Cold. Damp. Mainly cold. It was 35F when I went to sleep last night. The wind had stopped but dang, that’s cold. It was pretty nice during the day, after a chilly start, but when the nuclear furnace passes out of the local sky, temperatures started to drop, da, drop, drop…
I ended up doing my pickups. Concrete saw looks complete and came with several blades, including one that is brand new. If the gas engine runs it will be a great help at the BOL. I decided to leave it at the house for now, until I get the engine running. That’s a lot easier where I have all my tools and the internet, and stores nearby. But that is one more gas engine on the list of stuff to look at…
Hit up Lowes for plumbing stuff. Hit the Costco for gas ($2.75/gal vs. the Shell station at $3.19) and some food. There were some of my staples that weren’t there, but they’d gotten some stuff that was missing last visit back into stock. Prices were mixed. Lamb is the same, ham is up by 50%. Chicken is back down to ~1USD /pound for legs. Catfish is $9/pound. Rice is up to 80c/pound, so about 50-80% increase. Pancake mix is now $8 up from $6. Beef was mixed, but mostly expensive. Canned beef was $18 for four cans. That seems crazy high. They had a bigger variety of coffee than they used to have, and prices weren’t crazy. Dairy and eggs were good prices, but very low stock. There are clearly still issues in the supply chain.
Then I got home and got dinner ready. Decided to head out this morning instead of driving in the dark, and I hadn’t loaded up the stuff from storage yet, and it was late.
Wife and kids have cookie booths all after noon and evening. I’ll sleep for a bit, then head out. Plumbing awaits!
Working on the BOL is time well spent. Further equipping it is money and effort well spent. There is just so much to do. Questions like “how many different forms of backup heat do I need there?”, and “will one kero heater be enough? or should I have propane Mr Heaters as backup too?” “How many fans and electric heaters in case there is power but no propane?” “Do I split up existing stocks or buy more just for the BOL?” Well, you get the drift.
I thought I had big stacks. Now I have two, but they are half the size they were…
So stack some more. Because two is one and one is none.
n
regarding the post title, Good, Fast, or Cheap, Pick any two… in my personal life I lean toward good and cheap but too often find myself picking fast and cheap. In my previous professional life I was one of the “pros from Dover” and we definitely ran to good and fast.
It turns out my friend’s future ex-wife worked as a DEI contractor on 1099 jobs a few years back, pre-Covid. Maybe she was one of those people.
Apparently, she made $70,000 the year before lockdowns. Not great money on 1099 after SS, Medicare, and expenses, but, knowing her personality, she probably did it for the authoritah kicks.
Ironically, Ashkenazi descent, with a significant number of extended family members lost to the Holocaust.
OTOH, still White European ancestry. My rule of thumb is that 50% of that demographic would go full-on “Rolf Gruber” (the kid with the whistle in “The Sound of Music”) given a chance, especially in work situations.
HOA pettiness and/or property value neuroses? Into the boxcar, Skippy.
Good Germans. Armbands -er- masks at the ready.
There are other places to work.
The one thing I learned at the tolling company is never go into a work environment where you are not wanted as much as desperately needed, especially in Texas where the management is likely to be on Adderall … or worse.
To paraphrase “Supertroopers” again, “They get that Adderall in ’em and they get all antsy in their pantsy.”
If the manager’s hands are twitching in the interview during quiet moments, RUN.
BTW, I think Google and Apple were caught off guard by the AI craze, and the problems they face catching up are deeply rooted in their respective corporate cultures.
“Every now and then, a trigger has to be pulled.” Google and Apple forgot that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcgG_E9gQJM
On tattoos:
I don’t have any. Not even tempted during 20 in the Army. I think it was a bad decision to allow visible tattoos of any kind in the service. The Perfumed Princes installed by Olbola let tattoos through. I’m sure the Marine Corp really regrets it. Plus trannies. Maybe one day the Marines will get a Commandant who is not woke. Maybe it is too late. I don’t believe for a second any flag officer saying we are ready to fight a war.
Here we go:
US: Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine
Using the Kamel to push WWIII is pure puppeteering. The WEF/NWO old white guys are wetting their panties.
How long before the other services follow: no PT, men in high heels, trannies, pink uniforms, all female fly-overs just because:
Navy drops physical fitness requirement, offers travel for abortions
“The Vegetable Senator from Pennsylvania”
I prefer Incitatus, but to each their own.
https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-jr-makes-disgusting-123214180.html
Isegoria has a link today to a Michael Yon post on failure to prep, the exact opposite of your thinking….but pretty much the norm.
https://www.isegoria.net/2022/12/her-tattoos-cost-more-than-wool-and-will-not-keep-her-warm/
Scientists Debunk Alarmist Claim That Vertebrates Declined 69% Since 1970
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/02/17/scientists-debunk-alarmist-claim-that-vertebrates-declined-69-since-1970/
I’ve seem this claim many times and recognized it as statistical bullpuckey without getting into the details.
Now a group has done a nice dissection on the details, but the fact is that the liars will keep using the numbers.
The thing to do is to diddle them with their own methods.
A recent news release touted bringing the dodo back from extinction using DNA technology at a cost of a couple hundred million. I’d say let’s get ‘er done.
Dodos are vertebrates.
Bring the dodo back next year and the minute you do so you have a new graph line with a slope:
(Number of Dodos (2025) -Number of Dodos(1970))/(Number of Dodos(1970))
Problem solved.
>> I don’t believe for a second any flag officer saying we are ready to fight a war.
Fight a war? We can barely “fight” a few Party City birthday balloons without looking like the Keystone Kops.
Sunny and clear, with 55F and low RH at 45%. Basically a great day!
Hooray. Now to get the truck loaded and get out of town.
Hold down the fort, don’t be afraid of the ban hammer…
n
Ayup.
—like white flight, advantage to the first movers, the late movers get stuck.
NB that during hard times there are usually bargains to be had, if one has the means…
n
Not the first article recently with this tone. Battlespace prep, or moving the overton window, they are setting the stage.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11759623/The-TRUE-food-use-dates-ones-EVER.html
n
U. Richmond School of Law’s Namesake Descendant Demands Return of $3.6 Billion Donations After ‘Woke’ Name Change
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/02/descendent-of-u-richmond-school-of-laws-namesake-demands-return-of-3-6-billion-donations-after-woke-name-change/
Just the beginning.
I think the next lawsuit should force UR to give up all rights to “T.C. Williams School of Law”. Make them give up any and all use of the name–no use on the website, no use on any documents of any kind.
Extract the name and the money, and then offer the package to establish a new law school associated with a university far from Richmond. Contract to include an unparalleled requirement for academic excellence, an absolute guarantee of free speech, constitutional carry on campus, and forbidding any taint of wokeness now and until the stars stop shining.
oh, yeah: hunting rights to include communists and socialists with a three bag daily limit
A lot of places have adopted mandatory composting of food waste, complete with inspectors poking around in the garbage cans if your neighbors “Go Rolf” and call the tip line printed on the cans.
Most states don’t set a limit on vermin. They even allow jacklighting.
Hasn’t that lie been debunked enough times yet? Apparently not, as it keeps getting repeated.
Honey? It is practically eternal. Honey from the Pyramids has been recovered and is still edible.
Vinegar? It’s ALREADY spoiled, so how can it get worse?
Vanilla? Nice to know. Not that we’ve ever kept vanilla long enough for it to go bad. It’s an ingredient for chocolate chip cookies!
Peanut butter? I’ve opened peanut butter jars that are 3-4 years old, and were still fine.
I run a lot of my real life via email, and I also have this online presence using an alias that I’ve used for over 20 years. Web based email clients are “helpful”, so if you log into an email account, any time you navigate to, say, gmail.com, from a new window, you are already logged in.
So if you want to access your OTHER account, you need to log out of the first one, and log into the second. That’s a pain.
Years ago, when I used Firefox, I solved that by using IE to log into my second account. IE was stupid and clunky, but at least it was buggy and slow and a memory hog… Oh, where was I going? Yes, it had the virtue of not sharing Firefox cookies, so I could log in afresh into the second account.
Now I use Chrome, and while it’s still “helpful”, it allows me to open an incognito window for private browsing, which doesn’t share the cookies. So I can log into my second email and still run only the one browser.
Possibly Edge has caught up. I don’t know, and I don’t care.
Apparently, Firefox has also caught up, with private browsing and a plug-in for multiple accounts.
I hope this information is helpful for people who have the same issue with multiple email accounts.
In completely unrelated news, @Nick I sent you a completely un-urgent email a while ago.
Safari on Mac supports this. I can have two gmails open (I usually have to access my wife’s for work), “private” window equals incognito. Safari keeps getting better, but trails.
>> Vanilla? Nice to know. Not that we’ve ever kept vanilla long enough for it to go bad. It’s an ingredient for chocolate chip cookies!
IIRC Costco sells 100% natural vanilla in a (16 oz??) glass bottle for a good price (plus the FJB “transient” inflation surcharge.)
I have several Gmail accounts, and I can open one of them while still keeping the current one active. I just click my icon (upper right), and get a dialog allowing me to select another gmail account. It opens in a new tab, so both can be active.
This is in FireFox (latest version) on the Win11 laptop, but also works the same on my Chromebook.
@RickH
Well, I learned something. Apparently Chrome does that exact same thing, managing multiple profiles.
I’m going to stick with the incognito thing for now, but it’s good to know.
Ken Mitchell
Vanilla extract is minimum 35% ethanol in the U.S. Won’t go bad for a long time as long as it’s sealed.
A few years ago I was informally consulted by a safety inspector concerning storage of a large amount of vanilla extract that had been purchased ahead of a large price increase. Thousands of gallons.
It was an informal friend of a friend conversation because the inspector was getting some very bad vibes from his management, basically being told to butt out even though there was a lot of liability involved.
After asking some questions I told him that it sounded like a script for a heist movie: steal 95% of the product, set a fire to cover it up, and there’s just enough left in the ashes to show that some vanilla burned.
He made some changes that “just incidentally” made that scenario much more difficult, and then a few weeks later the product was moved to a more secure location. About the same time the inspector was blamed for something he didn’t do and got fired. Incidental, I’m sure.
Imagine the pitch meeting for this flick.
Ray Liotta and a bear high on cocaine …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuWEEKeJLMI
I started giggling the moment I heard that classic movie ambulance siren.
@Ray – I’m sad we didn’t make it to Knoxville. It seems like a happening place.
Yeah, Knoxville is the new Memphis.
I’m gonna buy advance tickets.
This time for sure!
headed out.
n
Lord and Miller dishing up the payback on Disney by killing the box office for “Ant Man 3” a week into release.
The Mouse is going to have a brutal year.
Nah. Make a movie about La Vergne.
Pullin’ that train, high on cocaine.
Meagan Hall, you’d better watch your speed.
One of my neighbors just put their 2,709 ft2 house on 2.0 acres up for sale for $1,199,000. That is $442.60/Sqft. Did I miss a memo on crazy prices for houses ?
https://www.har.com/homedetail/5611-grande-gables-dr-richmond-tx-77469/2401682?lid=7587930
Who is going to be the big H1B employer out there now that HPE is moving out of the Compaq campus? Conduent?
Of course, Tesla Kool Aid drinkers will say that the Austin presence will be so huge that your area will serve as a bedroom community for the Gigafactory.
I’ve seen the plans for the toll lanes from the factory running east down 71 to I-10. The last time we went to Houston, the toll lanes on I-10 were pushing out to 10 miles west of Katy. The meeting of the roads won’t be long now.
Still, my money would be on Indians. Maybe Chinese.
“We’re Now Funding Ukraine Pensions & Welfare”
https://areaocho.com/were-now-funding-ukraine-pensions-welfare/
“Did you catch that? We are sending another billion dollars to Ukraine, so Ukraine can pay their people pensions. Ten percent for the big guy, eh? How is creating and borrowing billions of dollars so the people of Ukraine can live the retired life contribute to US national interests?”
All of these gifts are going to come back and bite in us in the butt in a couple of years when the people we borrowed the money demand their money back plus interest.
Perhaps. But you most certainly missed the memo for crazy interior decorating. That is one strange house, including the furnishings.
Who is going to be the big H1B employer out there now that HPE is moving out of the Compaq campus? Conduent?
Of course, Tesla Kool Aid drinkers will say that the Austin presence will be so huge that your area will serve as a bedroom community for the Gigafactory.
I’ve seen the plans for the toll lanes from the factory running east down 71 to I-10. The last time we went to Houston, the toll lanes on I-10 were pushing out to 10 miles west of Katy. The meeting of the roads won’t be long now.
Still, my money would be on Indians. Maybe Chinese.
I am 30 miles away from the old Compaq Campus. I am 20 miles south of Katy. I am 175 miles away from Austin. No way these are affecting prices in my neighborhood. Nope, we have got a crazy person. And the railroad tracks are in their backyard with 30+ trains a day running past there starting at 4am in the morning.
If I could sell my 3,300 ft2 house with a 1,200 ft2 garage for $1,199,000, I would list it today.
Perhaps. But you most certainly missed the memo for crazy interior decorating. That is one strange house, including the furnishings.
Yeah, I like the black ink on the ceilings. Not.
So, list it and see if you get any offers. That may have worked better last year than this. But, if someone wants to pay the inflated price for your place, then take the money and run.
That house is creepy. Pull up the carpet looking for blood stains creepy.
I am no expert in Interior Design.
Bordello moderne.
Two and a half hours to the Gigafactory? That’s easy commuting to a California transplant.
I don’t see the factory becoming that important, however. If Ford can’t build a half ton EV pickup without fire problems, Tony doesn’t have a prayer.
Where I currently work, the requirement for hiring last year was to live within daily commuting distance, but they fudged that to pick up a lifer HPE guy who got shoved out the door in a spinoff of some product line. I believe he lives in Katy with no immediate plans to relocate because of Austin housing prices.
From what I understand, he’s not alone.
Nah, fuck that. Two plus hours into the morning sun and the same back home in the afternoon sun. No.
I mean, No. Four hours a days spent to get to work and back and it’s dark when you leave the house and dark when you get home. No.
Yeah. HEB pay here might suck compared to what they pay in Austin and to what I made at the DOB, but it’s a 15 minute drive if you take your time.
You gotta figure it all in. $x per hour. Divided by your time to and fro.
You get just some many hours.
So, list it and see if you get any offers. That may have worked better last year than this. But, if someone wants to pay the inflated price for your place, then take the money and run.
Nah, we have had two houses for sale on the market for over a million each for over six months. A million dollars is too serious for most people, this ain’t Kali.
https://www.har.com/homedetail/5519-bridlewood-dr-richmond-tx-77469/2401224
and
https://www.har.com/homedetail/7534-misty-meadow-ct-richmond-tx-77469/8722758
It ain’t Cali, but a Cali homeowner with equity might have 500K too much from the sale of their house. They have to roll that into a new house or pay capital gain. At least that’s the way it used to work. I know at least one couple that sold a condo in SoCal and built a custom mansion in the Woodlands to soak up the money. All kinds of crazy things happen when Cali residents move somewhere cheap. Plus, they are not clued in and are willing to spend more because they think it’s cheap.
Like when I was staying in hotels every night, eating and drinking on per diem, I’d get home, and friends would go out to a nice place. They’d be looking hard at the drinks menu and thinking about car payments, and I’d be going “Whoooooohooo! $10 drinks! This place is great!”
n
NB that was half the cost of a cocktail at the Windam Hotel bar…
Arrived, unpacked, ate. Tried fishing for a half hour, nada…
Baited and put two crawdad traps in the water. The lake is high. Well above normal level.
Lot of the neighbors are up this weekend.
52F when I got here, colder now that the sun is down. Checked the min/max at the dock- low of 12F at some point. THAT is seriously cold.
Got everything set for a nice fire tonight, and I’ll head down in a few. Some clouds, so IDK if I’ll get a telescope out.
I picked up 20ft of red rope light. I am thinking of putting it under the benches around the dock to give some light while observing. I just want enough that you don’t bump into things and a clearly defined edge…
n
@Lynn
“If I could sell my 3,300 ft2 house with a 1,200 ft2 garage for $1,199,000, I would list it today.”
Opportunity favors the prepared
mindhomeowner.Then you would need a place to live.
And, after that problem was solved, you would need a place to park the excess cash … if any.
Even the vaunted Geico Gecko’s stock price is flat for the year, but he’s still above his “intrinsic” number which he doesn’t disclose but is not difficult to estimate.
Roald Dahl gets a politically correct rewrite
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/02/18/roald-dahl-gets-a-politically-correct-rewrite-n531654
Not a fan, but no. Just no.
<< Yeah, Knoxville is the new Memphis.
I’m gonna buy advance tickets.
I’ll just wait for it to come out on cable.
Rewriting classics because of passing fads is desecration. People get up in arms when someone paints a dress over a heaving bosom, or chisels a penis off a statue. If writing is a work of art, and some is, then modifying it is desecration.
Imagine changing Moby Dick to Moby Peepee.. childish nonsense.
————-
Finished my fire. Sky was hazy enough that Orion was faint, even though there isn’t a moon in the sky. Chilly, down to 49F, cooler by the water.
shortwave was booming in from all over. I guess I missed a big storm or flood in NZ? Their news was full of the search for missing persons. Wonder if we’ll send them any aid, or if the money laundry is going to suck it all up forever.
————-
Time to shower and make an early night of it.
n