Hot and humid. Maybe some rain? Who knows. There were scattered rain cells all over town yesterday as I drove around. Mostly stuff I could see in the distance. I only got a few sprinkles though.
Did my pickups. Got the boat. It’s in good shape. It’s an Alumacraft jon boat, 12ft, and painted flat green. Fits in my pickup truck upside down, and over the cab… but it does catch the wind at 65mph.
Home stuff today. Lots of catching up. Honda EU300oi gennie needs a new fuel tank. The rust went all the way through and now it leaks. $20 of Evaporust leaked out on the ground… Bugger me. There were tanks on ebay, but there weren’t good choices when I looked last week. Maybe I’ll just put the propane kit on it for now. That is simpler and about the same price as a new tank. Dunno, but need to do something before hurricane season cranks up.
Lots of other deferred stuff piled up here too. Gah. It’s always something.
I better get to it.
I’ve got stacking to do.
and so do you!
n
People aren’t wrong, when they say that “being poor is expensive”. If you have a bit more money, life is easier: Not having to take out rapacious loans. Being able to buy things instead of renting. Being able to afford buying in advance or in bulk. It all adds up.
Also, people with little income often have no concept and no skills for dealing with money. I read a post yesterday by someone who added up all the rent they paid in a year, and figured they could pay off a house in 20 years for the same amount:
annual rent x 20 = price of houseThey obviously had no concept of property taxes, of maintenance, or even that banks charge interest on a mortgage. That lack of basic life skills is likely to lead to some really poor financial decisions, which will keep the person poor.
A friend of mine, long in the past, was struggling with money. Barely enough to get formula for their child. Lots of debt including credit cards. I was working on a coding project and I said I would give him $100.00 if he would help. He did (but had to be redone) so I paid him. Next day he was proudly showing us his new dining room table where he had used the money for a down payment. He had gone further in debt.
He also once boasted about paying down one credit card enough that he was able to buy a new food mixer. He was creating his own problems and the interest he was paying had to be huge. Some people cannot be taught.
Not anymore. Settlement over a lawsuit changed that in 2013.
Unfortunately, many jobs and 401(k)/pension plan balances in the US depend on people being clueless about the numbers and remaining that way.
A chap I used to work with on my last job was constantly in major debt. He would get calls at work from debt collectors and organizations to which he owed money. In the 14 years I worked at the organization he declared bankruptcy twice. He spent greater than $10K in vet bills on his dog. Always buying new stuff such as computers for his wife, who was a hermit and rarely left the house. He made a lot more than I yet could never pay off anything. At 62 while still working he had to take SS to help but was still in debt. Never contributed to the 401K (6% of salary matched 100%) so nothing on which to retire.
No one in the organization could figure out on what he spent his income. He had two vehicles that were a few years old. He was constantly doing something to his house as his wife had severe allergies (which everyone thinks were fake). If the power went out he had to rush home to start generators to run air filters and room A/C units for his wife. In 14 years I had never seen her and she never attended any company events. I, along with others, think she was mentally a whack job.
He was let go from the organization shortly after I left. Thus lost a major source of income. I heard he was working at Lowe’s and was struggling even more. His wife was drawing SS but also taken early so a really reduced amount.
He died about six months ago, younger than I. The circumstances of his death were kept very much a secret. I suspect he committed suicide as the amount of debt was not sustainable. It had only been about three years since last declaring bankruptcy so that was not an option. He had a house payment, car payment, multiple credit cards and payday time loans that are very high interest plus continuing to spend over his head. I think it got to him and he eliminated a lot debt for his wife as everything was in his name and his wife’s name was not on any debt.
I cannot imagine living life with that oppressive a debt load. When I got laid off in 1993 I had two car loans, house payment, and some credit cards. Times were tough. Six months with just unemployment and the meager income the spousal unit got from subbing. I got down to my last $400.00 dollars before I found a job. I vowed that I was going to become debt free as fast as possible and remain that way. It took several years and denial of some of the frills of life but I made the goal. A life lesson taught the hard way.
Springtime … For Beto … In Uvalde.
Watch out, Texas, he’s going on tour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aRcn5w99xc
Its going to be a long Summer in this state.
(Yeah, I used the B-word. “Robert Francis” didn’t fit the song.)
Is it just me or did the brown shirts seem ready to dish out some violence if given half a reason?
“Smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave”
Butto would have worked. Or put an * with Hitler at the bottom.
I believe Butto is toast in the political world. Too much flip-flopping on guns. We will only see him on the coattails of someone else. But, there are too many Black, female QWERTYs waiting in the wings for its chance.
I watched the film Marvelous last night with my nephew, who hadn’t seen it – he enjoyed it. Based on a real life individual, the film is uplifting, where the lead refuses to be a victim, despite his personal challenges.
If you have the opportunity, recommended for a humorous, uplifting 90 minutes.
Seeking wisdom from the ‘hive’. Despite believing my self to be a competent IT practitioner, I have been struggling with helping an elderly gentleman with setting up his HP 2700 printer. I have struggled with setting up it’s networking (I did eventually get it connected to his router) and with the HP Smart application on Android and IPad trying to get the printer connected and function. Has anyone any experience with this type of printer, and is there an idiot’s guide to setting it up, the HP documentation is terrible.
With Robert Francis and, in 2020, MJ Hegar running against Cornyn, the CA money people behind the campaigns are more interested in data mining the election results for clues as to how to win statewide in 2024. Cruz will be up again in the next cycle as well as the Texas Electoral College votes.
I don’t think even the Dems would know what to do if Robert Francis won. That would put Lasalle Partners founder Willam Sanders’ son-in-law in the Governor’s mansion and into the VP calculus.
(I thought I saw somewhere that LaSalle was one of the bidders for Kohl’s.)
If Abbott were truly vulnerable, McConaughey would have run, possibly even as a Republican. Legalization is a bi-partisan fantasy, and the conventional wisdom is that “Dazed and Confused” might be able to straddle the politicial line enough to get it done.
All right, all right, all right!
The only way Abbott loses right now is a serious power outage event.
Establish a fixed IP address outside the range of DHCP. I generally configure the router to only hand out IP addresses in the 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.200 range. Put the printer on IP address 192.168.1.210 or something to that effect. The iPad and Android should be able to find the printer by the MAC address or some other such magic. I don’t think those devices use IP address anyway to print.
Then on the computer you have to add the printer. You may have to manually add the printer as searching for new devices may not function. When adding select a network printer using ethernet. Input the IP address of the printer.
As for an idiots guide, well, I qualify.
You’d think that the public schools, for which we in the United States pay a fortune every year, could manage to impart some useful life skills. Alas, between pep rallies, grooming preteens into going trans, and giving high schoolers the day off if they attend an anti-Trump rally, there just isn’t time for such things.
One of our former neighbors was like that: two new SUVs every few years (not sure if purchased or leased), boat, big TV, new grill, all sorts of toys. My wife bitched at me about not earning enough to keep up with the Joneses. One day she started screaming at me as soon as I walked in the door, asking how I’d run up the credit card to the $25,000 limit. Turns out the neighbor’s statement had been misdelivered and she opened it without reading. Well, I guess we know how he could afford all that stuff.
I saw plenty of it when I was a kid. Most of it was because of bad decisions or lack of impulse control. Some was because of the Carter Malaise, which tanked a lot of small businesses and put a lot of people out of work in order to let a business limp along.
I have experience with a number of consumer-grade wireless printers. They’re all miserable. The connections are always unreliable. I hate them all.
@paulthemanc, sorry, the whole “printing from a phone or tablet” seems like majick to me. My wife tried to get it set up here on a Canon that was supposed to do it, and failed. And she’s pretty smart when it comes to the idevices.
—
meanwhile, 84F and 80%RH in the swamp and overcast. If the sun comes out it will get a lot hotter.
n
A win for society, LEO, and the kids
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/06/operation-lost-souls-texas-authorities-rescue-70-children-victims-sex-trafficking/
n
I too worked for a bank. It was a regional bank in the central US. When the Federal Reserve Board amended Reg E in 2010 so people had to opt-in if they wanted overdraft protection (i.e. If you didn’t opt-in and you had insufficient funds then your debit card would decline. If you did opt-in it may authorize but charge you an NSF fee.) the bank took a $40M hit to fee revenue. That should be an indicator of just how much money is being made from fees in the banking and credit card worlds.
The public schools in the US exist to train future consumers. The system as currently constructed wouldn’t last if every high school student graduated capable of understanding concepts like Time Value of Money.
If all else fails, any new-ish HP printer should respond to Bonjour inquiries. The protocol is built into Mac OS, but is also available as optional Apple Software once Windows has iTunes installed.
I’m not sure about Android.
I like Abbott, and plan to vote for him, so I hope that the near-certain “serious power outage event” isn’t going to kill his chances.
My Epson printer has a “Airplay” menu. All my iDevices can see and print to the Epson. It is wireless and works like a champ.
Season 3 of “The Orville” premieres tonight.
And, Amazon brought “The Kids In The Hall” back from the “dead”. Geezers one and all and still zany and funny as Hell.
I doubt the power outage event is likely. The utilities and ERCOT know that they are better off with Abbott than Robert Francis, and the conventional wisdom is that a deal is coming during the Spring session of the Texas Legislature to cover the financial losses for the utility companies from February 2021.
The winter freeze disaster was a total management failure in the state at all levels of government and private industry. Everyone rolled the dice that someone else was on the job during the triple holiday weekend – Chinese New Year, Valentines Day, and Presidents Day. Combine that with Covid, and the parking lots were empty downtown after noon on the Thursday before the freeze.
Our utility district’s offices were dark at around 9 PM the night the storm rolled through.
I doubt anyone was in the office in state government until May/June last year, around the time I finally got a hearing scheduled with TWC over my termination in October, 2020.
(Which I won, BTW)
No help here, sorry. I got one of those last year (I print so little I just get a new cheap printer when ink runs out). I could not get it working – wasted a couple hours on it. It was an Amazon purchase so I returned it and got a cheap Canon printer. Never again will I touch a consumer grade hp printer. Absolute trash.
My last two printers were Canon LBP6230/6240 V4 laser printer. Works fine as a wireless printer – you just have to USB connect to set up wireless. Then auto-install via Windows 10/11 ‘add printer’. Easy-peasy.
I can even print from my Android phone. Very reliable printer. Double-sided printing. I use 3rd party refills, work just fine.
The Zon has them for $160 here https://amzn.to/3te5FqB .
I own a Canon PIXMA TR7020 wireless printer. The only frustration is when it’s in standby/powersave mode. When printing from an iOS device, the Canon print utility app will wake it up to print, but Apple’s AirPrint will not. That’s a bit frustrating until you get used to it.
It’s like watching two lazy fat cats fighting…
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/06/indicted-lina-hidalgo-staffers-try-remove-harris-county-da-kim-ogg-vaccine-contract-corruption-case/
One is a bloated dem insider, the other was the newly minted dem Emgmt Director just before wuflu hit. One likes machine politics the other is a hard core lefty socialist, seize all the things newcomer.
Get the moxie and pretzels.
n
I have had really good results with Brother printers. My laser is connected via ethernet because it is close to my router. The prior location was wireless and I had no issues printing from the desktop, iPhone and iPad. I did get a good deal on the printer. I paid $139 for a color laser, duplexing, wireless, ethernet. Staples had a sale that I found in the paper. Went to the store and the price was $249.00. I showed the manager the ad in the paper and he let me have the printer for that price.
I use a Canon TS5151 MFP (A4 print/scan/fax) and it Just Works, even via wireless, although, by policy, I force a fixed IP address by DHCP from the router. I can print from Windows, Mac, Android and iThing.
Before I had the Canon, a Brother MFP6520 served that duty, and very well, too. I’d still be using it if it hadn’t turned its toes up 2 years ago.
That’s for colour. I also have a Brother laser, which will accept everything but iThings, albeit I need a Brother-specific app for Android, but given that, it also Just Works.
In all cases, setup was easy.
G.
>> OK, groomer2
You think higher math will confuse him?
HP gives away crappy printers for free, depending on the highly inflated price for ink to make a profit. I have a small Brother color laser printer that has worked pretty well for the last 4 years, and the toner isn’t too expensive.
I understand that Murphy’s Law isn’t recursive, but I’ve done my part to prevent an outage; I bought a 22KW propane whole-house generator. I’d be happy to never need it. And so far, it’s only run for about 10 minutes, other than the scheduled “exercising” routine. We were lucky;
I’d purchased the generator about 2 weeks before the freeze and it wasn’t installed yet, but we never lost power. Later, I figured out that they weren’t going to shut down power to the local fire station, which is a block away.
Unfortunate accident…
https://filthiestbox.blogspot.com/2022/05/gone-fishin.html
I doubt the power outage event is likely. The utilities and ERCOT know that they are better off with Abbott than Robert Francis, and the conventional wisdom is that a deal is coming during the Spring session of the Texas Legislature to cover the financial losses for the utility companies from February 2021.
I give rotating blackouts a 50 / 50 chance this summer. ERCOT is barely hanging in there right now. The average age of the natural gas and coal power generation plants in Texas is over 40 years old. Can you imagine driving down the road in a 68 Camero running 120 mph for hours on end ? That is what is going on in Texas right now.
The one saving grace in Texas right now is that the wind has been blowing all day long. The wind turbines are making 15,000 to 25,000 MW all 24 hours a day right now. The new solar plants are coming on line and making 9,000 MW unless they are in the cloudy areas. The wind won’t blow in the daytime in August when the demand is approaching 80,000 MW.
“LARPing Goes to Disney World”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/30/larping-goes-to-disney-world
“On a “Star Wars” spaceship, the company has taken live-action role-play to a lavish extreme. Guests spend days eating, scheming, and assembling lightsabres in character.”
45 hours for $7,000 per cabin of three to five guests ?
I understand that Murphy’s Law isn’t recursive, but I’ve done my part to prevent an outage; I bought a 22KW propane whole-house generator. I’d be happy to never need it. And so far, it’s only run for about 10 minutes, other than the scheduled “exercising” routine. We were lucky;
I’d purchased the generator about 2 weeks before the freeze and it wasn’t installed yet, but we never lost power. Later, I figured out that they weren’t going to shut down power to the local fire station, which is a block away.
We had a 38 kw liquid cooled natural gas generator installed in August 2021. Ordered it a week before the big freeze in Feb 2021. We have had it run for four outages now, the shortest was an hour, the longest was about 20 hours after the hurricane in Sept 2021 passed over us.
“The Kids in the Hall” did scary effective drag, something touched on later when Dave Foley was on “Newsradio”.
I wondered what happened to Dave Foley. He seemed to drop off the face of the planet after “Sky High”, and I assumed that he said something to get “cancelled”.
Yes, the Galactic Starcruiser is an authentic “Star Trek” immersion experience, right down to the bunks from the USS Defiant and a bar where the only piece missing is Whoopi in a funny hat.
What? That wasn’t the intention?
Seriously, The Mouse is going really upscale. Peasants need not apply.
Unfortunate accident…
https://filthiestbox.blogspot.com/2022/05/gone-fishin.html
I don’t see any ammo.
What is that box with the round circle in it ? Please tell me it not a poop box.
Not unless it has an auxilliary fuel tank.
I knew this had to be on YouTube.
“That’s my dress.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouSb9P–_i4
Charging capacity sufficient for one million Jesus Trucks. Gonna need more.
Not unless it has an auxilliary fuel tank.
And a five row radiator.
And a spare water pump.
And a monster light bar so you can what you are getting ready to hit.
And a transmission cooler.
And real good tires, not those crappy FXXXXXXXs that shed belts above 80 mph.
And an overdrive tranny so the engine speed stays below 5,000 rpm at 120 mph.
Instead of a Tesla, my wife’s nephew showed up last weekend driving a Hecho en Deutschland VW Jetta. I’ll bet that could go 120 mph for as long as it had gas in the tank, about 2-3 hours minimum.
I still believe that the Tesla is in the works, however.
The last year of “secretary car” Mustang … 2016? … could probably go for an hour or more at that speed with the V6. The price of gaining the overdrive transmission was the base model now only has the 4 cylinder EcoBoost POS engine which is Hecho in Spain.
Instead of a Tesla, my wife’s nephew showed up last weekend driving a Hecho en Deutschland VW Jetta. I’ll bet that could go 120 mph for as long as it had gas in the tank, about 2-3 hours minimum.
My 1987 Jetta GLI would go 130 mph in fifth gear pulling about 6,000 (6,800 rpm redline IIRC) rpm. I was following a Porsche from Dallas to Houston in Jan 1990 running 110 to 130 mph for about 40 or 50 miles when I got a high oil temperature alarm. My Jetta actually had an oil cooler using “cool” radiator fluid and it gave it its all. My oil temperature was 230 F. I backed it off to 100 mph and the oil temperature dropped to 210 F. When I could not see the Porsche anymore, I dropped down to the legal 60 mph plus 3 (Texas had a max nighttime speed limit of 60 mph back then, daytime max was 70 mph).
That reminds me – exactly two weeks from today, June 16th at 12 PM EDT, the Mint will put uncirculated one ounce gold American Eagle fishing lures up for sale direct on the web site.
The price will be the real cost of one ounce of gold in US dollars.
Limit one per household.
The last year of “secretary car” Mustang … 2016? … could probably go for an hour or more at that speed with the V6. The price of gaining the overdrive transmission was the base model now only has the 4 cylinder EcoBoost POS engine which is Hecho in Spain.
If it is the Ford ten speed then it has three overdrive gears. My F-150 4×4 has the ten speed ecoboost (dual turbo) V6. 7th is 1:1, 8th is 0.85, 9th is 0.68, and 10th is 0.63. If you press on the gas very much then it slams to 7th gear when you are in 10th gear.
https://www.f150hub.com/trans/10r80.html
That reminds me – exactly two weeks from today, June 16th at 12 PM EDT, the Mint will put uncirculated one ounce Gold Eagle fishing lures up for sale direct on the web site.
The price will be the real cost of one ounce of gold in US dollars.
I thought those were running $3,000 each now ?
URL ?
A 440 page paper XXXXX book on the Sad Puppies debarkle, “The Complete Debarkle: The epic saga of how a culture war came to consume science fiction’s most famous literary award, by the pseudonymous Camestros Felapton”
https://camestrosfelapton.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/copy-edit-debarklevolumeall-1.pdf
I have looked at several chapters. Basically, the author says it was a culture clash and the SJWs led by John Scalzi won by ruining the award.
Hat tip to:
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2022/06/01/debarkle-the-epic-saga-of-how-a-culture-war-came-to-consume-science-fictions-most-famous-literary-award/
@Greg Norton:
“Charging capacity sufficient for one million Jesus Trucks. Gonna need more.”
Brilliant! Require each truck to own a piece of a wind turbine, with separate transmission lines. Illegal to charge from anything else. About six bucks a mile, and they can leave the rest of us the F*CK alone when they are out driving their allotted 30 miles a week.
No.
1965 Thunderbird. Yes.
ADDED: Lynn, I don’t need that other stuff, ‘cuz I is imagining.
I have looked at several chapters. Basically, the author says it was a culture clash and the SJWs led by John Scalzi won by ruining the award.
They had to destroy it to save it?
I started out by reading the post by Andrew at Columbia’s site. Stopped reading when I got to “So you can see how conservatives could have the impression that politics was biasing what was published, what was promoted, and what won awards”. Anyone who can write that with a straight face is a no-need-to-hold-a-vote winner of the Cranial Cavity Filled with Post-Digestion Food Award.
I’ll try to read or at least skim the Debarkle book but don’t know when I’ll find the time.
Finally! this is the first time the site (any part of the site) has loaded for me in 2 days. It simply timed out after 5 minutes or so.
Off to read up now. 🙂
No, no, no! Hecho en Espana.
Skimming part of the posted first chapter was enough to fill my literary septic tank.
I’ll have to do a figurative pump-out by re-reading some Tom Kratman.
@lynn
My 1987 Jetta GLI would go 130 mph in fifth gear
This is probably in the vein of talking about tolerance for spicy by using Taco Bell packets as the measuring stick.
But.
I could coax my manual 1978 Honda Civic up to 100 mph. It took several miles of flat road, a tolerance for tooth rattling shimmy between 73 and 78, and a stiff tail wind.
Man that was fun. I blew the engine the fourth or fifth time I did it. Worked with dad to replace it. A slightly larger engine from an Accord since he couldn’t find another civic engine. I didn’t blow that one up but I did put a crack in it with the same stupid antics. He used something to glue it back together.
I moderated my habits after that.
He laughed like mad when I confessed my sin some 25+ years later.
“President Biden calls on Congress to pass assault weapons ban, other restrictions”
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/02/uvalde-shooting-president-biden-guns/
Pretty bold words for a man who has 300 people with machine guns to protect him.
Just walked 1.2 miles outside with the wife. Man, it was hot ! 86 F and and very high humidity with almost no breeze. Usually at dusk around here there is a nice breeze.
Vegetable Past His Compost Date:
“This is not about taking anyone’s rights,” he said. “It’s about protecting children.”
“rational, commonsense measures,”
and,
“We’re not after your guns.”
To quote the inestimable SteveF:
“Anyone who can
writesay that with a straight face is a no-need-to-hold-a-vote winner of the Cranial Cavity Filled with Post-Digestion Food Award.”Home from our first practice swim meet.
Everything went smoothly. We are at a new to us pool, after giving up on our local rec association this year. Practice times were better at the new place.
It was HOT and HUMID but we got some breeze as the sun went down. Currently 85F and 64%RH. It was much more humid earlier.
I could get my 80s Chevette up to 83 mph, indicated, downhill with a tailwind. It would do smuggler’s turns all day long though. Once I realized what would happen if I broke the bead or the tire failed during that maneuver, I stopped doing it. Right quick. Beat the snot out of that car, cuz I hated it. It did have a nice fold down back seat and hatch though, that might have been a sort of love shack….
n
Umm… I don’t want to slander anyone, but isn’t that the name of the troll who ran a campaign against the Sad Puppies?
As I recall, it may have led to calls to police and involvement of the criminal justice system.
I may be confusing him/her/it with someone else.
I don’t know if there are 300 of them, but Robert Francis’ brown shirts are going to seriously hurt this guy in the near future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gmN2mAjLkQ
I wonder if “A Story” came from O’Rourke’s days working the au pair gig in New York, the only job for which he was ever truly qualified.
Will I say it? Dare I say it? When he was fresh out of … Fancy Lad University.
For the uninitiated, the origin of the label.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPGSLiLm43E
I don’t know if there are 300 of them, but Robert Francis’ brown shirts are going to seriously hurt this guy in the near future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gmN2mAjLkQ
I wonder if “A Story” came from O’Rourke’s days working the au pair gig in New York, the only job for which he was ever truly qualified.
Will I say it? Dare I say it? When he was fresh out of … Fancy Lad University.
For the uninitiated, the origin of the label.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPGSLiLm43E
Bozo needs to be red flagged for guns, cars, etc. He is mentally ill.
Because…Beau…
“Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have red flag laws. The Delaware law is named after my son, Attorney General Beau Biden.”
Must Read Alaska covered the most recent ordinance power play from the Anchorage Assembly. Assembly is granting itself tge power to remove an elected Mayor, list of 13 possible reasons plus an open “because we want to”. The ordinance is written with the Assembly judge and jury with no right for repeal and no obligation to follow the assembly apponted lawyers advice. No avenue for the voting public to testify or protest removals under the ordinance.
Their hubris is stunning.
There have been cool moments in testimony. This article talks about one of them. One person began singing our National Anthem after a child testified and while that child was staring down the Assembly Chair. The Assembly told folks to not sing, which prompted those who weren’t sing to raise up their voices.
Nice feel good clip. Less than four minutes.
Reality is the Assembly is going to pass the ordinance and all the testimony in the world won’t stop them.
https://mustreadalaska.com/listen-as-anchorage-assembly-gets-an-earful-of-the-public-singing-the-national-anthem-in-protest-of-ao2022-60/