And still the weather is hot and humid. Freaking sun. Burns like the blazes. 108F in the sun at my house yesterday, and it was only partly sunny!
So I stayed inside and did paperwork for our tax accountant. I didn’t get to the storage unit to reorganize and make more room. I did get some stuff sorted for later auctions, and did get some cleaning done. I also spent time watching and bidding on the dozen auctions that closed last night.
And I won a few things that will be helpful here and at the BOL. Another freezer (to sell to a neighbor at the BOL), a metal cabinet for food storage up there, a couple other small things. I also got a bunch of stuff related to my non-prepping hobby. I should flip most of it in November at our local swapfest.
One of the things I’ve wanted for a long time finally came my way. The 1968 Encyclopedia Britannica. It’s the one I grew up with and I consider it to be about the perfect age. New enough the science isn’t laughable, but pre-dating all the eco-warrior ’70s bullspit, and all the PC multi-culti nonsense. My dad read through it twice. He was very hard to beat at Trivial Pursuit 🙂 I’ve managed to buy a couple other lesser sets from around the same period, but the EB is the best. Crazy to want it, I know. The scenarios where it’s useful are so ‘out there’ it should make me blush. I don’t care. I’ve just expanded my ‘rebuild society library’ by a factor of ten. I’ll pass it off as nostalgia if I have to. It was pretty close to the sum of all human knowledge at the time it was produced, at least from the ’10 Thousand foot level.’ It’s like having the internet in 24 volumes. Well, without all the pron and cat pix. Ever since my siblings gave mom and dad’s set away at a garage sale, I’ve wanted to replace it. I just didn’t want it enough to pay the price it brings. This week I got lucky and got a set for under $20. Hooray.
FWIW, I consider hard cover books and a good library to be essential preps. Western Civ doesn’t HAVE to die. The whole Renaissance came about because of books. Electronic storage and ebooks are malleable and fallible (doesn’t quite rhyme) and while paper books have their failure modes too, at least they can’t be ‘stealth edited’ or rendered unreadable by a change in file format, or hardware obsolescence. Good collected works volumes are available for a dollar or less. There’s no reason not to own most of the western canon. Own them electronically too, but own them.
Stack up knowledge and learning, history and art. Stack those deep too.
nick
Ah, only 95%RH and 74F this morning. So that’s nice. Unfortunately there was an ambulance on the street- full lights, but no siren. They turned around several times and seemed to be having trouble finding where they were supposed to be. Someone in the neighborhood had a bad start to the day.
I need to get the kids fed, then start my day.
n
@Lynn
New series on Tik-Tok:
How to Cook Climate Scientists
–the URL says “sting” but not the text, although it mentions “monitoring” of a group.
The whole population is tiny, and the minority populations are minuscule so I gotta wonder where the “ surge in violent crime in recent years” comes from.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11240549/Icelandic-police-arrest-four-right-wing-extremists-huge-Nordic-anti-terror-sting.html
n
@Nick
Congrats on the EB find.
Good encyclopedias are printed on coated acid-neutral paper. The pages will easily last centuries. Just make hand-washing before use a rule.
The binding is the weak point. When the books are tight on the shelves, everything is pretty stable., but it makes it difficult and potentially damaging to pull them out. If they are not shelved closely, the weight of the text block is above the bottom of the boards, putting stress on the top of the spine.
The first part of the solution is to shelve them spine-down. The second part is to build a barrister-style bookshelf to hold them with a closable door to protect them from dust and light, enough headspace to allow you to reach in and pull them out, and a strip in front to label the volumes.
Two downsides.
First, the books are sliding on their spines, which are not designed for that. I use ptfe cloth shelf paper. Demco sells a 4-mil archival polyester that makes good covers for books without jackets.
Second, they are not as decorative. That’s ok, you have other decorative books.
Making individual custom slipcases for each volume would also protect them very effectively, but who has the time?
The rarity of violence hasn’t prevented the denizens of the law from equipping and training with state-of-the-are weapons. “Terror plot” sure helps at budget time.
About 50F and 60% RH this morning in the California High Desert.
It has been nice the last week or so, temps in the low 80’s at best, but we should be back around 100F by next week. Generally the temperatures drop after mid-October.
I’ve taken advantage to get a few yard improvements done, a porch railing project started and a flowerbed.
I don’t try to work outside in the extreme heat any more.
I see that Sponge Brain and the rest of the democrats have managed to get the DOW to almost 30K. Unfortunately, nine months ago the DOW was almost $37K. Hey Spongey, the DOW is going the wrong way, or have you got your chart turned upside down?
Everything is an order of magnitude smaller, but just like the rest of Europe, Iceland accepted its share of migrants. Most from the Middle East, and mostly young men.
In this particular case, the wannabe terrorists were apparently not Islamic, but rather “sovereign citizen” types. Not sure I believe that, but it’s possible.
However, the general rise of violent crime is the result of importing young males from Islamic countries. As in every other European country, they commit crimes far out of proportion to their numbers.
I am annoyed to see that Switzerland is about to send Fr. 200 million each to Greece, Italy and (iirc) Spain, to help manage migrants coming across the Mediterranean. Far better to send the money to help reject migrants. Send them home. Turn the ships back. Stop allowing illegal immigration, in fact, make it so dangerous that people stop trying. Australia sets the right example.
I don’t remember all of the details, but, during the “Great Recession”, TPTB who really run things allowed Iceland to go bankrupt when the population wouldn’t go along with some bankster nonsense.
Of course, Iceland didn’t starve or freeze, but the society underwent significant change.
Plus too much tourism. People are easily bored with “natural splendor” so drugs and prostitution are inevitable along with the organized crime to supply them if prohibited. Even decriminalized, those trades do bad things to your society.
What about Portugal? Where’s their cut.
The “PIGS” countries went insolvent decades ago. A lot of banks in the northern EU countries would be in trouble if the loan payments stopped.
I saw something within the last 24 hours that Credit Suisse is weighing the possibility of pulling out of the US and tossing all of their holdings in this country into a “bad” bank. I’m sure the Googles has all of the details.
Ah, Credit Suisse, at it again. Their stock price is trading at around 1/20 of its peak, which pretty much says it all. Do illegal or stupid stuff, get caught, find a scapegoat, cash out at a loss. Rinse-and-repeat. If they put some of their stuff into a “bad bank”, that’s just the next round of “cashing out at a loss”. Then they will undoubtedly step on the next land mine…
Of course, the whole “prosecute the Swiss banks” stuff in the US is hypocritical. US banks do exactly the same stuff – tax evasion, off-shore accounts, etc. – but going after foreign banks makes good headlines and doesn’t piss off bought politicians.
However, the general rise of violent crime is the result of importing young males from Islamic countries. As in every other European country, they commit crimes far out of proportion to their numbers.
– which was my first guess, but the official numbers don’t mention importing terrorists and rapists, only Poles, and Romany. Of course with the gypsies comes crime, so maybe that’s it.
–credit suisse said it was a rumor and they don’t plan to leave, last I saw.
–wrt market… how much is enough? You will NOT get any warning when it all goes in the pot. Not in 2000, not in 2008. Why stay in and take the risk?
n
Huh.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-23/fbi-beverly-hills-safe-deposit-box-raid-forfeiture-judge
Just look at the sun, hun.
You can measure the wind, Lind.
See what’s in the air, Claire.
And cast the lies free.
It can’t just be chance, Vance.
You need to learn science!
Keep an eye on the sea, Lee.
And set the lies free.
Bumblebees can be classified as ‘fish’ under California conservation law, court says
In Almond Alliance vs. California Fish and Game Commission, the groups complained that the endangered species act explicitly allows the government to designate native species of “bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile or plant,” but excludes invertebrates such as bees.
The commission argued, however, that a separate section of the state fish and game code defines fish to include “wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, or amphibian.”
A Superior Court trial sided with the industry groups.
In 2021, the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic intervened on behalf of the petitioners, who appealed.
In May, the trial court ruling was reversed by a California 3rd District Court of Appeal opinion that found the state Legislature defined the term “fish” as “a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, amphibian, or part, spawn, or ovum of any of those animals.”
Therefore, the endangered species act’s definition of “fish” is a legal term of art that extends beyond the commonly understood meaning of “fish.”
From https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2022/09/23/bumblebees-can-be-classified-as-fish-under-california-conservation-law-court-says-2/
I don’t think there is any evidence that “invertebrate” in that secton of the law is intended to apply to anything that does not dwell in water. Maybe the judge subscribes to the philosophy that the way to get rid of bad laws is to enforce them scrupulously, but I think that the term “invertebrate” should have been struck from the law as being insufficiently defined for that context. The legislature could then consider revising the law.
You missed a recent post of mine where I relayed my experience at the new/used record store a few weeks ago.
Paul Simon’s material from “Songs From The Capeman” onward has no used value, even in Austin.
McKay’s in TN/NC may have been a better authority, but we were short on both time and cargo capacity so I couldn’t take the sack-of-CDs to them for evaluation as I had originally intended on the trip.
We did stop in McKay’s, however, where I scored a “Road House” release with Kevin Smith commentary.
Chattanooga is still mostly a rinky dink town, but a McKay’s means it is still on the list of consideration for where we want to go next.
I haven’t been to a record store in about 30 years. There are none near. I liked SoundWarehouse on Burnet Rd where Woodrow forks off. Decent parking, good prices, plus it was on the way home from work. Tower Records on the Drag was ok but LOUD, parking was ok if you didn’t mind feeding a meter and walking six blocks uphill in the snow both ways while dodging the occasional panhandler.
Then CDs took over and both store went “bleh”. Columbia House (and one other, RCA?) sold the same stuff for maybe 50¢ less per disc and no sales tax.
There was a place on Burnet Road that sold and bought used records and CDs. It was a couple/three blocks south of 183 and on the west side. I bought a few records there and they were in good condition. I tried to sell some stinker CDs, I think they gave $4 each, and nope, “we don’t buy music club crap, CDs have to have a barcode”.
Why? “Because people order the Columbia promo deal, stiff Columbia, and sell the CDs for weed money.”
Ok man. I’m not a thief or a pot head but thanks for letting me know what you think of your customers.
I never went back. This was before ripping discs was a thing. Heck, this was before the Internet was much of anything more than some BBSes. When a 1200 baud modem was smoking hot.
FBI made sh!t up to steal money from citizens. Color me shocked. Not. They are out of control and rogue. Re-fund the cops and dismantle the FBI.
n
@SteveF
Just look at the sun, hun.
You can measure the wind, Lind.
Dang I miss you, sir. Love your humor.
@Greg, Paul
We‘ve got a cool record store that came about when one man’s collection got to be a little bit too epic. It’s called Obsession Records. We love going there, pawing through the stacks, giving our daughter $10 and turning her loose. They’ve got nice assortment or artists and broad price range. $10 is enough to have some fun.
Lunch project today was replacing the porch light off the kitchen door. A few yikes. Fixture was direct mounted to the cedar siding with nails barely the depth of the siding. It had pulled away far enough that an enterprising squirrel had tucked in some peanuts for laters. The ground wire has been cut back to inside the wall. I was able to ease out enough to do a pigtail. The wirenut for the pigtail was missing the wire insert, I’m not sure I would have diagnosed it as quickly had we not recently discussed that here.
New fixture installed. LED, dusk to dawn. Added ‘install junction box thing’ to my growing to do list.
My sister is hospitalized with end stage liver failure. She doesn’t understand that she’s dying and her lifespan is weeks not years. We weren’t close but out of respect for her daughters and my other sister we will all go down for the funeral. Chance to see CowboySlim and visit another friend haven’t seen for a long time. I’ll keep you posted CowboySlim. She’s about the stubbornness toughest alcoholic I’ve ever met so she may cling to life out of sheer cussedness.
Also – if any of you gentlemen are pondering wifely Christmas presents, I recommend the Textured Jacquard Tunic at Cold Water Creek. I’m not a clothes horse but appreciate good clothing.
The blue one is attractive, well built, and on sale. They run large. If she’s a shorty get the petite. If she is tall and bosomly go with womens. Misses for everybody else. Google her bra size for a best guess at bust size. Soft, cozy, nice fabric, won’t break the bank. You’ll be a hero.
Consider it stacking good will with your spouse.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Climate may change,
But it ain’t because of you…
n
@jenny, thanks for the heads up.
We recently had our front light fixtures rewired at a specialty place near downtown so the sockets would accept the new LED candelabra bulb base which is a little different than the incandescent bulbs.
The matching fixture on the porch stopped working a few weeks after we moved into the house. The home warranty electrician came out, took the fixture off the wall, and proclaimed “Its done. Get a new one at Lowes.”
That’s how I came to discover the specialty lighting shop. They told me that the glass alone for the old porch fixture was $300. The $75 to do the rewiring and clean up the fixture was a relative bargain.
We get those catalogs, addressed to the previous owner. We also get an African American specialty catalog who carries the crazy church suits. Those come addressed to me.
If you ever feel the need for a leopard print suit for work, I’ll catch the name. It isn’t Ashro — they’re higher end than the place sending me the catalog.
My wife’s last big shopping trip was to the new-ish Duluth Trading store before we left for TN last month. She bought every color of a tank they sell with a built-in bra.
She has two of the tunics they sell. Plushcious (?). Sometimes their stuff doesn’t wash well, but they do have a generous return policy. And wait for the sales.
Do you have Xtra Tuff boots?
Isn’t it the law in Alaska? Like Subaru Forresters in Oregon?
This is just too f’ing much.
‘She was 12 and I was 30’ Biden says as he points at woman during teachers speech – says ‘we got back a long way’ and she ‘helped me get a lot of work done’
Even if you take away the hair sniffing pedo aspect, it’s still nonsense.
n
I am in Carrollton, TX at the wife’s townhouse with Dad, uncle, and son. Tomorrow we are going to see our Aggies of College Station beat the heck out of the Razorbacks of Little Rock at Jerry’s World.
We drove my wife’s 2019 V6 Highlander up here. It got 24 mpg. Not bad for 4 large guys and too much luggage.
We are going to see dad’s younger sister for lunch tomorrow first. She is not doing well. She has the polymycitis that their mother died of. And my father in law too.
I had to do surgery first. The ceiling fan in the master broke its bracket and is hanging by its wiring. My son calls it the sword of Damecles as it is hanging above the bed. So I removed it for now and left the wire nuts on the exposed wiring. The ceiling wiring is 10 ft above the floor so I am not worried.
Winter is coming.
The brackets on most newer design fans are pathetic, even Hunter.
The Hunter Classic still comes with a beefy bracket, but you will need a serious piece of lumber up there to sink the screws into.
If you’re not keeping the townhouse, Harbor Breeze will last long enough to get the place sold.
We ate at Too Thai Street Eats in Carrollton back in the Spring. Decent Thai.
Florida didn’t look so hot playing my alma matter last week so count on another SEC athletic director going coach shopping at the end of the year.
My Tallahassee alumni fans say Jimbo is West Virginia bound.
Cue John Denver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTbgJZsm17A
My Tallahassee alumni fans say Jimbo is West Virginia bound.
Jumbo makes his fate tomorrow. Buying him out would cost 95 million. And the new coach would want more.
>> Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Climate may change,
But it ain’t because of you…
@SteveF, you’ve got nothing worry about…and nice to see you drop by.
>> My wife’s last big shopping trip was to the new-ish Duluth Trading store before we left for TN last month. She bought every color of a tank they sell with a built-in bra for herself.
F I F Y… we hope…
Man I was in a bad mood today. From the time the alarm went off until a couple of hours ago. Black cloud, and everywhere I looked something made me angry. Homeless drug camps, daytime prostitution, illegal dumping, filth everywhere, aggressive panhandlers…
Just wound me up.
I need a good night’s sleep, and to get some stuff done.
n
I was doing … something. Something with … people.
@SteveF
Still funny!
(thumb in air) I blot you out -cackle-