08:11 – It was 56.4F (12.5C) when I took Colin out at 0650, mostly cloudy and damp. Barbara is off this morning to Winston to run errands, returning this afternoon.
Walmart is getting better about packing shipments. FedEx showed up yesterday with my eight #10 cans of Augason dehydrated potato slices, and all eight cans were completely undented. Let’s hope the same is true for the two steel shelving units that are on the FedEx truck for delivery today.
Yesterday, I mentioned to Lori, our USPS carrier, that these two shelving units should be showing up soon, and asked her if she’d mind doing a small welding project for me. Like all of these steel shelving units, instead of including four 6-foot angle-iron corner verticals, they include eight 3-foot units with four steel sleeves. You have to pound one of the sleeves onto the bottom half of each vertical and then pound the top half of the vertical into the sleeve. So I asked Lori if she could weld them together instead. She said she’d be happy to take a look at them, and do the welding if she could. She even refused to accept any payment for doing it, although I’ll insist.
I just started re-reading an SF series that seldom appears on lists of prepper/PA titles, but definitely belongs in the top rank of prepper fiction. It’s Eric Flint’s 1632 series, which I first read soon after the first title was released. It’s since become almost its own ecosystem, with dozens of titles ranging from full-length novels to short-story collections, written by dozens of authors, many of whom any SF reader will recognize.
The only reason this series is usually categorized as SF rather than prepper/PA fiction is that the Event involves a chunk of West Virginia being displaced in space-time and ending up in medieval Europe. Flint’s paints his canvas on a gigantic scale, with the Thirty Years’ War raging, and historical characters like Gustavus Adolphus and the kings of England, France, and Spain playing major roles. The series is fundamentally about an ordinary group of contemporary Deplorables finding themselves in a literal TEOTWAWKI situation and then going about rebuilding a modern society. Flint and his collaborators write well, and the series is definitely worth checking out.
Yep I mostly enjoyed the series a lot. His union boosterism gets very tedious to someone who watched the autoworkers and steelworkers unions gut American industry. That said, I binge read the first several books. I like the idea, and the execution. Some of the characters are interesting too. It’s got a very Conn Yank In King Art’s Court vibe…
68F and 95% RH at the moment.
Today’s tasks include maintenance at the rent house. Fun times.
n
Oh, yeah. Flint is a union guy from way back. Thing is, those UMW guys from West Virginia have seen their jobs and the businesses they work for gutted, and they’re now mostly just a bunch of unemployed Normals. My guess is that most of them voted Trump.
The best line from one of the earlier 1632 books: When a mercenary/hoodlum sees a fat geek with a shotgun, he immediately recognized the purpose of the armed geek’s eyeglasses. The better to see you.
The ESPN charge (“Sports programming”) on our cable bill went to $12 this month so I’m finishing my cord cutting projects.
Still without power on the Space Coast, although about 2/3rds of the county has been restored. 15 gallons through the gennie so far. Next hurricane prep is a window AC unit.
Lights, water, food, ect. all worked well. No real discrepancies found.
I was considering turning SlingTV back on so I could watch Moonday Night Sportsball again. I enjoyed it last year.
But since Robert Lee was unjustly canned because his NAME is the same as someone out of favor now, I have decided that ESPN doesn’t deserve any of my money. They seem to be TRYING to drive away half their audience. I’m in the half that they’re driving away. So no Sling for my family.
I suspect ESPN and the other major networks are beginning to realize that no matter their opinions, alienating half their audience is a bad business decision. All they have to do is keep their mouths shut.
They won’t.
And I should add – I’m an early riser. 3 am and I are old friends. So even if I had Sling, I’d fall asleep halfway through the first quarter and wind up watching it online in the morning anyway.
So there is NO reason for me to spend it.
Sounds like a caffeine deficiency, Jim. There’s no reason anyone has to fall asleep when they’re in the middle of doing something.
But since Robert Lee was unjustly canned because his NAME is the same as someone out of favor now, I have decided that ESPN doesn’t deserve any of my money.
The added stupidity — Robert Lee is Asian. Yes, the Old South is the first thing I would think of if I saw the caption “Robert Lee” below an Asian male covering a tennis match … if I ever watched ESPN.
Yep, ESPN and others have gone the way of Goolag, FaceBerg, Twitter, et. al. And they’ve long had a major hate on for the New England Patriots. Good riddance. I’m sticking to my Pats-only sportsball viewing this season and when B & B retire, I’m also done with the NFL and sportsball in general, other than local minor league baseball games up here that I actually go to.
We’ll try to cut out our cable tee-vee portion of the Comcast bundle when that time comes.
And as of 9/19 I’m blowing away my Linked-In account, too. It’s just been a mostly unsuccessful IT job board for me, so good riddance to them, too.
I am seeing life rebound for me more and more to local meatspace up here and actual face time with real human beans again. It’s been a bit of a struggle because I tend to isolate and value my alone time, but there’s been too much of that and if we get to SHTF, we need to have some friends and allies locally. Maybe I can’t hump a ruck and the gubs for miles over hill and over dale as I hit the dusty trail anymore, and/or engage in SUT activities to any appreciable degree, but I can do other stuff.
I get plenty of caffeine. It’s sleep I’m deprived of. I’ll count that as a blessing. I almost never have trouble going to sleep. And 3am is the most productive time of the day.
Watching sportsball doesn’t count as “doing something” in my book. It’s either relaxing or background noise. And relaxing when I’m tired results in sleep. For some reason I can’t pull 50 hour days anymore.
The irony of Robert Lee being of Asian descent is not lost on me. I worked with a Japanese fellow once that I initially thought was hillbilly because of our conversations on the phone. Just his upbringing. Hearing that drawl come out of that face was just the dissonance I needed.
I just started re-reading an SF series that seldom appears on lists of prepper/PA titles, but definitely belongs in the top rank of prepper fiction. It’s Eric Flint’s 1632 series, which I first read soon after the first title was released. It’s since become almost its own ecosystem, with dozens of titles ranging from full-length novels to short-story collections, written by dozens of authors, many of whom any SF reader will recognize.
I read about the first 8 or 9 books and then it fizzled for me. The first 3 books are very strong, the 1632 by Flint and then the two collaborations with David Weber. Using railroad steel rails to make armored gunboats with steam engines is an awesome idea.
One of the short stories in the series struck me very strongly. One of the deplorable blue collar workers works very hard to hard to help get the new normal in working order. But he is very dependent on his blood pressure medicine which runs out after a couple of months. He goes to sleep one night and never wakes up. Just something we take for granted in today’s society, cheap drugs to control extreme conditions.
“Just something we take for granted in today’s society, cheap drugs to control extreme conditions.”
I don’t take it for granted. Manufacturing key pharmaceuticals is one of the key ways I plan to be essential to the community. One of the characters in the 1632 series is a geek who produces chloramphenicol (a broad-spectrum antibiotic) for them. My reaction when I read that many years ago was, “Why make CHLORamphenicol, which unfortunately has the side effect of inducing fatal and irreversible aplastic anemia once in every few thousand uses? Why not make THIamphenicol instead, which has a similar spectrum and no association with pernicious anemia?” So now I know how to make thiamphenicol in quantity, along with hundreds of other critical drugs. Geez, just knowing how to isolate insulin from cow pancreata is important, and pretty trivial (you macerate the cow pancreata, solubilize the insulin with dilute hydrochloric acid, and reprecipitate it with baking soda.)
Over The Hedge, “Suburban Guard Ferret”
http://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2017/09/14
I had envisioned a response of something more physical.
Geez, just knowing how to isolate insulin from cow pancreata is important, and pretty trivial (you macerate the cow pancreata, solubilize the insulin with dilute hydrochloric acid, and reprecipitate it with baking soda.)
Is the Armour thyroid medicine made in a similar manner ? Both my wife and daughter take it. My wife’s thyroid was fried by chemo and my daughter’s thyroid was removed at age 18. Both of them have trouble with Synthroid.
http://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-3694/armour-thyroid-oral/details
Next hurricane prep is a window AC unit.
The wife has mentioned this. But our back 3 ton 16 SEER central A/C unit only pulls 11 amps at 230 voles running. I might need a 7 kW generator to get it started though.
We are back to our normal September temperatures of 90+ F days and 70 F nights. It sucks. Severe weather moderation (the high was 71 F one day in freaking August !) and then light moderation was the only gift that Harvey gave us.
https://spacecityweather.com/back-to-regularly-scheduled-late-summer0914/
EDIT: the 52 inches of rain over four days in Harris County and the 36 inches of rain in Fort Bend County were not gifts. Even the farmers out here in the sticks had their fields rained out.
The wife has mentioned this. But our back 3 ton 16 SEER central A/C unit only pulls 11 amps at 230 voles running. I might need a 7 kW generator to get it started though.
Replacing our 22 year-old downstairs AC unit sliced 20% off of our electric bill. And I’m not even using a schedule on the thermostats yet.
“Is the Armour thyroid medicine made in a similar manner ?”
Looking at the page you linked to, I suspect it is. It appears to be simply porcine thyroid hormone (thyroxine) that’s been isolated and purified. But I have no idea off the top of my head what the isolation/purification process would be. And I wouldn’t know a pig thyroid if it bit me. I’m not sure how it differs from synthroid, which I thought was just synthetic thyroxine. I see on Wikipedia that two chemists did a total synthesis of it in 1927. I suspect that total synthesis and perhaps the procedure for isolating the natural product are in my Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Encyclopedia (all 4,000 pages of it), but I haven’t looked.
“Hillary Clinton demonstrates ‘alternate nostril breathing’ during CNN interview”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hillary-clinton-demonstrates-alternate-nostril-breathing-during-cnn-interview/article/2634354
Looks like the new lizard in the Hillary skin suit is fairly talented.
BTW, for a totally new look at alien abduction conspiracies, I am really liking the craziness in “People of Earth”. And they have a lizard guy running around in a human skin suit.
https://www.yahoo.com/tv/people-earth-turns-alien-abductions-142000674.html
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
I’m not sure how it differs from synthroid, which I thought was just synthetic thyroxine.
The mix of T3 and T4 is totally different between Synthroid and Armour ??? When the Armour supply got contaminated a couple of years ago and condemned (India !), my wife and daughter had to convert to pure Synthroid. Both of them complained that it had no effect for them. BTW, the daughter normally takes a 50/50 mix of Synthroid and Armour.
When you see big difference in effect of more-or-less similar products (Synthroid and Armour) the answer usually is the packaging and excipients. One formulation may enter the blood stream in a matter of minutes, the other over several hours. That leads to a very different feel for the patient but in the long term they are getting the medicine they need.
Looks like the new lizard in the Hillary skin suit is fairly talented.
Lizard. That’s just crazy talk.
She/he is a surgically altered body double.
Surgically altered? That’s just crazy talk. What body double would consent to being operated on to look less human?
I don’t believe it. Who would be so desperate that he would be willing to stand in for her?
I just read Bernie introduced a “Medicare For All” bill in the Senate. I guess OdooshCare is working so good.
Back from Farmington, NM. A very scenic drive there and back.
OStankAssCare was intended from the beginning to wreck the healthcare industry and create a “demand” for socialized medicine. Bernie “Can’t Make It In The Free Market” Sanders is a good Socialist and is simply following his marching orders to take that next step.
(Where the “good” in “good Socialist” is not to be taken in any favorable way.)
I just read Bernie introduced a “Medicare For All” bill in the Senate.
What could go wrong ?
“EIA: World energy consumption to increase 28% by 2040”
http://www.ogj.com/articles/2017/09/eia-world-energy-consumption-to-increase-28-by-2040.html
In my business, we call this a good thing. If you are not a climate disruption skeptic, this is absolutely horrible.
I just found out that the Air Force is using C-130s to spray for mosqitoes in the Houston area. I’m told that one flew over our neighborhood this morning and sprayed us.
http://www.youngstown.afrc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1301910/aerial-spray-for-hurricane-harvey-relief/
Cue the SteveF joke …
In Ely (pronounced E LEE) NV. Went the depot to see what I needed. Turned in my written test that I had done early. Missed two questions that were ambiguous. Such as “Does the direction of the engine control the direction of train travel”. My response was false. Engines operate just as well forwards and backwards and will pull (or push) a train forwards or backwards. Don’t know why they marked that one wrong. Next question was regarding an emergency. “Does the train stop at the nearest road crossing in case of an emergency”. Found nothing in the book other than “The train will make all efforts to not block a grade crossing”. Thus I marked false. Seems true is the proper answer. Regardless, passed the test, signed a form saying if I get injured, lose a limb, or die, tough nooggies, my problem.
Talked with the guy who will be the fireman tomorrow. Quite laid back on the entire deal. Said the engine is slow to respond, thus no quick control movements. Give it time. Also said the engine is a passenger engine and can easily go too fast if you don’t watch the speed. Big assed engine, three drive wheels almost 6 feet tall. Went into the cab and identified the controls, throttle, Johnson Bar, air brakes, horn. Fireman said there is no insulation in the cab from the boiler so it is hot, movement of the engine is your friend.
Wife convinced me to buy an engineers hat. Said if you going to spend all that money to play with a big toy you should at least look the part. So there it is. I drew the line at a red scarf.
Those machines are dirty, I mean filthy grimy contraptions. Touch anywhere and your hands are covered with a grimy soot that does not rub off. Need special hand cleaner. Brought along some old clothes that I figure will be tossed when the adventure is over. Requirements of the railroad are that all clothing must be 100% cotton. Will be putting pictures on a website and providing the link tomorrow. Nice folks so far, very easy going.
A few pictures from today. The title is wrong. It is “Nevada Northern Railway”. More tomorrow after the adventure is over.
“A few pictures from today. The title is wrong. It is “Nevada Northern Railway”. More tomorrow after the adventure is over.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHKxk719AMc
“EIA: World energy consumption to increase 28% by 2040”
Is this what is called “The Industrial Revolution”?
So, North Korea launched a missile from the Sunan district of Pyongyang a little while ago.
And we have done nothing. Obviously the military has no faith in their anti-missile systems and the gooberment doesn’t have the gonads to destroy Pyongyang.
Ray – great adventure!
My brother was an exec for one of the major railways (retired this spring). I went with him and his family on his last ride (updated 1940’s vintage cars pulled by modern power – a really nice way to travel). We spent the night on the train in Minneapolis by a private rail yard. The guy that owns it was there and showed us around – they have a great example of one of the last big steam engines produced back during WW2. It is the engine that runs the North Pole express out of Minneapolis. He has it set up so it can run the current rail system. That means current safety systems, comms, etc.
@Slim:
No wrecks on this route, at least not on my watch.
@Bill
I think these run on the tracks that were used to haul mine ore and are basically abandoned except for use by the NNR. Tracks seem to dead end in the wheel house. I saw no lights except for the headlight powered by a steam turbine dynamo. Only comms were hand held radios.
We spent the night on the train in Minneapolis by a private rail yard
Seeing pictures of some of those executive cars I suspect it was really a nice experience. The ultimate luxury way to travel. I envy you.
Locomotive that I will be operating was stone cold when I was there. Had already been lubed for the day as they do that after each trip as that can be done at any time. Some time tomorrow at about 7:00 they will begin firing up the locomotive, heating the water and building steam. Also need to get the steam powered air pumps going to build up air pressure before we depart at 9:30. Supposed to be all over at 12:00 noon.
It was stated again by the fireman that the engine only has air brakes, shoes against the wheels. I would also develop a whole new appreciation for gravity on the trip back down the mountain. He says they go through brake shoes quite often.
Also surprised me to learn that they only have one locomotive, diesel, with dynamic braking (turn the motors into generators and dissipate the heat through resisters with blowers to cool them). The other diesel engines only have air brakes. Seems that the first generation of diesel electric only used air brakes because “they were good enough for steam and the shoes were cheap”. Also the engineers were familiar with air brakes.
This place also had the option for you to spend the night in a caboose. No plumbing, no thanks. You could also spend the night in a bunkhouse. Again, no thanks.
I plan on being there for the firing up and do as much as I can. I want to experience the entire adventure. Even shovel some coal which requires that you be able to load the box evenly including hitting the far end of the fire box. That may be the biggest challenge.
Even shovel some coal which requires that you be able to load the box evenly including hitting the far end of the fire box.
I believe Mr. SteveF learned to “load the box” at a South Korean “turkey farm”.
@Clayton W: What type of generator are you using? I’ve read now of a couple of whole house generators failing, and a couple of cases of small Honda EU 2000 class inverter-generators continuing to work.
Meh, spent a couple hours at the rent house. Now that’s ok.
In the mean time, both trucks are in the shop. Expy needs a catalytic converter. They are not cheap. Cheaper than buying a new truck though. Ranger is having rough idle issues… Interwebs are helpful in that there are dozens of things that could be wrong. Nothing definite though.
Considering how little maintenance I do on the vehicles, they were due but it’s still writing a good sized check.
n
“In the mean time, both trucks are in the shop.”
https://www.amazon.com/BAFX-Products-34t5-Bluetooth-Android/dp/B005NLQAHS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1505440936&sr=8-4&keywords=obd+android
I recently purchased this $18 OBD scanner as a replacement for one several years old that had gone mental. With the additional $5 “Torque Pro” app for tablet or smartphone, the car can tell me what’s wrong if the computer is complaining with a “Check Engine” display. Plugs in at the base of the steering column.
Also works with the ’96 Dodge Caravan I inherited. Won’t work for ’95 anycar or before… There are lots of other, similar scanners at Amazon as well.
Once the light is on Autozone with read the code for free, and try to explain what it means. Sometimes that means something I can fix, but most of the time, not so much.
I can do pure mechanical things on the cars, but diagnosis is beyond me.
n
@DadCooks: I think Aegis is a boost phase intercept, so the interceptor would have be fired at Pyongyang, almost directly. If it misses it has a good chance of hitting China, if it hits debris come down on the NK capital. Either way war starts…and a lot of people die.
If I was the South Korean government, and/or the Japanese government, I would dump 30 or 40,000 mines into the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. They don’t have to be activated, or even tethered. The simple sight of thousand and thousands of these washing up on the beaches, and ship captains reports of them bumping up against hulls would be enough to cause the oligarchs to wet their pants, and to bring down the current Chinese government. And the Norks.
“Once the light is on Autozone with read the code for free”
And other parts houses, too. OTOH, the app is fairly specific, particularly with ignition or pollution control fault codes. It also has a number of virtual gauges like cars of yore (Voltmeter, Vacuum, various temps) which I find useful plus all sorts of performance/mileage/statistical data for those who are interested (not me!).
In the days before cars became a transport app for a computer, I wasn’t a terrible shade tree mechanic. The scanner gives me a window into what the silly thing is thinking and a SWAG into how expensive the cure is.
“central A/C unit only pulls 11 amps at 230 voles running”
Voles are so much more efficient than hamsters or squirrels!
Some sort of OBD-II code reader is a good thing, for sure.
The Android (Bluetooth) connection is also useful, including recording trip details and such, into the Torque app, which is not bad even in the free version.
Nice pics, Mr. Ray; looks like a lotta fun; I’d even sleep in the caboose. Dunno about driving that mutha down a steep mountain incline, though.
Vets group today was intense. Several actual war stories, which is very rare for a topic in the group. Then we watched a half-hour flick made here in Vermont in 1981 about four young wives of ‘Nam vets, all Vermonters. The first vet in the series is in our group, fairly new guy and former Army intel officer in the Delta. Very bad scene for him and his guys back then. And coming home. Fourth and last guy in the series ended up eating his shotgun and the widow, a pretty young woman with long dark hair and glasses just broke down sobbing, of course. So people in our group had/have no trouble remembering how it was for us 45-50 years ago coming home.
We’ll have the aftermath from this over this next week, I’m sure, plus the upcoming Ken Burns series on the war, which me and several others are leery about watching, mainly because of our perception of what the political slant is gonna be. “Oh we’ll be hearing from people against the war…etc.” Equal time for commies. Maybe not, we’ll see.
“Obviously the military has no faith in their anti-missile systems”
Yeah, I don’t get that either. The systems exist, they are supposed to work. Use them.
Shooting the NK rockets down as soon as they enter international waters would make the point that they are basically impotent. OTOH, failing to shoot them down would be…embarrassing. A bit of embarrassment might be good for the circulation, and could lead to a clean-up of the military-industrial swamp.
@Clayton W: What type of generator are you using? I’ve read now of a couple of whole house generators failing, and a couple of cases of small Honda EU 2000 class inverter-generators continuing to work.
Cheap generator that was well regarded back when I bought it. About 18 hours on a tank at my light loads. Rated for 8 hours at 50%, 4 gallons. Pretty quiet at 69 dBa.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006L1FOE4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
“Need special hand cleaner.”
Oldtimers’ tip: before starting, scrape your fingernails over a bar of soap. This loads up your nails with soap, leaving no space for dirt to get in. The soap scrubs out as usual afterwards.
“central A/C unit only pulls 11 amps at 230 voles running”
Voles are so much more efficient than hamsters or squirrels!
You know, I wonder what 230 voles look like ? Probably a sea of voles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vole
Shooting the NK rockets down as soon as they enter international waters would make the point that they are basically impotent. OTOH, failing to shoot them down would be…embarrassing. A bit of embarrassment might be good for the circulation, and could lead to a clean-up of the military-industrial swamp.
My very limited reading on the subject equates it to shooting down a shotgun slug with a another shotgun pellet blast. The relative speeds are so high that little jukes by the missile are tough to counter against.
IMHO, the best way to shoot down a missile is a light speed device (laser) and we really don’t have a high power (tens, hundreds, or thousands of megawatts) model working yet on any kind of a portable platform. The air force and navy are both working on this but I have yet to see much results crowed about in Popular Mechanics.
Give me orbital kill-sats or give me death!
(So to speak.)
“The relative speeds are so high that little jukes by the missile are tough to counter against.”
Not at all. It’s trivial. All you need to do is get your anti-missile missile within a kilometer or so of the target. Your nuke warhead does the rest.
Nothing to prevent other countries from putting orbital kill-sats up there. Unless we blast them first. But then they could blast us first. Kinda like…hmmmmm…..the old-timey MAD stuff. And I don’t mean the magazine.
What, me worry?
The obvious solution, Dave, is to destroy all satellites not under my control. Duh.
Duh. Why didn’t I think of that? I blame Adolph Trump and warmistglobalchange. Also anyone not in any of the Officially Approved Oppressed Groups. Which are Legion. By now, pretty much everyone is in one of those groups.
Which kinda narrows it down.
@Clayton W: Thanks!
Your nuke warhead does the rest.
David Weber did an awesome job of illustrating why you don’t use nukes in the planetary atmosphere in “Mutineer’s Moon”. My favorite book all of time.
https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856/