Cool, but hopefully clear. Certainly damp. The BOL got over an inch of rain this past week and the lake is up about 6 inches. It’s murky too. Usually it’s pretty clear.
Did some auction stuff, then loaded the truck yesterday to head up. Didn’t have a full load, so I finally included some low priority stuff like oak tree saplings. If I’m taking down trees, I need to be planting some too.
The current mount for the starlink antenna is on the corner of the housed, mounted on a short pole attached to the soffit. The app says I’ve got an unobstructed view of the sky, but as the trees leaf in, I expect that might change around one edge. I’ll monitor it. Eventually I’ll get my ham tower set up, but that is WAY down the list.
I will try to get some wire antennas up though so I can try out my FT-817 some day soon. Eventually, I’d like to get one or both kids licensed so I can have a link between Houston and here. The Houston end will be the most challenging with the high noise floor and not the best antenna situation.
So many projects.
Today I’ll be doing small jobs that won’t be an issue if they don’t get finished. In the afternoon I’m helping my buddy do garden stuff. He’s decided to disc the peas that haven’t really grown and try his ‘go to’ variety instead. He’s got a disc harrow? for his atv (quad) so he can do that part pretty easily. The weeding and thinning part for the other veg is the part he finds difficult. Getting old and worn out is tough.
The whole population of farmers is seeing the same thing on a bigger scale. Keeping kids on the farm has always been tough, and it’s not an easy life, or a way to get rich, but someone has to grow the food.
The time to plant a garden is before you are hungry. It bears repeating. And the learning curve is steep.
Stack cans to give yourself some margin.
Stack the other stuff to give yourself options.
nick
“Black Women Denied” is still a dangerous game to play in the US right now, and Trump continues to represent Bad Daddy to a lot of people with those lingering issues.
What infuriates about Bad Daddy is that he isn’t broken and living in a trailer park.
Big Mike is coming.
Well, the Trump saga is…entertaining, anyway. It seems pretty clear that the court was run by an activist judge. At the same time, it is equally clear that Trump doesn’t have the cash to put up a bond. He lives big on money borrowed from others, and always has. The IPO of Truth Social came up very short-term. It looks like a rush job, as an attempt to get Trump the cash he needs.
The people who will buy the shares will be mostly his true believers, who are not generally among the wealthy. Assuming this IPO goes the same way as similar IPOs in the past, the shares are likely plummet in value after the IPO afterglow wears off. Total revenue in the first 9 months of 2023 was $3.4 million. Total loss for that period was $49 million. That is not a healthy company.
The weekend’s Tyler Durden cowardice protecting … someone. Maybe even a Disney/Lucasfilm insider.
Lucas threw in with The Weatherman this week, on the same day as the release of the trailer for “The Acolyte”, probably to protect his wife’s “career” which seems to consist of lucrative board seats at places like Goldman Sachs (You).
The plus side of Iger winning the proxy battle is that nothing stands between Burbank and the cliff. Full speed to oblivion!
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-morally-ambiguous-star-wars-show-directed-former-assistant-harvey-weinstein
Or, to borrow from a Disney classic which will emerge from Bankruptcy with its franchise unscathed despite some very determined efforts, Iger is taking the Nautilus down for the last time.
@Lynn
The only author that I can think of off-hand who started out writing dreck and improved tremendously is Dean Koontz.
Koontz started writing in the late sixties. There is very little before 1980 that I would try to read. Heavy on the pseudonyms–he had about a dozen, and at least one for soft porn that he will not acknowledge.
“Lightning” was 1988. By that time his work was consistently good, and that title is still one of his best.
If you are referring to “Ghostbusters” it is either film #4 or #5.
I may get out to see it, but the AI monkey trick is the most important thing in the world right now to my employer.
Twenty five years ago, I was fired for about an hour after sneaking out of my house to see “Toy Story 2” instead of working on opening weekend, but I’m older and the film in question is a “Ghostbusters” sequel with Patton Oswalt in the cast.
I want to believe. I really do.
Plus the grass started growing again this week in Texas and our yard has been a wreck for three years, since the 2021 freeze.
Wife and I will be cremated and the ashes scattered in the TN river. That is not legal but I doubt the fish will care. We are also organ donors. I don’t know much what they can harvest from old bodies. I think big veins, bone marrow, tendons, maybe corneas. Not much is probably usable but the body harvesters are welcome to anything they want.
There is a body farm close to Knoxville where a professor made a name for himself stashing bodies in various locations and environments. Inside cars, barrels, ponds, hanging from trees, etc. Just about anything imaginable. He then studies the decomposition, insect arrival, shrinkage, etc. The information is really valuable to law enforcement in determining the time of death for crime victims. People do specifically donate their bodies to the “Body Farm”.
This all-female auto shop let’s you get a mani-pedi while your car gets a tune-up
https://www.upworthy.com/all-female-auto-shop
All the ingredients for a cannibal McRib patty.
What was it Dr. Pournelle said about unrestricted capitalism and the peddling of human flesh in the marketplace?
Any McDonald’s franchisees left in Haiti?
The last time I had the Camry at the dealer for maintenance, the second attempted shakedown of the day for unnecessary brake fluid replacement came from a 50-ish woman obviously working a new career as a service advisor.
A woman mechanic can be just as dishonest as a male.
The first attempt at shakedown came from the tattooed Millenial male who checked me in for the visit. I can’t figure out if they thought I wanted to see tattoo-free, older, or female, but if it was the latter, give me a little credit.
Hormel limited Edition Apple Cider Bacon.
Not worth your time. Send it all to me.
What is a healthy US media company right now?
Like Disney at 115 with a PE of 71 isn’t agenda-driven.
re: Ham radio for youth
I belong to two different Ham radio clubs, and both of them offer testing. They also both offer incentives for new licensees, such as discounts on testing fees and free (cheap chinese VHF/UHF) radios for new licensees.
There is plenty of training available including one-day “boot camps”. Not a fan of those, myself.
For communication over short-ish distances like your BOL and Houston proper, you might be able to rig up a 10 meter antenna at each base. You can also get 10 meter rigs for your vehicles.
The advantage of 10 meter is you can use it with the lowest level of license, Technician. Upgrading to General or Amateur Extra gives you more options, but requires more investment in study and training.
Morse code is no longer required to get a license, although its popularity remains strong.
Total revenue in the first 9 months of 2023 was $3.4 million. Total loss for that period was $49 million. That is not a healthy company.
– by internet standards, they are gold plated if they had actual revenue…
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59F with moderate to light overcast.
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Coffee, so good.
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Stayed up late reading the next (for me) Laundry Files book. I’ve been reading it up here, and he’s either a brilliant troll or a true believer. I’m going with “true believer”. This book has a butch lesbian cop, a band of misfits comprised of gay older man, gay or bi- younger man, mentally ill young woman who pretends to be a boy while waiting to be legal age for her “top” surgery ie. trans boy, tough black lesbian, and a parade of white male villains.
The series started in “could be our London, there’s just secret stuff you don’t know” but is firmly in ‘alternate world, alternate history’ territory now, although he introduced a way to “fix” the changes he’s made to our real world.
It hasn’t been a slog, but it’s been kinda pointless until last night, when he finally did a major reveal for pretty much all the characters and finally started moving the plot forward.
I’m in the middle of the boss level quest, and it kept me up too late.
I should be able to leave it until next weekend up here to finish, which should be review enough…
n
IIRC twitter lost 90% or more of its pretend valuation with a change in ownership and a look at the books…. apply that to ANY of the online companies that rely on “eyeballs”, the “attention economy”, or ad revenue.
The ‘valuation’ of those companies is the result of a circle of insiders passing the same $20 around and each declaring he’s $20 richer with each pass. Occasionally they let some suckers (retail investors) give them cash for their amusement and profit when they need a new home in the Hamptons, or the yacht needs work.
They are all various degrees of 90% overvalued. If they don’t MAKE things you can COUNT and that the marketplace assigns value to, or do something physical that the real world has people paying for, the “value” is ‘let’s pretend.”
Look at all of the M&A activity of the last 20 years. Was there a single deal that resulted in gains over that time period? Or was nearly every deal disastrous, requiring a fire sale or massive write downs within a few years?
n
I’m reading the first stand alone Repairman Jack novel, Legacies.
Yesterday was a bit of a challenge. We had a surprise snow storm, surprising in its intensity rather than its existence. Weather forecasts were constantly being revised and constantly understating the snowfall.
… Which would have been no big deal, except that I drove to my brother’s house to bring him to the airport (to fly down to North Carolina to drive Mom back up here). Something over a hundred miles of driving, seeing on average one car off the road or crashed for every three miles. The airport was reporting that all flights were going up to my dropping him off … and then flights were cancelled a few minutes after that.
I’d have picked him right back up except that I was driving up to The Child’s school for the annual play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Very well done for a high school play and better than most or all of the dinner theaters I saw, back when I went to them. (First wife’s or a girlfriend’s desire to see them; I don’t mind them but would never bother to see one of my own accord.) Then I drove back to the airport, a nominal 25 minutes away but last night closer to an hour, brought my brother to my house, a nominal ten minute drive but last night closer to a half hour, and got him settled in and cleared the driveway and sidewalks, then shortly after drove back to the school to pick up The Child after the evening performance. Except for the brief stop at home, I was away for twelve hours, driving through miserable weather and idiots for most of it. Well, technically, I didn’t drive through the idiots, but my vehicle was nearly hit quite a few times by vehicles being driven by idiots.
Chickens are fine. Only a few flakes of snow got into the run. Temperature was low – much lower than the original forecast, which was why the forecast of a few inches of snow followed by several hours of rain, turned out so wrong – but they didn’t really care and have the heated coop if they’re uncomfortable.
This morning I butchered a chuck roll which I picked up a few nights ago. I hope that I butchered it in the denotative sense of the word rather than the connotative sense. It’ll be hard to tell for sure, as I don’t think I’ve ever had a chuck eye or a denver steak, so I won’t know if they were cut properly. As may be, I have three chuck eye steaks, ten denver steaks, one medium and one large chuck roasts, and quite a few pounds of stew meat. And a sandwich bag full of fat, which I diced. The chickens have already expressed their approval of the fat. We’ll have the chuck eye steaks tonight. The rest went into the freezer.
I’ve been setting out seed for wild birds, a mix of sunflower seeds and mixed seeds. I’ll normally put out maybe a quart per day between the feeder on the deck (positioned so Grandma can watch the birds coming and going) and the ground in front of the dining room window (so The Child can watch them while she eats breakfast). Early yesterday evening, before I left to pick up The Child, I noticed that the feeder on the deck was covered in snow so I cleared it and set out more seed. A cluster of wrens and chickadees and cardinals and blue jays and I don’t know what else devoured every speck within minutes so I poured out another pint. And then another. Then I poured some on the flooring under the table, which was protected from the snow. In all, a couple dozen birds ate at least three quarts of seeds. I normally wouldn’t have fed them so much, but we went from nice weather and buds coming out and sprouts coming up to ten inches of snow. Even with warm weather forecast to melt most of the snow in a few days, I have no doubt that a number of the birds would die before they could find anything to eat. Also, as of yesterday morning I still had about forty pounds of seed and don’t want to keep it over the Summer until the snow comes again, so I might as well use it up.
Somewhat related, I pulled down the nets over the fruit trees. I don’t know if they kept the deer away from the twigs and buds but I do know that a bunch of branches were broken in each of this year’s two severe snowstorms – heavy, wet snow, bunching on the nets rather than falling through. I’m not ready to say that this is a failed idea, at least for this climate, but I will say that they didn’t work out as hoped.
Usually unnecessary in a dry climate like here… oh, wait.
ABS supposedly won’t tolerate the slightly higher viscosity of DOT 5 (silicone) fluid, which is unaffected by moisture.
When I lived in Michigan, I had one car’s brakes become spongy. When I bled them, what came out looked like Jello.
WRT reading Dean Koontz novels, several years ago I was reading from Amazon Kindle several years ago. Then Lynn’s recent post about Koontz got me going again. I now read ebooks from my local public library. I just did a search there and see that they have a number of Koontz enovels ready to borrow. I’m ready to go again with “77 Shadow Street”.
JimB and EdH: Just talked to my SIL, David. Neither of us could remember why we couldn’t get back last fall. We are intending to get up that way sometime this summer. However, he is now undergoing a career change but we can’t specify until that is completed,
As mentioned previously, we are hoping to meet both of you at The Joint in Randsburg.
Great! I will keep watching. And, good luck to your SIL.
The Geico Gecko buying BNSF was a net positive for both companies, but the list gets thin after that.
The big downside of the success of the Gecko’s antics is that it led to a lot of questionable mergers with Wall Street looking for the next Berkshire Hathaway, starting with Sears-KMart
Insurance operations need a place to invest float. Railroads need a lot of operating capital.
We will pay for the loss of Sears for a long time. The Brown Truck Store is not a true substitute.
The new fluid absorbs moisture less quickly but the water still gets into the system.
My meter reads ‘1’ when I test it, on a scale from 0 to 5. That is after six years of owning the car.
No ABS brakes. I never owned a car with those until the Jetta.
The brakes were completely done when we bought the Jetta at only 60,000 miles. $1000 worth of work.
Hecho en Mexico.
Part of SpaceX is genuine achievement.
SpaceX has many serious jobs that must get done. Spy satellites, GPS satellites, new internet satellites, feeding people in old worn out space station with only one working toilet, nuclear weapons in orbit, etc, etc, etc.
Before SpaceX, the failure rate on those jobs was well above zero. Maybe 20%. Many were sekret sekret sekret so we will never know.
We will pay for the loss of Sears for a long time. The Brown Truck Store is not a true substitute.
Walmart killed off Sears, Kmart, Woolworths, etc, etc, etc. All of those stores failed before the intertubes really got popular. Walmart made stocking precious stuff in their stores computer driven and then beat the suppliers into the ground on price and keeping their stuff in trailers behind the stores (just in time that works).
I have not figured out what killed off Radio Shack unless it was Best Buy and Target.
Interestingly enough, Walmart is still thriving and doing well. Just not growing at 8% a year anymore. Of course, Walmart serves a market segment among us that will never go away, the frugal. My dad will not step in a Walmart but he is a member of their frequent buyer club with free shipping for $100 a year.
If you are referring to “Ghostbusters” it is either film #4 or #5.
#4. We don’t talk about the abomination with the all woman cast.
The IBM PC/MS-DOS and, later, cell phones.
Ironically, Radio Shack was one of the few retailers who bit on Microsoft Unix … Xenix? Every Radio Shack store had one system.
In the end, Radio Shack was just another cell phone store with people who barely understood electronics or any of the parts collecting dust in the drawers in back.
Starting in the 80s, Radio Shack’s philosophy in hiring full time staff was to avoid hiring anyone with electronics knowledge who would end up spending time helping customers resolve their problems.
The Egghead Ponzi hired a lot of those same Radio Shack full time employees, particularly managers, as they expanded the scheme nationwide ahead of the IPO.
The people who will buy the shares will be mostly his true believers, who are not generally among the wealthy. Assuming this IPO goes the same way as similar IPOs in the past, the shares are likely plummet in value after the IPO afterglow wears off. Total revenue in the first 9 months of 2023 was $3.4 million. Total loss for that period was $49 million. That is not a healthy company.
Has Facebook ever made a profit ? The stock buyers are hoping that he takes Facebook down. Or, just steals a double digit percentage of their customers.
Trump has $500 million in cash. That is his walking about money in the battleground states. You know, for the election buses and the ballot gatherers. The dumbrocrats are hoping to steal it away from him.
Wife and I will be cremated and the ashes scattered in the TN river. That is not legal but I doubt the fish will care. We are also organ donors. I don’t know much what they can harvest from old bodies. I think big veins, bone marrow, tendons, maybe corneas. Not much is probably usable but the body harvesters are welcome to anything they want.
There is a body farm close to Knoxville where a professor made a name for himself stashing bodies in various locations and environments. Inside cars, barrels, ponds, hanging from trees, etc. Just about anything imaginable. He then studies the decomposition, insect arrival, shrinkage, etc. The information is really valuable to law enforcement in determining the time of death for crime victims. People do specifically donate their bodies to the “Body Farm”.
I am not there on the cremation yet. But am seriously thinking about it.
The 126 acre cemetery on Westheimer was amazing. I had not been there in 20+ years and had forgotten how big it is. There must be tens of thousands of people buried there already. I was very surprised at the number of people who brought their lawn chairs and were sitting around graves, presumably of loved ones.
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/funeral-homes/texas/houston/forest-park-westheimer-funeral-home/2492
I have seen pictures of the body farm. That was simultaneously neat and creepy.
And a sandwich bag full of fat, which I diced. The chickens have already expressed their approval of the fat.
Dude, you rock ! At least to the chickens.
@Nick
The last Laundry Files I read was #9 Labyrinth Index, and I haven’t gone back and picked up Yokai Land, which was published later but is chronologically #7.5. The introduction of a stream of new characters that were less engaging than Bob Howard made me lose some interest.
The Lovecraft’s elder gods did not engage me, and Clark Ashton Smith or Neil Gaiman are time I want back. There is a large group of fantasy authors with series that sit upon my shelves unopened beyond the first 2-3 volumes. meh.
I’m ⅔ through Baldacci’s “The Innocent” (First in the Will Robie series) and although it is good, I’m not sure that there is an ending that will satisfy. Next up is a post-WWII private dick named. Aloysius Archer.
Baldacci has been very successful with multiple series of 5-7 books, and having read one completely and dipped into 3-4 others, they have the feel of characters generated by rolling a set of 5-6 multi-sided dice.
I need to reread Huck Finn and see how jaded I’ve become…
FW Woolworth closed the general merchandise stores and became Foot Locker.
Sears/K-Mart could have floated on real estate transactions for decades, but Wall Street decided that Eddie Lampert was the next Warren Buffett. God … and Jim Cramer … only seem to know why.
Everything Lampert has left is living on borrowed time. The Land’s End campus in Dodgeville, WI was creepy quiet when we drove by a couple of times while in the area. The nearby hotel, run by the House on the Rock company, which used to serve the Land’s End HQ as well as the tourist attraction has been closed and looking for a new owner for a couple of years.
We just purchased our plots at the cemetery in CA. Cost was around $2500 for a ‘side-by-side’.
In the same area as our son’s spot, and wife’s parents. Pretty place in the foothills near Sacramento: rolling hills, mature oak trees. It has been there for over 125, and is well-maintained.
Been working on the other estate things: wills, medical power of attorney, etc. Using the Quicken/Nolo Press WillMaker and Trust software (here), which works well. Still need to get everything signed and notarized. Wills require two witnesses. A ‘Will Proof”, which makes the will more valid in WA, requires notary. Financial/medical things also require notary. (Did you know that many banks will not notarize wills, etc? At least the ones around here.)
Also purchased a “NOK Box” (“Next of Kin” Box) which contains organizational stuff to get all of your papers into one place, for ease of family. Info here: https://www.thenokbox.com/
All of this is not an announcement of any issues. Just getting to the age where it is something that needs to be done.
If you ever think that you might want to try your hand at the hotel business in SW Wisconsin …
https://www.crexi.com/properties/1037566/wisconsin-house-on-the-rock-inn
The House on The Rock Resort is a separate property.
And, in case you’re wondering, yes, that is a submarine. If you think it is odd, then you haven’t been to House on the Rock.
Ironically, beyond architecture, the newer Resort facility is very conservative, consistent with the nearby Frank Lloyd Wright estate and visitor center.
“Fort Bend Co. neighbors want to know whether solar panel farm’s hailstorm damage leaked chemicals”
https://abc13.com/fighting-jays-solar-farm-guy-texas-fort-bend-county-tx-hailstorm/14559628/
Wow, a huge 4,000 acre solar farm near here was destroyed in last week’s two inch hail storm. I wonder if they had insurance.
Been working on the other estate things: wills, medical power of attorney, etc. Using the Quicken/Nolo Press WillMaker and Trust software (here), which works well. Still need to get everything signed and notarized. Wills require two witnesses. A ‘Will Proof”, which makes the will more valid in WA, requires notary. Financial/medical things also require notary. (Did you know that many banks will not notarize wills, etc? At least the ones around here.)
Here in Texas, the local independent FedEx and other mail shops usually have a notary working there. We also have mobile notaries that cost $100 or so that will come to you. My wife uses them all the time with her dad’s probate and executor duties.
>> Been working on the other estate things: wills, medical power of attorney, etc.
FYI, if your estate is large enough, you may want to explore ‘preservation of assets’ strategies should you someday many years from now require long term care.
Also true here. The main issue is that the will needs two witnesses to watch you sign, then a notary (who can’t be one of the witnesses) to notarize your signature. So you gotta arrange for three people. Plus the fact that my wife is not very mobile, so going somewhere to get it all done is an issue.
Have a friend working on his will/etc for him and his wife. The plan is for them to come over to the house for a ‘signing and notary’ party. His docs aren’t quite ready yet. When he’s ready, we’ll get a local ‘portable notary’ to come over for the party. I already have contact information for a portable notary person. Don’t know the cost, but am willing to pay for that service.
No large estate here, unfortunately. (Unless I win the lottery, and I hear that you have to buy tickets for that.)
Just a house (current value about $700K, one car, one $250K life insurance policy for each of us, no investments or other property. And only two children. (Well, there is also a crap-ton of scrapbook supplies. Almost enough for a small retail store.)
The docs created by the Quicken Willmaker and Trust program have medical and financial power of attorney, among others. Have set up all the appropriate docs, just need to get them all signed and notarized.
The chuck eye steaks were very good. Not as good as a rib eye prepared by a restaurant chef. I don’t know how much of the difference is in the cut of meat, how much in the carving, and how much in the cooking, but I suspect that I am at least 90% to fault and only 10% is because of the cut. Regardless, very good.
The Child barely knew what to make of it. She doesn’t remember ever having had good steaks before. I’m too cheap to buy the good stuff at $15-20/lb in the grocery store and seldom eat in restaurants, so she hasn’t been brought along for that. Her mother lets her stay in her (childish) comfort zone and have chicken nuggets or similar when they eat out on vacation. So anyway, she ate a significant fraction of a steak which was cut 1 ¼” thick, along with maybe five ounces of fresh-from-the-oven french bread. She’s now complaining that her stomach hurts because it’s so full. Yah, deal with it, baby.
I had a similar upset stomach last week, after someone dinner guest ghosted me for a couple of days. Decided the steak HAD TO BE COOKED, it had been two days of being defrosted in the fridge. Delicious, but since I didn’t have to share I overate.
Maybe it was the steak aging? It was just generic 1″ ‘choice’ sirloin.
Looking forward to it. Was star gazing not far away from there a couple of weeks ago.
(and what’s with the thumbs down someone put on your post? weird.)
I dropped $179 at the HEB today and I really don’t think I bought all that much.
They had 4 pounds and a bit Family Pack of ground chuck. 80/20. I bought two packages. That made 8 ~1 pound vac sealed packages into the freezer. There went $34. I bought a couple of the little packages of pork tenderloins that have two pieces per package. I’ll season them when I cook them. That was almost $18.
The HEB thin frozen pizza are now $5.98 each. I remember the price of $3.50 each. They were $4.98 not long ago. Anyway, there goes $24. Banquet TV dinners are up to $1.68 each. Plus 20¢ each times six from a couple of months ago.
The HEB taco shells are now $1.58 for a box of 12. I liked the old 89¢ price but no one ever asked my opinion.
I bought a pack of Hill County Fare beef fajitas. $31.79. About five pounds. Along with some flour tortillas and some pico de gallo. The weather forecast is looking like it’s time to light the grill next week.
Add on a few baking potatoes, a loaf of rye bread, and Fiesta black pepper along with a few other things, like, beer.
I put it on my new HEB credit card that advertises 1.5% cashback everywhere and 5% off of HEB brands. No 5% off on the receipt. Now I wait to see how much of a PITA it is to redeem the cashback . And how they work it. I hope I’m getting 1.5% on today’s purchase plus 5% off store brands. Yeah, I know, Sweet Summer Child. …..
The store is a mess after the remodel. Sure, they pushed the front and back of the building out. But they made the aisles about 20 feet longer. And added a row. Before you could have a cart on each side of the aisle and be able to push your cart between them. Not anymore. It’s the same way in the meat market area. Between the end of the aisles and the check stands it was 20 feet, now about 12 to 15 feet. Same for the far side of check stands, there was 15 to 20 feet and you could get around. Closer to 10 feet now. It’s cramped and crowded. Feels cluttered.
Pricey. Sounds like all the rotors needed replacing. 60k miles is pretty low, but hard to compare because there are now so many different conditions and lining materials in use. Some wear the cast iron a lot more than others.
Different types of driving can result in wildly different brake lining life. I worked with a road race car that initially got 20 laps out of a set of front pads. We added air ducting and a water spray to the inside of the disc louvers, and the life went up 5x to over 100 laps. Brake lining, especially organic material, outgasses and wears much faster as the temperature goes up. That’s why brakes can last many miles on street driven cars, especially those driven mostly on the highway with few stops. City driving wears the brakes much faster. Sintered metallic linings wear the longest under these conditions, but they have other undesirable characteristics. Don’t yet know much about ceramic linings, but they make long life claims. Then there are exotic materials.
I have a car with over 200k miles that has all original cast iron; the rear shoes (drum brakes) are original. The semi-metallic front disc pads last about 40k miles. I try to avoid hard stops. It is a 1997, and has its original brake fluid.
As for moisture, I have mixed feelings about silicone fluid. If water gets in the system, it will not mix with the fluid. That can result in freezing or local boiling, very bad. Glycol will absorb the water, harmlessly up to a point. Its problem is that it is hygroscopic. And yes, there are fluids that claim to absorb less moisture. I use them. Never had a problem here in the desert.
The brake system is sealed against outside air with a flexible diaphragm. As long as this maintains its integrity, essentially no moisture can enter. That diaphragm is in the master cylinder cap(s), and should be inspected periodically, especially if a test strip or ohmmeter indicates moisture in the system. The leak should be corrected and the fluid bled.
Brakes are important!
An ohm meter?
The van’s ABS light comes and goes. As far as I know the brake fluid is from the factory in 2004. It’s full and looks clean.
I guess the microwave has suddenly died. It sounds normal but doesn’t heat. I tried a few minutes at 50% power and it still sounds normal with the magnetron cycling on and off. I unplugged it for a couple of minutes and no change.
Oh well. Wal-Mart has a replacement for $59 or so. If it has a baked potato button, I’m good.
I suppose eleven and a half years is good enough.
I should have said use a voltmeter to test brake fluid. I have never done that. I just looked it up, and the criteria are pretty vague, so I wouldn’t trust that method without some more information. I would use test strips, but haven’t tried them yet. I will get some when I get some coolant test strips, soon. Never used those either, just changed by the calendar. Some long life coolant needs closer monitoring.
When I lived in humid places, I would bleed brakes and look at the fluid that came out. If it looked dark or contaminated, I would bleed until it ran clear. In my experience, power brakes mask sponginess, so that isn’t a good way to detect sponginess.
I have never liked shops that use pressure bleeders, because I believe the fluid in the bleeder can get contaminated by humidity. I do trust new fluid in a sealed metal can. Unfortunately, fluid now comes in a plastic bottle, and I don’t know how permeable that is. I would buy a new bottle to bleed the brakes on a good car, and use older fluid for less critical cars. I haven’t needed to bleed brakes since coming to the desert over 50 years ago.
Silicone fluid will last practically forever, and is not sensitive to moisture, but is out of favor now because it can entrain air more than glycol ether conventional fluids, and this is a problem with rapidly pulsing ABS systems (I said earlier that its viscosity is the problem, but that is wrong.)
When we had a small airplane, its brakes used Mil-H-5606 hydraulic fluid, which is mineral oil based, and looks a lot like ATF. It is water resistant and protects against corrosion. Small aircraft brakes are highly stressed, but are only used once per landing, and the heat takes a while to get to the fluid. This wouldn’t work well in an automobile.
Do note that all glycol based fluids will severely attack paint, so be careful. Silicone fluid is paint-safe, a nice feature.
That’s what I was taught. I’ve done that a few times.
I suppose the plastic bottles are ok otherwise the lawsuits would be epic. But, yes, always use a fresh bottle.
The remaining brake fluid can be used to kill weeds.
Oops, forgot. Paul, your ABS light is almost certainly due to an electrical problem. It could be a sensor out of alignment with its tone wheel or a broken wire; that is pretty common. Otherwise, it could be the unit itself. I can’t remember if you said it was diagnosed, but you would need an OBDII tester that can read ABS codes. Yeah, I don’t have one either.
I do remember you said the ABS unit is no longer available from Ford, but it is very likely available from other sources, such as Rock Auto. I wouldn’t replace it, because most of these are expensive. As you said, ABS is a relatively new feature, and doesn’t add anything in many braking scenarios.
You can easily test ABS by pressing hard on the brake pedal. You will feel a weak of strong pulsing, depending on the design of the system. This only works above a minimum speed, usually 20-30 mph. You should test your brakes, whether or not they have ABS, about once a year. Just make a hard stop without wheel locking. You might be surprised. Use a vacant parking lot.
Sorry about your microwave, paul. I probably don’t have to say this for this audience, but be very careful if you try to repair it. One false move… Not worth it for $59.
I have a penlight looking brake fluid tester which I purchased on a special order from Autozone.
‘0’ or ‘1’ are considered “normal”.
I’ll check it before the next service, when I plan to have the transmission fluid replaced.
The car was in a marine environment in South Florida for three years on a lease and then went to Germany for two, outside Munich, where they probably salted the roads. I picked it up in Tennessee after it had been there for two outside Nashville, but, from the sound of things, not a lot of salt, if any, gets used there even with snow.
Yeah, I figure the ABS problem is a bad ground. Where that is, I don’t know. I would not be surprised if it is not the same ground point that makes the electric locks act weird.
The locks almost always will lock. Un-locking is the problem because the cheap bastards didn’t put a lock cylinder in the tailgate. But I suppose Ford saved $15 per van.
I need to get the van on a lift. Slithering around on feed sacks in a gravel parking area with the ants is not as cool as it was 30 years ago.
Everything else works just fine.
I’m not going to try to fix the nuker. If it was a fuse I could replace why would it sound normal without heating? Yeah, it’s broken.
I’ll take it with me and leave it in the cart at Wal-Mart. They have better trash disposal systems than I have.
I could give it to Goodwill but that’s just wrong.
“Blood in Her Veins: Nineteen Stories from the World of Jane Yellowrock” by Faith Hunter
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Her-Veins-Nineteen-Yellowrock/dp/0451475755?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number one of a two book series of short stories of dark fantasy. The book is part of a very large series of books (20+) about Jane Yellowrock, Cherokee Skinwalker, and/or Nell Ingram, Earth Sprite. I purchased the second book and am reading it now.
If you like the Jane Yellowrock books, you will like this book. I would not start the series with this book, I would start with “Skinwalker”.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (1,586 reviews)
Lynn
Given the comedy pedigree both behind the camera and among the cast, the 2016 film should have worked.
The pitch was probably “Spy” and “Bridesmaids” meets “Ghostbusters”.
The scene of Melissa McCarthy defiling the toilet in “Bridesmaids” has to be considered among the top ten improvised moments on film, and Paul Feig was *the* director on “The Office” along with (ironically) Harold Ramis.
We went today in the late afternoon. The problem with the movie beyond being jam packed is that it was made before the last “South Park” special established the meme about Disney and Hollywood of the last 5-10 years. Anyone who has seen the special will hear that line at one point in “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire”.
Not literally hear it in the soundtrack, but you will hear Cartman’s voice in your head.
Just after midnight (PDT) tonight, a penumbral lunar eclipse, visible in North/South America regions. I believ it will look like a dark spot crossing the full moon.
See https://www.space.com/what-are-eclipse-seasons-moon-sun-earth-alignment
Just after midnight (PDT) tonight, I will be in bed.
Fixed it for you.
Currently outside of Spokane in a Super 8 motel. Not my first choice but many of the other places were full as we need two queen size beds. This place is also full. From the appearance of some of the cars in the lot some people are paying with their child support checks, welfare cards, or profits from meth sales.
It’s only for one night. A place to sleep. Certainly better than the Motel 6 on our first night in Washington.
2×4 propping open the trunk while the owner loads garbage bag “luggage”?
I saw that in Laramie, WY driving my wife’s car to Vantucky.
That guy had Oregon plates and I watched him head up the eastbound ramp.
In retrospect, I should have considered it a sign.
That there is TN prized matching luggage. Hefty preferred to hold the baby momma’s underwear.
Wheels without hubcaps, one vehicle with the emergency tiny spare, three (that I counted) with collision damage, but not 2x4s, yet. I am not one to go out in the dark at this location to check others.
Very cold, cloudy, & windy here, but I will take a brief peek.
The HEB taco shells are now $1.58 for a box of 12. I liked the old 89¢ price but no one ever asked my opinion.
I am figuring 15% minimum inflation per year for the next few years until the financial apocalypse of the USA. The USA is spending 1 trillion dollars every 100 days more than it makes now. Soon it will be 1 trillion dollars deficit every fifty days. Then 1 trillion dollars deficit every twenty-five days.
I wonder when the first major transgression of the social promises will be. Will it be Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security ?
Home safe. Uneventful drive, with only a short patch of misty drizzle.
Missed out on a couple of auction lots for the BOL, managed to buy a needful thing at a good price.
Time to get stuff ready for the week and hit the hay.
n
Try this for inflation. Charmin Blue at Sam’s Club was $31.18 per bag today. I would swear that I paid $9.90 for a Charmin Blue back in 2000. That is 200% inflation over 25 years.
They are claiming more “equivalent rolls” but I ain’t buying it. I did buy two bags of Charmin Blue though. I do expect Charmin Blue to cross $100 by the end of the decade.
“What happened at the Supreme Court Monday, and what it means for Berenson v Biden – and free speech” by Alex Berenson
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/what-happened-at-the-supreme-court
“On Monday, the Supreme Court heard two cases vital to the future of the First Amendment – and Berenson v Biden, my lawsuit against the White House and Pfizer officials for their conspiracy to force Twitter to ban me in 2021.”
“The first, Murthy v Missouri, came out of broad federal efforts to monitor and suppress “misinformation” on social media. The second, NRA v Vullo, looks specifically at whether the state of New York overreached when it leaned on insurers to stop doing business with the National Rifle Association.”
One can only hope.
Would have liked to see it, I’m home from work then. But overcast…
I hate it when software “breaks”. Our ISP’s router provides a VPN, which I use regularly, when I’m on the road for work. Starting a few weeks ago, my laptop (Linux) can still connect fine, but my phone (Android) cannot. Same settings (though Linux offers more options). But it worked for a couple of years, and I’m not aware of any updates, either to the phone or the router.
I’ve tried re-entering everything, even setting up a completely new VPN. Laptop does fine, phone is refused. Weird.
VPNs seem to be fraught. W1 has a MacBook that won’t mirror its screen to our TV if her VPN is active. I can’t figure out if it’s a bug in the VPN, in the Mac, or if it is Apple silently torpedoing her attempt to get around geoblocking of the content she wants to watch.
Fortunately, many years ago, when W1 decided she “needed” a Mac, I explained that I would have nothing to do with proving household technical support for anything Apple-branded. I had had enough with trying to program a IIe in the 1980s.