59F with 83%RH and the sun is shining. Nice change.
As usual, lots of stuff to do today. Lots piled up by the weather too.
Halloween decor needs a boost. Junk needs sorting. Etc.
In the meantime the cold war with Russia is heating up. We’re calling them cheaters and leaving the nuke treaty. They are opening their financial system (alternative to SWIFT) to other parties.
The drums of war are beating everywhere.
Thousands of invaders are crossing the border every week and more are queued up as we speak.
Assassination is becoming commonplace.
Now both sides are getting in pols faces out in public. The sleeping middle may actually have started to wake. Lord help us all.
n
I’m not a fan of lottery tickets. Sure, someone will win, but every lottery I know of pays out less than half of the ticket price as winnings. Any casino gives you better odds. Lotteries are designed to be super-easy and addictive, as a way to separate people from their money. Usually, the people who can least afford it. If anyone but the government were behind lotteries, they would be outlawed. /rant
The weather here has been just superb, for months now. Too little rain, but the weather has been gorgeous since June. We’re well into fall, and the first frost will just be coming up this week. In most years, we would already be covered by high clouds that back up against the Alps, and stay there most of the winter. For the moment, we have some morning fog, but it burns off to yield warm and sunny Autumn days. If experience is any guide, this will collapse into a cold and snowy winter. Which is the best kind – I like strong seasons.
I’ve been frustrated with browsers lately. I no longer trust Chrome – it ties your browsing to your other Google activities, and Google is no longer a trustworthy company. I tried Brave for a few months, but there are too many websites where it doesn’t work correctly – I suspect the core rendering engine is just too old. Anyway, their scheme to earn money is unrealistic, so I expect them to disappear soon enough. Firefox is ok, but…dunno…somehow I’m just not fond of how it works and looks…
So I’ve just installed Vivaldi to try. It uses the same rendering engine as Chrome, but everything around that is produced by the same group that made Opera. The great claim to fame is the customizability. You can arrange things on the screen however you like, including showing multiple tabs next to each other. You can set up web pages as “web panels”, which can hover over the normal tabs – useful for things like dictionaries or other reference sites. Sound good – but looks like a fair learning curve to try everything out. We’ll see…
What to do with the invaders?
Canada’s Trudeau has said they are welcome so I suggest we put them on trains at the border and drop them off in Toronto.
Spent all day yesterday in the Mississippi Enhanced Carry class. Went from 9 to 4 including the range qualification. The instructor, a Federal marshal, made it enjoyable. Most of the course covered handgun basics from “what is a revolver” to rules for cleaning and storage. The Instructor noted several times that some of the answers were for the test and not real life. Such as “Never keep a gun loaded or easily accessible at home” he said this nonsense can get you killed. My view has always been that an unloaded gun was of less use than a frying pan. About 20% of the course covered when to shoot / not-shoot. Good stuff from a former Memphis cop who has seen it all. For example, if you step out of your house at night and surprise a stranger trying to break into your car it’s a justifiable shoot, but if the stranger turns and starts to run it’s not. One woman asked if you could use deadly force to defend a third party. The instructor responded, would you shoot to protect your child, that’s a third party. We had only six students and one complete newbie. He had never even held a gun before and needed someone to teach him how to load his magazine. But he passed both the test and shooting skills, barely. One kid, I say kid because he was under 30, recently moved from New Jersey and was amazed at the casual attitude of southerners to gun ownership. He was excited to get his permit and looking forward to buying an AR. Freedom is exhilarating. Mississippi is now an open carry state and the Enhanced certification allows us to carry in places that post “no gun” signs and just about anywhere else aside from Federal buildings, the secure areas at airports, and courtrooms where the judge has ruled no firearms. In court, judges are king and some even forbid the Bailiff from carrying with the attitude “the only gun in this courtroom will be mine”. So now I have to drive down to the Highway patrol office in Batesville to get the endorsement added to my carry card,
Congrats, more knowledge and training is a Good Thing ™.
The problem with turning canadia into sh!tcanistan is we share a long, mostly unregulated and unprotected border with them. Wasn’t a problem with a western and prosperous country.
n
The problem with turning canadia into sh!tcanistan is we share a long, mostly unregulated and unprotected border with them. Wasn’t a problem with a western and prosperous country.
There are already problems at the BC/WA border due to the Chinese influence in Vancouver, BC.
Now both sides are getting in pols faces out in public. The sleeping middle may actually have started to wake. Lord help us all.
If you’re referring to what happened in Florida with Stretch Pelosi, the Progs have written off that state … for now. Turn Texas first.
Andrew Gillum won’t make much of a difference in FL without control of the Legislature. The State House and Senate hated on Rick Scott’s agenda for eight years; the next four won’t be any different.
I agree 100%. Nothing but a government racket. A math literacy test is a polite way of saying it.
I know that many people buy these when the payout gets huge – it is fun for them to dream and is very disposable income. However, as Brad mentions, the trouble is the people that buy these on a regular basis as a plan to fix their current poor circumstance.
Of course, everyone is free to spend their money as they wish (not so sure if this should be the case with people that are not net contributors to the economy – but that is an entirely different discussion). Anyway, it does give me a small tax benefit here in Wisconsin – so buy those tickets!
And Brad – you are right about the odds, but any casino gives you not only better odds, but astronomically better odds. Not that casino gambling is a good idea, but it makes much more sense than buying lottery tickets.
If you’re referring to what happened in Florida with Stretch Pelosi, the Progs have written off that state … for now. Turn Texas first.
The older Cubanos who swam here hate commie pinko bastards like Pelosi. Their kids probably like her because they are stupid progs inculcated in public school.
OK, time to deploy III Corps to the southern border.
“Scouts Out!”
See a lot of that here. People using EBT welfare cards to buy groceries then spend $100.00 on lottery tickets, scratch off’s, whatever. Of course that grocery is cart is loaded with expensive items, stuff that I only buy on rare occasions.
I have purchased exactly three lottery tickets in my entire life (total $40.00). I know the chances of winning are really (as in extremely) poor. In this last go around I matched the powerball for $4.00, has happened twice. Even though the odds are poor, the odds are infinitely worse if you don’t have a ticket. I don’t feel too bad about throwing my money away as some of the money goes to the school systems in the state.
I have done that in Las Vegas. Went in with $200.00 and six hours later was completely broke. Won a few times and just used the winnings to play again. I considered the $200.00 entertainment money and when it was gone the entertainment was finished. Not bad for six hours. A decent show with decent seats (KA for example) set me back $300.00 for two people and it was only a two hour show.
The steam locomotive experience was $1,000.00 for about a two hour trip. Do the math on that. Does not even include the flight out to Las Vegas, rental car, trip to Ely Nevada, hotel in Ely and Las Vegas. Probably spent $3K on the entire trip. Did visit family, operated the locomotive, saw three shows in Las Vegas, played some casino games, had a good time. So it was money well spent.
Trips to Europe cost me about $5K for three weeks. Enjoy those immensely. Have been to Europe nine times, probably spent $50K on all nine of those trips. Well worth every dime. Will be returning in 2020.
Told the son that when the grandchild gets to be five years old we are going to Disney World. Top flight package, resort hotel, breakfast with the characters, express passes, etc. all paid for by me. Cost will be a minor consideration for a once in a lifetime trip. I will be 72 and probably not many years left. What better way to spend money than on something the grandchild will never forget?
from experience with my dad, the difference between 72 and 82 is stunning.
Go every year. The kids don’t actually remember much at that age, but they sure do enjoy disneyworld. Just keep a close eye on them and when it stops being fun, solve the issue (ie. food, sleep, hugs, whatever.)
Look at buying nights at the Disney Vacation Club resorts as an alternative to whatever resort they are colocated with. They are set up a bit better for family groups, have well equipped kitchens, etc.
There are lots of ways to enhance your visit too, and many of them are free.
n
That steam locomotive experience definitely looked like a lot of fun. Agree with the travels to foreign counties. The little things – like the taste of the tomatoes over there. Or having a young French woman say: “Bonjour Monsieur” to you with that bell like voice some of them have.
The older Cubanos who swam here hate commie pinko bastards like Pelosi. Their kids probably like her because they are stupid progs inculcated in public school.
The generation who fought Castro’s rise to power are dead or will be soon. Politically, things are a lot different now than even 20 years ago when Jeb! was first elected Governor.
I was happily minding my beewax and reading a web site. Firefox with 10 or 12 tabs. Boom. Black screen and the box reboots.
Windows opened a box that contained this:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 7a
BCP1: FFFFF6FC50006EA0
BCP2: FFFFFFFFC0000185
BCP3: 000000015F967820
BCP4: FFFFF8A000DD4E0C
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1
From what I’m reading, it’s a device driver or a hard disc error. Several sites said to run memtest. One site said a video problem.
I’ll run memtest. And open the box to blow out dust and re-seat connectors.
This doesn’t look to be much fun.
If you’re referring to what happened in Florida with Stretch Pelosi, the Progs have written off that state … for now. Turn Texas first.
That makes no sense. Florida is a battleground state, Texas is not.
That makes no sense. Florida is a battleground state, Texas is not.
In Presidential elections, yes, but not on the state government level. The Democrats haven’t held either chamber of the Legislature since 1996, and they haven’t had the “trifecta” (Governor’s Mansion and both chambers of the Legislature) for favorable redistricting since 1992.
The Democrats don’t even try to fight for the necessary seats right now. They’ll bide their time and wait for better demographics. Meanwhile, the Governor has a line item veto and a reverse pocket veto power where bills become law without a signature just by sitting on the Governor’s desk for a certain length of time, allowing him/her to pin blame for politically unpopular but necessary laws on the House and Senate.
Up until this year, the Dems weren’t even serious about the Governor’s Mansion, but three FL Supreme Court seats and majority control could flip on Jan. 1 without a Democrat Governor in place to make appointments. The party doesn’t really care what happens to Andrew Gillum from Jan. 2 onward. An indictment in 2019 wouldn’t surprise me.
Looks like I can still plant some stuff. Texas A & M extension says I’m good to plant turnips, carrots, beets, and radishes from seed, and collards from transplant. Those are all plants I’ve had success with in the past too.
Trimmed the citrus trees. ONE lemon on the tree. Two oranges. No grapefruits. No peaches either.
Gotta spray the grapes again. Freakin’ caterpillars. This winter I know how to prune the vines to encourage fruit though, so that should help.
Got some of the Halloween stuff out. Will add and shift pretty much daily from now ’til the day. Most of my neighbors will be too busy handing out candy to get the full effect on the night, so I like to give the dog walkers something new to look at each day.
Got some ebay stuff ready to go. Sold some speakers. We’ll see if I have issues with the buyer. Speaker buyers are flakey and scammers so I swore off speakers and drums. BUT….. saw a chance to make a quick sale and jumped.
Beautiful day, but not dry enough to let stuff dry out. I’m hoping for clear tonight and tomorrow to get stuff dry.
Jeez, hamster is loose again…..
n
added– caught
Freefall – a truism about people and stupidity
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3200/fc03190.htm
Update from pcb_duffer in the Florida panhandle after hurricane Michael:
Still no telecom; if I go 30 minutes west I can find a grocery store w/ wifi to send this. I still have to go further west to get a working cell phone signal. No one has any firm idea when these will come back. However, much of the county is a whole lot worse off than me.
The damaged trees & fencing has been brought to the street. Now all I have to do is clean up the yard, then start worrying about money. Another update in a few days, when I get the chance.
They are outlawed in that case – the government calls it the numbers racket when the mafia does it, and a lottery when the gov’t. does it.