08:56 – It was 51.6F (11C) when I took Colin out at 0650, dim with heavy fog and drizzling. We’ve had about 1.6″ (4 cm) of rain in the last 24 hours or so. This is supposed to clear out later today. We’ll see.
Frances and Al had originally planned to spend the holiday weekend here, but given the weather they decided to stay home. Probably a good thing. Yesterday afternoon, at about the time they’d have left Winston, our visibility was down to about 50 meters.
Science kit sales are holding up. Month-to-date, we’ve already done 11% of the revenue we did in all of September 2016. We’ll be working on science kits today, of course, to get more built for stock. First up is to fill another 120 bottles of bromothymol blue, which is the limiting item on building more chemistry and biology kits. After that, we’ll continue knocking off other limiting items until we’re in good shape on finished-goods inventory.
Interesting email yesterday from a reader who wanted to know what I’d consider to be an “advanced prepper”. My short answer was someone who had the critical needs of themselves and their immediate family taken care of for a period of at least three months, and had begun to make provision for the needs of non-prepper extended family, friends, and neighbors.
This is borne out by recent events in Texas. Despite the supply chain being unable to cope with the sudden increased demand for food, bottled water, and so on, most of those who were better prepared have been sharing their stores with friends and neighbors, regardless of the political persuasions of those involved. Prepared Clinton voters are sharing their supplies with unprepared Trump voters, and vice versa. (Although Trump voters, on average, are probably much better-prepared than Clinton voters.)
With the exception of a few scumbags taking advantage of the situation, everyone in the affected area is co-operating, sharing supplies, having community cookouts, offering refuge to friends and neighbors, and so on. One of my readers, for example, is running his Big Berkey water filter constantly to provide safe drinking water for his neighborhood, as well as sharing his stocks of rice, pasta, canned meat, and so on. Another is lending out his numerous Coleman stoves and other items that are desperately needed by the folks affected.
That’s great, and illustrates the advantage of having at least one well-prepared person in a larger group, but I’m afraid this spirit of cooperation is going to start breaking down as more and more people exhaust their supplies and resupply continues to be problematic. It’ll be interesting to follow this over the coming weeks and months.
It’ll be interesting to follow this over the coming weeks and months.
This weekend should prove exciting in Central Texas if the number of “red” stations on the GasBuddy.com tracking map is anywhere close to accurate.
The media got the holiday weekend gasoline shortage story that they wanted. Now the Austin news outlets, especially the radio stations, seem to be working on the meme that WalMart is “price gouging” when gas arrives at the Sam’s Club and Murphy Oil stations.
“We just had a caller out in Boonies, TX phone in to report WalMart charging $5 a gallon at the local Supercenter.”
“Any of our listeners in Boonies or the greater BFE region want to confirm this report?”
See how it works? WalMart bashing is the icing on the cake. I knew that was coming.
You know it is time to clean the gutters when you spot a plant growing in the gutters.
Gutters on the house are 4″ downspouts with a micro screen covering so they are no problem. Because of the trees I used to have to clean those gutters every couple of months. Generally during a rainstorm when I noticed water overflowing.
This time it was the boat cover. The gutters, while 4″ are not screen covered. Did not realize they were clogged until I spotted the plant. Lots of matted pine needles and other fine material from the trees. I guess it is something I need to pay attention. The gutters were not overflowing, just had the start of a tree showing.
I do have one of these Little Giant ladders which makes life much easier when dealing with heights. Very sturdy, extensions, legs that will adjust for uneven surfaces. Without a doubt the best ladder you would ever purchase. And probably the last ladder you would ever purchase. Expensive but worth it for the stability and deployment options. I also have the work platform (makes it much easier on your feet), the work plank, air deck workstation and the ladder rack (to hang on the wall in the mower shed).
I also have one of these step ladders for use in the house. The best step ladder I have ever owned. Sturdy, comfortable, and easy to deploy. Yes, you can stand on the top platform with ease. Excellent product.
Still it is unnerving to get on a ladder at 16 feet off the ground. Never have liked it since my uncle made me crawl in the rafters of the barn to destroy pigeon nests and I fell 20 feet onto some bales of hay. The SOB broke out laughing as he watched me struggle and gasp for breath as the breath had been knocked out of me. Never had a problem with being on a ladder until after that event.
I’ll second the reco for Little Giant. Very sturdy, the only safe way to use a ladder on stairs, very versatile. HEAVY though. I keep a 6ft fiberglas ladder for the quick jobs as it is much easier to move.
n
Quick Harvey summary from my FEMA brief–
“Tropical Cyclone Harvey
Current Situation
• Response and recovery efforts continue throughout the Gulf Coast
• Dry weather this weekend; area rivers and bayous to fall below major flood stage
• Record flooding will continue on the Neches River near Beaumont through next week
• Harvey’s remnants may cause locally significant flash flooding, especially in Kentucky
• Isolated tornadoes possible, primarily over the Carolinas
Impacts
• Widespread Damage: Nearly 137k (+18k) of 2.7M homes in 29 counties impacted
• Evacuations:
o TX – Mandatory evacuations for 430k; Voluntary evacuations for 234k people
o LA – Mandatory evacuations for 6.9k; Voluntary evacuations for 133k people
• Shelters / Occupants: 258 / 42k in TX; 6 / 1,507 in LA
• Transportation: Limited operations across the region
o Airports: Beaumont closed (expected to open Sep 4)
o Seaports: Dredging to begin this weekend
o Roads/Bridges: Major roads remain closed through the impacted area
• Communications: 2.4% cell tower outage; 100k landline customers out of service
• Medical: 29 hospitals closed; 12 hospitals reopened
• Power Outages: 123k customers without power in TX* (as of 5:30 a.m. EDT)
• Schools: Houston schools closed for at least 2 weeks
• Other: Numerous tornadoes, high wind, and hail events reported across the Lower
Mississippi Valley and much of the Southeast”
Continuing to listen to the scanner. Traffic has returned to normal levels and now I can hear more of the Houston Catastrophe Medical talkgroup… they are continuing air and ground ops. They have a MMU (MASH unit) set up as well as their other disaster centers. I’ve seen Red Cross medical vans outside our local providers, even the Doc in a Box sized places.
I haven’t heard anything from the medical response side, there must be some stories out there….
n
“• Isolated tornadoes possible, primarily over the Carolinas”
Fortunately, the NC mountains don’t get much tornado activity. I think the last one we had in this county was several years ago, and it was something like an F 0.2. Some old lady went after it with a broom and it fled in terror.
HEAVY though. I keep a 6ft fiberglas ladder for the quick jobs as it is much easier to move
About the same here. Ladder is heavy. But having hefted some ladders at Home Depot that could get to the same height as the Little Giant the weight was not that much more. Fiberglass ladder is used for needs that don’t require much height and are on level surfaces. The Little Giant is used when height above about 4 foot is required or the surface is uneven. I had an older version of the ladder but gave that to my son and bought the new version with the extension legs. I had clamp on extensions but they were a pain to use.
I bought the latest version at Costco along with the aluminum work plank. Work plank was great when having to paint the stairwell. Buying those together the sales guy threw in some of the extra stuff. I had looked and walked away twice. Each time he sweetened the deal. The third time I felt I got enough stuff to make the switch worthwhile.
I’ve used Little Giant ladders for 40+ years, since they were imported from West Germany. I’ll agree with the others that they will probably be the last ladder you ever need to purchase. While they are heavy, there is a simple trick to handling them. Have it sitting up, folded and compacted, so it looks roughly like this || . Then bend at your waist, put your shoulder at the halfway point of its height. Wrap your arms around it, stand up, and it will be very well balanced on your shoulder. Robert is your mother’s sibling.
A third thumb up for Little Giant Ladders. I really like the Safety Step Ladders, we have the 2, 3, and 4-step ones. Extremely sturdy and stable, even my little Wife can move the big 4-step one around. Amazon has the best prices for Little Giant products, even beats Costco.
Unfortunately I predict that this will be the week that things go up-side-down in the flood areas. There will be much finger pointing and blaming. The “progressive/regressive” media will be creating and digging up dirt. The party is over folks.
I did see one report on Fox yesterday that some Blackhawks were being sent up with military folks to look for looters and “terminate them with extreme prejudice”. A bit later someone brought up “posse comitatus” and spoiled the fun.
And remember that a freaking HURRICANE wiped out a whole bunch of communities in the 100’s of miles of coast south of Houston, and that whole communities east of us are a couple days behind us in the damage and recovery curve.
I’m sure folks in those areas are getting a bit tired of the Houston, Houston, Houston drumbeat, just like the other 100’s of thousands of folks along the coast who were wiped out by Katrina and Rita got tired of New Orleans, ad infinitum.
NB we were supposed to restart school next Tues, but too many teachers and families in the district couldn’t come back, so we have another week delay.
n
60 here right now and sunny w/blue skies again.
I also fear the aftermath of the storm damage down in Texas; I’d favor putting the National Guard troops to work on it all and possibly getting cooperative efforts likewise from neighboring states. I’d even want to close, say, a hundred or so bases and installations overseas and bring those troops home to help out. That would be a good way to start doing that and shutting down the Empire. Meanwhile our increasingly militarized police can maintain law and order, thus exchanging roles with our soldiers, I guess, must be the plan.
In other nooz, Prince Vlad is warning that the situation with the NORKs is possibly about to blow up and expand into a wider conflict and he’s ordered the evacuation of eastern Russians from the area forthwith.
Had a good interview/meeting with the professors yesterday down at the college and all systems seem to be GO but for that last damn recommendation letter. They’ll end up getting a third and a fourth but the timing has been late, late, late. And meanwhile I have a hundred or so pages to read this weekend for Monday night’s class. Already did next Saturday’s reading homework. Looks like a chit-load of the work in the next couple of years will be hands-on, and near the end of it will be with real clients. Yes, we are clients now, and not “patients.” But I’ve already been doing hands-on for the past five years so I’m good with that. Maybe I can learn something useful.
For other hands-on stuff that will be useful, I’m continuing on-course with the gubs, radios and vegetable gardening. Slow but steady wins the race. I hope.
Things you wouldn’t necessarily think about…
There is going to be a real acute shortage of temporary storage space down here, esp the kind that is portable. Homeowners are already hitting the local FB groups with info about who has space available and who needs space. Contractors will be short when they need to secure mat’l and tools on all the thousands of work sites.
Scanner has medical “Strike Teams” headed out from Houston towards Beaumont.
I’m off to do some cleanup of my own.
n
Had a good interview/meeting with the professors yesterday down at the college and all systems seem to be GO but for that last damn recommendation letter. They’ll end up getting a third and a fourth but the timing has been late, late, late.
The recommendation letters are a necessary evil. Programs in out of the way schools would be deluged with applications from overseas students if that check wasn’t in place.
At my alma matter, even a three letters requirement still resulted in a CS grad program which was 98% Indian. What I found interesting is that, once accepted and enrolled, most of the Indian students could not come up with a separate certified transcript submission necessary to be considered for jobs in the department with the Teaching Assistant title.
And more “settled” science turned on its head again:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/17/08/31/2249229/the-oldest-known-human-remains-in-the-americas-have-been-found-in-a-mexican-cave
Zillion-years-old dudes on Crete and now this.
I see millions to be made in textbook revisions—-oh wait—the revisions may not pass the commie/PC smell tests. Or get by any of a score of Officially Approved Grievance Groups.
Wife had planned to take MIL to the family reunion just outside of Ft Worth next week. Now she’s concerned about gasoline availability. The little HHR holds enough for one way but would need a fill-up to make it back to Shawnee OK. We could throw a couple of 5 gallon cans in the back but the wife gets nauseous from any gas fumes. I am concerned that the majority of the others won’t be able to attend making it a wasted trip. I guess we’ll see what happens.
IIRC, by far the oldest human remains found in North America were in the Pacific Northwest, and show Caucasian ancestry.
“And more “settled” science turned on its head again:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/17/08/31/2249229/the-oldest-known-human-remains-in-the-americas-have-been-found-in-a-mexican-cave
Zillion-years-old dudes on Crete and now this.”
NOPE, check this: https://www.amazon.com/History-Warfare-Science-Theology-Christendom/dp/0879758260/ref=pd_sbs_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0879758260&pd_rd_r=FZ8XV6B87KVC0G2ZR0ZY&pd_rd_w=VLcQn&pd_rd_wg=cDDUP&psc=1&refRID=FZ8XV6B87KVC0G2ZR0ZY
Which says, according to the theology of Christendom, God created the universe in six days in Oct., 3994 BC; consequently, the Earth (along with all else) is only 6,011 years old next month.
I thought it was 4004 BC. You’re 10 years out.
“…by far the oldest human remains found in North America were in the Pacific Northwest, and show Caucasian ancestry.”
If you mean Kennewick Man, those are only 8-9k years old. This new Mexican find is 4k years older than that and 4k miles from the Bering Strait. They’re postulating Indonesians, and perhaps, among them, Obummer’s ancestors, amirite? Or did he just live there with his commie mom? I can’t ever seem to get that chit straight…
In any case, the find on Crete is of earth-shaking proportions, if genuine and properly dated.
That may be what I was thinking of.
This is my favorite reconstruction of Kennewick Man:
https://www.google.com/search?q=kennewick+man&num=50&newwindow=1&tbm=isch&imgil=oqN30VLwaxftlM%253A%253BLAOoWmoekWB-JM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.bbc.com%25252Fnews%25252Fscience-environment-33170655&source=iu&pf=m&fir=oqN30VLwaxftlM%253A%252CLAOoWmoekWB-JM%252C_&usg=__l7AYFmyXJWT_vitcCE0O-NyG-o0%3D&biw=1536&bih=703&dpr=1.25&ved=0ahUKEwiz2fGimofWAhVK7YMKHVDRD8cQyjcIUg&ei=VQKrWfPaG8rajwTQor-4DA#imgrc=oqN30VLwaxftlM:
The Wikipedia article about the Kennewick Man is fairly accurate:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man
This new Mexican find is 4k years older than that
Obviously had a better health insurance plan than Obuttwadcare.
“John McCain slams Trump in Italy, recommits to America’s role in world”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/john-mccain-slams-trump-in-italy-recommits-to-americas-role-in-world/article/2633280
John McCain is a sick man. He needs to step down as his blathering is beginning to knock down all the good that he done over his life.
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
“his blathering is beginning to knock down all the good that he done over his life”
What good would that be?
Yah, I’m with RBT. How is the world a better place than if McCain had died as a POW or as a result of one of his other aircraft fuckups?
Note that I do not blame him for breaking under torture. Every man has his breaking point and the Vietnamese found his. I do blame him for allowing his incompetent military service and, yes, his treason against the United States, to be played as war heroism. And for all the personal corruption and profiteering — I can’t be the only one to remember the Keating Five.
Beats me. He’s been a royal PITA almost his entire “career,” and should have simply been in the Dem half of the Party all along. I won’t even go into his POW time and the information that’s come to light over the decades.
And I wish that Admiral Stockdale could have been in his place or in the place of any of the generals among the current WH crew.
“I thought it was 4004 BC. You’re 10 years out.”
My apologies….Been 4 decades since I read the referenced book.
WRT McCain: YUUUP, a fraud and liar; only a little less than Cankles. Check his complete misunderstanding of Geneva conventions and water boarding. Then review his lies and misdirection regarding the latest USAF tanker contract award.
RBT is correct, what did he ever do that was correct and proper?
CowboySlim who was working on USAF transports at the time of his criminal intervention.
My apologies….Been 4 decades since I read the referenced book.
Don’t let the whippersnappers get you down!
Whack ’em with your cane or throw your walker at them!!
[snip] I’d even want to close, say, a hundred or so bases and installations overseas and bring those troops home to help out. [snip]
I *DON’T* want the Army to help out. The purpose of an Army is to smite our enemies / break things / kill people / conquer lands that need to be conquered. It’s not to rescue your dumb ass from a flood. I’ve got no problem with the US Army securing the borders, just like the US Navy should be interested in securing the ports and sea lanes. The situation in Texas is the responsibility of Texas, and if the Governors of the various states want to help they can do so, along with private individuals and industry. Florida sent quite a few members of our FWCC {game wardens, etc} and quite a bit of equipment. I’m be amazed if Southern Company isn’t moving hundreds of crews, trucks, and capital equipment to help repair the electrical system. But leave the Federal government out of it.
Solid guidance for almost every situation.
Being bored today after getting to the end of the internet, I went through and checked most of my bookmarks.
I have a Google link to the sat pic of my house. I check it once in a while. Print Screen, drop into Paint Shop Pro and save. The first I can find is dated March 2005. Black and white and blurry. Pretty worthless if you don’t know what you are looking at. Still amazing, none the less.
I checked my link today. Wow! Color! I can see the texture of the metal roof on the house. I can almost see the boards in the flatbed trailer. The old pickup truck has a gooseneck ball in the bed, on a large plate of steel. The plate shows.
I can tell the picture is at least 3 months old. There is only one salt block. Actually, the picture looks like January or February. My chickens are in a mobile coop that I move almost every day. I go about 3 feet past where they were sitting so I’m not stepping in processed food while collecting eggs. The path of the coop across the backyard shows. 🙂
I *DON’T* want the Army to help out.
Amen.
Well, the USPS is starting back up. We got 6 inches of mail at the office yesterday delivered by a real USPS jeep (that little white vehicle that they have millions of). I’m wondering what happened to our regular RFD guy. First mail in a week and a half. And we got mail today at the house, about an inch and a half.
And the Brazos river is going down quick. Peaked at 55.19 ft on Friday and now at 53.94 ft.
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=HGX&gage=RMOT2
Well I don’t want our Army smiting people and breaking chit all over the world for the Empire, whether it’s great training or not. Not unless the situation fulfills just war criteria, and not for lining the pockets of oil and bankster nabobs and the politicians who serve them. And not as a means of promoting zillions of officers to flag ranks.
Fine, bring them home and have them secure our borders and coasts, with other branches helping out.
I will also say, however, that if the country gets hammered with landfall by Irma at Cat 5 or Cat 6 in the next week or two, peeps may be begging on their knees for Fed intervention and assistance, once the local Guard, Reserve and cop units are completely overwhelmed, Cajun Navy or not. Or not even that, some other Black Swan incident. And those same peeps may end up ruing the day, I dunno.
I always thought war should require a declaration by 3/4 of the States.
Approval of the states is supposed to be pretty much the meaning of “declaration of war by Congress”. You know, back when Senators were appointed by the states and (mostly) represented the interests of the states rather than the interests of the donors who let them run for office.
I remember the bumper stickers in the very early ’80 that said “Beautify Texas Buy a Yankee a bus ticket”. And as far as little ol’ me that just moved from Edinburg to the big city of Austin could tell, they meant it.
Texas has an attitude.
SteveF is right on.
I always thought war should require a declaration by 3/4 of the States.
Well, my neighbor does not agree with you. He thinks that states are redundant and that the popular vote across the nation should rule any election.
We (and a bunch of other zip codes) have been asked to limit our inputs to the sewer system. Apparently we are having issues with two of our local processing facilities. I thought we’d see infrastructure failures earlier. Hope they can get it fixed.
And they’ve made the evac mandatory for everyone that is currently flooded by the continuing discharges from the dams. If you have water in your home, and your are in those areas, you gotta get out for at least 2-3 weeks.
Asked my neighbor what his son, the HPD officer had to say about looting. “It’s real bad” was the answer.
My ebay sales have collapsed. I sold one mac mini power adapter, and one other small item. I’m starting to get worried. I’ll do a bunch of new listings, and hopefully something will start moving.
n
I think the plan was for a lot of states/countries in a confederation of all for self defense against the Evil Brits and Frogs and Spanish.
edit.
I must have missed a day of school.
Well, if it’s any kind of consolation, Xmas is coming up. School Clothes just happened. The annual rent called Property Taxes looms.
Yeah, and the dam car insurance just renewed….
I kind of tapped out beyond beer money.
Well, my neighbor does not agree with you. He thinks that states are redundant and that the popular vote across the nation should rule any election.
“A republic, if we can keep it.” B. Franklin.
The annual rent called Property Taxes looms.
No joke. I think that I will have enough money by December to pay off all of the various collecting entities. County, school, MUD, HOA, and levee. The MUD may be replaced by the City of Sugar Land if they go through with their annexation in Dec. Sugar Land just announced their first property tax increase in a decade to pay for their increasing bureaucracy. They already sent us a letter about having to get building permits starting at $500 each to do anything besides mowing the yard.
And they’ve made the evac mandatory for everyone that is currently flooded by the continuing discharges from the dams. If you have water in your home, and your are in those areas, you gotta get out for at least 2-3 weeks.
Honestly clueless here. If you refuse to leave, what? Jail? And go where for 2-3 weeks? Haul ass to Waco or somewhere? So, now you don’t have a job…..
My warehouse tenant lives in the Heights of Houston in one of those old two story block houses. He saw water coming around his front door on Sunday ? Monday ? and opened the door. He got hit with a 3 ft tall wall of water. The levee behind their house had collapsed. He and his girlfriend left. He and a couple of his guys are ripping sheetrock out of his house now.
A lot of businesses in Houston are not going to survive this. My neighbor works at San Felipe and 610 at an insurance business. Her business had 10 ft of water in it. They relocated the servers to South Dakota ??? and everyone is working from home for the next month. I am betting the next year.
Wife and I feel for the peeps down in the Great Lone Star State and hope and pray that our friends and everybody come out of it OK.
We couldn’t live there or many other places in FUSA and are willing to put up with long cold snowy winters with ice storms and the power cutting out (though it’s only done that for maybe a couple of hours two or three times in the past five years). We can always get warm and we’ve acclimated to the weather and the northern New England culture.
Still, it pains us to think of all the good folks struggling with that situation down there right now with more shit to come, no doubt. Here’s hoping Mr. Nick and family are gonna be OK, Mr. Lynn, Mr. ech and everyone else. If any of y’all get sick and tired of the hassle and need a break, slide on up; we have a spare bedroom and a couch, and both of us can cook whatever. We’ll give ya the grand tour, send ya home with some genyooine maple syrup and super-shahp Vermont cheese. We’ll go to the range and blow shit up and use targets with pics of various political villains on them; I feel fairly sure we have the same villains in mind, too.
Give Mrs. OFD time to get rid of her nasty cold/flu symptoms and don’t mind the old crippled guy hobbling around with his damn cane.
We (and a bunch of other zip codes) have been asked to limit our inputs to the sewer system. Apparently we are having issues with two of our local processing facilities. I thought we’d see infrastructure failures earlier. Hope they can get it fixed.
If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.
And I weep for the state of our schools, in every communication about the SEWER problem, they have to reiterate that the DRINKING WATER is fine. Despite this, the FB group is running in circles asking if the water is ok to drink.
Oy vey.
Interesting side note, according to scanner traffic, the PD is currently unable to run gun serial numbers to check if they are stolen. Currently and temporarily.
Also interesting is that with all the interop going on, the PDs are doing a lot more license and warrant checks by voice. They normally do them with the mobile data terminals in the car, nothing to overhear.
We’ve got the Oklahoma Urban Search and Rescue team and their support structure camped in the mall parking lot, right off I-10, about 2.5 miles down the street from me. Big semi with soft sides trailer, canopies, a whole compound.
and this, offered without comment, or accent, or mention of Jellystone, from our school district.
“Dear SBISD Families,
We are pleased to let you know that the District has arranged to open three children’s feeding sites beginning next Tuesday, September 5th.
The sites below will be open to provide breakfast and lunch for the children of our community.
SCHOOL FEEDING SITES (Beginning Tuesday, Sept. 5):
Meadow Wood Elementary, 14230 Memorial Dr, 77079
Edgewood Elementary, 8757 Kempwood Dr., 77080
Westwood Elementary, 10595 Hammerly, Blvd., 77043
TIMES:
Breakfast: 7 – 9 a.m.
Lunch: 11 – 1 p.m.”
nick
“Whack ’em with your cane or throw your walker at them!!”
Ok, but I’ll have to buy a cane or walker as I don’t have one yet.
CowboySlim who was born in 1938 AD.
”
Honestly clueless here. If you refuse to leave, what? Jail? And go where for 2-3 weeks? Haul ass to Waco or somewhere? So, now you don’t have a job…..”
No idea. I advised people affected to RUN down the road to CampingWorld and buy a trailer before they were all gone. Even when the flood waters go down, a house with flood water in it for 3 weeks is a total loss. No one would buy something like that. And with the enormous demand for contractors, there won’t be any way TO rebuild unless you have an existing relationship, for months if not years. The median income in the affected area is high, verging on real high, so most are not without resources, but I’m sure every story is different and given the home prices, there are sure to be more than a few who have everything locked up in a mortgage.
Raises some real prepping issues to be sure.
nick
“Melania and Donald swing by Texas and Louisiana and visit the thousands made homeless by Hurricane Harvey… and the delighted children can’t get enough of their President!”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4846706/Trumps-fly-Texas-meet-Hurricane-Harvey-victims.html
The Prez is back in town. I wonder what the progs are going to criticize him about today ? The dude has guts, he went to the NRG stadium refugee shelter with 10,000 ? people in it.
I know that this was a photo opp, but any prez who can go into a huge refugee shelter and spend time with the kids gets a big thumbs up in my book. We could have done worse, far worse.
BTW, looking at Trump on those videos with “normal” people, he is a big dude. I did not believe when he claimed that he was 6’2″ and 230 lbs during the campaign.
I won’t do a link dump, but look at zerohedge and UKdailyMail–
Cali is burning and people need to GTFO…
Thin blue stepped on their dicks in Salt Lake City, and it’s blowing up in the regular news by attempting to arrest a nurse for NOT being willing to break the law.
IRMA is still headed toward us, and MIGHT swing up the coast, or not.
I’ve been encouraging people to avoid the Red Cross when donating. They’re NOT trustworthy, despite what good they manage to do.
Some people don’t have flood insurance. MOST people don’t have flood insurance. MOST should.
n
LOTS of encrypted traffic tonight on SWAT, NWest Tactical, and Homeland Interop…
n
Some suggestion in reporting today that PD is using SWAT to, well… swat looting and other serious crimes as a ‘flying squad.’
Also bragging that they have other assets and eyes in the sky to observe and catch looters. Claim they can see you even when no one is around. Hmmmm.
n
Some people don’t have flood insurance. MOST people don’t have flood insurance. MOST should.
We will have flood insurance for our home on Oct 1. I pray that we never have to use it again (we had flood insurance on our rent house in 1992 ? and used it once).
I am going to pass on flood insurance for the office. It cannot be flooded by rain with the ditches going into the Brazos river. And, the office was 10 ft above the Brazos river at the 55.2 ft new crest. That is a non calibrated eyeball of 10 ft. It could be 8 ft or 12 ft since the bank down to the river is about 300 ft of tall grass. And Lynn don’t walking down the river bank tall grass full of cotton mouths, copper heads, and feral pigs.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/29%C2%B032'26.5%22N+95%C2%B039'54.1%22W/@29.540693,-95.6655642,189m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d29.540693!4d-95.6650167
And now, I’m off to bed.
n
Wife is back from a recent ten days in the SF East Bay area and Sacramento and it was over 100 every day with super-dry air; she doesn’t know how peeps can live in that shit. But “You can’t go outside.” Sure, everyone huddles with the A-C inside. What if the juice cuts out? I know for a fact that we human beans can get used to that kinda heat and lack of humidity because millions live that way. I got used to over-100 every day for months with shit-tons of humidity and hard physical and mental effort. Do I wanna ever do that again? Fuck no!
And the incident with the asshole pigs in Salt Lake City knocking that nurse around is on the Tube now. I’d like ten minutes in a room with those assholes. Even as crippled as I am right now. Just ten minutes. She was obeying the law.
WRT Donald and Melania visiting TX, the wife comments caustically about the latter’s stilletto heels. And how stupid she is. I just don’t bother arguing anymore, but shit, she gets that from the MSM, FaceBerg and her FB “friends” and their endless hateful memes they think are hilarious.
Then I read a thing in the current Popular Mechanics mag about a guy talking to his son, who’s in college, and where the latter finds out stuff about anything. The kid and his friends get ALL their shit EXCLUSIVELY from FaceBerg, Twitter, SnapChat, and Google News. No wonder this generation is so fucked and believes all the shit they do. But I haven’t a leg to stand on when wife and all her relatives that I know of get their news pretty much from the same sources.
And then I get the occasional snarky comments about how I get mine from all my friends on the blogs and the sites I visit. Well yeah, hon; that barely offsets the blizzard of shit that emanates constantly from the MSM and social media. You people make no effort whatsoever to reach for balance or offsetting what you listen to and read and watch.
I know it’s none of my beeswax but if I currently lived in the Hurricane/Tornado Alley that is “coastal” TX, Louisiana, Floriduh, etc., I’d be SERIOUSLY looking to move and GTFO ASAP, whatever the issues with jobs, family, medical, friends, etc. Surviving trumps all that other stuff, and if it meant moving to Idaho or Maine or Montana and looking for new work and downsizing some stuff, drastically if need be, I’d be on it like white on rice. Even at my advanced age and state of decrepitude. I’d rather have twenty more years in some small northern town than twenty years worrying about the next huge storm or the authorities forcing me out of my flooded house and moving me to a sports complex full of Army cots with strangers, etc., etc.
One last comment.
I’ve had this album on endless repeat, and LOUD in my truck for the last few days as I drive around and do my cleanup.
https://youtu.be/esW_mALuhAU
The energy, Russian angst, and pure manic-ness fits my mood. Give it a chance, it pays off repeated listening.
Best tracks-
2. “Wonderlust King” 3:58
4. “Supertheory of Supereverything” 2:56
5. “Harem in Tuscany (Taranta)” 3:33
6. “Dub the Frequencies of Love” 6:15
8. “Tribal Connection” 5:05
13. “American Wedding” 3:38
14. “Super Taranta!”
American Wedding is awesome. “where is marinaded herring?”
n
And while I was writing that, the scanner hit some traffic.
PD is currently working a small aircraft possibly in flames, possibly crashed north of Houston. They aren’t finding anything, but the witness is good.
Lots of effort.
n
Marinated herring would be a northwest European dish, and one I would not care to try anytime soon. But I’d eat it if offered somewhere.
When I am in that mood (not often) I usually listen to David Allen Coe or Government Mule. Cranked up. Hipsters and SJW types don’t dig it. If I really wanna enjoy life and piss them off some more, I crank up Scottish bagpipe stuff, like the pipes and drums of the Black Watch or Seven Nations.
funny you should mention pipes. Heard something I really liked on the radio today.
The Piper Jones Band. Local TX boy. All the tube stuff I can find is in traditional settings, but the song on the radio was very modern. Had a rock rhythm. Maybe tomorrow..
this one is nice
https://youtu.be/mgkxuiiMw0s
n
and now I’m really off to bed, no updates on the possible missing aircraft
” if I currently lived in the Hurricane/Tornado Alley that is “coastal” TX, Louisiana, Floriduh, etc., I’d be SERIOUSLY looking to move and GTFO ASAP, ”
this deserves a comment, but I need to sleep.
n
Yeah, there’s been a tradition since the 1960s of peeps rockin’ up some old-timey Celtic stuff, usually Scottish, but sometimes Irish and Welsh.
I think I’ve mentioned before that Princess is a musical prodigy (besides about eight or ten languages she’s now fluent in, to the point that natives think she’s one of them) and her specialty for a while now is the Celtic harp. She’s done gigs with it here in Nova Anglia and also up in Quebec and Ontario, and has taken advanced classes with harp masters in Maine, Vermont, Ireland, Scotland and Brittany. (on our dime, of course).
We hope it pays off.
And now I am off to the Land of Nod likewise; got a hundred pages of counseling theory to read tomorrow and maybe an attempt to mow the back yard, which may be hiding some of Mr. Lynn’s cottonmouths, copperheads, gators, etc., but on the other hand, probably too cold for them now. More likely no mammals or reptiles or amphibians at all, considering our three-cat patrol.
Pax vobiscm, fratres… and as we are learning from our Texas people here, semper paratus…
The MUD may be replaced by the City of Sugar Land if they go through with their annexation in Dec. Sugar Land just announced their first property tax increase in a decade to pay for their increasing bureaucracy. They already sent us a letter about having to get building permits starting at $500 each to do anything besides mowing the yard.
Do you *want* annexation by the city?
One of the items on the legislature’s agenda for the special session was to establish limits on Texas cities’ ability to annex without the explicit consent of the people living in the targeted areas. I was surprised that rules like that don’t already exist, but Texas law never ceases to amaze.
That was one of the things that surprised me when I moved to North Carolina almost 40 years ago. In Pennsylvania, towns and cities were surrounded by townships, and could not annex. In North Carolina, towns and cities can annex freely without getting those being annexed to agree to it. They can even annex across county borders.
The MUD may be replaced by the City of Sugar Land if they go through with their annexation in Dec. Sugar Land just announced their first property tax increase in a decade to pay for their increasing bureaucracy. They already sent us a letter about having to get building permits starting at $500 each to do anything besides mowing the yard.
Do you *want* annexation by the city?
One of the items on the legislature’s agenda for the special session was to establish limits on Texas cities’ ability to annex without the explicit consent of the people living in the targeted areas. I was surprised that rules like that don’t already exist, but Texas law never ceases to amaze.
Not really. I love being out in the county, another reason to move. They annexed all of the office spaces at the front along the freeway a couple of years ago so they got the high value properties already. But the lure of the $1.4 billion of home tax base has got them salivating now.
You did note that the annexation limits bill failed in the legislature. The cities hired a bunch of high priced consultants and knocked it out.
They can even annex across county borders.
The city of Houston is in three counties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._municipalities_in_multiple_counties#Texas
The city of Houston is in three counties.
My city of Oliver Springs is in three counties. Big or small, it does not matter. Makes it interesting on school zoning. The school is located in the Roane County section. Oliver Springs residents in the Anderson County section up until several years ago could not attend the school in the city. The same city where they lived. State legislature passed a bill that if you live in the city where there is a school you must be allowed to attend that school. But you have to provide your own transportation.
I live in the Anderson County portion but ride my bicycle to school when I sub or attend sporting events. Only takes 10 minutes.
OFD wrote:
“I think I’ve mentioned before that Princess is a musical prodigy (besides about eight or ten languages she’s now fluent in, to the point that natives think she’s one of them) and her specialty for a while now is the Celtic harp.”
Good news! That means she has a well paid, secure career in front of her and will be able to lavish lots of moolah on you and Mrs OFD as you enter your dotage.
Live long enough to be a burden to your kids…
Sure, Miles; thanks for the laugh.
I just wanna live long enuff to see her have to raise at least one teenage daughter. All I ask of the Lord.