Warm and damp, maybe rain, maybe storms… low 80s yesterday with a lot of wind, but sunny enough to turn the kids pink.
Long day but the kids had fun. The one dad who came to take a kid home, was driving an EV. Had a charger scheduled in a nearby town, only 20 minutes out of his way, for 40 minutes, so he could get home.
The 120v charger is 3 miles of range per hour of charge, the 220v is 30 miles per hour.
I’ve been thinking about buying a charger for here just in case we had a visitor, since they are cheap in the auctions at the moment. Then I had such a visitor. I will look a bit closer this week.
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The bottom blew out of my lawn tractor engine just as I finished the lawn… I hit something bad then the motor started clattering. Wasn’t too long until there was some energetic disassembly. Smoke and a lot of oil dumped out the bottom. Dang it. I do not need a project but I have to figure something out, I’ll need to mow next time I come up. I can rebuild the deck for the mower my buddy gave me, or try to fit the bigger one I just rebuilt to it. Or buy something new… at least I got most of the lawn cut first.
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Kids swam and played in the water most of the day. They have a lot of energy and still like to just play. It was great to see.
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Weeded our garden with a mini roto tiller attachment for the string trimmer motor. It worked pretty well, and while it takes some manhandling, I think it’s still easier than hoeing. The peas are doing well. I test dug around the potatoes and there were golf ball sized taters. I harvested two radishes and they were nice. The turnips are not thriving. Something is turning the leaves to lace, and the roots are only thumb sized, and are more like horseradish at this point. I also took about a dozen blueberries off one bush, and then covered them with bird netting. They were just a day or two short of perfectly sweet.
I think it’s time for round two of radishes and turnips. The pumpkin and squashes haven’t died yet, so that’s a plus. Peppers all have buds, and the tomatoes have both flowers and fruit.
All in all, I’m pleasantly surprised at how well the garden is doing. We have gotten a bunch of rain, so there is that.
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Speaking of rain, the sprinkler pump work will happen today, if it’s not raining. There are various storms forecast for the area, but I’m not worried. It will storm or it won’t. The lake and local geography often keep us from getting the worst of any storms in the area.
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Our home owners group met for our annual ‘clean up’ day. I chatted with several people and made an appearance at the meeting later. Community is important. You definitely want to be “in” the group if push comes to shove, and not part of the “them” group. I’m doing what I can to be a part of this group.
Climbing the curve to be “local”. Climbing the curve to grow food. Climbing the curve to harvest protein from the lake and surrounding area. They are all pretty steep so you need to get started…
And stack, because crops fail, and the people with food will have many more options.
nick
I don’t think Buffett would pay taxes on the security arrangements.
The $100k number is part of his schtick of being “just plain folk”, much like how someone could have done better investing in a broad market mutual fund over the last X number of years than they would have investing in BRK-B.
Yeah, I googled it. If the executive security arrangements are pro, then they are a corporate tax deduction and not income to the executive.
The F-35 mission is Fighter Bomber. It is not for Close Air Support.
Just like the F-15 before it, the F-35 is what we call in German a “Wollmilchsau” – a single plane that can do anything and everything. The F-15 (on which I worked) had fighter variants, bomber variants, all-mission variants, and the brass fantasized for a while that it could replace the A-10. The F-35 fantasies are similar, and just as dumb.
All you have to do is turn the F-35 sensors from failure mode to warning mode. The availability jumps from 45% to almost 80%.
The F-35 is definitely a hanger queen. Sure, you can ignore the warnings and fly with a partially broken aircraft, but that shouldn’t be necessary.
My personal view – which definitely doesn’t match any official policy – is that you need simpler, cheaper planes. Simpler: less maintenance, higher readiness. Cheaper: you could have a lot more of them.
Really need a drone for Close Air Support against drones.
I’m not even sure than can work. Drones don’t have much of a heat signature, and I’m sure there are versions with low radar signatures. Being small and coming in low, you aren’t likely to find them until they reach their targets (unless you can intercept the launch). Last minute direct fire weapons seem like the best option. Hammer’s Slammers style.
We cannot build a plane with today’s technology that will not have sensor problems. Weight and size are critical with these planes.
If you send out a pilot in a modern P-51 or Corsair, the pilot will die. Brazil makes one, the estimated battlefield life is not good. Just getting the planes to the battlefield is difficult.
You need supersonic speed and stealth. You may also need 5th generation antics to survive. Drones for cheapness but somebody has to drive them locally.
In a computer failure situation, I’d still trust Ben Rich’s slide rule and plywood over computer models built by people like the refugee from the F-35 program we hired at the tolling company.
I have Rich’s book around somewhere. He talks about taking scale F-117 models and shooting them across an empty warehouse while filming in slow motion to figure out which one would be stable enough for the pilot to survive ejection if the computer failed.
Both pilots survived the two operational losses in Yugoslavia.
Seattle legend is that the Federal Government picks up part of Gates’ security costs at the Giant House (TM) due to the presence of a salmon run installed on the property during construction.
Don’t mess with the fish in WA State.
I’m sure Buffett has luxury corporate-paid hidey-holes all over the World. You, know, for business use.
But he saves so much money on gas.
I’ll bet that Memorial Day weekend will be interesting in remote locations in Texas east of I-35. I’ve seen a lot more Teslas running around here as of late.
BTW, the F-22 is the replacement for the F-15. There is only one version, the twin engine internal armament with no gun that works. And they did replace the liquid oxygen system with compressed oxygen after vegatabling two pilots.
The F-35 has three single engine versions with both internal and external arms. Long runway for air force, short runway for navy, and vtol for Marines. None of them have long legs like the F22.
The F18 will be with us a long time. Few sensors so the pilots dont know about problems until they, you know, crash.
There is a new F15 EX. Long legs. Can be seen a thousand miles away. Israel has ordered many of them.
There is no replacement for the A10. The Army is reputedly looking at the Brazilian prop plane for close air support.
Yeah, that is never going to happen. First, the Air Force will whine, even if they currently balk at performing CAS. Second, the Army can’t afford to train and have it’s own CAS. Third, the Army was more than willing to take over the Warthogs. The Air Force enforced an agreement with the Army “you can have turbo-prop aircraft, no jets.” The Corps of Engineers does have some jets under a special agreement. Yes, weird. It’s politics and goes back to the Army Air Corps becoming the Air Force. The Army has a fleet of King Air turboprops for admin purposes.
I think it would be tough for a major US combat aircraft to be sourced from a foreign nation. I can hear congress-critters whining from here about the loss of pork for their State.
AWACS escorts with big fuel loadouts and plenty of AIM-120s.
In that situation, everyone knows where the plane with the massive radar signal is located, but no one knows where the escorts might be lurking without activating their own radars.
The Boeing tanker deal redux. Ultimately, however, I think Boeing will regret getting that deal reopened as A220s continue to roll out of the Mobile Airbus facility which was originally built to convert the commercial Airbus jets to tankers.
That tour is on my list of things to see along I-10 the next time we roadtrip to Florida.
My sister had a problem with her first Subaru years ago, had it towed home, then called me over to look at it. A big puddle of oil and shiny aluminium chunks on the pavement under it.
Me:”You threw a rod.”
Her:”Is that bad?”
Unlike Nick there was a warning light that had been on for weeks. Oddly a brother did the same with his Mitsubishi Colt, though in his case the engine just seized. Turns out it was a hand-me-down from the same sister…
The End of Kristie Noem Even if Trump Picks Her
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2024/04/27/the-end-of-kristie-noem-even-if-trump-picks-her-n3787322
In 2014 Ms. Noem had a wire hair pointer that was untrainable as a hunting dog. She took it out and shot it.
The story is in her upcoming book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.”
Jazz Shaw writes: As I’ve written here before, my wife and I first met volunteering at an animal shelter. Dogs mean a lot to us and we’ve had many over the decades we’ve been together. If you have a dog that you’re raising for hunting and it doesn’t work out, you can find a new home for the dog, particularly when it is so young and “the picture of pure joy.”
I’d hazard that it’s there because enough other people know about it that the story would be used against her in the future, not just “She’s trying to make the point that she is willing to do anything, difficult, messy, and ugly if it simply needs to be done.“
I expect that there will be efforts to mitigate the effects of this story, including a statement by Ms. Noem that in retrospect it was a poor decision and not what she would do today. It was a poor decision. If that’s the worst decision she has ever made it puts her in the top 1% of elected officials.
I disagree with Mr. Shaw’s whining that shooting the dog is inhumane and it would be better to have a vet euthanize it. His stance by implication condemns any hunting as inhumane.
@EdH
Did sister ever learn to check oil?
I think low end drones ($500) will be susceptible to fairly simple countermeasures, staring EO/IR & proximity radar, and detecting the telemetry/control radio and use semi-automated counterbattery auto shotgun/rifle/proximity shrapnel devices.
The big problem will probably be keeping friendly fire to a minimum, properly utilized the tanks will in a combined arms way be surrounded by APCs and dismounted infantry and their own drones and a/c – you don’t want to be mowing down your own guys.
The high end drone stuff, $20,000 and more, will be faster and smarter and tougher, more like the threat of a Kornet.
Hunting FPV guys is already a thing:
https://www.snafu-solomon.com/2024/04/when-drone-operators-become-hunted-it.html
I think so, I don’t recall hearing about problems later in life, though we live many hundreds of miles apart.
She married well, so I was off the hook anyway.
I believe the Deep State fix has been in for Tulsi Gabbard as Trump’s VP for some time.
I think I linked the story about Gabbard and her husband buying a house up in Leander, not far from Austin. Lots of Deep State and/or ex-military lives up there.
The house is small-ish but has a bit of land.
Wheeeee. Country life. Power went out for us last night, sometime between 2 and 3am, and was out for about 3 hours. Got a bit warm without the A/C running.
All is well now though.
Kids have been up for a while. Teen boys are always hungry. Who knew that one loaf of bread wouldn’t be enough for a single day?
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Tried the Eton Elite sw radio last night. Either it’s a great tuner or the bands were alive, or some combination, but I heard a lot of stations last night. 20M was open to Australia and New Zealand and they were booming in. I like the radio’s ergonomics, but it’s a bit small for just spinning the dial. Continuous tuning from 250khz to 30K. The USB/LSB switch makes ham listening easy. The display lights up and I can read it without glasses.
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Last minute direct fire weapons seem like the best option.
— that is the direction they are going. Directed ENERGY weapons in particular. Either microwave to emp the drone, or actual lasers. Targeting and detection is still a problem, and neither tech is so effective that .mil has stopped looking for alternatives. Crack that nut and you will be set for life.
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Coffee and breakfast have been consumed. I better get to work on something…
n
The Tucano? Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.
It’s a nice plane, I have always liked it, specs like a modern version of the Zero, but probably even less survivable than an A-10 or F-16 on the modern battlefield.
And the services are desperately afraid that – if they let the camels nose of a cheaper F/A aircraft into the tent – then Congress will force them down their throat en masse, in place of more capable aircraft.
And, TBH, the brass might be correct for once.
The RAF uses the Tucano as an advanced trainer, the last step (afaik) before actual jet experience. It appears good for that, and it’s a superb display aircraft, in the hands of a good pilot. Actual war experience I have no knowledge of.
G.
Lyrids meteor scatter? About that time of year.
Another one bites the big green weinie:
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/04/28/new-bombshell-evidence-emerges-was-trump-set-up-in-classified-docs-saga-n4928572
January 2025
President Trump issues Executive Order: Legislative Records Transparency
All records generated by Senators and Congressmen, their staffs, employees, husbands, wives, pets, banks, cell phone and internet providers, are public documents and must be put online and available to the American people within seven days.
A little more info says the dog was biting people and killing chickens, I think. But, yeah, putting that in a memoir and then touting it was stupid.
I don’t believe she shot the dog just because it wouldn’t hunt. Still, the dog could have been re-familied.
Over bred maybe?
Chicken killing is considered unforgiveable and uncurable in rural areas, my father put one of our dogs down when I was a kid for that. And yeah, it had other personality issues.
https://patriotpost.us/memes/104562-the-pawfirm-of-hound-wolfe-and-chase-2024-02-20
@MrAtoZ
Biting can justifiably get a dog a death sentence and so can killing livestock. Neither was clear from the article I linked, and I didn’t do any more research. If the Guardian article was incomplete then it’s just another example of the media being irresponsible.
Got the weed whacking done before the rain hit. Squall moved thru so maybe I can still get some things done. Temp dropped to 68F.
Wife and all the kids headed home. I’m here at least until the dishwasher and clothes washers finish running.
n
WRT USAF planes: 2 A-10s flying over NASCAR track at National Anthem being played.
Too long. That gives the vermin in congress and senate too much time to sanitize, or conveniently lose, documents. I would advocate the documents are public as soon as they are generated. We might also find out how a congress critter grows to several million in net worth in four years on a salary of $140K.
I would also advocate the tax records of every congress critter and senate minion be made public after April 15. If they are going to demand the tax records of a president, then that same demand should apply to them. There is no extension for filing past the April 15 deadline for any elected member for any reason. We elected them (well someone got them enough votes) and we pay them. Make that information public.
I was dating a girl in 1968 that lived up the road about a mile. We found her dog in our field munching on the remains of a small deer. I collected the dog and took it to her house and told her father what the dog was doing. Her father took the dog and tied the dog to a tree in the front yard. My girlfriend came outside and we talked. Unbeknownst to us the father had gone inside and got his gun. Next thing we hear is a loud bang startling both of us. The dog was now dead. A dog that has developed a taste for deer is never tolerated in a farming area. My girlfriend would not speak to me for a week, blaming me for something I had no control.
I think it would be tough for a major US combat aircraft to be sourced from a foreign nation. I can hear congress-critters whining from here about the loss of pork for their State.
Now made in the USA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano
Designated as the A-29 by the USA.
Probably 1/10th the price of the A-10.
The pilot is still worth a LOT more than the airplane. And losing the airplane implies loss of the pilot in a contested environment.
Wow.
Never mind the 1812 Overture, I would personally pay very good money to hear the National Anthem played on GAU-8/A’s.
Uh, a whole three to Air Force SOC. Somebody’s pork project. USA = Army or Air Force.
I saw a photo of Eric Erickson this week and wondered if he was a member of the “I Couldn’t Get Any Exercise During Covid and Became Addicted to Carbs Club”
But I suspect he was a member of the “Two Axe Handles Wide Club” with Chris Christie and Billy Barr long before that.
My mouse is annoying me. I go through e-mail, click a link and my mouse pointer is gone. Well, it’s still here but not on T-Bird. It’s on the other side of the screen on Firefox.
I still have more e-mail to go through. I’ve looked, I’m pretty sure there’s a setting for this. Called Focus perhaps in the past. I can’t find it. The new version of Focus isn’t what I’m looking for.
It’s a Win11 thing, I don’t recall this happening in Win7 and earlier.
I ordered a pond fountain pipe kit from Amazon. I needed a new diverter valve. All I could get was the complete kit wit multiple head pattens. Kit was too small. I did a return on the item. Amazon refunded the money into my Amazon account. There is no need to return the item. I guess the $14.11 is too small to process.
Today’s Bouncing Off The Walls project was cleaning / dusting the top of the fridge and the freestanding cupboards on each side and the clutter on everything. Hey, I’m in the kitchen cooking the first thing I’ve cooked in two weeks.
Very damp sponge first. Dry. Then window cleaner. Dry again. Huh. Do the Spray Away window cleaner instead of Windex. Dry. Pretty humid today….. Now it all looks clean but still feels gritty. Why is the top of my fridge textured like the doors? On the doors they say the texture helps to hide finger prints. I don’t believe that at all, I think it’s an excuse to pass off a crappy paint job.
Anyway. I sprayed it down with Lemon Pledge and buffed it in. Then again half an hour later. Quicker than using j-wax. The counter in front of the nuker felt gritty and I know I scrubbed that counter top when the old nuker was replaced. Just a wipe down with the towel I used on the fridge. and it feels clean.
The spaghetti type of sauce is smelling good. Tastes good. Needs to simmer a bit more.
>> Biting can justifiably get a dog a death sentence and so can killing livestock.
Dogs belonging to POTATOUS that bite Secret Service agents of course are exempt.
>> I would also advocate the tax records of every congress critter and senate minion be made public after April 15. If they are going to demand the tax records of a president, then that same demand should apply to them. There is no extension for filing past the April 15 deadline for any elected member for any reason. We elected them (well someone got them enough votes) and we pay them. Make that information public.
Sweet Summer Child…if wishes were horses…
>> We might also find out how a congress critter grows to several million in net worth in four years on a salary of $140K.
It’s called ‘insider trading’… haven’t you been paying attention?
It’s not worth a lot but while I have the player in the living room playing and some song that sucks comes on, I can clicky click and skip that song from my PC at the other end of the house. I think it’s pretty neat.
I thought it was kickbacks, influence money disguised as campaign funds, and general corruption. Silly me! I stand corrected.
That, too. ALL of those things.
Unfortunately, a Presidential executive order will have no effect on congressvermin. It’s an executive order. It can affect the members of the executive branch and the operations of the executive branch. It has no power over members of the legislative or judicial branches. Nor does it have any power over members of the public who are not employed by the executive branch, a niggling little factoid which got routinely ignored back in 2020 and 2021, or browbeaten into submission when it dared to raise its head.
I’ve been very busy lately. Aside from the time and effort involved in earning a living – why oh why couldn’t I have been born rich instead of awesome? – I’ve been taking care of things around the yard, shuttling varying numbers of children, helping to deal with the getting-worse granny, and smoothing ruffled feathers – pissed-off people, not upset chickens – caused by my idiot wife being unable or unwilling to keep her mouth shut when she’d already been irritating someone. To be clear, I have only the one wife, but often enough she’s enough of an idiot that she warrants being referred to as “my idiot wife”. Oh, and this might surprise many of you, but calming people down and getting them back to work and not destroying things out of frustration is not a skill which comes naturally to me. And then on top of all that, I ended up needing to work a day and a half’s normal day this weekend to earn enough money to pay for a change which my idiot wife made to some work that I hired done on the property. Masonry work is another skill I don’t have, so I paid someone. And then my idiot wife convinced them to add on to the project. I’m not faulting the contractor for going along with it, though I’d have preferred that he’d first checked with the man who was paying for the work.
On the plus side, The Child is fractionally less than the theoretical maximum possible PITA that she could be, so things could be worse. And the chickens are fat and happy. A number of people in the past couple weeks have commented on how good they look as they were strolling past the house and saw the birds. Red Hen still jumps up for scratches and a nap before getting back to doing chicken things. Looking for grubs and pooping, mostly. She jumped on my laptop’s keyboard while I was working and damaged a couple of keys. They’re redundant, so it’s not a major issue, but I kinda wish she hadn’t done it. I think that she was annoyed because I was working and not paying attention to her. Sheesh. So sorry, your majesty, but I was earning money to buy the pellets that you eat.
@SteveF
Now do the Presidential Records Act.
Early in life I worked a job for the summer where we were camped and rotated cooking. Six guys, 19-30 something. Just for giggles I held a fresh loaf of raisin bread 2 feet over the middle of the table and let go. Only the wrapper got to the table.
When I was a teenager working on the ranch I was consuming probably 4K calories a day. A half a loaf of bread was a mid-afternoon snack, along with a glass of raw milk with three heaping spoons of Hersheys chocolate mix.
Well, everyone is home and all the extra children have been returned…
We got a bit of rain at the BOL, but then it cleared and we had a nice sunny afternoon for me to do chores. About 4pm it started raining off and on again, so that ended my work on the sprinkler pump. I replaced the whole intake line, changing the slope and the depth of the inlet. I didn’t get a chance to test the new stuff, had to get home to open presents with D2, AND it was raining.
OH MY was there some weather on the way home though. Three alerts to my phone about tornadoes and taking shelter, one of the small towns had its tornado siren ringing when I drove thru, and several times rain came down in buckets. Nothing much here at home though, and I didn’t see a tornado.
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That, too. ALL of those things.
– embrace the power of “and”.
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Many presents were given to the child tonight. I’ve got room in the “present closet” again… but it will fill back up. D1 has a birthday in about a month… It’s a lot easier to buy stuff when I see it that I know they will like. The hard part is saving it for an occasion…
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Need to catch up on some internet and auction stuff, then I’m headed to bed. I’m beat.
n
@Jenny
Following up on your comments last week:
https://www.pewpewtactical.com/best-handguns-small-hands/
Note that the second part of the article is aftermarket grips for an existing tool.
Wow, since I am a senior, I got a $5 discount on renewing my Texas License To Carry. $35 instead of $40. Woohoo, I will be spending that $5 soon for lunch. Plus another $7. Lunch is expensive now, Bidenflation.
We dropped $27.80 for two chicken burritos and drinks at Chipotle the other night.
Top sirloin at Costco today was $10.99/lb.
Trump tho.
Top sirloin at Costco today was $10.99/lb.
At 30% inflation per year, it will be $53/lb by 2030.
Need to catch up on some internet and auction stuff, then I’m headed to bed. I’m beat.
I went to church, Walmart, Sam’s Club, and HEB today. I’m beat too.
I took the wife to the Mongolian Bowl for lunch. They are now $16 each so I left $40 for a $6 tip. Four years ago they were $10 each.
>> Teen boys are always hungry except when they’re thinking about sex.
F I F Y.
Good thing they were hungry t hen…
n
Drank too much Dr Pepper trying to stay awake for the drive home. Now I can’t sleep. Grrr.
n