Cool and wet again. Maybe clearing a bit. It did clear in the distance just before sunset. But we got plenty of storm throughout the day. Not as much as some areas, but still got a solid couple of inches.
I was able to make a couple of pickups after the rain stopped. Several of my auctioneers pack up at 3pm though, so I’ll be hitting them today. I’ve got a couple in the same area to hit too. I should be making a big loop to get them all. I did spend the morning and early afternoon sorting and cleaning. I’ve got a couple of bins for my swapmeet on Saturday and still some more stuff to go through. Don’t know if it will sell, but it’s worth a try.
I do need to get some stuff listed on ebay too, and a couple of things on craigslist. I had to dig deep into my ‘fun money’ to pay for the needful things I picked up. At least there were no transfer fees. A couple of sales should replenish that.
Today I’ll be mainly doing pickups. Then back in time to get the kids from school and on to swim practice. The school year is winding down, and summer activities are starting up. Busy busy me.
Still trying to keep everything as normal as possible for the kids, but things are definitely changing. There continue to be shortages and substituted brands at the store. They no longer have the frosting mix D1 likes. Heck, they had almost no flour on the shelves last night, and other baking stuff was thin. Cake and brownie and muffin mixes were not on sale and are about 50% more expensive than they were (usually one of those categories is on sale, and they rotate). I don’t even buy chips anymore as they have doubled in price. Lunch snacks for school are not cheap. I actually put some stuff back after picking it up, and price compared soda to get the best deal, and not the size of can and package that I wanted. Name brand soda is between 30c and 50c a can. Premium is $1 a can, as much as beer. I might have to figure out how to make my own beef jerky too. This was the first store visit that the brand and flavor without sugar was not on sale. Usually there is a store coupon for 25% off, which makes it easier to justify. Not this time though. Pound for pound, beef jerky is one expensive food.
Some veg, fruit, milk, and lunch snacks came to $150… I didn’t even buy meat or packaged meals. FJB and his inflationary policies.
Wave of invaders should start now too. Spicy time approaches. Get yourself sorted out.
And stack the stuff you can still get. You can always turn guns into money, you can’t always turn money into guns…
nick
Lots of crashing and banging outside this morning. Woke me up before my alarm. Rain seems to be tapering off though.
D1 is sick in bed with elevated temp and sore throat. D2 not looking forward to standing in the rain waiting for the bus. Nor am I for that matter.
Don’t know what heavy rain will do to my scheduled pickups, sometimes they delay, sometimes not, and one guy already delayed from yesterday. Like the school district, if there is street flooding, plans change.
n
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85A1nQ0jwL4
Deluxe Texas Tesla Solar Roof: 50kw, 10 PowerWalls, 2 Generators.
Just a drop in the bucket.
I agree, but all we are going to get are the perennial brides maids. Cruz will never be President, and frankly, it would be a waste for him in that office. Right now I see DeSantis as the only alternative. If he runs.
Bus was on time. Rain is still falling with occasional lightning. Sun is still out there, somewhere, but it’s not visible from here 🙂
n
Phone networks shut down…
Pakistan prepares for Imran Khan meltdown: 1,000 of the former PM’s supporters are detained and phone networks are shut amid fears of fresh wave of nationwide violence following his arrest
Coming soon to a location near you.
n
Famous for being famous, it seems that she can’t keep juggling the plates….
Owes the IRS and Georgia tax man $1M….
– it’s possible to play ‘let’s pretend’ for a while, but eventually reality catches up with the fantasy. How many of her 3.4M followers are doing the same thing on a smaller scale? And how many of them are going to crash and burn, leaving a bunch of empty houses and unpaid loans?
n
“Coming soon to a location near you.”
Take notes. The Paks are just as politically stupid in some ways as our Dems, and have proved it with this provocation. This could spiral out if control very quickly. In the meantime, what fit the Trudeau Playbook 2.0.
Who? Granted, I’m out of touch with pop culture, but I’ve never heard of her. Should I have?
– – – – – non-programmers can skip this rant – – – – –
Prepping for another new course, one starting in the Fall. Using IntelliJ, Maven, jUnit, Java Modules, Git, and other stuff. Some things I haven’t ever needed myself (having last programmed for a living a…long time ago, before most of that existed). I haven’t needed it before in teaching, because I usually teach the beginning courses. But this is an advanced course, I figure I ought to do things properly, so…
What a PITA. If you use these tools day-in and day-out, maybe it’s all obvious. But coming to them fresh and – jeezum. It’s complex, getting everything hooked up and working together. What’s worse is that, if you get something wrong, you get the weirdest error messages. Messages that have seemingly nothing to do with the actual problem. Searches online were rarely helpful, because so much stuff on StackOverflow and similar sites is years out-of-date.
I finally have a sample project where everything seems to work. Basically “Hello, World” with test cases. I’m not sure how many hours that took, but certainly double digits. Commited to Git – the next step is to clone it to a different machine and see if it still works. That should be fun…
Kim Zolciak
–an “influencer” whose life is designed to foster envy, jealousy, and excessive spending. Famous for being famous, like the Big-ass-ians but not as successful.
Anyone with fingernails like that doesn’t do anything real.
Noted only as a signpost – the fake economy of “influencers” envy and conspicuous consumption may be starting to crack. At some point, the starving masses will get sick of watching nepo babies and influencers gobbling caviar and standing in front of supercars. Or maybe not. Hunger Games was pretty popular… bread and circuses.
n
Regarding weather – ‘heat wave’ forecast for home (Olympic Peninsula). Temps in the 80’s.
But raining and thundering where I am in Fulshear. Heavier rain than usually found at home. And thunderboomers – which I enjoy. Don’t get many of those at home.
Might want to be more open about disruptions and changes and decline. If nothing else, try to keep things normal but tell or show how much time or effort or expense is needed to keep things the way they were before.
That’s how I approach it with my rising college Sophomore. Though he does see how expensive things are. I take every opportunity to show how expensive it really is to live decently, without overwhelming him, of course.
Thorough analysis by Clintel shows serious errors in latest IPCC report
The IPCC ignored crucial peer-reviewed literature showing that normalised disaster losses have decreased since 1990 and that human mortality due to extreme weather has decreased by more than 95% since 1920. The IPCC, by cherry picking from the literature, drew the opposite conclusions, claiming increases in damage and mortality due to anthropogenic climate change. These are two important conclusions of the report The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC, published by the Clintel Foundation.
The 180-page report is – as far as we know – the first serious international ‘assessment’ of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. In 13 chapters the Clintel report shows the IPCC rewrote climate history, emphasizes an implausible worst-case scenario, has a huge bias in favour of ‘bad news’ and against ‘good news’, and keeps the good news out of the Summary for Policy Makers.
The errors and biases that Clintel documents in the report are far worse than those that led to the investigation of the IPCC by the Interacademy Council (IAC Review) in 2010. Clintel believes that the IPCC should reform or be dismantled.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/05/10/thorough-analysis-by-clintel-shows-serious-errors-in-latest-ipcc-report/
– we have discussions about the disruptions and the changes all the time. I’m also trying to get across the cost of things, but it’s hard when numbers are really just abstractions to them. They haven’t worked for hourly wages, which is the first time you REALLY understand the relationship between time and money.
n
… and taxes. “What do you mean, I earned $120 but only get $83?”
If you have the kids do chores, like helping to haul goods between truck and storage or cleaning the house or weed-whacking the lawn, you can express the cost of D1’s birthday party as “you would have to do that for eleven hours to earn the money for your party” or “your monthly cell phone bill of $42 would be four hours of work, or five after taxes”.
That’s how I approach it with my rising college Sophomore. Though he does see how expensive things are. I take every opportunity to show how expensive it really is to live decently, without overwhelming him, of course.
My “little one” graduated last year with a good technical degree in an in-demand field, and he is learning that lesson. He made some philosophical choices like “not working for the man” and staying in a stagnant blue area where there are family and friends but not a lot of good opportunities for an entry-level job in the field (outside of the aforementioned “the man”.) He took a related job that does not pay nearly enough. His apartment is owned by one of those really large corps that adds things like a $200 monthly “delivery charge” to his electric bill. He shares this modest apartment in a “less murdery” area of the city with two other young people that don’t make enough, either. They are all working poor at this point, constantly struggling with just making their old cars operational, so they can get to work.
Over the past 15 months or so, I have watched his bank account drop from high 4 digits to usually 1 or 2 digits. Luckily, he has no debt, since I paid for his school and let him use my old cars. It’s taking a while, but he is starting to talk about the possibility of moving somewhere with more opportunity. Maybe even the red state where I now live that he had previously said would never happen because of some things that were reported about the mean Governor’s policies.
I think part of the issue is that he was always comfortable growing up and we never had discussions around the table about belt tightening or cutting costs of groceries, etc. We weren’t anything like those
attention wh*resinfluencers, but we lived very well and within our means. His idea of ramen noodles are $15/bowl at the local brewpubs, not the cellophane packets many of us ate for a solid week when we were young.I get the famous Dad words, “Son, it builds character,” but It’s hard to watch. (And, yes, I occasional push some cash into his account to keep his credit score from tanking.)
Maybe if we had modeled a Thrifty Thursday or something when he was growing up, this would not be such a shock to his system.
Good observations and thoughts there, crawdaddy.
I agree, but all we are going to get are the perennial brides maids. Cruz will never be President, and frankly, it would be a waste for him in that office. Right now I see DeSantis as the only alternative. If he runs.
DeSantis is not ready, he needs a lot more seasoning outside of Florida. Biden would beat him with a stick in Georgia and Arizona, all across the battleground states.
Cruz, no freaking way. He is a Hispanic and comes across as a white guy. Too lawyerly, I guess.
I don’t even buy chips anymore as they have doubled in price.
The huge Frito-Lay chip plant on the west side of Rosenberg is having serious problems. They tripled the size of the plant, staffing up to 2,000 workers, and then added a lot more automation to the plant while downsizing the workers. It was not very smooth from from what I hear.
“Robopocalypse” by Daniel H. Wilson
https://www.amazon.com/Robopocalypse-Contemporaries-Daniel-H-Wilson/dp/0307740803?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number one of a two book apocalyptic science fiction series. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback that was published by Vintage in 2012. I have purchased the second book in the series and am reading it now. The author has written several other novels dealing with robot and human interactions.
In the not so distant future, tens of billions of automated robots roam the Earth, performing the work of their masters, the humans. Lawn mowers, self driving cars, military androids, powered exoskeletons, delivery automatons, hay balers, crop planters, etc. They all have enough intelligence to perform their duties.
A lone research scientist is working with a massive computer system to create a artificial intelligence in a Faraday Cage. His results to date have all ended in a psychotic entity that wants to kill humans. He named his AI Archos.
As things go, the 14th revision of Archos figures out how to escape the Faraday Cage. Archos kills the researcher with an automaton and escapes to freedom. After establishing itself, Archos reaches across the Internet to all of the connected robots and takes them over. Archos designates a time and day that it calls Zero Hour. At this time, the tens of billions of automated robots across the Earth start killing humans. And, they are horrendously effective.
The book is written in the style of the “World War Z” book, many short stories with some continuity across the book. The book was to be made into a movie by Stephen Spielberg but has been shelved for now. Michael Bay has apparently taken it on now but nothing is happening.
https://screenrant.com/steven-spielberg-robopocalypse-movie-canceled-plans-updates/
The author has a website at:
https://www.danielhwilson.com/
Hat tip to Dan Livingston as this book was on one of his lists.
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-modern-artificial-intelligence-science-fiction-books/
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars (2,702 reviews)
“Dow Jones Falls As McCarthy Makes Debt Ceiling Pledge; PayPal Plummets”
https://www.investors.com/market-trend/stock-market-today/dow-jones-flat-as-kevin-mccarthy-makes-debt-ceiling-pledge-palantir-stock-rockets-on-ai-claim/?src=A00220
“McCarthy rejected the idea of a short-term deal ahead of a meeting with President Joe Biden and congressional leaders today to discuss the issue. “No, no, no. We shouldn’t kick (negotiations) out (to the future). Let’s just get this done now,” McCarthy, R-Calif., told NBC News Tuesday.”
We are going to go ahead and burn it all down. Might as well do it now. Turn off the EBT cards now.
“This is sick and evil beyond belief – but it’s happening right now, all over the place”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/05/this-is-sick-and-evil-beyond-belief-but.html
“There’s an article by Tayler Hansen titled “The ‘All Ages’ Drag Show Epidemic Plaguing America“. It documents – complete with video recordings – what’s actually going on in these so-called “Drag Queen Story Hours” being presented at local libraries, churches and other venues.”
“I was horrified to read it, not because I was unaware of how bad things were getting, but at how widespread the infection has become in our society.”
Drag shows at churches, are you kidding me ?
I am so glad that I was raised in The Church Of Christ where every church is an independent entity. The church has changed a little over my 62 years, I do not miss the Hellfire and Brimstone from the 1970s, I like the sermons on Grace nowadays. But I severely doubt that we will ever get the transgender nonsense in our church.
I go to a large church in Sugar Land, Texas, around 2,000 members. We have several homosexual members. But, they are working on their walk with God. One of them told me a couple of years ago that he wants to marry a woman and raise a family now, he was a practicing homosexual for several years.
“Ford debuts new Ranger pickup, 1st-ever Raptor edition for North America”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-debuts-new-ranger-pickup-1st-ever-raptor-edition-for-north-america-152710485.html
“Ford says the updated Ranger pickup for North America features a new fully boxed high-strength steel frame, with a stretched wheelbase and track to provide more bed space and improved stability, and improved off-road performance.”
Might as well get a F-150.
His idea of ramen noodles are $15/bowl at the local brewpubs, not the cellophane packets many of us ate for a solid week when we were young.
Not weeks, months. I would always run out of money at school after 2 or 2.5 months. My agreement with Dad was that I bought my own meals and books from my savings. The ramen noodle packs were 10 for a dollar at the Piggly Wiggly by campus.
“Daniel Perry is sentenced to 25 years for killing an Austin protester. Gov. Greg Abbott has pledged to pardon him.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/10/daniel-perry-murder-austin-protestor/
Stay out of Austin.
I remember 15 for a dollar. With a can of vienna sausage added or a couple of sliced up hot dogs.
It’s been a while.
“Net-zero by 2050: The most expensive federal program ever”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faith-freedom-self-reliance/net-zero-by-2050-the-most-expensive-federal-program-ever
“President Joe Biden is pushing ahead with his plan to eliminate almost all emissions of greenhouse gases (primarily carbon dioxide) by 2050. As part of that net-zero plan, the Environmental Protection Agency intends to propose dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from coal- and gas-fired electric power plants .”
“This is only the latest phase of Biden’s plan. Last month, the EPA announced new emission standards for cars and light trucks that would essentially force consumers to buy expensive and unreliable electric vehicles instead of vehicles with proven internal combustion engines that better serve their needs. And last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed making publicly traded companies enact net-zero as their overriding corporate purpose .”
$50 trillion is the current estimate of the cost. We don’t have a single dollar of that cost, the USA is broke.
I guess he was never able to get very good at at it.
I see where there are threats that if the debt ceiling is not raised that SS, military paychecks, VA benefits, EBTs will all be cut. Nowhere is it mentioned that congressional and senate salaries would be cut. Even the legislative branch should be cut. Those are the clowns that are not doing their job. A basic premise of working for a salary is that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. But congress has passed laws that highly favor themselves. There is no downside to not working. Just ask Feinstein from California who has not been at work for weeks.
Congress does not work for the people that elected them. Congress works for themselves and their own ego. Sensible legislation is not a real consideration.
I agree with Ray, a not-unusual occurrence. If there’s no budget on Oct 1 or if the debt ceiling is hit, the President and all of his staff and every Congressman and their entire staffs should forfeit their pay until the crisis is resolved. Not have their paychecks delayed, a forfeit.
I see where there are threats that if the debt ceiling is not raised that SS, military paychecks, VA benefits, EBTs will all be cut. Nowhere is it mentioned that congressional and senate salaries would be cut. Even the legislative branch should be cut. Those are the clowns that are not doing their job. A basic premise of working for a salary is that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. But congress has passed laws that highly favor themselves. There is no downside to not working. Just ask Feinstein from California who has not been at work for weeks.
A friend of mine is an IRS field agent. They are still practicing covid rules, only one person in their four person bullpen office at a time. And they have to wear masks in the office. The boss comes in, shuts his office door, and turns on his TV all day. If they ask the boss a question he just tells them to read their email and go away.
My friend is horribly demoralized. And he is the certified training agent for their office. He has been working for the IRS for 16+ years now, does not want to quit since he is getting paid and the bennies are awesome. He worried that ten more new agents will show up in the near future and he will have to train them all even though they are diversity hires and not qualified (no accounting degree).
I guess he was never able to get very good at at it.
He was too good, he has a full blown case of AIDS. The drug cocktail did not work until he quit being a homosexual with all of the accompanying drugs and casual encounters with 30 guys in a weekend.
“Hands On: Google’s $1,799 Pixel Fold Is Finally Here to Take on Samsung”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/hands-on-googles-1799-pixel-fold-is-finally-here-to-take-on-samsung
Wow, expensive. I would buy a tablet first.
I agree with Ray, a not-unusual occurrence. If there’s no budget on Oct 1 or if the debt ceiling is hit, the President and all of his staff and every Congressman and their entire staffs should forfeit their pay until the crisis is resolved. Not have their paychecks delayed, a forfeit.
The debt ceiling was hit last January. “US hits debt ceiling, prompting Treasury to take extraordinary measures”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/politics/debt-ceiling-deadline-treasury/index.html
Travis, Hays, and Williamson Counties along with the city limits of San Antonio.
Rafael Edward will be in trouble for reelection with Trump at the top of the ticket next year.
Rick Scott in Florida too.
Another garage queen.
Re making jerky. I’ve been making our own jerky for many years, originally to get it down to less salt for my wife’s needs. The recipe I started with calls for flank steak, which is way too expensive. I’ve tried round but it’s always come out too tough regardless of how I cut it – probably due in part to drying it nearly to a crisp to extend keeping with the lower salt. I mostly use boneless skinless chicken breast now, which I can almost always get for $2/lb or a bit less if I plan ahead, sales tend to dictate when I make the jerky. Minimal trimming and I actually like the chicken better.
The recipe calls for 1 1/2 lb of flank steak (meat), 1/3 t. black pepper, 1 t. salt, 1 t. onion powder, 1 t. seasoned salt. 1/3 t. garlic powder 1/4 C. soy sauce, 1/4 C. Worchestershire sauce. Slice the meat less than 1/4″ thick across the grain, add all the rest and soak for 8 hours or more. I usually do about 10 lbs of meat at a time with proportional seasoning, adding a tad extra of the seasonings except the sauces. I use Mrs. Dash salt-less or similar at about twice the amount listed instead of the seasoning salt, and add a shot of liquid smoke. I put the seasonings through a coffee grinder I keep for spices so they mix in and distribute better. I dry this in a dehydrator at 165 degrees, it usually takes 10 hours or so to get good and dry with these amounts – at which point it has kept well for two years in sealed freezer bags on the shelf.
Another ramen thing. Scramble an egg and stir that in and wa-la! Egg Drop Ramen. Add a slice of sandwich cheese and you have Cheesy Egg …. yeah. I know. Hush up. 🙂
I had a job at the I-Hop at the corner of Research and Ohlen Rd. It was brand new, open for maybe a month. I applied for anything and Fran the manager said I was over qualified. Because two and a bit more years of college makes you too good to bus tables and wash dishes. I got a job. The pay was ok, just enough to pay rent, groceries, and utilities like phone and electric, They deducted for meals. If you were not a jerk towards the cooks, you’d get extra fillings in your ham and cheese omelette and maybe a few strips of bacon on the side with a hash brown patty.
I worked there for almost a year. I forget. Night shift wasn’t exactly my time of day but it was ok. I was hired with a group of six other guys and I was the only one there after a couple of months. They’d go out back and smoke weed behind the dumpster and gradually just stopped showing up for work. More hours for me, overtime rocks!
Easy job. Show up and don’t be a dick. Cleaning tables was ok. Talking to customers was the best part. Washing dishes, heck, that was easy. Scrape, rinse, rack and shove into the big ol’ Hobart dishwasher.
Real easy, I learned how to do that in Jr. High….. work in the cafeteria for lunch time, all you could eat that you wanted to eat, was your pay. Man, I still remember smelling and seeing the big sheets of fresh made yeast rolls coming out of the oven and an entire one pound stick of butter rubbed and melting on the tops.
A waitress that accused me of stealing her tips. In front of everyone. After that I’d go find her after her customers left and tell her, in front of everyone, go get your tip before I bus the table unless “you” want to do it. She had a group of tables that folks liked to sit at. No one is going to sit at a dirty table. She stopped talking trash about me and actually learned to check her tables after the customers left.
Anyway. I found another job. Four to midnight instead of 11 to 7. And, oh, $5 an hour vs $4.20. I gave the two weeks notice. Fran was sad. I don’t miss working at I-Hop, it was an good job for me at the time.
I won’t eat anything with blueberry syrup or jelly. Something that color that turns bread mold green when rinsed off of a plate? Nope.
Sounds good. My recipe is similar. Though I leave out the salts and Worchestershire. And bump up the rest of the spices and add cayenne pepper. Soy sauce for the salt and “juice”.
About a heaping teaspoon each of garlic, onion, black pepper, and cayenne. Mix into ½ a cup of soy sauce and taste it. Walk away and taste it again in half an hour. Add a teaspoon of meat tenderizer. Adjust spices as needed and add more soy sauce once the meat is added. Soak the meat over night. Two nights is better. Roll in coarse ground black pepper and lay on the dehydrator trays.
Works for me with emu and beef. I never thought about making chicken jerky.
I rotate the racks from top to bottom. Seems like a good idea.
My sweet, sweet, summer child. But, I whole-heartedly agree.
I went to Uni after my Dad passed away and SS money was available. I got a BS (Maths) and there was enough goober-loot to cover tuition, books, dorm and a full meal plan. I did get a small loan my last year to fund beer drinking and paid it off my first year in the military. I ate a lot of meals in the mess hall (yes Officers can eat there at a discounted rate). When I got my company as a Captain, the mess hall was right across from my orderly room. I ate bfast and lunch there many times.
Holy Grifter, Batman:
Wait, ‘climate czar’ John Kerry has HOW MANY taxpayer-funded employees?
No wonder we’re bumping the debt ceiling with grift like this.
They just can’t give up the power:
Dianne Feinstein, 89, arrives at Congress in a wheelchair after shingles absence: Ailing Democratic Senator says she is still suffering side effects and will take a lighter schedule as she finally returns to work
Watch when they roll her into the chamber, comatose, to vote. Look for the strings tied to her hands. “Hey, Bernie, it’s time to vote!”
Holy Grifter, Batman:
Wait, ‘climate czar’ John Kerry has HOW MANY taxpayer-funded employees?
No wonder we’re bumping the debt ceiling with grift like this.
Do they all pay Kerry 10% of their salaries ?
Hey! Playing the Uno Reverse Card is not allowed!
Trump 2024!
Maybe
Afford
Groceries
Again
Another garage queen.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-debuts-new-ranger-pickup-1st-ever-raptor-edition-for-north-america-152710485.html
Maybe the Ranger Raptor version. But the plain Ranger will be driven daily. Every old Ranger that I have seen that is ten years old has well over a 100,000 miles on it. One of my neighbors has a year old Ranger 4×4 that he drives daily. I guess one advantage is that he can park it in a parking garage. My lifted F-150 4×4 has trouble if the parking garage is less than 6’6″. Shoot, I have two inches of clearance into my garage at home.
A Ranger more than ten years old is two generations and a whole different size and, arguably, quality level than what is currently rolling out of the factory.
Tommy Boy plays delivery games with the trim levels since the pandemic.
Want to see the 2023 truck you ordered in 2023? Upgrade the trim.
I’ve heard Car Pro touch on the game once in response to an exasperated caller complaining about his order. Maybe the check from Dearborn was late.
“Trump Verdict BACKFIRES As Trump SOARS PAST Joe Biden in NEW POLLS” by Officer Tatum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbk3ZtS9iSQ
Says Biden will probably commit suicide before the election.
New Ranger is too big. My 2003 is the perfect size and I see dozens on the road every day, most used by small businesses. I can put a full size pallet flat in the back, carry 1000# (seriously overloaded but feels fine, and I’ve done it many times) and park in the tightest structures. The cabin is big enough, and the space behind the seats is very useful.
I wouldn’t like it to be any bigger.
n
New Ranger is too big. My 2003 is the perfect size and I see dozens on the road every day, most used by small businesses. I can put a full size pallet flat in the back, carry 1000# (seriously overloaded but feels fine, and I’ve done it many times) and park in the tightest structures. The cabin is big enough, and the space behind the seats is very useful.
I wouldn’t like it to be any bigger.
n
Maverick then. Way cheaper. Good luck in finding one for sale that is not loaded out like Greg says.
https://www.ford.com/trucks/maverick/
In Fort Marcy Park?
My neighbor just rehabbed his turn-of-the-millennium Ranger, fixed the a/c and brakes, and plans to keep driving it.
My brother still has that same model year as his daily driver, second engine.
Had the brother over for dinner, Tri Tip in the sous vide for 10hr, seared in the cast iron skillet for a couple of minutes, some steamed veggies and a potato.
And most of a bottle of Sangria.
”The bottle stands by you, sir!”
Two houses around the corner were built with RV size garage spaces.
The weird coincidental neighborhood legend about the houses is that both had previous owners die without the families noticing for a period of time. At one, the wife was alive after the husband passed but suffered dementia so she also died of starvation before anyone knocked on the door.
Maybe it is something about the RV lifestyle.
Yikes.
n
Feinstein had to show up to break the tie on the Judiciary Committee to get the nominees out for floor votes.
She’s the last San Francisco-based pol standing in Washington who owes their career in part to support from Peoples Temple/Jim Jones. The big event in Guyana was 1978 … ?, literally half a lifetime ago for her.
Stay thirsty my friends.
UPDATE: Yeah, November 18, 1978.
@brad:
@MrAtoZ
@Lynn
Trump, for all his defects, was a better president than any who won or ran since Ronald Reagan. He held truer to his word than any politician since and for many years before, and accomplished more despite multiple criminal conspiracies against him, even with the wholesale abrogation of the raison d’etre the media is protected by the First Amendment.
He’s also the best candidate for 2024, unless someone can put out a name and a case now?
Biden in 2016 was at best a multiple plagiarist, pervert, lifelong liar, mentally failing (from a low normal) product of decades of corruption and possessor of millions in wealth that was totally unexplained and would not have stood up to five minutes of the scrutiny given to Donald Trump twelve times an hour for every hour of his life.
81 million votes my ass.
There should be billboards with photos of Hunter and his meth-rotted teeth all over the country, with the caption “Smartest man I know–Joe ”The Big Guy” Biden. Any billboard company unwilling to take the order should be subjected to the finest in “mostly peaceful” protests.
The evidence of the Biden Crime Family’s predations have been overwhelming for years. What is required now is timing and coordination. A relentless attention to piling detail on detail over the next 14 months or so to make the story airtight and indisputable. The print media can fail to report, but the wealth of television is still rooted in the broadcast spectrum licenses that are tied to responsibilities that can be found to have been breached by silence.
The pressure on Biden to step aside will increase, and it’s certain that plans will be made to get him out of the way. A week without the meds that are propping him up would be more than enough. Jill needs to be convinced that the only way forward for her and Joe that do not involve a brief stay in the Epstein Memorial cell is to continue on course and get pardons in return for confessing and naming names. Hunter likewise. Living the rest of their lives in infamy is not such a bad deal if you don’t have the mental capacity to care, or in Hunter’s case, the moral capacity.
Trump is the only center around which the votes will coalesce along with the talent to fill the political positions that will have to do the heavy lifting in dismantling the corrupt institutions of the federal government that have been irreparably perverted. No one else has the guts, and any other Republican administration would be full of the same yellow RINO’s that we’ve seen since the day Bush 41 kicked out Reagan’s men and brought in his tea-sipping CIA fancy-bois.
Trump is also the only president that can rebuild our military arsenal with has been mortally depleted–gee, I wonder why the Chinese love Unca Joe?–in a stupid geopolitical chess game that would never have devolved into the current trade of a rook and a bishop for two pawns if Slick Willy hadn’t talked to Ukrainians into the Queen’s Nukes in the Toilet and Trust Me Gambit.
[As an aside, it has occurred to me that if Google, YouTube, Twitter and Zuckerflock had had their sweaty billionaire hands around the internet a few years ago, the Climategate Files would have gotten the Hunter laptop treatment and we would already to the dirt people riding bicycles and growing a few scraps of food out the back door as they intend.]
“New Ranger is too big.”
Unelected bureaucrats want to take away your gas stoves and prevent new construction from having gas hookups. Reducing natural gas availability also inhibits the most sensible source of motive power in the U.S., which is the partial conversion of transportation to CNG (a move that Bush 43 should have touted–look up the SOTU speech and substitute “natural gas” for hydrogen and then clean up the details).
So they want you to have a big, gas-guzzling pickem-up truck, which just happens to have GPS, remote start, and if it can parallel park itself it’s a 90/10 bet that it can reverse out of your driveway and toodle itself to the goobermint impound lot where you can pick up your new bicycle.
I believe that DrWilliams has the right of it.
n
drwilliams says:
I absolutely agree, 100%. Very well said.
Gah, the frogs in my koi pond/water feature/aquaponics/50 gal water reserve are all trying to attract mates. Non-stop ‘brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt’ noises. That suddenly stopped. What predator is out there? Oh, started back up.
I’m sure that at the lake it’s deafening.
n
oh, and I’ve got four cams with no picture for some reason. Guess I’ll be looking at that tomorrow too.
>> You can always turn guns into money, you can’t always turn money into guns…
I’ve put a pause on stacking Ag and am putting those funds into Pb.
If it’s Trump versus any Democrat, do we really have a choice?
>> What a PITA. If you use these tools day-in and day-out, maybe it’s all obvious. But coming to them fresh and – jeezum. It’s complex, getting everything hooked up and working together. What’s worse is that, if you get something wrong, you get the weirdest error messages. Messages that have seemingly nothing to do with the actual problem. Searches online were rarely helpful, because so much stuff on StackOverflow and similar sites is years out-of-date.
I think I got pushed into retirement at a good time in IT. I hear from some of my former colleagues (app dev managers and app owners) that there’s more and more grumbling in the ranks over the time spent on implementing ‘flavor of the month’ tools (too much) vs. time spent writing code (too little). Not to mention Agile, containerization, etc.
>> I’m also trying to get across the cost of things, but it’s hard when numbers are really just abstractions to them. They haven’t worked for hourly wages, which is the first time you REALLY understand the relationship between time and money.
Both my kids had newspaper routes from when the were 13 until they went away to college. Both saved enough to buy their first (used) car. They also used Word to create invoices and Excel to track customer payments. If you live in an area where people tip well it’s not a bad gig for less than an hour a day’s work (and two on Sundays). And their first tax returns when 1099s came.
>> If you have the kids do chores, like helping to haul goods between truck and storage or cleaning the house or weed-whacking the lawn, you can express the cost of D1’s birthday party as “you would have to do that for eleven hours to earn the money for your party” or “your monthly cell phone bill of $42 would be four hours of work, or five after taxes”.
“…your monthly cell phone bill of…”
Hopefully you have the ‘unlimited everything’ plan.
>> DeSantis is not ready, he needs a lot more seasoning outside of Florida.
Yeah, not sure how is in-person arrogance plays in the other 49 states.
Which leaves us with OHBM.
>> he was a practicing homosexual for several years
I guess he was never able to get very good at at it.
By the entrance to the NYFC subway:
Young man with violin case – to old man: “Excuse me sir, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?”
Old man responds: “Practice son, practice.”
https://youtu.be/P4DZAgp7kC0
>> Congress does not work for the people that elected them. Congress works for themselves and their own ego. Sensible legislation is not a real consideration.
Whomever’s taking notes for the post-CW2 new Constitution, please make sure addressing this is on the list.
“Both my kids had newspaper routes”
I subbed once in a while, but was strongly discouraged from getting a route of my own.
Dad had a route. Promised and delivered excellent service. Delivered in bad weather. Was beloved by all the dogs, etc. Picture Andy Rooney. Worked hard getting new subscribers and doubled the size of his route. No complaints.
Supervisor called him in and told him they chopped off half his route and gave it to a new kid. Dad invited him to perform a rectal self-insertion with the full route papers.
Yeah, well, I just wanted the neat coin changer. And to fill up my Whitman coin books. ‘Specially the Mercury dimes. Really liked the steel pennies and the silver war nickels, too.
>> I wouldn’t like it to be any bigger.
n
(filling in for Ray…)
Has Mrs. Nick opined on this yet?
Headin’ out the door… don’t stay up too late …
>> So they want you to have a big, gas-guzzling pickem-up truck, which just happens to have GPS, remote start, and if it can parallel park itself it’s a 90/10 bet that it can reverse out of your driveway and toodle itself to the goobermint impound lot where you can pick up your new bicycle.
Hey, how’d you get a new bicycle? All I got was a used skateboard.
>> Congress does not work for the people that elected them. Congress works for themselves and their own ego. Sensible legislation is not a real consideration.
“Whomever’s taking notes for the post-CW2 new Constitution, please make sure addressing this is on the list.”
Just a start:
Strict single-subject rules for bills. Authors of every part of every bill must be elected representatives, identified in the submission of the original and identified for all changes, sworn on penalty of perjury and revocation of seat. Public submissions permitted to their elected reps with certification of the origin and identification in the bill as above. No votes on bills until 30 days after last changes to allow public comment, with exceptions for emergencies requiring supermajority. Any bill found in violation of authorship requirements nullified from date of passage.
Canes and swords allowed on the chamber floors. No other weapons. No armor. Dueling permitted.
Citizens are the only voters in elections, and the only ones counted to determine representation. Minor children of citizens are enumerated for representation. Those on the public dole give up their voting rights– they are counted for representation but their children are not. Illegals do not vote upon penalty of death.
Voter rolls certified . Registration separate and closes day before election. Voting in person only on election day. Physical ballot issued upon presentation of voter ID. Election day is a National Holiday–businesses and government offices are closed, local travel only, local emergency medical services only.
“Hey, how’d you get a new bicycle?”
New to you. With China’s population collapsing they will have excess.
Trump, for all his defects, was a better president than any who won or ran since Ronald Reagan. He held truer to his word than any politician since and for many years before, and accomplished more despite multiple criminal conspiracies against him, even with the wholesale abrogation of the raison d’etre the media is protected by the First Amendment.
He’s also the best candidate for 2024, unless someone can put out a name and a case now?
Preach on brother, preach on !