08:48 – It was 73.3F (23C) when I took Colin out at 0720, overcast and breezy.
Justin almost finished laying the ceramic tile in the master bathroom yesterday. He ended up one or two pieces short because he ran out of mortar. He’ll lay the remaining pieces this morning and then grout it. So we should have our bathroom usable again by Sunday, after everything has had a chance to dry and set.
While we were moving stuff out of the unfinished area yesterday, Barbara noticed water under the water heater. We’d just had the plumbers out a week or two ago to replace the feed lines, which were dripping. This time, it was the water heater itself. So they hauled a new water heater out here and installed it. I told Barbara I was thinking about disconnecting all our home plumbing and having an old-fashioned well with crank and bucket installed.
We started getting stuff moved back into the downstairs den yesterday. Most of the heavy stuff–bookshelves, sofa, love seat, corner table, and so on–is already in there, although not yet positioned. We’ll spend today getting stuff where it belongs. I’m really looking forward to the unfinished work area and the food storage room being accessible again.
Our busiest time of year for kit sales starts now. We’ve had four kit orders in the last 24 hours, and that will only accelerate as we move toward the crazy period in August and September. For the next two to three months we’ll be shipping kits as fast as we can make them. Mid-July is when homeschoolers start getting serious about getting ready for the autumn semester. After that, things will slow down a bit until mid- to late-November, when Christmas sales kick in along with people getting ready for the January semester.
11:47 – We now have almost all of the furniture cleaned and in place in the downstairs den. Things are starting to shape up. Next, we’ll be hauling books, thousands of them, out of the unfinished area and into the den to get onto the shelves. Barbara will have to spend some serious time getting them all organized and shelved. The only thing MIA so far is the remote control for the downstairs TV, but I’m sure we’ll uncover it as we continue moving stuff out of the food storage room.
I just talked to Justin. I said he must have noticed that we were preppers. He said, yeah, either that or serious couponers. I said I guessed that prepping was pretty common up here, and he agreed, but commented that there was a huge difference between the year-rounders and the part-timers. The former typically have basements chocked full of food and other supplies, while the part-timers seldom have any supplies at all. He commented that most of them go to the supermarket every day and keep literally no food in the house. He also said he’d talked to more than one of them who had no idea how to pump his own gas.
He said that he and his wife kept a couple months’ worth of LTS food on hand for them and their two kids, but that didn’t count their large and easily-expandable garden or his dad’s cattle farm and its 300 head of beef cattle. He said he figured if TSEDHTF they’d all be eating a lot of beef.
So if push comes to shove, the weekenders and summer people will be in a world of hurt. The full-time residents, not so much. So we have our own Golden Horde living a few miles down the road. Not to worry, though. Most of them would have no clue which end of a gun goes bang.
Once again, Oregon is fun … for about a week … in August.
… as long as a careless truck driver doesn’t spill slime eels all over the road.
https://twitter.com/ORStatePolice/status/885597812980711424
What’s frightening is that we were usually through Depoe Bay at least once every year around this time.
“Slime eels” is unacceptably judgmental. Henceforth they shall be referred to as Clintonfish.
What did they ever do to you to deserve that appellation?
You must be referring to BJ Klinton. Cankles, er, areas, are dryer than a goat fart.
Not having your in-depth, up-close, and personal knowledge, MrAtoz, I was referring to the allegedly female member of Team Clinton. The formerly-appellated slime eels are more properly known as the hagfish, but “hag” is unacceptably sexist, so I chose a name which has no sexual connotations whatsoever.
As for what the Clintonfish have ever done to me to deserve such a name, well, nothing. But they smell bad and are disgusting to look at and no one with any sense wants them around. What better name than Clintonfish?
(I’d use the name Obamafish for what is commonly called the sewer trout, but someone would no doubt call me a racist and we can’t have that.)
What’s that OFD says about the “capitalists” being in bed with the bureaucrats?
“…Cankles, er, areas, are dryer than a goat fart.”
One wonders how one would come to know such information….
And here is gospel truth:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2017/07/14/quote-of-the-month-28/
Forget the wannabe soldier lads in the pic for now; get some ideas smuggled into the consciousnesses of family, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, whomever. No rambling rants or lectures, just an occasional question, point to make, idea, something. Get them thinking outside the Hive.
Bezos is on track to being among the world’s richest entities. For chits and giggles, check out the working conditions at any of their massive slave-labor plants in the Midwest. Yes, a choice between no job at all (gone overseas or out of existence) and near-minimum-wage insanity and crappy treatment until they’ve used you up.
Typical. Ben & Jerry’s up here, run by the two socialist hippies, is not much better.
Hypocrites.
And they all cuddle up to Leviathan every chance they get, no matter what other nonsense they may spew publicly.
Bezos is on track to being among the world’s richest entities.
I think we’ve reached “Peak Bezos”. Too many people are going to be after him from this point forward.
When will we reach “Peak Zuckerberg?”
When will we reach “Peak Zuckerberg?”
Soon. Look at what is happening with Oculus, and the advertisers are starting to figure out that something isn’t right with the online numbers.
I just hope Peak Zuckerberg/Facecrack happens before Disney gives in to the shareholders who want “Lean In” to be their new CEO. She will dig a much deeper hole for the company than Eisner did.
“Here Are 5 Backroom Deals Inside The Latest Senate Health-Care Bill”
http://thefederalist.com/2017/07/14/5-backroom-deals-inside-latest-senate-health-care-bill/
Why can’t the repuglicans just pass the 100% repeal of Obolacare ?
The USA is broke. We are rapidly heading towards bankruptcy. Obviously our elected representatives in the DC swamp do not see this train wreck coming at 110 mph.
Will the USA be eventually run by a federal bankruptcy judge ? Nah but the conjecture is interesting. Of course, the first act of said judge would be to double all taxes.
I just hope Peak Zuckerberg/Facecrack happens before Disney gives in to the shareholders who want “Lean In” to be their new CEO. She will dig a much deeper hole for the company than Eisner did.
Lean in ? Oh, google is my friend:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/sheryl-sandberg-lean-lead-disney-article-1.2588895
Bezos is on track to being among the world’s richest entities. For chits and giggles, check out the working conditions at any of their massive slave-labor plants in the Midwest. Yes, a choice between no job at all (gone overseas or out of existence) and near-minimum-wage insanity and crappy treatment until they’ve used you up.
Until automation takes those jobs away also.
Note to self, move to DuckDuckGo for search from google. Way less evil.
https://duckduckgo.com/
Yeah, robots will take those gigs any day now, too.
Already moved to DDG in preference to Google and about to pull the final plug on gmail, too. I realize others aren’t bothered or don’t care but I refuse to make it easier for these buggers.
Eisner, Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Berger, Kristol, Himmelfarb, Horowitz, Podhoretz, Novak, Strauss, Jaffa, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Perle, Boot, the list just goes on and on and on…
Raining again, with a burst just now of monsoon-level downpour again. The entire landscape is soaked and I would expect flood warnings again any hour.
Well, my paltry accomplishments this week have been to barely keep up with laundry and ground floor cleanup ops, but I did get the VA paperwork done for my vocational rehab meeting/appointment next week, the day after I turn 64, lol. Have also identified the graduate program I’d be most interested in doing, assuming I even get that far or the VA will pay for it; the college appears to make an extra effort for veterans, more so than I saw anywhere else. (UVM for example, is mainly concerned with super-PC diversity crap, and although they claim disability falls under that rubric, I somehow doubt it applies to vets). Could all turn out to be rubbish; I’m just doing due diligence because wife is hot to get me working full-time again at ANYTHING so I can bring in more money so we can spend it like drunken jarheads on shore leave in Yokohama. She does not think my age is any kind of issue. In any case, past practice is that my income goes entirely for taxes and hers goes for everything else, and then some.
Note to self, move to DuckDuckGo for search from google. Way less evil.
I have an old Moto E that I converted to a mostly open source-based phone via LineageOS, FDroid, and DuckDuckGo. The arrangement works well. The only drawback is that, since”evil” likes to track you 24/7, the location services and maps work better with a minimal subset of evil (Google APIs) installed. Sigh.
I recently bought a new Moto E4 which will get the same revamp once the warranty expires. The DuckDuckGo app was the first thing I installed. Still evil for the most part, but, surprisingly, the battery can be popped out very easily — a feature that is rare on new phones.
From the Fun and Interesting Essay Department:
https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577
“The only drawback is that, since”evil” likes to track you 24/7, the location services and maps work better with a minimal subset of evil (Google APIs) installed. Sigh.”
Verus Secure Phone (scroll down)
https://combatstudiesgroup.blogspot.com/p/store.html
Verus Secure Phone (scroll down)
The added security there is the Stingray detection. The radio firmware on my Moto E isn’t replaceable — the end result of me substituting wherever possible is *mostly* open source-based.
I tinker with CyanogenOS and LineageOS mostly because I’m annoyed with bloatware and browser adds. My new phone has 8 GB of OS and junk, half of the 16 GB internal storage. Battery life on the old, converted Moto is much better too.
Yeah, and I don’t have $600 to throw at that new phone anyway. Oh well.
Here’s another fun little essay:
https://kakistocracyblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/a-taste-for-entitlement/
Comments are good, too.
Frau Kommissar Merkel SO belongs against a treason wall….or even, really, for genocide….
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2017/07/14/wunderbar/
“At the moment we have the entire population of the West—about 400 million men, many of them able-bodied—backed into a corner, angry and desperate but definitely not hopeless.”
http://www.returnofkings.com/112252/the-elites-have-no-idea-what-is-coming
I had never heard of such a creature as a slime eel. They’re nasty looking critters, but they seem to be export-able to Asia for use in cuisine. Not appealing to me, but some people freak out at chitlins, too.
I had never heard of such a creature as a slime eel. They’re nasty looking critters, but they seem to be export-able to Asia for use in cuisine. Not appealing to me, but some people freak out at chitlins, too.
I’m sure the truck was headed to a processing plant in Portland to pack the eels for export, probably driving northbound from Newport, where the harbor is still a real harbor and not just another OR Coast tourist attraction.
Hagfish is a delicacy in Korea. WA and OR also export a lot of Geoducks.
Eels have been popular in certain CONUS and UK and Celtic cultures for a very long time, as have chitlins or chitterlings here, but I have less than zero interest in either as a comestible.
Rain petered out and I got some more mowing done. Exciting.
From the And Now Here’s A Surprise Department:
https://archive.fo/D33R8#selection-809.0-833.2
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2017/07/14/hate-when-that-happens/
The trail of corpses grows longer and longer…from those golden olden halcyon days of yesteryear in Arkansas to the present…
Somebody tell me again how this is different from having the Five Families of New York govern us.
I mean, besides how the food was better with those guys.
From the And Now Here’s A Surprise Department:
Snuffed via the Klinton preferred assassination method: gunshot to the head. The Klinton’s should just shoot each other and get it over with. Cankles seems especially miserable with her life.
“Snuffed?”
That’s really old-skool, hermano; the new improved term, esp. WRT the Clinton Crime Family is: “fostered.”
Oh my.
Two police cars just pulled up out front with another car with two white fems in it behind them. The two fairly large male cops got out and sloooowwly hiked up to the multi-dwelling across the street a ways, with the fem cop dragging her porky ass behind them by about ten feet, par for the course, in my own long-ago experience. (she’ll hide later, studying for the sergeants’ exam and pass it and be promoted over more experienced guys, of course).
One fem in the civilian car has left, the other is MIA. Two males have come out and are loitering in the front of that building, no sign of the cops.
Ima gon take a wild-ass guess and figure it’s yet another domestic, and that the first two fems called it in. Stay tuned, sportsfans…
California has an interesting problem coming in August. A solar eclipse. California peaks at 9% solar power generation now. They are planning to make up the solar power loss using the hydro plants running wide open. It might work.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/california-prepares-solar-power-loss-153000541.html
….well…make that THREE cop cars; I didn’t see the first one till I got out to shut up the mutt. Two of them blocking two driveways, too. For peeps wot had nuttin’ to do wit nuttin.’ Musta been the whole friggin’ shift.
And the caper is over, I guess; fem cop last in and now first out, leading the troops like a good future sergeant/lieutenant/chief. And yakking away to beat the band, natch. No one under arrest, but they were all in there somewhere for a good 45 minutes.
Gee whiz, when I had “crisis intervention” training back in the day, the Boston PD told us they aimed to be in and out successfully in 30 minutes, tops. Good luck with that.
I think you meant to say “Committed suicide by the method preferred of former Clinton associates: three shots to the back of the head.”
Dindus. Dindu nuttin’.
Newport, where the harbor is still a real harbor and not just another OR Coast tourist attraction
Spent some time visiting Newport on one of my trips. There is a research facility there that I was able to visit. Got to handle a large (8′ across) octopus that was in a tank. My impression of the octopus was that it was curious. Ran a couple of it’s limbs up my arms and you could feel the suction cups. I never felt threatened and apparently not the octopus either. It was amazing how soft the octopus felt. An incredible experience.
Nothing says “my discipline serves no real purpose in modern society” like a call for replacing any objective value with calls for reparations for (alleged) past injustices: Feminist geographers encourage colleagues not to cite research of white men
“Spent some time visiting Newport on one of my trips. ”
10-4, my daughter lives up the Newport Harbor back bay about 10 miles. Know it well.
Spent some time visiting Newport on one of my trips.
Tentacle porn?
Nothing says “my discipline serves no real purpose in modern society” like a call for replacing any objective value with calls for reparations for (alleged) past injustices:
Except if they are Libturdians, Progs, Fags, LGBTXZY identifying… yada yada yada.
Yeah, don’t cite any white men. That should thus rule out about 98% of all available cites, you stupid fucking bints.
And once again, from the Social Media and Peeps Who Ain’t Like Us Department:
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/07/13/teens-face-charges-allegedly-broadcasting-sexual-assault-facebook-live/
Spent some time visiting Newport on one of my trips. There is a research facility there that I was able to visit. Got to handle a large (8′ across) octopus that was in a tank. My impression of the octopus was that it was curious. Ran a couple of it’s limbs up my arms and you could feel the suction cups. I never felt threatened and apparently not the octopus either. It was amazing how soft the octopus felt. An incredible experience.
Newport is good for a few days of tourism. The Coast is about a week’s worth of fun if you stop at all the lighthouses, Tilamook cheese factory, Newport, Canon Beach, and Seaside. The scenery from north of Coos Bay to Astoria is spectacular.
Highly recommended, but don’t head out there in December unless you want to “experience the majesty of the Pacific Winter storms.” (A real line from a tourist brochure).
Got to handle a large (8′ across) octopus that was in a tank. My impression of the octopus was that it was curious. Ran a couple of it’s limbs up my arms and you could feel the suction cups. I never felt threatened and apparently not the octopus either. It was amazing how soft the octopus felt. An incredible experience.
It was checking you out and deciding how tasty you would be. Apparently, you failed the taste test.
Newport is good for a few days of tourism. The Coast is about a week’s worth of fun if you stop at all the lighthouses, Tilamook cheese factory, Newport, Canon Beach, and Seaside. The scenery from north of Coos Bay to Astoria is spectacular.
Is the entire USA turning into a tourist trap ? All local politicians talk about is providing a good experience for tourists.
I’m going to change my name to et al and become the most-cited researcher in history.
(Apologies if I’ve already used that joke here.)
Note to self, move to DuckDuckGo for search from google. Way less evil.
DuckDuckGo uses Yahoo, which has been inferior for a long time and can’t keep anything secure. I use https://www.startpage.com/ which uses the Google search engine but doesn’t give Google your information.
Rick in Portland
I thought DDG used google but did it anymousely…
n
Oh crap, Mr. rick is correct; I’d forgotten about startpage. I have it on another machine here.
Note to self, move to DuckDuckGo for search from google. Way less evil.
DuckDuckGo uses Yahoo, which has been inferior for a long time and can’t keep anything secure. I use https://www.startpage.com/ which uses the Google search engine but doesn’t give Google your information.
DuckDuckGo is a bunch of old Google employees. They use the old Google search algorithm that puts my website #4 or #5 on the first page when you search for “process simulation”. I love that algorithm which uses reverse referral ordering (there is a way to game it). Way different from Yahoo.
Google puts my website on top of the 5th page. Yahoo puts my website last on the 4th page. I think Yahoo is Bing nowadays ?
Late-Night-Early Morning Reading:
“The abiding enigma of this tormented era remains: why has the thinking class of America abandoned thinking? The answer is: it’s the reaction to their own failure. Failure to do what? To produce the utopia that Gnostic liberalism promised — a perfect world based on altering human nature.”
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/holy-hell/
And for the late-morning coffee, tea or hillbilly rotgut:
https://medium.com/@nntaleb
What do you think of this Dave…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-15/donald-trump-deported-veterans-stuck-on-us-mexico-border/8709408
“Newport is good for a few days of tourism. The Coast is about a week’s worth of fun if you stop at all the lighthouses, Tilamook cheese factory, Newport, Canon Beach, and Seaside. The scenery from north of Coos Bay to Astoria is spectacular.”
Is the entire USA turning into a tourist trap ? All local politicians talk about is providing a good experience for tourists.
Everyone wants a piece of Orlando’s action. Managed properly, the tourist taxes pay for a lot of improvements that cities otherwise couldn’t afford.
Of course, the key word there is *properly*. Even Orlando isn’t immune from stupidity such as letting Disney gut their downtown entertainment district tax base in the 90s and building two arenas for the Magic in the space of 30 years.
I see the point of why people like the OR Coast, but I’ll be the first to caution not to fall in love with the place and think they can live there full time. I’m not sure I can repair the career damage from our Northwest adventure before I hit my 60s, but I’m giving it my best shot in the next 10 years.
Again, highly recommended … for about a week.
It was checking you out and deciding how tasty you would be. Apparently, you failed the taste test.
Did not consider that possibility. Maybe I tasted bad as I used too much Jade East that morning.
More good news from Oregon, HT Drudge:
Top 10 Oregon counties for gonorrhea
“What do you think of this Dave…”
I hope tRump lets them back in for their “second chances.” Lotta Hispanic active military and veterans who are super-loyal to this country; give ’em a break. If they screw up again, throw ’em in jail here (assuming it’s violent crime).
I wonder how long and what rank are theses Vets? When I was a 2nd Looie, non-citizen soldiers were not going to get promoted because they couldn’t get a TS clearance. Required as the Army entered the Digital Age. You needed a TS to operate the whole slew of incoming secure radios. Maybe the rules changed.
Added: I believe in a program that offers Citizenship to service members who serve, let’s say, five years, honorably.
If I was large-and-in-charge I’d push some kind of accelerated citizenship program for the otherwise honorable non-citizen veterans and I’d see them as actually and genuinely desirable and legal immigrants. Case-by-case basis, no one-size-fits-all blanket chit anymore.
My service predates that of MrAtoz and we had a lot of Hispanic combat vets who LOVED this country and would die for it in a heartbeat. THOSE are the people we want here, not gangbangers and narcotrafficantes. No place in the armed forces for gangstas; I’d root that out in a big hurry and I mean right now; the first loyalty is to THIS country and THIS Army.