Warm and moist. Light rain is possible. Partly sunny is likely. Which is how yesterday went. The very light rain was only in small areas of town and was brief. If I hadn’t been driving through it, I probably wouldn’t have known.
Did my pickup, then headed to my client’s house to install the new gear. Unfortunately the gear wasn’t actually there, so I ended up doing a couple of maintenance things. The Bluray player was locked up, probably from the same event that fried the receiver, but it recovered with a hard power cycle. It wasn’t a very productive time, but I get paid anyway. Of course the gear was delivered about an hour after I left.
Today I have my meeting for my non-prepping hobby, and no, special clothing is not required. We are having our quarterly swap fest/sale and I’ve got some stuff to sell. After that, I’ll switch trucks and head to my client’s house. I should be able to swap in the new gear, confirm it’s working, and be on my way in about an hour. I’ll head to the BOL from there, and maybe get in before dark.
Once there, I’ve got a pickup load to un-load, and I need to either figure out how to get my mower deck installed on the backup lawn tractor, or I need to rebuild the deck that came with it and get THAT re-installed on the tractor. It’s got a hole in the deck which is not great (and was the main reason it got retired), but I can at least mow with it until I either get the other deck to fit, or weld the hole closed. It’s always something…
And I’ll be headed home earlier than normal on Sunday so as to spend at least a bit of time with my lovely bride, and mother of my lovely children on Mother’s Day. It’ll be lovely.
Stack some good times. They will help during the bad times.
nick
I keep a tub of each in the fridge and a SS pot for bacon grease on the stove.
I got to eat powdered eggs plenty of times in the Army. They are called “B” rations which are long-term stable foods. Yeah, not nearly as good as fresh food. “A” rations are fresh foods and “C” rations are MREs. I learned a lot about Army “beans” as a logistics officer and at Command & Staff School.
A good point. You should also have various water filters.
I have a solar water boiler and a food cooker to play with this Summer. The food cooker is fancy and can be powered by a battery when there is no Sun. The water boiler has a temp probe. I’ve used it and it boils water, but under pressure. I made pour over coffee with it, no problemo.
Off to be with people. Warm and overcast.
gah.
n
Mebbee it says more about my taste buds, but I opened a vacuum foil brick of Cafe Bustello dated BB 2014 (!). Seemed fine.
The Northern Lights were visible here in southern Idaho as about 60 degrees of green tint fading into purple. Noticeable and interesting but not wildly so.
Today’s inflation report:
We’ve had a tea kettle on the back burner of the range on various houses for ~ 25 years, and, cleaning the kitchen a couple of weeks ago, I finally got disgusted enough with the decades of grease accumulation that I soaked the kettle in a bucket of soapy (Dawn) water until this morning to remove the caked-on crud.
Just out of curiosity, I ran the kettle manufacturer through the Duck to see what it would cost to replace new, and the answer came back $350 from [Fancy Lad kitchen store].
My wife believes that the original cost was $50 new from a local kitchen store in Florida in the 90s.
Made in the UK, even today.
A US manufacturer would have offshored to China already.
We haven’t had decent range venting since Florida. The Vantucky house had a ductless system, apparently code in WA State, and the range here has a downdraft vent which my wife claims causes the burners to heat unevenly.
It was time for new tires for the wife’s car. In 2021 I put 4 new tires on it for $920.48, including tax and fees. Today, total was $1021.04 including taxes and fees. Michelin Pilot Sport 4 All Season both times.
I also forked over another $250 for new tpms sensors. No errors from the current ones, but the car is now 11 years old. Plus, I know how, and often do visually inspect my tires. My wife? Not so much…
32k miles on a 2013 Lexus IS 250C, and we got it in 2021 with 8K miles. With teleworking, we may truly keep this car forever.
Gorgeous weather here now, after a lit ng and soggy Spring. I have a full summer of projects that I’m now rushing to get finished, before getting the stupid hernia fixed. Apparently, I won’t be allowed to do much for six weeks afterwards. Still, it’s great being outside doing stuff.
Regarding the aurora – it looked great here in the Olympic Peninsula (WA). Visually, just faint fuzzy lightness in the sky.
But the phone camera sees those colors better than my eyes. Phone showed red and green and yellow colors. Quite impressive.
I looked at the aurora forecast (here) and the next two days are forecast to be at level 4 (out of 5) in a very wide area. So maybe a repeat tonight. Even for you TX guys, perhaps. Use your phone camera to see the colors.
Of course on the one day when I have stuff scheduled we ran very late.
Loading up the truck and heading out soon.
Hope I’ll have a dark sky at the BOL…
n
I spotted shelled sunflower seeds at the grocery store. Roasted and Salted.
Next to Roasted and Unsalted. Identical bags but for two letters. That’s just evil.
In New Orleans last month, the phone camera was essential to see the “ghosts” above St. Louis Cathedral.
Also, when you take the “ghosts” themed tours, don’t ask the guides about vampires
Vampires weren’t a thing in New Orleans until Anne Rice … and Sting.
A “Star Wars” geek friend from Florida corrected me about George Lucas’ wife’s “Things that make you say, hmmm ….” board memberships.
https://www.jpmorganchase.com/about/our-leadership/mellody-hobson
>>I have a plan. Might not be a good plan but it’s a plan.
Failure to plan is planning to fail… so you’re ahead of the game.
P. S. Don’t forget plenty of water.
I keep 30+ cases of 24 bottle Ozarka water in the garage. We are drinking last December now.
During the Feb 2021 Winter Storm Uri freeze, we did not have pressurized water for five days. I was not smart enough to fill the tubs with water. But we blew through over 20 cases for drinking water and flushing the toilets.
“If it is yellow, let it mellow, if it is brown, flush it down”
I was getting ready to setup the portapotty in the garage when the power came back on. That was going to be nasty and the revolt of the women was going to be unreal.
BC: Sheep versus Spiders
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2024/05/11
Hey !
“Police and Crime”
https://areaocho.com/police-and-crime/
“I am sure by now you have all seen the video of the guy in NYC who kidnapped a woman by throwing a belt over her head before raping her:”
3 am, nothing good happens after midnight.
“When the cops caught him, they had to keep the crowds from lynching him on the spot:”
Why did they bother ?
“An informal comparison of the three major implementations of std::string” by Raymond Chen
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20240510-00/?p=109742
Excellent !
“When the cops caught him, they had to keep the crowds from lynching him on the spot:”
Why did they bother ?
The paperwork, man! The paperwork! 😀
Neeeded a palette cleanser and ended up :
https://coldfury.com/
Got three.
Mysterious are the ways of Clang because everything compiles to the LLVM IR and then the back end handles the generation of x86_64, with a sharper division between the two halves of the compiler. Optimizing LLVM IR to machine code is the subject of lots of Masters thesis work.
Who still uses Itanium?
I have some sunflower oil. So I’ll put a little in a frying pan, add the nuts and some salt. To make the salt extra fine, hey, I have a mortar and pestle. Worth a try.
My plan with Verizon renews on the 10th. I get 6Gb data. They just sent a text saying they gave me another 6Gb. Sure enough, I have 12 GB available. Must be my good looks.
I went by the funeral home today. I know he said they were open on Saturday but at noon the door was locked. But I could have dreamt that. So I went to HEB and then home. Got home and had a text.
The guy I just gave 3 towers (2 i5s and a Celeron), 4 monitors, 5 bags of stuff like cables, plus a bag with all of the X-10 stuff sent a text. We were going to meet at the CircleK but he had to go to Llano this morning so, maybe another day? He finished early in Llano So back to town. In the van, not in the truck. Seems like a very nice guy.
The funeral home was having an event at 1PM. I’m in jeans and just not dressed for that kind of thing. I’m not much of a party crasher. Monday will be here soon enough.
That’s about all.
I did see three kittens today. That was very nice. It’s not all death all the time over here after all . I have five female cats that were fat fat fat and suddenly all are skinny. But no kitten noises after a week. The kittens were eating cat chow and not at all skittish. I need to put a water dish near the food dish.
I’m not anywhere near as gumpy as I was yesterday.
When we went for passports in 2018, the office in Austin took our pictures using a floppy disk Mavica.
I have a “Lost Treasures of Infocom” collection from the mid-90s with all of the disks, but most of the 3.5″ are not readable. I don’t have a 5.25″ drive anymore to try those.
The valuable part of the Infocom collection are the maps and a book of “feelies” included with the games which often provided important clues.
The game files are readily available online if you know where to look.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240510-floppy-disks-why-some-people-are-still-in-love-with-this-obsolete-computer-storage-technology
Part of happiness is sitting at the PC at one end of the house and hearing Buddy the Beagle at the other end of the house snoring while he’s curled up in my rocker/recliner.
He cracks me up. A lot. Sorta wish he was more house trained but, whatever. Boys can’t hold their pee like females.
I’m pretty sure I have a 5.25 floppy drive. It’s in a 486/something tower. Running DOS 6 and maybe WfW3.11. It’s been a while since I booted it, the CMOS battery was dead. But it booted up as happy as ever.
I’m just keeping it because it runs BirdTrak. I have one emu left and when she dies I hope to be able to read her microchip just to see who she is and her age. No one else cares, just me.
I don’t expect to be able to read her chip. Chips migrate. The chip reader did work a year ago on a chip sitting in my palm.
So, yeah, I have a 5.25 floppy and a few discs too.
Plan is when bird dies, I read the chip or not. Fire up that PC if I can read the chip and see who she is to satisfy my curiosity. She’s not a pet bird like some emu were. But she’s ok with dogs and cats in her pen and she knows who feeds her and for a critter that has been the way they are for 40 million years or so, it’s cool.
Either way the PC and chip reader and extra Avid chips all go to the dump when she dies.
Got to the BOL. Took longer to get out of my hobby club meeting, then took longer to get done at my client’s house. Changing out the gear when fine but his app to look at the security cams stopped connecting to the nvr. Only his app. His wife’s iphone worked fine, and my samsung did too. That says “it’s your phone” to me. Multiple tries to reinstall, re connnect etc all failed. That mystery will have to wait for next week.
Trip up had a couple of issues. Some stuff seemed to be flying out of a box in the back of the truck. I’d forgotten what was in it, and it ripped open from the wind. Empty pint paint cans… the rectangular kind. Dozens of uses, but I’d forgotten they were in that box. And then my oil pressure gauge was flickering. Seems I’m losing oil faster than I was. Added almost 2 quarts, still low. Have to get that looked at when I get home.
I thought I might get a clear sky tonight, but as I drove nearer, the sky clouded, lightning started, and now some rain is falling. Lake is about 6 inches high too.
Leftover chinese food for dinner. Our favorite local place has a new guy answering the phone, doesn’t recognize our address despite being only a mile away, asks if we are in “Austin or Houston”… and they’ve changed their register/order ticket system and are using a third party delivery service. I think they sold out. Food’s not as good, and is subtly different- more jalapanos on everything. Dang it. We really liked them. Wife thinks they outsourced phone orders to some third party. I might drop in next week and see if anyone is familiar in the shop. It’s just weird.
It’s a very light and slow rain, I was mostly hearing wind in the trees. Maybe I’ll get some dock time later, or maybe I”ll just read and go to bed early.
n
@paul,it’s hard not to smile at new kittens…
Oh, and I got “small world-ed” at my meeting. Turns out one of the other members owns a bunch of land just the other side of the nearest little town to the BOL. I’d previously mentioned meeting a ham at the Hamfest that owns the lot across from mine…
It’s a small world …
n
And somehow I don’t have any soy sauce up here. I’ve got rice vinegar, and oyster sauce, but no soy.
n
added– I KNEW it, I do have soy sauce, just hadn’t opened it and it was deep in a cabinet.
We watched the horror that is Disney “Doctor Who”. I passed on watching the talking babies in the season premiere.
I opted for the second episode because the new blonde girl was hot in the 60s outfit and the trailer teased the Abbey Road EMI studios. Of course the blonde has already been fired in favor of Subcontinent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndFjNl67Rb0
HEB has been pushing their Favor service heavily. Maybe they are the third party.
I’m listening to Murder on the Orient Express narrated by Kenneth Branagh in the truck. He’s incredibly engaging and a talented voice actor.
Even having a pretty good idea how it turns out (I think I’ve read it, 30-40 years or more ago) it’s very good listening.
I don’t think I’ve read any Agatha since middle school. Used to like some books featuring “The Toff” iirc. Haven’t touched the genre since then.
I”m thinking about an audible subscription, anyone have any experience with them? Can I burn discs? I don’t have an easy way to play mp3s in the Ranger.
n
Hot blonde girl(s) in 60’s outfit(a) and black lead actor that didn’t have to dis whitey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV1qmmMwc9M
“Used to like some books featuring “The Toff” iirc.”
John Creasey, one of the most prolific mystery writers–and perhaps most prolific–ever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Creasey#Bibliography
@Nick
“I”m thinking about an audible subscription, anyone have any experience with them? Can I burn discs? I don’t have an easy way to play mp3s in the Ranger.”
I understand that it’s simple using iTunes, although I’ve never done it. I play Audible books from an iPad, and if the vehicle does not have the capability I use a bluetooth speaker.
The narration of Murderbot and The Bobiverse are outstanding.
Today I got the last Little Feat studio album that I was missing from the Lowell George years. Hopefully a day this week will seem right to start at the beginning and see how far I get. I can play some bands all day and others I take in smaller doses. Have to see. The coda for that group will be the live album “Waiting for Columbus”.
LF has been mining the vaults for years and there are two albums–Raw Tomatoes and Ripe Tomatoes–that also contain highly regarded unreleased songs from George. Might have to break down and order those.
LF reformed about ten years after George died and although George’s brilliance was missed the band was still unarguably Little Feat. Lot’s of gaps in that part of my collection, so we’ll see if I get inspired to look for those or veer off into something else.
Trump Rally Draws Between 80-100k on the Beach in Wildwood, NJ; May Be ‘Largest’ in ‘State History’
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/05/11/trump-rally-draws-between-80-100k-on-the-beach-in-wildwood-may-be-largest-in-history-n2174079
Come November we need all of these and more to leave their MAGA gear at home and spend the day at the polls quietly and respectfully insisting that everything that goes on gets done in the open and filmed. Any local Democratic machine that tries to disperse them so the shenanigans can proceed shoul be met with raspberries and firm “no”.
The apologists can say anything they like to excuse the irregularities in 2020–it ain’t going to repeat.
The rain never really got going, so I went down to the dock and got the radio out. Some good oldies on WRMI, but the signal wasn’t strong. Faded to nothing shortly after 11p.m. Then the rain came back. I sat for a while under the roof, and watched.
Clouds never cleared though.
I like the serendipity of radio. I hear stuff I wouldn’t hear otherwise, and generally I enjoy that. I used to lay in bed when I was a kid, tuning around the AM dial listening for DX. Sometimes I’d listen to Canadian stations, but usually the 50K watt clear channel stations were easier to hear. I listened to a lot of the Grand Ol Opry out of Nashville. Being south of Chicago, I rarely heard any of the K call signs, but occasionally something west of the Rockies would come in. Serendipity.
Given the solar activity, I guess it’s lucky I could even hear Miami for a while tonight.
n
Time for me to get all Ben Franklin…
dunno if it will make me wise, but it can’t hurt.
n
“Report examines the 7 best Texas Hill Country towns for retirees”
https://houston.culturemap.com/news/city-life/retire-hill-country-georgetown-burnet/
“No. 1 – Comfort
Paul, looks like they want you to get new neighbors.
I heard Cristi Noem’s kids got her a special gift for Mothers’ Day: Hush Puppies :O
Good morning! It’s a sunny Sunday morning here. Blue sky and a few fluffy high clouds. Lovely.
I made fruit salad and a pot of Barry’s Tea, to be followed by a couple of slices of toast with salted butter off Friday’s crusty loaf. Mmmm.
Listening to a lovely concert on German public TV. A recreation of the concert that premièred Ludwig van Beethoven’s ninth symphony 200 years ago. We’ve just reached the Ode to Joy (“Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium…”) choral finale. Volume cranked right up. (Note to self … the BOL needs a better sound system.)
The music is sublime. The man was surely touched by the divine, to have created such beauty despite being profoundly deaf. This is perhaps as close to immortality as it gets. Goosebumps.
I wish you all joy in your day, and in your lives.
Paul, I am glad for Buddy and your kittens, and that not all is gloom and doom. Hang in there, the “Götterfunken” moments will become less and less seldom, and the awfulness will recede. Kittens, beautiful music, tea and buttered toast, happy memories, your friends, all these abide.
Alan, you are surely going to a very warm place for that one!
It is 72 F here on the west side of the flooding Brazos River. It did not get quite as high as they expected, just 45.7 ft on the gauge. That is 72.7 ft above sea level, flowing at 72,000 ft3 per SECOND. 8 MPH.
https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?gage=rmot2&wfo=hgx
My office buildings and my house are at 81 ft above sea level. And several miles downstream from that gauge, the river elevation drops over a foot per linear mile, maybe 1.5 ft per mile.
We are supposed to get an inch of rain today. One can only hope, otherwise I have to turn the water sprinkler system back on.
https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/1cpwaur/not_everything_is_bigger_in_texas/
Oh my goodness, you are freaking kidding me. 661 ft2 1/2/0 homes for $160K.
The neighborhood is sold out and there is a waiting list for new ones.
I just checked my Costco CITI card statement. I looked at the interest rates. 20.9% for balances carried. If a person does not fully pay the balance, then they get dinged for not only the current month, but back to the item was charged. A cash advance is 30.9%. People that don’t pay off CC balances monthly are really getting hammered. My credit score is very high, over 800. For those with less than stellar credit the interest rate is even higher.
I would really hate to be starting a new life today as a young adult. My son is lucky as hew as able to lock in a 2.% rate on his mortgage.
He pays his credit card bills each month in full, I pay mine weekly. The money in the account I pay from pays about 0.1% so no loss paying weekly. It keeps the balance from getting too high.
And in other news.
My pool has suffered a leak. We thought we fixed it and filled the pool. No adjustment on the sewer portion of my water bill so I got stuck with a $700.00 water bill. We did not get all the leaks. Drained the pool again, hired someone to fix the cracks, three really small, almost invisible cracks. I am filling the pool again so another $700 water bill.
If the pool is not fixed this time I am shutting it down for the year and will hire the same company that fixed the cracks to resurface the pool. That will require stripping the top layer of finish and replastering. The pool is 50 years old. We have resurfaced once about 30 years ago. I guess I shouldn’t complain. Pool liners are just as expensive and don’t last as long as plaster.
>>Alan, you are surely going to a very warm place for that one.
Forecast is for a high of 90 today here in the desert. 🙂