Hot and sticky today, with a chance of rain. But I’m headed out of town, and I hope it will be just a bit cooler at the BOL.
I spent the morning yesterday doing a pickup, then headed to my client’s house to install the other end of the ‘wire replacement’ wireless link.
Which went better than it might have, but not well. First I had to dig a bunch of holes trying to find the buried conduit. I couldn’t back pull, nothing moved even a smidgen. So I thought I’d find a corner in the run, open the conduit, pull the new wires in, and install a box where I broke it. Yeah, for some reason, after I’d followed it for more than 30 ft, I still hadn’t found where it turned toward the gate control box. I decided to just put my new enclosure on the pedestal side of the gate, and right at the gate, so I wouldn’t have to dig as much new trench.
Spent some time digging, and poking a fiberglas rod through the dirt, and got the cable run installed. Couldn’t quite finish at the pedestal, because I needed a couple of right angle conduit fittings. I built the enclosure out the night before, so once I had that mounted, I could terminate the cables… except that I pulled one pair, instead of cat cable. In my defense, I didn’t even KNOW I had single pair cable in my stock, let alone the size and blue color of the cat I normally use… I’ll have to re-pull that on Monday. I spent far too much time getting the nano set up, linked to the other end, and poking at networking issues. Which all came down to using a ubiquiti EdgeRouter at the gate instead of a simple switch. Once I swapped it for a Flex 4 port switch, I had wired internet at the gate.
There were other mis-steps involving PoE injectors at 48v instead of 24v, and configuring the automagic stuff in the wrong order, but it all got resolved. I stopped at Lowe’s on the way home and got the conduit stuff I need, and I’ll bring home some liquidtite conduit and cat cable from the BOL on Sunday. Nothing is as easy as it should be.
So today I’m doing a pickup this morning on my way to the BOL. Wife and kid went up last night. The location isn’t directly on the way, but it’s mostly in the right direction, and the grill is going to the BOL. I’ll throw some other stuff in the truck to ’round out’ my pack and then I’m off like a prom dress…
I’ve been stacking up knowledge I probably won’t use again while it’s still relevant… But at least I’m stacking something. You should too.
nick
Dr. Marci Bowers. “Her” name pops up frequently in the research my wife’s had around the house over the last 20 years, particularly with regard to “affirmation” treatments for kids.
@Jenny, I thought of you when I saw a bunny at the county animal shelter when we went to donate our cat’s unused food after she passed.
The staff said that dumped rabbits weren’t unusual but the shelter didn’t have a special area for them so the cage was in the lobby.
I have a severe bunny allergy so I couldn’t spend a lot of time watching the kittens play behind the glass in the lobby and exited quickly.
I miss my friend – the cat got it that WA State was a lousy decision – but two weekends running a carpet steamer getting the urine out of our dining/living room rug has quelled my enthusiasm for another cat right away.
I don’t think the smell is going to ever go away completely, but we haven’t decided about staying put in this house after the second child graduates next year. Texas reminds me of Florida 30 years ago, when the Dems were on the edge of losing power thanks to arrogance, except this time things are headed the other direction politically.
The counties and ISDs already do stupid things with property taxes in this state. Regardless of which party was in charge, the Legislature and local entities enabled with an income tax revenue stream would be really dangerous.
BTW, I saw on the local Faux News that Texas Childrens’ dumped their “gender affirmation” program this week after Dell Seton publicly cleaned house of their staff administering those kind of treatments a few weeks ago in the wake of the Legislature making the practice illegal.
Both pediatric institutions have large complexes under construction not far from my house. This area is kinda overbuilt for hospitals so I gotta wonder what was the original intent with the buildings.
Austin is a freak show relatively speaking, and I believe the hospitals were building within the “middle finger” of the city limits which extends north from Travis County into Williamson.
Currently on the train from the Oslo Airport to our final destination. Made the train by two minutes, good timing, otherwise an hour wait. Having Sky Priority, which includes expedited luggage handling, helped. Also sitting at the front of the plane. Three more rows back and we would have missed the train.
Trying to sleep on a plane just sucks, even laying flat. It was not comfortable. The added space was nice. Between the motion of the plane, flight attendants walking the aisle, there were a lot of disturbances. The food was good and served nicely with table clothes and actual dishes and metal silverware.
Went through immigration in Amsterdam, took maybe 10 minutes including the wait in line. Baggage was checked through to Oslo so no hassles retrieving luggage and rechecking. Customs in Oslo was empty so just walked through.
Train is nice, not really crowded. Quiet, comfortable. I knew that from past experience. Even has decent WiFi on the train. The train app sucks as it would not take my credit card. The ticket checker allowed us to buy the tickets at the same price. He was not a fan of the app.
So far a good trip, tiring because of the six hour time change. Night does not come here until about 22:30 tonight.
Weather is great, cool, sunny, light clouds.
Judge in Missouri v Biden ain’t buying what the government’s shoveling
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/06/02/judge-in-missouri-v-biden-aint-buying-what-the-governments-shoveling-n555245
YouTube will stop removing false presidential election fraud claims
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/06/02/judge-in-missouri-v-biden-aint-buying-what-the-governments-shoveling-n555245
Totally unrelated, I’m sure. As private companies, Farcebook, EweTube and Twatter can do anything they want. Conspire with the government to violate citizens constitutional rights wholesale. Violate their terms of service. Interfere with contracts. Character assassination. Confine hogs in less than 24 square feet…
Maybe they’d all better turn the controls over to an impartial AI.
Sunny and warm, coffee brewing. Late night so I’m not up early. With all the driving I don’t want to be super tired starting out.
n
Except in Florida, where an amendement to the state constitution passed by initiative specified minimum dimensions for nursing sows.
The famed “pig in a poke” resolution which led to the last major reform of the initiative process.
Quoted for truth.
Not picking on @Ray at all. I may never say “table cloths” again. Adding a single “e” elevates it from mere table linen to a fashion statement.
And, after all, we already have “bed clothes” as an example.
That tends to yield unacceptable results.
Lynn, for what it’s worth, sending up prayers for your daughter. She, and your family, have been through dreadful suffering. I sincerely pray for a good outcome and complete healing.
Thank you.
Being human is hard.
True dat.
Yikes, that’s quite a miss.
Again? What?
I’m shocked. Shocked!
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/boeing-stands-down-from-starliner-launch-to-address-recently-found-problems/
Greg Norton says:
What, you thought that turkey would FLY? It was NEVER supposed to fly; just soak up all the money they were throwing at it.
“This Shattered World (The Starbound Trilogy, 2)” by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
https://www.amazon.com/This-Shattered-World-Starbound-Kaufman/dp/1423171225?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number two of a three book science fiction space opera romance series. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Hyperion in 2015 that I bought new on Amazon. I have ordered the third book in the series.
10,000 years in the future, Avon is a swamp planet of turmoil. The terraforming was unfinished and the Irish brought in from Earth to finish the job are in total conflict with the soldiers brought in by TerraDyn. There is a ceasefire from ten years ago which is very loosely adhered to. But, tempers are rising and atrocities are being committed by both sides. And, Roderick LaRoux, the great spaceship builder, is involved with his experiments to control people.
There is a website for the series at:
http://thesebrokenstars.com/
My rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars (852 reviews)
Jenny: Yes, we got some chickens a couple-three months ago. “We”. Wife got some fertilized eggs because she had an incubator and it was dumb to have it and not use it. We later bought some more two-day-old chicks. So far we, meaning I, have put the better part of $1000 into them, for the coop and secure cage, the large, covered run for them to spend the day in, food, and miscellaneous other stuff. We, meaning I, have put in quite a lot of time assembling the coop and run, as well as swinging over to Tractor Supply to get stuff, as well as daily feeding and hustling them from the run to the coop in the evening and such. Quite a lot of time and effort for free eggs.
Lynn: Best wishes for you and yours. Though… you’ve mentioned your health woes. Your wife’s health woes. Your daughter’s health woes. Seems to me that your son isn’t taking his share of the burden and needs to up his game.
My wife and her mother are having brain problems. Mother-in-law has had several small strokes and had to have clots removed from heart and arteries because of several major blockages. Long, stringy blood clots of a type not seen before the clot shots were passed around a couple years ago. Wife is also having problems, not as severe: worse memory, worse emotional swings, worse driving. Working her way through insurance/provider hell to get an MRI scan to see if she, too, has dead areas in her brain. Not sure if these problems are caused by clot shot, other medications, or just aging faster than she should be. Nothing but a joy for me and to a lesser extent daughter, having to take on more of the chores around the house as well as make sure no one has done anything dumb like leaving the sink going full blast while wandering off to organize the shoe rack. It’s basically like Grandma has been for the past few years, but worse and there are two of them.
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/jan-6-select-committee-added-audio-silent-capitol-police-security-footage
We need to develop open-ocean seaweed farming technology so we can build prison rafts for the Democrats and produce their own green rations and seaweed-fiber prison attire.
Woke Panic: IMDb Artificially Boosts Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ User Score After Detecting ‘Unusual User Voting’
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/06/03/woke-panic-imdb-artificially-boosts-disneys-the-little-mermaid-user-score-after-detecting-unusual-user-voting/
Haven’t seen the movie, but judging from the single still in the article linked above, it may be that little girls just aren’t ready to relate to a role model that appears to be a bit on the… let’s just call it “fish-faced” side.
ADDED:
The Streisand effect and Matt Walsh’s ‘What Is A Woman?’
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/06/the_streisand_effect_and_matt_walshs_what_is_a_woman.html
Remains to be seen if the PLT’s can sucker people with phony high ratings.
It does beg the question: What happens when TLM continues to go down in flames? Will IMDB continue trying to salt the ratings, or will they quietly let it expire so as not to destroy their brand?
“Ireland Plans to Slaughter 200,000 Farting Cows to Save Planet from ‘Global Warming’”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/ireland-plans-slaughter-200000-farting-cows-save-planet/
“Government officials in The Netherlands, a major European food producer, shut down 3,000 productive farms to comply with global warming goals in November.”
“In December Germany order farmers to slash fertilizer after the Dutch farms were shut down to comply with global warming standards.”
“And this week Irish lawmakers are pushing a plan to kill off 200,000 cows to reach their global warming goals.”
Are these people nuts ? Cutting your own food supplies ? Do they know something we all don’t know ?
“And this week Irish lawmakers are pushing a plan to kill off 200,000 cows to reach their global warming goals.”
Mercy killing.
The high point of Irish beef cuisine is corned beef. If most cows knew that they would kill themselves.
ADDED:
The global warming zealot’s war against methane and the food and natural gas supplies is based on the bogusly large number that they claim for the persistence of methane in the atmosphere.
“US battery storage capacity increased by 52% year over year, to 10.8 GW by the end of Q1”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/us-battery-storage-capacity-first-quarter/651302/
“The Electric Reliability Council of Texas footprint added the most capacity in the first quarter, 498.6 MW, ending the three-month period with 3.3 GW, or 30.5% of U.S. capacity. The California Independent System Operator leads the nation with 5.2 GW, or 48.2% of U.S. capacity.”
That is a lot of batteries. I wonder if all of those trailers are air conditioned to keep the lithium ion batteries from spontaneously combusting ?
Where’s Dr. Doolittle when you need him?
Just think how easy the transition to bugburgers becomes with a little research: Dr. Doolittle announces that extensive interviews have revealed that animals are transgendered, too. Many cows, in particular, identify as bulls. Activists demand that cows be entitled to be “The best bull they can be”, and farmers are forced to give the bull’s job to “t-bulls” (not to be confused with T-bills). Leftist professors would have full-employment researching the mystery of the falling fertility rates in world cattle herds …
Or maybe not. Seems I could give the premise to an AI, provide it with half the quotes from Walsh’s movie, and quickly saturate the market for learned papers on the topic.
The question is, would they really be bull-shiite, or just posing?
Lynn says:
There are still many factions within Ireland. I suspect that this is being organized by the “Black and Tans”, which STILL is trying to eliminate the Irish people and return Ireland to English rule.
Seems kind of odd. When I was setting this PC up it did lots of updates and ended up at Win11 22H2. Latest and greatest and blah blah. Runs good.
I bought another. It’s different. It has Win11 21H2 but it’s not like the first machine that started with 21H2. It’s sort of like my cell phone…. no updates available and yet, oh, what’s this Covid Tracking thing?
I guess I’ll let it set for a while and maybe it will decide to update to 22H2.
So… that’s why or who is importing Africans to Erie?
Shortly before I moved in with my girlfriend, her mother was staying in her house between apartments.
GF’s sister was in charge financially and medically, but didn’t have room for her for the month or so. GF’s older son, about 18 at the time, woke up to find his grandmother outside smoking, and the unlit gas stove burner going full blast.
Yes, strokes, dementia, and alcoholism were involved. GF’s sister needed another year or so of facilitating her mother’s living in an apartment before recognizing she needed more care and attention. Wouldn’t listen to GF’s hints and didn’t listen to the doctors.
Interesting fact: If you have a 160 IQ, you can degrade a whole bunch and still fool people into thinking you’ve got your act together. You know stuff is wrong, but you are still capable of hiding it and giving people the answers they expect.
My wife and her mother are having brain problems. Mother-in-law has had several small strokes and had to have clots removed from heart and arteries because of several major blockages. Long, stringy blood clots of a type not seen before the clot shots were passed around a couple years ago. Wife is also having problems, not as severe: worse memory, worse emotional swings, worse driving. Working her way through insurance/provider hell to get an MRI scan to see if she, too, has dead areas in her brain. Not sure if these problems are caused by clot shot, other medications, or just aging faster than she should be. Nothing but a joy for me and to a lesser extent daughter, having to take on more of the chores around the house as well as make sure no one has done anything dumb like leaving the sink going full blast while wandering off to organize the shoe rack. It’s basically like Grandma has been for the past few years, but worse and there are two of them.
I hope that they can be helped by your doctors up there. Doctor competence seems to be dropping now here. And so many people are in their offices so they pick and choose patients when things get complicated. That is why we are on surgeon #4 at Texas Children’s Hospital in the Women’s Pavilion with an endometriosis specialist.
Insurance is major concern for our daughter too. Texas has a provision that if a doctor says that you are disabled, the insurance company of a parent can be forced to carry you. At, the same expense as the parent though so I am paying full rate for us. The Lupron drug is incredibly expensive at $5,600/month, that had to be cleared through the insurance company. They are putting her on Lupron to shut things down so that they can build her blood up for the surgery in August.
Jenny: Yes, we got some chickens a couple-three months ago. “We”. Wife got some fertilized eggs because she had an incubator and it was dumb to have it and not use it. We later bought some more two-day-old chicks. So far we, meaning I, have put the better part of $1000 into them, for the coop and secure cage, the large, covered run for them to spend the day in, food, and miscellaneous other stuff. We, meaning I, have put in quite a lot of time assembling the coop and run, as well as swinging over to Tractor Supply to get stuff, as well as daily feeding and hustling them from the run to the coop in the evening and such. Quite a lot of time and effort for free eggs.
I paid $1.83 for 18 eggs at HEB Wednesday night. I think I’ll stay with that method of getting eggs.
Some of my neighbors have chickens even though they are not officially allowed in our little subdivision here. I don’t care as long as they don’t crow and they don’t stink. Of course between the owls hooting all night, the trains, and the skunks, I am not sure if I could hear or smell any chickens.
We buy the top of the line free range eggs at HEB, between $7 and $8 for 18.
You can tell the difference. We can afford it, and it helps you understand why people raise chickens for eggs.
To be perfectly honest, I’d have no problem going back to the cheaper eggs and splurging occasionally on the good eggs, for special occasions or our annual Alton Brown aged eggnog. But there is definitely a difference.
Speaking of which, I think I have a bottle of eggnog left…
On the water down in New Orleans
My baby’s the pearl of the quarter
She’s a charmer like you never seen
Singing “voulez-voulez-voulez-vous”
Where the sailor spend his hard-earned pay
Red beans and rice for a quarter
You can see her almost any day
Singing “voulez-voulez-voulez-vous”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFrqqOT3ZZQ
Miss you, Walter.
All prompted by lunch today, which was Vigo Red Beans and Rice scored on sale for half price and augmented with some Smithfield ham.
Yum.
Comes in a bag and turns into a meal with 28 oz. of boiling water. You can keep it simmering for 20 minutes or dump it in a thermos to cook. In a pinch you can add as much plain rice again and stretch it, and it works with leftover meats of about any kind. Never tried canned tuna, but shrimp or other sorts of sea food should be fine–after all, it is N’awlins Style. And sausage, of course.
Vigo also makes Black Beans and Rice and Yellow Rice and several others. Even at half price serving four you can’t get to a quarter after the last 50% run-up in food prices.
When I looked up the video above, it showed me that Adam Savage had dropped a new one this morning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CYSShxebZ0
and another quote for my Adam Savage collection:
“Oh!!! Unfilled drawers–that’s exciting! And to remind you, you know what, when you build something with extra space–like I did with my hammer rack here–you know what they call that at the Jet Propulsion Labs, JPL in Pasadena? Baby fat, because eventually you grow out of it.”
Yes, I can tell the difference. No, I don’t much care, because I seldom eat plain eggs. I cook with them, drop a few into the oatmeal when it’s cooking, drop a few on top of the hash when it’s heating in the skillet. Even if I did eat plain eggs, I wouldn’t consider the free-range, organic eggs to be worth the premium. Same goes for organic, free-range chicken. Yes, I could tell the difference when I roasted it. No, it was not worth the 3x price.
I don’t mind having the chickens. I can afford the money I sank into the cage and such, and most of it is capital investment rather than consumables (literally) so it can be spread out over years. I do resent the time it takes, on account of having so many other things to do, and somewhat resent being tied to the land to let them out and bring them in and make sure that they have water; unlike my wife and her entire family, I’ve kept animals and worked on livestock farms and knew what it entail. Bottom line, unless I decide to kill them all or give them away, this is just another thing I have to do because no one else will.
Sunday breakfast:
Two slices Dave’s Killer Bread*, lightly toasted and buttered
Four slices applewood smoke bacon, cooked crispy
One slice provolone cheese
Two x-large farm eggs, fried in bacon fat with a little butter. Sea salt and fresh ground pepper.
Assemble. Top with a little sriracha mayo.
Serve with large mug of hot dark roast coffee and hash browns on the side.
Store-bought eggs, okay.
Farm eggs, outstanding flavor and fond memories of helping build the chicken house–priceless.
*Family knows the baker at a local ethnic bakery. DKB can be too heavy sometimes,. Sourdough is a notch down, and there is this cheesebread that is heavenly…
“Trillion-Dollar Treasury Vacuum Coming for Wall Street Rally”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trillion-dollar-treasury-vacuum-coming-135944792.html
“With a debt ceiling deal freshly signed into law Saturday by President Joe Biden, the US Treasury is about to unleash a tsunami of new bonds to quickly refill its coffers.”
“This will be yet another drain on dwindling liquidity as bank deposits are raided to pay for it — and Wall Street is warning that markets aren’t ready.”
“The negative impact could easily dwarf the after-effects of previous standoffs over the debt limit. The Federal Reserve’s program of quantitative tightening has already eroded bank reserves, while money managers have been hoarding cash in anticipation of a recession.”
“JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou estimates a flood of Treasuries will compound the effect of QT on stocks and bonds, knocking almost 5% off their combined performance this year. Citigroup Inc. macro strategists offer a similar calculus, showing a median drop of 5.4% in the S&P 500 over two months could follow a liquidity drawdown of such magnitude, and a 37 basis-point jolt for high-yield credit spreads.”
“The sales, set to begin Monday, will rumble through every asset class as they claim an already shrinking supply of money: JPMorgan estimates a broad measure of liquidity will fall $1.1 trillion from about $25 trillion at the start of 2023.”
Oh my. The government is sucking the life out of the economy as it runs a $2 trillion deficit this year and another $2 trillion deficit next year.
Are these people nuts ?
To ask the question is to answer it.
Only half of the paper will get sold so Powell will have to run the presses.
Cruz voted against the bill. Cornyn voted in favor.
Interestingly, Rick Scott voted against, but he’s up for reelection next year and won in 2018 by a very narrow margin, like all of his wins.
Only half of the paper will get sold so Powell will have to run the presses.
It will just be a few digits in a big spreadsheet. Just a game to the Fed.
Cruz voted against the bill. Cornyn voted in favor.
Cruz is a patriot. Cornyn is a RINO.
I used to be a member of a large woodworking club. 800 members at it’s peak forty years ago. Big enough to have club buys on lumber and tools, even doing some imports. A significant number of pros, a large number with pro-level skills, and lots of members willing to pass their skills on. One meeting featured a presentation on wood fillers by an analytical chemist. Good times.
I’m no longer a member, and that club is much smaller now due to many factors. I suspect there are still younger guys coming up–someone is watching those YT videos–but I can’t confirm it first hand.
One thing I have noticed is that YT has contributed to a change in the “public face” of tools. Used to be that a guy had a pretty good shop with a table saw, a radial arm saw, a drill press, and a bandsaw. Support those with some good-quality tools, like Craftsman used to be pre-China, and maybe a few better quality upgrades in certain areas. My early observation from long ago was that woodworking was like a three-legged stool, the legs being design, construction, and finishing. Short one and the stool is wobbly; when one is bad the stool collapses. Thing is, pro-level tools, especially the “In” stuff, don’t make you a pro.
All this was prompted by another online woodshop estate sale. Having tools sell at auction makes it easy to make some observations about current worth/value/popularity vis-a-vis prices:
–Clamps don’t sell cheap.
–Last-gen cordless tools sell cheap.
–Radial arm saws are out of favor.
–So are corded tools.
–Tools without top nameplates don’t get no respect.
–If you’re seriously in the market, drive to make the inspection.
Big hobby auction coming up in a couple weeks. Not my hobby, but there are some items I want to bid on, and I have enough knowledge to be dangerous so I will make the drive, do the inspection, take some notes, and probably do some bottom-fishing.
I paid $24 this afternoon for two packages of brats, buns, and a very small bag of frozen french fries.
Only four Dems and Bernie voted against the bill. All the rest were in favor. It is a big club …
Incitatus, Fauxcohauntas, Merkley of Oregon, and Markey of Massachusetts.
Fauxcohauntas is up for reelection next year, but the rest aren’t.
I paid $24 this afternoon for two packages of brats, buns, and a very small bag of frozen french fries.
In 2029, it will be $100. Or more.
@SteveF
but worse and there are two of them
Yikes. Brain stuff sucks. A lot. For everyone. What you describe was the special aych e double toothpicks my husband and daughter suffered thru from me post car crash for several long long years. I was cognizant after the fact generally of whatever horrible thing I’d done but often powerless in the moment, outside observer almost. Sheer effort, intense hat work, medication (i insisted on an exit plan), cognitive therapy, etc. it was really hard work and I desperately wanted a return to normal. You have my every sympathy.
Chickens. I think I’ve got a spare doohickey that goes on a bucket (4 gallon square cat litter bin works great) to make a lower waste less frequent feeder. It beats the pants off most of the chicken feeders. I believe I’ve also got extra water nipples that likewise go on a square bucket for cleaner water that needs less frequent refills. Or onto pvc pipe run into a big reservoir.
Joy in chicken keeping is proportional to labor involved. You can’t break even on egg cost – grocery store eggs are a masterful study in efficient production. I think they taste a lot better but thats largely dependent on what they’re eating beyond pellets.
Shoot me your address. I’ll mail the labor saving extra feeder / water nipples I have. I don’t remember if you get freezing winters but I’ve got some suggestions if you do.
@ldpbw
Interesting fact: If you have a 160 IQ, you can degrade a whole bunch and still fool people into thinking you’ve got your act together. You know stuff is wrong, but you are still capable of hiding it and giving people the answers they expect.
Thats more or less what happened post crash with me. My IQ is not so dramatically high, I still tested out as a clever monkey indeed post crash. It made it tough getting effective cognitive therapy. Spent the first few months arguing with my cognitive therapist that I needed treatment because she wasn’t in the same IQ ballpark as me and she simply couldn’t detect my losses. By happy accident she was gone for a bit and her replacement took me at my word and figured out how to treat my broken brain. I threw a fit and they swapped me.
Icould fake it pretty well in regular life but the losses were maddening. Literally. I think my brain really started to feel almost “right” a bit over two years ago, and feels mostly but not quite like my old stomping grounds these days. Nearly ten years post crash.
@SteveF
tied to the land to let them out and bring them in and make sure that they have water
Yeah, that’s no good. I have a ridiculously cheap less than perfect but good enough automatic chicken door I got off Amazon. I have a Wyze camera on their door so I can verify they’re where they should be, one on the food / water. When the setup is working right we can leave them unattended for a couple days at a time. Our weather is cool so skipping egg collection doesn’t hurt.
This is the low quality door I bought. I think I paid $50 for it. 20 years ago a box with a light sensor, you provide the door, was $200. The idiosyncrasies this door has is worth putting up with for the low price.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09PQWJQG6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
This is my project this week. I picked up the bits and pieces today. This will augment our raised beds. I’ll rig a greenhouse over it because we seem to be in for a cool summer.
http://www.alaskagrowbuckets.com/alaska-grow-bucket-guide
@drwiliams, yep, clamps are universally in demand. You can’t have too much money or too many clamps! Radial arm saws are hard to give away. The sliding compound does 90% of the tasks in less space and with better accuracy and less set up. About the only thing you can’t do is half lap joints, or cross cut dados. Or rip, but you have to be crazy or broke to rip on a radial arm. Look for chisels, many really high end chisels look very much like the cheap ones, but any with a replacable insert as a cutting edge is a very nice chisel. Oh, and manual saws, they go very cheap. Look for a nice dado saw with a reinforced spine…
@jenny, I had brain and emotional issues after my motorcycle accident and we’re pretty sure I didn’t even really hit my head, just concussed. Any major trauma will cause emotional issues that affect cognition. My kids poke me about it, since I’ve been very honest with them about my TBI and subsequent losses, assuring them that my issues are not native (or genetic) but the result of injury (so they should be starting with pretty good wetware.) Sometimes I have to remind them that even with several injuries, I still tested in the 99th percentile for english/language and above 90th for math. 720 and 630 on the SAT back when it still meant something too. 34 and 32 math on the ACT. When you start high, you can fall a ways and still get by. It is frustrating though.
@lynn, as bad as it sucks, at least you have a diagnosis and a treatment plan now. I hope it works for your daughter. We are living in an age of miracles by almost any reckoning.
72F with 85% humidity by the water. Had a nice fire while watching the distant lightning. Headed to bed soon.
n
@nick
TBIs are wild. Glad you’re open with your kids. I am with my youngster as well. My folks kept stiff like that as shameful, didn’t help us at all. I think our way is better. The ability of the brain to rd over is miraculous. Glad you’re here amongst us, and that long ago injury was recoverable.
We are all up waaaay tooo late. I’ve got a stuffed head and hives that itch. -gentle poke- What’s your excuse? -laughter-
Yes, you are, and that is OK. It was a mistake on the train, it lurched. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.
Currently in Tønsberg, south of Oslo. Arrived yesterday. Cool, slight breeze. It was still light at 23:00 last night. Sun was crashing through the bedroom window at about 04:00. Nice house with a really awesome view over the water.
Adjusting to the time change is miserable. Wife and I had 1.5-2 hours of sleep since 07:00 on Friday before crashing at 23:00 last night. Slept until 05:00 and woke up for an hour. Then back to sleep, as in passed out until 08:00. I will find out this evening if I have made the adjustment.
Good visiting with Norwegian family and friends. We hosted two children from this family. First daughter was normal. The second daughter was an emergency as that daughter had problems with her host family in the US. The mother called us on Sunday in January in a panic asking if we could take the second daughter for the rest of the school year. We did as we knew the family. It worked out OK.
The father is the sole distributor for Pilot Pens and Pencils in the large region. Last trip he gave me a bunch of writing devices, some fairly expensive. On this trip I gave him my 50 year old Pilot Pencil. I paid $20.00 in 1973 and used that pencil for a lot of coding sheets. If I did not give it away, it would get thrown away by son when I day.
A top of the line pencil when I bought it. Sells on Ebay for about $200.00 now. That’s not important to me as I would rather he have the pencil as the pencil is older than he is. A fitting destination.
Drinking a lot of excellent wine. The father is a wine expert, gets only the good stuff. I am not a wine expert but I can certainly tell the difference between the swill they provide on the plane versus what he is providing.
Nope, it is well after 09:00 here in Norway. Perspective.
@Ray
Indeed. It’s a bit after midnight here. Going to try that sleep thing and see if I can settle.
enjoy your trip. What a joy to be able to visit with the family of your host student.
And smart move with the pencil. I’ve lost count if the post death belongings disposals we’ve done or participated in. The less I own when I shuffle off this mortal coil, the better off my daughter will be. The struggle is real.
We are actually going to be visiting eight of our former exchange students. It has been six years since we have visited.
The children, now adults, become almost like your own children. The exchange program has provided me with more riches than I could have ever imagined.
In Norway? Have you seen the price of alcoholic beverages there? Your hosts must like you very much indeed…
I owe a good friend who lives in Norway a case of Champagne (a light-hearted gambling debt – I lost a bet). I am scheming out ways to get one to her without buying it in-country.
Nice to have Mr Ray in the correct time zone!
Yes. No.
He has a wine cooler the size of a large domestic refrigerator that is fully stocked. I don’t think cost is one of his concerns. He owns three houses, two Tesla X top of the line. The reception at his daughter’s wedding he rented an entire restaurant for 50 people. There must have been 150+ bottles of wine consumed. Not the cheap stuff either.
We hosted their first daughter for a few weeks until we found a permanent home. We were just a welcome family. But we wound up taking the daughter with us on our many trips and she would sometimes spend the weekend at our house over the school year.
We hosted the second daughter for 5 months when she had problems with her home in Arkansas. We got a frantic call from the mother (05:00 Norway time) asking if we would take the daughter for the rest of the school year. We agreed. It was a Friday. By Sunday the daughter arrived after a rush on paperwork. She spent the next five months with us until graduation and we were able to get her a diploma.
The parents were extremely grateful and feel they owe us. I think they are wrong. They don’t owe us. We owe them for allowing us to share their child.
The exchange program (we have hosted 14) allowed us to travel to Europe which I probably would have never done. We stay in their homes with a few minor exceptions. In those cases the parents pay for an AirBnB. I would much rather pay my way but they feel it is only right and I cannot argue with them about it.
This is our 10th trip to Europe, fourth to Norway. It will be our second trip to Austria. The exchange program allowed us to have friends, even children as the students become almost like our own children, and to be able to visit these countries without the trappings of being a tourist.
I feel this ability to travel, visit, and experience these countries has been the greatest reward from the exchange program. Best thing the wife and I have ever done.
“Best thing the wife and I have ever done.”
You and the wife are good people.