Hot and humid, small chance of rain. Yesterday was 97F in the sun, and there was lots of sun. Was still 82F at midnight. Today should be more of the same, except for being on the edge of the predicted rain might see us get wet.
Went to my non-prepping hobby and it was great. Good meeting. Nice to be out and see people again. I didn’t end up even starting with the mask on, and no one else did either.
Later in the day we went to dinner at the same restaurant we tried when my mom was out here. This time there wasn’t even a sign on the door. All the staff was still masked, but none of the sitting patrons were. Most of the entering patrons still expected masks, including my family, but took them off and left them off after moving to a table. The place is a bit on the expensive side, date night or expense account not “let’s grab dinner out”, but it wasn’t exactly jumping on a Saturday evening. More patrons than our last visit though. Not as tasty as our last visit either.
Driving to my meeting at 8:30am felt like 6:30 in terms of traffic and people out and about. Things are not “normal” in any way yet.
Nothing stacked today, but I got a lead on a ham radio estate. We’ll see if it pans out, but it’s always fun to think about the hunt, and it was good to meet a new guy with shared interests.
Today I have one auction pickup, and in the late afternoon my inlaws need a ride to the airport. In between, yard work, gardening, cleanup, and the last of the tax prep? Maybe? Please Gnu yes.
And what stacking I can do, I will do, and so should you do!
nick
Perfect storm? Or just really crappy practice and rudeness on the part of devs, along with stuff not doing what I’ve told it. READER??? Seriously?
Are you still running the OEM install of Windows 10 with all the Dell garbage?
I try to be a good consumer and not mess with the default install, but the OEM Windows install has never lasted on any of my machines.
The current record is two months on my ThinkPad before I got fed up. IIRC, the issue was SMB (file sharing) with my home server.
Fortunately, except for a minor touch pad issue, the ISO from Microsoft installed cleanly.
From yesterday. Even at $5000 delivered, these would sell if street legal.
I would be surprised if someone wasn’t working on a dealership for something similar near the writer’s home base in Florida at The Villages, a giant retiree development NW of Disney where golf carts are legal on the roads and the political climate would be amenable.
https://electrek.co/2021/06/05/awesomely-weird-alibaba-electric-vehicle-of-the-week-changli-electric-pickup-truck/
The Villages. The readership here shouldn’t get any ideas about living there. The politics lean right, but they love them some FS 720 — the HOA statutes — up in that area of the state.
However, the idea that institutional investors are somehow largely to blame for the current housing market catastrophe is wrong and obscures the real problem. Housing prices have been skyrocketing due to historically low supply, low mortgage rates, and the largest generation in American history entering the market looking for starter homes.
In Texas, it might be possible for institutional investors to compete for single family homes on a large scale due to the lax protection offered by the homestead exemption laws, but it is much tougher in CA and FL (for now).
Suburbs in tech hubs are pricey right now. That will change. Big companies write large checks for “talent” to get them through the next quarter or year, but they skimp on the real benefits — I’m not talking about Foosball tables in the breakroom — and play lots of games with location of facilities to minimize taxes while maximizing the benefits derived from the communities.
Privatize the profits. Socialize the losses. It won’t last.
I’m looking at you Tim Cook. The new Apple campus in Austin is evil genius.
If there is one factor I’ve seen driving home prices up in the last three places we’ve lived, it is parental largess. We are the only couple in our social circle who completely managed a house down payment ourselves and ate PMI for a few years when we fell short. We managed. Plus we had student loan payments on $200k for my wife’s education.
No trips to Europe. No McMansion. No German grocery getter or Tonymobile. Eat at home most nights and no avocado toast.
While I don’t believe it is possible to overestimate what a Number One Son can pull out of parents to get a foot in the door in real estate in a desirable area like San Francisco, Seattle, or, lately, Austin, Americans compete pretty well. And Number One Sons don’t like used houses or renting, which is why far exurbs like Conroe (mentioned in the article) or McKinney get bid to the moon.
Conroe? Or, God forbid, Cut-n-Shoot? Really? Commute to Houston? No thanks.
And lest you think the political climate would be a better place to raise kids, the idiot Prog husband of my wife’s associate in Vantucky incessantly talked about his Cut-n-Shoot upbringing — I assumed Dad worked for NASA.
Police have a suspect in the mass shooting which took place in Austin Friday night/Saturday morning, but they didn’t release a name or picture.
I’m guessing Amish. They get that hard cider going and suddenly they’re all “antsy in their pantsy”.
And nobody saw nut’in.
https://www.kvue.com/article/news/crime/austin-mass-shooting-one-suspect-in-custody/269-0f1f650c-6e99-4281-bd20-874d1d06ce55
The APD released a description but the media refused to carry it:
On Saturday afternoon, the Austin Police Department updated its website to say that one suspect is in custody, while another is still at large. Earlier in the day, police released this description of the suspect:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/paula-bolyard/2021/06/12/why-is-the-austin-media-refusing-to-release-description-of-at-large-austin-shooter-just-kidding-you-know-why-n1454212
Seems like a simple thing to say the suspect with the description is in custody or not.
The place is a bit on the expensive side, date night or expense account not “let’s grab dinner out”, but it wasn’t exactly jumping on a Saturday evening.
When we went to Dallas for my daughter’s first vaccine shot last month, we noted that several of the business traveler chain restaurants in Arlington — near the sports venues, Six Flags and GM factory — were shuttered, including the one we like to hit whenever we are in town as a splurge for the kids.
The one we liked tried to go it alone, without paying the franchise fee over the winter, but that obviously didn’t work.
The restaurants looked like they were shuttered long enough ago that food prices weren’t the only issue.
Sam’s club run yesterday. Chicken was high but not outrageously inflated (0.90/lb up from 0.80), but beef was a fuggedaboudit price — $9/lb for sirloins, $13/lb for nice steaks. Limit 2 per membership on chicken items meant the cases were fully stocked again.
The APD released a description but the media refused to carry it:
Amish. 6th Street isn’t a Mennonite thing.
And a Mennonite with the right surname — say, like, “Zimmerman” — can be spun as “The English” (think “Witness”).
Still, the city wants 6th Street back at full throttle before UT resumes in the Fall and the Austin City Limits festival returns. Even if the suspect was The English, the priority is rebuilding the “culture” Downtown. Some places like The Mohawk — where parts of my former management chain liked to hang and attempt to find crazy to stick their … well, you know– just reopened.
Gah, that news website sucks. There was a link to “See how the first aid training the Austin cops received- just stop the bleed” saved lives. paraphrase. but after reloading the page, all the content was different and the suggested link was gone. I could search but don’t care THAT much.
I just wanted to see an acknowledgement that Stop the Bleed works in real life. The paradigm for first aid is changing, by design, and it seems to be working. (note that the cops evac’d the wounded, rather than stabilizing or ignoring until EMS could get to scene- HUGE change)
n
oh yeah ,87F and 70%RH at 10am.
I think it’s gonna be a hot one.
n
After the discussion about knife sharpening the other day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1298&v=t557dPspLxo&feature=emb_logo
Comments below contain spoilers. Mouse over to view:
the milk-based blade material is casein, one of the oldest plastic materials developed
the experimentalist approach shown to get the casein hardness/toughness is an instructive lesson on how combining two processing methods can produce better results than either separately
the second part is a tutorial on hobbyist silicone mold making. I would change nothing at that level but add some mold release to the interior of the plastic cups
well, that didn’t work
For some reason, the first Youtube vid I watch starts with an add by Stacy “Oink” Abrams telling us how Republicans are suppressing votes of POCs. A blatant lie, but YT lets it run.
I just wanted to see an acknowledgement that Stop the Bleed works in real life. The paradigm for first aid is changing, by design, and it seems to be working. (note that the cops evac’d the wounded, rather than stabilizing or ignoring until EMS could get to scene- HUGE change)
Downtown Austin doesn’t lack for trauma care. Dell Seton and St. Davids are not far from 6th, and the city’s nearby “sobering center” (drunk tank) in the old morgue has paid medical staff 24/7.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/alabama-abc-anchor-broke-clinton-tarmac-story-dead-45
Things that make you go hmmmm.
Yeah, 45, suicide, wife and kids.
hmmm
The question to ask, is there any evidence that the clin ton star is rising again?
I did see Killary in a favorable segment, bashing Trump recently… I was kinda surprised by that.
n
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/10/1004806688/inflation-is-surging-the-price-of-a-toyota-pickup-truck-helps-explain-why?utm_source=pocket-newtab
NPR is spinning the current inflationary period as a good thing. Wow.
SurvivalBlog is featuring an article that looks at reusing canning lids and commercial jars. There are also good links in the article.
https://survivalblog.com/2021/06/12/science-reusing-canning-jar-lids-part-1-st-funogas/
https://survivalblog.com/2021/06/13/science-reusing-canning-jar-lids-part-2-st-funogas/
My experiences with canning are from my childhood, but the article seems very thorough and well thought out.
And, it’s likely that shortages might cause you to attempt those things anyway, better to have some dispassionate thought first…
n
Despite getting a “featured” emailing from Home Depot encouraging me to buy an above ground pool, they don’t seem to be slow sellers…
about half or more are already sold out. The prices are about triple pre-wuflu too.
n
The question to ask, is there any evidence that the clinton star is rising again?
I did see Killary in a favorable segment, bashing Trump recently… I was kinda surprised by that.
Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe is making a run at retaking the VA Governor’s Mansion this year.
I get the panicked campaign emails. I’m not sure how I ended up on the mailing list.
Even Serpent Head Carville has been pulled out of teaching exile at Tulane to try and triage the KKKlansman’s mess in Richmond.
Beyond BJ’s unending appeal to suburban Dem female voters of my generation and up, the Clintons are done as influencers. Unless something happens to Plugs and Kamala ends up wildly unpopular on a Carter level, I don’t see Hillary taking a run at 2024.
Another inflation article with no mention of deficit, money printing, or monetary inflation.
I’m open to links detailing when Janet Yelson was right about anything money related. (I think it would be hard to find one, but I’ve got stuff to do to get ready for the continuing loss of buying power.)
n
The Clintons are done.
–then why would a pro risk anything to clean up after them? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar….
n
The Clintons won’t be done done until a plane with all three generations goes down in the deep ocean during a convention of white sharks and giant squid.
Be even better if it were due to a midair collision with a plane carrying the Bush family and their friends the Cheneys.
Despite getting a “featured” emailing from Home Depot encouraging me to buy an above ground pool, they don’t seem to be slow sellers…
When we lived in Florida and owned an in-ground pool, Home Depot wasn’t exactly the first name that sprung to mind when thinking about buying something like a new pump or above-ground pool. They weren’t even the first place for supplies I’d consider.
Blood must be in the water from one of the major specialty chains having difficulties. IIRC, chlorine was in short supply last year. Maybe Pinch-a-Penny is in trouble.
From one of my newsletters.
source—
The outages affected 66 PSAPs for more than four days (more than 97 hours). Power was lost to the AT&T facility at 11:50 a.m. on Christmas Day, and the facility came back online on Dec. 29 at 12:25 p.m. Making matters worse, some 911 centers did not receive notifications or updates about the issue for six days. PSAPs did not receive updates sent from AT&T’s Everbridge alerting system because the alerting system had also been damaged.
Telecom. Everyone was off that week.
Plus, 2021 would have been a strike year for legacy BellSouth by the old union calendar, but all bets are off since AT&T broke the coordinated union effort to strike on Labor Day 2009. “CP” (scab) training would have started in January.
The tech who showed up last Sunday (!) to fix my landline made a point of asking me to complete the survey if one was sent by the company, but he would be legacy SW Bell, not BellSouth.
There’s a lot you can read into the TN bombing article, and if I have time, I’ll line by line it.
Everbridge is a third party “public alerting” tool.
https://www.everbridge.com/
n
Agreed. Hillary would have been elected in 2008 if she had allowed Bill to campaign for and with her. But she was too angry at him and too deranged about trying to foist Chelsey into some political role. As a result, we had 8 years of Obama that could have been 8 more years of Bill Clinton in the White House. (For that matter, Al Gore would have won against Bush if Gore had allowed Bill to campaign for him.)
And by 2016, Bill had gotten too old to wield quite as much influence, although he was still probably responsible for at least 2/3 of the votes Hillary got. Many people voted for her with the hope of having Bill Clinton back in control again.
By now, people have become wise to the damage wrought by the Clinton years, and those who aren’t, still recognize that Bill has lost a lot of his charisma – a surprising lot of it, in fact.
After a quick scan of the articles, I’ll say his info is excellent, and right on target. He’s absolutely correct about the number of myths and he refutes them well. Thank you for these links! I’ve bookmarked them and posted them to my Pinterest board for canning.
My own homework has found that the primary reason for some of the “rules” is that the official rule-makers don’t trust the public, so they go to great extremes to counter that. And as he points out, the manufacturers and rule-makers want to avoid liability.
Don’t worry, after the ‘investigation’ it will turn out to have been Covid.
Or global warming, there’s nothing it can’t do….
n
If she keeps up her ‘Lester Holt behavior’ things could get interesting when the 2024 campaign ramps up.
The 2024 race will also reflect the 20200 Census reapportionments.
Stack up the popcorn now before the prices go up.
The 2024 race will also reflect the 20200 Census reapportionments.
Reapportionment is supposed to show up in the 2022 midterms, but the maps from the 2010 census weren’t settled in Florida until 2015 due to non-stop court challenges.
This time around, Florida will have the map done in February. Really done.
Wow, 107F in the sun, with 35%RH. I was dripping almost instantly when I went to my secondary location this afternoon. Not much got done there.
Came home, bid the inlaws adieu, and decided to cut the front yard. It’s entirely in shade and didn’t feel that bad. Then I went to the back to put the machine away, and just decided to go for it. Fweuuu….. Finished, only took about 10 minutes, but oh my it was sunny and hot. Oh the plus side, I think I’m fully recovered from my several years ago heat injury.
n
Up here, summer arrived all-at-once with a vengence! I don’t know what the official temp is here in Brown County*, but it is 92F under our carport, in the shade, which is usually about 10 degrees cooler than in the sun. I went out about 2:00, intending to cut up a pile of fallen limbs, but it was so hot that after a few minutes, I put the chain saw back in the shed: the work can wait until morning!
*several weeks ago, the NWS stopped posting our county’s local “at the airport” readings. I called to find out why… and the NWS people didn’t know. Apparently, that is something voluntarily done by local airport personnel. My guess is that the person who used to do it retired, and no one else wants to bother.
Freak me, it hit 100 F here in southwest Fort Bend County today. And ERCOT coasted over the 5 pm peak at 69,000 MW demand with 2,000 MW to spare with the entire state generation in the red zone at $1,100/MWH. The average price for MWH in Texas is about $30. That may be a new power record for Texas on a Sunday.
http://www.ercot.com/
We are going to have rotating power outages this summer in Texas. Get ready for it. My new whole house generator has been delayed to the first week of July. I am hoping by the first week of August.
105 F on a Tuesday – Thursday in Texas could get interesting. Generators for all !
And it is still 98 F at 6:23 pm.
Coming week here not looking so good…
https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=35.35303000000005&lon=-119.16053999999997#.YMaUEWjYo5Y
Just looked at my power bill.
We are contracted with a subsidiary of Shell. For May, we used 3,516 kWh at 0.0443/kWh generation charge, for $156 in juice. Took another $122 to Centerpoint to get it to the house. Total for ~3500 kWh ~$286 including tax.
by their math, that’s ~ $0.079/kWh delivered.
Suck it Cali.
n
One of my neighbors has a new Harley-Davidson Street Bob with a 114 in3 engine. I love the look and I love the sound. I told the wife that I might just go buy one. She told me that I cannot even go test ride. Apparently I am too old and might injure myself.
https://www.harley-davidson.com/us/en/motorcycles/street-bob.html
We are contracted with a subsidiary of Shell. For May, we used 3,516 kWh at 0.0443/kWh generation charge, for $156 in juice. Took another $122 to Centerpoint to get it to the house. Total for ~3500 kWh ~$286 including tax.
Is your house big/leaky?
The new AC unit will make a big difference.
Just looked at my power bill.
We are contracted with a subsidiary of Shell. For May, we used 3,516 kWh at 0.0443/kWh generation charge, for $156 in juice. Took another $122 to Centerpoint to get it to the house. Total for ~3500 kWh ~$286 including tax.
by their math, that’s ~ $0.079/kWh delivered.
Suck it Cali.
n
Our home bill for May was $195.14 with 2,180 kwh for 0.090 $/kwh plus the $10/month for http://www.energyogre.com . We just got a new contract in May, the rates post-freeze are higher. This is for our 3,300 ft2 one story in Fort Bend County with two a/c units that we keep at 71 F to 72 F.
2300 ft2 with 50 year old leaky single pane aluminum windows…. very little insulation, and no air sealing.
n
IIRC your wife drives a little car that goes very fast. By her own logic, she needs to trade that in on a 4-cyl minivan or perhaps a Kia Forte.
Apparently I am too old and might injure myself.
IIRC your wife drives a little car that goes very fast. By her own logic, she needs to trade that in on a 4-cyl minivan or perhaps a Kia Forte.
Nope, the 2005 Honda Civic EX SE bright red coupe 5 speed rice rod is sitting in the garage and has not been started in a year. The inspection sticker has been expired for six months. She does miss hitting 7,000 rpm in the first three gears.
I bought her a 2019 Toyota Highlander V6 on Dec 30, 2019. I took some body blows at the time but now I am acknowledged as looking out for her best interests. Her crippled right arm cannot shift anymore (they cut the arm and chest muscles in the 2005 mastectomy) and the left knee issue (the clutch leg) last week sealed its fate. It will be going on http://www.autotrader.com for $5,000 (special edition with spoilers !) when I get the taxes done.
Does anyone have an opinion on the Tesla Solar Roof or Solar Panels? When combined with the automatic control panel and the PowerWall, it looks like exactly what I was looking for. The Roof is on the pricey side (over $100k) but should come close to completely supplying our electrical needs. The Panels option apparently wouldn’t completely fill our needs in case of a power outage but is a better bang for the buck. Last Autumn, I looked for a rooftop panel+battery+control panel option and came up dry, for what it’s worth.
I don’t care about “making money” by selling excess to the power company. I’m interested mainly in independence from grid problems, whether caused by weather or by politics. Secondary concerns are finding a place to stash excess cash which is better than bank or “safe” investments which can be inflated away, and possibly increasing the value of the house if we decide to sell.
Does anyone have an opinion on the Tesla Solar Roof or Solar Panels? When combined with the automatic control panel and the PowerWall, it looks like exactly what I was looking for. The Roof is on the pricey side (over $100k) but should come close to completely supplying our electrical needs. The Panels option apparently wouldn’t completely fill our needs in case of a power outage but is a better bang for the buck. Last Autumn, I looked for a rooftop panel+battery+control panel option and came up dry, for what it’s worth.
I don’t care about “making money” by selling excess to the power company. I’m interested mainly in independence from grid problems, whether caused by weather or by politics. Secondary concerns are finding a place to stash excess cash which is better than bank or “safe” investments which can be inflated away, and possibly increasing the value of the house if we decide to sell.
If your goal is to disassociate yourself from grid problems, then I am not sure that they have a off grid mode. Most of those systems use the grid for frequency regulation and if the grid is down, so are they.
Oh. Bummer. I didn’t see anything about that on their page but wasn’t specifically looking for it and anyway their page didn’t have a whole lot of technical info; it was all sales stuff. Thanks for the tip.
“Judge tosses hospital workers’ vaccine requirement challenge”
https://www.chron.com/coronavirus/article/Virus-Outbreak-Hospital-Suspensions-16244872.php
“HOUSTON (AP) — A federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by employees of a Houston hospital system over its requirement that all of its staff be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Houston Methodist Hospital system suspended 178 employees without pay last week over their refusal to get vaccinated. Of them, 117 sued seeking to overturn the requirement and over their suspension and threatened termination.
In a scathing ruling Saturday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston deemed lead plaintiff Jennifer Bridges’ contention that the vaccines are “experimental and dangerous” to be false and otherwise irrelevant. He also found that her likening the vaccination requirement to the Nazis’ forced medical experimentation on concentration camp captives during the Holocaust to be “reprehensible.”
Hughes also ruled that making vaccinations a condition of employment was not coercion, as Bridges contended.
“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” Hughes concluded.”
Not surprised. The judge would not buck the federal bureaucracy (the CDC).
The battery systems usually will operate in grid down mode, it’s the grid “storage” systems that don’t.
Never even looked at the tesla options though, only trad solar. Didn’t Mr Cowboy Slim run the numbers? Someone here did…
n
One of my neighbors has a new Harley-Davidson Street Bob with a 114 in3 engine. I love the look and I love the sound. I told the wife that I might just go buy one. She told me that I cannot even go test ride. Apparently I am too old and might injure myself.
On our nightly walk the other evening, we saw someone with a new Slingshot. That might work as a compromise.
The first Slingshot I ever saw had Montana plates … in the parking lot of the lights display in Marble Falls … in December.
I can’t decide if it was insanity or genius. The gas mileage must have been tremendous on the ride down.
Just finished a game of “Ticket to Ride” with wife and 10yo… 10yo won, me second, wife took a gamble and lost bigly…
I really like Ticket to ride, there are at least three strategies for winning, and they depend on what cards you get, which works best. There are some real tricks, and things play out slowly for a while, then it all comes together for a fast and exciting finish. Recommended.
n
re: Houston Methodist vaccine mandate lawsuit.
This was step one. It’s possible it won’t be resolved until it reaches the Supreme Court. Jennifer is a fighter.
Meanwhile, I applied for unemployment and we’ll see how my job hunt goes. Due to age discrimination, I suspect it won’t go well. There’s not a big demand for old IT guys.
There’s not a big demand for old IT guys.
–unfortunately that is something we’ve seen playing out here for the last few years. Lot of old IT guys hanging out. OFD (old f-ing Dave) finally changed careers, before fate caught up with him. He spent a couple of years chasing work.
A couple of the other guys here have had better luck, but it sure isn’t a cakewalk.
n
COBOL, my good fellow. And FORTRAN. Not glamorous but they pay the bills.
A bit over a decade ago I worked for a consulting company whose main business was maintaining COBOL programs for a number of clients. The average age of the workers was probably early 50s; that’s a guesstimate based on appearance and stray comments about “my 30-year-old son” and such. And the company was always looking for more COBOL programmers because there was more work than they could do.
Aside from all that, yah, the age discrimination is a real bitch. An illegal one, too, not that anyone’s willing to rule against the tech companies.
Now they’re all watching “
RevengeReturn of the Jedi.” Freaking muppet movie. Revenge was the leaked possible title, and I REALLY wanted to see that movie. Got dancing puppets instead.*mumble mumble* Lucas….
n
Someone certainly did. I think CS was one of them but I’m pretty sure there were several. Heck, I might have been one of them, as I remember commenting on the scammers who kept bothering us a couple years ago.
If you’re looking to make money by selling excess power to the power company, you’re a chump. You might make a small profit by the time the panels wear out. (Assuming you bought them on credit through the installer, which is the usual scam.)
House power if the grid is overstressed is my main concern. If NYS keeps the moronic government it has, which seems likely because the state legislative districts are pretty well rigged to strongly favor communists, the governor is elected by the NYC communists, and the bureaucrats are predominantly communists, I smell brownouts in the wind. There’s also the notoriously crappy Northeast Winters, with outages of minutes to weeks following a storm. (Minutes or hours for this house, as we have underground wires all the way from the substation.)
The flip side is, any rooftop solar solution is a big cash layout with a long payback period, and I plan to be out of here in just over four years. If I’m concerned only about blackouts, then a few thousand dollars for a cutoff switch, a decent generator, and fifty gallons of stabilized gas would be smarter.
Dunno. I’m kicking around ideas.
(Black humor alternative: my wife got the Chinese Crud shots, Moderna version. If the anti-establishment hysterics are right, she’ll be dead within two years and my incentives and timeline will completely change.)
Downvoted your comment because that movie was so wretched, you got tainted with it just by mentioning it.
No, wait, I just mentioned that wretched movie, so I have to downvote my own comment, if I can.
Yeah, but YOU mentioned ‘taint’.
n
BTW, even the DailyMail is using scare quotes around “committed suicide”…
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9682005/Police-retirements-soared-45-PERCENT-BLM-protests-erupted-George-Floyds-death.html
–Gee, if only we could have known…
n
–I remind people that what a terrorist does is seek to create conditions that are so bad the uncommitted populous will demand change in leadership.
One of my neighbors has a new Harley-Davidson Street Bob with a 114 in3 engine. I love the look and I love the sound. I told the wife that I might just go buy one. She told me that I cannot even go test ride. Apparently I am too old and might injure myself.
On our nightly walk the other evening, we saw someone with a new Slingshot. That might work as a compromise.
The first Slingshot I ever saw had Montana plates … in the parking lot of the lights display in Marble Falls … in December.
I can’t decide if it was insanity or genius. The gas mileage must have been tremendous on the ride down.
https://slingshot.polaris.com/en-us/
Nah, not as much fun. That Harley is a lean machine.
re: Houston Methodist vaccine mandate lawsuit.
This was step one. It’s possible it won’t be resolved until it reaches the Supreme Court. Jennifer is a fighter.
Meanwhile, I applied for unemployment and we’ll see how my job hunt goes. Due to age discrimination, I suspect it won’t go well. There’s not a big demand for old IT guys.
You were terminated for violation of policy by the hospital?
TWC will most likely deny the claim and then you will have to file an appeal to get a hearing to receive unemployment. I’ve been waiting for the hearing over my termination to be scheduled for eight months. At least TWC started answering their phones again — they weren’t picking up for a while earlier this Spring.
In the mean time, you still have to jump through all of the TWC hoops, filing the paperwork showing you were looking for work. Make sure the ‘i’s are dotted and the ‘t’s crossed. You want another job as soon as possible because the unemployment check may be a while if ever.
Keep careful notes, gather dates, and talk to the state/city EEO agencies if you think you’ve been discriminated against based on age in the recent past. The upside of termination with cause is that a very wide time window opens for consideration of incidents of unfair treatment which suggest discrimination against you as a member of a protected class under the law.
I don’t share everything here I’ve been up to with regard to dealing with legal possibilities over termination from my previous job, but lets say I’ve been busy.
“Got dancing puppets instead.”
Downvoted your comment because that movie was so wretched, you got tainted with it just by mentioning it.
No, wait, I just mentioned that wretched movie, so I have to downvote my own comment, if I can.
“Jedi” could have been much worse. Lucas offered the director’s chair to David Lynch, who turned it down to make “Dune” for Dino DeLaurentis … which ultimately bankrupted the studio.
Think of “Return of the Jedi” with “An Alan Smithee film” credit.
Yes, it could have been much worse.
Of course, no Patrick Stewart in “Dune”, it is very possible that there wouldn’t be Patrick Stewart in “Star Trek TNG” or as Professor Xavier in “X-Men” and “Logan”.
There’s not a big demand for old IT guys.
COBOL, my good fellow. And FORTRAN. Not glamorous but they pay the bills.
A bit over a decade ago I worked for a consulting company whose main business was maintaining COBOL programs for a number of clients. The average age of the workers was probably early 50s; that’s a guesstimate based on appearance and stray comments about “my 30-year-old son” and such. And the company was always looking for more COBOL programmers because there was more work than they could do.
I’ve been writing crappy Fortran code for 45 years. I wonder if I qualify.
Didn’t Mr Cowboy Slim run the numbers? Someone here did…
Someone certainly did. I think CS was one of them but I’m pretty sure there were several. Heck, I might have been one of them, as I remember commenting on the scammers who kept bothering us a couple years ago.
If you’re looking to make money by selling excess power to the power company, you’re a chump. You might make a small profit by the time the panels wear out. (Assuming you bought them on credit through the installer, which is the usual scam.)
The big problem is that the panels lose at least 20% of their efficacy in 20 years. Maybe a lot more. Got snow on them ? You gotta sweep them. Got dust / mud on them ? You gotta clean them. Have a tree land on them ? Hope your insurance company knows about them.
Today’s lithium batteries are freaking works of art. They are good for 4,000 to 5,000 charge cycles. Assuming one charge cycle per day, 4,500 cycles / 365 days/year= 12 years before you have to replace the batteries. If, they last that long. If, you don’t get hit by lightning. If, your house does not burn down (see insurance comment).
“Diablo II Resurrected” on September 23?!? I was really hoping they would make it in time for Father’s Day, but that didn’t happen.
https://venturebeat.com/2021/06/13/diablo-ii-resurrected-launches-on-september-23/
Speaking of fighting demonic forces bent on world domination, I have taxes to finish.
Someone certainly did. I think CS was one of them but I’m pretty sure there were several. Heck, I might have been one of them, as I remember commenting on the scammers who kept bothering us a couple years ago.
I’ve mentioned before that my Colonel Bat Guano neighbors in Florida sank almost $200k into their house in “green” improvements only to recover zilch when they were forced to sell, probably by the nervous military credit unions, during the down cycle after the last housing bubble bust about 10 years ago. I believe they are still paying on the second (third?), folded into the mortgage of their current house in Alabama if I understand the paperwork correctly.
What was the line from “Ghostbusters”? “Everyone has three mortgages nowadays.”
They didn’t do solar cells — not enough southern exposure — but they had the house electrical service rewired for the plug-in conversion Prius, replaced the AC systems, swapped out all of the windows, built a sun room, and converted their pool to salt water. There are probably other things which didn’t involve permits too.
“Diablo II Resurrected” on September 23?!? I was really hoping they would make it in time for Father’s Day, but that didn’t happen.
https://venturebeat.com/2021/06/13/diablo-ii-resurrected-launches-on-september-23/
Speaking of fighting demonic forces bent on world domination, I have taxes to finish.
Me too. I remembered another charitable deduction this morning in church.
And the wife asked me this afternoon if I wanted her 1099 for the Fidelity account that she inherited from her dad last year. Not the IRA, but the real money account. Arrrgggghhhh ! I’ve only been working on our taxes for a month. Stupid Fidelity Contrafund had a $1,000 in capital gains.
_Starplex_ by Robert J. Sawyer
https://www.amazon.com/Starplex-Robert-Sawyer/dp/0889954445/?tag=ttgnet-20
A standalone space opera book, no prequel or sequel that I know of. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback republished by Red Deer Press in 2010, originally serialized in 1996 in Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine and then published by Ace in novel form.
Wow, what a rich universe ! Stargates, space ships, many races in Milky Way, talking dolphins, oceans in space ships, and many other innovative ideas. I have no idea about quark stuff and dark matter stuff but it was certainly interesting.
The author has a website at:
https://sfwriter.com/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars (247 reviews)
I have enjoyed several Robert J. Sawyer books, although I’d have to go look to see which ones.
n
“Climate Woke G7 Agrees to Eliminate Coal Jobs”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/13/climate-woke-g7-agrees-to-eliminate-coal-jobs/
“Anyone listening in Pennsylvania?”
All Biden has done to date is eliminate jobs in the USA. Amazing, simply amazing.
“Handlers”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9682831/White-House-walks-Bidens-comment-holding-U-S-cyber-criminals-accountable.html
“Biden’s ‘handlers’ say he WASN’T agreeing to Putin’s proposal to extradite cyber criminal when he said ‘Yes, I’m open to it’ as his warm words are walked back”
–yup, that sounds EXACTLY like Biden is in charge. Not. But since that means we don’t really know who is, that isn’t the good thing it might seem.
n
Lynn, if you don’t get the HD, get a mountain bike. Oh wait, you don’t have any terrain to climb. Hmm. That’s going to be my next purchase. I looove anything with two wheels.
I have a 66 HD Sportster, and love it, but you would like something more modern. Talk about lean, mine weighs approximately 425 lb ready to go. It didn’t come with nor does it legally need (in CA, anyway) anything more than a headlight and taillight, and no battery since there is no electric starter. The electric foot came out a year later in that line. With manual timing, starting it is an art: easy if you know how and the gods are smiling, heart attack time if you don’t. We joke that there is no need for an ignition key. There actually ARE many bikes that are harder to start. The BSA 441 Victor comes to mind.
I have been mostly riding dirt bikes since arriving at the desert, since highway touring was never my thing. I never knew falling down could be so much fun. Old age is a state of mind. Doing fun things keeps us young.
I had to look up that Slingshot. Yecch. Reminds me of all the four wheel “off road machines” around here. Saw the darn things in half! AFAIK, all three wheel street legal vehicles without an enclosed body are classified as motorcycles, so they are the worst of both worlds. Don’t even like sidecars.
SteveF, I haven’t run the numbers on a PV solar system, mostly because I am not ready to take the plunge, and the numbers change all the time. Here, with some of the highest insolation in the country, the right kind of solar system is IMO a good alternative to a generator. That is probably what I plan to do. We used to have about ten outages a year, with most lasting less than ten seconds, so I wanted a whole house UPS. The power company did some changes that eliminated most of the small outages, so I might change my plans.
I know three people who live off grid, and it isn’t for the faint of heart. If you go solar, I strongly recommend you keep your electric utility account. Actually, in some jurisdictions, you might not be able to disconnect. An adequate grid isolated system can be breathtakingly expensive.
It is true that the most popular grid tied systems have to shut down when the grid goes down, but it is more complicated than frequency regulation. With the right equipment, you can have what you want. You will have to decide if it is economical for you.
My plan is to have a grid tied system that has a small battery and an inverter-charge controller that can run the system independent of the grid. It will probably have a fairly large area of solar panels, the part of the system that is getting cheaper. This might be what you want. My system might have a battery just large enough to get through the night and a cloudy day or two, with possible reduced capability. We are fortunate to have modest energy needs; our largest energy consumption is in winter, but seldom exceeds 1000 kWh per month. We have no natural gas. I will take some steps to reduce our winter needs.
One reason I want a grid tied system is that I think I want to add a heat pump for supplemental heat and occasional AC during unusual weather. This would be the largest starting surge load, and I might not use it if the grid is down. Think about load shedding in emergencies. It can dramatically lower the cost of the inverter you need.
There is a lot more, but you will need to research it. IMO, no one “saves money” with a PV solar system. The most common of these are fads. I can’t imagine spending $20-50k to save $100 a month. Problem is, where I live many people will be forced XXXX have strong economic incentives to “go solar.” I went solar in 1978, but it was solar space heat. Broke even in about five years with the incentives in place then.