Well, maybe it won’t be quite so hot, but it’s sure to be humid and wet, with some sun mixed in. Yesterday was a bit cooler here in the Bayou City, and I’m sure someone got rain. We got the threat of rain and some thunder, with a power blink, but never really got any significant precipitation. Tropical storm headed this way so the weather will be variable for the next couple of days. Of course, other than ‘hot’ our weather is variable anyway.
Did some small things yesterday. Sold a cable on ebay and shipped that. Had to go by the Post Office to drop it on the counter. Then later at night I got another offer on the same cables. Ebay’s algorithm for promoting listings is a cypher. No sales for a year, then two in one day. Strange.
Went by the Goodwill outlet, and picked up some vintage GI Joe. Nice large pieces (a jeep and trailer), some small clothes and accessories, and one actual Joe in poor shape. One of the accessories will pay for everything else. There were some great books, 50c each, for the apocalypse library and I couldn’t resist a church lady recipe book from Louisiana. One gallon of vintage doll house furniture will make D2 happy, and if not, it’ll go in the auction. Not a lot of people in the store. Felt really quiet.
Went to Home Depot to get some rat killer stuff. Not many people there either. Might have just been the time of day. Picked up some bug killer stuff too. Better to have it in the cabinet, than not be able to get it when I need it. One other thing I needed was a lightbulb for my yard light. When you run them 24/7 even LED lights fail in a few years. The new one is 300w equivalent and has a dusk to dawn sensor. It looks really bright in the dark. I think I’m going to go with a less bright one actually. The light looks really ugly and I like the house to be a bit more ‘artistically’ lit. It’s there for security, but it has to not draw attention to itself. Right now it screams “I’m a crazy bright white security light!”.
I would prefer to be well lit, well covered with cams, physically secure, but have people not see any of it and just think, that’s a pretty house. Grey man. Ideally my whole life will be set up like that.
Today I’m headed to my non-prepping hobby meeting. Time to spend some time with people and shared interests. It can’t all be about stacking ammo and freeze dried food.
But there’s nothing wrong with stacking either of those, and lots more too.
Stack it high.
nick
All veteran nursing home staff have by now either had COVID themselves, been vaccinated, or were exposed repeatedly without catching it. According to the article, 56% of them have had the vaccine, compared to 59% nationwide.
Pregnant women should not take it, and the vast majority of nursing home staff are women of childbearing age.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33882218/
My husband spent Sept through May in a nursing home. He caught COVID there in December and was cared for in-house without needing transfer to hospital. They used good protocols to first prevent illness and later to contain it. I do hope that COVID has taught people to stop going to work sick, but I don’t think forced vaccination is the way to go.
From everything I’ve seen, the immunity from infection is considerably higher and more lasting that that from the vaccines. Hendrick just reported that 16% of their hospitalized COVID pts were “fully vaccinated”. Breakthorugh rate may be much higher among those who don’t need hospital care.
We love those storms up here a bit farther north! I can’t complain, because we’ve had good rain most of the summer in Brown County, with only a 30 day stretch of no rain, but it will be nice if we’re among the 50% predicted to get some this weekend. Really, only the past two weeks have been “hot”. Prior to that, it has been the coolest summer I ever recall in Texas in 50 years. Even the hot has been mostly high 90s… none of the 110+ we were seeing as early as June or as late as September during the 2010-2015 drought.
Yeah, it’s been cooler this summer than most. At least by my “anecdotal” experiences.
Off to meeting….
n
Live Action Roleplay of Smurfs scenes before a baffled audience. With any luck Nick’s back isn’t hurting too badly because it’s not his turn to play Gargamel. He’ll have to squat way down to properly play Handy Smurf. Very awkward, especially once they break into the dance routine.
I do hope that COVID has taught people to stop going to work sick, but I don’t think forced vaccination is the way to go.
Heck no. People have learned nothing.
As I’ve posted here previously, all of my wife’s near misses with getting infected came from other *providers* knowingly arriving at work sick, claiming to be asymptomatic but popping the therms at 101 (reading is actually 102+) as soon as the light hit their foreheads.
Subcontinent. Two podiatrists and one GP. All three saw patients for at least half of a day before someone noticed, and most of the patients were elderly.
Diwali (sp?) season will be ugly this fall, especially in my part of Austin.
Rough night last night. I did some walking, through Costco and through the mall, along with the normal walking around the house. Paid the price last night as my leg was really sore. Thus making it difficult to get some sleep. Fortunately I still have a few Oxycodone pills left and broke down and took one so I could get some sleep.
Much rain is on the way over the next few days. So today I am going to mow the yard. The yard really needs mowing as it has not been done in two weeks. Should not be too difficult as most of it involves just sitting and moving the arms. I will have some weed trimming to accomplish and that involves some standing and movement, sloped surfaces, so I will have to be very careful.
Can you carry the weed whacker with you when you mow and maneuver the mower so that you can do the trimming while seated? Sort of like a store’s “mobility scooter” but with whirling blades of death rather than a basket.
It appears that viral loads ramp up just as fast in both vaccinated and unvaccinated, but then fall off rapidly in those that are vaccinated, such that the period of time where they are infectious is much shorter.
That’s still under study. I’ve seen small studies that point both ways. The key will be how long B-cells and T-cells are active in both vaccinated and recovered people. It is undoubtedly true that the severity of a breakthrough case is much, much lower in vaccinated people than unvaccinated.
@~jim, I wonder if you are still having trouble with your provider?
I am considering the locked vs unlocked issue. Have read quite a bit about it, and am leaning toward staying with a locked new phone from my long time carrier. I don’t want the kinds of trouble you had.
There’s more. I have been with AT&T for over ten years, and they have treated me OK. I probably will stay with them. From what I have been able to determine, they have the best coverage for our remote area, although this is mostly anecdotal evidence from friends. I have looked at the coverage maps for all the providers, and most claim good coverage here, in spite of some strong personal evidence to the contrary. So, I am wary. 5G could change that, although it is not here yet, and there is strong local opposition to it from the people who control the easements. They are fools, but that is another issue.
As for locked vs unlocked, whichever I do, I will probably not change carriers after choosing a phone, so that is not the issue. I have looked at the offerings from a couple providers, and I can get the phones (2) I want, and probably at a better price than if I buy them outside and unlocked. That surprised me, although price is not a big issue in the long run. Unlocked seems to favor buying an older phone at a steep discount, and I will not be doing that. I will almost certainly buy one of the latest phones, as that is what I have done in the past with good results.
Comments from anyone? Thanks.
No, unfortunately. It is a drainage ditch in which I have managed to get the mower stuck 4 or 5 times. The mower is a 46” ZTR commercial mower so it is large.
I did manage to get it all mowed and weed eaten. Managed to throw the blade belt. Idled down without turning off the blades. I guess belt wobbling at low speed threw the belt off the motor pulley. Being a commercial mower it was easy to resolve, just takes two people. One to push on the tensioner to release tension, the other at the back to put the belt back in the engine pulley.
Mowing was easy, weed eating was not. Probably the most worn out I have been in a long time from mowing. But I got it done.
If you are happy with your provider, then stay. Get the phone through the provider. Usually paid by a monthly credit on the bill. When the phone is completely paid off have your provider unlock the phone. The have to unlock by law, usually within 10 days.
AT&T’s service dropped out repeatedly over the past week or so but they haven’t deactivated my phone any more. They know they are having a problem because I keep getting text messages to the effect that “If you’re having trouble with our wonderful service turn your phone off for 10 minutes and restart.”
I’ve been using both AT&T and T-Mobile for the past two weeks and don’t see much difference in terms of speed. 3½-4 Mbs. 4G
Home from meeting, nice to see folks.
Thought there might be a mask or two, but nope.
@greg <----knows the name of more than one smurf! I call the comment "projection"! 🙂 n
Agreed. I’ve been on Verizon for years with no complaints. Our unlimited plan now includes free access to Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu and Discovery+.
I used to, but lately have been buying used Verizon locked Google Pixel phones off of Swappa and have had no problem connecting them via the Verizon website. I prefer the Google phones for two reasons, one, you get ‘pure’ Android without any of the phone manufacturer’s or Verizon’s add-on cr@p, and two, you tend to get patches and updates sooner. Of course, YMMV.
Your move Ron . . .
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2021/08/13/biden-administration-offers-financial-help-to-florida-school-leaders-defying-desantis-1390026
@Rick, very strange, this same exact post with … after Ron gives a 500 error while with . . . works fine.
@greg <—-knows the name of more than one smurf! I call the comment “projection”! n
I don’t know any Smurf names.
When I was a kid, on Saturday mornings, I watched the Warner Bros. block on CBS and, later, ABC, until noon-ish and then switched to the big independent in Tampa, WTOG 44, for”Rat Patrol (In Color)”, the “Creature Feature” double header, and then Muppets. If “Star Trek” wasn’t drawing the ire of the local Southern Baptist community that year, the show would be in the Saturday mix too. WTOG also had the second season of “Space 1999”, the one with Catherine Schell.
Alan, I have played with a couple of Pixel phones, and the pure Android experience is a plus. A bigger plus for me is the continued upgrades without carrier interference. I currently have a carrier phone, and AT&T stopped upgrading the OS. I considered unlocking it and rooting it, but some reading and a friend’s experience convinced me to not do that because the upgrades are more difficult. My wife always uses the same phone, and depends on solid performance, and I can’t take the chance.
The other reason is that I want one of the newest Samsung phones for several reasons, and getting them through the carrier so far seems the least painlful. Need to do more reading. Currently, I am considering the Note 20 or the S21, but the latest Z Fold 3 might be of interest. I read about the Z Fold 2, and concluded it was not yet ready for prime time. Will take a look at the v3. The idea of a small folding tablet is very attractive. If I don’t get that now, it will likely be in the future.
@Alan – yep, those 500 errors are strange, as explained previously. Not sure why the built-in (host -managed) server firewall gets mad about the CR/LF’s – but only sometimes.
Have a question about it on ServerFault forum, but no joy with the answer yet. The 500 errors are really hard to diagnose – and duplicate, because they are such a generic error (“something went wrong, not sure what, but here’s an unhelpful error for you”).
@JimB – I got a Samsung Galaxy A32-5G from T-Mobile, and happy with it’s features. Got the same model for SWMBO, which makes tech support easier.
Since I am an old fart, I switched to them from MetroPCS, and got their “Magenta” 55+ tw0-phone deal for $35/line/month. Unlimited data/text/streaming. Service here just opposite Mutiny Bay WA is acceptable. No landline phone, but I don’t get many phone calls.
If nothing else this could help sell more jammies . . .
These People Who Work From Home Have a Secret: They Have Two Jobs.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-people-who-work-from-home-have-a-secret-they-have-two-jobs-11628866529?mod=flipboard
I find that I burn much easier after passing the 50-year than I did when I was younger. I used to pluck stuff out of the oven with my bare hands and there’s no way I could do it now without burning myself.
And why are baked potatoes so damned hot? Inquiring minds want to know!
Your hands burn easier because for some reason the skin on your extremities thins over 50. Mine is almost translucent at 61. I can see every vein in my 80 year old mothers hands.
And cold baked potatoes suck. Hot is freaking awesome.
xkcd: Every Data Table
https://xkcd.com/2502/
True dat.
So much better than his xkcd 2500 that had totally massaged climate that does not even resemble reality.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2502:_Every_Data_Table
Your move Ron . . .
He hangs tough. This is where DeSantis wins or loses 2024.
Jeb! would have folded by now, but that’s why Jeb! lost to Trump.
DeSantis has reelection covered unless the Graham family forgives the Dems.
I think Nick was addled from wearing the dark Nightmare Moon costume under the hot Texas sun. I’m the one who mentioned Smurfs. And I didn’t know any smurf names other than Papa Smurf and Smurfette but found a list when I was unable to remember Gargamel’s name.
B.C.: Peter’s Airline
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2021/08/14
And that is a Dad joke.
And the first comment is awesome, “Carrion my wayward son.”.
We get the H&I channel (Heros and Icons) and they have both The Patrol and Combat! every night. Also 12 O’Clock High among other classic reruns. Interesting to see the production differences between now and then.
@Rick, as always, really appreciate your valuable time to keep this place running smoothly. Just wanted to point this example out since, at least for me, the error is consistently repeatable.
So my wife likes her Bush’s Baked Beans (we’re partial to the maple and cured bacon variety) served cold. Is this a thing? I’d never seen it before.
RickH, thanks, but no TMobile coverage here. At least according to visitors, but that info is old. I am going to update it by asking people I know. I was at a TMobile store out of town a couple years ago. I asked the agent to check coverage, and he was surprised to find no service here. I showed him their coverage map on my phone, and he said I should always check with a store instead.
Further back, I really liked some of TMobile’s features, such as the ability to talk over Wi-fi.
We really are isolated.
We get the H&I channel (Heros and Icons) and they have both The Patrol and Combat! every night. Also 12 O’Clock High among other classic reruns. Interesting to see the production differences between now and then.
Get it right. The name of the show is “The Rat Patrol (In Color)”.
Even the pilot was filmed in color, a big deal in the mid-60s.
“Black Sheep Squadron” runs on H&I after being out of syndication for years. Much like “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”, many of the assembled actors and crew influenced TV and movies for decades after the show ended its brief run.
2501 was good too: Average Familiarity
So my wife likes her Bush’s Baked Beans (we’re partial to the maple and cured bacon variety) served cold. Is this a thing? I’d never seen it before.
It is where I came from. My wife often serves certain varieties cold, and I do like it that way. Others, not so much. Fortunately, we have similar tastes.
When my hillbilly cousins were kids, they liked Campbell’s Pork and Beans cold. Not me. Don’t even like ’em hot.
BTW, I spent my early years in SE Michigan. We thought hillbilly was a term for someone from rural Michigan. Of course, it originally referred to the Appalachians, but later to the greater Midwest including even KY, TN, and farther. We never thought it was derogatory. My, my, how sensitivities have changed!
Second BTW, some of my favorite music would seem to be Appalachian or mountain, or bluegrass, but… some of it is of Scottish origin. I didn’t learn that until just a couple decades ago. Quite an evolution. We also had a small minority of French Canadians in MI. Great people, and great cuisine. Later learned their cuisine was more likely Cajun influenced. What a country! Hat tip to Yakov Smirnoff.
Yum. Yes, cold baked beans are delicious. Originally, it was the leftover ones homemade out of pork and beans, ketchup, and bacon baked on top for dinner, then the leftovers cold for supper that evening. Also, pork and bean salad. Good old Oklahoma food!
@paul – I solved my problems with building LineageOS 14.1 for the Moto G4 Play so the phone will be around for a while longer.
LineageOS 17.1 is available for the device, but the lousy GPS reception on the hardware means that the location service really needs accurate time from a reference source online, and Android’s API for setting time changed such that my favorite NTP client app can’t handle the task.
I’ve heard that the Appalachian patois is as close to Elizabethan English as you can get. I used to live in Southern Ohio, so the next time I read the Faerie Queene out loud I’ll try to remember that. 🙂
When the cats are plopped around like discarded fluffy house shoes and /panting/, well, that’s pretty warm.
Penny wants out. Does a u-turn and right back in. Never clears the scrap rug door mat. Spoiled by a/c.
greater Midwest including even KY, TN,
Um, KY and TN are not the ‘Midwest’! NO SIR. “Mid South” is how they’re usually referred to by corporate marketing teams….
Back from errands and some thrifting. Yeah, but Goodwill had a bunch of books that I’ve wanted including most of the Travis Scott, and stuff for the kids. I just got books at the actual store. Someone dumped a bunch of Travis Scott, some Eric Flint, David Drake, and even a Larry Correia and a Jonathan Maberry. I’m looking for the Twilight books in hard back for daughter 1. Got several. Like Sue Grafton and David Bellawhateverducci, there are almost always copies at the Goodwill but one is still eluding me. Got a pair of genuine Harlem Globetrotters uniform trunks at the outlet. They’re cool but not ‘valuable’, only $5-20. I got a letterman’s jacket from the Tuskegee Airmen Museum last time that actually might be worth some money. Weird stuff there.
n
Um, KY and TN are not the ‘Midwest’! NO SIR. “Mid South” is how they’re usually referred to by corporate marketing teams….
Sure, but tell that to the dwellers of the hollers just a few generations ago. I was mostly a city dweller, or maybe a suburb dweller, but I met a few of them, and will never forget. Some of the craggiest and most cagey folks I have met.
“Teardown! Inside PC Labs’ IBM PC Model 5150”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/teardown-inside-pc-labs-ibm-pc-model-5150
“This classic, historic PC has been looking down on PCMag’s PC Labs for longer than anyone on our team can remember. For its big 40, we cleaned it up…and tore it down.”
Wow, it has been 40 years since the original IBM PC. I was working at a power plant in west Texas when two of them showed up for us in 1983. My immediate thought when I saw it was that the world has changed. However, the PC did not take the load off the mainframes until the 80386 with the 32 bit extensions on the operating systems showed up: Windows 3.11, DOS DPMI, Windows NT 3.1, Windows 95, and FreeBSD i386.
Now the operating systems are 64 bit and desktop apps are moving that direction. Unreal.
“The Guardian Accuses the Biden Administration of Climate Denial”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/08/14/the-guardian-accuses-the-biden-admin-of-climate-denial/
“The Biden Administration’s appeal for OPEC to pump more oil to keep gasoline affordable has drawn rare criticism from The Guardian.
Are you in denial? Because it’s not just anti-vaxxers and climate sceptics”
OK, that is funny. The leftists / liberals are just as crazy as the conservatives / RINOs.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9892629/Florida-man-arrested-posting-dozens-threats-against-Walt-Disney-World-Twitter.html
I guess there are a lot of targets in Central Florida…
n
“Norton and Avast are merging into an $8 billion antivirus empire”
https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/11/22619667/nortonlifelock-avast-merger-deal-anti-virus-cyber-security-software
“NortonLifeLock and Avast are merging in a deal worth more than $8 billion. The deal will see NortonLifelock acquire all of Avast’s shares, and create a much larger cyber security firm. “With this combination, we can strengthen our cyber safety platform and make it available to more than 500 million users,” says Vincent Pilette, NortonLifeLock CEO. “We will also have the ability to further accelerate innovation to transform cyber safety.”
The combination should lead to antivirus products that include the benefits of Avast’s focus on privacy and NortonLifeLock’s experience in identity, all at a time when cyber security is critical for both consumers and businesses.
Ransomware is on the rise, with new high profile cases occurring on what feels like a weekly basis. Gigabyte was hit by a ransomware attack earlier this week, and a large ransomware attack affected customers of Kaseya’s remote IT management software last month. ”
Uh, I am not a big fan of this.
FOMO
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/hell-came-millennials-lost-millions-bill-ackmans-spac-implosion
–FOMO, lack of diversification, complicated trades, cult of personality… so much fail.
n
Lots of thunder and lightning, but it’s still 83F. Wind is picking up.
We went out for mexican food tonight. Food was good, service was really bad. Local place we’ve been happy with before. Sat. night and only 3 or 4 tables, and a few people in the bar.
n
“Amazon will pay you $10 for your palm prints. Should you be worried?”
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/privacy-2/2021/08/amazon-will-pay-you-10-for-your-palm-prints-should-you-be-worried/
Not worried, just don’t do it.
FOMO
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/hell-came-millennials-lost-millions-bill-ackmans-spac-implosion
“That video literally single-handedly caused the stock to rise 10 percent,” the investor told II. “It was like, okay, this is coming very soon. If you don’t get in now, you’re going to miss it.”
–FOMO, lack of diversification, complicated trades, cult of personality… so much fail.
n
Lots of businesses are looking for angels right now. At the right price, just about any one would take one right now.
WCA apparently got bought by GFL. Our HOA contracts with WCA to pick up our trash and recycle. The turkeys did not pick up our recycle on Thursday, promised to get it today (Saturday) and skipped that. I suspect that they may show up on the 19th. Maybe.
https://gflenv.com/welcome-wca-waste/
I guess there are a lot of targets in Central Florida…
The parks have a lot of ex-military and ex-spook types running security.
That can be good and bad. Some of those guys don’t have an “off” switch.
https://www.fox13news.com/news/former-officers-theater-shooting-trial-now-set-for-february-2022
Busch Gardens security, but Tampa Faux News is going to keep that part of his past quiet.
Seven years?!?
I’m going to try for early to bed, and early to rise. I’d prefer to sleep in, but Monday is school, and that means VERY early up and moving… I thought I had more time to re-acclimate.
n
Our July was miserably cold and wet. And this was true throughout most of Europe. So I had to laugh (or cry) when NOAA published a report that July in Europe was the second hottest or record. I mean, if you’re going to fudge your data, it has to be at least marginally believable.