Cool and damp, or warm-ish and damp, but certainly damp… we got a rainstorm right in the middle of the afternoon yesterday. Before that it was sopping wet. During it was pretty wet. After it was pretty wet… definitely a theme yesterday.
So I got less outdoor stuff done than I’d have liked, but I did get the stone unloaded from the trailer. I don’t get much practice backing up trailers. I’m amazed I got it under the cover in the dark with only a bit of to and fro. Took me about 12 tries to put it back in the same place after pulling it out to clean all the debris out of it. If I can look out the back and SEE the trailer, I can do it no problem. With mirrors and backup cam, well, it must have been entertaining for any watchers.
That’s me, entertainer of the year…
Today will be some tidying up and some stuff from the list that doesn’t involve a lot of time or commitment. There should be no shortage of jobs.
Then it’s back home. I’ll return the trailer Monday morning. Truck pulled the trailer no problem. ~5000 pounds and I was doing 80 when I didn’t pay attention. The gas mileage widget said 10.5 mpg though. Putting the cruise control on, and dropping to the limit of 75 mph got me 11.6 mpg. Truck normally gets about 15-18 mpg the way I drive and with the extra stuff in the cargo area. No way an EV truck would work for me. And as a BOV, an electric is a complete non-starter.
The world situation continues to get more dire. The US has political prisoners. Canada has quasi-government agencies that wants to re-educate an outspoken and contrary person because his beliefs don’t match theirs… We’re sending even MORE hardware and weapons to the proxy war in Ukraine, escalating that conflict. In far too many western countries “mohamed” has become the most common baby name. The new owner of the ‘public square of the internet’ has joked that almost every conspiracy theory about it was true [that would be the publishing service that banned a sitting President’s speech.] And our food and energy situation isn’t any better than it was last year.
So plant a seed. Literally and figuratively. Stack food, friends, and skills.
nick
With the first couple sentences I was thinking the same. 5000 pounds, 80mph, 10.5mpg in an internal combustion vehicle… Crunch the numbers and we see that the EV won’t make it to the next charging station.
I know three people with EVs: a Tesla S (owned by yuppie scum as a symbol of wealth and virtue signalling), a Tesla SUV (owned by a status-conscious immigrant woman), and a Leaf (owned by a middle-aged ecowarrior). The S owner acknowledged that if the family had to go more than 50 miles or so from town, they took the wife’s car. The Leaf owner just commuted to work and got groceries and never took any trips, so it worked for him. (I don’t know about the Indian family. The husband is OK but we don’t chat, and the wife and elder daughter … well, to call them pieces of crap would be an insult to crap.)
Anyway, no currently available EV would suit my needs. I don’t drive much, so it would lose charge sitting in the driveway. Where’s the efficiency there? And several times a year I’ll go anywhere from 400 to 1000 miles, usually carrying from a quarter ton to a half ton of stuff.
What is a lemon lot, JimB? From context, it sounds like people would leave their never-worked-right cars there for people to (dis)admire. Why would they do that? Was it a monthly show or something?
Lemon lot = used car lot for private parties. I never thought about the meaning of a lemon, but it rarely applies here.
Over the years, the most notable hosts have been Walmart and Home Depot. I have bought cars from each. Both were pressured by the police to cease and desist. Both are in the city. We need a property owner outside the city limits, but on a well-trafficed street, to step up. A simple permission document, disclaiming liability, would be helpful.
To clarify, just the Walmart and Home Depot parking lots. The companies just looked the other way, and did not get involved. Our city fathers are powerful, and have vested interests.
The county, OTOH, is much more tolerant.
Need coffee. 🙂
For The Love Of All That Is Holy, Stop Backing Into Parking Spaces
Cars being used as status symbols aren’t new, but the difference with EVs is that a lot of sacrifice is being asked of society to facilitate a very small percentage of the population being able to drive the vehicles and frequently play You Ain’t Got No Ice Cream games as well as virtue signal.
(The Chinese relations who own a Model X love that Ice Cream game.)
We haven’t even begun to see what the real impact will be to the power grid.
Summer 2024 in Texas.
When I was stationed in Hawaii at Hickam AFB there was such a lot. Blessed by the powers to be at Hickam. People leaving Hawaii in a few weeks would place their car in the lot. People arriving in Hawaii would browse such lots. Saved the military the expense of shipping vehicles. Rust problems from the salt air stayed in Hawaii on the vehicles. It seemed to work well. People knew what they were getting, something to travel around Oahu and not much else. I knew several people that purchased from that lot and never really got shafted. As opposed to the car dealers off-base which were nothing but con men. Almost everyone that purchased from these dealers got shafted.
Most Stateside military bases, back in the day, had “lemon lots” where troops PCSing overseas (or other reasons) would park their vehicles with sales signs. Sanctioned by the base commander. The JAG provided forms for sales. I’m sure today they don’t exist because it is raaayyyccciiisss! Like everything else.
Hi Mr. Ray!
From the “Ruh Roh” department:
I went into the local Habitat for Humanity Restore yesterday looking for a replacement for one of our 25 year old bathroom fixtures. While wandering the space looking for the shelf area which contained the plumbing odds and ends, I passed the entrance to the donations sorting area which was filled with dozens of new-ish looking office chairs from someone nearby.
Topping my list of possibilities would be O2 bank, just across the freeway, but the local Nvidia office isn’t far as well as the semi-secret Applied Materials facility I’ve mentioned before.
Someone could also be clearing out the Zynga space which was in a large building across from the Home Depot up at the next light.
54F and 67%RH, so cool and damp, but gorgeous sun and clear blue sky.
Breakfast is eaten. Coffee cup is almost empty. Work calls from a distance, with a thready whisper, but impossible to ignore….
n
Yeah, I have the need to haul stuff, and more than two people, but only occasionally. Instead of buying something to handle all needs occasionally, I am keeping my current car. I plan big hauling needs for when the boy is home with the Tacoma. For the one or two long car trips a year when it’s all three of us, I rent a car. I can do a lot of $400 suv rentals and still not come close to a $700+ month car payment for 5 or more years.
I need a 4WD (Currently a 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee, 5.7L Hemi) for my twice annual trip to the 3rd crossing of Coyote Creek.
Lat: N 33°22.2674′
Lon: W 116°25.4707′
plugs is off to El Paso for his photo op. I imagine the PLTs are out in force scrubbing the place down and getting rooms for the crimmigrants and homeless for the day. Gotta scrub that piss smell off the walls, though. plugs probably won’t even talk to any Border Patrol agents since they are raycis’ horse rein whipping scum.
From a video soundtrack posted on WUWT by a guy that should know better
Triple?
Let’s do it in Celsius:
“Despite air temperatures averaging 20°C, solar ponds can fantastically almost triple temperatures in their bottom layer to over 88°C.”
Wowie kazowie! 4.4X!!!! Now we’re cookin’, dude!
4.4/2.8 = 1.57! 57% better performance!
I’m going to put a Centrigrade solar pond in and leave those Fahrenheit fairies in the dust!
Aw, man. I measure all temperatures in Rankine, so the solar ponds are only 23% warmer than the air. Not impressive at all.
On the other hand, when I mention that the temperature around here gets below zero, that’s very impressive.
A number of years ago some estupidos (who used the metric system) over here, https://forums.geocaching.com/GC/index.php?/forum/11-gps-technology-and-devices/
got after me for using our USA system (in, ft, lbs, and deg F).
My response was that I would use that system which the bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Oh. used to build and fly the first airplane at Kitty Hawk until I thought that I was smarter than they were, then I would switch to metric.
That was it, not one more comment regarding my lack of intelligence.
Is Robert Francis going to be present for Biden’s speeh or is “The Mexican Bobby Kennedy” done as far as the Dems are concerned?
O’Rourke’s home base is El Paso. That is where his father was a “Judge” and includes the district Robert Francis represented in Congress.
If Greg Casar is present, assume that Casar will be the party’s choice to take on Rafael Edward in 2024.
Will plugs be singing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utuMYbs2Gng
As for cars, a small car* with room for a passenger and a load of groceries would suffice for almost all of my trips. I need something bigger, for five passengers or a half ton of fertilizer or a desk, often enough that renting as needed isn’t practical. Given the driveway space and the willingness to pay the extra insurance and fees, I’d have a small car, a Suburban, and a trailer. Given my current situation, a minivan is good enough in all categories and not terrible in any.
I’ll probably be buying a “small” car soon. The Child is almost 16 and I plan to get her her driver’s license, grit my teeth and pay for the insurance, and let her drive my van. That was one of my thoughts when buying an old, worth-nothing, but still decent enough, new-to-me van a year ago, to give her something to drive that is safe but not worth much. To get her some independence from an unreliable mother who’ll leave her stranded somewhere because “she forgot” and who doesn’t answer her phone because “she’s busy”. (Of course I’ll go get the kid if she calls for a ride… if I’m at my desk when she calls. If I’m mowing the lawn or something, I won’t get the message for a while.)
* “Small” being a relative term. I stand 6’3″ and my shoulders are wide enough that I can’t properly sit in some driver’s seats with the door shut. Annoying!
Oh yeah, when I was working on the Delta II Launch Vehicle in the Propulsion Team, we calculated the propellant loads and sent them down to the Launch teams at the launch sites. For the 1st stage fuel, the quantity was specified in gallons, like filling gas at the gas station.
From SRW in the Fort Bend Journal:
“Am I right or am I right?”
“Sure, they say on their dating website they’re looking for a ”partner in crime,” but when I show up in a mask and carrying burglar tools, I’m “unstable” and “a risk to society”!!!”.
Cool and damp, or warm-ish and damp, but certainly damp… we got a rainstorm right in the middle of the afternoon yesterday. Before that it was sopping wet. During it was pretty wet. After it was pretty wet… definitely a theme yesterday.
We got about 5 or 7 inches of rain between midnight and 3 am last night. The six inch deep ¼ acre pond between me and my east neighbor is back. It was totally dry before last night.
RIP
I remember seeing Adam Rich’s face regularly on the tabloids in the supermarket in the 80s. He seemed to be the poster boy for “Child Star Gone Bad”.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/entertainment/adam-rich-dead/index.html
I have been told to never use cruise control while pulling a trailer. I know my F-150 knows I am towing a trailer, will alert to excessive sway, and apply the trailer brakes. It has happened twice going under a bridge while being passed by a truck. I also have a tow/haul switch that will lock the torque converter and changes the shift points.
Crazy. Austin has been fairly dry since Christmas. Yesterday was just gloomy.
According to the articles I just looked at, cruise control while towing is OK – on flat areas. Hilly areas, not so much, as trying to maintain the speed with the additional load of a trailer over hills/etc makes the engine and transmission work much harder.
If your car has a ‘tow/haul’ mode, that is good to enable, even with cruise control. Helps reduce load on engine/transmission/brakes on hilly sections, and helps with trailer sway (as when a big semi or larger vehicle passes/is passed).
And cruise in slippery conditions (rain/snow/etc) not advised, nor advised in heavier traffic.
All the articles said to keep a close eye on engine temp, and tranmission temp if you have a gauge for that.
The story about the Tesla “miracle” crash survivors earlier this week keeps getting stranger.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/04/dharmesh-patel-accused-of-intentionally-driving-tesla-off-ca-cliff/
That vehicle is the ultimate nanny machine.
“New York Times: ‘There Has Never Been a Better Time to Be Short’ – ‘Mate with shorter people’ for ‘a greener planet’ & to save ‘the planet by shrinking the needs of subsequent generations’”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/01/08/new-york-times-there-has-never-been-a-better-time-to-be-short-mate-with-shorter-people-for-a-greener-planet-to-save-the/
You know, we used to put people like this at the New York Times in sanatoriums and then electroshock them.
The Times. Pinch’s dimwitted brood continues the family tradition.
Then it’s back home. I’ll return the trailer Monday morning. Truck pulled the trailer no problem. ~5000 pounds and I was doing 80 when I didn’t pay attention. The gas mileage widget said 10.5 mpg though. Putting the cruise control on, and dropping to the limit of 75 mph got me 11.6 mpg. Truck normally gets about 15-18 mpg the way I drive and with the extra stuff in the cargo area. No way an EV truck would work for me. And as a BOV, an electric is a complete non-starter.
I get about 12 mpg in my 2019 F-150 4×4 towing a 6,000 lb trailer. I drive with the cruise and brake very early due to my past experiences towing a 28,000 lb gooseneck trailer with Chevy and Ford duallies. Without the trailer I get 18 to 20 mpg at 75+ mph and 15 to 17 mpg driving around town.
For this setup to work properly using an electric truck, a large generator would be required in the bed of the pickup with appropriately sized fuel tank of 20 to 30 gallons.
To the mil guys who mentioned lemon lots on military bases, that is right. An old term, and no longer done on any bases I am aware of. Sad. Used to be one of the first places I looked for after hours in my travels. Yup, probably raycisssss.
As for renting cars, I also have rented a few cars for trips just to save wear and tear on my own cars. Especially true for threatening conditions such as weather. Other threats as well. From my business days, I always took good care of a rental car, but if it came to it, it was expendable. My own cars are definitely not expendable. I tend to keep them for a long time. They are part of the family.
@SteveF, I am also 6’-3” tall, but not very wide. I have shoehorned into rental cars, airline seats, and phone booths*. I am about medium in my family. I have a sister-in-law who claims to be 5’-13”. Irish gal with flaming red hair. What a kick!
*I remember phone booths, and not just the Tardis kind.
“A Call to Insurrection (4) (Manticore Ascendant)” by David Weber, Timothy Zahn, with Thomas Pope
https://www.amazon.com/Call-Insurrection-Manticore-Ascendant/dp/1982192372?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number four of a four book space opera series. The series is a prequel to the noted Honorverse series of more than twenty books. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Baen in 2022. If there are more books published in the series then I plan to purchase them.
The Manticore system is still in disarray from the plague that decimated the colonists. And now there is a group trying to upset the Manticore system. Their initial attempt to upset Manticore failed so the group moved to the nearby Andermani Empire buy trying to carve out a small system.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (2,053 reviews)
Rental cars? Yeah, the auto policy is up for renewal. I need to call and cancel that $62 for 6 months “rental car” thing that applies only to the Frontier. Hey, we have the cursed van and a Jeep Cherokee. No need to ever rent a car.
Over the years, the most notable hosts have been Walmart and Home Depot. I have bought cars from each. Both were pressured by the police to cease and desist.
Why were they pressured by the police to cease and desist ?
Oh yeah, when I was working on the Delta II Launch Vehicle in the Propulsion Team, we calculated the propellant loads and sent them down to the Launch teams at the launch sites. For the 1st stage fuel, the quantity was specified in gallons, like filling gas at the gas station.
US Gallons, not those monster Imperial Gallons.
Car dealers provide a lot of campaign donations for the Mayor, Sheriff, or, in the case of Texas, “Judge”.
Just guessing, but suspect parking ‘load’ issues. Too many cars filling up the lot, preventing shopping customer access. Probably, also trash issues.
When living in the Sacramento CA area, the local 2 year college in Rocklin CA (Sierra College) used to allow a ‘private seller’ lot in one of their parking lots. There would usually be about 75-100 cars there each 2-day weekend. They charged for a lot space, and had forms and a Kelly Blue Book available for reference. They kept the keys of all cars, and a worker would allow you to start the car and inspect engine and interior. You could only take it for a test drive if the vehicle owner came.
They had private security for overnight. There would be quite a variety of cars and trucks there. Along with boats on trailers and RVs. Very popular place. I’d go there just to look around.
Still running – http://www.sierraautofair.com/
Because pigs gotta pig? And get into stuff that ain’t any of their business. ?
As for the parking lots being full, they are /never/ full except at WalMart a couple of weeks before Christmas.
The local Walmart/Lowe’s plaza parking lot is turning into quite the homeless campground on the edges of the parking areas. Even closer in are a lot of cars doubling as housing for the modern urban outdoorsmen/women.
>> Anyway, no currently available EV would suit my needs. I don’t drive much, so it would lose charge sitting in the driveway. Where’s the efficiency there? And several times a year I’ll go anywhere from 400 to 1000 miles, usually carrying from a quarter ton to a half ton of stuff.
Uhh, you’re forgetting one thing…the EO that President ButtPlug will be signing that “adjusts” the maximum allowable cargo capacity for all EV pickup trucks.
And Costco. And what’s with their handicap spots? MIL has a placard and we often take her along to Costco. There a lots of blue spaces but never any open. Never obvious cheaters. Do only old handicapped peeps go to Costco before noon?
>> Do only old handicapped peeps go to Costco before noon?
Uhh, yeah, since a good portion of WFH has ended.
I find between 5 and 6pm to usually be a good time to avoid the crowds.
>> And Costco. And what’s with their handicap spots? MIL has a placard and we often take her along to Costco.
“Hey honey, would you mind popping your Mom out of the freezer and prop her up in the car? You know how hard it is to park there without her handicapped tag. Oh, and crank the A/C up to high, would ya.”
And “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”.
Inflation update:
Today’s Sam’s Club run:
$60
The Walmart and Home Depot lots here are rarely more than half full. They are larger here because our city has some formula for minimum parking spaces, and because we have a lot of space. The issue was that the car dealers didn’t want the competition from too easy private sales. Also, when Walmart built a new Sooper Dooper Walmart, the auto fixit shops lobbied to prevent an auto repair center. They also don’t sell major appliances, but that can’t be the same reason. That store was held up for more than five XXXX ten years by the city council: one reason after another, add roads, traffic signals, do something with the old store, etc. Eventually, the city won on almost all issues. Our city council would give Jenny’s a good run for the money. If I ever were to open a retail store, it would be outside the city limits.
What’s the baseline, Greg? What was the price before the Joetato, the “I did that!” kid, the Delaware Dope, the Gropey Pedo, set the Bidenflation spinning?
Dilbert: Crypto Hobo
https://dilbert.com/strip/2023-01-08
The newest fad. It may be a short fad though.
Triple?
Let’s do it in Celsius:
“Despite air temperatures averaging 20°C, solar ponds can fantastically almost triple temperatures in their bottom layer to over 88°C.”
Wowie kazowie! 4.4X!!!! Now we’re cookin’, dude!
4.4/2.8 = 1.57! 57% better performance!
I’m going to put a Centrigrade solar pond in and leave those Fahrenheit fairies in the dust!
Now do you see why I am so upset that a group of fake “scientists” claim that they can measure the temperature of the Earth to a thousandth of a degree C. And then they claim that they can predict the future temperature of the Earth based only on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, a trace chemical.
Red Lobster wanted to open in Oak Ridge. City council put up many roadblocks. One of the strangest was the claim the design contained too much wood and was a fire hazard. Even though a fire suppression system was mandatory. Turns out the fire marshal and a city council member owned restaurants that would be affected by the opening. Red Lobster got the state involved and got the permit.
Target wanted to open a store in Oak Ridge. The owner of the property started land preparation. The project got halted. Turns out one of the perks Walmart got from the city was no competitive stores within the city limits. Walmart paid, and continues to pay, the city for using the property. The city wanted Target to pay hundreds of thousands of dollar to change intersections, some not even close to the Target location. Target told the city to F off.
The Yucs enter the playoffs with a losing record but get Dallas in Tampa next Sunday.
Anyone see Gronk’s shoe commercials back on the air this weekend?
I’m not sure whether The Hermitage section of Nashville is a decent part of town, but the Target was a trainwreck when we went in on a Sunday night during our abbreviated trip in August.
Usually, the Walmarts are kinda-sorta trashed around here so we went 15 minutes out of our way to find the closest Target to the Opryland area.
Yet Cracker Barrel’s mostly wood structure buildings with large fireplaces in the dining rooms are fine.
Roughly $40, the difference split between the roughly doubling in cost of the Doritos and paper towels.
At one point, the paper towels were $5 more, but the rolls shrank in the last few months.
Charmin Blue was totally gone again.
I think the real problem is too few businesses for the population.
Florida had a similar problem when we lived there. That’s a small part of why we left.
Home safe. Didn’t get the trailer returned early so that will happen tomorrow am. Some weirdness with the reservation, not linked to my account, wrong return time, and now I’m getting “please tell the world how much you loved your rental’ emails as if I’d already returned it…
So I definitely want to go to the counter in person and not drop it on the lot.
Gas jumped 40c in the last week in town. More in the boonies. $2.79 in town.
Not much traffic, or accidents, only a few cops, but still more than usual. Full-ish moon was low and bright yellow.
—————-
“Lemon lots” was probably a sarcastic or sardonic nickname originally but stuck long enough to lose the “lemon = bad car” association.
————-
looks like I won three of the 4 scratch and dent freezers I was bidding on… One looks perfect, and doesn’t have any damage listed. The other two were cheaper and look like they had a hit from a forklift, but I’m pretty sure it is only on the cover for the mechanicals, and not the insulated side. I’ll know better if it was a good deal when I pick them up. $75, $75, and $120 for 7 cubic ft chests. My fisherman buddy at the BOL wants the undamaged one already. Don’t think I’ll have a problem selling the others if the damage isn’t bad.
————-
The big Chevy car dealer north of Conroe has cars, and a billboards announcing it, but there is a whole lotta empty lot too. They’ve got about half the cars they have room for. The big ford dealer on the north side is the same, still lots of empty lot and spread out vehicles lined up in front.
———-
Didn’t even notice 2000# of flatbed trailer behind me on the way home. My expy has the heavy duty towing package, and the heavy duty cargo package. It knows I was towing. I got a “trailer attached” message on the dash. Cruise control is very smooth, no “hunting” or heavy acceleration at all.
My old expy handled noticeably better when loaded, or towing something heavy. It was pretty stiff otherwise. This one is more luxury than work but towed the load easily. (10000pound capacity, so not strained at 5000)
n
@Lynn
Yeah, verily.
There’s a long list of things that make them fake.
Gas jumped 40c in the last week in town. More in the boonies. $2.79 in town.
New federal taxes on crude oil produced in the USA and natural gas produced in the USA starting Jan 1, 2023. Guess who pays those taxes ? Yup, the consumer.
To the victors belong the spoils…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/florida-byron-donalds-reveals-committee-appointment-exchange-mccarthy-house-speaker-vote
We were supposed to get a pile of snow last night, but apparently it mostly came down as rain. Maybe 2 inches this morning.
It’s getting colder through the week, with continuous precipitation, so we will eventually get snow. Then, on the weekend, warm temperatures and rain. Slush, slush…
It’s an incredibly warm winter so far (as opposed to what’s happening in other parts of the world). Which is good for the countries hit by the Russian gas mess.
I really loved the original set of Honor Harrington novels. However, at some point, it became clear that he was stretching the plot and writing more books, for the money.
Nothing wrong with earning money, of course, but the later books are nowhere near the quality of the first ones…
I gave up on Weber when I read 1000 pages and realized nothing significant happened. When it was all political interaction between factions, and no, zero, zilch forward movement of the plot.
Which is a shame, since the Safehold series is squarely in my wheelhouse. It should have been a home run for him, since it is so similar to Heirs Of Empire in concept, and he basically got a do-over.
Instead, he lost a fan.
Well, over that, and also because I had the misfortune to read Out Of The Dark. The only book I ever walled.