Cold. Low 30s. Damp. Dreary. Winter.
It was cold all day yesterday too, staying pretty consistently 35F all day long. It was 35F when I went to sleep.
Ran my errands, then headed over to pick up kid 2. Very un-usually and disconcertingly, my truck died several times during the trip. I first thought it might be low oil, but now I am wondering if the battery is dead from the cold. It had a really hard time cranking, and I don’t know if the truck will run without a functional battery. I’ll be dropping it off at my mechanic’s place as soon as I can. Truck repair was not on my radar. But hey, prepping wise, I had an extra quart of oil to add when it said it was low. That got me going again for a while.
In the mean time, I’ll drive the Ranger to do my pickups today, after my non-prepping hobby meeting. Yep, I’m going. I have stuff to sell, need to renew my membership, and it’s time to re-elect the suckers I mean Board Members who make it all work. Plus there is some crossover with my ham lunch guys, who I haven’t seen in months. I can touch base with two of my meatspace groups at the same time. If that’s not efficient use of time I don’t know what is…. 🙂
The wuflu restrictions make it much harder to meet and build networks in meatspace, and I don’t think that’s accidental. Especially as this goes on, the political aspects are outpacing the medical ones. Given TPTB’s other actions, it’s not hard to see the sinister in everything they do.
Almost every day I thank God I live in Texas, where we’ve been spared the most egregious of the nonsense.
Did an instacart order from Costco in the late afternoon. It’s very convenient to place the order and then go on doing other stuff on your list until it arrives.
While I was waiting I got all three of my mature citrus trees covered, and the other potted trees and plants either under cover or indoors. The citrus got heavy black poly sheet over them, secured like a big balloon, with a 50 or 60 watt incandescent bulb in the center to provide some heat. I’m as ready as I can be garden-wise. I am going to try to get some more gas cans filled just in case. After hurricane season, I usually draw down my gasoline at home. If we end up running a gennie, I want to be ready. I’m kicking myself once again for continuing to put off the connection of the whole house gennie. Money, time, and access- they all need to be there together, and I haven’t made it a priority. That is a prepper fail.
I’m actually much more concerned about the plumbing at my rent house. It’s pier and beam construction with no insulation, and the pipes are under the house. We’ve had pipes crack from freezing there before. I’ll be confirming with the tenants that they understand about leaving taps running and cranking the heat. I may put poly over the screen that blocks the airspace under the house. Normally you want the air to blow freely, but I think stopping the air would help keep the temps up.
The school district has already cancelled all in person learning for Tuesday. They’re off Monday anyway, and the infrastructure is all in place for ‘learn from home’, so I guess it’s prudent. It feels like a huge over-reaction.
It’s hard to believe that it could be as bad as predicted. Like always, I guess we’ll see.
It may be we’re already sliding down the slope to civil war and economic collapse, but that doesn’t stop Mother Nature from putting the boot in. Get your short term house in order, top up your supplies, and get ready for winter…
And keep stacking. You don’t want to be one of the ‘french toast people’ do you?
n
FTP- the ones that rush out before every weather event and buy milk, eggs, and bread. Like they’re gonna live off of french toast alone….
re freezing pipes, is heat tape available down there? It’s a pain to put on, especially if you put insulation over it, but it’s a do-once job.
FTP- the ones that rush out before every weather event and buy milk, eggs, and bread. Like they’re gonna live off of french toast alone….
The local HEB gets cleaned out for much less severe winter storm events than this weekend. As if the trucks are going to stop rolling over a fraction of an inch of snow.
It’s hard to believe that it could be as bad as predicted. Like always, I guess we’ll see.
I put up with the local Faux News because, as was the case with Tampa and Portland, the Faux-owned stations spend money on their weather department.
The radio stations want a crisis like the gas shortage Labor Day Weekend 2017, and NWS San Antonio has a climate change agenda.
And I praise the diety we moved to Indian country, lower profile than our texan neighbors to the south, but solidly red. We threw out our last Democrat representative to congress last November. And we are on Muskogee Creek nation land so are doubly protected from nonsense.
And I too regret not putting in a transfer switch for our Champion generator last October as my primary fear right now loosing power. We have natural gas for heat and cooking but without power we’d have to bug out to a hotel till the weather moderated.
There always seem to be other urgencies to take our limited resources of time and money.
All news stations, especially the local ones, get real giddy over any crisis. Local heads getting camera time, predicting the worst on the small chance it does happen so the stations can brag in their advertising about being the first. If there is a chance of snow here all three stations have a reporter standing in front of salt piles at TDOT locations. Or on a bridge over the interstate.
Any disaster in another location and the stations try desperately to find a local connection. “Joe’s cousin who was once marred to the niece twice removed on his brother’s side of the family witnessed the big flood in Texas. We now have them on the phone to describe the experience.” (Not the person involved, but Joe).
All the news stations do their best to exaggerate and make any situation worse than what is reality. Got to keep the fear going and attempt to keep people tuned to a particular station. If station A can make it sound worse than station B, then station A gets more listeners and advertising dollars.
And in other news…..
I installed a second node in my WiFi mesh. All Asus devices. One master router that controls the other two nodes. One node is connected via cable and has three devices connected to it via cable. Other node is wireless and has three devices connected to it via cable.
Really easy to setup and make it work. WiFi settings are controlled by the main router. Wireless transmission to the non-wired node is through 5G-2, apparently some other band used for WiFi transmissions. Thus no interference on the primary WiFi 5G band, I guess 5G-1.
Really nice GUI interface for the WEB along with a nicely done GUI for a phone app. The stuff has come a long ways over the years.
I also have a USB thumb drive connected to the main router to make transferring files easy. This brings up another idea.
The church is running Server 2003 on an aging Dell server. It needs to be replaced. The church does not need to be running on a domain. Overkill for half a dozen desktops. All they really need to do is share files and store their files in a location that gets backed up.
I am thinking of buying an ASUS router with AIShare to replace and existing ASUS router that does not have that capability (too old and cheap, $50.00). I would then attach two USB disk drives, probably solid state, to the USB 3.0 ports on the router. I can assign permissions to directories. I would then map a drive on the desktop to the shared locations. Backups would involve running a job to copy files to a USB drive connected to a desktop in my media office.
Then change all the desktops to workgroups and remove them from the domain. Assign local accounts and passwords on each desktop. Then get rid of server 2003. I would probably bare metal the Dell system and install a copy of Windows 10 to at least make it useful. May even put the backup files on that machine.
I want to comply with the anti-suicide law, so I’ll have to fake it. Maybe I’ll cut little holes in my mask so I can catch a terminal case of KungFlu.
I am thinking of buying an ASUS router with AIShare to replace and existing ASUS router that does not have that capability (too old and cheap, $50.00). I would then attach two USB disk drives, probably solid state, to the USB 3.0 ports on the router. I can assign permissions to directories. I would then map a drive on the desktop to the shared locations. Backups would involve running a job to copy files to a USB drive connected to a desktop in my media office.
How old are the desktops? The router’s AI Share feature probably runs Samba for file/print sharing which can be difficult to tweak from a web GUI without access to the config files directly.
I run Samba on my home server in a workgroup configuration. Most of the time, it just works, and I use the same config file I’ve maintained for nearly 20 years, but I ran into an issue last year when the Samba developers quietly deprecated SMB1 and that change crept into Fedora’s binary package. Resolving the problem required a cryptic edit to one line of my config … after six months of researching the problem part time.
Without the change, our six year-old HP all-in-one wouldn’t scan to the share directories on the server. Of course the error messages were useless.
Linux is still a guru full time employment act.
The Chinese government sends academics all over the world to steal intellectual property, and anything else they can get their hands on:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/despite_who_proclamation_chinese_lab_is_likely_source_of_covid19.html
The question you should be asking yourself:
What can I do to in my economic activity to minimize the benefit to the ChiComs?
All news stations, especially the local ones, get real giddy over any crisis. Local heads getting camera time, predicting the worst on the small chance it does happen so the stations can brag in their advertising about being the first. If there is a chance of snow here all three stations have a reporter standing in front of salt piles at TDOT locations. Or on a bridge over the interstate.
Anytime the “cone of death” of a hurricane touches somewhere on the Texas coast, the San Antonio ClearChannel station suddenly picks up GasBuddy.com as a sponsor for the traffic reports. At least, that’s the way it worked last year.
Didn’t these go extinct after the Big Orange / Big Blue tidal wave? Or maybe one or two survived – pull out your copy of the Yellow Pages and check…
Some are quite old, 7+ years. A few are very new, less than 1 year. It is necessary to install SMB1 on those devices to access Server 2003. The ASUS only supports SMB1 for the file transfers. I use it at home without difficulty. All I really need to do is set up permissions for directories and the ASUS router provides an easy method to do the configuration.
Not a perfect solution, but an expensive, and workable, solution. The routers need to be replaced with newer routers so I can get the mesh network setup. Currently have 10 routers involved without only 2 of them functioning as routers, the others being wireless access points. There are two separate networks that don’t touch each other. Guest network uses a completely different ISP than staff network. I also have a totally isolate wire gapped network in the broadcast studio to interface all the broadcast gear.
Meh. Protection of intellectual property is incredibly overused in the West. I’d rather see civilization progress. If a company has some super idea, and the Chinese steal it, the inventing company still had it first. Depending on what it is, there is also have the option of keeping it as a trade secret.
Look at software, which isn’t even supposed to be patentable (and isn’t, really, outside the US). The software industry has been absolutely booming for decades, and shows no signs of slowing down. Let ’em steal ideas…
…the inventing company still had it first.
We always said he who innovates last, wins. 🙂
Yeah, but the machines are several companies and generations ago. The current owner of the IP – Dominion – doesn’t service them and never made the hardware and software. Is Microsoft on the hook to maintain Seattle Computer Products versions of MS-DOS? The author was looking to tie this to the conspiracy theories out there.
The Democrats in the race were also shorted votes, but not as many. The Republicans won all the races in question before the recount.
The funny thing about this is that years ago, the Democrats were screaming that Diebold voting machines (which these were) were stealing votes from them.
The funny thing about this is that years ago, the Democrats were screaming that Diebold voting machines (which these were) were stealing votes from them.
The Diebold machines had a reputation for poor crypto, but, the bigger issue is that they were difficult to deploy and unreliable.
In 2002, the Democrats blamed the machines for Janet Reno losing the FL Dem Gubernatorial Primary to Bill McBride, who went on to get stomped like the proverbial narc at the Hells Angels rally by Jeb! running for reelection.
I don’t remember DIebold being in Florida after that year. *Another* change in systems took place before the 2004 election.
13f and sunny this morning. 38f on the garage wall thermometer. But prepper fail … the gallon plastic jug of clothes washig up liquid I had staged in the garage, had split a seam an was drooling its contents on the concrete. I guess the cold air near the garage door had done it in. I moved the cases of water bottles away from the door and up off the concrete. Hadn’t prepared for artic cold of any length. I also shut down the vent fan in the bunker to keep from pulling sub zero air into it as I don’t want it freezing up down there.
Just goes to show that you’re prepared for the last crisis, not the next.
TV talking heads are crowing about the blizzard coming tonight but we will see what actually happens.
I was surprised at the level of mendacity of the House Impeachment team. The way video was cut to completely reverse reality and words taken out of context or simply erased. I know lawyers have to have their conscience surgically removed. I asked my son how they thought they could get away with such obvious lies. He pointed out that the MSM would never show the rebuttal, only keep playing the lies over and over. The Nazi technique of the big lie, constantly repeated becomes truth. I am disgusted at our whole erected class.
@Harold:
How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving.
Old, but true. For any politician, especially one of ours – PPE graduates almost to a (wo)man.
G.
I was surprised at the level of mendacity of the House Impeachment team.
Starting with “Bang Bang” Swalwell.
Now we may or may not get witnesses, including our former Congresscritter in Vantucky.
After first voting for impeachment and then signing up as a witness, I’d say the RINO Herrera-Beutler was a lock for getting primaried next year, but her first child has lots of health problems, and the district voters harbor a good deal of sympathy for the family.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/13/senate-votes-in-favor-of-calling-witnesses-in-trump-impeachment-trial.html
If Rep. McCarthy confirms what Rep. Beutler has said took place on the phone call, then I’d vote to convict and bar from office. If. (Of course, they should have charged him with “dereliction of duty”, not incitement.)
Got about 4″ of snow overnight here on the Olympic Peninsula. We usually get one snow event each winter, but usually 1-3″. Except for Feb 2019, when we got 14-18″ of snow in the area.
Always liked the ‘look’ of snow – especially in an area with lots of tall pine trees. “Frosting” on the branches is always pretty.
No plans to get out on the roads. There are plows in a county here, and the Highlander is AWD (our previous one was good in the snows of Utah valleys), but I’ve got enough supplies to not need a grocery run until Tues. Church tomorrow will be via Zoom.
Don’t need to shovel at the moment. Power is on, heat is on, and generator is ready if needed. Plus, lots of FLASHLIGHTS.
For those with interest in VR gaming:
One of the base stations for my Valve Index VR rig died. It got the “flashing red light of death” syndrome. There is a laser tracker inside that died. This happened Tuesday night and I just received a free replacement from Valve today. Not a bad turn around. They also emailed a RMA and Fedex label. I also ordered and installed a Valve HTC Vive base station, which is the same as the Index. It works fine, but makes a whining sound when at sleep, so I have to unplug it.
Using three base stations improves accuracy, so I set up all three and redefined my “play” space. My Alienware gaming PC rocks with Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx (VR only). It really adds depth to PC gaming that you have to try to realize it. I got the Alienware specifically for VR, but it rocks at other games, too. The kids in the family love Beat Saber in VR. It’s also fun to watch somebody new at VR experience Alyx when the first head crab zombie pops out and they jump.
-cough-
Tuesday of what month?
Even with the various kids that I semi-regularly feed, we’re good for six months, so far as calories go. We’d have to ration the cookies and cereal and such, but if anybody goes hungry it’s because they chose not to eat. Much the same for toothpaste and soap and the modern American currency, toilet paper.
Yup, Jeter’s place in Tampa before he bought the Marlins and moved to Miami. Seven bedrooms so TB has room for company.
And it’s for sale:
https://robbreport.com/shelter/celebrity-homes/derek-jeter-tampa-mansion-29-million-1234570417/
@ech
The machines and their software are out there earning money for the owner. Under what circumstances is the owner absolved from any problems?
“Conspiracy theory” is simply a leftist response to inconvenient facts that they can’t explain and want to denigrate. Read the Time article–there was a conspiracy. And they are brazen and stupid enough to have admitted it, even if all the details haven’t been published.
Still waiting for a real investigation of the phony broken water pipe story and an appearance by Little Miss Blondie Pigtails.
If anyone should decide to replace the radio controls on a working garage door opener, I highly recommend these:
https://www.liftmaster.com/894lt-remote-control/p/G894LT transmitter
https://www.liftmaster.com/850lm-universal-receiver-security-2-0/p/G850LM Receiver
Read all of this before looking at the links.
Background. I use commercial wall mounted garage door openers, and the radio controls were extra. I didn’t like the manufacturer’s choices, so I did some research, including contacting some companies that make both operators and radio controls. The above were my choice. I have been happy with these for over three years. Ignore the references to gated communities and other commercial applications; these controls are perfectly suitable for home use. The only compatibility issue is that your existing power unit must be controllable with a simple momentary contact push button, NOT the newer proprietary indoor wall mounted smart controls. Some of these can use a push button extension, but you need to verify this yourself. The receiver above simply provides a brief contact closure, just like pushing a normally open button.
They are reasonably priced, and very flexible in application. For instance, I have a second receiver that controls some Touch-Plate relays. The four button transmitter may seem like overkill, but sometimes I wish I had more buttons. There is a two button control available. These use the latest rolling code scheme, and seem about as secure as any other radio controls.
My commercial openers do not have their own lights, so no interference problems. I do have separate lights, and all are LEDs. I have no interference problems with these radio controls. They also have very good range. If you need more range, there is an antenna extender kit. I didn’t need that, even though my garage and house are shielded well enough to frustrate Wi-Fi. I think the controls operate on about 433 MHz.
For that matter, still waiting for the details of the murdering trigger-puller at the Capitol.
A cop on the street would have been identified, fired, and charged long ago. I have not been able to find any instance of a police shooting where the officer was not identified in short order. In any city in the U.S., any attempt to keep an officer’s identity secret would be met by a howling mob of muckrakers demanding information.
Instead, I hear crickets, but I smell conspiracy.
Trump’s attorneys should have called him as a hostile witness.
The local ABC station in Tampa has a very reputable meteorologist who skips all the hype, especially during hurricane season.
https://www.abcactionnews.com/denisphillips
Re prepping fails: I discovered today that the truly low-odor kerosene lamp fuel (that Kleen Heat stuff) I could not buy last March because it is a “seasonal” item in our local stores – seasonal meaning “during Deer Hunting Season only” – is probably not going to be obtainable this year either. So I have written on my paper calendar for Sept, Oct, & Nov 2021, to check the stores and BUY some of the stuff.
I had even forgotten that I tried to buy it last year, until Bill Quick recommended it to me this morning and the name jogged what passes for my ‘memory’, and it all came flooding back. I’ll start writing other things on the calendar if I can’t get them when wanted, just in case that is the start of a trend.
It is not essential, here, because we use wood for heat, and I have candles and “lamp fuel” that stinks. But I would like to use the coal oil lamps more often, even for ambiance, if I had something that didn’t smell as though we had a natural gas leak when burning.
@SteveF
That’s for a ‘normal’ supply run. I have enough food and even powdered milk for an “Snowmageddon”, but that is not likely here. Might need the usual ‘meds’ run.
The normal Tuesday run would be just milk and fresh fruit – and yogurt for SWMBO. We could get by short-term if needed.
Good news:
https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/actress-gina-carano-new-film-partnership-brings-hope-everyone-living-fear
The democrats just wasted a few million dollars and accomplished nothing. It will be interesting to see their next line of attack. Pelosi is probably got a real knot in her Depends. She will be hitting the bottle heavy tonight.
And in other news….
My tax return was accepted by the IRS. I expect the refund by Friday if history repeats from prior years. I am getting too much back. But redeeming 401K I have no say in the amount withheld, 20%.
Airlines had cracked down on medical exemptions to the face mask rule over the summer but the consequence of having the federal government step in is now requiring them to relent.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/airlines-will-now-allow-passengers-to-fly-without-masks-after-biden-s-mandate-allows-for-medical-exemptions/ar-BB1dmjCJ
… and…
Airline workers have lower rates of COVID-19 than the general population – and airline CEOs say it’s proof that flying is safe
https://www.businessinsider.com/airline-workers-covid-rates-is-flying-safe-2020-9
If nothing else from this farce, we learned just how nakedly vile congressional democrats are.
BEFORE INCITING RIOTS, KAMALA HARRIS JOKED ABOUT KILLING TRUMP, PENCE
https://www.theconstitutionalconservatives.com/editorials/before-inciting-riots-kamala-harris-joked-about-killing-trump-pen
For four years the leading democrats have almost daily publicly imagined how they would murder their political opponents and their children. From hoping the presidents children be raped to happily dreaming of blowing up the White House, the party of slavery has sown hate and now they demand UNITY. Not in my lifetime.
Temps are 16f and we still have mostly clear skies whilst our StormWarn News Team keep breathlessly wzrning of snowmagedon any moment now.
Got a lull in our snowstorm. Measuring 7-1/2 inches on the flat with drifts of 2 feet. All the police departments are recommending that people stay home—lots of accidents. We are supposed to get another 4 to 7 inches tonight and Sunday, with more on Monday.
Fortunately (knock on wood), our power is very reliable here in my part of Kennewick. Pasco and Richland not so much as they are predominately overhead lines with little substation redundancy, whereas ours are predominately underground lines with double and triple substation redundancy. However, the contractor that was allowed to develop the new “luxury area” of Kennewick got away with going cheap like Pasco and Richland so they are already having outages. I don’t feel bad for these West Coast and East Coast Immigrants who bought there. I hope they are enjoying their overpriced crowded together “mansions” that are dark and cold. Did I mention that the roads into their enclave are closed too? No sympathy.
The wife is feeling comfortable with all of our preps.
@Dadcooks – right now a power outage is my worst fear.
I have a Champion 7500 watt dual-fuel generator but never got around to wiring in a transfer panel. It would power our essentials and the gas furnace if it were connected. Our local utilities are underground but as I have found out a few years ago, these are fed from overhead lines somewhere. The OG&E are taking the weather seriously. When I went out this morning I noted ten bucket trucks staged at Mother Jugs restaurant on the main drag. (The street in town with a stoplight) Procrastination is a sin and the transfer switch is top of mylist going forward.
My package from Amazon is “delayed”. I’m not in a hurry. Not a surprise and with the outside temp getting all the way up to 28F today, it’s not like I want to walk my happy self to gate. It’s icy. It does make cool crunching sounds.
The trees are glazed with ice. Like “individually frozen” chicken breasts. It’s pretty. The trees, not the chicken. The sky is the foggy color of ice cubes.
The forecast is below freezing until Thursday’s “high near 32”. And OF COURSE I’ve run out of dog food. I suppose they’ll be eating people food for a few days because a trip to Tractor Supply looks to be a stupid thing to do until Friday.
Good times.
I HATE to cook.
Apologies to @Dadcooks. I never learnt to cook growing up. I can cook enough to feed myself, just a handful of dishes centered around ground beef and hotdogs / sausages. I married young to an excellent cook who took cooking classes in London and Paris during our travels so I never wanted for good food. But in the last few years she’s become unable to stand or even sit in the kitchen for any time. I have become her hands in the kitchen. She’ll announce “I think I’ll make XXX tonight” which means I will make whatever knowing nothing about it. Doing all the cooking and cleaning up I have learned I despise cooking. Left on my own today I’d be happy with spam and hotdogs. I much prefer dishes that require just one pan or pot but my gourmet wife recipes always demand a lot of preparation. Sigh, I’m just lazy and eating isn’t important to me as it was 20 years ago. As I’ve gotten older I find I am less interested in food. But still I cook three meals a day and often midnight snacks for her. I’m happy for those who enjoy cooking but I’m not one of them. Grrrrr.
“Looking back at some previous historic Houston cold snaps”
https://spacecityweather.com/looking-back-at-some-previous-historic-houston-cold-snaps/
“January 2018
Coldest temperature: 19° on 1/17
Nights at or below freezing: 10, split up over 20 days”
“February 2011
Coldest temperature: 21° on 2/2
Nights at or below freezing: 12 over 2 weeks”
“December 1989
Coldest temperature: 7° on 12/23
Nights at or below freezing: 14 over 2-3 weeks”
I remember Christmas eve of 1989 very well. 6 F in Sugar Land. The high for that day was 8 F. I was living at my parents house in Sugar Land working a new job in Houston. I took my family down to their home in Port Lavaca on Christmas Day where it had warmed up to 8 F. My brother and I walked across their swimming pool and then the ice in Lavaca Bay before we started worrying about the ice breaking and dumping us in the bay.
After hurricane season, I usually draw down my gasoline at home. If we end up running a gennie, I want to be ready. I’m kicking myself once again for continuing to put off the connection of the whole house gennie. Money, time, and access- they all need to be there together, and I haven’t made it a priority. That is a prepper fail.
I am treating this extreme weather event as a hurricane in the Gulf heading towards Houston. Fill your gas tanks now !
I told this to my employees Friday. And I filled my truck to the max of its 35 gallons. The wife has promised to fill her tank before the weekend is over.
If the Texas grid goes down, the gas stations will have plenty of gasoline. But they will not have the electricity needed to run the pumps. So if you pull up to fill up, they will be closed.
Why do they not have generators? They should have plenty of fuel…
Well I turned 0x46 today (01000110 for the propeller heads). Never imagined what it would be like at this age. I don’t feel, nor do I look, like my grandparents were at this age. Maybe they felt the same way about their grandparents (who may have died at 50). One thing is for certain, better medical care, better medical knowledge, better food sources, less stress in maintaining a living (except for dealing with the IRS), etc. have all contributed to better living and living longer.
Speaking of the IRS, got another nasty-gram from the IRS on Friday about my taxes for 2018. What the IRS is now stating does not match what I reported on my return. Some of the reported income according to their records is significantly higher than what I received on my W-2 and reported on my taxes. So I will mail a copy of the return and copies of all the W-2’s for the tax year. I am correct, the IRS is wrong, but the IRS will never admit or apologize.
I don’t think some illegal alien is using my SS number as their is no income from from employers that are unfamiliar. Just some of the income from one employer is too high.
And the Social Security Administration has my reported wages wrong for the last three years. None of the income from the church is being shown in my earnings record. Does not make any difference because I am on SS so the reported earnings no longer affect my benefit. I wonder how many other people the SSA has shafted on their benefit because the earnings are not correct? The IRS is supposed to send that information to SSA. Maybe once someone starts SS the SSA no longer cares about reported earnings. Everyone should check their SS earnings for the last 10 years.
“If the Texas grid goes down, the gas stations will have plenty of gasoline. But they will not have the electricity needed to run the pumps. So if you pull up to fill up, they will be closed.”
Why do they not have generators? They should have plenty of fuel…
Gas stations in the US run on really slim profit margins.
Well, except for places like Buc-ee’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJqTY0QXqIw
If the Texas grid goes down, the gas stations will have plenty of gasoline. But they will not have the electricity needed to run the pumps. So if you pull up to fill up, they will be closed.
Why do they not have generators? They should have plenty of fuel…
Some of them do have generators that they bought in Hurricane Ike during 2009. They ran them just 4 or 12 years ago. Do you think that generator is ever going to start again with all that congealed gasoline in the carburetor ?
I’ve checked my SS earnings every year until now. Turned 65 last June and will start my SS at 66 and two months. Three years were not reported for my first three years in the military. I got those corrected each year by provided statements. All has been good since retirement from milspec, but I kept checking just to be sure.
The minute tRump was acquitted, Stretch was front and center calling “Republican Senators who voted for acquittal are cowards”. That’s he/she/it’s definition of *healing*. The only cowards are those who voted to convict, but they are RINOs thru and thru. Even McConnell is a coward, who voted for acquittal, then slams tRump as responsible for the riot. That’s true cowardice: NOT GUILTY, then (hand held low with fingers crossed), he caused the *riot* vote for me. You can’t have it both ways Senator Cowardly Lion. The last acquittal for tRump a year ago, yup, only Romney voted guilty.
tRump should form a PAC just to go after the RINOs.
28ºF in SA and dropping. I may have to use a wiener dog as a foot warmer!
Hit the grocery store for some valentine flowers, and the guy in front of me was wearing a black hoodie, with Biden – Harris on it, and the word UNITER over the map of the US. Yep, way to start the uniting dems.
n
Headline in the Daily Caller:
“Meghan McCain Says Her Dad Wouldn’t Spit On John Weaver Or Steve Schmidt If They Were On Fire”
After his betrayal of every conservative voter in the country because of his own petty spite, there’s a lot of them that would drink gasoline if they had a chance to piss on a burning John McCain.
” I hope that anyone who covered up for this never works in politics ever again.” Ignorance will out–politics isn’t work. And we’re supposed to believe that McCain never talked to Karl Rove before hiring those two in 2008?
Speaking of petty spite and betrayal,
North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr
Lousiana Sen. Bill Cassidy
Maine Sen. Susan Collins
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey
Mittens has enough bucks to pull a John Kerry. The rest will probably just pull their masks over their heads when they fly.
Social Insecurity informed me in Dec that they were dramatically cutting my 2021 SSI benefits because of my high income in 2019. I protested that I retired at the end of 2019 and wasn’t employed at all in 2020 so I shouldn’t be penalized. I had to file an official complaint and get my former employer HR to verify. Not that easy as they moved HR to Costa Rica in 2020. But I finally convinced them I’m no longer making 6 figures so my benefits have been restored.
Prediction: We will never see another private citizen run for President again. After the hell both political parties put our last president through, we will be treated to one ineffectual lying politician after another. So ends the glorious experiment in citizen rule.
@Harold Combs
We’ll know in two years.
FTP- the ones that rush out before every weather event and buy milk, eggs, and bread. Like they’re gonna live off of french toast alone….
The local HEB gets cleaned out for much less severe winter storm events than this weekend. As if the trucks are going to stop rolling over a fraction of an inch of snow.
Just filled up the wife’s Highlander at the Shell by our house on the way to HEB. I asked the owner who mans the inside cash register 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, if they will be open if the power goes down on Monday. He said no, if they cannot get on the freeway then they will not be able to open the gas station. I then asked if the power is out but they can get to the gas station if they will open. He then said the pumps need power and they do not have a generator. So, no power, no gas sales.
And yes, our HEB was cleaned out. Bread, cereal, and milk were almost gone.
The Chinese government sends academics all over the world to steal intellectual property, and anything else they can get their hands on:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/despite_who_proclamation_chinese_lab_is_likely_source_of_covid19.html
The question you should be asking yourself:
What can I do to in my economic activity to minimize the benefit to the ChiComs?
I just want the Chinese to stop stealing my software.
@Dadcooks – right now a power outage is my worst fear.
I have a Champion 7500 watt dual-fuel generator but never got around to wiring in a transfer panel. It would power our essentials and the gas furnace if it were connected. Our local utilities are underground but as I have found out a few years ago, these are fed from overhead lines somewhere. The OG&E are taking the weather seriously. When I went out this morning I noted ten bucket trucks staged at Mother Jugs restaurant on the main drag. (The street in town with a stoplight) Procrastination is a sin and the transfer switch is top of mylist going forward.
This is why I am getting a full deal for our generator with installation and maintenance. I know that I will never get it done on my own.
I guess I have some more prepping to do tomorrow. My wife just updated me on the forecast. Freaking hell. No way it gets that cold.
And can we finally take globull warming out into the pasture and shoot it please?
n
scanner has the cops working street racers again tonight.
They don’t get many of them for the effort expended.
n
Watching the free market at work. Tons of ammo is showing up in the auctions and estate sales, one box at a time.. . the price is high enough that ammo is coming out of drawers and safes to be sold to people who really want it.
n
“ Freaking hell. No way it gets that cold.”
There is one temperature at which it is not necessary to specify F or C.
There is one temperature at which it is not necessary to specify F or C.
Yes, and I don’t want to experience it. I once experienced -25F, and that was waaay too much.
I also once experienced something like 250F in a walk-through chamber on a tour at Eglin AFB. We were told to keep moving, and close our eyes if they began to hurt. It didn’t feel as hot as I had expected. Bet they don’t do that nowadays. IIRC, they were studying the effect of very high temperatures on people to better address survival in emergencies.
I have read about similar studies using very cold temperatures that simulated arctic conditions. People were outfitted with garments that had warm water circulating. With enough upper body heat, they were able to work for a few minutes without gloves. Gloves make a lot of tasks impossible.
I really hate cold. Grew up in the Midwest, and had enough for my lifetime. If you want to vicariously experience extreme cold, read jack London’s To Build a Fire:
https://americanliterature.com/author/jack-london/short-story/to-build-a-fire
“I really hate cold. Grew up in the Midwest, and had enough for my lifetime. ”
–my feeling exactly. Cold HURTS.
n