The rest of us can probably not worry much.
Cool and wet in Houston. Last I heard from up north a storm was rolling in at the lake… but because of the complete lack of comms there, I’ll find out when I get back up there later today.
Regarding Barbara… I put up a post on her site and did an update comment late yesterday. Long story short, her knee got infected (some MRSA variant) the knee replacement implant was removed, and she’s at a facility where they are both managing the infection and doing PT to get her strong enough to return home. She is doing ok, better than the last time this happened, almost exactly 2 years ago. She expects to be at home in a couple of weeks, and will probably not post until then. If I have any news I’ll post here and at her site.
Regarding my adventures in BOL land… no comms. My older cell booster couldn’t see anything. The neighbor says his booster works ok, but only with verizon. I’ll try my newer booster, but even if it works, someone in the family will be getting a verizon phone plan. The neighbor is amenable to sharing his starlink service if it ever arrives, so that should ease things a great deal.
My wife spent the day painting out 70s plywood paneling. I was messing with the antenna and booster most of the afternoon. We got a late start, and wanted to take the first full day there a bit easy. Kids were inflating stand up paddle boards, and kayaks. Maybe we’ll get out on the lake today, if the weather opens up. It was cool in the morning but got uncomfortable in the sun by afternoon.
I came home to reload the trailer and make a second run. I also brought a bunch of scrap home to dispose of here. No trash service up there. I spent the evening loading up, and will load a bunch more stuff before leaving this morning. I’ll unload and head back to Houston in the afternoon. I have to return the trailer before 6pm. I will probably spend tonight in Houston like last night, and head back up Wednesday morning. I’ll load some more in the pickup, if it’s not raining.
It’s very unnerving to be completely without news up at the BOL. No AM radio during the day, only a few FM stations, mostly church stations, and a country station. No news breaks that I heard all morning. I’m taking a shortwave with me today. Funny if that works better than local. I can also take my XM radio. I will be putting up a tower at some point, for TV, cell, and ham radio. We don’t have to watch or listen, but that’s a bit different than not being able to. At some point I might try my DirecTV “camping” system. It’s a dish on a ground supported tripod with 50ft of cable. I’ve got plenty of DirecTV gear, but no active subscription. It didn’t occur to me yesterday morning to try the XM in the car. In any case, the world survived another day. Gnu willing that will continue.
Busy days, lots of driving, and WWIII rumbling in the distance… interesting times.
Stack something new today.
n
The tech isn’t the problem as much as the inability to control the infections.
Infection control in the hospitals was already bad when the lockdowns shuttered portions of the buildings related to "elective" care and the mops stopped moving, allowing the nasties to breed in the corners.
I use quotes because I've heard of some crazy situations where the "elective" label was applied during the pandemic, including, in the case of one friend's mother, at the big hospital in Vantucky, a kidney transplant. Continued dialysis was deemed more appropriate.
My best wishes for Barbara. I count my blessings that my joints seem OK at 66.
No, just no:
‘Congrats feminists’: Admiral Rachel Levine named to USA Today’s list of ‘Women of the Year’
Another glass ceiling for women, broken by a man.
I've never seen where Admiral Levine received her "confirmation" surgery … if she ever did undergo the procedure.
Thailand is usually a huge red flag for a psych problem that the US programs won't touch.
Of course, the adoption of the uniform in this case speaks volumes about the mental stability of the specific patient in question.
Men are better than women at everything, including being a woman.
Yah, that's one hell of a message to be putting out there. Great job of inspiring the girls, geniuses.
Visit with wife's friend is not going well. She fell and broke both wrists. She has been in the E/R since about 5:00 PM yesterday. Scheduled for surgery on both wrists at 12:30 today. She will then be sent to a recovery center as both hands will have severely limited ability for a couple of weeks. We are staying in her home which is much appreciated. Wife will go to the hospital this afternoon to spend time with her friend.
Big bru-ha-ha in the family over the last couple of days. My BIL (wife's brother) was at his son's house in Orange to help him replace some side. The son's wife started complaining about BIL's wife and the BIL wife overheard. The words were not kind. Something about the BIL's wife not being excited about the son's wife pregnancy. BIL's wife opened the door to the bedroom and confronted son's wife. Son's wife told BIL's wife to get out of her house immediately. So they packed up and left.
We are scheduled to visit the BIL and his wife for a day on Thursday. I am not looking forward to that visit as the BIL's wife will unload on us. I don't want to get involved in that crap nor do I want to take any sides. It is their issue, not mine.
So I may use the excuse of the wife's friend being injured as an excuse to stay another couple of days and just skip the BIL entirely. We were with them at the BIL's house in Orange TX for several hours. That is enough.
@ray, I feel for you. My wife and I love our families, but there are reasons we live 2000 miles away. It’s especially bad if it’s borrowed drama and borrowed family.
Up and moving around, feel ok today considering all the drive time and the time lifting and toting. Forgot a couple of things when I was at my secondary so I’ll have to stop there on my way out of town. Freaking lists. Only work if you use them.
I still have a big list of small stuff to gather here before heading out. I better get started.
n
Oh, rain all night but the front pushed it all out and it’s currently 57F with 69%RH and and sunny blue sky.
ISC500
When we left Conroe yesterday rain was supposed to start that afternoon. We had nothing but sun after getting past Katy. Clear blue skies in San Antonio yesterday and today.
The news of the family squabble spread faster than the Camel's legs at a political fund-raiser. Family is calling the wife and unloading on her, telling what they heard, asking what is happening. And in the process of the spreading the news much of what happened is being distorted, embellished, and half-truths.
I have told a couple of the family members that I don't want to get involved, it is not my issue, I refuse to discuss the issue, nor will I take sides on the issue. It is for the parties affected to resolve, not me, not my wife, nor anyone that was involved.
I am a pacifist and desire a peaceful resolution. If not, blow their heads off.
That sucks. This week should be beautiful in Central Texas even if it is a bit windy.
Yes, desktop GPUs are coming, but Chipzilla's projected volumes through the end of the year are a drop in the ocean compared to the demand from the Bitcoin mining dweebs.
Intel will limit availability to their OEM customers first.
Holy hell does that sound awful. 😧
"Beware the Ides of March!"
Julius Caesar died 2,066 years ago today. "Et tu, Bruté?"
P.S. I wonder if we can get the Russian Federal Assembly to stab Putin?
P.P.S. I just saw that this was Nick’s title for today and feel unoriginal and ashamed.
Wikipedia tells me they even had a commemorative coin: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March_coin
@chad, it's just great minds thinking alike!
and I'm off, back in houston later tonight.
n
Jenny, I enjoyed it also, let me know if you are coming back here.
It’s very unnerving to be completely without news up at the BOL. No AM radio during the day, only a few FM stations, mostly church stations, and a country station. No news breaks that I heard all morning. I’m taking a shortwave with me today. Funny if that works better than local. I can also take my XM radio. I will be putting up a tower at some point, for TV, cell, and ham radio. We don’t have to watch or listen, but that’s a bit different than not being able to. At some point I might try my DirecTV “camping” system. It’s a dish on a ground supported tripod with 50ft of cable. I’ve got plenty of DirecTV gear, but no active subscription. It didn’t occur to me yesterday morning to try the XM in the car. In any case, the world survived another day. Gnu willing that will continue.
The various news services over the last 40+ years have gotten us addicted to instant news from somewhere around the world 24×7. I have decided it is not healthy but I am addicted.
"Ken Hoffman's bright idea for why Daylight Saving Time should be permanent"
https://houston.culturemap.com/news/city-life/03-14-22-daylight-saving-time-good-or-bad-ken-hoffman/
"Daylight Saving Time is here and isn’t life just a little better when the weather’s warm and it stays light an hour later? There’s more time to have fun after dinner. Just wait an hour before swimming."
"And it’s Daylight “Saving” (singular) Time. Stop saying Daylight “Savings.” (Editor’s note: Don’t tell us how to live, Ken.)"
I agree. Stop moving the dadgum clock around all the time !
I was reading my local Orange County newspaper and saw the daily KungFlu data on page A5. What incredible liars those pro-vaxxers are as the massage the data into fraudulent results. For example, they daily chart shows the peak to be about two months ago. At the peak there are 3 times as many cases, percentage wise, of "Not fully vaccinated" as compared to "Fully vaccinated with booster".
https://enewspaper.ocregister.com/?utm_email=5463949F156794A2B40FC5790C&lctg=5463949F156794A2B40FC5790C&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Fenewspaper.ocregister.com%2F%3FselDate%3D20220315%26goTo%3DA001%26authid%3D%3C%3Cmaster%5CRegistrationId%3E%3E%26authdate%3D031522092013&utm_campaign=scng-ocr-e-edition&utm_content=e-edition&selDate=20220315&goTo=A001
"A Christian teacher was suspended for refusing to call students by the pronouns they use. Now she is suing."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-christian-teacher-was-suspended-for-refusing-to-call-students-by-the-pronouns-they-use-now-she-is-suing/ar-AAV5772
"Last spring, a math teacher at a middle school in Fort Riley, Kan., called a student “miss” to get the student’s attention at the end of class, court records state.
After class, another classmate emailed the teacher, Pamela Ricard, to let her know that the student now used he/him pronouns and a different first name.
But the next day, when Ricard used the student’s last name — avoiding the new name or any pronouns at all — the classmate grew frustrated, leaving a note on Ricard’s desk accusing the teacher of being “transphobic.”
The note ended with a remark on the classmate’s own gender identity: “my pronouns are he/they btw.”"
This will not end well as the students turn the classrooms into hellholes of progressiveness.
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
You can see a chart of daylight/night for your area here https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ , with the effects of DST shown.
In my area (WA), having a year-round DST would result in a sunrise time of 9:01 am on Jan 1st.
Year-round DST would not be good for northern-lattitude states. Even in Houston, the Jan 1st sunrise time would be 8:01am with full-time DST.
Of course, even worse up in Fairbanks, AK (Hi, Jenny!): full time DST Jan 1 sunrise at noon.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10616433/Senate-PASSES-bill-make-daylight-savings-time-permanent.html
Speaking of DST…
I had a nice lunch and chat with Mr. Ray and his wife, today. A very nice couple.
And I gotta post this word salad:
*HIC* Nancy Pelosi babbles about Putin, no-fly zones, and claims she’d like to ‘take out’ a bunch of tanks in freakin’ bizarre presser (watch)
World War III will be caused by nut roots like this. I don't know who is worse: the Dumbocrats or the Redumblicans. Please don't get us in a shooting war plugs. Putin is *not* a sponge-brained idiot like you. Ukraine is lucky Putin's ground forces are not well trained. He is not going home without getting dirty.
Indeed. Good to meet people and put faces with names.
Stopped at the Joint Services Randolph to browse the base exchange. Lot of stuff that only people pretending to be socialites would purchase. Costly purses and perfumes, high end name brand stuff. Reasonable variety of other stuff.
I was surprised the exchange sells Apple products. Stuff was the same price as in the Apple store or Apple online. The big difference is that there is no sales tax. MacBook Air for $999.00 is the final price. Had I known I would have delayed my purchase and bought at the exchange. Would have saved me almost $100.00.
No issues getting on base with my VA card. I guess it is fully in the system.
The I35 traffic heading north is horrible even at 3:00 in the afternoon. The intersection with Pat Booker Road, 1604 and I35 is horribly designed. Especially at night when the signs are not lit and the incline of the road is such that the headlights don't expose the signs. Missed a couple of critical turns last night due to the signs and had to travel a few miles out of my way.
Wife's friend is still in surgery. It was supposed to start at 12:30 and I don't know if the surgery was delayed. Or the repair was more serious than originally thought. Just got a message that the surgery is over. Wife is at the hospital for support. Friend has no family close by so the spousal unit is doing what she can to help.
The exchanges (BX as I call it) have stopped trying to compete with Walmart. So, they sell a scattering of stuff and try to keep some name brands in stock that you won't find at the closest Walmart or Target. Honestly, the stateside BXs are ghost towns compared to how I remember them back in the 1980s.
Gas on base is 10¢ cheaper than it is off base. Though, not as cheap as it is at Costco or Sam's Club.
I bought my last big flat screen TV on base. Well, actually, I bought it on ShopMyExchange.com and picked it up on base. They had the exact model I wanted for the same price the other major retailers were selling it and, as you noted, no sales tax.
I got mine setup a couple of years ago when it first became an option. There's a bowling alley on the local base and the eatery inside of it is famous for its spaghetti which they only offer on Wednesdays. My brother isn't a veteran, but is the FedEx driver for the base, so I periodically meet him on base for spaghetti. lol Outside of that, it's the base I grew up near (dad was also USAF) so I like to drive a lap through occasionally for a walk down memory lane.
Either have standard time year around, or have a single North American Time Zone for the whole country.
If you'd rather have lots of sunshine in the afternoon, go to "Summer Working Hours"; go to work at 6 AM, go home at 2PM. And each business can have their OWN schedule of working hours.
West Coast businesses, in the North American Time Zone, might start work at 12:00 and close at 20:00, if the NAZone is on UTC-6, for example.
@RickH
Of course, even worse up in Fairbanks, AK (Hi, Jenny!): full time DST Jan 1 sunrise at noon.
Most folks I know up here yearn for an end to changing our clocks twice a year. We gain and lose daylight rapidly as we approach either solstice. At the extremes in Anchorage we have either only a few hours of daylight or a few hours of twilight. Time change doesn’t help us in a meaningful fashion for more than a couple weeks.
Certainly not worth the hassle.
>> (from yesterday) Culling one set of numbers from it all is certainly something, but the first word that comes to mind is not "useful".
Will all interested parties ever agree on a set of numbers/relevant statistics re the Crud? Highly unlikely, and sooner or later something else will come along and we will move on from these disagreements and leave it to the history book authors. And again it may be something we didn't expect, say like Tom Brady unretiring…
Little Marco has been working on permanent DST for Florida.
Having spent a vacation in Norway, north of Oslo, in December and June, it is interesting with the daylight hours. And you know what? People adjust to the short winter daylight hours and the long summer daylight hours.
In Oregon it was not uncommon to work outside until after 9:00 PM having gotten up at 5:30 AM. Winter with short daylight hours was just an adjustment when things got done. And use FLASHLIGHTS. Although the crappy lights we had then wouldn't hold a candle to the modern LED FLASHLIGHTS. Wish I would have had some of those lights working on the farm, especially the LED headlamps.
The change in hours is an unnecessary inconvenience. Changing clocks. Work hours adjusted for hourly workers. Software that has to accommodate the time change. All a lot malarky for trivial gains. The sleep disruption and adjustment is the worst. If I wanted jet lag I would get on a plane.
If you want a real software development challenge, write a time library offering accurate duration calculations going back to the 1/1/1970 00:00:00 epoch. And make sure you accomodate the Lotus 1-2-3 bug for -1.
The SGI time library was not thread safe and, for a while, exposed a hole that allowed user space apps to hard crash the system. We had to rewrite a big chunk of the library in the late 90s at GTE to satisfy our carrier customers who ran our cell phone fraud prevention AI.
SGI/Irix was a Hot Skillz. The hardware was decent, but the OS was garbage, the opposite of Sun. Of course, the C suites who saw Jurassic Park all wanted SGI hardware in the server room.
Fireworks displays for 4th of July on the Oregon coast never started before 10:30 PM when we lived out there.
Even 10 PM would still see a bit of light remaining close to the solstice.
We did that while in the USAF in 1974. Accounted for all the leap years and time changes. Real pain dealing with the time. There was no accommodation for the change in the start and end of DST that was done several years ago. Leap seconds were also not imagined and thus not included. Only we were required to go back to 1/1/1900. I have no idea about the Lotus bug as PCs and spreadsheets were not invented or imagined. As far as I know the code ceased being used about 1994.
@greg:
Tom Scott has a good video on this, here.
G.
Wife's friend will stay in the hospital for three days. Since she has to go to a recovery center the rules by Medicare are that a hospital stay of three days is required. Even if the patient is mobile.
The surgery took three hours, 1.5 hours for each wrist. Rod, plate and screws, which will remain in the wrist and never be removed.
We were supposed to leave tomorrow but will stay another night. Spousal unit is gathering clothes and other supplies needed by the friend before she is transferred to a recovery center.
I will spend the day watching a movie or two on my MacBook. And probably a nap. Yeh, a nap, definitely.
Wife's friend will stay in the hospital for three days. Since she has to go to a recovery center the rules by Medicare are that a hospital stay of three days is required. Even if the patient is mobile.
The surgery took three hours, 1.5 hours for each wrist. Rod, plate and screws, which will remain in the wrist and never be removed.
We were supposed to leave tomorrow but will stay another night. Spousal unit is gathering clothes and other supplies needed by the friend before she is transferred to a recovery center.
I will spend the day watching a movie or two on my MacBook. And probably a nap. Yeh, a nap, definitely.
It is nice that y'all can help her.
Is a “recovery center” rehab ?
Partially. The real purpose in this case is because the friend's hands are basically useless with limited mobility. Think about wiping your ass with a rigid wrist, fingers only exposed to the second joint, wrist swollen and painful, cast up to the elbow. Not easy, nah, almost impossible. Feeding, bathing, etc. will require assistance. I am fairly certain there will be rehab to get the wrist and fingers mobile again.
It has thrown a wrench in our trip plans. Lots of shuffling schedules. One stop we wanted to make is now out of bounds due to other scheduling conflicts. This will require another night in a hotel that was unplanned. Oh well, it's only money.
I am having to take my CPAP machine with me as the machine reports back to a server somewhere via the cell network. I have to return to the sleep center in 45 days after receiving the new machine to verify compliance. If I am not compliant, as in using the machine, Medicare will not pay. That is a hassle and more stuff that has to be packed. Including the gallon of distilled water required for the humidifier.
Well, made my round trip and got back in time to drop off the rented trailer. Chatted a bit with the guy who owns the franchise. Interesting guy.
I even went by the Goodwill for about 20 minutes. Wife gave me an assignment- dish drying rack, wastebaskets, serving spoons, fridge thermometer, and some other stuff. I got all that, passed on a silverware drawer organizer, and got a couple of nice pictures and a rowboat decor item.
Had leftover birthday steak for dinner, with leftover birthday cake (german chocolate, one of my favs).
Need to process some of the stuff I bought at the grocery Saturday. I just dumped most into the freezer in original packaging, but forgot the hamburger. I'll repack that in 1 1/3 pound blocks. Then off to the land of Nod.
Lots of driving today. Tired. Goofy.
n
>> It’s very unnerving to be completely without news up at the BOL.
A little bit pricy, but hey, it's 700kbps down.
>> It’s very unnerving to be completely without news up at the BOL.
A little bit pricy, but hey, it's 700kbps down.
Hughes Satellite is about 20% of that cost. My buddy in Smithville, Texas has had this for about 15 years.
https://www.hughesnet.com/
Starlink is going to be such a revolution to rural internet if they ever get it to working and you can buy it at more than a couple of hundred antennas per county.
Trying is essential.
Posted this elsewhere. Something that differentiates me from other humans is I’m willing to try. Willing to fail. I like learning. It brings me a deep satisfaction and joy.
—
I have an inexpensive Ibanez Talman acoustic guitar, with the electric bits to plug it into an amplifier. I like it very much. It’s a beater, and I can haul it around without angst or the stress I feel for my beloved Seagull.
However, the action on the Talman is a bit high. My wimpy left hand doesn’t like that extra millimeter pushing down a fat E string.
So.
I YouTube’d the heck out of ‘action’ and ‘neck relief’ and ‘truss rod’. I picked up a couple inexpensive tools.
I strung the Talman with light gauge Ernie Ball strings (silk wrapped oooh fancy!). I tuned it. I capo’d at the first fret, held down at fret 12 on E and determined that the neck was -not-straight. I corrected the bow of the neck with a 4 mm doohickey tweaking the truss rod tension ever so slightly.
Once the neck was correct I removed the strings. I pulled the nut at the bridge and filed it down about 1.5 mm. Restrung it. Tuned it. Tried the action. Better. Intonation improved (was leaning sharp as I walked up the feet board). Pulled the strings again, filed another 0.5 mm off the bridge nut. Restrung (replaced the bridge pins, too).
Tuned.
Ahhh. That’s nice. No buzzing. Easy action. Less than two hours effort and a willingness to screw it up yielded a good sound and -much- better action with improved intonation.
Don’t ever be afraid to try. Nearly anything we screw up can be corrected. Take the opportunity to learn. Take the opportunity to experience the joy and satisfaction of achieving something new and increasing your knowledge.
@jenny, I followed all that because I watch this guy before bed…
https://www.youtube.com/user/twoodfrd
It's awesome that you tried, and succeeded!
n
And rabbits – I pulled mama out and tucked her into the trash can that holds their bedding straw. She’s mean and I didn’t want to dodge her impressive ivories. She scratched and cranked and wailed at the injustice of it all.
I pulled all the kits from the nest and inspected individually. A ki that is nursing well has a round belly and their skin is stretched and wrinkle free. The eight kits look very well indeed. I poked through the nest however could not locate number nine, the half sized kit. I think mama ate it. Rabbits don’t have our sense of morals.
Mama removal, inspection, mama return, was done in three or four minutes. It’s in the low teens again so I worked fast. The nest box is toasty.
Second doe hasn’t kindled. She gets one more day then I’m breeding her again. Mothering is hard.
Tomorrow my daughter is aged one decade. I don’t know where the years went.
I cannot help but wonder what a year from now will look like. These may well be the good old days.