Cool and clear, maybe a chance to dry out.
Yesterday was beautiful. Clear, sunny, blue sky.
I did get over to my secondary location and threw out a bunch of stuff. I filled one big dumpster, and part of another. Took three loads in the Ranger to shuttle it to the trash. I had to cut it into 2-3 foot pieces to get it out, since I didn’t want to spend more time on the forklift. I’m making progress. Slow but still progress. Of course today I’ll be paying the piper with sore muscles and scrapes that burn. Both forearms and my shins are scraped up. I’ll live.
Number one daughter gets her first orthodontia installed today. Oh my. Half way through 6th grade. Seems early to me but I’ll let the pros make that call. It’s come a long way since I had mine done.
I’ve got a bunch of stuff to pick up today and some to drop off. About four more bins worth and still barely a difference… but it’s progress. Pickups are mostly household and Christmas stuff, but there are some gub parts and accessories. Several boxes of 3m respirator filters. GOJO dispenser refills. Some other stuff.
Still need to get some Christmas lights and decor up outside. I got the ‘base layer’ up, but there is more cool stuff to do, if the weather will just hold for long enough.
There’s something wrong with the wuflu numbers coming out of Cali. If they were at capacity last time around, and now we’re double that, but still not maxed out, someone is lying, or the reporting sucks. Or, embrace the power of ‘and’. Not sure, don’t care enough to dig, but I’m calling shenanigans. Don’t get me wrong, I believe Aesop as ‘boots on the ground’ about the reality and severity of the problem, but something doesn’t add up. As I’ve said before, I’m treating this as the disaster is HERE, so do what needs doing to deal with that reality. No point in looking at storm tracks and models anymore, LOTS of reason to clean up the yard and fuel up the gennie, so to speak. The pebble is in motion, the avalanche is coming, everything moving will continue to do so until they all come to rest. I don’t see that happening for a long time.
The election and transfer of government happens next, or doesn’t. Again, nothing I can do to affect that, so work the things I can. The vaccine rollout and the surge are going to come crashing together for the next month or three at least. The possible mutation in Europe and round two of the CV lockdowns will be sloshing around for at least a couple of months, possibly followed by vaccine v.2… but in any case people are not going to stay home without a LOT of fear, more than anything to date. That fear is going to have to be based in at least the appearance of truth, and it’s going to have to be convincing. All this points to more extremism on every front.
If Biden is sworn in all bets are off. SJW will be emboldened and the cries for blood will be loud. The right will be very upset. Whether that will translate into action is a good question. It depends on the left and what they do. If Biden doesn’t survive in office past March, expect it to be turned up to 11.
If Trump is sworn in some bets will pay some very long odds. And the left will explode in rage. That much I feel confident saying. The right will say “come get some” and then we risk losing it all.
No matter which happens, it won’t be fun for most of us.
I’m thinking that we need to be ready to pull back, reduce our exposure, keep our heads down, but be ready for when that fails to protect us.
Whatever happens, having food in the fridge won’t hurt. Ditto for lawyers, guns, and money. And friends. And skills. And health. And stacks. Keep stacking.
nick
2020 is turning it up to 11 on its way out–
Watched a really bad movie. “Breach” with Bruce Willis. The guy must have been desperate to get in front of a camera. For the rest of the actors it was a career ending movie. Bad story, bad script, bad acting, bad lighting, bad camera work, horrible special effects, poor character development, etc. Everything that can be done wrong in a movie was brought together under one production. One of the worst I have ever seen in modern times. I wasted my $17.00 on iTunes. I wasted 90 minutes of my life. I wasted many electrons. I cannot say enough bad things about this movie.
I used to live on the Big Island and it would make a great family vacation if you wanted to go camping, esp. now if you wanted to steer clear of people. There are beaches and campsites everywhere. It’s small enough to drive around in a day but there are a million things to see besides lava. Goes from tropics to alpine desert in an hour’s drive. Just sayin’.
Hawaii is the only state I haven’t been to yet.
n
Watched a really bad movie. “Breach” with Bruce Willis. The guy must have been desperate to get in front of a camera. For the rest of the actors it was a career ending movie. Bad story, bad script, bad acting, bad lighting, bad camera work, horrible special effects, poor character development, etc. Everything that can be done wrong in a movie was brought together under one production. One of the worst I have ever seen in modern times. I wasted my $17.00 on iTunes. I wasted 90 minutes of my life. I wasted many electrons. I cannot say enough bad things about this movie.
Bruce Willis movies have been iffy for a while. He signed for another “Die Hard” sequel.
There’s something wrong with the wuflu numbers coming out of Cali. If they were at capacity last time around, and now we’re double that, but still not maxed out, someone is lying, or the reporting sucks.
Austin is talking up the possibility of curfews as part of their “Stage 5” restrictions, but 80% ICU capacity is actually below normal target.
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/new-guidelines-restrictions-on-the-table-if-austin-moves-to-stage-5
One of the Prog City Council actually lost his seat covering a district on our end of town in a runoff election held over the last few weeks. The woman who beat him wants to reverse the defunding of APD and cut the other nonsense like “urban camping”. Granted, it is just one seat in a conservative part of town, but baby steps …
It will. If they have to, the Secret Service and DC cops will forcibly remove him and his staff from the White House. Remember that the military swears an oath to the Constitution, not Donald Trump or Joe Biden or whomever. They take that seriously.
Won’t affect the vaccines in deployment as the spike protein is unaffected. It is already in circulation in the EU and they aren’t seeing the “surge” that the SE of England is seeing. It’s probably a minor issue.
Given that by and large Biden’s cabinet picks appear to be Obama/Clinton retreads, the cries for blood will be strong among the SJWs – for Biden. They are already grumbling.
One of the movie sequels was filmed near Ridgecrest, saw the rocket skeleton while driving by Trona Pinnacles many years ago.
He must be living an extravagant lifestyle. He very much has the “just doing this cuz I need the paycheck” vibe lately. Sort of like Nicolas Cage after his tax issues.
This reminds me, I have a Moonlighting DVD set around here somewhere.I need to watch. 🙂
This reminds me, I have a Moonlighting DVD set around here somewhere.I need to watch.
“Atomic Shakespeare” is possibly the high water mark of the series. Neck and neck with this moment, a “lightning in a bottle” performance resulting from the writers strike that year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gr5xEvAeUo
Curtis Armstrong kept “Moonlighting” rolling after the leads lost interest.
Sadly, the writers strike forced cancellation of what would have been landmark TV — James Cameron directing a 3D episode doing a “Godzilla” riff. Eventually, however, the tech Cameron developed got repurposed for the “Terminator 3D” attraction at Universal Studios.
The motorcycle chase across the apocalyptic landscape in T3D is still one of the most amazing effects shots I’ve ever seen. I will concede that the attraction was looking dated by the time Universal pulled the plug, but the core 3D movie still amazed.
@Lynn posted a link yesterday:
There are problems with the chart of number of registered voters. The chart has 16,211,198 registered voters for Texas. The final number was 16,955,519. The number the source used was registrations in Texas as of the Presidential primary in March. So, it’s probably not accurate.
Census data show 233 million eligible voters in the 2018 congressional elections, so their count of 213.8 million has to be low. If you take 2/3 of 233 million you get 155 million, then subtract 74 million Trump votes, you get 81 million Biden votes. Which is the number he got.
You are only an actor if you are acting.
As Michael Caine said about Jaws 4: “”I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”
I wandered down to Waipio valley on the Big Island while they were filming _Waterworld _. My gawd, what a production! To their credit, they left it pristine. Lovely site.
Was out yesterday afternoon to do a curbside food pickup (almost all of our interactions with the public right now) and on the way home drove past a local outdoor-type mall, and the (outdoor) parking lot was full and cars were circling for spots. Mask-wearing compliance is fairly decent here but still people with the ‘nose droop’ yet in-person holiday shopping seems to trump (no pun intended – I think) the virus. Stack and prep continues.
“Merry Christmas, Denis Norden.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUF4afxMpQk
@dcp, that was a little bit of TV history that I didn’t know and enjoyed quite a bit. THanks,
n
Next time take a quick look at the RottenTomatoes scores before you open your wallet:
Critics: 33%; Audience a meager 12%
Mostly been watching original series content from Prime/Netflix/HBO/Showtime – check out some of these if you have access:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_queens_gambit
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/succession
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_night_of
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/mindhunter
“Gavin’s Watch: So Many People Fled California It Could Lose a Congressional Seat in Census”
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2020/12/20/gavins-watch-so-many-people-fled-california-it-could-lose-a-congressional-seat-in-census-n1221039
Wow.
And they all came to Texas including the Rose Bowl.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“I wonder how many more places are like this”
https://gunfreezone.net/i-wonder-how-many-more-places-are-like-this/
“A record 621 people died of drug overdoses in San Francisco so far this year, a staggering number that far outpaces the 173 deaths from COVID-19 the city has seen thus far.”
I wonder too.
And I wonder how many more crises will come along now that require lockdowns. For instance, Climate Change.
And they all came to Texas including the Rose Bowl.
I thought that Jerry’s World hosted the Cotton Bowl.
And the Cotton Bowl hosted the Cheezitz Bowl … which will be at Camping World stadium this year … which used to be called the Citrus Bowl but still hosts the Citrus Bowl game. Not to be confused with Tropicana Field … where they play baseball … or the Orange Bowl, which was torn down for a new baseball stadium.
@Lynn – If you’re headed to the Orange Bowl it is now played at Sun Life Stadium, not to be confused with the Suncoast Dome which is now Tropicana Field … which can be configured for football with a small audience.
I can’t keep up.
“Don’t miss the winter solstice ‘great conjunction’ of Jupiter and Saturn tonight!”
https://www.space.com/winter-solstice-great-conjunction-2020-saturn-jupiter
“Tonight (Dec. 21), find an unobstructed view of the southwest horizon to catch a bright “star” that is actually two planets appearing as one blip of light.”
“Saturn and Jupiter get close to one another from our perspective on Earth about once every 20 years because of their orbits. This year, however, the two planets will appear closer to each other than they have in centuries; that their duet is occurring at the end of December inspired the label “Christmas Star” for what is otherwise known as a “great conjunction.””
For Bob.
@Lynn – If you’re headed to the Orange Bowl it is now played at Sun Life Stadium, not to be confused with the Suncoast Dome which is now Tropicana Field … which can be configured for football with a small audience.
I ain’t going to any events with a lot of people hanging around. There are people who want to send off 2020 with a bang and these events are the perfect venue.
Can Kohler or American Standard or the like please sponsor an NCAAF bowl? Then we can finally have the Toiler Bowl. 🙂
48 minutes on the phone to close a checking account. Mostly on hold and hearing how valuable I was and how I could do all of this on their web site on in the phone app. Ah, no, I already tried.
I did ask why this could not have happened at the branch bank I visited on Friday…. and the answer was “It should have happened, I’m sorry for the inconvenience”. Ok, stop apologizing. It’s not your fault and maybe we crossed wires. I could have screwed up.
A check for $1007 and change should arrive in a few days. And once I deposit it to my savings account with the handy dandy Frost Bank phone app, I’ll be done done done with Bank of America. Good riddance to bad rubbish and all that.
🙂
@Lynn — I received another recall notice on my 2018 Camry today, this time for the fuel pump.
Toyota doesn’t have a fix yet, but the problem is a safety issue since, apparently, the vehicle can stall without warning.
I’ve had a couple of incidents where the car definitely didn’t respond to throttle and seemed in the edge of stalling, but I’ve always believed it was part of the tuning for the 8-speed transmission to hit 36 MPG average consistently.
And hold it in Flushing, NY.
Just write yourself a check for the remaining balance and let the bank deal with it from there.
I’m already envisioning the fights to be the “Official TP” sponsor.
@Greg
Take a look at the comment posted by “Chris” two days ago:
https://www.autoblog.com/2020/10/29/toyota-fuel-pump-recall-expanded/
His speculation about our Chinese friends using an inferior grade of rubber are credible.
Until the recall process works, your only option other than parking or limiting use is trying to minimize the potential effect of ethanol. The only practical way to do this is to switch to a top-grade fuel with minimal alcohol, the best additive package out there, and source your fuel from a high-volume station for consistency.
Whelp, I don’t know. Took the truck to Ft. Worth for Turkeyday. The instrument cluster “donged” and flashed a “low fluid level” light a few times, usually when starting uphill. What?
How cool in a stupid way is that? I have a sensor in the wishy-wopper jug to let me know to add water?
So I checked it after we arrived. Plenty of water in the jug. Anti-freeze on top of the air cleaner and not a hose in sight. I added a couple of gallons of tap water to the radiator system. And watched the temp gauge going home. That was fun, not.
Truck came with upper and lower radiator hoses and a fan belt. I put all of that on the passenger floor board and Truck went to the shop last week. It pressure tested just fine. No leaks. They installed the new hoses for me.
And behold! Truck has a bad head gasket AND a cracked block. How awesome is that?!!! The re-built motor crapped a month shy of four years? Well, head gasket? Ok, seems real. Cracked block? How do you tell?
But “we can replace the engine for $7700”. Ah. No. But thank you.
I’m especially proud of the four new hose clamps. Just $9.50 EACH. The Orange anti-freeze at $23 a gallon must be “the good stuff”. Maybe as it leaks into the engine and out the exhaust it will clean the soot from cat converters.
$305. But I know the coolant system is er, cool. The possible punky hoses are replaced and secured with super duper hose clamps.
Seems fair.
As for replacing the engine, uh, probably not. It’s a 2002. With bad paint. For $7700 I’m pretty sure I can replace Truck and keep more than half the money in my pocket.
And the hose clamps? I’m gonna swap them out and look in to having them gold plated.
Truck runs like a new truck. Rides like new with much of the suspension having been replaced before I bought it. It’s a truck, I have lots of empty antifreeze jugs, so. I’m fine for going to the feed store and Marble Falls.
I’ll dump in some Bars Leak stuff. For grins.
A check for $1007 and change should arrive in a few days. And once I deposit it to my savings account with the handy dandy Frost Bank phone app, I’ll be done done done with Bank of America. Good riddance to bad rubbish and all that.
In some states, where they are allowed to do so, BofA has a limit on how much you can take out of an account per day/week/month, even if closing the account.
I stopped using banks in WA State and shifted to credit unions. BofA had silly rules/fees like the withdrawal limit, and I swear US Bank was occasionally providing our balances to my wife’s employer in Vantucky since they handled both our checking account and the clinic’s — one of the largest private employers in town — finances.
Until the recall process works, your only option other than parking or limiting use is trying to minimize the potential effect of ethanol. The only practical way to do this is to switch to a top-grade fuel with minimal alcohol, the best additive package out there, and source your fuel from a high-volume station for consistency.
I only run WalMart ethanol-free gas in the Camry since Trump lifted the order on the refineries that prevented them from shipping pure gas. The transmission tuning is still a problem, but the pure gasoline mitigates it somewhat.
I doubt ethanol is the problem with the fuel pump, however, as much as the push to make components as light as possible to hit 38 MPG CAFE. Also, at some point in the last 20 years, Toyota moved the Camry platform’s fuel filter from under the air filter cabinet to being part of an redesigned integrated pump/filter assembly component in the gas tank, requiring a pump replacement with half day labor costs for a simple clogged filter — extra $$$ for the dealers.
(I can’t think of a sane reason to do it otherwise.)
Unfortunately, I’ll bet Biden reinstates the order that requires the refineries to only ship gas with the ethanol.
That will destroy many small engines. A lot of the small engines will not tolerate alcohol of any amount, not even E-10. Destroys the gaskets. 100% is all I run in the mower.
Well, yeah, there are limits. As for Alan’s idea of writing a check for the balance, that doesn’t properly close the account. As in, the monthly service charge kicks in and and bleh.
So, yeah, I could write the check and deposit it. Then BoA bounces the check and my bank hits me for depositing a bum check. Yeah. Just park yer butt on the phone and be done.
Which is PURE BULLSHIT. My various vehicles manage to not have fuel system gaskets melt into carb clogging sludge.
Why can’t my gas powered weed whacker do the same?
“Biden reinstates the order that requires the refineries to only ship gas with the ethanol.”
That will destroy many small engines. A lot of the small engines will not tolerate alcohol of any amount, not even E-10. Destroys the gaskets. 100% is all I run in the mower.
Pre Trump, there were rules allowing shipment of gas without ethanol, but not in the volumes that would supply Buc-ee’s or Walmart sufficiently to run a separate ethanol-free pump like they do in this area.
When we lived up there, Issaquah, WA had a co-op that sold ethanol-free gas, mostly to the classic car guys who lived in the area and did the monthly shows at the XXX Root Beer drive in across the street.
There are additives for gas tanks to offset the bad effect of ethanol when the machine sits for long periods of time like yard tools or classic cars, but those will have to be rethought as E15 begins to be introduced as the standard.
This summarizes why our Federal goobermint sucks dead bunnies:
‘They hate you’: Coronavirus stimulus bill includes no less than $10 million for ‘gender programs’ in Pakistan
It’s a pork laden ProgLibTurd dream. That includes spineless Redumblicans.
Cheaper gaskets, different fuel delivery system.
I had a chainsaw manufactured in early 90’s. I went to use it one day, filled it with fuel, ran it a little bit, set it down for 30 minutes, all the fuel had leaked out. The fuel stored in the machine had been treated as are all my fuels. The saw was only in storage about a year. I have switched to an EGO battery saw.
It’s a pork laden ProgLibTurd dream. That includes spineless Redumblicans.
The Cocktail Waitress survived reelection without bringing home the pork barrel spending, but Donna Shalala and others did not, cutting the House majority margin to … 10 (?).
Plenty of pork is important to both sides if they want to keep the cushy Congressional gigs for themselves and staff members who grow accustomed to DC life.
Agreed. E10 has been around (and been EXTREMELY common) for a LONG time. If the small engine can’t handle it then that’s just pure incompetence on the part of the manufacturers. Don’t blame ethanol at this point in the game. Blame shitty manufacturing.
Given that quite a few of you are doing silly things with drives, this warning seems quite relevant:
Microsoft fixes Windows 10 chkdsk issue that corrupted disks and caused blue screens
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-fixes-windows-10-chkdsk-issue-that-corrupted-disks-and-caused-blue-screens
Silly things like using them to hold data?
Well, I’ve never seen that done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8md6yJkUY4
I quit my BofA checking account 3 months after opening it 58 years ago.
TRYING to make them hold data when they are making noises and stuff like that. Perfect scenario for the use of chkdsk…
Given that quite a few of you are doing silly things with drives, this warning seems quite relevant:
Microsoft fixes Windows 10 chkdsk issue that corrupted disks and caused blue screens
My drive problems as of late have been self-inflicted.
Problem du jour is how to reinstall Windows 10 on an old-ish motherboard which will not boot from USB key or an external DVD drive. The ISO Microsoft supplies is just a teeny bit too big for DVD-R/+R.
The machine’s internal DVD drive should support both reading and writing DVD+R/DL according to the specs. I’m going to get a pack of dual layer discs from Office Depot and try that route. Fingers crossed.
Dual layer discs are the answer.
The Ford Model T could run on gasoline or alcohol, and the latter could be distilled on the farm. In 1908.
Not me! I take out the platters and polish them quarterly, for longer life!
I’ve heard steel wool works great for that!
n
Who knew? Today was National FLASHLIGHT Day.
Pelican sent me an eflyer to let me know….
n
Missed the light show in the sky. I can’t see far enough down to the horizon. We’ll look from somewhere else tomorrow.
I did look at the moon for a while. . . Looked pretty good tonight, lots of sharp craters. Nikon binos have a minimum of chromatic aberration. Didn’t get out the spotting scope though.
n
Talked to my neighbor at my secondary location, his brother got the ‘rona and is vomiting with diarrhea. His girlfriend gave it to him. Far more people in my circle have had it in the past month than in the previous 9.
n
….when you spend 4 hours debugging a problem with some PHP code that sends email, and you find out you misspelled the ‘to’ email address by one little character…..
_Factoring Humanity_ by Robert J. Sawyer
https://www.amazon.com/Factoring-Humanity-Robert-J-Sawyer/dp/1988415268/?tag=ttgnet-20
A standalone science fiction and fantasy first contact novel, no sequel or prequel that I know of. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback (the first edition) published by Orb in 1998. Now it is published by the author as of 2020.
OK, this is the weirdest first contact novel that I have read. Aliens in Alpha Centauri system send a radio signal consisting of an encoded message for eleven years starting in 2004. Then the signal suddenly stopped in 2015. Only the first eleven days of the signal have been decoded.
The book starts off on a disconcerting note. And then ends on a even more disturbing concept about privacy. That is all that I am going to say. But, the controversial items make the story interesting.
As usual, predictions, especially about the future, are difficult (Niels Bohr). The book is set in 2015 and has a few things like cash cards have supplemented all cash, all computers respond to spoken words correctly, and cars are now skimmers (not well defined in the book other than floating in the air).
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars (161 reviews)
Talked to my neighbor at my secondary location, his brother got the ‘rona and is vomiting with diarrhea. His girlfriend gave it to him. Far more people in my circle have had it in the past month than in the previous 9.
Rona is in the burbs now. And the rurals.
I would like to see some time lapse graphics around the cities.
….when you spend 4 hours debugging a problem with some PHP code that sends email, and you find out you misspelled the ‘to’ email address by one little character…..
That is the story of my life, every freaking day of the week.
I’ll dump in some Bars Leak stuff. For grins.
My buddy put in some liquid glass stuff with metal shavings when I had a head gasket leak back in the 1990s. It worked for about three months.
Why can’t my gas powered weed whacker do the same?
Agreed. E10 has been around (and been EXTREMELY common) for a LONG time. If the small engine can’t handle it then that’s just pure incompetence on the part of the manufacturers. Don’t blame ethanol at this point in the game. Blame sh*** manufacturing.
Not many countries outside the USA are crazy enough to add a water absorbent to perfectly good gasoline. And no commodity engines are made in the USA.
Agreed. I have a twenty+ year old mower and never treated the fuel. Spark plugs must be at least 5 years old. Never adjusted the gap. I just use emery to clean them and WD40 and all works just fine.
I am not even sure you can buy the water absorbent here. Granted, my mower, and trimmers for that matter, are two stroke so they would probably run on spent oil…
Thank you MrLynne for jogging my memory of Robert J Sawyer.
I knew I had Factoring Humanity somewhere. Red Planet Blues is a good read also.
Plus I had forgotten he was the author of Flashforward..
I’ve got both of those books on the shelf, which means I read them at some point, but I don’t remember anything about them other than a vaguely good feeling about the author.
n