because it’s all about ME!
Cool and probably raining all day. National forecast has us in the middle of a t-storm/rain zone. If we’re near the edge we usually don’t get it. I think the forecaster errs on the side of rain. No one is disappointed when it DOESN’T rain. We went from part sun to overcast yesterday and even got some misty drizzle in the late afternoon. At 4pm it felt like 8pm.
Spent the day getting little done. Some auction stuff in the morning, then there was some confusion about cookie booth times, double booking, and who had what child, when; so I ended up cancelling what I had planned and doing daddy duties. Spent a nice hour on the phone with my mom while I waited for child activities to end.
Today I’ve got some pickups, and weather permitting, getting stuff ready for dropping off at my auctioneer. Then it’s daddy daughter activity time. Short work day. Maybe I’ll do a bit better at chess this week.
So many things to do, I need to step up my game.
The list is long, and the time is short.
Get to stacking… and stop slacking. Get those projects done.
n
54F and 91%RH. chilly and damp. Guess we're not done with winter yet.
n
"Grand Theft Auto III" started the trend of extensive music licensing in video games.
If you find old copies of the PS2 games, the "radio stations" are fairly easy to extract from the discs to play using modern vehicle's MP3/flash drive systems.
I tell young'n's that the "GTA III: Vice City" stations are perfect Jacor/ClearChannel canned formats from the 90s which, in Tampa, involved people like Glenn Beck, voiceover king Brian James, and even Jimmy Kimmel.
That was my experience updating two machines to W11. Although the install on my newest desktop took less than 15 minutes from start of download to completion of the installation. The Surface laptop only took 30 minutes start to finish.
I have had no issues with W11 since the installation. Maybe I don't stress it enough or do enough strange things to cause bizarre behavior. I have not had a blue screen, system hangs, in the OS. A couple of applications, Quicken being one, got hung and had to be manually terminated. I blame that on Quicken.
I do run Start11 which is a cheap alternative to the W11 start menu. Pay once and it can be run on up to five machines without paying again. It works quite well.
Gold plated iPod Touch. Not even 5G capability.
Is the $1000 "I'm Rich" iOS app still available? Why put another device in a landfill in a few years when the battery no longer holds a charge and Sony is no longer updating the firmware.
Quicken's quality has gone downhill since the program went subscription only.
Downloading of transactions from my credit union hasn’t worked in a month.
The new win10 box has been doing something annoying since I stood it up. Every 5 minutes, when it's asleep, it wakes, spins the disk, and turns on the audio system. That results in an audible 'thump' when the subwoofer powers up. Then it goes right back to sleep.
WTF is it doing every five minutes? And why the heck do we still, after 20 years, have issues with sound in windows?
n
Sony has always been out there. I imagine that the gold plated Walkman is *not* Hecho en China but made in a highly automated factory in Japan.
The current state of the auto industry in the US is more of a sign of Peak Decadence to me, especially the Jesus trucks.
I posted here a few months ago that I believed that Ford had a new Fusion/Mondeo design around somewhere … just in case. I figured Europe, but the industry has gone off the deep end there too.
https://www.autoblog.com/2022/03/02/ford-mondeo-china-dealers/#slide-2377864
Congratulations on completing another lap of the sun, Nick!
Thanks to Koof mandates, the last two years have given us the dumbest kids in decades. I don't know which will turn out worse, Koof after effects or goobermint mandates.
The teachers wanted this school year off or, failing that, "working" from home while still collecting full pay.
All of the politics involved with that goal have made more of an impact on our local ISD than any mandate. Fortunately, the Superintendent had a lot of skeletons in his closet, but getting rid of him will also involve a steep political price.
The ISD's PAC lacked the usual student art in the lobby when we went to a meeting there the other night. I don't know if that has more to do with the pandemic or Apple "measuring for the drapes" this Spring.
The PAC backs up to the new Apple "Austin" campus, and I imagine that a deal for use of the facility was probably part of the package which put the construction within the ISD's taxing geography. Tim Cook really threaded the needle fine on that one, with City of Austin responsible for various road improvements but the campus carefully placed outside their taxation.
Do you sign in with a Microsoft account? That's probably the culprit for the frequent wakeups.
More confirmation bias confirmed…
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/rabobank-escalation-upon-escalation
–food. It's all about food.
n
Do you sign in with a Microsoft account?
— oh hells no. Never.
n
Happy Birthday, Nick! May God bless you amazingly in the coming year. 🙂
Our gasoline mileage questions might be answered by a change in mix.
https://www.chemservice.com/news/us-change-to-testing-gasoline-blends/
The EPA does lots of micro-managing. This article is from December, but it is the EPA backtracking on allowances/ requirements for the past two years(!)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/epa-proposes-lowering-past-blending-requirements-for-gasoline-rejecting-waivers/ar-AARzUve
Apparently there are lots and lots of mileage-affecting chemicals added during tweaking for different locations and weather.
https://www.bellperformance.com/blog/bid/49483/Fuel-Mileage-Dropping-Blame-The-Winter-Blend-Gasoline
Looking at the map at this link, our county is right on a border for a change from conventional (us) to one of the specialty mixes. Could be some tinkering going on.
http://www.wearethepractitioners.com/index.php/topics/art-analysis/petroleum-supply-chain/gasoline-bobs-cbob-and-rbob-and-carbob
–three things, one, the US is not the world and the world is not the US. Two, people EVERYWHERE are compromised by their online activity. Three, what governments get away with elsewhere should be considered as trial balloons, and test programs for what governments in the west would like to do.
Social media is not your friend. It's a tool to be used against you in every way, and any positives are quickly outweighed by negatives as soon as the attention of panopticon is turned on you, or someone in your online network.
And yes, as a blogger I get the irony of me saying that. I'll counter that while blogging is arguably a social and online activity it's not what is normally meant by "social media". That said, I am aware of my vulnerability.
n
This is me and I'm sure I've mentioned it on here before. I never seem to experience all these nightmares everyone else does with certain versions of Windows. I used Windows Me, no problem. I used Windows Vista, no problem. I did skip Windows 8 but not because I worried it would suck but because I only had a Mac during that timeframe. I'm not trying to invalidate everyone else's experiences, but I develop and game and I don't seem to recall raging about performance or stability on any version of Windows. I certainly have those I prefer the the look and feel of.
A friend has the same issue. The CU she uses acknowledges that the CU has a problem. Quicken probably changed something and the CU is scrambling to resolve. Although in this case it has been three months and the problem is still not solved.
I have no problems downloading transactions from credit card companies, CITI, Discover, etc. All seems to work. I refuse to download transactions from my CU as the last time I tried hundreds of duplicate transactions were downloaded.
I had a problem with the spending on the main view on the dashboard. Clicking on a category continued to show all the transactions for the last month. Clicking on a payee produced the same issue. Quicken support wanted me to go back to a backup file from several updates in the past. Uh, no, for two reasons. First is that I don't have the backups and second I am not going to lose two months worth of activity.
Quicken's support answer was there was something wrong in my file. I asked them what. They said they did not know and I would have to find the problem. Seriously? I don't even know their file format. I asked how am I supposed to find the problem and Quicken's response was that since the problem was in my file the problem was not their responsibility.
Odd that a couple of updates later and the spending drill down started working again. It was not a problem in my file but a problem in their software. Support was only dissing the issue to avoid trying to solve the issue. Clods.
Even Zimbabwe gets it.
n
@nick:
It used to be said, "No man is an island". I seem to remember that "sufficient unto himself" was appended to that, but I'm not sure.
Nowadays, I would generalise that to "No country is an island". The dependencies are many and deeply rooted. Not helped, of course, by manglement's race to the bottom, costs wise, and JIT policies not maintaining parts inventory. So we get bigger and bigger container ships plying the seaways between here (wherever "here" is) and e.g. China (other low labour cost countries are available) just to save pennies an item in manufacturing cost.
G.
500'd to death.
@MrAtoz:
I don't recollect more than a couple of 500 errors in my entire posting career here.
OK, I don’t post as often as some, but…
Added: Grr. I need a new keyboard for this Dell laptop. At least 4 keys don't register without extensive retries. Other than that, and the trackpad being unserviceable cuz I broke the flexible PCB connector when I replaced the BIOS battery, there's nothing wrong with it. Even though it runs Win7.
G.
Same here. I think it has happened with two or three posts. Mind, those posts never would enter, no matter what I did to them, but it was only those.
I compose from a laptop, either directly into the post box, or in notepad or Ibuntu's text editor.
Can't post anything with a link or quote.
They may not understand their own file format completely. The original developers are long gone, probably scared off by the Microsoft acquisition that almost happened … 20 years ago (?).
Private equity has been strip mining the Quicken IP for about five years. The product just changed hands again recently.
Try just posting something short and pure text with no links like "Pending…" and then editing it to be what you actually want to say. That may be a good way to bypass the 500s you're getting on initial posting.
I have, on and off, been using Quicken since 1994 starting with the DOS version. When MSMoney came out I started using MSMoney and liked that product much better than Quicken. I abandoned Quicken for a few years. When Microsoft decided to abandon MSMoney I went back to Quicken, this time with a Windows version.
For a couple of years I was a beta tester for Quicken. Got an award as the top beta tester for one year. I found a problem where they were using 16 bit numbers and caused overflow problems. It was a serious problem in investments showing incorrect amounts.
I used to only renew every couple of years. Their change to a subscription model I am not happy with at all. There are not enough changes to warrant the cost each year. Downloading quotes and transactions can be useful and that is lost if the product is not renewed. The software still works, data can be entered, but it must all be done manually.
Bill pay is lost if not renewed. Big deal. I use the bill pay at my CU where I can contact a human. The CU bill pay will also pay any late charges if they fail to deliver the check, or electronically pay, any bill by the due date, if the information was entered in time. If the check is scheduled to arrive on the 5th, fails to arrive, bill overdue by the 10th, the bill pay service will pay any late fees. Quicken will not pay late fees.
Yes, the product was up for sale and I guess was purchased by some entity. I don't know what this means for the future of the product. I really don't understand why Microsoft abandoned MSMoney. It was really a nice product and did not look dated like Quicken for Windows.
I used quicken for a long time without issues, but my wife used MSMoney. When she took over bill paying, she moved everything to money. Then when it went away, she had to move back to quicken. She fights the D/L issues fairly often. Paypal is horrible.
Invoicing is a pain.
But it's better than nothing.
n
Microsoft may have contemplated making another run at Quicken once the antitrust heat went away and David Boies got involved with another crusade. Microsoft didn't start selling off the Campus 2.0 real estate in Issaquah until the 2010s.
Stable products also tended to be a career dead end in Redmond before adults took charge and encouraged Ballmer the Monkey Boy to "spend more time with his family".
Paypal deposits seem to work slowly with the big bankster institutions.
Before I ditched Bank of America, a PayPal deposit took 3-4 days to clear the bank. US Bank was similar.
Both the credit union in WA and the one here in TX clear deposits the next day at the latest.
Did my annual "Unclaimed Property Negative Report" for the state of Texas. I tried telling them that I only have a dinky Etsy shop, but it still has to be done. On the plus side, it is easy enough to do and they send a lot of emails about it in February, and it can be submitted in February. On the down side, the report is due in June or July and they don't send emails about it then, so it is best to send it in Feb.
Well, that sucks. The water heater has started leaking. Not entirely unexpected but the timing is horrible. Fixing to leave Wednesday. Plumber is coming tomorrow to resolve. The overflow is leaking, maybe a new valve will resolve. I am willing to pay as I really hate doing plumbing. I suspect the most effective option is to replace the water heater as it 20 years old. Probably time for a new appliance. At least it did not fail while were gone. Probably looking at a little short of $1K to replace. I have no desire to go tankless.
@Ray,
One time I purchased hot water heater at Home Depot and they arranged delivery and installation.
Last time I called a plumber and he arranged all for about 35% more when done.
I'll do HD next time.
I’ve used TTax the last three years – they’ve gotten it wrong each year. They are currently spamming me daily with login reminders, desperately trying to get another year worth of fees for their cr*p return.
Nah.
The online version or the local install? I buy the local install version every year and haven't been spammed relentlessly. Now that I've said that, you know what's about to happen…
My son used the free online version to file his first tax return. I'll check with him and see if he's getting excessive spam from them.
Fellow Quicken users; I've been intermittently poking around trying to find another financial package that will do what Quicken does. I haven't found one.
If anybody DOES find something similar, I'd appreciate a shout; this new version sucks.
I have had mixed results with HD. Got them to replace a bay window. First time was the wrong window. Had to wait for another install day. Second window was too narrow by a couple of inches. Installers called their office and were told to make it fit. They added some extra wood on each side. I was not pleased but was not given another option. Found out they were from Nashville, not exactly local.
Son had problems with HD dishwasher install. Leaked. Then something else failed. HD replaced the washer two times and the install was still sloppy. Son went with a local company and has no issues.
Chap I called is local, has his own company. I have had good results using local people. One of the advantages of a small community is that shoddy work word of mouth spreads fast, good work almost as fast. I would rather keep the money local than HD getting some of the funds.
Of course I came close to getting scammed by a local company. Drain was stopped. They videoed the line and decided the drain line in the basement, under the cement, needed to be replaced. Several thousand dollars. I said thanks, I will get a second opinion. Second opinion was just a clogged pipe where the clog was easily extracted. About $100 dollars.
I know the water heater is old and shows signs of age. Twenty years is several years beyond the useful life. The pop-off valve is leaking. Maybe this guy will just replace that valve for now with a commitment to replace the entire water heater. It needs to be done now, or later.
I have looked and have found nothing. Mint comes close but is entirely web-based and is not as full featured as Quicken. Plus I think Quicken owns Mint. Also cloud based which I do not like for my personal finance. I want local storage where I know where the data is located.
MSMoney had a lot of promise. Good program, nice interface, everything worked. Why MS abandoned the product is unknown. I think with a little more effort MS could have unseated Quicken in the personal finance arena. But some dunderhead thought otherwise.
We had to replace our water heater a few weeks ago. I thought I lucked out with the overflow too. No such luck.
The plumber asked if I wanted to have the "conversation" about tankless. At $6000 installed for … Rinnai (?) … I opted go conventional.
The replacement job was less than two hours total.
@Greg, just an observation, noticed that your post at 08:07 didn't have your usual green avatar (vs. at 08:04 which did).
cc: @RickH
Only Gnucash, and that is a *lot* of work.
After Microsoft was prohibited from buying Quicken, they put a lot of effort into Money on Windows, putting Andrew Tobias out of the software game.
At the beginning of the 90s, the only other finance package I remember being popular enough to carry at the Egghead Discount Ponzi was MoneyMate, from some Friends of Xenu in Clearwater Florida.
The avatar is grabbed from the email address used in the comment. For that particular comment, Greg missed the 'n' of the '.net' part of his email address, so the avatar was different than usual.
Apparently, Greg doesn't like the 'remember me' checkbox on the comment form. That's OK.
I dump all cookies when I close Firefox. My Linux laptop sees a kernel update and reboot about once a week, and I rarely leave the browser open on my main desktop when I step away.
Got to see my neighbor's two week old baby boy and his two etherium crypto mining rigs today. He and his wife are 40 and this is their second child, the first is 15.
The etherium crypto mining rigs are fascinating. He has them in the garage with fans blowing on each. Each of the units is open cased with dual 750 watt power supplies and 12 GPU cards each. The motherboards are custom, everything is custom on them. He makes about a $1,000 per month after his $200 electricity bill.
Our gasoline mileage questions might be answered by a change in mix.
https://www.chemservice.com/news/us-change-to-testing-gasoline-blends/
The EPA does lots of micro-managing. This article is from December, but it is the EPA backtracking on allowances/ requirements for the past two years(!)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/epa-proposes-lowering-past-blending-requirements-for-gasoline-rejecting-waivers/ar-AARzUve
Apparently there are lots and lots of mileage-affecting chemicals added during tweaking for different locations and weather.
https://www.bellperformance.com/blog/bid/49483/Fuel-Mileage-Dropping-Blame-The-Winter-Blend-Gasoline
We need to get the EPA out of our lives, they are screwing things up big time. Huge changes for little effects, huge bureaucracies trying to justify their jobs. I am not saying dump everything, just stop the micromanagement. And then there are the carbon taxes coming in Jan 2023.
I had a problem with the spending on the main view on the dashboard. Clicking on a category continued to show all the transactions for the last month. Clicking on a payee produced the same issue. Quicken support wanted me to go back to a backup file from several updates in the past. Uh, no, for two reasons. First is that I don't have the backups and second I am not going to lose two months worth of activity.
Quicken's support answer was there was something wrong in my file. I asked them what. They said they did not know and I would have to find the problem. Seriously? I don't even know their file format. I asked how am I supposed to find the problem and Quicken's response was that since the problem was in my file the problem was not their responsibility.
Odd that a couple of updates later and the spending drill down started working again. It was not a problem in my file but a problem in their software. Support was only dissing the issue to avoid trying to solve the issue. Clods.
Welcome to software development in India and China. You ain't gonna like it. They send the smart ones over here.
Fellow Quicken users; I've been intermittently poking around trying to find another financial package that will do what Quicken does. I haven't found one.
If anybody DOES find something similar, I'd appreciate a shout; this new version sucks.
Peachtree by Sage. Don't do it. I have been using Peachtree since 1995 for my big business. It is more robust than Quicken since it uses double entry accounting but way harder to use.
I have looked and have found nothing. Mint comes close but is entirely web-based and is not as full featured as Quicken. Plus I think Quicken owns Mint. Also cloud based which I do not like for my personal finance. I want local storage where I know where the data is located.
MSMoney had a lot of promise. Good program, nice interface, everything worked. Why MS abandoned the product is unknown. I think with a little more effort MS could have unseated Quicken in the personal finance arena. But some dunderhead thought otherwise.
MS converted MS Money into a custom software groupware package that starts at several thousand per year. Plus the customization fees. Runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars very quickly.
The etherium crypto mining rigs are fascinating. He has them in the garage with fans blowing on each. Each of the units is open cased with dual 750 watt power supplies and 12 GPU cards each. The motherboards are custom, everything is custom on them. He makes about a $1,000 per month after his $200 electricity bill.
I suspect that he spent $10,000 on each crypto mining rig. All hand built stuff that he bought on the intertubes.
Hagar The Horrible: The Castle Trap
https://comicskingdom.com/hagar-the-horrible/2022-03-07
Oh yes, that should work perfectly. When they get sauced, the King's throat cutters will attend to them.
The individuals from the wealthier families end up over here, and that is a mixed bag in terms of programming ability.
Upper Class Twit of the Year is a universal concept.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1FfrnOXGHg
I met a few in grad school who I wouldn't even put in the "father uses him as a waste paper basket" category.
The rig ran all summer like that in the garage or is it brand new?
Pearls Before Swine: Tracking the Coronavirus
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/03/07
Yup. All the blue states. We red states have been running around free the entire time.
The rig ran all summer like that in the garage or is it brand new?
One of the rigs ran last summer. The other rig is new.
His open air case looks kinda like this
https://www.amazon.com/Mining-Support-Supply-Currency-Bitcoin/dp/B094H1Z8RB/
One of his motherboards is a Biostar
https://www.amazon.com/Biostar-TB360-BTC-PRO-2-0-Motherboard/dp/B0985LF8XT/
Gas at the pump jumped $0.30 in four days, to $4.499 for 87 octane with up to 10% ethanol at most stations. I passed one which was a bit cheaper and several with club or membership prices.
At least one NYS legislator is talking about suspending the state gas tax for the rest of the year. That would save about $0.17 per gallon at today's price, a trivial amount compared to the 102% bidenflation in the past year, and at the cost of adding another billion to the state debt. Normally I'm in favor of any measure which reduces the amount of money any government takes in, but the past several decades show that NYS government does not reduce spending when revenue is down, it simply plays the deficit spending game, which ends up costing more in the long run.
At least one NYS legislator is talking about suspending the state gas tax for the rest of the year. That would save about $0.17 per gallon at today's price, a trivial amount compared to the 102% bidenflation in the past year, and at the cost of adding another billion to the state debt. Normally I'm in favor of any measure which reduces the amount of money any government takes in, but the past several decades show that NYS government does not reduce spending when revenue is down, it simply plays the deficit spending game, which ends up costing more in the long run.
Our local natural utility, Centerpoint, bought $1.4 billion of natural gas on the spot market during winter storm Uri in Feb 2021. That is more than they spend in a normal year. The Texas Railroad Commision is having them bill us with interest over the next 30 years. So, we are going to pay for the natural gas three or four times. Because, we will never get a winter storm like Uri again. Idiots.
https://www.gainesvilleregister.com/news/texas-railroad-commission-approves-bonds-to-help-pay-for-uri-natural-gas-costs/article_b74c66c6-8e7a-11ec-910f-1fe0a1cfd2ab.html
He broke even on one rig and rolled the dice on another working out as well.
He broke even on one rig and rolled the dice on another working out as well.
23 of his GPU's are triple fan Geforce RTX 3060's.
https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-REV2-0-WINDFORCE-GV-N3060GAMING-OC-12GD/dp/B0971BG25M?tag=ttgnet-20/
His other GPU is monster card directly built for crypto mining with six fans on it and he has another 12 inch fan bolted to it using a wood screwchuck. He is having trouble keeping it cool but it does four or five times the amount of calculations that the Geforce GPU cards do.
"“It’s Going to End with Ukraine Prevailing” – Secretary of State Blinken Says NATO Countries Have the “Green Light” to Send Fighter Jets to Ukraine (VIDEO)"
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/going-end-ukraine-prevailing-secretary-state-blinken-says-nato-countries-green-light-send-fighter-jets-ukraine-video/
This guy is a moron. German fighter jets in Ukraine will have the Russian ICBMs flying.
Russians bring a whole new level to paranoia.
I thought that the deal was about Poland sending old MIGs to Ukraine while the US sent F16s to Poland. Even that is an iffy proposition because someone has to fly the planes.
The online version.
They are simple enough to do by hand, TBH. SS & IRA's. The failure seems to be in Obamacare (CoveredCA) calculations.
>> I have had mixed results with HD.
Son had problems with HD dishwasher install.
My son had issues with HD carpet installation. Workers don't want to hear complaints, say "Call HD." Problem is these are 3rd party independent contractors hired by HD with little supervision. As mentioned by others small, family-owned businesses are often our best option.
I just filled the tank today.
I skipped the exxon on the freeway, because it was $3.89. It was $3.10 two weeks ago.
Passed the Shell on the freeway, I 45 near the Woodlands because $4.10.
Ended up paying $3.69 a bit farther down the road.
It was about the same in Conroe proper, away from I 45.
120USD to fill the tank on the expy. 31gal.
F me.
n
Even what used to be the bottom feeder graphics card manufacturers are getting serious money for the product these days.
During the freeze last winter, the local MUD sent out emails giving the homeowners cr*p about external lights being on at night, my LED candelabra bulbs consuming a grand total of 40W. I wonder how many mining rigs are going 24/7 around here.
I'll be thinking real hard about driving as far for auction items now that gas is doubled.
That's a real economic impact.
n
Well, that sucks.
Hose to the master bathroom toilet fractured at the connection to the tank. An eight foot spray of water into the bedroom for 3 minutes can dump a lot of water. Carpet is soaked. Fortunately I have a carpet cleaner that was able to suck up several gallons of water. Clock on the dresser is destroyed as the dresser and a chest of drawers was soaked in the process. It was a metal reinforced hose but the weak link is the plastic fastener to the tank. Strange how things seem to fail at the weakest link.
I was able to catch it quickly as I heard running water. Went into the garage which is under the bedroom and there was water dripping into the garage, Not good. Ran upstairs and quickly found the source and closed off the valve. Still a lot of water everywhere in a short time.
Got a quote on a 50 gallon water heater including install. $1480.00 with a six year warranty. 50 gallon is the same price as 40 gallon. When the shirt(-r) hits the fan it tends to spread.
I suppose the bright side is that it all failed while we were home. We are leaving Wednesday for three weeks. Could have come home to a disaster and a massive insurance claim.
>> I know the water heater is old and shows signs of age. Twenty years is several years beyond the useful life. The pop-off valve is leaking. Maybe this guy will just replace that valve for now with a commitment to replace the entire water heater. It needs to be done now, or later.
@Ray, I'd vote for the peace of mind afforded by having the heater replaced before your trip, or at least shut off the cold water inlet pipe.
Got a quote on a 50 gallon water heater including install. $1480.00 with a six year warranty. 50 gallon is the same price as 40 gallon. When the shirt(-r) hits the fan it tends to spread.
Is that natural gas or electric ?
Do you have space for the 50 gallon ? I have a 50 gallon electric in my large office building. It is about 2.5 feet wide and 60 inches tall. You have to kinda slip around it since the pathway is only 4 feet wide.
I just filled the tank today.
I skipped the exxon on the freeway, because it was $3.89. It was $3.10 two weeks ago.
Passed the Shell on the freeway, I 45 near the Woodlands because $4.10.
Ended up paying $3.69 a bit farther down the road.
It was about the same in Conroe proper, away from I 45.
120USD to fill the tank on the expy. 31gal.
I just topped off the 38 gallon tank on the F-150 at $3.85/gallon. That is the CASH price. 13.0 gallons for $50.00.
The price increases are not finished yet. The guy cutting down a tree and mulching my beds for me today paid $4.69/gallon for diesel for his dually yesterday. He is not happy. He is charging more as of today.
Just wait until those prices hit the 18 wheelers and trains. The supply chain is getting more and more expensive.
Consider shutting off your water heater and main water valve when you leave on vacation.
I speak from experience.
I thought that the deal was about Poland sending old MIGs to Ukraine while the US sent F16s to Poland. Even that is an iffy proposition because someone has to fly the planes.
Today Poland, tomorrow Germany. And the Russians ain't too happy with the Poles either.
We are flying C-17s to the Polish border of Ukraine right now and dropping pallets of Stingers and Javelins. At some point the Russians will get tired of that.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/06/politics/mark-milley-ukraine-military-assistance/index.html
and
https://theweek.com/russo-ukrainian-war/1010979/the-us-has-moved-a-massive-amount-of-arms-into-ukraine-since-russias
Getting replaced tomorrow. Shutting off the water is not an option as the dog is staying at home and we have someone coming in to stay at the house, take care of the dog, pick up mail, etc.
Yes. It is in the garage. Height is not a problem, width we can move some stuff to make it fit. Will not obstruct anything.
Cannot for reasons stated above. Person staying in the house would like to have water.
We had a water leak before when were on vacation over Christmas. It got really cold here and a pipe near the garage door froze and split. When it warmed up water was running out from under the garage door. People we knew saw it, knew how to get in the house with the hidden key, and shut off the water. No damage as the water was in the garage.
No hot water tonight as I am leaving the supply line to the water heater close. Closing that valve is what caused the toilet line to burst. A sudden slam of water being stopped was too much for the hose. Steel reinforced but a cheap plastic fastener. Which split all the way around.
I think I got most of the water removed from the carpet. It has a rubber backing to keep fluids from the pad. Will know when we get back that I was unsuccessful if there is a moldy smell. Then it would be time for an insurance claim. I am keeping the split hose as evidence of what caused the problem.
I am trying to figure out if I can still do business in Russia. I have five Russian customers, all of whom pay me annually. The only general sanction that I can find is an executive order forbidding new investments in Ukraine which, makes zero sense to me. "Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect to Continued Russian Efforts To Undermine the Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity of Ukraine"
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/02/23/2022-04020/blocking-property-of-certain-persons-and-prohibiting-certain-transactions-with-respect-to-continued
"A Presidential Document by the Executive Office of the President on 02/23/2022"
Of course, the real question is, can my customers pay me if their bank has been sanctioned ?
Is an executive order, forbidding certain kinds of commerce with a specific nation, even legal? A law, properly made by Congress, probably would be, but the scope of EOs is the functioning of the Executive Branch, not the activities of the citizenry.
Of course, even if 9 out of 10 Constitutional experts agree that it's invalid, it'll cost more than you have to fight it out through the courts.
The same reasoning can be used as an argument FOR buying lottery tickets, even when you're in debt and that money is needed for food.
Bitcoin/Ethereum/Monero etc
I'm not recommending you use crypto coins to get around a legal prohibition.
Plus, prices are low right now. Hold on for a year and double your money.
Seems like the water sprayed longer than I thought. I am going to have to call the insurance company tomorrow. I think the flooring got soaked and is damaged. May be a several thousand dollar repair. New carpet and pad, carpet entire house, replace flooring and subfloor.
Seems like the water sprayed longer than I thought. I am going to have to call the insurance company tomorrow. I think the flooring got soaked and is damaged. May be a several thousand dollar repair. New carpet and pad, carpet entire house, replace flooring and subfloor.
The plastic fitting probably leaked for weeks before it gave way. Replacing the wooden flooring and subfloor sounds like overkill though. Just paint it with Killz when it is dry.
"Oil Traders Bet Prices Will Pass $200 a Barrel This Month"
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-traders-betting-prices-may-051731959.html
"(Bloomberg) — Traders piled into options that oil could surge even further after rising to the highest since 2008, with some even placing low-cost bets that futures surpass $200 before the end of March."
The USA is built on cheap energy. $200 crude oil is not cheap.
>> The same reasoning can be used as an argument FOR buying lottery tickets, even when you're in debt and that money is needed for food.
Like dude, you gotta be in it to win it.
Lotto winnings get recycled into the economy pretty quickly. Most big winners end up broke in fairly short order.
My only point is that society has an interest in identifying and supporting the high IQ kid wherever he pops up, and it's easier if they can reach their potential 'cuz they've had enough to eat and have access to education. I think that was Carnegie's idea with the libraries… esp. because it took effort on the part of the kid to benefit.
n
Peter over at BayouRenaissanceMan has a couple of good summary posts up. For some reason he is being far too conservative in his recommendations, but they are good 'roll up' posts.
For my part, I'm p!ssed that other obligations kept me from filling the vehicles and all my hurricane gas cans last week. I've got to find time this week, and it will still look prudent compared to two weeks from now, or gnu forbid, the start of the 'summer travel season.' BTW, how do you think that will go with $8/gal gas?
n
>> Plus, prices are low right now. Hold on for a year and double your money.
Or take it all to a casino and go to the roulette table and put it all on black.
Both are gambling at the end of the day.
Oh yeah, I didn't actually do any better at my chess game…
Child beat me quickly the first game when I forgot how pieces move, but I made her work for it the second game, when I had nothing but my king, and she had just a king, a respawned queen, and one pawn left.
The fun part of playing against her is that neither of us know any 'opening moves' or books full of strategy, so we're just working it out as we go.
Chasing each other around the board…
n
Happy Birthday Nick.
Hope you get lots of Dad Stuff.