56F and just slightly less than saturated, but the sun is out…
My wife reminded me last night that Christmas Eve is 3 days away. That might as well be tomorrow. Time has been moving very trickily for me lately. It has not been a smooth flow, but piles up in front like waves in the carpet, then I jump from peak to peak.
I’ve got STUFF to do! I’m not ready!
n
This is one reason I read the DailyMail, despite the tabloid aspects, the misspelling, and the 19yo interns writing copy….
“Robber caught on NANNY CAM brutally attacking a New Jersey woman in front of her terrified three-year-old loses his appeal against his life sentence”
This is a followup on a case that briefly caught the nations attention because of the nannycam and the brutality captured by it.
n
Got some light yard cleanup done. Got started on the last of the Christmas decor outside. Moved some stuff around.
Chipping away.
n
@Ray: Heads up:
Earthquake That Wrecked Tennessee in 1811 Will Happen Again, Expert Says
75F and sunny at 2PM. Pretty nice for the first full day of Winter. The rest of the week isn’t looking great but it could be in the 40’s and not in the 60’s. 🙂
I found the EGR valve on the Ford van. So much for websites saying it’s on the driver side firewall. I was dreading a mess of having to reach over the engine to replace the part by feel. Like the coil pack which is oh so cutely mounted on the back of the engine.
The EGR is right on top of the engine. I found it w/o my glasses. I whacked it with a socket extension. On one website a man said he pried off a plastic cover and cleaned the foam filter. That turned the check engine light off. Sounds like plan. The trouble code does say
With a little shopping the assembly can be found for as low as $85 up to a few hundred. Foam filter first, maybe some carb cleaner gets sprayed around. The van has almost 40,ooo miles. Not much for a 2004.
And while I haven’t driven the truck much, the “whack and carb cleaner” routine seems to have worked for the truck’s charcoal canister purge system. Not a big deal, a $30 part.
We just had Christmas at our house today. My parents drove in from Port Lavaca and both of my brothers brought their families. Mom made a slow cooked pulled pork (16 lbs of it for 14 people), my wife made cole slaw with golden raisins, and my sisters-in-laws made more stuff. About 30 lbs of food for just 14 people.
My middle brother left here and took off to Colorado with his middle boy in his 4×4 F-150. He is hoping to hit Amarillo before 9pm (500 miles). They took the dogs, his 100 lb redbone coonhound that won’t hunt and the english setter that he hunts with.
I gave everyone FLASHLIGHTS and pliers. You cannot have too many tools !
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005UUSAAM/?tag=ttgnet-20
“How Amazon, Apple, and Google played the tax-break game”
http://www.osnews.com/story/30936/How_Amazon_Apple_and_Google_played_the_tax-break_game
@Greg, a new Apple campus in Austin. Just what you wanted.
I have felt worse shaking from an exploding moonshine still.
Yellow vests are busy in France again. watching the stream, lots of young men… not many others.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-22/yellow-vests-chase-french-police-out-champs-elysees-pre-christmas-rumble
@Nick: This one’s for you.
Just for fun, after messing with the EGR part, I ohmed the ground from the battery to the end of the two cables. One said .01 from the lead post. So, to me that takes care of the modern crimped battery terminal being a POS. The other lead, if I actually found it, has 15 ohm.
I have to get the van out and on ramps to get to that terminal. My forearm is missing a joint…
But a bad ground would explain things like the locks randomly working.
@Nick: This one’s for you.
https://www.gocomics.com/wizardofid/2018/12/22
Oh man, I read that today and did not even think of Nick.
Yellow vests are busy in France again. watching the stream, lots of young men… not many others.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-22/yellow-vests-chase-french-police-out-champs-elysees-pre-christmas-rumble
The young men know that they are losing their livelihoods and their country. So they are willing to fight for it.
Dilbert: “Doomed Humanity To Annihilation”
https://dilbert.com/strip/2018-12-22
Too soon to know if Dilbert did a good thing.
Aw rats!
got the last of the Christmas lights up. Had to relight an animated skiing bear…. was worth it. It’ll be great for the next 10 years with LED lights.
I went for fairly controlled and understated this year. Neighbors have complemented me, so I guess it worked. Kids liked it.
Got some minor work done in between. Got the big pork roast split up and vac sealed and frozen. Carved off 3 big inch thick chops that we ate tonight. yum.
scored some IKEA parts that I need for my office reorg. I’ll be doing some IKEA hacking later in the week. I hate that they discontinued my office system. It was the sturdiest system they made, and had some of the best drawer guides. Too strong and expensive to make I guess… I had hacked the Efectiv lowers and Billy bookcases as uppers, to make a nice full wall unit. They are different widths and depths. Their new replacement for Efectiv is the same width as all their other systems, 31 1/2″ and they have shallower shelves as uppers. I wouldn’t have had to hack anything if I’d only waited 13 years……..
n
My problems with a New Madrid quake is
#1 I live 20 miles from the center of the last one
#2 If we survive the shake, my bug-out location is on the west side of the Mississippi and the likelihood of the bridges near Memphis still standing is low.
I will have to shelter in place until enough infrastructure repairs are made. Or maybe we will all be in the middle of the new river channel.
@Greg, a new Apple campus in Austin. Just what you wanted.
Yup. 15 minutes from my house, just inside our ISD boundaries. Apple isn’t just here for the bacchanalia. $10,000+ annual property taxes are coming.
Among other fallout, the people who run Mopac will actually have to let the variable rate tolling algorithm work as intended. They capped it artificially when the Model 3 deliveries started and the toll for Cesar Chavez (hipster living) to Parmer (Apple campus) hit $20.
Interesting timing — a Disney network at the height of the Christmas buying season. I’ve often felt that late night TV has been shirking its responsibility to go after the powerful for the last decade. Except Trump.
Alexa should have been an easy target over the last year. You’ll see minor gags going back on YouTube, mostly about the creepy Alexa laugh, but not “bring that to the ocean and dump it in”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ua6JYr4oBE
I won’t let Alexa into the house.
Me either.
Well of course, I played that and my Echo Dot on the nightstand joined right in.
Anyone remember when google provided voice 411 service for free so that their AI could learn to understand spoken commands better? I wonder if it is still running? I haven’t used 411 in years.
Now they have an AI listening to people in a much broader context, learning about us and our daily lives [not me, won’t have one in the house]. This goes along with their phone which is always listening for “ok google”. Never mind the apps that listen for ads and music in the background to provide ratings agencies with data, or the apps with keyword listeners that will feed ads your way.
I don’t have a camera or mic on any of the computers in my office….
Don’t have the smart tvs connected to the internet.
Have a simple on off t-stat.
Have a non-Ring doorbell.
Do what you can to limit the info bleed….
n