Should be warm, and damp, and there is some chance of rain. I just don’t want it to happen today. Yesterday alternated between part sun and light overcast, but we didn’t get any rain.
I got a few things done. Got the plumbing parts I needed to send with my wife, to get the master bath sink drain finished. Tried to take back a bunch of plumbing parts to Lowe’s but shockingly it’s been more than 90 days. Freaking time flew by. I guess I’ll use them eventually. Probably here when I re-pipe this house. Or maybe the rent house… but it sucks because I was planning to take back what I didn’t need, and it’s hundreds of dollars.
I did take a bit of time and put out some Christmas decorations. I’m pulling back this year, but I definitely want stuff out. I want to take some lights to the BOL and dress up the dock too. In fact, I’d like to start a tradition of dressing up the docks for Christmas, with judging and prizes. I’m a bit surprised that they aren’t already doing it, as it seems like a naturally fun thing to do.
I also did some more auction sorting. I’ve been picking up partial sets of the elinco “snap circuits” electronic learning sets, and they sell really well at this time of year, even used. But I have to go through them and make sure all the parts are included, which is a bit of mix and match from all the random bits I’ve collected over the year. Still, got about 4 full sets, and I have the big 750 project set ready to go, missing only ONE piece. I’ll have to order the piece though, as it is very uncommon. I should have done that last month. I think I’ll end up keeping that one set for me, and working around the missing piece until I can get it. It’s funny that I’ve got three more sets almost complete, but a very common part is missing from all of them, yet I’ve got extras of some uncommon parts that only go in a few sets. Luck of the draw I guess.
Feels like I did more productive stuff, but I can’t remember any of it.
Oh well. Today is my non-prepping hobby potluck Christmas dinner at 1pm. I’ll have some time to work on getting more lights up in the yard, finding some to take to the BOL, and wrapping a ‘white elephant’ gift for our gift exchange, before heading out. I’ll swing back by the house before heading to the BOL to load the truck and get the frozen food into a cooler. Then it’s off to the lake for a day. If I’ve got stuff to do, I might stay through Monday. Kids, wife, and in-laws will be coming home Sunday night. I’ll play that by ear.
There is a great cast iron wood burning kitchen stove in one of the auctions and I expect it to go cheap. It’s complete, not in horrible shape, and a nice size. If I had a cabin, I’d be all over it. No way I can justify it to the wife though. It’s an awesome prep…
But you can’t stack EVERYTHING, or cover every base, so you have to do what you can. Being cast back to a point where we’re burning wood to cook daily is pretty far down the list of stuff I’m expecting, but not completely outside the realm of possibility. Concentrate on stacking to cover your most likely needs, then head off into the sticks. But definitely, keep stacking.
nick
The hands-down absolute best thing about computers is how every aspect of their operation is orderly and predictable.
/sarc
Including the sarc pseudo-tag because my sarcasm was so thick it was probably like being hit in the head with a shovel and the reader may have been to dazed to catch it.
I hadn’t thought of it until just now, but I think that one of the reasons I prefer back-end work (infrastructure, database, business logic) is that things seldom just spontaneously change. It can be a bear working around a framework’s limitations, but once things are working, they stay working.
By contrast, user interfaces for web applications almost always rely on third-party software loaded at runtime. If the third-party library is updated, your application can start acting strange for no apparent reason. (Though it could be worse. The internet could break.)
Rick, have fun. I think that’s the word I’m looking for.
Um, yum. Thanks, but I’ll pass. Though I can see how the quadrupedal members of the household would be highly interested in them.
I can think of $2.9 million reasons. Note, however, that it is Ivanka, not Melania being praised.
They might also be thinking ahead at the US bureau. It wouldn’t surprise me to see theTrump family try to put Ivanka into either Rick Scott’s Senate seat or the Florida Governor’s mansion in four years with DeSantis term limited out.
No one really likes Scott outside of The Villages, and the Republican Party’s state-wide bench isn’t deep.
66F to 70F in the last hour. Not raining yet, but definitely threatening looking. Anywhere else, I’d say we were going to get wet. Here? Eh.
Found my white elephant gift, need to wrap it. Got some hot wheels and other toy cars sorted for auction. Slept in a bit.
Now to get some things done before my party.
n
Before Elenco was “Eleco”, which offered two kits from Japan, one 10-in-1 and the other 20-in-1. Both have gotten fairly scarce in the last ten years, but neither brings big bucks.
The pricey ones are the German-made Lectron building sets:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Lectron
https://lectron.info/
and the U.S.-branded Raytheon version.
The genius of this system was having the components in uniformly-sized plastic cubes (repairable) which attached to each other and the metal baseplate with built-in magnets.
As with all building sets, the most desirable is the high-end sets with the scarcest parts. In this case, the FM radio module.
@SteveF
Images of Pratchett’s treacle mine…
Another defensive use of an AR-15:
https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2018/04/20/ar-15-used-repeal-home-invasion-30-rounds-fired-n32314
Sounds mighty handy.
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/12/10/third-twitter-files-installment-finally-shows-fbi-involvement-in-censorship-n516869
After the new House is sworn in, hopefully with a speaker that eats railroad spikes and shoots 16-penny nails out his backside, we have a few properly constituted committees send letters to the DOJ and all department heads scheduling their testimony, under oath, with a complete list in hand of all government employees in direct and indirect communication with Twitter, Facebook, and Google. Too start.
Garaland will not do anything about any fed lying to congress without extreme motivation. One form would be informing the Biden administration that the House, as holder of the purse strings according to the U.S. Constitution, will zero out the entire budget of the DOJ unless the applicable laws are enforced with enthusiasm. Another would be the impeachment of Garland and his boss.
You’ll get Kevin McCarthy who will be a rerun of Paul Ryan who was a rerun of John Boehner who was a rerun of Dennis Hastert who replaced Newt Gingrich, who lost his nerve when it counted.
At least Gingrich resigned.
John Boehner lost his nerve to use the power of the budget and clung to power long past the point of political irrelevance. The less said about Paul Ryan the better.
I’d settle for RIP.
To Dream…The Impossible Dream…
The Redumblicans are spineless. Throw in the RINOs and “the new boss is the same as the old boss.”
Yet, we can dream.
I remember Pelosi and Schumer laughing at Ryan “he gave us everything we wanted.” Did I mention spineless?
“Sticky” Brinton should be gone by the end of the year. But, why do I think these charges will be pled to misdemeanors and the plugs admin spokes-idiot Gay Black Lesbian says “just a homo being a homo, no big deal.”
The guy is a disgrace on multiple levels. Whoops! Said guy instead of it/thing.
WTF
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11523947/KELSEY-BOLAR-American-Girls-grotesque-gender-transition-fairytale-leaves-ugly-truth.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11522481/American-Girl-refuses-apologize-pushing-advice-pre-teens-obtain-puberty-blockers.html
Disney, American Girl, wt actual f. The mania has almost peaked.
Oh yeah, don’t forget “Cuties” or “Thirteen Reasons Why.”
n
The latest remake of “Interview With The Vampire” on AMC.
Wealthy family. The victims will be pressured to drop charges so Cutie Pie can skate.
Could be worse. Our WiFi development lead at the Death Star skated on first degree murder thanks to his IBM Fellow father’s connections to the Hillsborough State Attorney’s office and the Governor’s Mansion in Florida.
Not even probation.
>> Jenny says:
10 December 2022 at 10:39
@alan
thanks – this is helpful and confirms our thinking.
@Jenny – you’re welcome.
One more point – if there was/is any inter-state travel by him to commit any offenses against her, there may be applicable federal charges warranted. In that case you’ll need to speak to the FBI. Don’t assume that the county DA will loop them in.
>> I got a few things done. Got the plumbing parts I needed to send with my wife, to get the master bath sink drain finished. Tried to take back a bunch of plumbing parts to Lowe’s but shockingly it’s been more than 90 days. Freaking time flew by. I guess I’ll use them eventually. Probably here when I re-pipe this house. Or maybe the rent house… but it sucks because I was planning to take back what I didn’t need, and it’s hundreds of dollars.
@nick, get yourself a Lowes store credit card. Besides a 5 percent discount at the register, your return window in 365 days, not 90. This though is not highlighted at the returns desk and you may need to remind the clerk. You still should have your receipts. HD ‘s store card is also 365 days, but no receipts required, they just look up the purchases in their system. HD used to match the Lowes 5 percent discount if you asked at the register but stopped that a while ago. Iirc, the Lowes discount is 10 percent for military/veterans. HD also sends out coupons in the mail. For what you’ve already bought and couldn’t return, you can try to pick out a few high-dollar items, tell them you paid cash and lost your receipt and usually they will take them back and give you a store credit. I have both cards. And not sure if they still do it but both did give a 10 percent discount for your first charge purchase.
https://www.lowes.com/l/help/returns-policy#ReturnPolicy
“Serpentine (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter)” by Laurell K. Hamilton
https://www.amazon.com/Serpentine-Anita-Blake-Vampire-Hunter/dp/1101989009?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number twenty-six of a twenty-nine book dark fantasy series. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Jove (Penguin) in 2019. I have book number twenty-seven in my SBR (strategic book reserve). I suspect that there will be more books in the series.
Anita’s (war) longtime partner Ted Forrester (death) is getting married in Key West to his longtime girlfriend. Bernardo Spotted Horse (famine) is also one of the groomsmen. And some long time truths and lies are exposed in the wedding party. But Micah has been working with a family of lycanthropes in the Keys that no one has ever seen before. And everything comes to a head as the fourth horseman, Otto (plague), shows up.
There is a wiki for the Anita Blake books at:
https://anitablake.fandom.com/wiki/Anita_Blake_Wiki
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (3,585 reviews)
HEB does something similar. No receipt? No credit / ATM card? Swipe your driver’s license on the card reader. Won’t swipe, we’ll enter it manually. The system will pop-up saying something like “this dude returns a lot of stuff w/o a receipt, call your manager”. No d/l? No receipt? Ok, you get your refund on an HEB gift card. Buy drugs with that. . . . .
Got rid of that guy that seemed to be returning a $15 bottle of Balsamic Vinegar every couple of weeks because “he got the wrong stuff and his wife is pissed”.
xkcd: Solar System Model
https://xkcd.com/2709/
Luckily for us, the Goldilocks zone is huge. Of course, Sol is very slowly expanding and growing brighter. We may need to move Earth further out some day unless the Rapture happens first.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2709:_Solar_System_Model
Score me some sizzurp ingredients with that.
Contrary to the common Internet interpretation of this story, Circle K is not getting into the business of selling weed in Florida … for now … but they will supply the munchies next door to the dispensary.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/circle-k-marijuana-green-thumb-florida-retail-convenience-stores/
I didn’t catch it until screening the flick for my kids this week, but further proof that “Lethal Weapon” is more of a ‘Christmas’ movie than “Die Hard – Darlene Love as Murtaugh’s wife.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhT9H54283A
Sadly, the house, located at the former Warner Ranch, has either been razed or is about to go under the wrecking ball.
Yeah, it is only a set, but still, “Lethal Weapon” *and* “Christmas Vacation”.
Plus, appearances on film all the way up to “WandaVision” if you pay attention.
Dilbert: why is 2016 repeating ?
https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-12-10
Has Scott Adams run out of new stuff ? Or is something else going on ?
I ordered a 16GB memory stick from the folks that built my new PC. Just 14 days from China. So, that’s tomorrow’s project.
It appears to be a one-off order. The guy found a block of foam, cut it down to almost the size of the little box and then hacked in a slit for the memory card. Had to stuff in a couple of scraps to fill the box. Then taped it up enough that dropping the package into a bucket of water isn’t going to matter. Pretty cool, I’m impressed.
It’ll be interesting. The old Win7 PC almost always showed about ¼ of the 6GB RAM in use. In Task Manager. This Win11 machine, with 16GB RAM is using almost 4 GB. 3.6 actually.
I suspect it will soon be showing about 8 GB in use. Just guessing.
I took a screen shot. Alt-Print Screen and paste into PaintShopPro. Yeah, version 7. About 20 years old and it still does stuff I don’t understand. 🙂
@alan, thanks for that info, the card I used is linked to some sort of business account my wife set up, so I’ll check on that.
Off to the BOL.
n
Another defensive use of an AR-15:
https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2018/04/20/ar-15-used-repeal-home-invasion-30-rounds-fired-n32314
Sounds mighty handy.
But police are only five to fifty minutes away !
My Fortran to C++ project is progressing. I now have 62,000 lines of new C++ code out of the original 700,000 lines of F77 code and 50,000 lines of C/C++ code. I am fairly close to another partial build and a stop for more testing to assay my progress.
@lynn – that article is from 2018….
RIP Col. Joe Kittinger, the first man to fly a balloon 20 miles up to the edge of space, jump out of it, and live to tell the tale
@lynn – that article is from 2018….
So the police response time is now ten minutes to two hours due to all of the layoffs and retirements.
“Is the Renewable Energy Industry Nothing More Than a Jobs Program?”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/12/09/is-the-renewable-energy-industry-nothing-more-than-a-jobs-program/
“Milton Friedman famously, and probably apocryphally, upon seeing a canal being dug by hand rather than with modern equipment, is said to have remarked: “Oh, I thought you were building a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”
“Whether the tale is true or not, we are now seeing something similar in real life. Over at Grist, journalist Kate Yoder crows that young people are supposedly heading to renewable energy jobs rather than work for the evil fossil fuel companies. Maybe — the evidence she provides is pretty skimpy — but one statistic she provides is interesting. According to her source E2.org, in 2021 the USA employed about 3.2 million people in “clean energy” jobs, and that was 3.5 times more than in fossil fuels. Doing the math, that is about 915,000 working in fossil. I found that difficult to believe.”
I was told last April that there are 12 million people working in the crude oil, natural gas, and coal industries in the USA. Three years ago there were 15 million people working in the fossil fuel industries in the USA.
I was playing along with Advent of Code, but work zapped all of my enthusiasm to look at a computer screen this week.
@brad. Day 8. Ugh. I may play tomorrow night, but the expectation is that I will be online for work after being allowd today off as a break. How generous of them.
Performances at the local small-town theater. An old garage that is in the process of being converted into a community venue by the local historical society. Local performers with one exception, Janelle Arthur, a local lady that has made a name for herself in country music, did a couple of films, performs at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and placed second on America’s Got Talent.
https://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/StoneTheatre
Enjoy another time sink.
Got to the BOL. Drove thru a lot of rain but little here so far. Played a game of Clue, and two games of Rummikub. D2 gets surly when she has several mugs of hot chocolate and egg nog in her… who knew?
Headed to bed soon. Won a used radio tower, so might have to drive back to Conroe area tomorrow and pick it up. REALLY don’t want to drive down and then back up here, then back down to Houston, but the pickup time is too early to really leave here for good, and the tower will end up here anyway. Decisions…
n
Rain started here in the California high desert finally, about 9pm, as I was leaving the astronomy clubs Christmas dinner.
The main body is to the NW, streaming NE over Vandenberg and Bakersfield, but we are getting a little.
The Sierras are getting a lot of snow, which is important.
Thank you, Rick. I was able to avail of that offer about two hours ago. I picked up the licences for both Mac and PC versions. I use Linux and LibreOffice, but Mrs Denis vacillates between Windows and Mac. It will be useful for her to have a non-cloud version.
The offer was through StackSocial, and worked fine. I did notice they backdated the purchase, presumably to keep it within whenever the official special offer timeframe was. I did get the warning message about not applying coupons, but that did not block the purchases. I have a StackSocial account and previously got an excellent deal from them on lifetime VPN access.