HOt and humid. Some clouds possible. But certainly hot and humid. Like yesterday. I could see in the distance that someone to the west of Houston did get rain, but I didn’t.
I could see it while I was driving around doing pickups. I spent the morning doing auction stuff, and domestic bliss, then headed out. Traffic was light, and I made good time. I still got to my last stop 40 minutes too late. I didn’t realize they closed at 4pm. Oh well, they will hold my items until I can come back next week. Hit the goodwill bins store on that side of town, but other than a small limoges trinket box for resale, basically came up empty. That rarely happens. Then on the way out, I noticed a smaller coleman lantern, with the bubble glass shade, and LO! it was also a kerosene fuel type! $3, and I couldn’t get the money out fast enough. I am collecting a full set of kerosene fueled appliances for the BOL, since I’ve got kerosene up there for supplemental heat.
I picked up a couple more gallons of 80% alcohol hand sanitizer for $2 each at the Habitat reStore on Thursday. It’s alcohol, a little hydrogen peroxide, and water, no glycerin or fragrance. I don’t know if I’ll keep them here as cleaners, or fuel, or take them to the BOL. I might even try to sell them as cleaners at my regional show… I sold several gallons of naptha and alcohol last year. It will burn, and $2/ gallon is crazy cheap. I am even thinking about buying more…
There are lots of preps out there, you just have to look.
And then add the stuff to your stacks.
Today I’ve got my meeting, then I have to load the truck and head north. I’ve got a pickup on the way- a basic clothes washing machine. The samsung that came with the house at the BOL is a broken POS. The display is NFG and there aren’t replacements available. It runs, you just don’t know for sure what cycle it’s running. Plus it’s got tons of sensors and other stuff to go wrong, and takes forever to run a cycle. The basic Kenmore, GE, or Maytag from 20 years ago is usually still going strong, can be repaired, and is quick and does a good job. We’ve wanted to replace the samsung since we bought the place… and I finally got one at the right price.
More stuff to stack, and improvements to make… but worth it.
Do both, while you can.
nick
Get Woke Go Broke.
The value of all of the legacy Turner Networks is zero despite the “linear TV” being most of the company’s income right now. Consider the implications of that.
The deal to put “Friends” back on Netflix is way overdue.
I had to retire a Kenmore/Whirlpool washer from 24 years ago because I could not get a replacement valve assembly. Even used was unobtainium.
The repair guy said not to buy Korean white goods.
Imported appliances weren’t common until the 2000s housing bubble and the parts are still hard to get.
I speak from firsthand experience with what Weber Grill did to Ducane starting ~ 2005.
Ducane was one of the original gas grill manufacturers and a high end brand pre-Weber.
The “Dallas” house/museum has an early Ducane grill, key product placement on the show which drove the brand for over 20 years afterwards.
Cash is really key. At the Death Star and GTE/Verizon, the match was done in company stock going into the 401(k) with a certain vesting period, and I couldn’t make significant changes until I left the respective payrolls.
CGI emphasized an ESOP in lieu of a 401(k) and the managers actually hid access to the details of the tax deferred plan, which turned out to be managed by T. Rowe and fairly decent with 4% cash matching and a year vesting.
I did manage to enroll in the CGI plan a few months before leaving, but I didn’t have enough money to keep the account open at T. Rowe under their minimums when I quit so I lost all of the matching.
The less said about the tolling company the better. The lifer young’n’s there are seriously screwed and aren’t even aware about the situation.
Resistance is futile.
Buc-ee’s in New Braunfels, previously the chain’s largest with 200 gas pumps, is just on the other side of San Marcos.
The New Braunfels store is always packed, but there are the non stop NFL rumors for San Marcos.
Plus, the same weekend that Coach Prime crushed TCU’s hopes for a National Championship long shot on opening weekend of the last NCAA Football season, Texas State went to Waco and taught Baylor an even more powerful lesson about the possibilities of the transfer portal. Attendance at games in San Marcos has been up ever since.
https://www.kut.org/business/2024-08-09/buc-ees-san-marcos-travel-center-yarrington-road-i-35-construction
Still, 10 miles (roughly) between Buc-ee’s?!? That might make sense catering to the EV range anxiety crowd since the I-35 intersection sits just south of where the toll road around Austin rejoins I-35.
Off like a prom dress….
Getting hotter already, and sunny.
Time to get the donuts.
n
6% is a very good match.
My employer matches 5.5% – they match the first 5%, the .5% of the next 1%. When I first started at this company (they had just been acquired) the 401k was a straight 10% contribution by the employer. I got one year of that. Then it was changed to a straight 4% contribution and additional 4% contribution based on profitability. We always got the total 8%. After a few years, we were purchased again (our current situation). I knew things would change, and they did to our current setup.
What’s interesting is that we had a lot of different groups that had different plans. Most of the overhead people had a 3% matching plan, we had the 4%+4%, other had different. That’s the problem with acquiring multiple companies. They moved everyone to the current plan. Our group wasn’t happy, as we would lose 2.5% free money. I, and others were very vocal about this. The company ended up giving us a 1% pay raise to offset the 401k match decline. No, the math doesn’t work, but something is better than nothing.
@brad
Your question yesterday about why Walz quitting was a big deal? Interview with the guy Walz went around :
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/08/09/bombshell-tim-walz-former-commander-goes-on-cnn-delivers-devestating-testimony-n2177949
Which does beg the question: Was the approval done for political reasons by a sympathetic Dem?
Blue Falcon was a new one to me.
Yes. One of the many things my wife has learned about how the system functions since going to work for the VA is that it always helps to have a member of Congress who owes you a favor.
Oof, all socialized out. Visitors for lunch – nice neighbors, but non-stop talkers. Then a friend popped by on his way from A to B, and that was pleasant – but another couple of hours. My introverted self is all done.
I ran across an X post by his former comrades. Pretty scathing, all questions answered.
The honeymoon with Harris continues. In the videos I’ve seen, she just blathers on without saying anything. A decent journalist would call her out and demand statements of actual substance.
Political rallies – I honestly don’t understand why people go to them. Even for a candidate you like. Be surrounded by a huge crowd of crazies, cheering while the candidate says whatever they think the crowd wants to hear, be expected to donate afterwards. It’s nothing but emotional manipulation, just like you get at the mega-churches with the millionaire pastors. You couldn’t drag me to an event like that.
It doesn’t matter. If Harris isn’t yanked as the nominee in two weeks, then the Dems will just keep her in the basement like they did with their candidate four years ago.
America has a serious case of Bad Daddy, and it has to run its course.
Earlier this week, CNN and CBS News got written off as valueless by their respective parent corporate entities. Disney will probably follow by writing off ABC News. Any suggestions about where decent journalists are working in the US these days?
“Is Replacement A Theory?”
https://areaocho.com/is-replacement-a-theory/
“Ask the people of London. In 1961, about 97.7 percent of the city’s residents were white. By definition, the races are listed as:
“By 1997, that number had dropped to about 75 percent, and that is when the gun ban went into effect.”
“By 2021, that number dropped to 53.8 percent, with 14.7 percent being white, but not British. So in sixty years, the population of London went from 97 percent white and of UK descent, to only 36.8 percent white of UK descent.”
I can validate those numbers, having lived in London in 1973 and visited it there several times since then. Big big changes.
National Guard Chaplain Parks Bus on Walz:
https://hotair.com/headlines/2024/08/10/filed-under-never-happens-chaplain-of-mn-guard-unit-not-a-walz-fan-either-n3792958
“Going to SCOTUS”
https://areaocho.com/going-to-scotus/
“There are millions of Ford F150 pickup trucks on the roads of America. More than 41 million F-150s have been sold since the truck was introduced 76 years ago. The F series has been the best-selling truck in the U.S. for 47 years, and the best-selling vehicle of any kind in the U.S. for 42 years. If you walk out your front door and look around, you will probably seen a few F150s within the first few minutes outside.”
“That’s important, because with all of that popularity, one needs to remember that there are more AR patterned rifles in the US than there are F-150 pickups. Despite those facts, the Fourth district court of appeals has allowed that state’s ban on the AR-15 to remain in place because, the court ruled, the AR pattern rifle is “highly unusual.””
“This means that the concept of Assault Weapons bans is heading to SCOTUS and is likely to appear on the court’s docket this term. The case, Bianchi v. Brown, is being brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.”
One can only hope. And that it is a SCOTUS not packed by the dumbrocrats.
What? Michoud is a hotbed of high tech manufacturing. Boeing could always draw on the workforce at the Folgers plant just up the street.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/a-new-report-finds-boeings-rockets-are-built-with-an-unqualified-work-force/
Yeah, Disney learned nothing from “Deadpool & Wolverine”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbiPcMCz0Ek
“One can only hope. And that it is a SCOTUS not packed by the dumbrocrats.”
Part of the ruling should be that an assault weapon, or assault rifle, has by definition the capability of automatic fire as configured, with conversion capability not relevant.
There’s always ‘just one more thing’ isn’t there? Still at home. Got the truck loaded, picked up my washing machine, went to the chiropractor, did all the things.
Now for a quick shower, because loading the truck soaked me to the skin and I don’t want to sit in wet cloths for the next couple of hours…
THEN I’m off like a prom dress.
n
As an aside, the Hidden Legacy series takes place in my neighborhood and surrounds. Their HQ is a couple of miles from the house, they just fought in the park that is down the street… I can follow along when they go somewhere, and I’m familiar with the neighborhoods. Our kids went to day care in one of the locations… so when the author has them take a street that I know goes thru neighborhoods, and isn’t a thru street, I wonder why. Even on a map it’s a poor choice… I guess the world with magic in it is a little bit different, that’s all. Thumbing off the safety on a Glock should have been caught by SOMEONE during the editing and publishing process though.
“Chinese rocket breaks apart after megaconstellation launch, creating cloud of space junk”
https://www.space.com/china-megaconstellation-launch-space-junk
“On Tuesday morning (Aug. 6), a Chinese Long March 6A rocket launched the first 18 satellites for the Qianfan (“Thousand Sails”) broadband network, which will eventually host up to 14,000 spacecraft.”
“The rocket successfully delivered the satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO), at an altitude of about 500 miles (800 kilometers). But its upper stage broke apart shortly thereafter, generating a cloud of debris that’s now racing around our planet, according to United States Space Command (USSPACECOM).”
Uh, I don’t think that this is a win.
Well.
I’ve been hoping to travel to Europe one more time before I die. This time to Vienna and then Tuscany.
I have a ton of frequent flyer miles through my credit card. Enough for business class round-trip for me and my girlfriend.
And now I can’t travel through commie England for fear of being arrested in the land of no free speech, where telling the truth can get you jailed, but hacking children to death gets a wrist slap if you’re brown.
I think it will be safer just to stay here and buy more gubs and lead.
Dark times ahead.
Google Maps shows thru streets where they aren’t in my neck of the woods. If I were a European tourist using GM around here I might be peeved, unlike using it in Death Valley – where I would be dead.
9%RH, 20MPH, 108F here today.
“Kamala Harris Promises Amnesty for Millions of Illegal Aliens, Nationwide Mail-In Voting”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/08/10/kamala-harris-promises-amnesty-millions-illegal-aliens-nationwide-mail-in-voting/
“Vice President Kamala Harris is vowing to sign legislation as president that would have millions of illegal aliens eventually securing naturalized American citizenship and imposing nationwide no-excuse mail-in voting.”
Yeah, she is going to need help from Congress on both of those. And a Constitutional amendment to overrule the states election procedures.
Recent Tesla observations:
One, going the speed limit in the #2 lane of a city boulevard, ignoring the challenge of a guy in a Dodge Charger that was pulling alongside, revving his motor, doing the impatient stutter step.
I give it a “+”.
Another, in front of me at a busy 4-way stop (w/o a signal light), waiting through a couple of “his” turns, eventually jack rabbiting in front of a Ram 1500. Was the driver befuddled – or the computer?
I give it a “–”.
As an aside, the Hidden Legacy series takes place in my neighborhood and surrounds. Their HQ is a couple of miles from the house, they just fought in the park that is down the street… I can follow along when they go somewhere, and I’m familiar with the neighborhoods. Our kids went to day care in one of the locations… so when the author has them take a street that I know goes thru neighborhoods, and isn’t a thru street, I wonder why. Even on a map it’s a poor choice… I guess the world with magic in it is a little bit different, that’s all. Thumbing off the safety on a Glock should have been caught by SOMEONE during the editing and publishing process though.
It is an alternate universe. Small things are different. And no Osiris serum that induced magical powers in humans that was released to the general public in 1863.
And there is no thumb safety on any Glocks that I know of. Oops. All the Glocks that I have seen have a grip safety and a trigger safety, of course alternate universe. Other than that, very well written and edited.
I made that mistake in Book 1 of my “RV Vigilante” series. And got yelled at about it in one of the reviews.
A quick edit and upload fixed the issue, so you won’t see that error in current editions. Probably other errors, though. The review is still there complaining about it, though.
Each book in the series takes place in recognizable town or areas, but there are some fictional streets and locations. If you don’t get too involved in specific details, the locations are just fine. Some businesses are detailed, but without specific details.
The locations in books 3 and 4 were all done with Google Maps, although I have been in the general areas mentioned.
“Ruby Fever: A Hidden Legacy Novel (7) by Ilona Andrews
https://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Fever-Hidden-Legacy-Novel/dp/0062878395?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number seven of a six book and one novella (seven books total) paranormal romance fantasy series. I read the well printed and well bound novella MMPB published by Avon in 2022 that I just bought new from Amazon. This is the last book in the series and I doubt that there will be more but, hope springs eternal.
Totally cool series for me. This makes the fourth series that I have read from Ilona Andrews, a husband and wife writing team based here in Texas. The Innkeeper, Kate Daniels, and The Edge are the other series of books.
The Hidden Legacy Universe is a complex place. The Osiris serum that induced magical powers in humans was released to the general public in 1863 and the world was never the same. The Osiris serum has three results: death, paranormal powers, or paranormal powers with a warped human body. The serum was banned after a while but the world was irreparably changed since the paranormal powers are inheritable. Families starting breeding children for strength in magical powers with breathtaking results. Magic users are segregated into five ranks: Minor, Average, Notable, Significant, and Prime. The Prime families operate mostly outside the Federal and State laws since they are so powerful and incredibly dangerous.
Catalina Baylor is Nevada Baylor’s younger sister and a Prime Siren. Nevada is wed and gone so now Catalina is running the show. And now Linus, the long term friend of the House Baylor and former speaker of the Assemblies of Magic, revealed himself to be the Warden for the State of Texas and has made Catalina his only Deputy Warden.
Arabella Baylor is Catalina Baylor’s younger sister and a Prime Beast that is unknown to the general populace. She can transform to a 65 foot tall beast but, she has trouble controlling when to transform. The only other recorded person who had this power could never control their transformations or reason while in beast form so the populace is incredibly scared of her.
Alessandro Sagredo is a Prime Weapons Teleporter, a retired assassin, and an exiled Italian count. He is staying with the Baylor family now since his family exiled him for turning down the three rich heiresses that they set him up with to refinance his family with their dowries.
Catalina and her family have tracked down the Osiris serum to a international assassin building the ultimate assassin for hire firm. And he wants to assassinate the Baylor family. And their friends.
The authors have a very active website at:
https://ilona-andrews.com/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars (I am starting to think 6 stars)
Amazon rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (6,908 reviews)
Lynn
My Glock just has the double trigger safety. Ain’t no “off” switch. And for me, the guy that found finger bones are same color as teeth from trying to catch a Cuisinart blade, Yeah, well, I really want an off switch.
Bled like a pig for a couple of hours, too. Soaked half a roll of paper towels.
Did you know finger tip bones are textured with bumps?
Tonight’s movie, like anyone cares, 🙂 was Troy. Rated R. Don’t know if that was for seeing Brad Pitt’s butt or folks being run through with a sword.
It’s a slow movie. There is a lot happening but the story goes slowly. Lots of details. The last 20 minutes are screen credits.
Yeah, I’ll watch it again.
Pitt’s butt. Just violence is mostly PG-13, especially if people aren’t getting shot.
“And now I can’t travel through commie England for fear of being arrested in the land of no free speech”
I crossed England off when they outlawed knives.
Federal Judge Orders CDC to Stop ‘Likely Unlawful’ Erasure of Former Employees’ Emails
https://redstate.com/beccalower/2024/08/10/federal-judge-orders-cdc-to-stop-likely-unlawful-erasure-of-former-employees-emails-n2177962
Off with their heads.
Safe at the BOL. Trying to use my old tiny lappy and see if I can just leave it up here. It’s a bit difficult to type on the smaller keyboard, and the trackpad is too sensitive… cursor jumps around…
Looks like a nice night for a tiny fire, shortwave, and maybe some meteors, or some chinese aerospace tech making its flaming return to earth. Gravity is a b!tch.
n
@Nick; Keyboards, mice and monitors are cheap. Leave a set at the BOL. If it were me, I’m buy an additional power supply and leave IT there, so that the only thing you need to carry in is the laptop itself.
I hate laptops, with their poor keyboard layouts and small attached screens. If I only needed to carry between two locations, and not operate on the go, I would get one of those deck-of-cards computers, and leave a big monitor, good keyboard, and pointing device at each location. Did I say I hate laptops, with their poor keyboard layouts and small attached screens?
Good radio tonight. 20M was wide open. Heard Australia working Cali, New Mexico.. heard Spain working stations. 19M shortwave commercial had a ton of stations, although they were a bit low and just above the noise. Not much on 40M, and 80M was quiet. Several cuban stations, and I haven’t heard them much in the past 6 months.
Sky was hazy for the lower ⅓ , but overhead was pretty clear. No meteors though.
It got chilly by the water- at 75F and dripping wet.
Off to bed.
n