65F and sunny. High humidity though.
Lots to do today. Daughter’s birthday party (and sleepover, joy.) Other daughter’s two sportsball games. Garden. Lawn. Cleaning before 8 little girls arrive…. I’m gonna need earplugs and sedatives….
Anyone get any prepping done last week? How are your gardens coming?? Any new skills or new people?
n
Yesterday was the most pain I have ever experienced in my life. Far exceeding my most painful event to date which was getting gored by a set of deer antlers. So bad I was crying because of the pain, a first for me. Finally gave in and took one of the oxycodene pills and a couple hours later took another. That allowed me to get to sleep until about 1:30 in the morning when I was again wracked with pain. Another oxycoden and I was able to get back to sleep.
Kidney stones are not for wimps and I guess I now carry such a designation.
Kidney stones HURT. Razor sharp cockleburrs INSIDE you. Of course they hurt!
n
Try half dose to see if you get relief. also try tylenol alone. That was all I needed for my post op pain, and I was surprised that it worked so well.
n
added, as I’ve mentioned before, no stranger to pain… and yet I called the EMTs because I thought I was dying.
n
” Americans Brace For Shock Surge In Everyday Food Prices
“It’s going to be felt at the grocery stores when we start paying more for limes and our avocados at the grocery store.”
–um, limes and avocados are luxury items. Someone seems to have forgotten that.
” About 43% of all US fruit and vegetables originate from Mexico. ”
–this is shockingly irresponsible. It reminds me of the UK at the start of WWII.
n
No operative procedures yet. Urologist wants to wait two weeks to see if Fred and Wilma pass naturally.
That thought crossed my mind when I first encountered the pain. I first I thought it was stomach cramps but the pain did not move and no relief from bodily expulsions like usually happens. Finally had my wife drive me to the ER where I managed to sit in pain for 2.5 hours before being seen. Apparently drug heads, illegals, and the whiners with a kid with the sniffles all get first priority.
No shirt(-r) Sherlock. People have told me they hurt. I am now a believer.
” About 43% of all US fruit and vegetables originate from Mexico. ”
–this is shockingly irresponsible. It reminds me of the UK at the start of WWII.
Key Limes are nasty trees to farm. Sour oranges too. Commercial scale farming halted in the US decades ago.
Mass production in Florida of the primary ingredient in the state’s official dessert stopped for something other than the frequently cited reasons of weather and disease.
My TedX talk will be “How The Pizza Roll Killed Florida Key Lime Pie”. 🙂
If you want “irresponsible” to ponder, the most productive tomato fields on the planet currently sit idle underneath Amazon’s warehouse outside Tampa. And I won’t even start on how much of the productive Florida farmland sits underneath housing developments which are effectively slums now.
I remember Dr. Pournelle would occasionally opine that a benevolent dictator would get positive things done in the country which might otherwise be impossible to accomplish.
This should be the poster child for capital punishment.
https://www.bakersfield.com/news/bakersfield-killer-osuna-accused-of-beheading-torturing-cellmate/article_b0a26822-6874-11e9-9f99-9b0de04bdbf1.html
and some want to give felons the vote too.
and some want to give felons the vote too.
In theory, felons voting could turn states like Florida in the Presidential vote next year. That’s what it is all about.
Of course, past elections have consequences, and the Republicans who now control all three branches of government in Florida are going to make restoration of voting rights complicated in implementing the ballot measure approved last fall. For starters, certain crimes will not result in voting rights being restored, but the implementation bill isn’t done/signed by Gov. DeSantis, a Trump ally.
The Dems are already turning on Biden.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/politics/joe-biden-anita-hill.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab
And, having punnished Dodge for becoming #2 in pickup sales using a 10-20 year-old truck design (depends on how you count) they’re gunning for the F150 now.
https://www.autonews.com/regulation-safety/ford-facing-us-criminal-probe-emissions-testing
That thought crossed my mind when I first encountered the pain. I first I thought it was stomach cramps but the pain did not move and no relief from bodily expulsions like usually happens. Finally had my wife drive me to the ER where I managed to sit in pain for 2.5 hours before being seen. Apparently drug heads, illegals, and the whiners with a kid with the sniffles all get first priority.
Next time, tell the ER that the symptoms include chest pain.
The kid with the sniffles could be Measles. The Vantucky pandemic quietly jumped to the Tri Cities (SE, near Idaho) area of WA State last week.
xkcd: “Dangerous Fields”
https://xkcd.com/2142/
True Dat.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2142:_Dangerous_Fields
“”I Will Dispose Of It”: Trump Pulls Out Of UN Arms Trade Treaty Over 2nd Amendment Concerns”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-26/i-will-dispose-it-trump-pulls-out-un-arms-trade-treaty-over-2nd-amendment-concerns
You know, Trump keeps on doing things that I approve of. And he signed it while on stage at the NRA meeting giving a speech. Now that was classy.
Nope, I have seen this person before and know her history. She is a welfare queen living on the government dole. She has a significant other whom she lives with but they won’t get married. He makes a good salary but she would lose all the free shirt(-r) to which she thinks she is entitled if they got married. She is in the ER about four or five times a month with one child or another according to her posts looking for sympathy on FB.
Her and her significant other live in separate residences (he is at his parents) for one month out of the year when welfare does the status check. None of the doctors will take her as a patient because they know she is a deadbeat.
None of the doctors will take her as a patient because they know she is a deadbeat.
Medicaid pays almost nothing, and, for now, private practitioners are not under obligation to take the patients. Pure Medicare doesn’t pay much more, but most of those patients have a supplement plan.
People have no idea as to what they will get with “Medicare for All”. They see their parents and grandparents getting decent treatment thanks to either legacy full ride pension healthcare or employer-paid retiree supplement plans and think it will work the same way for them.
In WA State, about 3/4 of the Obamacare exchange plans are Medicaid with a veneer of administration by one of the insurance companies. “Medicare for All” would be a step up for those folks … but not much.
People have no idea as to what they will get with “Medicare for All”. They see their parents and grandparents getting decent treatment thanks to either legacy full ride pension healthcare or employer-paid retiree supplement plans and think it will work the same way for them.
If you put all 330 million people in the USA on “Medicare for All”, you will not recognize it in a year or two. Uncle Santa will hear those voters screaming and fix it right up.
I am now watching the Houston Astros play live on http://www.fubo.tv on my new Roku Ultra in the game room. Plugged right into my HDMI3 channel on my 55 inch LG tv and hooked it up to the house internet. The fubo tv is $60/month with 89 channels. I have a free week to try it out.
DirecTV, you may be gone in a week. That will be $106/month off my back.
Wow, I’ve got three TVs streaming over the intertubes right now. Our 28/2 mbps AT&T U-verse DSL line is saturated ! We may need to jump to the Comcast fiber line at 100 mbps. I hate Comcast worse than AT&T.
I think that I am watching the Astros on 4K streaming. I may need to figure out how to back it off to 2K. 4K on a 55 inch TV is not really needed.
“‘There’s needles on the beach and poo all over the sand’: Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten rails against homeless anarchy in LA”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6966735/Sex-Pistols-Johnny-Rotten-complains-homeless-crisis-LA-neighborhood.html
Hey rotten Johnny, you are supposed to like that nastiness.
Neil Young had something to say about rotten Johnny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cawk2cMTnGo
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
MrsAtoz turns 65 in August. She’s going with “Tricare For Life” as her Medicare supplement. Free if you qualify. Just need a Milspec retired card. You sign up for A and B and make the B payments. You can still use VA facilities on a space available basis or full time if you are indigent.
If you put all 330 million people in the USA on “Medicare for All”, you will not recognize it in a year or two. Uncle Santa will hear those voters screaming and fix it right up.
Your pharmacist will see you now.
I’ve linked the article from the Vantucky paper several times. Look in the archives.
From what I understand, my wife’s former employers couldn’t find a doctor willing to sign of for pharmacists prescribing things like insulin and birth control pills, but under “Medicare For All”, the medical community may not have a choice.
(No matter how big that AMA building is on Wabash Avenue in Chicago. Wow.)
There aren’t enough doctors on the planet, much less the US, to satisfy Americans if all medical care was suddenly free.
Bummer, http://www.fubo.tv does not carry ABC. I guess that she will have to watch General Hospital on Hulu. And we can watch The Rookie on Hulu.
Man, this tv stuff is complicated to find all your favorite shows !
Bummer, http://www.fubo.tv does not carry ABC. I guess that she will have to watch General Hospital on Hulu. And we can watch The Rookie on Hulu.
“OTA” and a broadcast DVR … for now — ATSC 3.0 will bring back enforcement of the “do not record” flag.
The girls answering the phones at Antennas Direct won’t sell you more than you truly need in my experience. I have two of their big ClearStream antennas in my attic mounted on Pyle speaker stands.
Wow, I’ve got three TVs streaming over the intertubes right now. Our 28/2 mbps AT&T U-verse DSL line is saturated ! We may need to jump to the Comcast fiber line at 100 mbps. I hate Comcast worse than AT&T.
When Death Star Telephone bought the SNET (Connecticut) RBOC, they dug up the fiber that the carrier had laid as part of a pilot project. The extra hilarious part is that most of the existing phone lines ran overhead at the time, and ice storms regularly knocked out the copper service. Uverse uber alles.
I don’t know what the situation is now. I know about the late 00’s physcial plant because my original 2009 strike duty was wire splicer, repairing the overhead bundles when the storms knocked out service. Imagine sitting in a bucket truck, in gale-force winds, shrouded under a tarp and trying to reconnect 100 phone line gauge wire pairs to fix the outage.
In comparison, Texas physical plant isn’t so bad. Though, from my co-workers who had strike duty out near your part of the state, a lot of the work involves crawling under houses.
(My boss at the time made sure I drew the worst duty assignment in the country. Of course I got payback … after I received a health exemption from wire splicer duty thanks to my wife.)
AT&T isn’t running any more fiber now that Goolge has scaled back. IIRC, Verizon hasn’t run any more FIOS service in 10 years, and, according to long-running telecom rumors, the Frontier customers in semi-rural areas will get Uverse under a different name when AT&T unloads the albatross tech and equipment in favor of whatever they glean from DirecTV.
I hate Comcast. I recommend buying your own Arris modem from their “known compatible” list if you go that route, but never lose the sales receipt — the company will try to bill you for the rental multiple times, and, when you finally kick Kabletown out of your life, the reps will demand the return of the modem unless you can prove the device is yours.
You will also want a UPS for the modem and router.
I have Comcast/Xfinity for data, TV and voice. I don’t like their billing practices. I have seen reports from others with the same issues with AT&T, Charter, whatever. It is a problem with the industry, not any particular provider. They are all in bed with the FCC and with megabucks donated to campaigns are making their own rules and regulations.
What I find particularly one-sided is the kickbacks Comcast gives to my city in return for exclusive access. No other provider is allowed to come in as the city will not grant access to the right-of-ways. Poles are not allowed to be used as the city controls who gains access to the poles even though the poles are owned by the electric company.
I can watch 4K content on my 65″ TV. I really don’t see a lot of difference in quality for movies and such. Where I really saw the difference was in the BBC series Planet Earth. Wow! Simply amazing the detail. For a baseball game done in HD and upscaled to 4K, there is no advantage.
I have Medicare with a supplement. But I am really starting to rethink the supplement. I am more than 30 miles from a VA facility and I am in the VA healthcare system because of the disability. What Medicare does not pay for the VA is supposed to cover. I have learned that fewer doctors will take VA patients than Medicaid patients as the VA apparently is more difficult to get payment even though they pay the same.
My wife is going on Medicaid in 10 months and she will need a supplement. The price difference between 1 person verses 2 persons is only a few dollars a month. So I will probably keep the supplement.
I know about the late 00’s physcial plant because my original 2009 strike duty was wire splicer, repairing the overhead bundles when the storms knocked out service. Imagine sitting in a bucket truck, in gale-force winds, shrouded under a tarp and trying to reconnect 100 phone line gauge wire pairs to fix the outage.
When I was a junior engineer, it was all hands on deck at the power plant I worked at when anything went wrong. Imagine standing 150 ft off the ground, 30 mph constant wind from the north, 4 F, no wind break, manually controlling the boiler water feed to the steam drum for a two hour shift at midnight. I cannot remember how many shifts I worked that week that our automatic feed valve froze up because the temperature did not get above 6 F. After that winter, we added sheet metal enclosures to all of our steam boilers upper decks, just in time for a 115 F summer.
So my first Astros test of http://www.fubo.tv was a failure. I walked away during the 8th inner and paused the baseball game. I came back and the pause had stopped because it hit the three hour mark. The game had just ended at the 3:10 mark with a walkoff homer. I missed it. So I now know that I have to record any game that I am going to watch just because it might go late and bust the buffer.
Looks like the second test is going to be a fail also. The current schedule shows an automotive race instead of the Sunday afternoon Astros game. That sucks.
My wife is going on Medicaid in 10 months and she will need a supplement. The price difference between 1 person verses 2 persons is only a few dollars a month. So I will probably keep the supplement.
Do you mean Medicare ?
Yes. Sigh. 🙁
I can’t keep them straight either.
–the amount of noise from 6 little girls is simply amazing. and really high pitched.
–cake, noodles, and steak were devoured. somewhat less asparagus was eaten.
—HEB had Prime sirloin steak on sale for <$5/pound, limit two packages. I'll be going back tomorrow for more. --I've had the scanner on and it was catching some of the traffic from the BP MS150 bike race. There was an accident requiring LifeFlight and they couldn't figure out if it was where ABC crosses XYZ and turns left or where XYZ crosses ABC and turns right. Jeez. --presents, fashion show, and then a movie yet to come. I'm hiding in my office. n
I did get some work done. I weeded the potted plants, watered them, and turned over one bed. I also added polymer sand to the flagstone walkway. The regular sand and decomposed granite washed out of the joints. I’m hoping the polymer sand stays put.
I managed to hit a couple of yard sales on the way home from sportsball. I got a new in box kerosene heater for $20. I might just flip that to the auction, as I have a [bit run down] heater already.
I passed about 20 sales, and at least 2 schools and one church had sales today. I was in misery! I had to get home and prep for the party. arrrg.
n
I have not mentioned the synagogue shooting in Poway CA. I used to live not too far from there, and had friends that lived in Poway.
I note that the guy left a manifesto online, that he was stopped when someone shot back, and that it happened in the morning. People think bad things only happen at night for some reason.
Go armed. Pay attention. Think about what you’d do ahead of time. Be prepared to act.
n
RE:
Reports say 19 yr old shooter hit only 4 people with his “AR style” weapon, killing only one and the rest are not in danger. I have to wonder if the kid was simply a bad shot, unfamiliar with the rifle, or otherwise incomptent? My granddaughter could have done a lot more damage with her AR and a confined, target rich environment like that.
Some of the girls have gone home, and the ones left are settled in to watch dvds…
And I’m off to bed. Gotta make the waffles in the morning.
n
Waffles, yep, that was our brunch this (Sunday) morning. We more-or-less rotate amongst biscuits, waffles and pancakes – and Sunday brunch is the one meal that is always mine to prep. Also bacon, and whatever kind of eggs or omelettes people feel like.
I see the spell checker doesn’t like “amongst”. Also, the lawn has no longer been mown (which the spell checker also doesn’t like) – nowadays it has been mowed. Disadvantage of being an expat for decades – my English is dated. But then, I tend to be pedantic about language, so I would probably still be using those words anyway…
Amongst is a great word. There are several others like it that the spell checker doesn’t like. Whilst is ok.
n
Synagogue Shooting – News says the shooter drove away, then called the cops to say where he was so he could be arrested. Sounds like someone who wants to get their name in the news. For many of these shooters, the best way to discourage the next guy is ignore him. No big headlines, and certainly little or no mention of the name. Don’t forget the event, forget the shooter and treat him (almost always him, sadly) as nothing but another despicable and worthless idiot. You want “your name in lights”? Then do something positive.
I think it’s important to use the word ‘murderer’ when referring to them too. Bombers especially, need to be called ‘murderous terrorists’ and not put the focus on them by calling them ‘suicide bombers’.
And yes, their names need to be de-emphasized, no glowing dissection of their lives, no ‘look at the cute little boy who became…’ none of that. Stop glorifying these @ssholes.
n
(although I don’t see the press doing that anytime soon)
I have learned that fewer doctors will take VA patients than Medicaid patients as the VA apparently is more difficult to get payment even though they pay the same
There’s the rub with Medicare “supplements.” Medicare For All will fix that.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
300 million people with 80% coverage. Gee, that might bankrupt the system.
I’ve had both for cable. The picture quality on Comcast was better than Uverse. Internet was faster. Both for about the same $$ per month.
Comcast has been pretty reliable at the locations where we had it.
Att and comcast both pulled fiber into my neighborhood. Comcast waited until it was clear the ATT what going to. They seamlessly changed me over to FTTP, and coax to the house. No disruption, but no improvement either.
We dropped comcast cable and internet and added ATT fiber internet only plan. 300/30 for $70/month. Had some issues in the beginning with it dropping briefly but often, but that seems to be sorted out now.
I added a powered patch antenna for OTA HD. It’s in the attic and pointed toward the network tv antennas. I got 100+ OTA channels when the TV scanned. I have only watched it New Years Eve for the ball drop.
I use Kodi running on an old SFF pc for watching youtube in the bedroom, and watch youtube on my desktop. The kids and wife watch netflix in the living room thru our TiVo Bolt. (the kids don’t even know how to turn on the tv for OTA programming. The babysitter was completely nonplussed that we didn’t have any way to watch tv…)
n