Cool and wet, possible rain. Yesterday’s rain held off until late in the evening. Then it was light, but intermittent. Not much in total, but it got everything wet.
Spent Saturday at getting ready for or at my party. Good to be with people and share a meal and some fun. Good also to be of service to my fellows. Satisfying.
Today will be catch as catch can around the house. We have a tree to put up, but lots to do before that is possible. Some of it is my stuff moving, some is the BOL stuff that is piled for the next trip, some is stuff in the room that has to move to make room. And all the normal routine stuff of my daily life has to happen too.
Should be a good day.
These are the good old days. Enjoy them.
n
(and stack)
As I’ve been saying for years: “Global Warming” explains everything but can’t predict anything.
re rechargeable flashlights, they’re convenient but approximately 100% of them are Chinesium, must therefore be expected to fail at any moment, and therefore cannot be relied upon. Keep them around for convenience, sure. Count on them for when there’s a problem and you really need them to work? No way.
drwilliams, good thought about the pallet sheets. There’s even a Sam’s Club a few miles away and my van’s back seats are already “down” because I was transporting something else.
42 F and windy this morning. The varmints say that it is dadgum cold and refuse to stay outside even though there is not a cloud in the sky.
Suppose to be 34 F tonight. Not cold enough to wrap the pipes but I am thinking about it. I need to go check the office pipes to see if the lawnmowers did any damage over the summer to the insulation.
On spreading diseases, we all know now that Kovid was a manufactured disease. Fauci is probably the greatest mass murderer in history.
This is why Mr. Ray recommends quality FLASHLIGHTS. I just upgraded to some Olights for my primary around-the-house, EDC, and travel.
I also got this Sofirn IF23. I always try to have an FL that is red-light capable. You never know when you have to sneak around. My EDC is the Olight Arkfeld Pro. I also like to have a laser handy for depth detection. Plus dog Obadiah loves chasing the laser.
Huh. Warmer here than near Houston. It must be due to Global Warming!
Not sure as I’d go that far. Mao’s count was in the mid-tens-of-millions. We’ll never know the number of deaths from the Chinese bio-weapon or from the clot shots because of the lies surrounding every aspect of the issue, but I doubt it’s that high. Even scaled for global population increase, I think that Mao still wins this little contest.
If the worker was Asian, especially older, never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by You Ain’t Got No Ice Cream.
If you think You Ain’t Got No Ice Cream is something I invented, I suggest you hit Fung’s Kitchen one Sunday morning. You’ll see it.
At Fung’s, you’ll also see a lot of sophisticated masks sourced from places like Korea and Vietnam.
Make sure to go before 10 AM, however, if you actually expect to get a table and eat before the carts stop rolling.
If the worker was African American, a lot of crazy stories about the virus circulate in that community which have the women still wearing masks. My wife noticed it in New Orleans in October.
Also allergies. December and January are ugly in Texas, and your trees actually saw rain this Fall.
Or plain old machine politics with the masks being used to show political affiliation where distribution of campaign literature and signs are verboten.
Acthung! Always have your armbands at the ready Good Germans. Ze olt days vilt return, ja, und ze Skippy will get ze Gold Star.
The masks don’t work for a virus beyond a very miniscule percentage. If an attempt to distribute a pathogen was underway, the workers were exposed with a higher chance of contracting it spending a shift at the polls than you have just going in and out.
And generally the batteries are dead when needed the most. I have several Fenix lights, good stuff, batteries hold a charge a long time. I also have some SureFire lights that take CR123 batteries, such lights and batteries being expensive. They are reliable. Shelf life on the batteries is 10 years and they are Lithium and don’t leak. The light can run indefinitely by just changing the batteries.
Having cheap FLASHLIGHTs scattered is still a very good idea. Just have some good, high quality FLASHLIGHTs which can be accessed is also a very good idea.
One of the few areas that RBT and I disagreed. Not the quantity, but the quality.
Lots of damage from tornadoes close to where my son lives. One passed within a couple of miles from his house. That close enough to be concerned. He and his family hid under the stairs in his house for an hour during the worst of the storms. Here we just got rain.
Currently 50f and is supposed to be dropping to freezing during the day. Climate change you know. As in, the climate changes every day, almost every hour. Where can I get my massive grant to study that and prove it is warming while freezing my gonads.
Had dinner last night with my old organization. The one I retired from in 2016. Former employees are invited to the Christmas dinner each year. Well, most of them. A couple of people that were fired are not invited. Everyone that retired is invited back.
No one has ever quit the organization, just retired. Lots of longevity, 20+ years is not uncommon. Speaks volumes for the work environment and the people, working for, and running the organization. It does help that people running the organization are mostly volunteers and were the top 10% of their engineering class. The majority have PhDs or at least a masters degree. There is only about 12 paid staff members in the organization. There are about 50 volunteers.
I guess I should be glad the heater busted on Saturday considering how cold it will get today. Yesterday I was able to keep the house warm with a couple of electric heaters and running the fan on air handler. But it was only about 50f outside. I am still not pleased it cost me an extra $50.00 for weekend service. Why does stuff have to break on weekends? I need to get a grant to study that phenomena? Must be some bucks somewhere.
When we got our new AC installed in March, the techs really pushed the issue of the “smart” thermostat to the point that I had to remind the installers three times that day not to install the Nexia.
One tech finally asked, “Why are you so against the new thermostats?”
Not wanting to debate and come off as a nutter to another contractor about port scans – which I’ve witnessed Nexia doing first hand – I said, “When the thermostat fails on a Sunday at noon, I want to be able to get a replacement installed fast.”
Sure enough, the thermostat failed on a Sunday afternoon, except at 5 PM not noon. Fortunately, the nearby Home Depot closes at 7 PM.
The only complication about the install was that Funnywell changed their wall mount outsourcing the residential thermostats. Grrr.
We have a more active thermostat schedule on weekends than weekdays so that could explain the failure.
Where I currently work, H1B dominates the workforce, but the older white employees in the upper technical ranks and management tend to stay and retire if they survive layoffs.
We had a situation in management last year where the individual I reported to directly was dropping hints about raises and promotions being given for reasons other than being good at the job, but within a month of him doing that to me in an in-person one-on-one, HR encouraged him to “spend more time with family” and he was off the payroll.
17 years.
The company is essentially the new IBM but is determined not to end up like the old IBM, which had a huge blind spot and weird loyalty chains similar to the mob based on my observations.
Literally, I had a former co-worker kill someone, arguably first degree, while he was on the payroll of the Death Star, and phone company management tightened security in the building not out of concern for physical safety of the employees but because they were worried that the IBM loyalty chain – the murderer was a son of a noted IBM Fellow – would motivate some of the former Big Blue employees remaining in the building to let the murder into the facility to clean out his office or access to the systems.
“Doctor Who” has a lot of problems, but Neil Patrick Harris was good last night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ4Mmd22MEs
“It’s important to be able to differentiate between realistic potential problems and tin-foil stuff.”
Please to identify which are realistic and which are tin-foil:
Disgruntled ugly harridan funds Russia hoax, fully backed by msm and Deep State employees
Fedgov funds bioweapon, mandates use of unproven medical tech, engages in wide-reaching conspiracy to shut down discussion and ruin any dissenters
Extensive criminal enterprise peddles influence of VP and POTUS, takes in millions of dollars under the protection of DOJ and FBI
Global warming zealots promulgate political agenda as “science” with $30 billion per year of fedgov funding, full support of formerly respected scientific bodies, universities, and msm, and threaten to successfully destroy the most successful country in the world with restrictions on energy, food, farming, and transportation.
U.S. Constitution, laws and oath of office violated wholesale to destroy national sovereignty.
Biological men compete in women’s sports after reaching physical maturity as males, and biological women are supposed to STFU.
wrt Dr. Who, I offer a quote from Tom Baker’s Doctor on another subject:
“It’s an abyss.”
Applies to Marvel as well.
+ googolplex
Note: our own goobermint is the worst.
Disney has both control of properties right now.
We’re witnessing the death throes of The Mouse.
That was made possible by many people losing their nerve.
This includes the President of the United States and even regulars here.
It should never be forgotten and forgiven only after the requisite mea culpa, even with the Orange Man.
Agreed.
Neil Patrick Harris turned in a solid performance for Russel Davies in “It’s A Sin”. His “Uncoupling” was on hold because of the writers strike.
The Toymaker essentially borrows Harris’ character from “A Series of Unfortunate Events”.
It is too bad that Harris did not have Ingrid Oliver to play off of at UNIT HQ. I strongly suspect all of Stephen Moffat’s circle are done with “Doctor Who” outside of Big Finish.
Turns out there IS rest for the wicked. Or at least for the marginally wicked, somewhat bad, perhaps a little bit naughty…. or me.
Up late reading (and in the book 99.999% of the world’s population is killed in days by a bioweapon virus– so it’s been on my mind) alternating carb crash with reading, and ended up awake at 3am… so I slept in. All the other people here slept in too. D1 is learning the issues with reading in bed and the “Just one more chapter” fallacy, and the “but it’s almost over -=- it’s the denouement.” She was still up when I went to bed for real. D2 has probably been quietly reading or trolling pinterest for hours in her room. W is on the couch reading quietly.
Wind is the loudest thing, and acorns raining down on the house.
Sunny out. Didn’t expect that, and the wind is gusting.
n
52F in the shade
n
About 22F this morning in the California high desert. I lit the pellet stove about 11pm last night and let it run on low overnight. Projections are night time lows around freezing for the next week, it’s been a relatively warm year so far.
The winds have abated, I might go out and put up some Xmas lights today.
It’s slightly warmer now than it was at 0700. 100% cloud cover. Light rain for the past three hours. Chickens should be glad to be under the deck and therefore not being rained on but instead they’re complaining about being cooped up (pun intended) and not allowed to run around wherever they like.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wellness-uk/article-12826789/nutrition-expert-mouldy-food-edible-list.html
battlespace prep? I put this alongside the articles about eating food past the “best by” date that have appeared recently. SOMEONE is getting the public ready for serious shortages.
n
That’s conspiracy theory lunacy. Don’t go there.
I don’t really mean to mock Brad, but by this point we all should realize that there is no lie, manipulation, or crime against humanity that Our Lords and Masters haven’t at least batted around a bit.
Daughter and I changed the mixer in Grandma’s shower this morning. It took months to figure out what the problem was, because of, let’s put it charitably, language issues. Once the symptom (only hot water coming out of the shower) was correctly described it took about 0.1 seconds to know where the problem was. Told my wife what part was needed, she got Kohler on the phone, sat on hold for a good long while, and then got the part ordered. No cost; lifetime warranty. I led The Child through doing the replacement, from shutting off the water and draining the pipes to putting the new o-rings in where they were needed. Aside from me opening half of the faucets and checking everything as she did it, she did the entire job.
The annoying, ungrateful chickens complain VERY LOUDLY every time I walk past them. They were out for an hour or two before the rain started but that’s not enough for them. I gave them several treats today, including some leftover jambalaya with meat, and that still isn’t enough for them. Complain, complain, complain. It’s like having multiple wives, though I’ll note that the chickens are much less expensive.
Or telly is terrible this weekend.
An article about eating moldy foods would appeal to the same UK demo who are looking forward to seeing Patsy Kensit in the “Death in Paradise” Boxing Day special.
Of course I’ll watch.
@SteveF: Go ahead, no problem. The thing is: a random election worker isn’t the one spreading some new disease. But it is entirely likely that TPTB are manipulating money and supply chains. My point was just this: Focus on the real threats.
Not sure as I’d go that far. Mao’s count was in the mid-tens-of-millions. We’ll never know the number of deaths from the Chinese bio-weapon or from the clot shots because of the lies surrounding every aspect of the issue, but I doubt it’s that high. Even scaled for global population increase, I think that Mao still wins this little contest.
Stalin is the actual high count, 30 million to 60 million dead through his policies.
But, Covid-19 is the gift that keeps on giving. I think the Koof was engineered to take out old people with respiratory comorbidities. Fauci’s total death rate will keep on growing and growing.
@brad, yep, I’m still sane, and mentioned it because 3 years ago something like that wouldn’t have even flitted across my mind. Now, like the possibility that aliens are here and the coverup IS real, not only does it flit, it stops and flops around a bit while I consider it.
It was even odder because I thanked them for volunteering, but she quickly said she wasn’t a volunteer, but was paid. Which means she works for the election office which is solidly Dem. She added that there WERE some volunteers, but she and all the others in the polling place were paid.
Since the election office changed the voting machinery before our last election, I trust it even less than straight up electronic voting. They added steps which seem to me to offer more chances to cheat. Couple that with some REALLY REALLY REALLY unlikely results last time, and I don’t have any faith in it any more.
Turns out that Sheila Jackson Lee lost to a long time Democrat pol, (the guy I voted for, both because party affiliation isn’t on the ballot anymore, and because HE ISN”T SJL…) and because the Reps divided the vote in the original election and didn’t have anyone in the run off.
And if you want to see the great replacement in action, just read the lines about demographics in this article…
Those demographics figures are not right.
Where are the Indians, Asians, and Orientals?
I remember reading a few years ago how English is not spoken in the home as the primary language in the majority of Houston homes.
yeah, when I last looked at census data it was 40 – 40 – 10- other … white, brown, black, all the rest, plus or minus a couple percent per category.
n
“Our Ticking Ethnic Time Bomb” By Star Parker
https://www.creators.com/read/star-parker/12/23/our-ticking-ethnic-time-bomb
“In 2022, the percentage of the U.S., per the report, that was non-Hispanic white was 59%. In 1980, the U.S. population was 80% white.”
“The report projects the percentage of the nation that is white continuing to shrink, dropping to 45% by 2060, 37 years from now.”
“Consider that in 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected president, 88% of voters were white. Reagan captured 56% of the white vote, and Jimmy Carter got 36% (there was a third party candidate in that election, John Anderson, who got 8%).”
“In a recent Gallup poll, 64% of Democrats, compared to 20% of Republicans, expressed “a great deal or a fair amount of trust” in the federal government to solve domestic problems. We may conclude that non-white Americans, compared to white Americans, choose more rather than less government to solve their problems.”
I’ve got nothing to add, Star says it all.
Why we prep. And why you should have some stacks offsite…
Two children among six dead and 23 injured after powerful tornadoes batter Tennessee – as NYC prepares for 60mph storms to wreak havoc across the Northeast
There is some sort of calamity that can befall you no matter where you live.
n
Having cheap FLASHLIGHTs scattered is still a very good idea. Just have some good, high quality FLASHLIGHTs which can be accessed is also a very good idea.
I cannot see in detail anymore without extra light so I have flashlights everywhere in the house, office, truck. At least two in every place.
I have an old, antique now perhaps, Toro Lunalight setup. The original flood lights, that you could focus from spot to flood are long long gone. The heat from the bulbs cooked the sockets into char.
At the old house I had the lights mounted under the roof edge. Rain gutter on one side of the fascia board, lights on the other side. I moved all that out here, to the sticks. Just the lights.
Currently I have four “half moon” flush mount flood light fixtures that light the deck up nicely and one Malibu somewhat vaguely focusable fixture near the back door. Four watt incandescent bulbs in all.
Have you priced the bulbs lately? Almost $8 for a pack of four. Four watt, seven watt, same price.
I found some LED bulbs on Big River. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009DRF3VW?tag=ttgnet-20 $17 for ten “0.5 watt LED bulbs are equivalent to a 4-watt incandescent bulb”.
They say 12V DC. They also say they are for Malibu lights. I looked, Malibu power supplies are 12V AC. My Toro power supply is 12.08V AC. But the reviews are good. It’s an “Amazon’s Choice” for what that is worth. So, what the heck. If they work, great. If they don’t I find a use somewhere.
Stuff gets mangled in interesting ways between English and Chinese.
It’s so exciting around here.
A few days ago I noticed a furry thing on a stepping stone next to the deck. I figured it was some kind of leaf or a cat turd growing mold. Not that I’ve ever noticed cat turds growing mold but you never know.
I looked at it today. It’s about 2.5 inches of a black cat tail. It’s sort of like a rabbit’s foot without the toenails. And the key chain.
I have a mostly black calico. Her tail is fine. I have a black and white male that knows who supplies the food but isn’t very “pick up and pet” at all. He has not gone tomming yet and the end of his tail looks odd.
I wonder what happened. There’s no blood anywhere.
Cats are not like lizards, as far as I know…. so maybe it got caught in something? But then it would still be wherever it got caught… dog chomped it, but spit it out? That is weird.
n
Penny likes all of the cats almost like they are puppies and most of them seem to like her.
It must have been some kind of cat fight. The tail piece isn’t slobbered on. Maybe he caught his tail between a couple of deck boards in a quarter inch gap and it broke off. He seems fine, just coming up a little short now.
>> D2 has probably been quietly reading or trolling pinterest for hours in her room.
Is pinterest still a thing? I always thought it was just brides-to-be trolling for wedding stuff and stay-at-home moms dreaming about redecorating their homes.
I guess D2 doesn’t fit into either category…
>> The last time we went to Costco, I was admonished at the self checkout about my Costco Visa not having a photo.
I presume they put your picture on their co-branded Visa so it doubles as your Costco ID?
But only an issue when you get to the checkout lanes. A color printout of the front of a Costco ID is sufficient to get in. Or you can say you’re just going to the pharmacy, no ID required for that.
And come around midday and troll all the free sample stations for a “free” lunch.
Fedgov funds bioweapon, mandates use of unproven medical tech, engages in wide-reaching conspiracy to shut down discussion and ruin any dissenters
My state attorney general just filed a lawsuit against the Federal government and Pfizer for fraud for foisting a drug on the public with a claimed efficacy of 95% and an actual efficacy of 1%. I doubt that the lawsuit will go anywhere but, that shows where the Great State Of Texas is heading.
Global warming zealots promulgate political agenda as “science” with $30 billion per year of fedgov funding, full support of formerly respected scientific bodies, universities, and msm, and threaten to successfully destroy the most successful country in the world with restrictions on energy, food, farming, and transportation.
This is treason.
That was made possible by many people losing their nerve.
This includes the President of the United States and even regulars here.
It should never be forgotten and forgiven only after the requisite mea culpa, even with the Orange Man.
We were lied to by Pfizer and Moderna. Trump was also lied to by MANY people. We trusted Pfizer. And we trusted Fauci. When I heard that Fauci owned a LOT of Moderna stock, I was concerned but did not realize the depth of the lie.
Up late reading (and in the book 99.999% of the world’s population is killed in days by a bioweapon virus– so it’s been on my mind) alternating carb crash with reading, and ended up awake at 3am… so I slept in.
“Emergence” ? Books that kill off 99.999% of the world’s population are rare, very rare.
I know of another book that meets that criteria but I cannot remember it at the moment.
“Under A Graveyard Sky” or “A Boy And His Dog At The End Of The World” ?
They do. My picture is on the back of my CITI card, which also contains my membership number on the back and a bar code of the membership number. My rebate on the card this year is over $1K.
I figured Paxton was dishing out political payback in some way for the Impeachment with the Pfizer lawsuit. Digging around, however, I noted that Paxton took more money from Pfizer running in 2018 than P. Diddly received for Land Commissioner.
Neither one took Pfizer money last year. I didn’t check the House Speaker or the people who prosecuted the trial in the Texas Senate.
The Texas Republican party is almost where the Dems were 30 years ago in Florida – holding all of the positions of power but on the edge of a slide to oblivion.
In about 20 years, Florida may have a viable Democratic party again.
Daughter and I changed the mixer in Grandma’s shower this morning. It took months to figure out what the problem was, because of, let’s put it charitably, language issues. Once the symptom (only hot water coming out of the shower) was correctly described it took about 0.1 seconds to know where the problem was. Told my wife what part was needed, she got Kohler on the phone, sat on hold for a good long while, and then got the part ordered. No cost; lifetime warranty. I led The Child through doing the replacement, from shutting off the water and draining the pipes to putting the new o-rings in where they were needed. Aside from me opening half of the faucets and checking everything as she did it, she did the entire job.
Excellent !
I had my Costco ID, but I was told that the Visa would not be accepted for payment without the picture at some point in the near future.
I may drop the Visa. The only reason I got it was for travel with the tolling company since I had to submit whole billing statements for reimbursement.
Harvard president is a thief with no skills:
https://hotair.com/headlines/2023/12/10/chris-rufo-breaks-plagiarism-bombshell-on-harvard-prez-n598143
https://twitchy.com/samj/2023/12/10/claudine-gay-just-gets-worse-and-worse-n2390696
but the usual qualifications for the job.
“This is treason.”
Why, yes it is.
And people are dying and will die because of it.
Ritual de lo Habitual, 1990, second album from Jane’s Addiction, had cover art that was rejected by the retail channel and the revised version has no artwork at all. The front cover features the First Amendment. The back cover has the track listing, producer credits, and this:
From the CDC health alert network. I’m suprised that doxycycline is recommended. That’s one of the old cheap ones.
https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2023/han00502.asp
n
(quite a bit of tracking on the original url, first on the email, then on the “click the link to learn more” web page.)
Had leftovers from my hobby party for lunch and dinner today. So good, and I didn’t have to cook. One of the spouses brought home made pickled beets with onion… SO freaking good. I brought home the whole container.
Did laundry. Read. Not much else.
@lynn, the book is “Partials” by Dan Wells.
n
One of the auctioneers I watch but only occasionally bid on something, and have only won from once is up to something shady AF… *
He’s been struggling for a year, made bad choices, had insane pricing strategy in the beginning, seems to not understand what makes a successful auction, and closed the business for a while while he downsized from a warehouse to storage units… and for a couple of auctions when no one was bidding, or if bids were at $1 or $3 opening bids with only hours to go he would find an excuse to move the auction close time by a couple of days. That extended the time people had to be aware of his auction and bid, hopefully (for him) raising prices. He did it again. Extended the auction by three days. Now it’s a pattern. And I think it’s shady AF.
Of course the simple answer is to continue not buying from him. This auction, of course, is one where he has a lot of good stuff I’d buy if it went cheaply. Which is not what his goal is, but that is the nature of an auction- you don’t set the price, the buyers do. So when I finally have a chance to get some stuff from him cheap, he changes the rules.
For now he’s on my “watch like a hawk, and only buy if it’s a stunningly good deal” list. He won’t be in business much longer if he continues with the shenanigans.
n
*the AF is As F#kc, and is a younger generation texting/culture thing
Older antibiotics which fall out of favor can drift back towards being useful if the bugs in a given area don’t see it for a while.
Still, a region of Mexico reversing doxycycline resistance is surprising. There is a downside to anything being available over the counter down south except narcotics and pseudoephedrine.
>> I had my Costco ID, but I was told that the Visa would not be accepted for payment without the picture at some point in the near future.
Where was this, at the self-checkout registers or a staffed register? I only use the former these days, (staff does all the scanning anyway with a wireless scanner – I’m not lifting the 40 lb bag of dog food onto the checkout tray), and no one has asked to inspect my (non-Costco) Visa card.
RIP David Drake
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Drake
>> From the CDC health alert network. I’m suprised that doxycycline is recommended. That’s one of the old cheap ones.
Didn’t specifically check the list but Bard says: As of late spring 2023, there were 309 ongoing drug shortages in the United States. This is the highest level of active drug shortages in almost a decade.
Dr. Califf hard at work…
David Drake is another of the big guns, the old guard, and his passing leaves a hole.
n
21 tribarrel salute.
Absolutely. One of the best military sci-fi authors ever.