Cold and damp out. I didn’t get the batteries replaced, and they seem to have finally died. No illusion of control for me today.
Time to play some catch up and get a bunch of new stuff listed on ebay. It can’t sell if it’s not listed…
And some house and yard work if the weather holds.
I sure hope this week doesn’t hold any surprises.
n
23º and a little windy today. Little snow, but the chill makes it bite.
Local township (but not my township) has a facebook master that makes posts about our local weather conditions that EVERYONE wants to read. Good stuff.
My garbage & recycling cans wound up in the yard and will stay there until later. Next to the house turns into a vortex, while the trailer in the yard is a whirlpool. Everything in one place winds up in the other.
List for today-
(added – start laundry or go naked today)
Repack bulk meat into family sized portions-
–beef and pork
Throw a pork shoulder in the crock pot for dinner
Meet with auction company to get large items sold
Ebay listings!
administrivia…
work, work, work.
Just paid my truck registration, 2003 Ranger,
WINDSHIELD STICKER 50.75
REG FEE-DPS 1.00
CNTY ROAD BRIDGE ADD-ON FEE 10.00
CHILD SAFETY FUND 1.50
INSPECTION FEE-OBDNL 8.25
PROCESSING AND HANDLING FEE 4.75
STATE PARKS DONATION 5.00
I added the $5 for state parks. Note that one third of the fee is ‘add ons’.
Still, $50 seems cheap compared to some of you guys.
n
Supposedly Snowmaggedon III is to hit (today, Monday 2/25/2019) about 08:00 PST and last until 04:00 PST on Wednesday, 2/27/2019. NOAA predicts an additional 4 to 5-inches, other weather services predict anywhere from 4 to 17-inches. Winds are to gust to 35 mph. We currently have just shy of 17.5-inches** of snow* for February. Thawing has produced an ice layer under additional snowfalls the past four days making snow removal very difficult and roads slick. Right now most of the county and state roads into the Tri-Cities are closed which isolates us from Interstate access and therefore resupply. Stores are looking pretty bare.
The last 2-weeks have shown how badly prepared all goobermental services are. Since I am old and have lived in WA State for 40-years I am entitled to say “that back in the day the gooberment was prepared”. And that goes for the general population too. But not now because we are wasting money on all the wrong things; way too long to list but you all have a pretty good idea.
The only one who is going to protect and save you and your family is you. There may be a few liked minded folks who will help, but they are few and far between.
Locked and loaded; snow shovels that is.
*Edit/Add: Just checked and our average snowfall for the last 10-years has been 4.3-inches. For some reason I am not finding data from the past 11+ years.
**Edit/Add: Snowfall total for February updated.
I can’t count the number of times I get .norm files as documentation for trouble tickets.
https://xkcd.com/2116/
The last 2-weeks have shown how badly prepared all goobermental services are. Since I am old and have lived in WA State for 40-years I am entitled to say “that back in the day the gooberment was prepared”. And that goes for the general population too. But not now because we are wasting money on all the wrong things; way too long to list but you all have a pretty good idea.
WA State is broke at all government levels. Don’t expect change under the current Legislature or Inslee — he’s Costco’s chore boy.
The next Governor will be Prog.
@Greg Norton said:
And how will that be any different than it is now? Oh, you meant to say “a worse progressive.”
Unfortunately, the East-side of WA State has blown the opportunity to split the state. Without the tax money from the East-side Seattle would have no infrastructure (roads, bridges, ferries, rail/monorail). There are no longer enough Conservatives in the State Legislature to get a split-the-state-bill onto the Floor.
Big deal. I just booked a trip for my 50 year class reunion. I am flying into Portland OR from Nashville. Will make the journey south to Rogue River via the coast for a few days. Needed to rent a car in Portland for the week. The car was about $250.00, the other $250.00 was taxes, a big chunk for the airport. Had I not gone through Expedia the rental would have been about $900.00 with the taxes being 50% of that amount.
Portland, and probably, Oregon, with the assistance of the airport authority, are raping people that are traveling into Portland and need a car. The same units are adding significant costs to the tickets to fly in and out of Portland. Tickets for spouse and I were $1,200.00 round trip with 30% of that cost being airport fees. I suspect the majority of that can be attributed to Portland.
Last time I was there about 15 years ago the airport was undergoing major construction. I would not be surprised if the airport is still undergoing construction. After all, they are ripping money from people traveling through the facility and thus must justify the money grab.
Sadly the only other viable alternative was to fly into Medford Oregon. That was about $200.00 more expensive and the flight schedules really sucked. Rental car prices were about the same. If I were to fly out of Knoxville, the closest airport to me, the tickets would have been $400.00 more. Thus the convenient flight, the most direct, Knoxville to Medford, would have set me back almost $1,800.00 rather than the $1,200.00 I am paying.
And how will that be any different than it is now? Oh, you meant to say “a worse progressive.”
Inslee does whatever Costco wants, but not a heck of a lot more.
“whatever Costco wants”
is costco not a constituent? Do the other constituents suffer because of what he does for costco?
The whole freaking country used to pander to the big three automakers and basically do whatever they wanted. 50 UAW workers laid off was national news, but NASA killing a project that put 70K contractors out of work didn’t get mentioned outside of the space coast.
Local business should get consideration from local .gov (although not at the expense of other local businesses or the taxpayers.) They are the most likely to be able to afford it too….
n
is costco not a constituent? Do the other constituents suffer because of what he does for costco?
In return for generous campaign donations, Inslee brought in Costco’s lawyers to rewrite the state’s liquor laws after deregulation passed.
Whether that harmed Inslee’s other constituents is debatable, but my point was that Inslee hasn’t done much else since his first year of office beyond signing the new education funding last year. Points to Gov. Christine Gregoire for at least trying to pass an income tax in 2010 even if it would have been a disaster for the state. Governments in the Northwest at all levels are broke.
Inslee being Costco’s chore boy has probably kept Amazon in line in WA State. Bezos wants to experiment with bricks-n-mortar with minimal hassle, and that could get difficult in a “closed shop” state like WA if the Governor is beholden to the competition.
Ok,
5 baskets of laundry folded.
Two loads washed.
28 pounds of meat broken down into meal size pieces and vac sealed and frozen.
3 pounds pork shoulder into the crock pot for pulled pork.
3 pounds pork shoulder chunked and seared in the cast iron for carnitas in the crock pot tomorrow.
2+ pounds beef roast in the fridge for later.
bathroom and living room picked up.
Girl Scout cookies handed to customer at door.
Chat with neighbor. MEATSPACE BABY.
Next, shower and head out to a meeting.
LOTS of thunder rumbling in the medium distance, forecast says no rain today, just overcast. I’ve unplugged my big antenna anyway. OOOPs, here comes the rain.
Radar map has a whole train of t-storms passing right over my house for the next hour.
n
Arg, glad I called first as my meeting isn’t happening.
Rain never really got started, we’ll see what develops.
plenty on the list to do instead.
n
50 UAW workers laid off was national news, but NASA killing a project that put 70K contractors out of work didn’t get mentioned outside of the space coast.
SLS is no more?
Oh, dare to dream.
If you’re referring to Shuttle, that needed to die. Sorry. I know a lot of folks’ soup bowls were in that program, but Shuttle ate the dream.
I can’t actually remember which program it was, it was some time ago. I remember Morton Thiokol laying off 10s of thousands and it barely got reported. I even looked up the automakers, and they don’t even rank in the top ten manufacturer in the US anymore.
n
I can’t actually remember which program it was, it was some time ago. I remember Morton Thiokol laying off 10s of thousands and it barely got reported.
The segmented solid rocket boosters Thiokol supplied were another p*ss poor Shuttle design decision based on politics. I thought those were part of SLS, however, placed “behind” the crew capsule instead of right next door.
The astronauts all knew about the SRBs. Feynman took the hit in the Challenger hearings, looking a bit daft with the seal and ice water gag in order to distract the press and protect the soup bowl (literally and figuratively) of his source, Sally Ride.
Pack of lies and a fraud from day -100, or earlier.
Huh? Reusables are cheaper? OK, why have the plastic hypodermic needles of today replaced the glass ones of 50 years ago?
They were going to launch 4 satellites per mission and one flight per month. OKAY, when first launch was 4 years late, what warehouse held the 200 late to launch satellites? Florida massage parlors?
Huh? Reusables are cheaper? OK, why have the plastic hypodermic needles of today replaced the glass ones of 50 years ago?
Dr. Pournelle went into Shuttle’s problems at length. Most of that material is still out there.
They were going to launch 4 satellites per mission and one flight per month. OKAY, when first launch was 4 years late, what warehouse held the 200 late to launch satellites? Florida massage parlors?
Instead of helping my wife with med school, my father-in-law poured a bunch of money into developing one of those massage places. Until the day he died, he used to rip on me for even joking that the spa was anything other than legit. Of course, after he died, we found all the homemade porn he shot in the back of the place with the owner, much to the horror of my wife — not necessarily the porn as much as the vindication for me. 🙂
Florida has tons of “day spas” off the beaten path, away from the spotlight in places like Jupiter, more or less a bedroom community for Palm Beach domestic workers and engineers at the Pratt plant in West Palm Beach. From what I observed on our last trip, another hot spot would be Lee County (Fort Myers), inland, away from the beaches.
I wasn’t hip to the human trafficking aspect, but I’m not surprised. I also believe there is a fine line between an obsession with young Asian women and pedophilia, which is probably the other shoe yet to drop in the bust of the Jupiter “spa”.
Dunno if there is room to store satellites at a lot of the massage places if the stories about the girls living there are true. The spa my father in law financed was in Cocoa Beach, however, not far from the Kennedy gates, so who knows.
Turbo Tax is not fun. Ok, I screwed up and goofed the “free version” link. Went all the way through, nice enough of a refund to pay the insurance on the house, and….. then the Stupid hit. Refund to your bank account or on a Turbo Tax gift card? Bank account. It had the routing and account from last year. And then the BS with driver license numbers. What? It remembered my account number but not this?
Couple more clicks and oh, hey, it’s $39 for Turbo Tax. I would have gone with that as a stupidity tax on myself. But /another/ $39 for direct deposit? Um, no.
Closed the browser. Started again with the free version. My SS number is “not valid for employment”. Yeah, it is just four different numbers.
I’ll try again tomorrow. Depends on the weather.
Beyond a basic return there is a charge to file/use the software for the online version. It is rather sneaky, but reasonable I guess. I always purchase the software as my return is far from basic. Purchasing also allows me to plan before the end of year. Necessary because of the obuttwadcare crap. Still have to contribute to an IRA even though I am retired. I also found out you have to have earned income, a job, W-2, and you cannot donate more to an IRA than you made in earned income.
What amazes me are the number of people that run to HRBlock to file their taxes. At most they have a couple of W-2’s, maybe an interest statement from the bank, a few medical bills, property taxes, all which add up to less than the standard deduction. In other words, their returns are quite simple. But they would rather pay HRBlock $100+ for a simple return.
A lot of that is the fear of getting targeted by the IRS for a simple mistake. And in some cases that is not far from the truth. The IRS has struck fear into many people’s brain because that is what the IRS desires. An afraid client is a compliant and meek client. The IRS would rather not be challenged by anyone.
I have found that out on three different occasions. The IRS was adamant they were right and backed it up with threats. I was able to counter those threats with documentation. And nary an apology from the IRS or and admittance that the IRS was incorrect.
Back from softball. MAN IT WAS CHILLY. 55F with a steady breeze across a wet field gets downright COLD.
Dinner was delicious. That crock pot is so easy, dump the stuff in, walk away, come back and EAT.
Saw this when I got home.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-25/former-federal-prosecutor-we-are-civil-war-buy-guns
Yup. Seems about right.
n