08:30 – It was 58.9F (15C) when I took Colin out at 0715, sunny and breezy. Half an hour later, it was already up to 68.0F (20C). Barbara is volunteering at the Friends of the Library bookstore this afternoon. This morning, we’re doing science kit stuff.
There was a disturbing article in the Winston paper yesterday morning, with a followup article this morning. There was a home invasion in Lewisville, an exurban area not far from where we used to live. It occurred in the wee small hours. The outcome was better than might be expected. None of the home’s residents were injured, thanks largely to a neighbor with an “assault rifle” who shot and killed one of the would-be invaders. Details are still lacking, but it appears that because of North Carolina’s Castle Doctrine the neighbor won’t be charged. The police are withholding the names of the would-be victims because the rest of the home invaders are still at large.
Barbara’s made it about halfway through season eight of CSI:NY, and should be able to finish watching it over the next couple of days. I browsed around the current offerings of BritBox yesterday, and it looks to be worth the $7/month subscription. There’s a lot of stuff there that’s never made it to US television or streaming. Some of it is probably mediocre, but the Brits on average do pretty good TV series.
Had a somewhat similar here a while back. Homeowner shot and killed thief as he was running away. Homeowner, claimed saving neighbors. DA did charge as he did not think that he could get a conviction.
There’s a lot of stuff there that’s never made it to US television or streaming. Some of it is probably mediocre, but the Brits on average do pretty good TV series.
BritBox is current on “Red Dwarf”. I may have to get a subscription just to settle kharma for watching the last two seasons and “Back to Earth” via … well, not totally legal means.
Also, I haven’t seen “The Young Ones” streaming anywhere else, and it appears that the Mystery section includes all of Jeremy Brett’s excellent Sherlock Holmes run from the 80s and 90s.
“The Young Ones” is braindead on the surface, but it was a very important series for a number of British acting careers, including Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, and Hugh Laurie. Watch the “Bambi” episode.
Yeah, once Barbara finishes binging CSI:NY I’ll get signed up for Britbox.
I will admit that I’ve learned something from CSI:NY. Not forensic science, which is entirely bogus.* But what I’d never realized is that in NYC, particularly at night, vehicles drive down main streets at something like 600 to 800 MPH. I’d also never realized that in NYC, fired bullets move at a walking pace. I’m not sure how anyone gets shot there, since even most grandmothers can outrun a bullet.
* (I will admit I was surprised the other night when they had a terrorist making up acetone peroxide by mixing hardware-store acetone with drugstore hydrogen peroxide. TV shows are generally more socially-responsible than that. Sure, a terrorist already knows how to make it up right here in the sink, but I wonder how many 12 yo kids will try it after watching that episode. At least they didn’t mention acidifying the reaction with hardware store muriatic acid to favor production of the trimer; the mixed mono-, di-, and tri- is bad enough.)
Er, uh, what’s a hardware store?
Even in semi-rural Texas, where I work, I had a hard time finding an old school hardware or plumbing store last week when I wanted a garden spigot not Made in China.
man, too much heat yesterday. I feel beat up today. Not gonna skip using my vest again.
86 and 76% this am, with sun out. Gonna be another hot one
Found some of the orange spider looking bugs on my cukes yesterday. Since the soap solution seems to act by suffocation, I will keep spraying whenever I see them.
Hundreds of flowers on the cukes. So far, the second cuke is about 12″ long and almost ripe. I’m hoping this one had enough water and will be sweeter than the first.
Turns out my lime tree is regrowing from the root stock. I guess I shouldn’t care, as if the rootstock was good for limes they wouldn’t have spliced on the upper part, right?
Oranges and grapefruits are continuing to grow, a bit bigger than tennis balls now.
Meyer lemon has both golf ball size fruit, and new flowers. What’s up with that? I thought this stuff grew in a season.
Not a single flower from the peach this year. Do peach trees like wet feet? The corner where it is is kinda boggy.
Well, I don’t want to have to baby the garden, so there is a bit of darwin going on with my approach. No hot house flowers allowed.
nick
“There was a home invasion in Lewisville, an exurban area not far from where we used to live.”
I’ve reported here about my friend’s parents home invasion. We even may have had one in the neighborhood, although after some time went by the details really didn’t add up.
Shortly after we moved here, the constables shot and captured a guy who was doing the old “knock on the front door, while your accomplice is breaking in thru the back” trick.
I don’t know what the numbers are, and they are likely distorted anyway, but we see something in the news every week, often with video now.
Home invasion robbery is a real risk. Toughen up your home, use the doors and locks. Formulate a response, even if it’s everyone runs out of the house and leaves the robbers inside.
n
My Meyer lemon blooms often during the spring and early summer. When shoots come out of the root stock on it, watch out. They grow fast and have thorns about two inches long. I remove them as soon as I find them.
WRT insect control, that soap is considered organic. HA! Last year I picked up some Captain Jacks Organic Insect control for the veggie garden. Not that I wanted it but the wife and daughter were all freaked by bugs chewing holes in some of the plants. Turns out if you look close at the back label it’s made by DOW. The greenies would love that. When I bought some fertilizer this year there were none not claiming to be organic.
High 60s and low 70s all week with occasional showers, t-storms, strong wind gusts and possibility of small hail. Hazardous warning out today for the larger AO here.
Out to make hay while the sun shines again…
In Avatar First Flight for 3 hours now. Ugh!
Organic: of, relating to, or containing carbon compounds organic solvents (2) : relating to, being, or dealt with by a branch of chemistry concerned with the carbon compounds of living beings and most other carbon compounds studied organic chemistry in college
In Avatar First Flight for 3 hours now. Ugh!
They don’t offer a single rider line?
When you hit Universal, single rider is the only way to see the Harry Potter rides without spending all day in line or buying a ticket upgrade to bypass the queues.
“…spending all day in line or buying a ticket upgrade to bypass the queues.”
shudder…
Only the ‘little people’ have to wait.
Organic as a technical term is meaningless as currently used in consumer products. The USDA enforces so called ‘organic food’. It too is of course meaningless. Everyone here knows it is just marketing bullshit while most of the public is duped to believe it means natural and pure. To most manufacturers and sellers it just means double the price.
shudder…
Oh, you don’t even *want* to know about the stupidity of Toy Story Mania. That experience would make you want to hurt people.
As a near native, it pains me to say this, but FL is at max theme park carrying capacity. Orlando has turned into a “once in a lifetime” event for way too much of the planet.
I like to remind people that Poop is Organic Fertilizer.
Disneyland 1960
When my grandad would visit Disney Studios every year to negotaite distributorship agreememnts for his theater chain, he would often take the grandkids along. One year, I think it was 1960, we went with him to the studios and were ushered in to meet Walt himself. Walt suggested that his friend Roy Williams take us kids to Disneyland for the day while he sat down with grandfather. So off we went, getting the VIP tour with Roy, who everyone knew from the Mickey Mouse Club. We went to the front of every queue and behind the sceenes on some rides. It was FANTASTIC. That’s how you do Disneyland.
http://www.originalmmc.com/roy.html
For all of you ladies going through the “change”. My wife started going through the change when she was 45, 14 years ago. She calls it “her own personal summer”:
http://comicskingdom.com/funky-winkerbean/2017-06-25
“Er, uh, what’s a hardware store?
Even in semi-rural Texas, where I work, I had a hard time finding an old school hardware or plumbing store last week when I wanted a garden spigot not Made in China.”
Imagine that. We have two real hardware stores in Sparta, Farmer’s Hardware, a Tru-Value affiliate, and CJ’s, a real old-fashioned independent hardware store. Both carry US-made stuff as much as possible, although it’s just about impossible to have only US-made stuff nowadays. We also have Blevin’s, which is a small local big-box chain, kind of like Home Depot. Again, they carry US-made as much as possible.
I’ve noticed that it’s nearly impossible to find US-made screws and other fasteners. Even the supposedly good Chinese screws and bolts are apparently made of pot metal. You can twist the heads off with a power driver.
At least they’re up-front about it. I remember probably 15 years ago buying some supposedly US-made SAE-graded fasteners at Lowes or Home Depot that I’d lay long odds were counterfeit. I stripped the threads off one using just a 3/8-inch ratchet and 6-point socket. Say what you want about US-made stuff being too expensive or whatever, but at least they know the meaning of quality control.
https://www.mcfeelys.com
For any kind of wood fastener, or one of the industrial suppliers for bolts. You can’t get quality at big box if the customers aren’t willing to pay for it, and the local manager isn’t willing to stock it.
n
“Napolitano: Fmr. Attorney General Lynch Could Face 5-10 Years in Prison”
https://www.infowars.com/napolitano-fmr-attorney-general-lynch-could-face-5-10-years-in-prison/
Please, please, please !
When is the perp walk ?
The organic fertilizer I bought this year is Ecoscrap supposedly made from food waste. Specifically says on the label ‘No poop added’. The dogs sure try to get to it when I apply it. I could of course care no less. I’m fine with poop. My grandparents raised chickens and used well composted chickenshit in their garden
https://www.target.com/p/ecoscraps-organic-tomato-herb-vegetable-plant-food-4lb/-/A-14903852?ref=tgt_adv_XS000000&AFID=google_pla_df&CPNG=PLA_Patio+Garden+Shopping&adgroup=SC_Patio+Garden&LID=700000001170770pgs&network=g&device=c&location=9031714&gclid=CNrgqa3I3tQCFY6cfgodGHgCbQ&gclsrc=aw.ds
Please, please, please !
When is the perp walk ?
That isn’t going to happen. Avoiding jail was probably one of the things Lynch talked about with Bill Clinton during the airplane meeting setting the whole scheme in motion.
They had most likely already negotiated who would get ratted out in Lynch’s plea deal. Hillary — off limits. Podesta, et al — under the bus.
There is an Aubuchon and an Ace store over in the “city,” and a couple of other local chain operations.
What Mr. Nick said about fasteners and bolts and suchlike. The Asian stuff is mostly crap that won’t last long, and if you plan on staying where you are in whatever dwelling, it would seem like you’d want quality stuff. Also might not be such a bad idea to lay in a decent stock of it.
WRT Lynch or any of the other Crime Family insiders facing jail time: Bwaaaahhahaaaa! Yeah, right. Only the little people wait in lines and only they go to jail. Unless the top echelons want to make some kind of example of one of their own from time to time. Very rare of late, however.
Well so much for making hay, etc. We have steady rain now and a t-storm in progress and it’s as dark as dusk at 2 in the afternoon. Back to taxes and other paperwork and scouring the freezer.
Use by dates…
Do you take any notice of them on antibiotics (not kept in the freezer, but in a generally dark cupboard) and asprin/paracetamol?
Not me.
Getting kinda ominous outdoors around here. Temps dropped a bit, and the sky looks angry.
n
My grandfather was one of the people that worked on the construction of the original Disneyland in CA. He did a lot of the ground grading using his road grader when clearing original orange orchard to create the park. I also got to meet Mr. Disney in person. My grandfather was given some sort of special pass that allowed you to ride any of the rides. Remember the ‘E’ ticket? We were there about a year after the place fully opened and the lines did not seem that long from the long ago memories of my youth.
We were at Magic Kingdom in December 2016, sort of off season, so the lines were not too bad. One of the rides had a 150 minute wait which surprised me. But it was for smaller kids and maybe that is what made it so long.
We did have our wrist bands and three of the rides we basically skipped the line using the wrist bands. We had picked our three rides and it worked out well.
I did get the package deal from Disney and stayed at Animal Kingdom. Even though it was expensive I have to say that it is the way to do Disney. We have been there before and stayed off park at a local hotel. Only one shuttle each day so when you went you were stuck until the departing shuttle. Staying on Disney property there was a shuttle every 20 minutes. You could leave the park and go back to the hotel to rest which really helped. Were able to return for the night time fireworks. Thus my recommendation is make the Disney experience complete and much better by staying on the resort with one of the package deals. Costly but worth it.
I also felt that the Disney experience is not as good as an adult unless you have kids with you. The magic seems to come alive through a kids eyes. As an adult you are impressed but not awestruck.
Most popular solid antibiotics should remain usable for ten years or more stored at room temperature. The government did a large-scale study (SLEP) that confirmed this. There were some early data that suggested expired tetracyclines became toxic, but that was traced to a particular solvent used in the production process. That was replaced, and toxicity hasn’t been a problem for tetracyclines manufactured in the last 50 years or so.
As to paracetamol (acetaminophen), it’s the most dangerous OTC drug there is. Its therapeutic index is not much more than 1, and many would argue that it’s less than 1 (IOW, the toxic dose is less than the effective theraputic dose). I won’t have it in the house, other than a couple thousand 500 mg tablets I keep for science kit specimens. Do yourself a favor and discard any you have. The only reasonably safe NSAID is aspirin or another salicylate. The EC tablets in particular.
Aspirin has the shortest real shelf life of any solid OTC drug. That vinegar odor you smell with an old bottle is the acetylsalicylic acid breaking down into acetic acid (vinegar) and salicylic acid. It’s still safe to take. The salicylic acid/salicylate is the active part.
I store USP-grade salicylic acid and sodium hydroxide in multi-kilo quantities for science kits, so I can always make up lots of sodium salicylate, which is jusylt as good as aspirin.
We were at Magic Kingdom in December 2016, sort of off season, so the lines were not too bad. One of the rides had a 150 minute wait which surprised me. But it was for smaller kids and maybe that is what made it so long.
I’m guessing the 150 minute wait was for either Seven Dwarfs Mine Train or the Buzz Lightyear game/ride.
Seven Dwarfs was new last year and features the latest animatronic tech.
I don’t have a clue about Buzz Lightyear beyond foreign tourists feeling the need to see everything. And even then, there really isn’t a good explanation for the wait being twice as long as The Haunted Mansion with similar ride tech/capacity. The Mouse works in mysterious ways.
_Turning Point: A Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Fiction Series (The Blackout Series) (Volume 3)_ by Bobby Akart
https://www.amazon.com/Turning-Point-Apocalyptic-Survival-Blackout/dp/1539462951/
Book number three of a six book series. I read the trade paperback POD (print on demand) version with very nice paper and fonts (Big River’s POD presses are most excellent, even better than lulu.com). I will be ordering the other three books in the series soon.
The first book in the series is about the 36 hours of warning that the Earth’s astronomers are giving in order to prepare for the massive CME event. The second book starts at the CME event and talks about the two weeks after the event. Basically, most people only have a week of food stored in their house and little water. During the second week, things get desperate as roving gangs start breaking into homes for food and water. At the start of the third week and the third book, our protagonists are the only people left on their block. The other people have left for the FEMA camp outside Nashville or have died in the CME events or incidents with looters. So, our protagonists decide to bug out to a friends farm 160 miles out of Nashville. The ride there in their 1969 Jeep Wagoneer is tough, very tough. The Guard is setting up roadblocks for people going in and out of Nashville. And President Clinton has declared the nation to be under marital law and all guns to be seized by the Guard units.
This book is different from most post apocalyptic EMP books as a CME event is very different from an EMP event. The author includes 50+ appendix pages on EMP, CME, and RF events in the book. He also includes a 500 item prepping list of materials to stockpile. BTW, Lloyds of London has written a damage estimate to the USA for a Carrington level solar storm to be around two trillion dollars. Since this is an apocalyptic book, the author makes the strength of the solar storm to be way in excess of the Carrington 1859 storm. On other words, a Superflare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859
The book is somewhat dated even though it was published in 2016. First, the USA President is Hillary Clinton. Second, the Chinese space station is manned and stable whereas the Chinese space station is now abandoned and getting ready to fall to Earth later this year.
The author maintains at least two websites:
http://www.bobbyakart.com/
and
http://freedompreppers.com/
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (165 reviews)
A sorta funny and very slick use of language by the current National Administration; they’re routinely referring to ObolaCARE consumers as “victims” now, as in “Vice-President Pence met this morning with more victims of Obamacare…”
Mrs. OFD has certainly been one such victim, she ran this state’s Medicaid Program for a few years and came up with innovations for which the higher-up timeserving hack PHB manglers took full credit for, of course. And tried repeatedly to enroll in various periods since this mess was implemented here in Vermont, to no avail thus far.
Now they need to start referring routinely in like manner to the victims of this country’s public education system and most of the colleges and universities. Also, all the victims of the corporate offshoring and “right-sizing” and out-sourcing and the gutting of the national strategic industrial infrastructure.
And last, but not least, the victims, American and otherwise, of all the wars fought in just my lifetime, all of them for absolutely nothing except the enrichment and empowering of the ruling classes.
Someday when I have the time, I’d like to sit down with our host’s Forensic Science Kit and learn more about forensic science. I already have two huge lists of things to do. One the inevitable “honey do” list, and other the list of things I want to do.
Update: I forgot one particular thing I want to do. Come up with a halfway decent microscope.
150 minute wait was for either Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
Yes, it was. No way I was going to wait 2.5 hours for that ride. Some good animation and the swinging cars are a nice touch. (I watched the video). Certainly not worth the wait in my opinion.
In the original Jungle Boat ride in Anaheim the boat “drivers” had 22 pistols loaded with blanks and they would shoot the animals as they came out of the water. Being a young lad of six years old that ride was simply amazing to my brain. In my mind that had to be greatest job in the world, drive a boat and shoot animals.
Of course that is now politically incorrect and the knowledge as an adult that the boat runs on a track really diminishes the whole adventure.
I have been Carowinds Park and like that place in off season. The coasters are what I like to call “cruiser coasters” where they are fast, steep, large sweeping curves, and long. Just fun to ride. Going upside down has lost it’s thrill. Check this video out of the Big Coaster, Fury 325 as an example.
I was at Magic Mountain in California the day the first loop coaster in the US opened. The line was short as people were terrified of the ride. It was awesome for a first time experience but not anymore. Too many parks trying outdo going upside down.
I like “The Beast” at King’s Island, long, fast and fun. A sleeper coaster (as in not enough recognition) is Thunderhead at Dollywood. The coaster is wooden and thus rough. Turns are violent, quick, with air time. Riding that coaster in December, in the dark, no crowds is an excellent ride. I have been on that coaster when I was the only rider.
One the inevitable “honey do” list, and other the list of things I want to do
Let us know which one gets finished first. As if we didn’t already have a seriously correct guess.
I’m wondering how many of the would-be invaders would have been shot if they neighbor had an actual assault rifle instead of what the media thinks is one.
I used to live about 30 min from Disneyland. Now, more like 45, but I haven’t moved.
Disney experience is not as good as an adult unless you have kids with you. The magic seems to come alive through a kids eyes.
I’m just a kid at heart. But it’s so much fun to see the wonder in the little aces as they meet their favorite characters or see a fairy tale come to life. We took our 4 yr old great granddaughter to DW in Feb 2017. She met Ariel (her hero) and so many other characers . After a tiring, hot day we popped into the Tiki Room to relax and cool down. It was he FAVORITE “ride”. As we exited the Tiki Room the evening fireworks started going off over the castle and she was in heaven. BEST DAY EVER !!!
I don’t remember my first vist to DL in Orange Co.. My grandad was one of the original investors that Walt had conned to bankroll his crazy idea. They took me a few months after it opened, I was 3 so all I have are a few faded photos, no memories. But we went every year after till 1966 on the family anual visit to LA for tals with the studios. I remember the air powered “Flying Saucers” ride that only lasted a year or so. I think there was a fatality on it that caused it’s removal. I discovered the original TWA Rocket ship from Tomorrow Land on top of building in Kansas City recently. I always wanted that in my back yard.
pcb_duffer is a native of Florida, and has been to Walt Disney World exactly once, in November 1971. My dad spent $9 a day for the four of us to get in the park. I don’t know what the room rate at the Contemporary Resort (the big trapezoidal hotel) was, but the monorail goes right through the building and makes it easy to get in & out of the park. The park’s site now says that four days worth of tickets for two adults & two small kids would be $846, presumably + various taxes. The hotel’s best rate would be $651 / night, again + various taxes. Ouch.
Choices to make Real Soon Now:
https://virginiafreemen.com/2017/06/27/trump-the-way-forward/
https://fredoneverything.org/oncoming-racial-doom-the-clash-of-cultures/
And the latest from Uncle Remus:
http://www.woodpilereport.com/html/index-484.htm
pcb_duffer is a native of Florida, and has been to Walt Disney World exactly once, in November 1971. My dad spent $9 a day for the four of us to get in the park. I don’t know what the room rate at the Contemporary Resort (the big trapezoidal hotel) was, but the monorail goes right through the building and makes it easy to get in & out of the park. The park’s site now says that four days worth of tickets for two adults & two small kids would be $846, presumably + various taxes. The hotel’s best rate would be $651 / night, again + various taxes. Ouch.
In the early 70s, a few bucks got you into the park. Ride tickets were extra.
Disney did away with ride tickets a couple of years before EPCOT opened. The one day pass started at $19 IIRC.
Ultimately, I think The Mouse and Universal have shot themselves in the foot turning Orlando into a “once in a lifetime” experience with pricing, but, for now, it doesn’t seem to hurt attendance.
With a screwdriver if you’re not careful. It doesn’t help a single bit that the groove angle is usually wrong, so the screwdriver is pressing against only part of the screw head.
Oh, the Chinese know what “quality control” means. It means they need to bribe another layer of inspectors.
My default state is wanting to kill people. Not all the time, only when I’m around them or have to interact with them in any way. I suspect that standing on line for 2 1/2 hours to see a crappy attraction would not serve to mellow me out to only wanting to hurt people.
That’s on the list, after the chemistry kit. Princess Punk wants chemistry first, then either forensics or biology, then the other one. Couple years yet — just turned 10 today, and RBT said the kits are all for older kids. Myself, I don’t see why it would be a problem if the kid has goggles and parental supervision, but my ignorance is such that I need to defer to his judgment.
Not our choice: CPSIA puts an incredible regulatory/cost burden on anything intended to be used by kids 12 and under. That’s why our kits are sold only for use by students who are at least 13 years old.
It’s also why we haven’t released middle school kits like earth science and physical science.
Ah, gotcha.
Now, I’m not saying that asshole activists, lawyers, judges, and regulators (redundancy alert) should be killed in agonizing but ironic and rather funny ways, but …
I second the idea that if you are going to spend time at WDW, you should stay on property. They have a wide range of resorts, including one exclusively for military, at a wide range of prices. The “Monorail” resorts, Polynesian, Contemporary, Grand Floridian, are all nicer, and more expensive because you can just hop on the monorail. For that matter, you can easily walk from the Contemporary to the Magic Kingdom, by going out the back door.
Another option for lodging is ‘renting’ points and staying at one of the Disney Vacation Club properties (usually attached to each of the big resorts.) There are forums where you can rent the points.
We’re DVC members, and we enjoy it. My sister did the math, and if you intend to vacation there several times while the kids are growing up, it’s worth it. DVC points are available on the secondary market, and are generally cheaper than direct from Disney. (You buy a certain amount of points. The cost and value depend on your home resort, and nominal week. It’s a time share. You don’t have to stay in your resort or use your week. You can borrow from yourself, rent them to others, or sell them outright.) Every week at every resort costs a different number of points, so you might start out with 400 which gets an studio accommodation, in a non-peak week. As your kids and finances grow, you buy more points so you can afford the peak week stay, or a one bedroom. You add more points so you all have bedrooms, and can stay at Christmas…. etc. The DVC resorts are all nice, all have different ‘feels’, and are close to different things.
I will also suggest a book and website about enjoying WDW as an adult, with or without kids. called “Disney without kids” IIRC. There are TONS of ‘adult’ things to do, horseback riding, canoeing, fishing boats, backstage tours, “Disney University”, drinking around the world in EPCOT, nightclubs (the Explorer’s Club is a fun night out), and world class golf. You could stay a week, never enter one of the theme parks, and still fill every minute with activity.
nick
HEY RICK!!
@RBT
Something on the page broke. The calendar and ‘recent comments’ dohicky are rendering at the bottom of the comments instead of top right of the page. STill the same as always on other pages…
from Rick see below. (And, apparently, when I am logged in as admin here, I can edit other people’s comments. Interesting.
four days worth of tickets for two adults & two small kids would be $846, presumably + various taxes
When I went in December 2016 I paid $2K for three nights in the Animal Kingdom resort, two park entrances, meal plan for three people. Was it worth it? I would say yes. Having been there before and stayed in an offsite hotel, one shuttle a day (horribly crowded), and a lower quality room my opinion doing it the Disney way is worth it. You also get free drinks at the resort but not at the park. Really nice pool at the resort to relax in during the day but obviously I did not do so in December although there were people in the pool. The room was outstanding in quality.
I remember the ticket books, A thru E, E being for the best rides, A for the horse drawn wagons down main stree. I also remember Disney Dollars that you could buy to use in the park to purchase items. Credit cards have superseded the need for the Disney Dollars. My understanding is that Disney will still accept the old A thru E tickets at face value (think $0.05 for the A tickets, $0.90 for the E tickets). Disney Dollars are also accepted in the park. Although I cannot imagine anyone saving those unless for a souvenir. We always tried to blow through our ticket books before we left the park.
@RBT and others….yeah, noticed that the comment summary/list aren’t in their usual place. But if you scroll past the ‘leave a reply’ section, you’ll see that they are down there.
Looking into it now (assuming I still have RBT’s permission to access).
Added: looks like it only affects today’s post. Yesterday’s looks OK…haven’t looked at others.
Still poking around…
Added even laterFound the problem.
In one of RBT’s comments, he put a ‘less than’ symbol in his comment. That wasn’t ‘escaped’ correctly (probably by the Comment Editor), so it resulted in some unbalanced ‘div’ tags.
RBT…curious: did you edit your original comment with the Comment Editor and put in that ‘less than’ symbol?
Those symbols (less than, greater than) are supposed to be properly escaped. So it would be interesting to know if the Comment Editor plugin (that’s the thing that lets you edit an already-submitted comment) might be the cause.
Will have to experiment a bit with that on my test site. But, knowing if RBT used the Comment Editor on that comment would be interesting.
Yes, I did use the comment editor on that comment, but not to enter or edit any portion that included GT or LT symbols.
Thanks for fixing it. I hate WP.
Back from the Planning Commission meeting; a short one this time. We decided to punt the sidewalks ordinance draft to the Selectboard, who evidently don’t like it much. So they can either put up or shut up; get it back to us with whatever changes they want, we review it and pass it back to them. Or we can all just table it another year until we’ve got various ducks lined up. Rest of the meeting covered various grants to fix half a dozen stormwater sites around the town and apparently we’ll make out nicely from those grants and getting that work done.
Still to come is what to do about keeping the town administration in the town hall itself and whether or not to move the highway department garage complex elsewhere, which failed the last time it was voted on by a minority of townspeople. It sits right on the lake shore about three-hundred yards from our front door. There is a better site on dry level ground nearer the geographical center of the town; seems to me we gotta educate the voters a bit here.
And Italy continues to be overwhelmed by the ongoing Camp of the Saints scenario, and the pics all show the vast majority, still, are young, sullen and angry-looking males of military age. What could possibly go wrong?
@RBT – I don’t think you can blame the problem on WP. Since you used the Comment Editor to edit the comment (although you didn’t enter the GT symbol during the edit, but during the initial comment), I would be more inclined to blame the Comment Editor plugin that you use.
I note that that plugin has not been updated for quite a while, and has not been tested with the current version of WP. I also note that the plugin author is not responding to messages on his plugin support area. (Nor on the ‘lightweight’ version of the plugin, which he promotes on the plugin page.)
I tried to duplicate the problem on my test blog, but have not been able to do so yet. I haven’t looked deeply into his code to see if he is properly ‘escaping’ the comment text for non-ASCII characters. That is something that should be done in the code, though.
I’ll still try to duplicate the problem on my test blog. First time I’ve seen such a problem, though.
WP has some faults, many times because of poorly written theme and plugins. Core code is very robust, and there are lots of places that use WP (25% of sites have WP at their core).
Of course, one can ‘build their own’ web site (as you and I have both done over the years), but the advantage of WP, IMHO, is that one can concentrate on the content, rather than the ‘back-end’ processes. Maintaining an HTML-type site (like we used to) can take quite a bit of time and effort.
So, I’m sticking with using WP on all of my various sites. Although I do have a bit of fun writing WP plugins (I now have 7 of them).
Commander Zero posted this link to the hospital situation after Katrina. Old, long, in the NYTs, but worth reading.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30doctors.html?pagewanted=all
WROL never lasts.
n
Did anyone bookmark the link I posted a couple weeks ago about dirty bombs and local planning guidance?
n
site search is missing and google site search is only showing the last couple of days and a bunch of irrelevant results.
n
@nick: this comment? http://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2017/06/22/thursday-22-june-2017/#comment-128669
???
We’ve been to four of the Disney parks.
I rate WDW Orlando as #1, so much to do. Six visits.
I actually like Euro Disney better than Disneyland. Six visits.
Disneyland Orange county is # 3 on my list. 15 visits.
Hong Kong Disney is small, hot, and humid. 1 visit.
I am hearing great things about Shanghai Disney … Someday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30doctors.html?pagewanted=all
WROL never lasts.
Great article. Respectfully, WROL (without rule of law) never last for local situations. But, WROL can last seemingly forever in the case of civil wars or just about national event where first responders are overwhelmed. Think about the atrocities committed in the USA Civil War. And on both sides. At one point, Lincoln had 2,600 ??? newspaper editors in federal jails and 300 newspapers totally shutdown.
BTW, evacuating hospitals is a freaking nightmare. So are nursing homes. I was surprised that they saved even half of the people inside that flooded New Orleans hospital (sounds like they saved 80 to 90% of the patients).
My father-in-law is in a nursing home 300 miles north of here. He is 300 lbs or so. There is no way that we could get to him in an emergency. Shoot, we have trouble getting to him during national holidays like Thanksgiving due to the horrendous traffic between Houston and Dallas. And since he cannot walk or get himself out of bed, he would justifiably be one of the last people to get out of there. Of course, in a national or local emergency, I expect that few of the nursing home staff would show up. Especially if the transportation network is damaged or totally shutdown.
@Rick, no, thanks.
I found the pdf I’d D/L’d and from there found the source again. Looking at the date I saved the pdf, got me the comment.
http://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2017/02/03/friday-3-february-2017/
damned roundabout way of doing it.
n
hah,funny to see that my “a couple weeks ago” was really back in the beginning of Feb.
n
… gin scented tears …
Listened to just enough of a reading of 1984 (Orwell, in case you youngsters need to look it up) all day today to be thoroughly paranoid, scared, and depressed.
Tempus fugit young man!
S’what happens when you’re busy all the time. I’ve forgotten what day or date it is routinely lately. Good thing I don’t also have a job and work full-time; I’d never sleep.
Mrs. OFD reports it’s in the 90s out in Boise with very dry hot air that messes up her throat. (plus she has to yak all day and all week). Exhausted again. Three more days to go and then she’s off to the East Bay to see the kids and grandkids for a couple of days and then back here for a week, I guess.
I’m hoping no rain tomorrow or at least no rain for as long as it takes me to mow the yard and do some weed whacking and clean up the rear corner.
“Listened to just enough of a reading of 1984 (Orwell, in case you youngsters need to look it up) all day today to be thoroughly paranoid, scared, and depressed.”
That’ll do it.
For frosting on the cake, read The Gulag Archipelago for the non-fiction historical version. And Robert Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow.
I expect large areas of the Clinton Archipelago to be like that, only at the Venezuela and Puerto Rico economic levels. Not this year, but coming.
Listened to just enough of a reading of 1984…
On KPFA, Berkeley, by the way.
Lefties and Righties are converging in what they fear?
I expect large areas of the Clinton Archipelago to be like that, only at the Venezuela and Puerto Rico economic levels. Not this year, but coming.
I prefer the Puerto Rico economic level over the Venezuelan. At least the Puerto Ricans are eating well whereas the Venezuelans are becoming used to the taste of rat. The Puerto Rico problem can be fixed tomorrow by walking from all public pensions. The Venezuelan problem, not so much.
@Mr. Spook and any others interested; you’ve been “made.” And are being watched, listened to and scanned 7×24, pretty much now.
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_age_of_no_privacy_the_surveillance_state_shifts_into_high_gear
We’re way too unimportant to bother with right now but eventually they’ll delegate the enforcement authority down to city, ‘hood and town level bureaucrats, who mos def will have the power to mess us up real bad.
We’re way too unimportant to bother with right now but eventually they’ll delegate the enforcement authority down to city, ‘hood and town level bureaucrats, who mos def will have the power to mess us up real bad.
Nah, the local enforcement authorities live here in our cities and counties. They accept a very limited command and control from the staties and almost none from the feddies. The locals are more afraid of us than a bunch of remote and faceless bureaucrats. I’ve got a lot of trust in my local sheriff even if he does run toward every camera that he sees.
Yep, I figure the local constabularies and authorities have a pretty good idea what my capabilities are, and what I might be likely to do in whatever situation. Mostly, this means that I am not a particular problem, and that I might be on the “right” side in most situations, but, too, that I might be a big problem for the wrong sorts of people or when the “right” sorts of people get into the wrong sorts of behavior.
Re-reading that, I think I said enough double-plus-good right-think that I probably should run for office, or do whatever might get me into the power structure somehow.
“”It riles them to believe
That you perceive
The web they weave
And keep on thinking free.””
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30doctors.html?pagewanted=all
WROL never lasts.
There are definitely death fetishists in medicine, people who get a thrill from using that morphene needle and watching the result. To our horror, we discovered that we know at least one in our social circle after [she/he] iced [her/his] own father in a medically questionable situation.
The will was very generous, and a vacation home was at stake. Ka-ching!
Legalized euthanasia is a slippery slope.
Listened to just enough of a reading of 1984 (Orwell, in case you youngsters need to look it up) all day today to be thoroughly paranoid, scared, and depressed.
I read “Atlas Shrugged” over a two year period living in Vantucky. I had to stop every now and then because I would read a line of PC stupidity coming from a character’s mouth and, within a few days, life would imitate art in Portland with an almost verbatim quote on the news coming from a Federal, state (WA and OR), or local official.
Austin wants to be Portland, but the PC cr*p stays in Travis County for now.
Legalized euthanasia is a slippery slope.
Yes but necessary. My sainted mother in law, a saint to live with my father in law (you don’t want to know), had heart attack number 8 or 9 in 1995. The paramedics revived her but the brain was gone. After diagnosis from the neurologist, we turned off the ventilator, removed the air vent, and cut the i/v drip. She lasted three days more. She would look at you if you spoke to her but there was no light in the eyes, purely autonomic.