It was 36 degrees, partly cloudy, and calm when I took Colin out at 7:30.
Frances and Al visited Bob yesterday afternoon. His bed was in the chair position. He was alert and interactive with them. The nurse on duty had not seen him for a week and said she thought he had improved a lot since then. The doctors have not replaced the large trach tube with a smaller one yet.
Sunday December 24, 2017
38 Comments and discussion on "Sunday December 24, 2017"
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It sounds like things are improving. That is very good news. Still praying things will get even better.
I’m glad you have some relief to share the burden, and I’m cheered that Bob seems to be continuing to improve!
I don’t know if you are a crack shot with the AntiSantaAirDefences, but Bob never got the old fat guy either! I know he’ll be at my house, eating the cookies and drinking the Scotch, with his fat livestock eating the grass and food left for them. I just don’t know WHEN he’ll be here. Oh well, the kids might find it distressing, and reindeer meat tend to be dry anyway….
nick
Reindeer tastes like brisket to me. It’s okay but I can take it or leave it.
“Year One List: 81 major Trump achievements, 11 Obama legacy items repealed”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/year-one-list-81-major-trump-achievements-11-obama-legacy-items-repealed/article/2644159
My man Trump has been busy !
Speaking of busy, I need to get ready for church. We are having regular Sunday worship service today combined with Christmas Eve services three times (10 am, 3 pm, and 5 pm). I managed to duck any duties so far but I volunteered to help count the contribution on Tuesday. Yes, we are having contribution collections and communion each service today. We are the Church of Christ, it is what we do.
The nurse on duty had not seen him for a week and said she thought he had improved a lot since then.
Yeah ! It has been many small steps to get to this point and many more to get RBT back into his daily grind. Moving forward is a good thing !
And still praying for you guys. And OFD …
Once Bob’s lungs clear up, recovery will escalate. Hang in there, Barbara.
Best wishes to Barbara and Bob and all the community here this Christmas. Just read the Christmas story and poured the first G&T of the evening… Love, good health and godwill to all.
Thank you Denis, and to you and your’s as well…
n
couple of data points for smart shopping-
April, last Radio Shack has their final sale in the neighborhood, and I spend $35 on hobby electronics, pc board stuff, and radio adapters, along with other bits and pieces. I just found the receipt on my desk, and I saved . . . . . . . . just under $200 dollars.
Day before yesterday, went into the local grocery store to get a couple last minute things for baking and expendables (since we’d been out of town for a week). They had Ribeye Roasts, half price ~$3.47 / pound. I bought 3. I love these as beef roasts, and I slice them into ribeye steaks too. With the other instore coupons, and the BOGO on boxes of potato side dishes, I saved $86 ending up with a $200 receipt. Bought all stuff I normally buy anyway. Nothing says love like a freezer full of meat…
nick
My man Trump has been busy !
The proposed 54 MPG CAFE for 2025 needs to go *now*.
Car companies will start planning for that cycle in another year.
Once Bob’s lungs clear up, recovery will escalate.
Me too. I’ve been fighting a cold for weeks. It sounded like a quarter of the church had it too this morning.
My man Trump has been busy !
The proposed 54 MPG CAFE for 2025 needs to go *now*.
Car companies will start planning for that cycle in another year.
You do know those CAFE numbers are faked, right ? They are at least 2X the real world mileage of the vehicles. I think they get a 5 mpg CAFE credit for making engines “dual fuel”.
I do expect by that point that all vehicles made will be mild hybrids at minimum. I do want one of these pickups though (if it is reliable):
http://workhorse.com/pickup/
When I was working with the car companies it was difficult to train dealers on the features of pre-release vehicles. Everyone wants to know HP, MPG, torque, etc, but the companies don’t want to give out the numbers. When I asked about it, I was told that the final numbers would be based on CAFE, and MARKETING needs, as they could just dial in whatever numbers they needed (within a range.)
This computer control over everything led to the rise of the “chip wizards” who can reprogram your vehicle for the attributes YOU find most important. (High econo mode vs balls to the wall speed, forex, or better towing.)
In real life, outside of towing vehicles and sports cars, those numbers are both meaningless and completely un-interesting for the majority of buyers. They make a HUGE difference to the company and whether they meet their fleet MPG targets though.
nick
When I was growing up, my family collected boxes from all the high end stores. Every time they’d buy something in Jordan Marsh, Remick’s, Gilcrest’s or any other perceived highfalutin store, they would ask for a box or sometimes two. Come Christmas time they would have a collection of boxes from these places and the gifts that they bought from Kresge’s, Woolworths or Zayre’s would get wrapped up nicely in these boxes (always with tissue paper) and given to friends and relatives.
It wasn’t that we were cheap bastards, we were just poor bastards.
When the person receiving our gift unwrapped it, they would always ooh and ahh over the box and how special it was that we got them something from that store.
I don’t think they were fooled. In fact, most of the gifts we received were also in boxes from all the best stores. Since most of our friends and relatives were also poor people, I’ll bet they were engaging in the same deceit that my family did.
If Jordan Marsh made a business out of just selling their boxes, they’d probably still be in business
Growing up we also saved the boxes and recycled them every year. We still occasionally get a family gift in a really old Monkey Wards, or Carson’s box…
I’m short on boxes here at the moment. I’ve got a piggy bank to wrap and no good box…
n
Growing up we also saved the boxes and recycled them every year. We still occasionally get a family gift in a really old Monkey Wards, or Carson’s box…
Nowadays, it is used Amazon boxes …
But they’re a bit too thick and the edges are rounded. The split tops are harder to tape down too. I’ll do it if I have too….
n
Well, now there is just me, daughter, SIL and the two teen-age grandchildren. We adults do not do presents to each other. The GCs have credit cards under my accounts and, so, I am excused from shopping and boxing.
You do know those CAFE numbers are faked, right ? They are at least 2X the real world mileage of the vehicles. I think they get a 5 mpg CAFE credit for making engines “dual fuel”.
54 will be tough. 35 has given us aluminum pickup beds, 9-10 speed transmissions, and push button parking brakes.
I bought a Chevy Cavalier in 1985. So new that no one had had time to fart in it. It had perhaps 10 miles on the odometer. 5 speed manual, 2.0 liter engine. I think it was throttlebody… the shop manual isn’t on the shelf with the rest of the shop manuals. Huh.
Anyway, it never made the MPG numbers on the window sticker.
54 will be tough.
Hybrids and plug-ins for compact cars. Pickups and low mileage cars will, as they are now, be priced higher to subsidize high mileage cars.
Good news about RBT! Sometimes it’s hard to see progress from day to day, but he’s in the mend now.
Woke up with a runny nose. Not good, hoping to avoid the flu, it hits me hard these days. Tried a Benadryl, it knocked me out midday for three hours.
Doing various Xmas things today.
Gifts this year are mainly gift cards – selling a house, buying a house, managing contractors for the new place, *and* jury duty hasn’t left me much time.
I bought a Chevy Cavalier in 1985. So new that no one had had time to fart in it. It had perhaps 10 miles on the odometer. 5 speed manual, 2.0 liter engine. I think it was throttlebody… the shop manual isn’t on the shelf with the rest of the shop manuals. Huh.
I had a Dodge Colt with 0-60 acceleration in about a week. OTOH, it averaged low 40s MPG on the freeway, high 30s around town.
Good news about our host, but still no message from OFD?
Dodge Colt with 0-60 acceleration in about a week
You had the souped up version. Most could not get to 60 in any amount of time. Unless it was downhill, and straight.
My Chevy Chevette would do an indicated 83, but only downhill and with a tail wind. Boy o boy did I romp on that little car. I got every last bit of use I could. I did smugglers’ turns, no clutch shifts, 83mph on the freeway….
I put it in ditches, 4 wheeled it, and we picked it up out of holes more than once.
A horrible little car, but really hard to kill.
n
Good news about our host, …
Indeed.
… but still no message from OFD?
If Dave’s lurking, this should coax him out of the shadows.
According to the official NORAD tracker, Barbara missed Santa. All those folks in NYC should have a shot at him soon….
n
We’ve got reindeer attractant out, and a plate of fat man attractant too…
ADDED- and there is a lot more shooting in the air and fireworks than I normally associate with Christmas. Someone just did a mag dump on a rifle.
Anyway, it never made the MPG numbers on the window sticker.
My 2005 Ford Expedition is EPA rated at 13 city and 18 highway. It gets that mileage or better (up to 21 mpg on the highway on trips from Sugar Land to Dallas) faithfully. And I drive it like I stole it. My daughter says that I drive like Mario Andretti with the independent rear suspension and the 300 hp V8.
Ha, my Expy still GOES like a race car, but STOPS like a truck. I was told by a pro driver, “Never outdrive your brakes.”
n
Great Christmas music, “No Doubt – Oi To The World”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFLExwIQKto
You do know those CAFE numbers are faked, right ? They are at least 2X the real world mileage of the vehicles. I think they get a 5 mpg CAFE credit for making engines “dual fuel”.
54 will be tough. 35 has given us aluminum pickup beds, 9-10 speed transmissions, and push button parking brakes.
“Ford CEO reveals his company’s plan to get cars to hit 54 miles per gallon by 2025”
http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-ceo-says-company-plans-to-meet-cafe-standards-2017-4
“The automaker announced in 2015 it would spend $4.5 billion by 2020 to offer 13 new EV nameplates. The company has so far revealed several of the vehicles it plans to launch, including an F-150 hybrid, a Mustang hybrid, and a fully electric SUV with a range of 300 miles per charge.”
Sounds expensive.
Speaking of sounds, there are more fireworks and gunshots tonight than on the Fourth. Sounds like fukcing Mosul… Someone’s got too much money for sure, and now it’s a mag dump every couple of minutes. All from the same direction, east of me. Big apartment complexes to that direction.
Everything is in readiness for the AM. Bike assembled. Cookies and nog eaten. Reindeer prints and nose prints in place. Boot print on the hearth. Time for me and the wife to get to bed.
If anyone’s still up, I’ll leave this very soothing video: Model Railroad, running for 20 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds8oowTNU6A
Full screen for full effect.
n
A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night.
First off, Even if this is going to appear in “yesterday’s” thread, Merry Christmas to y’all!
Continued best wishes especially to Barbara and Bob, and OFD.
For our Christmas this year – we’ve had a difficult and stress-filled autumn – we agreed to no tree, no decorations, no presents. Just some nice meals and lots of quiet time to detox and recover. Next year ought to be a lot more relaxed – we have taken / are taking some serious steps to reduce our work and stress levels.
—
There was a survey somewhere: are we better off than we were 50 years ago? The responses were interesting, mostly for what they reveal about people’s attitudes towards their current situation. The situations are difficult to compare: 50 years ago – 1967 – any sort of personal computer wasn’t even a dream – computers were built out of little boards containing the logic gates – each gate implemented with individual transistors. Apollo hadn’t yet reached the moon – and all the follow-on benefits from the space program had yet to be realized, including most of the technology we take for granted today.
On the other hand, my dad was able to support our family, and own a home on (iirc) an income of $16,000/year. My mother didn’t work, and didn’t need to. Today, our family income is many times as much, but most of the difference is inflation. While we have more than enough money, both parents have always worked, and both of us have come too close to burnout from the stress. Seems to me that stress was less of a problem back in the 1960s, but maybe I’m seeing it through the eyes of a kid.
So, while today’s technology has opened many possibilities that weren’t even imagined 50 years ago, I’m not sure that we’re happier. Standard of living has risen everywhere and for every group: the poor are less poor, from Africa to America. The rich are certainly richer. The middle class too. But we don’t compare ourselves to people from 50 years ago, we compare ourselves to our neighbors, so most people don’t see this. Somehow, many of the middle class people I know seem to be dissatisfied, unhappy. Perhaps because society is changing so fast, and in such unpredictable ways.
A small example: Neither of my kids has ever been on a date, as I would use the term. They are now in their 20s, have never had a romantic interest, and don’t seem particularly interested in finding one. Almost all of their friendships are online – while they do have “meatspace” friends, even these they mostly meet with online. While we “geezers” have also moved in this direction (witness: this forum), this is a supplement for us, whereas it *is* the social world of our children/grandchildren.
—
Minor technical grump: Win10 installed it’s “Fall Creator’s Update” on my machine a couple of days ago. O Joy. O Bliss.
First, of course, it zapped many of my settings – for example, putting all sorts of those idiotic tiles back into the start menu. No, I don’t want Skype, or Edge, or Microsoft’s recommended weather service, or… Then it removes the boot options for any other operating system. It also creates some new, undeletable directories, for example, “3DObjects”. Even if I wanted to use MS-Paint to do 3D drawings, that directory is not where I would save my work – but it’s there, and it cannot be deleted without a registry hack. Mamasoft knows best – WTF?
Finally, the machine is now literally useless for 1-2 minutes after boot. According to the task manager, absolutely nothing is going on: 0% CPU usage, 0% hard disk, etc. – but no programs will start, nothing. Any clicks you make accumulate, and then – when this mystery nap is over – everything you clicked opens at once. Best to start the machine, log in, and go get a coffee.
All in all, a highly irritating update.
Reindeer prints and nose prints in place. Boot print on the hearth
Nice. I bet your kids really enjoy that.
the machine is now literally useless for 1-2 minutes after boot
I have had no such issues with my machines after I restarted them from dead power off. Actually, only one machine out of three had that issue.
creates some new, undeletable directories, for example, “3DObjects”
It is an empty directory so takes little to no space. You can still save 3D Paint images to any directory you like. I suspect this directory is for something unrelated to 3D Paint.
putting all sorts of those idiotic tiles back into the start menu
All I got was a couple of items on the task bar that were easily removed. Edge being one of those. I tried Edge but it proved to be unusable on some web pages and just too clumsy so I went back to Chrome. Maybe it was my comfort level that got in the way.
I killed a couple of those directories but you have to do it in file explorer, >all the way to>start menu
No way to do it from the windows button.
In my case, I’m trying to minimize clutter and options for my dad. Less to confuse him = less for me to support.
I didn’t see the pause, but his little box is running from silicon (no disk) so it boots really quickly normally.
The most annoying was the Skype update, which on two machines now DID NOT import accounts and settings, including all your trusted contacts. As far as the new version is concerned, it’s virgin on a virgin machine. SUCK IT MS.
nick
(most annoying was that it killed the old ms games, but I’ve detailed that elsewhere.)
I’m not sure that we’re happier.
Heard an interesting discussion of this on Jonah Goldberg’s The Remnant podcast with his boss at AIE, Arthur Brooks. Brooks has the study of happiness as one of his projects there. Your happiness is 50% genetic, 40% circumstances (illness, family tragedy/celebration, etc.), 10% under your control.
A small example: Neither of my kids has ever been on a date, as I would use the term. They are now in their 20s, have never had a romantic interest, and don’t seem particularly interested in finding one. Almost all of their friendships are online – while they do have “meatspace” friends, even these they mostly meet with online. While we “geezers” have also moved in this direction (witness: this forum), this is a supplement for us, whereas it *is* the social world of our children/grandchildren.
Neither of my kids are married and they are 34 and 30. The son was engaged and he decided to join the Marine Corps at age 21. She promptly dumped him. They got back together after basic but they broke up again. He dates occasionally but has lots of friends who he hangs with. The daughter has dated several times but the Lyme disease destroyed her dating life around age 20 or so.
The online stuff is the social world of today. I am trying to decide if it is a benefit or a negative. Most of my social is through church and work though. And the family of course, especially the wife.
None of my six nephews and nieces (age 18 to 26) are married. One of them may be getting married soon but I doubt it.
For our Christmas this year – we’ve had a difficult and stress-filled autumn – we agreed to no tree, no decorations, no presents. Just some nice meals and lots of quiet time to detox and recover. Next year ought to be a lot more relaxed – we have taken / are taking some serious steps to reduce our work and stress levels.
Good luck ! I am trying to destress also. I do find that I am addicted to email and monitor it constantly. And, a major news junkie fed by http://drudgereport.com/ .