59F and 99%RH this morning in Houston. Drizzle, grey, and squishy saturated ground. Localized heavy rain yesterday led to flood watch and flash flood warnings. Ah, life in a swamp….
n
Sun. Jan. 28, 2018 Guten morgen
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59F and 99%RH this morning in Houston. Drizzle, grey, and squishy saturated ground. Localized heavy rain yesterday led to flood watch and flash flood warnings. Ah, life in a swamp….
Austin cleared up. It should be headed your way soon.
We went to the city proper last night. Say it like Hank Hill: “Austin (sudder)”.
An irony which I noted about downtown yesterday is that one of the last of the great independent bookstores, Book People, sits across a parking lot from the flagship Whole Foods, symbol of “Peak Amazon”.
We went to Waterloo Records nearby, another retail category Amazon helped to put out of business. Record stores used to be fun. Even Best Buy had a decent selection pre-Amazon/iTunes.
(Yes, I did spend money at the store — a new album from a favorite band which I forgot about until I saw it *on the shelf* yesterday.)
Waterloo records is great, as are the surviving indy stores, if you want CDs of local bands. Or if you are into vinyl records.
The house repairs are essentially done as of yesterday. The kitchen needs some cabinet doors and a panel on the island, but the appliances are in and the painting done. Now we get to set up the kitchen. Wednesday movers will transport the boxes of all our stuff and the last of the furniture from our storage unit. I foresee many trips to Goodwill in the future.
“many trips to Goodwill in the future.”
picking up or dropping off? Every time I’ve moved, seeing my old crap in a new light triggered a bunch of drop offs….
n
Slight correction after having lived in Germany for 10 years–it’s “Guten Morgen”. Wish I wasn’t losing my German, but in re-watching “Goodbye Lenin” without subtitles a few weeks ago, I got lost several times in the dialog. In other places around Europe, it was not so rare to find people who could converse in German, but around here in the Midwest, only transplanted native Germans speak it. A native German woman at a cafeteria I frequent speaks German with me, but no one else that I can find.
Watched some movies last night with my son, who is here with me for 2 weeks then off to several months of working ex-pat in Nepal, visiting Tibet and Thailand in the process—maybe Russia.
We tried the movie thing on Friday night (he brought his projector), but could not get a computer to play what we wanted to see streaming from the Net without constant halting and loss of HD. SpeedTest showed download speeds of 3mb, so something was wrong, as my computer with a wire connection was claiming 93 down and 25 up.
After an hour’s worth of fiddling with the computer, thinking that was the problem, I whipped out the Android, started WiFi Analyzer, and noticed that the router’s wireless was back on channel 1, with loads of other neighborhood competition. I had switched it a couple months ago to channel 3, and never dreamed that either it did not take or would not stick. By this time, it was late and we had things to do in Muncie the next day, so we gave up for the night.
Yesterday afternoon, I switched the wireless to channel 4 and put the bandwidth from auto to manual at 20 mhz hoping the latter change would help make it stick, and double—checked with the phone—the wireless remained on channel 4 and was staying there. No problems after that. We watched several episodes of “Rick and Morty” in beautiful HD with not a single frame dropped. (We agreed the post-credit scene of Season 1 Episode 7 is one of the funniest bits we’ve ever seen.) I’m working my way through all the old “Danger Man” episodes, so we finished a few of those, too.
While in the kitchen, I often listen to either the radio automation software I have had running 24/7 on the LAN for the past several years or some Internet stream or podcast, using the Smartphone in the kitchen, plugged into speakers there. It has been halting in the middle of play, which has been getting increasingly worse over the past month. I chalked that up to the phone not having very good wireless reception, but I have my fingers crossed that the phone was–as well–having interference connection problems from the mysterious failure to stay on the channel I assigned.
Last week, I inherited a Grace Internet radio from the radio station, as it was part of a statewide system for broadcaster’s EAS emergency announcements, but that system was recently abandoned, as the whole effort of those announcements is being shifted from radio to cell phones. Have not had a chance to get that receiver up and running, but it automatically boots to the old statewide IP address and tries to log on to the now defunct alert stream, so I hope getting that stopped is not a hard task. That should eliminate the need to give up the cell phone (my only phone number these days) to listen to stuff while in the kitchen.
Meanwhile, I am packing up the house, getting ready to move when it is sold. There has been zero improvement in the housing market in Tiny Town, and I have put 50,000 miles on the new Outback in just over 2 years. I really need to get closer to work and shopping (amazing how many businesses have closed or left Tiny Town over the past couple years), as now I also have to do 90% of my shopping in either Muncie or Indianapolis. Going to take what I can get for the house, which will definitely be a loss, as nearly 400 houses sit empty in Tiny Town–about the same number as 5 years ago. Not sure exactly where I will be landing, but I am checking out several options closer to Indy. Or I could end up in Bloomington, where my son will return after the expat work and where I went to university. (Fred Reed disclosed this week that his first wife was a graduate of the music school there, which is now rated above Juilliard, and where Joshua Bell–among others–was trained.) I put some labels on a few of the boxes, saying things like “Time Travel Stuff”, which is a box on a shelf in Rick’s garage workshop in the “Rick and Morty” series. That got a laugh from my son.
On the record front, I am now up to over 4,000 tracks on the radio automation. There is a method to my madness, as I am trying to curate that library into songs from 1957 to 1989, which conform to some commonality that music testing has shown songs that test well share. Progress is slow; I take Billboard’s chart of the top 500 songs for each year and listen to each of them. It takes about 5 hours to go through about 30 songs. For each song that is a keeper, I have to find chart info on the week each song’s popularity peaked and enter that into the database, in addition to setting the start/end/segue markers. Out of 32 years of songs, I only have 7 years done, and I have been working periodically almost every day on this for more than a year, now. Tending to a radio station’s library is not trivial work.
I foresee many trips to Goodwill in the future.
I wish I could. Wife is a pack rat and keeps almost everything. I have attempted to discard some stuff but she manages to rescue from the trash and chews my butt. Lots of pieces of scrap wood that she “will use on another project”. Then starts a new project and goes to Home Depot and buys the necessary wood never using the scraps. Then adds the scraps from the project to current stash in the hopes she will use in the next project. Repeat and rinse.
Two dead rats this am. Both caught by snap traps after getting stuck in glue. I’m gonna do a bunch more this way.
n
My first message was marked as spam. This is part of the reason why I gave up altogether on participating in forums.
–Chuck
My first message was marked as spam. This is part of the reason why I gave up altogether on participating in forums.
Welcome back, Chuck!
Please don’t give up on this one. With OFD currently MIA, it needs your participation more than ever!
My first message was marked as spam. This is part of the reason why I gave up altogether on participating in forums.
Dude, welcome back !
@Chuck: not sure why your message was marked as ‘spam’ (I’ve released it.). I didn’t see anything in there that would have caused that.
The only ‘spam’ checking we have here is Akisment, which ‘passed’ your comment, so that wasn’t the reason.
It was a long comment (which is OK), but there weren’t excessive links in there (we allow 5). So not sure why it was marked as spam.
I may dig into the WP code and see how it decides a comment is spam.
But, don’t give up on us. I’ll report any findings.
CHUCK! I knew there was someone missing from “the old days” but couldn’t place the name.
Please stay on-board for a while, much to discuss, including your musical transcription. I gave up once the old man upstairs died: I’d been making CDs for him for years. Give me vinyl any day!
My cousin’s son is a bit of a prodigy and is going to Wien in the summer to study. 16 years old! The bastard has got me learning German, too.
Learned last night a close friend in India died yesterday. Can’t afford a last minute trip for a funeral, but in the words of Ah-nold, “I’ll be back”.
Hope you will be too.
Hi Chuck! No idea why you got marked, and of course I was away from my desk. Greg Norton had one waiting in moderation too, which I released. Didn’t see anything there to get it stuck, except maybe a whole bunch of programming language acronyms?
n
and thanks for the german, I thought it was probably guten, but for some reason chose the gutt
Nice to hear from you, Mr. Chuck. Looks like you have been busy. Good luck selling the house.
Between Schumer and the Prince of Whines, we need a non-idiot Chuck to redeem the name.
@Nick
I think it’s more properly “Güten” as in “Möbius”.
The umlaut was the typesetters’ trick to avoid using an extra ‘E’, which were in short supply.
Chuck can explain “ß”… 🙂
jim~
full of either sh1t or trivia, can’t decide
yah, but no idea where win8 hid the character map…..
n
Isn’t someone here (Ray?) using ATMs as a retirement scheme?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-28/hackers-are-using-malware-jackpot-us-atms-forcing-them-dispense-all-cash
n
Two dead rats this am. Both caught by snap traps after getting stuck in glue. I’m gonna do a bunch more this way.
Two down, two hundred to go …
Isn’t someone here (Ray?) using ATMs as a retirement scheme?
That would not be me. I worked on ATM code while at the bank in San Antonio and basically had the keys to the kingdom. Told the auditors that I would not risk my job over a few hundred dollars. If I was to do something out of the ordinary it would be for a couple hundred million and would be hiding in some shirt(-r)hole™ country where the rents are low and the woman are pretty. Alas, the last two items are mutually exclusive.
As for now I am living on the government dole, (SS, VA Benefits), a couple of part time jobs, and drawing on savings. I had more in deductions this year than I had taxable income. I suspect the IRS may get suspicious.
Hmmm, very suspicious…
n
I finally broke down and bought rat poison. I’m getting the small ones, but there is evidence (long hairs on the glue) that the big one/s are getting free. I also bought an electronic zapper trap. I put it in a likely place.
I’ll get them, but I have learned some hard lessons. Soon to be a post.
n
Ray’s doing a different ATM: Anti-teenager mercenary. AKA, substitute teacher.
“Elon Musk’s Boring Company is now selling flamethrowers”
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/28/news/musk-boring-company-flamethrowers/index.html
As for now I am living on the government dole, (SS, VA Benefits), a couple of part time jobs, and drawing on savings. I had more in deductions this year than I had taxable income. I suspect the IRS may get suspicious.
Being as VA benefits are non-taxable and most of SS is non-taxable until you make some other money, I am not surprised. Neither will the IRS be.
Isn’t someone here (Ray?) using ATMs as a retirement scheme?
Harold ??? DadCooks ???
Isn’t someone here (Ray?) using ATMs as a retirement scheme?
Harold? In Oklahoma?
I bought a new to me truck today. It’s a 2002 Dodge, half ton, 4 door. SLT. Exactly the truck I wanted. The paint could be better but I’ve had worse. Like a flaking Earl Schribe job on my ’78 Volare wagon. Sort of a navy blue. Really pretty. Power everything. The driver seat is balky, may just need to be jiggled on while pushing various buttons. Or pull the seat and give it all a good cleaning. The driver side back door window switch is broken. Some actuator motor on the air system has failed so no Defrost or Heat diversions. A/C works. Heat works. I’m good for now.
Mostly, “Blue Slut” is just dirty. The hard plastic on the dash between the window and the padded part is shattered into saucer sized pieces. No big deal, I’ve been there with an ’81 Imperial. It’s a case of “Bubba dinna know what he’s doing”.
The front wheel bearing assembles were replaced last summer. Also the lower control arms? I have all of the old parts.
The brakes will have you eating the steering wheel. 🙂
So, 225,000 or so miles on the ODO. But just 4400 on the new engine. It drives like a new truck.
She just wanted to get rid of it.
Ray’s doing a different ATM: Anti-teenager mercenary. AKA, substitute teacher.
Ah, my bad. Being from a banking background the first term that came to mind is not necessarily correct. Yes, I am a substitute teacher. Total income last year was about $2.2K. Not hardly enough to pay for vehicle gas. Not really doing for the money but for something to do on some days. A part time job requires a schedule, subbing does not. If you don’t want to work, you don’t, with no ill effects.
Neither will the IRS be.
Hope so. This is my first year that this has really happened. Lot of medical stuff for which insurance found ways to not pay. Some exclusion buried on page 3,482 in 8 point type that indicates left handed surgeons are only covered on days that end in “S”.
@lynn wrote:
We managed this year on our SS alone for all living expenses. We did use money we had specifically saved for a new vehicle, the 2018 Subaru Forester Touring. It helps that we have no house payment or any other debt. We will not have to touch our retirement money (IRAs and 401Ks) until mandatory distributions are required at age 70 for each of us. We’ll take out just the minimum and re-invest it somewhere with low risk and easy access.
Frugal living and saving.
I had a real wake-up call over 30 years ago when we had to declare Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Did not want to do it but one of our 6 credit cards would not accept a repayment plan worked out through the Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS). So screw them (cannot remember who it was at the moment) to the tune of about $20,000.00. We did not have any assets so nobody got a dime and we had a completely clean start. We followed the budget plan CCCS worked out for us prior to the bankruptcy and did repay, even though we didn’t have to, the creditors that were willing to work with us. That move paid off immediately and from then on.
@paul, hope you got a good one…
@ray, SOMEONE here is running ATMs with his son, I just can’t remember who. Interesting that they found a way to hack them, even if it does mean swapping a hard drive, and using an endoscope to hit the reset button. I guess they don’t want to admit any of the machines are still running OS/2 🙂
@dadcooks, my story is similar, been on a cash basis ever since. Took a while for my wife to see the benefits; she was a heavy user of ‘free financing’. But soon after our marriage, she paid off all her stuff, I paid off my student loans (pennies on the dollar after talking to them about lump sum payments), the IRS (took a while, got it done), and since then all our vehicles and our house are paid for. The rent house still has a small mortgage, about $300/month and I just don’t want to spend the cash to finish it off. We paid off our home in 8 years. That felt really good.
nick
“Mexico to send troops to stem violence after record 25,000 murders
Mexican Government is set to unleash a new wave of troops to crack down on criminal groups where violence led to more than 25,000 murders last year
National Security Commissioner Renato Sales said federal police troops will work with local officials to round up known major criminals
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5322833/Mexico-send-troops-stem-violence-record-25-000-murders.html”
Build the wall!
n
I could live on SS alone as like others here I have no debt. I choose to spend some of my money doing things I enjoy. There have also been significant medical expenses for the wife that insurance found a way to not pay. My maximum out of pocket is supposed to be $8K but I managed to spend $18K even with insurance.
I have drawn several thousand dollars out of my taxed accounts but make it back within a year. I cannot pull from IRAs until wife is on Medicare. The ACA is really blocking most of that as pulling from IRAs is considered income. Thus decreasing my subsidy substantially. I figure I can do my current draw for 30 years without issue.
Lesson learned: Microsoft does not support Windows 7 and 8.1 running on new AMD Ryzen CPUs, but they don’t tell you that until you are a full day into the install and patching process.
The same goes for Intel Kaby Lake.
@Lynn: I think I know how Microsoft will eventually shut down Win32, but I don’t see them getting away with it for at least a decade.
Ruh roh! So no win7 or 8 on i7 kaby lake??
n
Ruh roh! So no win7 or 8 on i7 kaby lake??
Not without a hackerware patch to trick Windows into thinking that it is running on older hardware. It depends on your comfort level with a binary from Github.
So far, so good on Ryzen 5, but AMD still supplies drivers for Windows 7 on AM4. And you will need a PS/2 keyboard with a port on the motherboard.
Fortunately, gamers insist on PS/2 keyboard support.
Hmm, there was some upgrade I was looking at that went to kaby lake… I’ll have to look again.
Just did a quick repair on a garage door opener. Love the smell of rosin core solder…
n
Just did a quick repair on a garage door opener. Love the smell of rosin core solder…
As long as it is not followed by the smell of burning tantalum.
@Chuck: Welcome back – we’ve missed you! Regarding German, I may have a suggestion. Back when I was taking German courses at my local university, before moving over here, they ran a couple of weekly “social events”, to give people a chance to practice. I don’t recall there being any requirement to be a student, in fact, I think the idea was exactly to get an eclectic mix of students, instructors, locals, whoever would show up. Maybe an inquiry to a couple of local colleges will find you something.
FWIW, I have the same problem here. We speak English at home. After years of working in German, my school has decided to go after the international market in a bigger way. So they want native English speakers teaching classes in English. So I use very little German nowadays, aside from chatting with friends. It’s really frustrating, living in a German speaking country, and watching my German skills deteriorate…
Jedenfalls, wir könnten immer auch deutsch korrespondieren, wenn du möchtest 🙂
Grrr… What’s the saying about “it never rains, but it pours?”. A couple of weeks ago, our NAS lost two disks in quick succession. I managed to avoid any data loss (backups are your friend), install new disks, update, reconfigure. Took a couple of days I didn’t really have.
Lost all of last week to a nasty intestinal bug.
Wake up today, and our in-house server is down. Won’t even say “hi”. Gonna be a fun week.
Isn’t someone here (Ray?) using ATMs as a retirement scheme?
That’s me. I saw this yesterday and verified that it doesn’t affect the brand we use. It also requires physical access to the ATM, not a remote hack. Anyway, we have insurance to cover that and the more usual smash and grab attempt. ATM’s have been doing very good so far this year, knock on Formica. Once I sell the self storage facility (supposed to close next week) I will invest in expanding the network. Self storage is a lot more work than it looks and unless you have 150+ units, not really worth the time. We bought a 78 unit facility a couple of years ago and have gotten occupancy over 95% but with taxes and insurance it’s not a big money maker and, like I said, takes too much time. Selling for $100,000 profit so it’s not a loss. Doing a 1031 exchange for a nice vacant lot in town to keep tax liability low. Still have to find a house to retire to by the end of the year.
Ah, I knew I wasn’t remembering wrong…just not remembering completely.
I’m surprised about the self storage. It seems like a good way to get money out of a property while waiting for the property values to increase. Suddenly there are a bunch of new self store facilities going up in my surrounding neighborhoods.
Poor people don’t have excess stuff to store, so I guess it’s a good sign for the neighborhood when more than one company decides you are ‘up and coming.’
nick
I bought a new to me truck today. It’s a 2002 Dodge, half ton, 4 door. SLT. Exactly the truck I wanted. The paint could be better but I’ve had worse
…
So, 225,000 or so miles on the ODO. But just 4400 on the new engine. It drives like a new truck.
Man, you are making me feel good about my decision to keep my 2005 Ford Expedition with 190K miles when I buy a new Ford truck 4×4 later this year. And, I am on the original engine and transmission. My biggest problem is the electronics: the steering wheel buttons, the various sensors around the vehicle (the faulty windshield washer bottle level container is driving me nuts, etc.
My biggest problem is the electronics: the steering wheel buttons, the various sensors around the vehicle (the faulty windshield washer bottle level container is driving me nuts, etc.
eBay can be your friend. Mom’s Freestar didn’t have cruise or the controls on the steering wheel. Nor the radio controls. I found everything on eBay.
I spent half the day vacuuming the truck. Next will be a few hours with a wet washrag to clean the plastic parts and then a coat of Kiwi…. it’s like ArmorAll but doesn’t make my eyes itch and burn.
Then cleaning the carpet. Someone dropped more than one giant soda from Sonic over the years. Plus new floor mats.
The back door window does work. I just need to buy a switch. Cool thing, the switch snaps into a sort of dome shape piece of plastic and that has tabs. I don’t have to take the door apart. 🙂 Just snap in the new switch, line up the tabs in the door panel and twist it. From about noon to two. Slick.
I should read the owner’s manual just to learn about the overhead gizmo that displays temp and compass. And MPG and whatever.
I’m with @Paul on ebay for car parts. Had a heater control knob break off on my 2008 Highlander. Entire unit had to be replaced. Dealer quoted somewhere north of $800.
Found a exact replacement part on ebay for $120, and videos on the youtube on how to replace it. It just snaps in/out with those plastic pry bar things you can get at Harbor Freight for about $8. Popped off the panels to the left and right of the unit, and then popped off the old one. The replacement popped right back in after moving the electrical connectors. Took all of 10 minutes. (Took longer to find the part and watch the videos.)
My biggest problem is the electronics: the steering wheel buttons, the various sensors around the vehicle (the faulty windshield washer bottle level container is driving me nuts, etc.
eBay can be your friend. Mom’s Freestar didn’t have cruise or the controls on the steering wheel. Nor the radio controls. I found everything on eBay.
I’ve actually been buying parts on Big River. I just bought a new taillight for my Expy to replace my cracked taillight. $53 and only two screws to loosen / tighten.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004GEYAXE/
I’ve been thinking about blowing out the dust under my steering wheel controls with compressed air. The only problem is that I am scared of setting off the air bag.
@lynn … won’t disconnecting the battery disable the air bag?
There’s a joke buried in between the air bag and disconnecting the battery, but I won’t go there…
Just for my info, what is _Big River_?
Amazon?
n
I bought replacement steering wheel switches for my Ranger after I used the Clorox cleaner wipes on it. All melted one day. I blame the weird sterilizer in the clorox wipes. Something ate the plastic over the course of a couple days.
Anyway, quick easy swap. There are hundreds of middlemen out at the Pic-Ur-Part who now sell on ebay and save you the trip to the junkyard. Which is awesome for a number of reasons, reduce reuse recycle!
nick
Just for my info, what is _Big River_?
Amazon. Just another inside joke for my immature mind.
ADD: I am not original with this, I stole this from another person on the SF usenet group.
_Big River_ …. Doh!
I forgot to mention that if you disconnect the switch underneath the seat, the airbags and crap are out of the equation. Simple, but effective.
@lynn … won’t disconnecting the battery disable the air bag?
I don’t have a clue. And the airbag system is a totally separate system from the rest of the vehicle. It has it’s own computer and sensor system. I would not be surprised if it had a backup battery.