Warm, damp, and dark. Should start the day in the mid 70s, and with overcast or clouds. The ‘damp’ part is just Houston. That’s how yesterday played out too, always on the verge of rain, but never delivering.
I did my big loop of auction houses, and got all the stuff I wanted to pick up picked up… did my drop off at my local auctioneer too. Even stopped at HEB to see if they had meat on sale. The did, so I bought some steak, and some pork ribs. My receipt said my savings were about $50 with spending of $200. I’m still buying stuff that isn’t just basics (like snacks for the kids’ lunches, soda, treats) but it’s starting to add up. I know there are others who feel the pinch more than I do. If I wasn’t able to save on all the stuff I buy at deep discounts, I’d be cutting way back on those relatively expensive items. My wife has expressed her shock and dismay several times lately when I came home with the grocery bills…
30 to 50% increases aren’t just happening to other people.
————————————————————————————————
Today should be more domestic bliss. I’m going to make a more indepth attempt to find the invaders in the attic. I want to shut down their access, but can’t find it. I don’t see evidence in the attic itself, so I’ll look more closely at the soffits or ‘eves’ which are below the floor level in the attic. They are like wide open highways around the house, and I suspect that is the main path for rodents. They do cross the open attic, as I can hear them occasionally. I wonder if they are tunneling through the insulation, so their path isn’t obvious. If it’s rats, they’ve learned not to eat the poison bait, or the bait has somehow become ineffective. They used to love the stuff, eating through the packaging in the garage to get to it. Now it has been sitting in the boxes for months.
If they are using the soffits, they can enter through the garage. I’m not sure how I’ll stop them physically as the garage has several large openings and the garage attic is completely open to the framing and soffits. I’ve been counting on the poison for the last couple of years and it was working. Something changed, as I can hear the movement, even if I can’t figure out where they are.
My wife has been more patient than anyone could expect as I’ve tried to get rid of the problem, but that is wearing thin.
Guess I have a new issue at the top of my list…
Plans. I make them. Then I break them.
One thing is constant though, accumulating resources– stacking. At least we can all do that.
nick
With the stock and housing bubbles, it isn’t difficult to be sitting on a million dollar net worth in Austin, especially if you live in a decent school district and bought a house under tougher appraisal standards.
I hate articles like that which give the impression that moving to this town will make you rich with very little effort. I’d also guess that we have a higher than normal percentage of people living here on Daddy Cash or lots of borrowed money hoping that the dice roll their way.
The Uber Eats drivers aren’t running around in Versas or even Corollas.
Nick, you probably know this already, but here are two ideas to try if you suspect longtails* or other vermin:
Modern: game/trail cameras (someone else already suggested this).
Old-school: dust the attic floor and any other possible routes with flour, lycopodium or talcum powder. It’ll give you a trail of little footprints to follow, and might lead you to the ingress/egress access, or at least point you towards it. The modern version of this is UV-fluorescent powder, which you’ll find online.
* Longtail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longtail_(rat)
I don’t know how your house is built, or what is around it. However, in our old house, we had problems with weasels, who would get into the soffits and from their into the attic. The long-term solution was to find how they were reaching the soffits. By sheer luck, we saw it happen one day. The weasel would wedge its body between the house and a metal drainpipe, and climb up that way. In retrospect, the dirty stripe on the house behind the drainpipe should have been a clue.
Anyway, the solution was to craft a sort of upside-down metal funnel around the drainpipe. High enough that the weasel couldn’t jump over it. That interrupted its momentum enough that it could no longer make the climb. Once it left for food, it was gone.
In your case, tree branches could also be providing a path, if any come close enough to the house. Or some other path may be available.
Of course, I don’t know if you have rats, weasels, or something else…
75F and overcast this am. Not quite muggy.
I know it’s coming on to summer though. I caught myself mentally cringing before I washed my face this morning, bracing for cold water. It wasn’t cold. It was a nice warm temp. It’ll only get warmer until winter comes…
—————-
WRT the invaders in my attic, I’m going to set a couple of cams today as part of my search. I think rats, who have just learned to avoid the poison. I’ve got super intelligent rats who laugh at me, iir.
——————
You can find truth in the Pravda. It’s more likely to be near the end of an article than the beginning, and is often the opposite of the headline. The last being one of Bloomberg’s favorite tricks.
n
Again, I say CIA agents.
That is not necessarily a contradiction…
Did I mention that my wife’s dog had bitten a dog trainer? She just got a call that she has a super official letter from the government veterinary office, and she has to pick it up in person.
Worrying. Could be anything from a warning, to requiring him to wear a muzzle, up to and including requiring him to be put down. A lot depends on what statement the trainer gave..
He has a worse infestation: Teenage daughters.
Of course, it may be that he has some other vermin and it’s not the daughters running across the attic at night.
Evil falling out with evil
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/04/google-employees-arrested-and-fired-after-sit-in-demanding-company-drop-contract-with-israel/
Note that none of Googles evil has ever prompted a sit in
.
Super official: it’s just a form to fill out…
Remember that the 28yo mass murderer was a student at the school.
– “no good can come” for the families or the victims. So they have a pretty good idea why she attacked them. And they don’t want it to be made public. The people who have presumably READ the thing also don’t want it to be made public, after seeing what it contained “because it could harm an investigation.” But clearly there is no investigation of the killer, she’s dead. But there could certainly be an investigation of the school or church, or the murdered adults.
I figured there was a personal reason for the attack, and I’m betting abuse on the part of the school or the people involved, and I think she probably names names in the “manifesto”.
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13323557/Nashville-Audrey-Hale-transgender-school-shooter-manifesto.html
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/04/18/is-arrogance-going-to-cost-another-woke-woman-her-job-n3786721
She is a symptom. The problem is the PLT-dominated board that hired her.
The guys in the background of the pics probably showed up because they were hoping to get laid.
Not with your d$ck
Great. Another wronged Prog woman, another score for Big Mike to settle with the white devils and their Orange King.
Noticing the pattern yet?
Meanwhile, Biden has advanced to telling stories about his uncle getting eaten by cannibals.
ICE for vehicles, except in limited and controlled circumstances. Like golf carts or industrial trucks.
Even at $10 / US gallon for gasoline or diesel ?
If Israel takes out Iran’s oilfields, we will see those price levels within a month.
The false assumption is that electricity will remain an affordable way to run transportation while gasoline goes to $10/gal.
This is the Summer Texas will have to decide between EVs for a relative handful of people or AC for all.
Sometimes insomnia is good.
I couldn’t sleep last night and was doom scrolling FB.
An elderly FB friend posted a funny / not funny about being ill for a couple days, and now on the floor unable to get up after falling. Then radio silence. As happens with FB friends she’s two time zones and thousands of miles away, I had her physical address but no phone numbers .
I wish I could say I called EMS after a brief wait for a response. Many many FB comments asking if she was ok, urging her to Dr, to ER, to call 911. No response from friend, but it was wee hours of night. I looked through her older posts and found a couple FB friends in her area. Pinged them to check on her, again, middle of night so no responses.
After an unforgivable 4 hours I found the non emergency number for her local police. I called, explained, and requested a wellness check. It was 5 am her time at that point. About 6:30 am her time my friend posted a thank you to me, reported EMS arrived and helped her up. Though she declined ER transport at that time, she did go to ER with one of the friends I messaged about 7 am her time.
My reluctance to intrude on her autonomy was difficult to overcome. The image of her dead and slew of “call 911” comments finally pushed me to action.
Why me and not someone else? I don’t know.
No news on how she is however glad she went to ER.
Aging is not for the faint of heart.
I replaced my 3 year old iPhone 12 mini with a 15. Because I can no longer navigate the smaller screen due to eyesight changes. I monkeyed around for a few weeks with text size, etc, no good. Had to go with a larger screen. So far very good.
I do NOT like that I lost all of my text message history, though. I lean on that heavily for memory prompts and social cues. I’ll do some research today and see if it can be brought back. Meanwhile there’s nothing wrong with the old phone so I’ve got access to the information. I use the Apple backup tools, I will poke around and see if there’s something on the old phone that can be adjusted and backed up and restored to the new.
Daughter who lost her iPod will -not- be receiving my old phone. Because mean.
Security at work blacklisted my iPhone SE‘s iOS, and I had to upgrade to the latest SE so I could keep an eye on Outllok email when away from the company laptop.
Bad things tend to happen if I don‘t occasionally check the inbox while on vacation. I draw the line at Teams, however, and I don’t allow the Outlook app to send notifications.
@Jenny; a set of 2X magnifier “cheater” glasses can make all the difference in the world.
@brad
Did I mention that my wife’s dog had bitten a dog trainer?
IMHO dog bites of dog trainers are fault of the trainer, not the dog. Trainers have an ethical obligation to be real experts of super subtle dog body language AND have an obligation to obey when the dog tells them through subtle body language, ”back off, I’m going to bite”. Even when the growl and pulled back commisure have been punished out of the dog, there a host of signs to note. Stiffness. Paw lift. Look away. Whale eyes. Low slow stiff short tail wags. Pillared hair. Raised eye brows. Change in ear set. Change in how open the eyes are. Mouth that was open now closed.
That’s just off the top of my head. I’m an OK dog trainer, my reaction time and observation skills have slipped too far to responsibly teach classes anymore. I’m -aware- I no longer have the capacity to watch ten dogs in a class for any combinations of these signs, so I no longer teach.
Any dog will bite. Virtually every dog tells you loud and clear that it’s going to bite before it does so.
I highly recommend the waaay too long Sarah Kalnajs dvd on dog body language called “The Language of Dogs”. Blue Dog Training. She offers dog bite expert witness services.
I hope it’s a tempest in a teapot for your dog and that nothing drastic comes of it.
@jenny:
Check the App store. I’d be very surprised if there isn’t a text backup/restore app available. It might even be free. Search also for SMS, which is the technical name for the function – Short Message Service.
G.
@Ken
cheater glasses
Thanks. I tried on a set yesterday and have been learning to use bifocals. Change is hard.
Thanks Geoff – excellent suggestion. I’m more Luddite than IT Pro when it comes to cell phones
@jenny:
Yeah, I know what you mean. I’ve had the Android equivalent installed on my last several phones. Never needed it so far, but sure as eggs is eggs, the one time I don’t have it installed, I’ll need it bad.
Memo to self: those SMS backups go to on-phone storage. Arrange a way to get them off automagically, to storage that’s under my control – i.e. not Google Drive. Maybe a local Nextcloud instance? No need for a cloudy system – local hardware, under my control, is the way to go.
As far as spectacles are concerned, I’ve worn varifocals for years. No need to think about it now, it’s automatic.
G.
The false assumption is that electricity will remain an affordable way to run transportation while gasoline goes to $10/gal.
This is the Summer Texas will have to decide between EVs for a relative handful of people or AC for all.
Tejas power generation is 60% natural gas, 5% coal, 5% nuclear, 15% wind, and 15% solar. None of these are affected by the price of crude oil. The natural gas price might go up, maybe even double, but it is a bargain compared to oil. Half of the natural gas wells in the USA and Texas are closed in right now due to lack of customers.
We can make and sell a lot more electricity in the night time from midnight to 8am but, I am not sure that the residential transformers will take the 24×7 heat load. The large commercial transformers have powered fans on them, the smaller ones do not.
At 115 F in west Texas, we had to put water sprays on our huge auto transformers, the ones that were the size of an 18 wheeler trailer and had a 100,000 lbs of copper windings in them.
For me it’s not the phone as much as it is the Apple… wife handles the i- stuff.
BTW, great call checking on your friend. My mom fell while using the toilet at 4am, broke an arm and couldn’t move (months ago, last year.) She couldn’t physically get to anything until much later with a lot of crawling. She didn’t know she could just yell “Hey Siri… call xxx” She does now.
n
Jenny, it sounds like you stayed up late in part to check on your friend. You had a choice between getting some sleep and possibly saving someone’s life. Are you sure, quite sure, that you made the correct choice? Sleep is important, you know.
As for dogs and dog trainers, they’re ok, I guess. But I have my eyes on a loftier goal: becoming The Chicken Whisperer.
Found a Google Nest Home Mini at goodwill. Toyed with the idea of using it, briefly. Then factory reset and threw it in the auction pile. No need to bring another spy tool into the house…
n
Daughter who lost her iPod will -not- be receiving my old phone. Because mean.
And she will tell you that you are mean. And that she does not love you anymore. Been there, done that.
Female teenage hormones are vicious.
As for dogs and dog trainers, they’re ok, I guess. But I have my eyes on a loftier goal: becoming The Chicken Whisperer.
Jenny has already met her life goal, becoming the bunny whisperer. “If you pee on me again, you go to freezer camp”.
@Jenny: I agree. That said, the dog is genuinely freaky. Doesn’t like being touched by anyone, including us.
“The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes” by Robert A. Heinlein and an introduction by David Weber
https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Pankera-Parallel-Novel-Universes/dp/1647100291?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number four in a very loose series of six science fiction books. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by CAEZIK SF & Fantasy in 2021 that I bought new in 2021. The book was found in Robert Heinlein’s stored items in 2017 in many pieces and several editors put it together over three years for publishing. I plan to reread “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls” and “To Sail Beyond The Sunset” soon. I have yet to decide if I am going to reread “The Number Of The Beast”.
This book and “The Number of The Beast” are exactly alike through about first third of the books. After that, they are radically different. The current theory is that this book was written first and Virginia Heinlein vetoed it. Plus there were copyright problems. So RAH threw away the middle and end and rewrote it.
I need to reread Doc Smith’s Lensmen books. I did not remember Worsel the Venusian dragon Lensman nor many of the other Lensmen. But I read those books over fifty years ago and lost several of them when my house was flooded in 1989. Anyway, I really enjoyed the first third of the book and the last third of the book. The middle third dragged just a little bit, mostly because I have forgotten most of the Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars books and I never read the Oz books.
If you are offended by sex, and I mean lots of sex, in a book then I would advise you to stay away from this book and series. Except for the first book in the series, “Methusalah’s Children”. All of the books, except the first book, have group marriages in or mentioned in them which was first expounded by Heinlein in “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” book.
The book series is
1. Methuselah’s Children
2. Time Enough For Love
3. The Number Of The Beast
4. The Pursuit Of The Pankera
5. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
6. To Sail Beyond The Sunset
There is a much better good review at “Long-Lost Treasure: The Pursuit of the Pankera vs. The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein” by Alan Brown
https://reactormag.com/long-lost-treasure-the-pursuit-of-the-pankera-vs-the-number-of-the-beast-by-robert-a-heinlein/
Jo Walton says that “The Number Of The Beast” is not Heinlein’s worst novel by far, but, it is too long. She does not have a review for the Pankera book that I have found.
https://reactormag.com/heinleins-worst-novel/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 of out 5 stars (2,648 reviews)
Lynn
iOS has an accessibility zoom function I use all the time. A double-tap with 3 fingers calls it up. You can change the zoom pane size and magnification. Very handy.
Zoom in on the iPhone screen
Also on iPadOS and a macOS version.
“Whistleblower: Gender patients begged to ‘have body parts put back on’”
https://www.wnd.com/2024/04/whistleblower-gender-patients-begged-body-parts-put-back/
This is sad, very sad.
“’The clock has struck midnight’ for Tesla and Elon Musk”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-clock-has-struck-midnight-for-tesla-and-elon-musk-145446735.html
Wow, the attacks on Musk and Tesla are coming fast and furious. Looks to me like people trying to get their kicks in while they can.
Disclosure: I own 170 shares of Tesla.
@Jenny: I agree. That said, the dog is genuinely freaky. Doesn’t like being touched by anyone, including us.
Our dog does not like being picked up. But she loves snuggling and tolerates getting petted.
“Yet again, US medical consumers are paying for cheap drugs for the rest of the world”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/04/yet-again-us-medical-consumers-are.html
“A month’s supply of Ozempic is $935.77 for those in the United States without health insurance, according to Novo’s website. The Danish company’s GLP-1 weight loss drug, Wegovy, is listed as $1,349 per month.”
““A new Yale study found that Ozempic costs less than $5 a month to manufacture. And yet, Novo Nordisk charges Americans nearly $1,000 a month for this drug, while the same exact product can be purchased for just $155 a month in Canada and just $59 in Germany,” the senator said in a statement … “I am calling on Novo Nordisk to lower the list price of Ozempic—and the related drug Wegovy—in America to no more than what they charge for this drug in Canada,” he continued. “The American people are sick and tired of paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs while the pharmaceutical industry enjoys huge profits.””
I am a capitalist but I do not like this disparity in pricing between countries, especially first world countries.
@Lynn; Fascinating! I’d never heard of “Pursuit of the Pankera”, but I’ve recently reread all the others, and enjoyed all of them. I’ll have to find “Pankera”.
I reread all of the E.E. Smith “Lensman” books a couple of years ago, after originally reading them MANY years ago, and they’ve held up very well. I really enjoyed rereading them. My re-reading of Smith’s “Skylark of Space” series was almost as much fun as the original.
The Rats of NIMH have moved out of farmer Fitzgibbon’s rosebush and into your attic.
I concur.
I liked Pursuit of the Pankera better than The Number of the Beast. NotB turned into “The Hilda Show” and that got old.
re drug prices, it costs a lot of money to develop a drug. American consumers (and taxpayers) fund the development. The rest of the world pays just the unit cost and a bit of profit for the manufacturer.
We need a new tern:
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2024/04/18/might-turn-out-that-potatus-gonzo-gaza-pier-plan-was-a-blessing-in-disguise-n3786747
How about “Biden ready”.
And SNABU* sounds like a winner, too.
Situation Normal, All Bidened-Up
“The Best Laser Printer”
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-laser-printer/
I always thought that HP color laserjets were the best, except for the entry level machines.
HP lost their license for the paper handling mechanism from … Canon … more than a decade ago. It has been all downhill ever since.
I had to upgrade the house laser printer last year when I couldn’t get a drum for our LaserJet 4000N, and the comparable HP unit was a $600 flimsy piece-o-crap with a noisy fan which ran constantly.
The HP went right back to the store, and I now have a Brother HL-6210DW with a solid build quiality which has been excellent so far and only cost $300 with emulated Postscript.
We lost the lease to our house in Vantucky because the landlords got a sweetheart deal from HP for a temporary relo of an engineer from Singapore to WA State to learn printer design and take it back across the Pacific.
Not only did HP rent the house, they paid for a kitchen remodel and two Audi sedans for the engineer and his wife to use for the year they were in Vantucky.
HP invented the inkjet printer at the factory which was around the corner from our rental. The week we moved into the house, HP started taking down the signs on the campus.
We need a new tern:
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2024/04/18/might-turn-out-that-potatus-gonzo-gaza-pier-plan-was-a-blessing-in-disguise-n3786747
How about “Biden ready”.
And SNABU* sounds like a winner, too.
Situation Normal, All Bidened-Up
Both times that my son went to Iraq in 2006 and 2008, the US Marine Corps rented airplanes, freighters, etc from third parties. Each of the four companies went on a separate rented 747. Command went on a 747. 1,500+ men.
All of their stuff went on a rented freighter from San Diego to Kuwait. That included a couple of dozen 7.5 ton trucks, a couple of hundred Humvees, a tank retriever, several Abrams tanks, several LAVs, etc. That tank retriever came in handy, did you know that Iraq has quicksand ?
Another freighter brought them a load of water, just water, in 24 bottle cases, a hundred thousand cases. Them Navy boys just supplied Medical Corpsman, none of their fancy ships.
Get the picture ? Our ability to move hundreds of thousands of men from one continent to another continent using our stuff is gone. Just too expensive. But, we can rent planes and ships easily.
“GPA Midstream calls for withdrawal of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permitting proposal”
https://www.gpamidstream.org/news/gpa-midstream-calls-for-withdrawal-of-u-s-army-corps-of-engineers-permitting-proposal
“GPA Midstream Association is requesting that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers withdraw its proposal to change the permitting process related to historic properties until the details of those modifications are made clear.”
“The Corps, which shares permit authority with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on water issues, proposed to amend the affected areas for historic properties when it comes to granting permits for nearby activity.”
“The immediate problem with the proposal, first introduced in early February, is that the Army Corps still hasn’t released a draft of the guidance it is developing with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Also missing are the environmental assessment and any other documents that would provide GPA Midstream with the ability to determine the potential impacts of the proposal on the industry.”
The bureaucrats are taking over our country and bringing everything to a halt.
I ordered a couple of battery chargers Sunday afternoon. E-mail on Monday said delivery on Tuesday. That’s pretty quick. But twas not to be.
How about Wednesday? No.
Thursday? No can do.
I wonder how many times “Operational Delay” happens before they return to sender?
FedEx Ground fwiw.
“Biden’s Student Debt Cancellation Has Taxpayers Paying Over $550 Billion, Benefits Wealthier Families”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/04/bidens-student-debt-cancellation-taxpayers-paying-550-billion/
“The price tag of President Joe Biden’s student loan amnesty just keeps growing — and it’s not the neediest who are getting the money, either.”
“According to the New York Post, a new study by the University of Pennsylvania estimates that a new round of student loan cancellation programs raises the amount that taxpayers are stuck holding to $559 billion total, including $84 billion under new provisions announced last week.”
“The kicker? The newest provisions under the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan will benefit those in higher tax brackets the most.”
Best laser printer? I don’t know about “Best”, but my Brother MFC-9130CW was inexpensive, quiet, and reliable, and the cartridges are quite reasonably priced. I can’t ask for a lot more!
@Jenny: Good for you for doing the right thing!
No. The real “kicker” is that they contact the people whose loans were paid off and offer cash in return for accepting new paper. In theory, the repayment plan will pay off the reestablished debt, but that didn’t work out for the people who took Navient up on the offer before the Supreme Court ruled last July.
My wife was approached with an offer of a $20k check about a year ago. I didn’t even know about that until I heard her discussing the repayment schemes with another provider at the conference in Wisconsin in November.
I bought an HP MFP M377dw in 2017 which has given very good service, and continues to do so. This replaced an aged HP 2300, which performed sterling service over many years. I don’t do a lot of printing though.
The rest of the world pays
just the unit cost and a bit of profit for the manufacturershirt(-r).Fixed it for you.
I purchased a Brother HL-3170CDW about 10 years ago on Black Friday. Staples had the printer marked at $230.00, an incorrect price. I went to the store and the tag said $450.00 as did the register. I pulled out the advertisement and the manager said it was mistake. I said OK, I don’t want the printer at the price. Stores don’t have to honor mistake prices. The manager then said OK, I will let you have it for the advertised price.
The printer is wireless, wired, USB and duplexes. No scanning.
I have had to replace the cartridges twice. The cartridges, all four, set me back $280.00, each time, more than I paid for the printer. There is a toner cartridge that fits within an imagine cartridge. The imaging cartridges are original.
About six months after I got the printer there was a consistent smudge down one side. I checked and the fusing roller was torn. It was covered under warranty. Brother had me read the serial number from the toner and the imaging roller from two of the sets. Brother wanted to make certain I was using their toner and imaging.
Brother also said the part would sent to my house with strict instructions to not open the package. After the package arrived two days later a guy from Pitney Bowes showed up to replace the fusing roller. It was four screws to replace the roller. Brother spent a lot of money on that service call when I was more than capable of doing the replacement myself. I guess there are some klutz’s that would mess up that process.
I have been really pleased with the printer and the operation. Works on Windows, MacOS, and IOS on the iPhone and iPad.
I also have an Epson EcoTank that the wife uses. It is also wireless, wired, USB and duplex. It also has copying and scanning capability with a document feeder. That was purchased from Costco a couple of years ago. The ink is relatively cheap and lasts a long time.
I did have a problem with poor output. I had to use two deep cleaning cycles to get the nozzles cleared. That uses quite a bit of ink. There is an absorbent pad in the printer to catch ink from cleaning and from the startup process. When those pads are full the printer will stop working.
There are places that the pads can be ordered and instructions for changing the pads. Instructions for resetting the printer are provided with the pads. Epson does not sell the pads as in their business model the printer has reached end-of-life and should be thrown away. What a waste.
“Biden’s Student Debt Cancellation Has Taxpayers Paying Over $550 Billion, Benefits Wealthier Families”
January 2025, President Trump issues EO: “Recovery of Illegal Expenditures by Biden and Other DemWeasels”
Freeze and confiscate all Biden family funds, followed by Pelosi, Schumer and work down the line, including Cheney and the rest of the traitors.
Update on my friend – she’s been checked into hospital overnight. Medical folks think it may be Bell’s Palsy. She’s in good spirits.
I went through my phone settings and found a place under settings where I needed to enable the messages sync from iCloud. My messages are restored. Phew.
@brad
Dogs – you may find some value in reading material by Grisha Stewart and Suzanne Clothier. If the dog has neurological / developmental stuff that’s hard wired you’re probably going to be stuck managing instead of changing the behavior. But they both have good ideas that work in a broad spectrum of behaviors and are gentle without being permissive. Operant conditioning can work wonders in the right hands with a dog that’s not actually nuts.
@SteveF
You always have the most practical suggestions. I’m pretty darned tired today and not particularly productive. Oh – on chickens. You may find YouTubes of clicker trained chickens entertaining. Look for Chicken Clicker workshop and you should find a host of videos of chickens learning to dance, perform discrimination exercises, and even agility. They’re super good motivated (as well you know) and more trainable than the average 12 year old.
I thought David Potter’s take on Heinlein’s The Number Of The Beast was interesting: https://www.heinleinsociety.org/the-number-of-the-beast/
They’re super good motivated (as well you know) and more trainable than the average
12 year oldpolitician.Fixed it for you.
I have the same machine and can’t find anything bad to say about it, except it doesn’t have everlasting toner cartridges.
>> ah, “hump” day. Never was much interested in that.
As they say, “A day late and a dollar short.”
https://youtu.be/G2s0RPrdB_8?si=7nrNkoRmALzluwFY
That’s known as damning with faint praise.
See also: the average teenager
>> If the point is evading plate readers, your best bet is to interfere with the mechanism used to trigger the capture at the right time and not try to fool the camera.
Except if you’re a member of the NYFPF and the Mayor is ex-PD.
https://x.com/placardabuse/status/1304239382715600897
Just one of many examples…colleagues don’t ticket colleagues.
>> I do NOT like that I lost all of my text message history, though. I lean on that heavily for memory prompts and social cues. I’ll do some research today and see if it can be brought back.
Always copied when I get a new Android phone. Just sayin… 🙂
AT&T formerly known as SWB or Southwestern Bell, “in order to serve you better”, changed his healthcare plan. Instead of giving about $275 a month to cover what you wanted, like Medicare Type F, they put everyone on an Advantage Plan. I think I have the the correct terms.
Not understanding everything, I kept paying for the Type F because it covers everything A and B don’t. I canceled that a couple of days ago.
Anyway. He ran out of his BP med and the statin. After about a month he called Scott&White because the prescription company’s website was acting like he didn’t exist. Oh. Call “these people”, a different mail order pharmacy, to set up an account. By now I’m on the phone because of his ears.
So, set up an account. I have permission to talk for him. Called S&W to tell them to send the prescription order. They said it’s already been done. We all be cool now, right?
No drugs ever arrived. A couple of weeks ago the new company called and well everything is held up because the statin has a co-pay. I gave them the credit card info. His drugs arrived today. With a billing statement and a payment envelope. What the heck?
Today I called the drug company. The voice menu was wonky. I finally pressed 0 after repeating the same stuff three times. The lady was very nice. With caller ID, DOB, and zip code, they didn’t need an account number. Slick.
Auto refill and auto billing are turned off. She said in most areas you can get rid of unneeded drugs at the police station and that’s better than flushing them. That’s good to know, I suppose.
He was checking his BP every few days and it was fine even without the meds for almost two months.
But…. Looking back he was going downhill since October. Sort of noticeable by January but thinking about it I’m going to do what? Maybe it’s allergies or it’s just cold weather. He said he was fine. It was a flat curve Getting deafer. The macular degeneration getting worse. Walking the shuffle like an old man. Whoa! He’d catch himself doing the shuffle like Tim Conway and get really pissed off mad at himself. And then start laughing because Tim Conway. 🙂
In the last couple of months or so his short term memory seemed to get worse. That last batch of colon-cam anesthesia messed him up. He seemed to doze in his recliner a lot the last couple of months. Good appetite. And he knew all of this. He had decided he can only go to the HEB in Burnet and take trash to Clyde’s and check his house. But no more going to HEB in Marble Falls.
Hindsight. It’s a thing.
I’m sort of bouncing off of the walls talking to myself. We’ve outlived all of our friends.
Yeah, we have “friends” in Austin and SA but you never hear from them unless you call them.
Talking to “the kids” that are now somehow pushing 55, not the same…. kids. 🙂 Love them forever but.
I’m ok I guess living alone. He was working in Dallas and going to Comanche every weekend while his mom was sick. Didn’t see him at all for eight months. And then a couple of years later with his dad, same thing. But we talked on the phone everyday. Huh.
I’m still not hungry beyond a cheese stick and a couple of saltines a day. I have plenty of food. But the squirting like a goose while on the toilet seems to have stopped.
Time to take Buddy the Beagle for his bed time potty walk.
Everything is going to be fine. It has to be fine.
“Rah” Morris over Belichick. Atlanta is going to regret that one.
Again, ask any Yucs fan. After “Rah” came Lovie … who took Jimbo’s word for it.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/39955777/how-patriots-legend-bill-belichick-end-nfl-job?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
@paul, one day at a time brother… the squirting like a goose is likely to be stress making your guts physically churn and twist and bunch. You can get a muscle relaxer to help it if it doesn’t improve. Or it could be something else, but given the timing… Losing a partner is one of the most stressful things a human can endure.
Bend like a reed in the wind, so you don’t break.
n
@paul
Thanks for sharing with your friends here.
When you have given your heart, having a hole torn in it will never heal. It scabs over a bit, and you notice it less, but there’s always some thing that sneaks in from the side, hits it dead center, and makes you suck in your breath and go “Damn!”. Happens less as time goes by, and yeah, it helps to remember all the good stuff that came with the giving.
Guard against two things: One is the hindsight where you convince yourself that you should have been clairvoyant and divined some meaning like it was a big billboard with arrows. No, and no.
Two is that off-center hit that sparks neither sorrow nor angst, but anger. Doesn’t happen to everyone. If it does happen, stop and let it pass. It’s usually a white-hot spike that burns out quickly.
Give Buddy a pat for all of us.
AT&T formerly known as SWB or Southwestern Bell, “in order to serve you better”, changed his healthcare plan. Instead of giving about $275 a month to cover what you wanted, like Medicare Type F, they put everyone on an Advantage Plan. I think I have the the correct terms.
I very much dislike Medicare Advantage Plans. They are just another HMO. They are ok if you advocate for yourself like crazy. If you do not advocate for yourself then things drop through the crack. They provide healthcare for a fixed fee. By minimizing your healthcare, they save money.
And, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston does not take Advantage Plans. The wife has been a patient for over 19 years. Before the wife turned 65 last year, one of the nurses took her aside and warned her about the Advantage plans.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13326307/Israel-strikes-Iran-war-Isfahan-rockets-tehran.html
n
The lefties loved him because of Tesla. Then he turned out to be politically conservative. How could he betray them like that?!?!
Musk is many things, including, shall we say, “overly spontaneous” on his social media posts. But the real issue for the attackers are his personal politics.
@Jenny: That’s the conclusion we have come to. Hardwired. My wife is a qualified trainer, and she has sought help from several other trainers of various stripes. The dog is now four years old – he is what he is.
It’s all the more frustrating, because he is otherwise incredibly talented. Want to teach him a new trick? Takes anywhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes, and he remembers it forever. Agility? He loves it, and he is fast – as long as there are no distractions (like other dogs). Hard to train, if you can’t be around other dogs. Trailing? Nearly perfect, and that is the one activity where he is so concentrated that he can (sometimes) ignore distractions.
It’s very limiting on the activities we can do, because we can’t take him along on most of them, and there aren’t many people (exactly two) whom we trust to dog-sit. I hope I don’t offend anyone with a disabled kid, but that’s kind of what it feels like.
@Brad
Re: dog
He’s a fortunate boy to have landed with your family. The dog who turned me into a trainer, pre-parenthood / pre-car crash, shared some of the traits you describe. It is a hard haul. These ‘special’ dogs can bring out our best but are exhausting. Your analogy isn’t wrong. For what it’s worth, I poured hours every week into our special dog, about eight years in we discovered herding. That calmed down most of his whacked behavior. The last 4-6 years with him approached normal and were really good. The first eight though…