be able to order guns on-line. But the really major thing they need to do is start issuing federal permits that allow concealed and open carry anywhere in the US for any adult citizen. As a first approximation, they should declare that any citizen who has a valid state-issued driver’s license is now authorized to carry open or concealed using only that license as proof of authorization. Those citizens who do not have driver’s licenses should be able to visit any US Post Office, present proof of identity and citizenship, and be issued a carry permit on the spot.
This is a SCOTUS issue. I expect SCOTUS, once back to the sacred nine, to revisit Heller (there are several cases pending) and tell DC, Chicongo, New Jersey, and New York state that they mean it this time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
My former USMC son expects SCOTUS to revisit the Miller decision and reverse that ruling. I told him good luck. Basically my son feels that any carryable weapon by the USA miltary should be available for the USA citizens to purchase. But, he thinks that the $200 transfer tax is constitutional.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller
Don’t bring a #hastag sign to a gunfight.
Or a #hashtag.
I’ll save you time, I am being an asshole.
La merde frappe le ventilateur…pretty good in France right now:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2017/02/16/paris-burning-map/
It couldn’t possibly happen like that here, though, rest easy, citizens.
I’ll save you time, I am being an asshole.
I thought Mr. SteveF was the asshole here. 🙂
I thought we were all assholes …
If you did not watch all of Trump’s news conference today you missed the absolute shredding of the FakeNews/MSM. What you will see reported will be nowhere what actually happened. IMHO, Trump is a pen-stroke away from silencing the FakeNews/MSM. Those fools are in no way entitled to First Amendment protection as what they put out is self-serving lies and not legitimate debate.
The SCOTUS might as well be a SCROTUM. They have not been proper protectors of the Constitution for many decades. In fact all of the courts have lost their original intent.
I thought we were all assholes …
I just am an asshole with a lot of FLASHLIGHTS but no FLESHLIGHT.
Still, FN/MSM have First Amendment rights; better to have them out in the open so everyone can see their bullshit and lies; even Mrs. OFD has grasped that now after this past year’s “campaign.” More millions like her have also discovered this amazing new fact, so rather than silence these buggers with an EO, just let them go ahead and rant and rave. Eventually the carny barkers and snake oil sales hucksters are found out and sent packing, tarred and feathered, one would hope.
It’s Milo and Roger Stone and you and me who don’t have First Amendment rights. Yet both of them still manage to publish books and give speeches, and you and me talk on here and at home.
Yes, it’s a very odd situation we find ourselves in nowadays.
Just shoveled and ran the SnowJoe again and again it kicked my ass, but not as bad as the other day. Gee, if I have to do this every other day, maybe I can lose that 20 pounds and get in shape! Painful, though. And now I hear the voices of the drill instructors…“Rub a little dirt on it, cupcake and get the fuck back out there!”
> “Google’s not-so-secret new OS”
> http://www.osnews.com/story/29666/Google_s_not-so-secret_new_OS
>
> Google is going to walk away from Linux for Android ?
>
> No way !
BTW, this is a kill shot to Windows by Google. One wonders if it will work. One result might be that Microsoft releases Windows as freeware.
Just got back from my excursion. Nice ham station from the early 70’s, but no profit in it for me. I did pick up a bunch of nice antenna line cheap…
And then I went to the two asian supermarkets in our part of town, since I was right there anyway.
I encourage anyone prepping and storing food to visit their local specialty supermarkets, esp any that cater to immigrants. They are going to have a higher percentage of canned and shelf stable foods than your local Safeway, simply because the countries they are serving have less refrigeration than we do. And you need some variety so you don’t get appetite fatigue.
The 99 Ranch is my go to for Nido powdered milk, canned cream, and unusual canned fruit. I picked up several cans each of bananas, mango, and mango juice. I also grabbed some weird candy, and some canned coffee. WRT coffee, I’ve been buying Starbuck’s instant when it goes on sale at costco, but I think I’ll switch to buying at 99Ranch. I don’t know why but asian people must LOVE instant coffee. There are a metric sh!t ton of brands and flavors. I don’t drink instant normally, but I put it in my homemade “MRE” packs along with powdered drink mix. Can’t have too much caffeine when patrolling the wire at your compound with zombies moaning in the woods……..
n
If you did not watch all of Trump’s news conference today you missed the absolute shredding of the FakeNews/MSM.
I watched part of it streaming on youtube. The MSM, of course, are whining about the 1A. lol! That doesn’t mean President tRump has to call on them. I love that he is calling on nontraditional outlets.
The most hilarious is Fox’s fake-news journo, Shep Smith. What a whiny crybaby. He is only a “news reader” and usually adds fake content while reading. Over reacting, etc. Now that he has come out as GAAAYYYYY! I guess he feels he is even more important.
Can’t have too much caffeine when patrolling the wire at your compound with zombies moaning in the woods……..
Hey ! Get your finger off that trigger !
Thanks for the tip again about the Asian and other furrin immigrant markets for stuff; there ain’t any up here in Retroville, of course, but before I have to go down to Burlap again for something I’ll look them up in advance and check ’em out. The only stuff I simply cannot stand, at the makes-me-gag level, is curry. Other than that, I had Southeast Asian food during my time with Uncle and liked a lot of it. Water buffalo is extremely lean and a little tough unless you cook it medium rare, and they’re big, of course, on rice and veggies. I got off the bases and ate on the local economy and the food was better, tastier and cheaper than the crap in the chow halls cooked by Vietnamese and Thai cooks under the supervision of AF or Army guys.
The MSM is of the crowd where it’s “Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee.” And the 2A is some kind of colonial parchment written by rich white slaveholders and no longer applies to anything now. Only soldiers, police and bodyguards to the elites should have guns. And 4A was a complete joke when the Authorities locked down Boston after the Marathon bombing. The 10th doesn’t exist.
Any zombies moaning in the woods up here must be moaning ’cause it’s a real PITA moving around in several feet of snow with it blowing in your decaying face while coyotes and bears sniff you out.
“BTW, this is a kill shot to Windows by Google. One wonders if it will work. One result might be that Microsoft releases Windows as freeware…..”
Reminds of some events of a generation ago when MSFT was accused of killing Netscape by giving away Internet Explorer for free. Then to save us from their monopolistic desires and eventually to overcharge for IE when they had the anti-capitalistic scenario to their favor, the Clinton administration and the EuroProgs started suing them in courts to protects us.
That was many years before I could replace my Studebaker with a newer one as the Korean auto monopolies put them out of business.
Hey, I just had my umpteenth robo call on my landline as I was typing above.
Not to worry, I have TWC (now Spectrum) as my home landline provider. They have the Nomorobo for home landline service to provide the STOP for robocalls. When a call is sent to me, they let it ring once (to let me know that they stopped it?) and then it is killed.
I love it, it is a free add-on, and just a call to them and they can activate it.
They have the Nomorobo for home landline
I wonder if ComCrap has that for their phone service.
I get internet, TV and phone service through them. I would like an alternative unified solution but it does not exist. I can get UVerse for phone and internet, but not TV. Would have to get Direct TV (I know it is AT&T, same as UVerse but not really the same). I have no complaints about ComCrap service, reliable and fast, my complaint is the cost. It is getting out of control and with no competition ComCrap will continue to raise prices. ComCrap apparently has some contract with the city, to whom ComCrap pays a lot of money, to keep other providers out. Twenty miles away where Comcrap has competition people with the exact same service down to the number of devices as I are paying about 25% less.
@DadCooks
SCOTUS might as well be a SCROTUM
That would be more useful than our current mess.
@MrAtoz
I thought SteveF was the asshole here
I’m with RBT, we are all assholes (in our own special ways).
I think if it less as assholism and more plain speaking. Which has become verboten in ‘polite circles’.
I’d live to see CCW permits so easy to obtain as at the local Post Office (we have a terrific one), or not required at all.
Felons and firearms? I’ve not quite understood why felons are restricted. If we do not believe they are sufficiently rehabilitated to carry a firearm, then why are they free of the penal system?
The gal who f*cked me up in that damn head on collision in 2014 is now a convicted felon and may never own a firearm again. Kind of a big deal living in rural though road system Alaska. She is a piteous piece of work and I can’t imagine a scenario where she’d be dangerous to society if she owned one. But that’s basically her life long punishment for showing multiple instances of incredibly bad judgment while driving.
It’s stupid and vindictive. And maybe that’s why we do it. Because stupid and vindictive is how we run the country these days.
Damn. Ornery much?
On another note – home energy audit tomorrow to see how effective our insulation and other efforts have been.
And nonobaddogs are barking their heads off. Because numero uno nonobaddog has gotten his silly self stuck between the 4′ fence and the shorty precursor fence intended to keep him from leaping out. Off to rescue him.
@Jenny, I like the cut of your jib.
WRT Nomorobo, our local Charter/
SpeculumSpectrum recently activated Nomorobo. If you want to see if it is available on your phone provider just go to their web site: http://www.nomorobo.com/I wonder if ComCrap has that for their phone service.
Here is something better than NoMoRobo. It takes the fight to the telemarketers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXVJ4JQ3SUw&feature=youtu.be
and his website: http://www.jollyrogertelco.com/
BTW, this is a kill shot to Windows by Google. One wonders if it will work. One result might be that Microsoft releases Windows as freeware.
Doubtful as long as Bill Gates is alive. OTOH, he wasn’t looking too healthy in the interviews for the Buffet documentary on HBO earlier this month so who knows.
If there is a “free” Windows in the near future, I’m guessing it will feature stripped down functionality like the Windows Cloud train wreck that’s coming — WinRT 2.0, without legacy Win32 support.
BTW, this is a kill shot to Windows by Google. One wonders if it will work. One result might be that Microsoft releases Windows as freeware.
Doubtful as long as Bill Gates is alive. OTOH, he wasn’t looking too healthy in the interviews for the Buffet documentary on HBO earlier this month so who knows.
If there is a “free” Windows in the near future, I’m guessing it will feature stripped down functionality like the Windows Cloud train wreck that’s coming — WinRT 2.0, without legacy Win32 support.
Microsoft’s effort to put Windows on smart phones has been a total failure. They even gave the phones away for free for a while and that did not work. And the smart phones are just the leading edge of the “smart” devices that are appearing. And that smart device market appears to be owned by Android. Apple owns a small corner of it but not enough to rule the world.
Windows without Win32 / Win64 API support is a loser. I cannot even believe that they are going to bother. People got over the lack of the Win16 / Dos16 support in Windows x64. The lack of Win32 / Win64 compatibility will deep six that platform.
I now have a customer running our software in Wine on a Debian laptop. There are zero problems so far. Even our security code is working, it phoned home to mama. It told our server that it is Windows XP x64. I never thought that Wine would be that good.
DirecTv is ok. It has to be, it’s the only choice I have. Er, ok, there is Dish but everyone I knows say they suck.
I’d really like to get that ~$100/month deal Spectrum is advertising. But I’m not moving house to get it.
We re-fenced the place here. About 4000 feet of 4×4 sheep and goat fence plus posts and etc. The “creek” aka 20 foot deep ditch in the back needs a bit of work before any goats happen. But it’s all good enough to keep the longhorn and the dogs in. My gate opener has died. Oh, it tries, but it doesn’t move the gate. Sort of just clicks. Off to Tractor Supply tomorrow for an upscale model to replace the 360 model I have.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/mighty-mule-automatic-gate-opener-for-heavy-duty-single-swing-gates-for-18-ft-long-or-850-lb-mm660-1212262
On the plus side, the solar charger, road sensor, gate lock, and all the rest will still work.
And yeah, if they have done their time and are deemed safe enough to release, let felons have guns.
I get NoMoRobo with my Ooma phone. Since I bought in at the beginning, I get their premiere service for as long as the equipment lasts for FREE. They hate me by now.
Yep, the smart guys said “shall not be infringed.” Full stop. There are others in the 10 where they detailed ways to modify the recognized right (mainly ‘with due process of law’) and they could have done so for the 2nd. They didn’t. Therefore, NO restrictions.
Even as unpleasant as that thought can get, it’s the intent, and you have to take the bad with the good.
n
And yeah, if they have done their time and are deemed safe enough to release, let felons have guns.
My church sponsors a Christian prison ministry program. I have worked with the program a couple of times. I have met several of the guys as they are released to a sponsor at my church. They are interesting but I have trust issues with several of them.
One of them was my friend for about 4 or 5 years until he passed away two years ago in his sleep. I would have trusted this man with my wallet. Good, good, good guy. Hard worker, he drove 18 wheel trucks delivering bridge building materials for his employer all over the state of Texas. One would never know that he carried two .357 bullets in his right leg, courtesy of the Dallas police department back in the 1980s when Leon was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. He knew the Bible way better than I do and could quote scripture at will.
So, I don’t know, I am on the fence. I would go with the majority on this issue. Heck, the Constitution does not have any exceptions in this and I would probably just go with that.
” I never thought that Wine would be that good.”
I have WINE on this box but rarely use it; it’s gotten a lot better over the years and the developers have stayed on it. I really like Crossover for Linux.
I also enjoy Jenny’s updates from the Fah Noth of Alasker. We have a nonobaddog here, a “hunter” variation Golden Retriever, who likes to get into the trash and make a mess if we’re not fast enough moving it to the back porch, and who gets mad when mama-san goes away every month and sulks and sometimes tears stuff up to get back at us. But he gets along very well with all three cats and has a pretty good bark on him if somebody is screwing around outside or banging on a door. But once he’s gone, if we have to get a dog it’s gonna be a short-haired one. I’m thinking a Belgian Malinois.
Agreed also on the rehabbed felons, if they mind their p’s and q’s thereafter should be able to own the same chit as me, and we all should be able to own the same chit as the damn gummint. And Jenny made a good point; if they’re released they must be OK, then, amirite? Otherwise they need to stay locked up. Especially lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats, progs, SJWs, and financial speculators. Also telemarketers.
On the home defense prep front I either have in hand now or will shortly, tritium night sights for the semi-auto pistols; I’ve removed the light/laser gizmos.
On the commo front, I have Skype “Alpha for Linux” installed and it seems to be working OK so fah. I have other chat-type stuff on a Libertas tablet that I haven’t messed with yet. The scanner reports the usual cop and EMS calls for this AO, and the shortwave is problematic so far, thanks to brick walls and constant fooling around with the antennas.
And now for a nice hot pastrami and provolone sammich…
WRT JollyRogerTelco: an interesting program. I have one concern though, if any of the robot responses are in the affirmative (e.g. yes, yeah, okay, etc.) you could be screwed by the latest scam where your response is recorded and then used to sign you up for all sorts of crap.
WRT felon rehab: We have a half-way house for men at the end of our cul-de-sac and there is one for women on the next street over. It means we get regular reconnoitering by the local LEOs. Never been a problem from the half-way house residents, however the token Mexican family next door to them regularly gets reprimanded for loud mufflers and loud music. You would think that they would get a clue.
@OFD
Thank you sir. Nothing more training wouldn’t fix for nonobaddog. He’s smart as a whip but hasn’t had sufficient training to temper his smarts with good judgment.
And now for a nice hot pastrami and provolone sammich…
Just slid a pan into the oven. Halibut. Potatoes. Veg from pantry, will give 4 year old job of choosing, opening can and into pot to heat.
Your supper sounds tasty indeed. When last in Southern California (which was not as nasty, smelly, congested or as horrible as I remembered) we saw neon signage in majority of the diners advertising their HOT PASTRAMI. I was intrigued. Our schedule was over full and regrettably my curiousity was denied.
Was it truly delectable hot pastrami? Or an LA euphemism for some other hot meat?
Kitchen trash can built for nonobaddogs. “Tramontina 13 Gal Step Trash Can, Stainless Steel”
https://www.samsclub.com/sams/13-gal-step-can-stainless-steel/prod20100265.ip?xid=plp:product:1:2
Highly recommended as my Lady doesn’t hear anymore but that 14 year old sniffer still works well. Too well for sneaky old dog. Without that steel fliptop lid, she would be in the trash can hourly. And the stepper means you don’t have to touch that nasty trash can lid. Keeps the funky smells down too.
Some facts:
n
I now have a customer running our software in Wine on a Debian laptop. There are zero problems so far. Even our security code is working, it phoned home to mama. It told our server that it is Windows XP x64. I never thought that Wine would be that good.
Interesting. Have you tried it yourself?
Linux has a really nice dynamic analysis instrumentation framework called Valgrind. I haven’t done it in a while, but I know that Wine can be recompiled with Valgrind integrated in order to track memory leaks and other problems in Win32 code.
Yep, valgrind is a nifty little utility for checking on that chit; esp. w/WINE, PlayOnLinux and Crossover. Haven’t tried it yet with Excel, Word and Powerpoint.
“…Just slid a pan into the oven. Halibut. Potatoes. Veg from pantry…”
I loves me some halibut and spuds; it’s that northwest Euro heritage and genes calling….fish and spuds….I also like to grill it, with nothing but salt, pepper and some lemon juice.
“Tramontina 13 Gal Step Trash Can, Stainless Steel”
Thanks for the tip and reminder for us; we’ve been meaning to get one for a long time and keep forgetting. This weekend for sure.
“Always maintain situational awareness and never assume any call is typical.”
Roger that.
http://buchanan.org/blog/deep-state-targets-trump-126550
“The real crime here, however, is not that the incoming national security adviser spoke with a Russian diplomat seeking guidance on the future president’s thinking. The real crime is the criminal conspiracy inside the deep state to transcribe the private conversation of a U.S. citizen and leak it to press collaborators to destroy a political career.”
Indeed. And who’s next?
OFD wrote:
“…I simply cannot stand, at the makes-me-gag level, is curry. Other than that, I had Southeast Asian food during my time with Uncle and liked a lot of it. Water buffalo is extremely lean and a little tough unless you cook it medium rare, and they’re big, of course, on rice and veggies. I got off the bases and ate on the local economy and the food was better, tastier and cheaper than the crap in the chow halls…”
Curry. YUM. I don’t like it all the time but it makes a change from other spicy food.
If you eat on base you get charged for it? I assumed chow was free – take it or leave it.
I approve!
No, no charge at the chow halls; take it or leave it. Over there I left it; indigneous personnel could not cook Murkan food. Better and cheaper on the local economy; I used to get a plate of what we’d call chicken- or pork- or beef-fried rice with a little cup of hot sauce for 75 cents, and it was a big plate of food. After two months of language school in Thailand I spoke it with the locals and they treated me like a fucking prince. Invited me to their dinners, and the Thai military police would hand me bricks of Thai sticks in brown paper bags so we’d leave them alone to play cards all night.
Went to one outdoor picnic with locals out in the sticks on a sunny afternoon, and they had platter after platter of food, tons of cold beer, and passed around a bottle of Laotian rice whiskey, like our White Lightning, clear liquid that numbed my lips, tongue and mouth like novocaine. They passed around a bong, too. We got fucking ripped and woke up out there on the ground the next morning; the women had covered us with blankets and we all had ringing, pounding hangovers. The solution? More rice whiskey and the bong; hair of the dog! Plus more food.
Those were the days…
I now have a customer running our software in Wine on a Debian laptop. There are zero problems so far. Even our security code is working, it phoned home to mama. It told our server that it is Windows XP x64. I never thought that Wine would be that good.
Interesting. Have you tried it yourself?
Linux has a really nice dynamic analysis instrumentation framework called Valgrind. I haven’t done it in a while, but I know that Wine can be recompiled with Valgrind integrated in order to track memory leaks and other problems in Win32 code.
No, we are running so fast at the moment that we do not have time to do anything. Two of my guys found a really nasty problem in our three phase isothermal flash with false minimization of the error functions while navigating the plane of convergence. So the flash thinks that it is finished and has a good answer before it really gets going. This flash is our implementation of the Rachford-Rice algorithm with a few customizations thrown in to bring extra goodness. I am adding a new constant temperature, constant volume flash option to our Tank module that I have been promising customers for years. And the other guy has been fixing bugs and adding a new graphical chart option to our Windows user interface using gnuplot.
Until last week I would have sworn that we did not have any memory leaks of significance. But two weeks ago, our Excel transfer tool ran out of memory during a benchmarking run. I got one of my guys to take a look and he fixed a horrendous memory leak in less than an hour. Yours truly rewrote our Excel Transfer tool to use OLE instead of DDE about ten years ago. Turns out that the SafeArray objects need to be explicitly released even though they are instance variables. Who knew ?
But no, we are memory pigs and proud of it. Our Win32 user interface program is 15 MB and growing. Our main calculation engine is 11 MB and growing. And we allocate memory even in our fortran code (yes, fortran can call malloc and free if you know the secrets). And we usually pretty good about deallocating memory. We have to or else we would run out since our calculations are so memory intensive.
If you eat on base you get charged for it? I assumed chow was free – take it or leave it.
Heck no ! None of God’s children eat for free ! While my son was in Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children, the Marine Corps charged him $120/month to eat all he wanted at military chow halls when available or MREs in the field and Iraq. Shoot, he used to sneak off base Friday nights and drive over to LA for the weekend, hanging out on the beach, sleep in his truck, and eat MREs the entire weekend. He had a couple of girls come by his truck one weekend and ask him to take them out to supper. He said sure, reached in the back seat and tossed them a couple of MREs.
He used to have a Lieutenant that would keep their platoon on work duty until the chow hall at 29 Palms closed. And then the guy would turn them loose and say enjoy those MREs while he was headed home to a hot meal from his wife. I am fairly sure had that pig accompanied them on one of their Iraq journeys that someone would have fragged him off base. My son still hates him more than his boot camp DIs.
Better and cheaper on the local economy; I used to get a plate of what we’d call chicken- or pork- or beef-fried rice with a little cup of hot sauce for 75 cents, and it was a big plate of food.
We’ve got a place called Thai Cottage here in Sugar Land that will bring you out a foot wide plate of shrimp fried rice for $8. About a pound of food. Oh man, now I need to go there.
There’s a Thai restaurant at the shopping center near the Swanton line, just off the interstate; I’ve thought about trying them out but am a little nervous about setting off any sorta flashback things, esp. when I hear the language spoken. Hell, I don’t even like leaving the house or yard, that’s how fucked up I am, even after treatments.
But I cowboy’d up and went to that Planning Commission meeting the other night, only member of the public there and stuck it out for two-and-a-half hours.
And now the old man has to head out to the Land of Nod again…been up looking into installing EPEL on the RHEL box to get the Nethserver install working right; theoretically it should be OK, but we’ll see. First time outta the chute it did not work. They keep recommending CentOS but they’re the same friggin’ OS except for the labels and boot screens and support thing.
Nethserver 7.3 on Red Hat 7.3, should work like a friggin’ charm.
Pax vobiscum, fratres, et semper paratus
re: Microsoft’s effort to put Windows on smart phones has been a total failure.
I am one of many -in absolute terms- Windows mobile die-hards. I have used Android and I-Phone and really do not like either. I do not have the need for trillions of apps and the basic ones that come with the phone are just OK for my needs.
I really like the user interface. The tiles are neat and clean and active tiles can be handy. When asleep you get day, date and notifications in a dark grey over black. When active you get the active tiles with good information without having to access the full app unless you need more information.
Mail is Outlook-like and can be set as white on black which is my preferred viewing scheme. That app, together with SMS and phone is why I carry a phone. (And in that order). Other apps I use regularly are a walking-app, News, weather , Financial News and Maps/driving app. The calculator, the same as the one in Win 10 is great for on the spot conversions.
MS continues to actively upgrade the mobile OS and the apps.
I don’t think they will give up on mobile. I hope they do not give up on the phones.
Working on some thoughts, including one on ‘tripwires’ or decision points as it relates to prepping. IE, when do you pull the cord? Do you have hard and fast conditions or will you get squishy and delay? Sometimes it’s obvious, but what if you pull the cord, and your next step doesn’t materialize? How long do you wait, and what changes in conditions would prompt your return?
I have some (mostly unconcious) tripwires on my decision to move, and I feel like I hit the third and biggest one yesterday. Suddenly I feel like “IT’S TIME TO GO.” I love this house, and the preps I’ve built in, but it might be time to seriously start the process.
n
FWIW:
A general increase in people who ‘aren’t from around here.’
Signs of serious increase in gang activity (specifically MS13 graffiti).
Actual thugs doing thuggish things inside the neighborhood.
A serious violent crime in the neighborhood.
Yep, it’s time to go. IIRC, it’s your wife’s job that’s keeping you in the megalopolis. What’s she do?
She’s a partner in a firm that does business in the construction sector.
She’s open to moving but not in the direction I want to go… She’s more interested in schools than defensibility and escape routes.
n
My impression is that you’re pretty much a stay-at-home dad. If so, have you considered homeschooling your kids?
Official FEMA update on the Cali dam issue:
https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/USDHSFEMA/2017/02/17/file_attachments/772800/FEMA%2BDaily%2BOps%2BBriefing%2B02-17-2017.pdf
Looks like shelter use is down under 500. The curious thing to me is that with 150k plus people evacuated, there were never more than a couple thousand checked into Red Cross or FEMA reporting shelters. So WHERE DID THEY GO? Is there enough excess lodging for 150K people? Can we expect a similar ratio of evacuee to shelter needs in other emergencies?
nick
@RBT, yes, that is correct.
I have considered it, and think about it most weeks, esp when running into the ISD rules and nonsense. I am not particularly tempermentally suited to it at their current level, or at least I don’t think I am. We do actively do the sort of things homeschoolers are (parodied) known for, using every day events as opportunities to teach or emphasize a point. (since homeschoolers are famous for turning the most mundane things into lessons.)
Wife feels like we need to try to use the (supposedly top notch) local schools as much as possible. There are things which would change her mind, but since they would involve bad things having happened to my daughters, I can’t wish for them.
n
And it goes back to the tripwires idea. What would it take to consider moving the kids to a different school? Or homeschool?
I’ve got some soft triggers, and we’ve passed a couple, but I’m not yet able to say “GO.”
n
As to not being temperamentally suited, I suggest you cowboy up. They are your kids, after all.
As to your wife wanting to use the “top-notch” local schools, you might point out to her that *average* homeschooled kids outperform public-schooled kids at something like the 90th- or 95th-percentile level, and are typically two to three grades ahead. I exchange email with many homeschoolers who have late-elementary age students who are performing at public highschool levels in many or all subjects.
And as to “socialization” and other so-called downsides to homeschooling, you’ll find that your area has numerous homeschool groups and co-ops that’ll take care of that. There are probably even homeschool sports leagues in an area the size of yours. And all without having to worry about drugs, school shooters, drive-bys, prog propaganda, and so on.
am not particularly tempermentally suited to it at their current level, or at least I don’t think I am.
My own home schooling was limited to homework, field trips, etc. I checked each kids homework every day and taught them what they did wrong and watched them correct mistakes. When they became Juniors in High School, I said, you are now on your own.
The best schooling the kids got was K-6 at Northwest Hills Baptist in San Antonio. A private Christian school that taught phonics in K. I didn’t care if they used Noah’s Ark to start math measuring in cubits. There, they would get a hug if they needed it, and bullies were kicked out permanently. We moved them to PS after that since the lab facilities were much better. They were all two grades ahead in reading writing and maths than the PS punks.
As for the tripwires, I’d say that if the events that Mr. nick has described going on in his neighborhood were happening in this one, we’d try to work with neighbors and the police in crushing it, and if that was not an option, quite frankly I might have shot somebody by now or we’d have to go.
Hell, I don’t even like leaving the house or yard, that’s how f*****d up I am, even after treatments.
Dude, that sucks. And I know that you are not the only one.
re: Microsoft’s effort to put Windows on smart phones has been a total failure.
I am one of many -in absolute terms- Windows mobile die-hards. I have used Android and I-Phone and really do not like either. I do not have the need for trillions of apps and the basic ones that come with the phone are just OK for my needs.
I really like the user interface. The tiles are neat and clean and active tiles can be handy. When asleep you get day, date and notifications in a dark grey over black. When active you get the active tiles with good information without having to access the full app unless you need more information.
So you are the user ! Just kidding, there are thousands of Windows Phones still in usage. Maybe millions, I have no idea.
The wild thing is that Microsoft was the first to deliver a tablet with phone capability back in the 1990s. I cannot remember the name of it but Jerry Pournelle gushes about it constantly as the be-all portable device. I think that he was given a preproduction device that never really made it into the marketplace. One of the key items here is that Microsoft filed and received a number of patents on this technology that they wield like a sword nowadays. And is a significant part of their income. MS and Apple cross licensed their patents for this very reason alone.
And I like the updating tile user interface. That is just cool. Tough from a developer viewpoint though.
Working on some thoughts, including one on ‘tripwires’ or decision points as it relates to prepping. IE, when do you pull the cord? Do you have hard and fast conditions or will you get squishy and delay? Sometimes it’s obvious, but what if you pull the cord, and your next step doesn’t materialize? How long do you wait, and what changes in conditions would prompt your return?
Dude, you are in the war zone between I-610 and Beltway 8. My son lives there also and always goes EDC (every day carry). He has three HPD officers and HFD firemen living in his neighborhood so he feels somewhat safe. But he has a 300 unit Section 8 apartment complex just 400 ft away from his house. And that place is the jungle.
Be safe.
You need a bug-out place. Somewhere that you can go no matter what time or how bad things are.
There are extremely good homeschooling groups in Sugar Land and Katy. Several hundred members in each with group teachers for hire or sharing (you teach my kid English, I teach your kid math), social get togethers for the kids, and very close tie-in to Protestant churches (not mandatory). The Sugar Land homeschooling group meets at Sugar Creek Baptist Church, a megachurch with well over 10,000 members.
I’m only 1 mile from the belt and about 3 miles north of 10, so not really like your son.
BUT they definitely moved in some section 8 folks beyond the normally ~100% hispanic section 8 we’ve always had. The thuglife dragging his pit bull puppy across the street by the scruff of the neck and throwing it to the ground is new.
and would you believe, the same wife that looks at HAR.com every day, constantly shows me listings in Memorial and surrounding areas, now says “But I like this house.”
n
Hispanic? That covers a lot of ground. Upper/middle/lower class? Citizens/legals/illegals? Gangs? It sounds to me as if you’re living in an area that you know is too dangerous, but are trying to convince yourself that it’s not.
Re: soft vs. hard triggers, I always think about the Jews who got out of Nazi Germany in time. The first definite hard trigger was arguably in 1938 with Kristallnacht (although I’d say Hitler becoming Chancellor five years earlier should have been hard enough to trigger anyone with any sense) but most Jews stayed even after the Brownshirts started burning synagogues and beating Jews in the streets.
“…and would you believe, the same wife that looks at HAR.com every day…”
Yeah, I would believe. But I’ve been married a long time, to two different women. Case closed.
“The thuglife dragging his pit bull puppy across the street by the scruff of the neck and throwing it to the ground is new.”
Jeez, don’t tell my brother about this; he’ll fly down there and kill that bastard.
“Dude, that sucks. And I know that you are not the only one.”
It’s harder when you’re not going off to work every day, too, as I have found out in the last four years. Indeed, I’m not the only one; we have guys in our combat vets group who only leave their houses to come to our meetings, or, if pressed, to the VA for med appointments. One guy would try to go shopping at the local supermarket, load up his carriage, and then run out to the car ’cause he couldn’t deal with it anymore. And he and I have been home from the fun times in SEA for well over forty years!
“…I’d say Hitler becoming Chancellor five years earlier should have been hard enough to trigger anyone with any sense…”
Yup. And the Nazis had already started on their various programs by then, anyway. But recall that Germany was an advanced industrial European nation, with centuries of education and culture, and many Jews were World War I veterans. How bad could it get? Really fucking bad, as it turned out.
If I’d been a Jew back then in Germany, I like to think I would have found a way to get out once Dolphie had taken over the political leadership, and mos def by Kristallnacht.
Then you boil all this down to your own ‘hood and all of a sudden versions of homo sapiens sapiens are showing up all the time now with very ugly characteristics and behavior and nothing is being done about them. Time to boogie, I think.
If there were no counter balancing factors, it would be an easier decision.
Our neighborhood is the new geographic center of houston, and is getting a large amount of attention and infrastructure spending. It is a REALLY hot area. Home values have doubled in the last couple of years in our area, and tripled or more in some nearby (3-5 mile) areas. We are one of the most desirable areas for residents moving in. There is a lot of private investment too. Many of the strip developments have gotten facelifts, and many more upscale businesses are moving into the areas.
There are a lot of one and 2 story apartment complexes around us, some quite large. That is where the crime and poverty have been concentrated traditionally. Our actual neighborhood is one of the safest in Houston.
We have a state rep, and our city councilwoman both living here in my neighborhood, and the mayor of Houston lives just a few miles away.
In other words, everything is looking up for this area.
EXCEPT it seems that obammy’s HUD has recently put a bunch of his sons into this area too. I would like to think that all the high level political attention and the inflow of money to the area will limit the damage, and eventually push it back out. That’s not what I’m seeing at the moment though.
The big question is “will it continue to get better, or will the turds in the punchbowl F that all up?”
n
Speaking of
HitlertRump:lol!
tRump has syphilis. Just like Hitler!
The Intelligence Community is gonna take tRump down.
tRump is unstable, launch the 25th Amendment!
lol! The loony Libturdians are out in force to get tRump one way or the other. Notice, no mention of Coffin Cankles who obviously has one foot in the grave. They probably want a special election for President where only Dumbocrats get to vote.
I hope they keep wasting their time on these loony theories. They’ll get their ass handed to them in 2018 and 2020.
Don’t underestimate the Left; the Dumbocraps are pretty stupid but it’s the hardcore fuckers who are working behind the scenes. They don’t intend to give up or stop.
“The big question is “will it continue to get better, or will the turds in the punchbowl F that all up?”
Hard to say; is there a corresponding increase in responsive law enforcement in your AO? Are other citizens concerned as you are? Or is it just gonna be like the cities went back East; good ‘hoods disappearing under underclass sprawl and regular citizens fleeing to the ‘burbs? (thanks largely to gummint encroachments and “urban renewal”)
Re: soft vs. hard triggers, I always think about the Jews who got out of Nazi Germany in time. The first definite hard trigger was arguably in 1938 with Kristallnacht (although I’d say Hitler becoming Chancellor five years earlier should have been hard enough to trigger anyone with any sense) but most Jews stayed even after the Brownshirts started burning synagogues and beating Jews in the streets.
And where would they have gone ? The USA was essentially closed to legal immigration from 1925 to 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924
EXCEPT it seems that obammy’s HUD has recently put a bunch of his sons into this area too. I would like to think that all the high level political attention and the inflow of money to the area will limit the damage, and eventually push it back out. That’s not what I’m seeing at the moment though.
Section 8 housing needs to go away NOW.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/05/09/one-obamas-last-acts-will-punish-suburbs-white-wealthy/
Actually, the first and foremost problem is that the USA is broke. Broke, not bankrupt (yet). If the USA goes bankrupt, the dollar goes to zero value, all heck is going to break loose.
And I see that Greece is considering moving themselves back to the Drachma, based on the Dollar. What could go wrong ?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4222990/Greece-considers-ditching-Euro-favour-dollar.html
There’s only one answer: lobotomy. I suggest starting a YouTube livestream as you drill into your own skull with a power drill to expunge those pesty memories. You probably won’t get many advertisers for the first few weekly vids, but pretty soon you’ll have bazillions of viewers and the advertiser dollars will just roll in. Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money!
“And where would they have gone ?”
Oh, I don’t know. The UK, France, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, almost anywhere in Central or South America?
Smart phone sales in 4th quarter 2016:
http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3609817
Wow, 432 million smart phones sold in 4th quarter of 2016. Microsoft was 1 million of those. Not good.
I’m only 1 mile from the belt and about 3 miles north of 10, so not really like your son.
For some reason, I thought that you were south of I-10. You have probably told me this three times, some day I might remember.
BUT they definitely moved in some section 8 folks beyond the normally ~100% hispanic section 8 we’ve always had. The thuglife dragging his pit bull puppy across the street by the scruff of the neck and throwing it to the ground is new.
Uh oh.
and would you believe, the same wife that looks at HAR.com every day, constantly shows me listings in Memorial and surrounding areas, now says “But I like this house.”
One of my partners has a house in Memorial in Hunters Creek on the bank of Buffalo Bayou. If the dam goes, his house will have ten feet of water in it. BTW, his 1950 ranch 3/2/2 that he bought in 1974 for $60K now is worth $800K. But, he really lives in Palacious and Colorado. His 40 year old son lives in the house.
If your wife can stand the commute, Katy would be nice. Just watch for the low areas. But you know this already. BTW, two of my cousins live in Katy and love it.
“And where would they have gone ? The USA was essentially closed to legal immigration from 1925 to 1945.”
Pretty much anywhere but inside Deutscheland or Austria or Poland or France or Italy, etc., etc. I’d be happy just to avoid a boxcar ride.
“There’s only one answer: lobotomy.”
But then I’d become a Dumbocrap or a RINO, or….ghastly thought…a prog!
Pretty much anywhere but inside Deutscheland or Austria or Poland or France or Italy, etc., etc. I’d be happy just to avoid a boxcar ride.
Never get in the boxcar.
Yah, you’re right. The change is worse than the chancre.
There’s only one thing to do: become an extermination event. I was going to, but it appears that I’m a lazyass and am not getting around to it, so you’re welcome to it. I’d say it’d be a great way to get your name in the history books, but if you were successful there’d be no one to write the history books. Or to read them.
A couple months ago I was joking elsewhere that something or other was the reason I hated my species and intended to kill them all. That site allowed like/dislike on comments, and a whole bunch of people liked my comment. I followed up the next day with the observation that dozens of people had approved of my expressed intent of becoming an extinction event and that this might indicate a problem with the site’s readership. And that comment got a bunch of likes, too.
Never get in the boxcar.
During my first tour in Korea, we’d take the train from Camp Casey to Seoul on the weekends. All the cars were cattle cars. They even had the slats in the bottom so the cows wouldn’t move around. At least they hosed them out.
Eh? The only time I went from Casey to Seoul by train, it was a commercial passenger train. Cost very little, and our group chatted with several older Koreans who told us some tales of growing up under Japanese occupation or during the Korean War. And they all expressed gratitude that the American military was still there in 1985. (That may have been simple politeness, as our group was all Americans. However, the “international” component of the UN peacekeeping force in Korea was tiny, mostly invisible, and generally derided. In effect, it was the Americans and not the world sitting as the tripwire for a North Korean attack.)
Contrast the older generation, who remembered occupation and war, with the younger. The younger Koreans, especially the men but also some of the women, resented the hell out of the American “occupation”. There wasn’t much they could do about it, but they weren’t bashful about showing their resentment, and “get foreigners out of our country” was a not-uncommon theme of protests down in Seoul. (I’m not sure if the protests were happening in 1985, or if they didn’t happen until Chun Doo-hwan was out of office. It’s not a safe idea to get in a mob to protest the policies of a man who siezed power by coup d’etat.)
We were never moved anywhere by train. It was the AIR FORCE. We got flown everywhere; except on arrival at various bases in SEA; once the plane landed, we got loaded into trucks and driven to wherever. Usually there were only three or four of us on these little jaunts, about which the less said, the better, even at this late date. I was also in choppers a lot for some odd reason.
Hmmmm…an extermination event. If only I could direct that comet passing by tonight to here….
No, actually I don’t hate my species; I’ve seen enough good examples of us around over the past 60+ years. We need to develop some kind of selective virus.
We need to develop some kind of selective virus.
Start with the State Department people that got fired today ?
I have a personal beef with somebody there. It took an effort from Congressman Tom Delay to get my Japanese born wife a USA passport even though she was born on a USA Army base.
Mrs. OFD has several State Department and Immigration horror stories from years ago, like yours. And we’ve had our little hassles coming and going across the Quebec border, not me, of course, they like me; but Princess had a miserable hassle at the Dublin airport customs a while back, from the U.S. people. Very arrogant and surly; she’s very easy to get along with (outside family, lol) so I can’t imagine her provoking that kind of behavior. She ended up telling them off and then walking away from them while one individual was still hectoring her. They’re lucky she has a long fuse; she’s a good sized person at six feet and over 200 pounds. Also we’re all lucky I wasn’t there. I have a very short fuse for chit like that.
“We need to develop some kind of selective virus.”
That, actually, is what some of the GMO research is all about. Plants and animals have been developed that are selectively poisonous to certain other “species” and “sub-species”. It all relates to interaction with certain DNA and RNA. I had first-hand experience with this when I was at the University of Illinois in the 1960s and then again at the “Animal Farm” run by the DOE on the Hanford Reservation in the 1980s.
And I have now told you too much. Truth is stranger than fiction.
You’ll have to kill us all now.
Eh? The only time I went from Casey to Seoul by train, it was a commercial passenger train.
Special Aviator train ’cause we are a bunch of pussies. That was the tour I got gassed downtown Seoul. When the siren went off, everything stopped. I happened to be on a bus. The training exercise blasted past us tossing CS. Sweet!!!
Cost very little, and our group chatted with several older Koreans
Now that I recall, the train was free (lotsa po’ peeps on it). The bus was free, too. Not gonna ride with a bunch of rich Koreans and Infantry pukes.
Yep, katy is nice for values of nice. Lately though, we’re seeing more people move back to near the beltway from Katy. They commute purely sucked, and the reasons they moved away from Houston followed them to Katy.
Teh Diversite’ is wiping out any advantage Katy ISD has educationally, and the state is grabbing the school money with Robin Hood, and teh diversite’ brought their crime and gang violence west to Katy too.
Cy-Fair ISD is having the same issues.
Fucking third worlders are messing up EVERYWHERE including rural and semi-rural.
nick
“Fucking third worlders are messing up EVERYWHERE including rural and semi-rural.”
So many micro- and macro-aggressions there, a poor commissar don’t know where to start.
Yeah, bring us your tired, your poor, your struggling masses yearning to breathe free, etc. and freeload. The FSA, writ large.
Tell ya what, though; they don’t dig the cold. You might start looking at North Dakota, Minnesota and Maine. Or slide up this way; I’ll give ya the grand tour!
From the Places to Avoid Department:
Cities. Crowds. Events. Hot and humid areas. Hot and dry areas.
So, places like Houston and New Orleans and Miami come to mind….
And Mrs. OFD has a gig next month in Nawlinz and wants to know if I wanna tag along. I might, just to get another short whiff of the kind of area I can’t fucking stand anymore. Had enough of that in east Texas and SEA. Hell, I’ll probably just hole up in the air-conditioned accommodations and surf the net all day. I wonder what the gun laws are down there…
“…she’s very easy to get along with…”
Is there another Princess you haven’t told us about? 🙂
Visit http://lagniappeslair.blogspot.com/
for some Norleans flavor….
n
“Is there another Princess you haven’t told us about?”
You’ll note I said “outside the family…” Yeah she gets along famously with everyone but us.
“for some Norleans flavor….”
Wonderful. So if I’m looking at any scantily clad hotties at random, I really dunno if she’s a tranny, amirite? Swell. We had that issue in Thailand; they were called “ka-toys.” Only in the cities, of course. That chit woulda lasted all of about ten seconds in the northeast provinces.
Yeah, I’ll be holed up in the AirB&B suite somewhere, with the A-C on full blast and tuning in here to give y’all a rundown on what I see out the windows. If I go, and that’s doubtful. I’d really rather shovel snow and chip ice off the cars.
“Never get in the boxcar.”
Totally get the point. But. But hungry and broke and cold, ….. I think it depends on how the boxcars are presented. Get in now or freeze/starve here.
As for “just packing up and moving”, that doesn’t seem to work all that well. Seems to me, that just by having different languages, Europe is more raycess than the USA. Moving from Prussia to Spain is not at all like moving from Michigan to Texas.
Yeah, I’ll be holed up in the AirB&B suite somewhere, with the A-C on full blast and tuning in here to give y’all a rundown on what I see out the windows. If I go, and that’s doubtful. I’d really rather shovel snow and chip ice off the cars.
The wife, daughter, and I were in New Orleans last April for a conference. I went to dull and somewhat boring meetings (I did get to see a video of a LNG heat exchanger with the liquid sloshing about on a FPSO, that was cool). The wife and daughter jumped in one of those pedicabs and the guy took them around for a couple of hours. He claimed to be a doctor from Sweden ? Norway ? and had just gotten married to a woman there in the big easy. Since he could not practice in the states until he passed the tests and got licensed, he bought a pedicab and was taking people around to show them the sights. The wife and daughter had a great time. We stayed at the Marriott downtown.
One of the coolest and wildest things about NO, when you drive in from the west, you drive atop the swamp, aka Lake Pontchartrain, by about 20+ feet. Then you drive over the lake wall and drop DOWN into the city. There is always water on that SINGLE lake wall. Would not take much of a storm surge to get water over it. No redundancy on those walls whatsoever. Those people are nuts.
Moving from Prussia to Spain is not at all like moving from Michigan to Texas.
My great-grandparents moved from Belgium to Illinois in 1903 ? and then to Texas in 1905 ?. My great-grandfather spoke five languages fluently and was invited by his friends to work in the big Allis-Chalmers plant in Illinois since they had so many Belgiums and Germans working there and needed translators. At least that is what Mom says. They moved to Texas after two horrible winters in Illinois. Lots of Pyssons floating around Texas now. My grandmother spoke a little Flemish but she was not allowed to in the house since they were Americans now and spoke English. But then her grandparents came over in 1910 ? and they never learned English so she got to learn Flemish. She used to talk to me in Flemish which did not sound like English at all.
https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=91941433
Bought the new gate opener today. Installing it is not a big deal, I did this with the old opener 10 years ago. All the stuff, like the solar charger, road sensors, remotes, etc, will still work.
Tractor Supply had the best price by quite a bit. $40+ less than Amazon. eBay was just a pile of crap selling parts, mostly.
I’m set up w/ Tractor Supply for ag exempt. Plus I had a Tractor Supply 10% off coupon along w/ another coupon for an extra 5% on pet food. Gotta pay sales tax on dog and cat food. But hey, 15% off dog food ain’t bad.
Anyway, a $420 gate motor for 10% off and no tax rocks. $378 is a good price for what I bought.
As an extra plus, the push switches, the road sensor, the solar charger, and the gate latch are all usable.
That damn road sensor is now $199. Which is nuts. It was $149 in 2007.
Why, yes, I do save a lot of e-mail…. 🙂
From Dilbert, Catbert and Ratbert:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/word-149/
I miss Ratbert.
Moving from Prussia to Spain is not at all like moving from Michigan to Texas.
Try moving from Michigan to Alabama.
you drive atop the swamp, aka Lake Pontchartrain
Never have liked driving on that bridge. Did it in October after having not done it for awhile. Still did not like it. Now I have to do it again twice in early March as I am heading back to Texas. Will take the southern route (I-59 – I-10) both ways this time as I don’t trust the weather on the Northern route (I-40 – I-30 – I-35). Will make it from the homestead in OS to Baton Rouge in one day. Then on to SA. Will bypass New Orleans entirely.
Return will be stop in Alvin TX for a night to visit ex-step-MIL. Promised on last trip but didn’t so will have to this time. Plus she wants to see the wedding pictures. Hope to make it from Alvin home in one very long day. May not work out and might stop part way.
I am getting too old to drive 16 or 18 hour sessions and maybe it is time I admit it to myself.
Nonsense! If you’re “too tired” or “too old” to do something, it just means you need more coffee.
it just means you need more coffee
I don’t drink coffee. Never acquired the taste for coffee even though I spent 10.5 years in the USAF. Was always a pot in the office. Maybe I was just too cheap of an asshole to contribute to the coffee fund each month.
I notice after about 8 hours of driving my eyes are not functioning as well as they should, especially after dark. I am beginning to realize my limits. In my 20’s and 30’s driving for 20 hours in one sitting was doable. Not anymore.
I also used to stay in the cheapest motels I could find. Now I stay in Hyatt Hotels. Nice beds and nice quiet rooms. Too old to be worrying money at this point when a good sleep is more important.
I have found that when driving if I let the spousal unit drive for about 30 minutes while I sleep after every few hours of driving that it really helps. Did that on the trip back from Orlando which is a 10 hour drive. I drove for a couple hours, swapped at a rest area, slept for 30 minutes, pulled over and swapped again and I was good for the rest of the trip. Used to be I could run the entire 10 hour trip with only one stop for outhouse and vittles for me, go-juice for the chariot.
Too much coffee will cost more time than it saves, unless you’re willing to piss in a gatorade bottle while driving….
n
I once drove from chicago to phoenix in 28hrs, had to stop for a couple hours after 24.
Did Cali to Chicongo in one long go too. Wiped me out and there were whole states I had no memory of crossing. NOT. GOOD. NOT. SAFE.
n
I drove from Fort Bliss, TX to Rhinelander, WI as a 2nd Looey on leave. I used No Doze. That shit is nasty.
In 1977 I drove from Chicongoland back to MA after helping a friend move to Kentucky from MA. I crossed PA and NY lengthwise and remember gray skies and light rain and LOTS of trucks.
I can still do the five hours down to MA with maybe one pee stop; anything longer than that and I’d have to get out and at least walk around for 15 minutes or so.