Fri. Sept. 18, 2020 – week flew by

By on September 18th, 2020 in personal, WuFlu

Cooler but still humid, probably.

It’s definitely feeling a bit cooler during the morning and evening.  I think we are on the downside into fall for sure.

I wasn’t super productive yesterday.  I did get some stuff done in preparation for our weekend trip/ wife’s birthday.   It’s definitely weird letting a big milestone go by without a big party, but I’m not going to be the next news article about 50 people getting sick from a get together.  Instead we’ll have a nice quiet family weekend, NOT in our house.  That is the important thing for the kids and my wife, a bit of change of venue.    I admit, I’ve been getting out way more than they have so I’m not so eager for the change.

About the only thing even remotely prep related was that I bought 12 gamma seal lids for $18 and a CB antenna in an auction.  I’ll be picking those up today before we leave home.

And of course nothing will be getting done while I’m gone…  but you gotta live life, that’s the whole point.

Lots to do before we hit the road,

 

n

(keep stacking)

84 Comments and discussion on "Fri. Sept. 18, 2020 – week flew by"

  1. Ray Thompson says:

    Heading home this afternoon. Finally. This trip has been a difficult one for some reason. Sleeping in strange beds, hotel breakfasts non-existent, with just a bag of prepackaged items. Tired of eating fast food. Too much driving. Getting old sucks.

    Strange item is that the credit card charge from the lunch with Mr. Nick has still not hit my credit card. The hold was placed for the lunch (minus the tip which I added to the bill), but that has rolled off the credit card. Four days and the charge has not appeared is strange. If the charge does not come through within 30 days I will send the place a check for the amount with a letter. I owe it, they need it. I should not profit from an error in the system.

  2. Greg Norton says:

    If the charge does not come through within 30 days I will send the place a check for the amount with a letter. I owe it, they need it. I should not profit from an error in the system.

    Chip reader or swipe?

    Chances are the restaurant got paid by the bank the next business day unless their systems are older and the staff mishandled the signed receipt.

    Among the few meaningful things I learned from conversations with the idiot professional alcoholic husband of my wife’s associate in Vantucky is that chargebacks are brutal in the Houston hospitality industry. Any bar/restaurant which has been around a while has learned that lesson the hard way, especially in areas with lots of tourists or business travelers. Mishandled paper is a training issue, no matter how nice the server.

    The associate and her husband were Texas natives from Houston but fled to Portland after the idiot did something bad running for political office in Fredericksburg. I joked to my wife that it was because bounty hunters can’t operate in Oregon, but, in retrospect, I wonder if that wasn’t a joke.

    As I’ve speculated before, the idiot is probably Antifa these days when he isn’t running his craft cocktails blog.

  3. Ray Thompson says:

    Chip reader or swipe?

    I don’t know. They ran the card away from the table. I got notification on my phone of the charge for food. The tip was added to the receipt before I signed. Thus I am guessing swiped rather than chip.

    It has been long enough the hold for the base amount has cycled out of the CC system. Usually the full charge appears in a couple of days.

    Four more hours driving today to get home. Then photograph a football game for the county paper tonight. I will be wiped out by the 11:00 PM finish.

  4. Greg Norton says:

    I’m long past the point of wondering what’s going on in Matt Drudge’s head, but it was still a little surprising to see this story linked with the headline “Family films monster alligator swimming in floodwaters outside home…”.

    Monster? Even a FL transplant like Drudge knows 10 ft is not uncommon. You don’t have to drive very far from his Miami Beach condo to find that size gator hanging out on a golf course or housing development drainage pond in South Florida.

    https://www.nola.com/news/hurricane/article_641f9412-f83c-11ea-a35f-d743591502f8.html

  5. Nick Flandrey says:

    I’ve never even visited Drudge but it looks to me from afar that he sold out. He ‘monetized’ and probably isn’t even particularly involved anymore

    see also MD Creekmore formerly of suvivalistblog.net

    n

  6. MrAtoz says:

    I’ve never even visited Drudge but it looks to me from afar that he sold out. He ‘monetized’ and probably isn’t even particularly involved anymore

    see also MD Creekmore formerly of suvivalistblog.net

    n

    The content change on Drudge in such a short time indicates, to me, he sold out to the highest bidder. It would not surprise me if Soros $$ was involved. Maybe Drudge just got tired of it all and retired to San Francisco.

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  7. Greg Norton says:

    The content change on Drudge in such a short time indicates, to me, he sold out to the highest bidder. It would not surprise me if Soros $$ was involved. Maybe Drudge just got tired of it all and retired to San Francisco.

    The urban legend was that Andrew Breitbart edited the site until he died.

    Drudge holds multiple properties in South Florida, including a Miami Beach condo and a house on one of the Venetian Islands, and the state doesn’t have income tax. Wealthy people moving to CA even temporarily get the financial rectal probe the rest of their lives, and CA is debating 16% income tax right now.

    Drudge isn’t going anywhere even if he has sold out the site.

  8. lynn says:

    We have our dog Lily at Camp Bow Wow today. Watching her on the cams is mesmerizing.
    https://www.campbowwow.com/sugar-land/live-web-cams/

    She has not been near other dogs since she was 3 months old (she is 1.5 years now). And the cat bullies her. So at first she backed up against the wall and was miss snarly face. Now she is following the camp counselor around like the other dogs.

    Lily had a great time at Camp Bow Wow yesterday, she did not want to leave. This is apparently a chain with 500 or 600 locations. The Sugar Land place is just a mile away from the new used house so very convenient for us.

    The wife left Lily there from 11am to 5pm and she was exhausted when the wife picked her up. This was the interview visit and free to see if she did ok. We went for our usual mile long walk last night and I thought that I was going to have to carry Lily for a while. She is 25 lbs now and that would be not good for this old man but we slowed down for her and she made it home.

    We will be leaving Lily at Camp Bow Wow when we go to Merkel, NW of Abilene, to bury my father-in-law. Just about everything is all ready. One of his nephews is even coming from upper state NY.

  9. Pecancorner says:

    Some time ago I read that Drudge actually sold the site after the election, thus the sudden about-face on Trump… can’t remember the details, Bill Quick will know.

    The National Enquirer, another HUGE Trump booster during the campaign (and one that does not get enough credit: it put pro-Trump headlines and really nice Trump stories in every check-out line in America for the whole election cycle and after), was also sold after the election, but my understanding that was a bank/financial strong-arm of the owner, rather than by the owner’s choice.

  10. lynn says:

    “Nike Air commercial Charles Barkley – I am not a role model”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNOdFJAG3pE

    30 year old Nike ad featuring Charles Barkley telling people that he is not a role model and that he will not raise their kids. So true.

  11. brad says:

    I have a new reason to dislike smokers. Walked by one or two in the train station, and since then, every breathe through my mask smells of stale cigarette smoke.

    Of course, train stations are non-smoking, but that’s another story…

    This is the second time I’ve had to wear a mask for something like 8 hours straight. Bleah…

  12. MrAtoz says:

    “Masks Forever” HARRIS/biden 2020

  13. MrAtoz says:

    Has anybody here used AT&T fiber internet?

    They have a year special of 1Gig for $39.99+ tax etc.

  14. Greg Norton says:

    Has anybody here used AT&T fiber internet?

    They have a year special of 1Gig for $39.99+ tax etc.

    What’s the contract length after that first year? The price doesn’t require you to take TV?

  15. MrAtoz says:

    Thanks. Yeah I had to put on my reading glasses to see the fine print. “with 24 months of bundled services”. No way I’m going for that.

    In any event, anybody had the fiber internet with AT&T? Google isn’t here yet.

  16. lynn says:

    The problem is that Kommiela expects that term to run for the rest of her life.

    If their steal the vote plans work, she’ll be president with a Democrat House and Senate. They will send a constitutional amendment to the states that repeals the two term presidential limit in the name of “restoring the will of the people to the election of their president.” After all, if the people want Kommiela for more than two terms, why shouldn’t they be able to elect her to as many terms as they desire?

    Then they steal the amendment vote in the states. (Yeah, we can argue about whether they could scrape together enough red and purple states to get the job done, but we really have no idea how the millennials who will be running the country in eight years will actually vote. They don’t seem to have much use for our sort, it seems to me.

    And the Dems would have the full power of the media, digital and social, the Deep State, the street storm troopers, and so on. You can’t just handwave away the possibility. I remember when California used to elect GOP legislatures and Governors.

    Voila. Kommiela Augustus.

    Rush was thinking that the tide is turning for Trump on today’s show. “Very Few Performers Can Do What Trump Does at Rallies”
    https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/09/18/very-few-performers-can-do-what-trump-does-at-rallies/

    “RUSH: Trump had another rally last night in central Wisconsin. And, folks, the guy was in the zone. He was just seamless. He was moving from ad-lib and impromptu, right back to the teleprompter seamlessly. He was in such a wonderful mood, a great mood. He was hilariously funny, deadly serious when called for.”

    Rush was also talking about how in the world did the dumbrocrats get Biden out of that sorry group of 23 wannabees that they started with. Rush thinks that the Chinese have totally infiltrated the dumbrocrat party from top to bottom and they are behind all of the marxist crap with Hunter Biden being their chief rep. Treason, treason, treason !

  17. lynn says:

    Has anybody here used AT&T fiber internet?

    They have a year special of 1Gig for $39.99+ tax etc.

    I am paying $70/month for 300/10 mbps of Comcast cable internet. Works like a champ except in power outages past a couple of minutes. And no long term contract, I am on month to month !

  18. lynn says:

    Over The Hedge: Verne is teaching George to read
    https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2020/09/18

    Not much brain power there for George the downsized T-Rex for an extremely complicated language.

  19. lynn says:

    Some time ago I read that Drudge actually sold the site after the election, thus the sudden about-face on Trump… can’t remember the details, Bill Quick will know.

    The National Enquirer, another HUGE Trump booster during the campaign (and one that does not get enough credit: it put pro-Trump headlines and really nice Trump stories in every check-out line in America for the whole election cycle and after), was also sold after the election, but my understanding that was a bank/financial strong-arm of the owner, rather than by the owner’s choice.

    Matt Drudge is reputedly living in Florida in a mansion north of Miami, colored his hair yellow, and is letting his total gayness hang out.
    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/can-matt-drudge-survive-without-trump-maga-faithful

    Must look like a mature version of Milo Yiannopoulos.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos

  20. lynn says:

    Dilbert: Chip For Tracking
    https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-09-18

    I can hardly wait until the federal government chips us all. This will be a small pinch …

  21. TV says:

    ““You know, putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest. It’s — you know, other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,” he said while answering questions at an event hosted by Hillsdale College.”

    How conveniently Mr. Barr forgets what both Canada and the US did to people of Japanese origin in 1942 with internment. What’s happening now in both countries (and elsewhere) for COVID does not come close.

  22. Greg Norton says:

    I can hardly wait until the federal government chips us all. This will be a small pinch …

    They already have with smart phones.

    Google is practically a branch of the US Government. Apple pretends to keep the Feds at arms’ length, but the company cooperates when they think no one is paying attention and/or the White House is held by Dems.

    Just wait and see what happens if Plugs wins the election. Google (okay, Duck Duck Go) for who owns The Atlantic and think about what other media and tech stocks that person holds.

  23. Mark W says:

    How conveniently Mr. Barr forgets what both Canada and the US did to people of Japanese origin in 1942 with internment.

    I had the same thought when I saw that video. I didn’t know about Canada though.

  24. lynn says:

    ““You know, putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest. It’s — you know, other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,” he said while answering questions at an event hosted by Hillsdale College.”

    How conveniently Mr. Barr forgets what both Canada and the US did to people of Japanese origin in 1942 with internment. What’s happening now in both countries (and elsewhere) for COVID does not come close.

    How many people were affected by the Japanese internment, 250,000 ???

    I do not want to minimize the Japanese internment in the USA but the covid house arrest has affected over 300,000,000 people. Every single person in the USA has been affected.

  25. Jenny says:

    Ate the first of our rabbits last night. We will get two meals out of him.
    Seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, turmeric (mostly for color).
    Roasted at 425 F for 20 minutes, then 350 F for another hour, rested for 10 minutes.
    Though rabbit is a lean meat, this was a fat male and I left a thin layer of fat on his back when I butchered. He was moist and delicious.
    Rabbits have been far more successful this go around than attempt a few years ago. I started with much better stock, set the cages up for optimum efficiency, and used tools that simplified everything. The automatic watering was relatively easy and inexpensive to set up and made a phenomenal difference in time spent on care and quality of life for the animals. Keeping bottles full and clean, or crocks clean and full, is far more time consuming than you’d expect.

    Anyway – turn on your smell-o-vision. Tasty tasty roast rabbit.
    http://twogeeksandadog.com/?p=3002

  26. JimB says:

    Those who are being offered fiber to the home, does this involve digging, or is there conduit to the house?

    When I put in a new buried landline drop to my house 20 years ago, I asked about conduit and was told it was optional. I decided to save the extra expense. It was a good decision, because I doubt we will ever get fiber here. Much more likely is some sort of fixed base “wireless” service, such as local or satellite.

  27. Nick Flandrey says:

    I’ve got ATT fiber, no other services, about $70/mo 1G down300 up on a great day otherwise 700/300

    speedofme says 700/300
    speedtest.com says 825/700

    n

  28. SteveF says:

    JimB, we have a utilities box near the street between our house and the one neighbor’s. We’ve gotten fiber brought to the house at least three times in ten years (because my wife keeps switching carriers to take advantage of a deal on a low rate for the first six months). Each time they lay the fiber on the lawn and it sits there for a couple weeks until my wife or I yell at the provider and then they bury. They haven’t hit the power line yet, so that’s good.

  29. Greg Norton says:

    Much more likely is some sort of fixed base “wireless” service, such as local or satellite.

    The tech and communications companies have been teasing fixed base wireless as long as I’ve been working professionally, almost 30 years, most of that time around telecom. I’ve written off the promises as just an elaborate game to grab bandwidth on the cheap from the Feds in valuable portions of the spectrum, always on the premise that the carriers will make that “pizza box on the side of the house” happen if they just get one more auction of electronic real estate.

    People want to believe, though. Now that the Clearwire bodies have been buried and the spectrum distributed among the big players, Starlink is getting cranked up.

    Watch. When Starlink doesn’t make the numbers, The Real Life Tony Stark (TM) will be on Capitol Hill testifying for an auction of what’s left of the terrestrial broadcasting specctrum, “free” TV and radio. “Just give us this one more thing and we’ll make that pizza box happen.”

  30. Chad says:

    They already have with smart phones.

    True dat!

    Between phones, credit/debit card transactions, and facial recognition I’d say they pretty much know where almost everyone is. Even the paranoid people who take measures to avoid that stuff are rarely as “off the grid” as they think they are.

  31. lynn says:

    “Friday afternoon update on the Gulf depression—It’s still a threat”
    https://spacecityweather.com/friday-afternoon-update-on-the-gulf-depression-its-still-a-threat/

    Alpha ? Beta ? You have got to be kidding me. Surely a bunch of weather nerds can come up with better names than those.

  32. lynn says:

    Anyway – turn on your smell-o-vision. Tasty tasty roast rabbit.
    http://twogeeksandadog.com/?p=3002

    I want to eat at Jenny’s house ! That is awesome looking !

  33. lynn says:

    http://twogeeksandadog.com/?p=2996

    Jenny, how can you stand to butcher them ? They are so cute !

  34. Chad says:

    Jenny, how can you stand to butcher them ? They are so cute !

    “Bunny Rabbit” and “Baby Bunny” are a couple of the nicknames my wife and I have for our daughter. I’m not sure I could butcher one anymore. 🙁

    Rewind 25 years ago and I had to kill (heavy stick to the back of the head) a rabbit and butcher and eat it at USAF Survival School.

  35. lynn says:

    _Protector (Known Space)_ by Larry Niven
    https://www.amazon.com/Protector-Known-Space-Larry-Niven/dp/0345353129/?tag=ttgnet-20

    A standalone novel, no prequel, no sequel, of a science fiction space opera book. The universe is part of Larry Niven’s Known Space universe written almost to a hard science viewpoint. I read the ok printed (the font was a little heavy to me) and well bond MMPB published by Del Rey in 1973.

    The novel is a book in three parts. The first part is in 2150 AD, the second part is in 2340 AD, and the third part is in 2350 AD (roughly).

    A space alien, a Pak Protector, comes into the Solar System on a Bussard Ramjet drive from another star system. He left his star system due to his breeders and children all being killed during the eternal war on his home planet. He plans to check on the colony established in the Solar System 2.5 million years ago. But, they do not exist anymore.

    The ending was difficult for me to comprehend. I am still trying to understand what the ending meant. I have a glimmer but, that is not good for the Solar System.

    My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (119 reviews)

  36. lynn says:

    The search for the COVID-19 vaccine is not going well. And I want to read the one year report first before taking the vaccine. I saw the vaccine reaction report where the woman developed a spinal column infection. Yeek !
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nih-very-concerned-about-serious-side-effect-in-coronavirus-vaccine-trial/

  37. Greg Norton says:

    Alpha ? Beta ? You have got to be kidding me. Surely a bunch of weather nerds can come up with better names than those.

    Hurricane season lasted into December in 2004. We got pretty far into the Greek letters that year before the Atlantic finally cooled off.

    The last really destructive storm to hit Tampa was the “No Name” Nor’easter in March 1993. That was the worst I’ve ever personally witnessed, and I had the eyes of two Cat 2 hurricanes cross over my house in 2004 — windy spring showers in comparison.

    I don’t miss sweating storms. The tentative quote from Citizens, the property insurer of last resort in FL run by the state was $5000 for homeowners in 2011, the year after we left Florida for Vantucky.

    At least Citizens was technically solvent. Most other carriers in Florida weren’t in 2011, the last year I checked, even the subsidiaries of the “Good Hands” and “Good Neighbor” companies.

  38. lynn says:

    “Where We Stand Now… But Keep This Between Us”
    https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/09/18/trump-could-win-a-huge-electoral-college-landslide/

    “USH: The Daily Presidential Tracking Poll from Rasmussen Reports. “Fifty-three percent of likely U.S. voters approve of the job President Trump is doing. Forty-six percent disapprove.” In addition to the job approval poll, Rasmussen now has Trump up by seven. That is a new record. Even the New York Times has Trump up and near even in Maine and North Carolina.”

    “There was a story I didn’t get to yesterday, a column written by Corey Lewandowski, who was one of the campaign managers of the first campaign. He said everybody’s missing what’s going on. Everybody’s looking at the states that Trump won in 2016. There’s a whole slew of different states this time around that Trump is gonna win where he’s leading. He may not need some of the states that he won in 2016. And everybody’s missing it because everybody can’t get out of the past.”

    Who in their right mind would vote for Biden ? He ain’t in his right mind.

  39. lynn says:

    JimB, we have a utilities box near the street between our house and the one neighbor’s. We’ve gotten fiber brought to the house at least three times in ten years (because my wife keeps switching carriers to take advantage of a deal on a low rate for the first six months). Each time they lay the fiber on the lawn and it sits there for a couple weeks until my wife or I yell at the provider and then they bury. They haven’t hit the power line yet, so that’s good.

    I thought your wife just moved y’all to a new house while you were on the road ?

  40. Ed says:

    Tasty tasty roast rabbit.

    It’s been 50+ years since I last ate rabbit, living with the step parents in rural Lake Elsinore.

    As I recall: tasted like chicken.

  41. Greg Norton says:

    Hurricane season lasted into December in 2004. We got pretty far into the Greek letters that year before the Atlantic finally cooled off.

    Correction: Greek letter storms last happened in 2005. Zeta went into 2006!

    https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/index.php?season=2005&basin=atl

    That was an active season, but we’re still in a historic lull for storms. Note how the meteorologists will use the terms “recorded history” or “since record keeping began” when talking about a given year’s activity relative to the past.

  42. Jenny says:

    @lynn, @chad
    While we didn’t raise our own food, I grew up in farm country. Our family didn’t have much and I was a ‘tomboy’ raised by old fashioned pragmatics. Pets are pets. Livestock are food. (Sometimes in hard times the pets might be food, though we haven’t gotten that far yet.) I’ve been told I’m a ‘hard woman’. I’m not sure it was intended as a compliment. It was in response to learning that I’m OK with killing and processing animals to feed my family. I’m not ok with killing for fun. I am ok with killing for fur (I’m very proud of the mink I trapped, skinned, and tanned).

    I make a point of calling them rabbits most times rather than bunnies. That helps. Slaughtering shouldn’t be easy – I do find it difficult to kill the rabbits. I castigate and chastise myself on those occasions where the death isn’t immediate and the animal suffers. I give them the best life I reasonably can -shrug-.

    It gets easier after the first meal, when that incomparably tasty animal fills the home with delicious smells and you take the first impeccable bite of joy.

    I get that we all live too close together for everyone to raise their own food, grocery store chicken is a necessity, and the reality is that chicken is affordable because of how they are raised (hundreds to a barn, slaughtered at 6-8 weeks, conditions that are probably fine to the chicken but appalling to soft hearted humans). I feel less angst over my rabbits and roosters, than I do over that misbegotten (but delectable) commercial chicken I get from Costco for $5 already roasted.

    And there you go. More food philosophy than you asked for or wanted -grin-

  43. MrAtoz says:

    How conveniently Mr. Barr forgets what both Canada and the US did to people of Japanese origin in 1942 with internment. What’s happening now in both countries (and elsewhere) for COVID does not come close.

    A stain on US and Canadian history. We should take a page out of the BLM playbook and erase internment from all history books. Then our children won’t have to suffer from the sins of our fathers. I’m all for erasing history. Tear down the Capital Mall and all of it’s racist icons.

  44. lynn says:

    Dadgumit ! My ASUS Zenbook laptop requires a micro HDMI connector to connect to a HDMI projector. I have no idea where to get this stupid cable at.

  45. RickH says:

    @lynn … from the Zon, of course: https://amzn.to/3ceXoZG . Lots of choices – short cables, plugs, long cables. Some are about $8.00.

    Another place is CyberGuys : https://www.cyberguys.com/product-search/?keyword=micro+hdmi . I’ve bought from Cyberguys before – good stuff.

    Both places have little adapter plugs, or you can get a cable.

  46. Greg Norton says:

    Just wait and see what happens if Plugs wins the election. Google (okay, Duck Duck Go) for who owns The Atlantic and think about what other media and tech stocks that person holds.

    Here in Texas, MJ Hegar, she of “Doors” fame and the Dem candidate for Cornyn’s job, is a C suite exec at Dell, who grants the leaves of absence she uses to run for office.

    Lets all hope she goes back to that C suite office on November 4.

  47. JimB says:

    The tech and communications companies have been teasing fixed base wireless as long as I’ve been working professionally, almost 30 years, most of that time around telecom.

    Well, risking the wrath of the FSM, we might be different because we are not an urban area. We actually have three small business fixed base wireless services in our valley. One has been around for probably more than 20 years, and definitely has a signal that can reach me. My next door neighbor has it. The other two almost certainly have a usable signal, but I haven’t asked them yet. Trouble is, two are about the same speed as my DSL (1-3 mb/sec,) and the third, which offers a range of somewhat higher speeds, is two or three times the price.

    There’s more. The oldest one seems to not want to do any upgrades, probably because their customer base wants low price over higher speed, which means it might slowly go out of business. The middle one has a poor business model, and I can’t trust it to be around long term. The newest one looks quite good, but is expensive for a modest gain in speed; it won’t reliably support TV streaming. Worse, if I give up my DSL, I will *never* get it again. I have been told that by Frontier when I complain about poor service. Unlike the former LEC, Verizon, they seem to care about good service (seriously,) but don’t have the money to upgrade their lines or put in a closer DSLAM, which is my problem.

    Perhaps 90% of the households in our valley are served by the CATV company, and this limits the potential customer base for any new service. They won’t extend to me, no matter what, so that is not a consideration. See why I am hoping that Starlink succeeds, just like I hoped for the last big LEO effort in the late 1990s.

    BTW, I have recently been told I might be able to persuade the cable company to serve me if I agree to dig the trench. That would be about 800′, not cheap. This approach didn’t persuade them over the years, so I find it hard to believe it will now. It would be my last resort. Also, this is one of the worst cable companies in the nation. I deal with them on my volunteer job. Nice local folks, old infrastructure, corp that doesn’t seem to care. Reminds me of Jerry Pournelle’s situation in Studio City some years ago, when he couldn’t get anything better than dial-up.

  48. Greg Norton says:

    Dadgumit ! My ASUS Zenbook laptop requires a micro HDMI connector to connect to a HDMI projector. I have no idea where to get this stupid cable at.

    For a while, various Android phones had micro HDMI ports as experiments. I used to have one of those adapters in my boxes of cr*p.

    The problem with Android is that it really doesn’t scale well to even pad display size without a lot of work by the manufacturer and app developers.

  49. JimB says:

    Lynn, also consider https://www.monoprice.com/

    They are close to me, so I sometimes get one day shipping. I have a modest collection of their cables and adapters, and have never had any trouble with their stuff. Good outfit, but maybe not as fast to TX.

  50. lynn says:

    @lynn … from the Zon, of course: https://amzn.to/3ceXoZG . Lots of choices – short cables, plugs, long cables. Some are about $8.00.

    Another place is CyberGuys : https://www.cyberguys.com/product-search/?keyword=micro+hdmi . I’ve bought from Cyberguys before – good stuff.

    Both places have little adapter plugs, or you can get a cable.

    Thanks, I need the cable Sunday morning when I head to Abilene. However, my Best Buy is claiming to have the cable in stock. Claiming.
    https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-8-hdmi-to-micro-hdmi-cable-black/6392464.p?skuId=6392464

  51. Greg Norton says:

    Well, risking the wrath of the FSM, we might be different because we are not an urban area. We actually have three small business fixed base wireless services in our valley. One has been around for probably more than 20 years, and definitely has a signal that can reach me. My next door neighbor has it. The other two almost certainly have a usable signal, but I haven’t asked them yet. Trouble is, two are about the same speed as my DSL (1-3 mb/sec,) and the third, which offers a range of somewhat higher speeds, is two or three times the price.

    The dream that is continually teased is broadband speeds sufficient to compete with the local cable and phone companies on a nationwide basis. We’ve already given up broadcast analog TV and a lot of reliable first responder channels on the cheap in pursuit of it, and I don’t doubt analog FM radio and broadcast digital TV are next. AM *might* be spared in the public interest.

    We had Clearwire available in WA State which worked for *some* people as advertised but not on the scale and/or speeds the company had promised. A lot of people got bit on that one because the McCaw family was behind the attempt, but, when all was said and done, the McCaws were local cable company operators from Centrailia, WA whose father had a bit of foresight and got very lucky building Cellular One.

    Of course, if your name is on the concert hall in Downtown Seattle, that gives instant cred for anything you want to do.

  52. lynn says:

    Here in Texas, MJ Hegar, she of “Doors” fame and the Dem candidate for Cornyn’s job, is a C suite exec at Dell, who grants the leaves of absence she uses to run for office.

    Lets all hope she goes back to that C suite office on November 4.

    I talked with our GOP County Sheriff candidate on Monday and he mentioned that he knew Hegar during a deployment to Afghanistan, he has been deployed five times that I know of to Iraq and Afghanistan. He maintains that she is a real hero, just on the wrong side of politics. His twin brother is our current county sheriff and is running for Texas CD22, our local congressional seat. I’ve got their signs in my front yard.
    https://trevernehls.com/
    and
    https://www.nehlsforcongress.com/

  53. lynn says:

    BTW, I have recently been told I might be able to persuade the cable company to serve me if I agree to dig the trench. That would be about 800′, not cheap.

    That is the same story that I got from my natural gas company. I want them to pull pipe to my office building from the front of my commercial property which is a T pipe and 1,200 ft of new pipe. They think that they can do it for $7,000. I told them I will wait for better days.

  54. MrAtoz says:

    Thanks, I need the cable Sunday morning when I head to Abilene. However, my Best Buy is claiming to have the cable in stock. Claiming.
    https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-8-hdmi-to-micro-hdmi-cable-black/6392464.p?skuId=6392464

    This is the cable the GoPro Hero 8 uses. I just got a couple from the BB near me. If they don’t have it on the racks, ask about the GP one. It works great and feeds video to my switcher for Zooming.

  55. MrAtoz says:

    Here in Texas, MJ Hegar, she of “Doors” fame and the Dem candidate for Cornyn’s job, is a C suite exec at Dell, who grants the leaves of absence she uses to run for office.

    Lets all hope she goes back to that C suite office on November 4.

    President tRump political signs in the ‘hood run about 3-1 tRump to Plugs. One house a couple of blocks from tries to make up for it with three Plugs, one Wendy and one Doors sign. I still count them as one for Plugs. They also have some ratty “I believe in science and love” crap sign.

    I talked with our GOP County Sheriff candidate on Monday and he mentioned that he knew Hegar during a deployment to Afghanistan, he has been deployed five times that I know of to Iraq and Afghanistan. He maintains that she is a real hero, just on the wrong side of politics. His twin brother is our current county sheriff and is running for Texas CD22, our local congressional seat. I’ve got their signs in my front yard.

    The worst thing she does is toot about her Veteranism. Remember the Doors commercial with her “rack” of ribbons. And the stupid helicopter door on the wall. Nothing screams fake like that shit.

  56. SteveF says:

    I thought your wife just moved y’all to a new house while you were on the road ?

    That was the previous out-of-state job. I moved to Minnesota with the understanding that the family would come out for a vacation and to think about moving there. I sent almost my entire paycheck back home so my wife could pay down the mortgage … which she did, in order to buy this damned house with more than twice the mortgage. And she never did find the time to go out to Minnesota, what with being so busy working with the contractor to design her dream house.

    The more recent out-of-state gig was two years ago, to North Carolina. The intent had been for them to come down for a visit but I didn’t like Charlotte so I told them not to bother. As before, I sent almost the entirety of my pay back to the family, to pay down the mortgage. Obviously I’m a slow learner because the money was used instead for five or six vacations in half a year. And electronics and other things.

    [The interment of Japanese was] A stain on US and Canadian history.

    I’m back and forth on this. Locking up American citizens without due process was not a good thing to do. On the other hand, there were spies and saboteurs among the Japanese, and more significantly there was good reason for the authorities to suspect that there were. As I said, back and forth.

    I’ve been told I’m a ‘hard woman’. I’m not sure it was intended as a compliment.

    It was a compliment, intended or not.

    Well, risking the wrath of the FSM

    You’re off by a day. The Flying Spaghetti Monster’s most holy day is tomorrow.

  57. RickH says:

    The Flying Spaghetti Monster’s most holy day is tomorrow.

    Tomorrow is “International Talk Like a Pirate Day”. In case you weren’t paying attention.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day

    Aarghh !!
    http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

  58. lynn says:

    [The interment of Japanese was] A stain on US and Canadian history.

    I’m back and forth on this. Locking up American citizens without due process was not a good thing to do. On the other hand, there were spies and saboteurs among the Japanese, and more significantly there was good reason for the authorities to suspect that there were. As I said, back and forth.

    The USA was very worried about a forth coming invasion of the west coast of the USA by the Japanese. Too many people here would have welcomed them and we did not know who those people were. So all of the Japanese people were put into internment camps for the duration of the war in the Pacific. Not cool but I understand why the authorities did it. War is hell.

    But seizing of their property was unlawful. And the basis of the reparations paid in 1988.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Liberties_Act_of_1988

  59. lynn says:

    “Levin: Biden Blaming Trump for Every Coronavirus Death ‘Demonstrates What a Loathsome Demagogue He Truly Is’”
    https://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/levin-biden-blaming-trump-every-coronavirus-death-demonstrates-what-loathsome

    “”Joe Biden has “no excuse for the way in which he politicizes and demagogues health issues,” conservative commentator and Constitutional Scholar Mark Levin declared Friday after the Democrat presidential candidate claimed that every single person who died from the coronavirus would be alive today if not for President Donald Trump.”

    “On Thursday, Biden said – twice – that “all the people” who died from the coronavirus “would still be alive”:”

    “”If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive. All the people — I’m not making this up. Just look at the data. Look at the data.””

    Biden is no gentleman, he tells lies freely. Not even half-truths, outright lies.

    Hat tip to:
    https://thelibertydaily.com/

  60. Greg Norton says:

    I talked with our GOP County Sheriff candidate on Monday and he mentioned that he knew Hegar during a deployment to Afghanistan, he has been deployed five times that I know of to Iraq and Afghanistan. He maintains that she is a real hero, just on the wrong side of politics.

    I don’t doubt that she has an honorable service record, but Hegar tried some really cheap tactics in the Congressional election here two years ago when she fell behind in the polls and got desperate.

  61. RickH says:

    Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dead at 87 .

  62. paul says:

    I watched a Hegar commercial the other day. Just weird… she’s on some place like Enchanted Rock with a helicopter in the background. She has weird eyes. She sounds like a liar. Looks like a liar. Big deal, she has _A_ Purple Heart. My Dad had two and never ever bragged about it……

    Rabbit? Tastes like chicken? Nope, tastes like rabbit. My mom fried some rabbit ala fried chicken and it was really good. Was not chicken…

    Ditto frog legs.

    Oh. The pellet fed grill, a Char-Grill knock off of a Trager, has decided to stop feeding pellets. Been there before, just a jam. Not this time. And guess what? It’s acting just like my ice maker. Give it a push and it works. Yeah, the motor works, the transmission has failed.

    Well, $28 for the part and who knows how much entertainment will ensue during the replacement process. Beats replacing the entire grill.

    Nice weather today. All of 86F for a high. Darn near perfect. Warm enough for dangly parts to dangle without sweat dripping out of eyebrows into eyes.

    Oh, and Ruth just passed. RIP Lady.

  63. mediumwave says:

    RIP, RBG.

  64. Greg Norton says:

    I watched a Hegar commercial the other day. Just weird… she’s on some place like Enchanted Rock with a helicopter in the background. She has weird eyes. She sounds like a liar. Looks like a liar. Big deal, she has _A_ Purple Heart. My Dad had two and never ever bragged about it……

    The new commercials definitely reflect a loss of confidence from the CA money. That “Enchanted Rock” commercial is some of the worst green screen I’ve ever seen.

    Hegar’s most effective weapons the last time around were the “Girls stick together” X-er meme — plays really well in Williamson County — and the mother’s first abusive marriage in … Massachusetts (?).

    New England definitely. Hegar is not native to Texas.

  65. Vince says:

    RIP RBG

  66. lynn says:

    Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dead at 87 .

    OH MY GOODNESS. Will Trump and the Senate replace her before the election ?

    And the lefties are going nuts. ““F*** You Ruth Bader Ginsburg – F*** You for Not Retiring Under Obama!” – Leftists React to RBG’s Death”. So not cool.
    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/f-ruth-bader-ginsburg-f-not-retiring-obama-leftists-react-rbgs-death/

  67. mediumwave says:

    And the lefties are going nuts. ““F*** You Ruth Bader Ginsburg – F*** You for Not Retiring Under Obama!” – Leftists React to RBG’s Death”
    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/f-ruth-bader-ginsburg-f-not-retiring-obama-leftists-react-rbgs-death/

    Stay classy, lefties!

  68. lynn says:

    “Amy Coney Barrett to the white phone !” “Amy Coney Barrett to the white phone please.”
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/18/replacing-ruth-bader-ginsburg-list-starts-amy-coney-barrett/2669382002/

  69. Greg Norton says:

    The worst thing she does is toot about her Veteranism. Remember the Doors commercial with her “rack” of ribbons. And the stupid helicopter door on the wall. Nothing screams fake like that shit.

    I don’t think that house in the commercial with the helicopter door on the wall is actually Hegar’s house. The floor plan enabled the Scorsese ripoff theme central to “Doors”. We looked at that place when we were on the market, and it definitely isn’t C suite Dell exec.

    I know the folksy campaign HQ in the “reintroduction” film on YouTube is not where the volunteers were located two years ago. The campaign rented a storefront in Round Rock across from Ikea, right next to Spec’s Fine Liquors and Foods. I don’t know where they are this year; maybe back at Ikea!

  70. Greg Norton says:

    “Amy Coney Barrett to the white phone !” “Amy Coney Barrett to the white phone please.”

    Payola seat. Barrett would be more symbolic in the Blackmun/Roe chair, but Bryer is going to hold out until January.

    It is going to be a busy weekend in the Sunday talk show staff bullpens.

  71. lynn says:

    Oh. The pellet fed grill, a Char-Grill knock off of a Trager, has decided to stop feeding pellets. Been there before, just a jam. Not this time. And guess what? It’s acting just like my ice maker. Give it a push and it works. Yeah, the motor works, the transmission has failed.

    Well, $28 for the part and who knows how much entertainment will ensue during the replacement process. Beats replacing the entire grill.

    Wait, you have a wood pellet grill and a wood pellet house heater ?
    https://www.chargriller.com/products/wood-pro-grill-9020#

    Yikes, at $500 I would fix it also. Unless the firebox is compromised.

  72. Ed says:

    @Paul:

    Rabbit? Tastes like chicken? Nope, tastes like rabbit. My mom fried some rabbit ala fried chicken and it was really good. Was not chicken… mom fried some rabbit ala fried chicken and it was really good. Was not chicken…

    What can I say? I was probably six or seven and that’s what I remember. I even recall a sister mentioning it out loud at the dinner table.

    But, to be fair, they also raised their own chickens, maybe it was the same feed?

    Perhaps Jenny could weigh in on it.

  73. lynn says:

    “Tropical Storm Beta very slowly begins to organize to our south”
    https://spacecityweather.com/tropical-storm-beta-very-slowly-begins-to-organize-to-our-south/

    Gonna land somewhere on the Gulf coast is all we can say at the moment.

  74. lynn says:

    “Amy Coney Barrett to the white phone !” “Amy Coney Barrett to the white phone please.”

    Payola seat. Barrett would be more symbolic in the Blackmun/Roe chair, but Bryer is going to hold out until January.

    It is going to be a busy weekend in the Sunday talk show staff bullpens.

    Oh, Stephen Breyer.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Breyer

    And there is a rumor flying that Clarence Thomas is retiring also.
    https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/08/opinions/clarence-thomas-supreme-court-retirement-tucker/index.html

    I was listening to Mark Levin last night and he mentioned that in the first 100 years of SCOTUS, they really did not do anything except for the Marbury vs Madison (right of SCOTUS to review Congress laws) and Dred Scott (African American slaves are not citizens). SCOTUS had a real big problem in that there was not an enforcement arm of SCOTUS for a long time until the US Marshall service so all they really did was invalidate USA laws.

  75. lynn says:

    “‘There Will Be Riots’: Twitter EXPLODES after passing of RBG and a lot of it is, in a word, UGLY”, “Democrats, Including Former CNN Host Reza Aslan Already Threatening Violence: ‘If They Even TRY to Replace RBG We Burn the Entire F***ing Thing Down’”
    https://therightscoop.com/there-will-be-riots-twitter-explodes-after-passing-of-rbg-and-a-lot-of-it-is-in-a-word-ugly/

    That is a call to civil war.

    Hat tip to:
    https://thelibertydaily.com/

  76. Ray Thompson says:

    Home.

  77. Greg Norton says:

    And there is a rumor flying that Clarence Thomas is retiring also.

    Murkowski and Collins would never go along with filling the Marshall chair prior to the election. Murkowski already said ‘no’ on replacing Ginsberg before January.

    Adding six seats to the Court would just require a simple vote in Congress. Count on it in January if Plugs wins and the Dems take the Senate.

  78. lynn says:

    “McConnell: Trump’s Supreme Court nominee ‘will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate'”
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mcconnell-supreme-court-nominee-vote-floor

  79. Nick Flandrey says:

    @jenny, congrats on closing the circle of life! I haven’t had rabbit in years but loved it last time I did.

    Frog legs taste like frog legs. Yummy, fried and dipped in butter, but def not chicken.

    I can’t believe they’ve had to admit that RBG is dead. Oh let the games begin. Aside from the whole civil war thing, watching the left eat their own and fully unmask will be fun. Well, it will be chinese curse interesting anyway.

    No cell service here at this lake house. It’s gorgeous though. And in tip top shape. I haven’t found one questionable detail or unfinished project yet.

    Had steaks on the grill, and s’mores by the fire. Driving around tomorrow to check out various areas around the lake, and then some kayaking and swimming. Birthday celebration too. The kids are fairly vibrating in anticipation. They love birthdays.

    WRT fixed wireless, I had it briefly in San Diego in 93 or 94? I had 4 phone lines, was looking at getting ISDN and they offered a trial of their experimental service. The installer had a pizza box on a stick, moved it all around the house, finally found a spot, and viola, multiline phone service and fast internet…. except that every time a plane flew thru the path it would drop the call. We worked for a few months to try to get it reliable but just couldn’t do it. They finally gave up and didn’t even charge me for any of the service or install fees.

    Lots of people in Texas south of I 10 have fixed wireless, but it’s wifi and uses yagi antennas on skinny poles pointed at water towers, not whatever ATT was trying out back in the day.

    I’d like to get my client in the country some fixed wifi. He’s got one slow DSL line. No one offers it to his area though.

    My ATT fiber was pushed underground along the utility easement in the back yard, to the end of every block, then they brought it back to my house along the aerial path. The actual fiber comes from the tap on the pole all the way into my house and attic, where it sits in my rack. I did help the installer pull it though. He’d have installed it on the back of the garage and taken the ethernet into the house for 75 ft. I’ve been pretty happy with it, once it got stable. The next tier up is 1Gb symmetrical. Wife says we’re only paying ~$50/mo for what we have. That is down from what we started with, and the speed increased without us asking.

    I gotta read some news and get caught up.

    n

  80. lynn says:

    “THIS THIS THIS’: John Fund explains why the U.S. needs a full complement of SCOTUS Justices for election day”
    https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2020/09/18/this-this-this-john-fund-explains-why-the-u-s-needs-a-full-complement-of-scotus-justices-for-election-day/

    “John Fund
    The Court must be at a full compliment should any election disputes such as Bush v Gore occur.”

    I concur.

  81. lynn says:

    I’d like to get my client in the country some fixed wifi. He’s got one slow DSL line. No one offers it to his area though.

    Can he get another DSL line and merge them with a Peplink 20 ? I have two 12/1 mbps DSL lines at the office from AT&T.
    https://www.amazon.com/Peplink-Balance-20-Dual-WAN-Router/dp/B0042210U6/?tag=ttgnet-20

    The Peplink does not allow you to go any faster, it just allows there to be two DSL circuits so that no one person or device can saturate your entire WAN. When I am uploading a release to our website, I will saturate one of the DSL lines for about 15 minutes.

  82. lynn says:

    “Trump reacts to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, says justice ‘led an amazing life’”
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-calls-ginsburg-an-amazing-woman-after-learning-of-her-passing

    “‘Whether you agree or not, she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life'”

    One of the things that I like about Trump is that he knows when to be classy. And he was classy when he was informed of RBG’s death on camera.

    Hat tip to:
    https://thelibertydaily.com/

  83. paul says:

    Wait, you have a wood pellet grill and a wood pellet house heater ?
    https://www.chargriller.com/products/wood-pro-grill-9020#

    Yikes, at $500 I would fix it also. Unless the firebox is compromised.

    I have the 9040 model. I don’t know how they differ. I bought it at HEB with a “20% off grills” coupon. Almost 6 years ago? Too lazy to look but about $350 with sales tax. It’s a good grill.

  84. Nick Flandrey says:

    @lynn – I set my other client, who is in the same development but the other side, up with the peplink and two DSL lines. It’ worked well for them, but they are on a different DSL segment and can get higher individual speeds too. Client one hates the slowness but won’t benefit from more throughput at the same speed. There is rarely more than one person doing one thing at a time .

    The DM article might have mentioned DT’s pretty classy comment in the body of the article, but in the front page photo caption they merely played up the fact he didn’t know already.

    n

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