Definitely cooler now than a month ago. A bit of chill even in the morning air. Plenty of damp though. Extra helpings of that. Although it threatened to rain with patchy dark clouds, it missed me all day yesterday, and the clouds helped with the sun too.
It was cool enough to work on the roof getting the downed limb cut up and off the roof. Did so, and the roof is in pretty good shape. There are a couple of ridge vent shingles that I should replace and one or two roof shingles. I probably won’t, as I think it will be more disruptive to the roof to tear out the old and install the new, than to just live with the lumpy damage. Unless it leaks, then we’ll fix it.
Spent the evening with a small group of dads from the kid’s school who support a couple of the extra activities by selling concessions. Nice group of guys, I’ll do what I can to continue participating. Several I already knew from other school and community groups. There was a time in my life that I was ready to move cities if I ran into someone I knew while out and about. Now I understand the value of community a bit more.
Whether you are sizing up your competition, trying to find allies, or just looking for friends, getting out and meeting people in your area is going to be critical if you don’t already have ties to your community. I know my thinking on this subject has changed. Let’s say it’s “evolved” or “become more nuanced.” Whatever you want to call it, I’m convinced you need to know them, and they need to know you. It might be a carefully edited version of you, (but don’t think you can fool people), but they need to believe they understand you to trust you. You will also likely benefit from being able to trust (at least under a limited set of conditions) other people. Or you’ll know that they will never trust you, or that you can’t trust them. Knowledge is power.
And of course, so are resources. Keep stacking.
nick
Typical local Faux News – whenever a Federal Government “shutdown” looms at the beginning of October, the station makes a big deal about the annual Honor Flight.
If Corn Pop orders the “closed” signs to go up Sunday at the memorials in DC, the veterans’ disappointment will be the lead on the 9 PM newscast.
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/central-texas-veterans-honored-in-86th-annual-austin-honor-flight
Last year, with Dems still running the House, the Honor Flight got about 15 seconds of coverage at the tail end of the Friday newscast.
@Nick
Short of replacing a shingle you can make a surface repair with black jack or roofing cement. Work it into to damage with a putty knife, smooth it, then top it off with some matching roofing granules.
Roofing granule manufacturers sell loose granules to dress the seams in flat roof installations. You’re not likely to have access and won’t want to buy a 100# bag, but there is a way.
If you have some extra shingles find an old dishpan you can soak some pieces in. Tear one into thirds and soak it over night. Vigorous application of a wire brush will knock enough granules off to dry and sprinkle on your repair to make it invisible from the street. (This is why you don’t walk on a wet roof)
A new asphalt shingle roof will normally shed some granules the first year. A real prepper type would collect some from the downspout discharge and save them in a baggie for future repairs.
If you have a black or dark colored roof Black Beauty sandblast grit will work almost as well, but again, not worth buying a 50# bag.
I’m going to another funeral today. I’m getting tired of the necessity, so I’m going to set a new goal for myself: clog and overflow at least one toilet in every church I need to go to for a funeral. This is one of those
types of plan.
@drwilliams, I’ve got an extra pack of shingles, so I have a source for granules if needed, thanks for the tip. I don’t think there is any penetration of the shingles, but the weight of the limb and the pointy bits touching the roof caused some distortion and “sliding around” of part of the shingle. Looks a bit like someone poked their fingers into clay.
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I’m starting some coffee in a minute. Slept in but have a live online auction to watch this am. There are several big generators and who knows, they might go cheap. Three have transfer switches, one is listed as propane, and one looks very similar to the one I have. Any would be fine for this or the BOL house.
n
I am in Jerrys World waiting for the TAMU – Arkansas game to start with 105,000 of my new friends. Lots of old friends here. I graduated from TAMU over 41 years ago.
I agree totally. About 10 years ago my wife and I signed up with Neptune Society for cremation and ashes for both of us. Well she passed and I and daughter took the ashes out to the desert for distribution. One of her best friends had a celebration at her house for best friends and our family with music and videos. How wonderful! No hundreds of $$$ for lackeys to haul her and casket around and hiring a preacher that never knew her to tell friends an family how wonderful she was.
Coach Prime is crashing and burning again this afternoon.
Next week is the Shiny Metal Hat For The Strippers Game for UT Austin up at the state fair in The Stadium Where The Cotton Bowl Game Used To Be Played Before It Moved To Jerry’s World. If Seven Wins Steve loses that one and his team plays poorly today, he might as well start figuring out which second tier Florida school will hire him with “Texas Exes” picking up the tab for the remainder of his contract.
Just read the headline:
Senator Dianne Feinstein’s death leaves her daughters wrangling over breathtaking $102MILLION property fortune and $62M private jet she used to visit her mansions
$100 million, private jet, multiple mansions, yet she spent her dying days being wheeled around Congress, drooling, so the PLTs could milk a vote out of her. What a sad life.
These people are power-hungry cretins.
They know that the instant they drop t he reins, they’ll be exposed or indicted for their crimes.
n
As if. Who’s going to go after them, Republicans?
Republicans give spineless jellyfish a bad name.
Yes, they are coming for your gas furnaces too
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2023/09/30/yes-they-are-coming-for-your-gas-furnaces-too-n581442
A modern residential gas furnace is more thermally efficient than electric heating.
I propose that the next presidential science advisor have minimum requirements, including a technical degree that included passing thermo, and a minimum of twenty years in non-academic non-management positions. Part of the qualifications test would be changing the oil in a pickup, rotating the tires, checking fluid levels and brake wear–test to be taken in a properly outfitted automotive service bay without electronic diagnostic tools and no use of smart phones or internet connection or any outside consultation.
I would nominate CowboyStu, with half a dozen assistant from this board starting with Greg and Lynn. I’d volunteer for one of the remaining four positions (see below). Note that everyone must be carry certified.
I would expect that the first day of the new administration we round up all DOE employees, draft them, and relocate them to a camp in northern Montana equipped to military standards ca. 1915. Sparse military organization headed by a Marine Colonel with other officers coming from combat veterans retired before 2014. Non-commissioned military ranks assigned to DOE employees with everyone starting at private second class. No cell phones or any kind of communication other than USPS First Class letter. No incoming packages. Firearm qualification required–“this is your rifle, this is your gun…” One gender: “provisional soldier” No transportation off base and no leave. No quitting until after the first 30 days. No fence–anyone AWOL gets to keep a limited government retirement buy can never hold a fedgov position again.
April 1 they break camp, are loaded on a train, and relocated to the high desert of the American Southwest for another 90 days. On July 1 any graduates are given the weekend and are offered the opportunity to take the new test for open DOE positions.
DOT is next.
Every fedgov employee involved in rulemaking that has a technical component has to qualify in four areas: mathematics, physics, chemistry, and economics as part of a one-year requalification requirement. Mathematics starts with use of the slide rule–there are no electronic aids permitted. Each course includes weekly laboratory and tests, with all written work handed in at the end of the week before they leave campus. Structure to be four 12-week quarters with no holidays, Saturdays with facilities open, Sundays off with no work. No religious holidays. No swearing, and no alcohol.
For other details, see R.A. Heinlein.
Oh, yeah. I’m running chem lab the first year and training the next instructor.
“$100 million, private jet, multiple mansions, .”
Calls for a forensic audit right there.
Who’s going to go after them
–whoever gave Harry Reid his “tuneup”.
n
On a senator’s salary. She basically made $5.4 million a year, at least $5.2 million more than the job pays. Amazing that congress critters and senate cretins can be that savvy with their money. If us mere mortals produced such financials the IRS would be on us like stink on a fart.
Feinstein was married to Richard Blum of Blum Capital and CBRE fame for over 40 years.
Her accumulated wealth isn’t as suspect as her rise to power.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/09/ibram-kendi-faces-growing-backlash-from-the-left-over-his-failing-anti-racist-think-tank/
Yes it is.
That’s the clean-shaven pouty-face of cultural theft. His ancestors didn’t have razors, much less razors with five blades, $200 shirts with buttons down the front, or $3000 jackets with collars and pockets.
Thieves and liars all the way down.
“Feinstein was married to Richard Blum of Blum Capital and CBRE fame for over 40 years.”
40 years of never failing to drop a federal dollar in her husband’s lap.
Is Meghan Markle considering a run for office? Duchess of Sussex’s name is in the frame to fill Californian Senator Dianne Feinstein’s seat after she died aged 90 (and could the White House be her ultimate aim?)
Not just no, but HELL NO.
n
I’m disqualified because I’m not carry certified.
Plus I’ve spent my whole career avoiding positions of any real responsibility. Why start now.
HP 11 calculator. This is the 21st century.
Putting a Windsor in the White House has been the plan for 60 years. I don’t buy the kabuki about Harry being estranged from the family for a second.
Someone at the Palace has played a very long game.
If you insist on a licensing exam, then base it on Feynman’s lecture on “Algebra”, Vol. I, Lecture 22.
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_22.html
I picked up one smaller portable gas gennie. The stationary whole house gennies went for more than I was willing to gamble. One was exactly like the one I have here, so I’m sure all the plastic inside needed replacing, tanks, trays, fittings, etc. It actually went unsold with a $1500 bid, ie. “passed” by the seller.
Three were essentially identical generac with transfer switches, set up for Natgas judging by the pipe. No capacity listed but from the design- water cooled, industrial versions, and at least 18KVA. They sold for $1000 plus tax and fees. I’d have been there a year ago,but even the Flandrey household is feeling the pinch, especially with all the work at the BOL.
There was one Onan listed as propane fueled, and 12KVA, but a quick google showed problems with an ECM and a lot of hidden settings and ‘features’ within that ECM box. I’m not looking for opaque and complicated. It was a commercial unit too.
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the same auction has a couple of 50K gallon military fuel bladders, new in crate. Dunno what you’d do with that as a private individual… if you could afford to fill it, I guess you could afford to defend it. But if it was gasoline, it would go bad before you could use it in almost any conceivable scenario. They sold for $100. I guess you could use it for water…
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just finished using the string trimmer to cut the back yard, it was a jungle baby… in a few days I may use the mower to level everything. Or not.
Time for a shower and haircut.
n
@lynn, more excitement than you probably wanted?
n
Probably not the vaxx. Could be a neck injury. Could be heat.
Probably. Maybe.
In completely unrelated news, here’s a link showing that doctors knew possibly as early as January of 2021 but definitely by February of 2022 that the mRNA in the shots migrated to other parts of the body than the muscle it was injected into. Contrary to the claims of the “experts”.
Inconsequential places, you know, like lymph nodes and the heart.
Discovered via the charming practice of autopsies. In other words, probably more common, but they only looked at the dead people.
The Supreme Court issued the decision about Corn Pop’s large employer mandate for vaccination in January 2022. Until then, questioning The Science openly was a quick way to career cancellation for any medical professional.
Had the Supreme Court ruled the other way, the camps would have eventually opened and yellow stars issued to the unclean to pin to their clothing before the authorities could haul them away.
We came very close to repeating history.
Oregon middle school refuses to say if hulking bully filmed pulverizing much smaller girl to floor in hallway is transgender, after sickening clip went viral and triggered bomb threat
– so by not denying the statement, they’ve affirmed it. Because it would be simple to say, “No it wasn’t.” and be done with it.
n
https://www.theblaze.com/news/jamaal-bowman-fire-alarm-obstruction-government-shutdown
Treat him like a white Republican.
@Greg
Plenty of time.
I’d settle for RPN
@Nick
I can see a future where “food grad” is a luxury, but I’d want to see the material specifications first, including the plasticizers used in any plastic and the additives used in any synthetic rubbers.
@Nick
Only possible after a couple generations of families with 1-2 children.
3-4 and a lot more uncles and cousins and retribution is going to come quickly
Joe Biden’s IRA committed more than $100 million to promote ‘tree equity’
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/joe_bidens_ira_committed_more_than_100_million_to_promote_tree_equity.html
Any comment that I make would have to be heavily edited to be merely intemperate.
Still is, at least in some states or for medical professionals paid by some insurance companies or some hospitals.
This guy is legendary in the home machining/clockmaking/toolmaking/youtuber world… and then he got interested in hand engraving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piqPfPU4l78 is the result, which is just ancillary to him making another tool.
Engraving A Watchmaker’s Faceplate (Chill Out Extended Cut – 100 Hours in 60 Minutes)
n
I gave up on repairing my over-the-range microwave, and bought a replacement.
I figured, hey, since GE makes the same model now that it did 8 years ago, I can slide by with an easy installation. Same model, so it will have the same back bracket, same locations for all the screws. Easy-peasy.
Wrong and wrong. The same basic model number, but a few revisions up. Different back bracket, and screw holes in cabinet above in different locations.
Still, I managed to get it installed and working. I’m still deciding what to do about the old one. I think I could still fix the switches, maybe. Or I could get parts from it, like the capacitor and transformer. Magnetron?
Fixing it would give me a backup. But then I have to actually fix it, and store it.
Clickspring’s parallel build and toolmaking series on the Antikithra mechanism are favorites of mine. Probably watched them a dozen times.
My hip joint has become very annoying. This morning when I got to the kitchen I discovered that I had not done the dishes from supper. I always do them as soon as I finish eating; I hate having dirty dishes in the sink. It only took me few minutes but it was long enough that I decided not to prepare the cantaloupe. I wanted to get off my feet so I just microwaved some bacon and open a can of tomato juice to go with my donuts.
I didn’t do much that was productive today. I watched two football games and napped.
I tried to take some pictures of two framed pictures, but my android phone camera captured a lot of glare. I want to put photos of my wife and a painting on my web site; these pictures were professionally made with taped backs in glass faced frames. I tried various positions for the picture and the room lighting, but the pictures range from awful to very poor almost unusable. I don’t see how they can be removed.
I added Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse to my shop laptop, a Lenovo ThinkPad E15 with an Intel Core i7 processor and using Intel HD graphics. (I upgraded the hard disk to a Crucial 1TB SSD some time ago.) It’s running Windows 10 Pro. I can see these devices when I run Speccy but the system ignores them. I added a large external monitor which seems to work fine but it only mirrors the laptop screen; I can’t get two different displays.
@lynn, more excitement than you probably wanted?
Yup, you hate to see that. Hopefully just a stinger in his neck.
@lpdbw
“Fixing it would give me a backup. But then I have to actually fix it, and store it.”
As Dad used to say: “Sometimes you have the throw out the $5 shiite so you can keep the $50 shiite.”
@bob, wait for a bright but overcast day, take them outside, position them vertically or tilted very slightly forward, with a black drape or cardboard also vertical near by.
Camera slightly off the centerline, black drape or card off the centerline in the opposite direction, so that the black card is what gets reflected by the glass toward the camera.
That should do the trick if you can arrange the reflection properly. The black card or drape should be bigger than the photo by a lot, double? Triple? that way it can be farther from the photo, but still fill the reflection in the glass. You will have to play with the distance sideways off the centerline a bit. The goal is to be close to a square image of the photo (IE, not very keystoned) but not reflect anything but the black material in the glass.
The overcast day can be simulated by making a bright ceiling in a room, keeping all light sources behind the photo so they don’t cause specular highlight reflections, but creating enough ambient light that the photo is easily visible.
Put the camera on a tripod, and use a mode that is good for low light, like HDR. Ray knows more about cameras than I do, he may want to chime in.
WRT the hip, are you having any symptoms of infection? Pockets can develop around an implant and house MRSA or other infection. I thought you said you had an implant. If not, you might have a fracture. Any persistent pain should be checked to rule out new issues. (says the guy who had no doctor for 3 years, and who used to use his dentist as his primary care physician.)
And sometimes a lazy day is just what’s called for.
n
Hmm, emphasis added.
n
@Bob Sprowl
Tricky, but can be done. The general method is set up in a dark room to illuminate with floodlights (focused light sources) from 45-degrees right and left and block any stray light from illuminating anything in front of the painting that can reflect light off the glass back to the camera. A large sheet of cardboard painted flat black with a hole for the camera lens is the homebrew version of a pros dark curtains.
It is more difficult with a modern digital camera that it used to be with film.
The alternative is to set up at night outside in a dark yard and block illumination from anything but the painting. Hopefully any stray light gets lost.
Ray Thompson will probably have better advice.
Or Nick
The fact he left no suicide note nor showed any signs of distress in the days, weeks and months before his death only worsened the agony for friends, family and co-workers he left behind.
I’m sure he didn’t know the Clintons.
CSI would find looped surveillance video by reading the reflection of a clock in something if a hubcap were not available.
Climate Wars Heating Up in Rural Australia
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/09/29/climate-wars-heating-up-in-rural-australia/
So nice that friendly governments test our crowd-control weapons before they are rolled out for use at home.
There appear to be tools that can be used against them too…
the report is hosted here to at least try stripping out the personalization tracking codes. It’s all open source but it would de-alias me to use the link they provided, all 256 characters…
Interesting that it’s just occurring to them that someone might take their playbook (like using the HVI designation) and flip it on them. Just wait for the anti-cell phone suicide drones in militia/freefor hands.
n
No implant anywhere. I am 78, slender 5′ 10″ and weight 140. I never expected to have joint problems as I don’t put much of a load on them. I ran cross country in high school. Semi regularly in the Air Force for 20 years with a lot of running while in Italy for 3 years.
I’ve ben walking my dog a mile everyday for 9 months with out any problem. I did fall down out in the woods about 10 days ago, tripped over some vines. My arms were scratched but my legs and knees weren’t even red from the fall. I bruise easily so my scratches looked awful but are now completely healed.
I’ve been taking a 220 MG Aleve (NSAID) tablet every night for about a year for general aches and pains just before I go to sleep. (Joe Montana said it helps him sleep and I agree.) I am almost a complete dunce at medical issues. I can apply a band aid and take a pill but that’s the upper limit of my knowledge. I go to the doctor and do what they tell me.
I hadn’t had an joint problem until last Monday. Well maybe a bit of pain if I had been on my feet for more than eight hours. Monday I went up and down the ladder to my loft a dozen times. Sorted parts on my feet most of the day. When I walked the dog I could hardly get back to the house. Almost every day the walk has been a challenge. As I said, just being on my feet for 15 minutes HURT this morning. The twenty-five minute walk after sitting most the day was awful.
Thanks for the ideas about the photos. I have a carport that may work for this.
>> It actually went unsold with a $1500 bid, ie. “passed” by the seller.
@nick, is this the same as a reserve? Or something different?
>> I gave up on repairing my over-the-range microwave, and bought a replacement.
I figured, hey, since GE makes the same model now that it did 8 years ago, I can slide by with an easy installation. Same model, so it will have the same back bracket, same locations for all the screws. Easy-peasy.
Wrong and wrong. The same basic model number, but a few revisions up. Different back bracket, and screw holes in cabinet above in different locations.
Externally vented? I helped my son replace his OTR microwave, and while the vent pipe more or less lined up, there was a note in small print in the instructions that for external venting, you needed to clip off the four corners of the vent flap else the flap could get stuck in the open position.
RTFM, who me??