And it’s another scorcher. All my delaying tactics have failed, and I’ll be digging in storage units in the heat after all. LOTS OF HEAT. And lots of humidity.
Spent yesterday doing domestic bliss, and trying to get my truck diagnosed. I did get two pickups in, and gathered some more stuff for my non-prepping hobby sale. Not enough though.
So today I’ll be trying to pickup a trailer, fixing or diagnosing my renter’s A/C issues, hitting three storage places looking for stuff I put away last year or the year before, and gathering it all to the house. THEN I’ll start loading the trailer, make sure the powerpoint lappy goes online and updates, and gather the last of the stuff. Oh, and I’ll be buying drinks and ice for the setup crew. Ice will be Friday, but I need the gatoraid, water, and Dr Pepper, and I’ll need to clean a couple of coolers.
Suddenly lots to do. Lots on top of the stuff I already knew about. Gah. I should have hit the gathering harder when I had the truck available. Just bad luck to break down now.
You can prep, but bad luck can still make it harder. In this case, having money for the truck repairs, and having the alternative truck and a rental trailer available will save the day.
I hope.
stack-a while you can, monkey boy.
nick
And I forgot that D1 also has a Dr appointment this morning. MORE stuff to get done today. Ay carumba.
n
Wake me up:
Take It Somewhere Else!: Trump LAYS DOWN THE LAW Against a Woke Military in His Second Term
Who would think it would take tRump to de-pussify the military. Am I in Bizzaro World?
This is fine:
Newsom Expected to Sign Bill Approved by State Senate Committee to Allow 0 Down Home Loans for Illegals
I guess the State of Kalifornia will back these loans? Why would any financial institution lend money to crimmigrants for 0 down, 0 percent interest? I guess they will also offer no property taxes. The big earthquake can’t come too soon.
LOL teh Gay Mafia:
Lesbian Michigan AG issues bloodcurdling warning to conservative Supreme Court Justices at DNC
The PLTs, ie, Dumbocrats, won’t be happy until SCOTUS is hung by the neck until dead. This is what the DNC thinks the FUSA wants. One more Dumbo President and we are The Communist States of America.
Since we all seem to be “I wonder why…” kinds of folks, I’ve thought about it a bit, so I’ll add some details.
The house was very well built in the late 1960s. It is reinforced block with brick face and some wood siding, and has never suffered significant storm damage. It is about 4000 ft2 spread over two stories with slightly high ceilings and is situated about 400 feet from a large lake. It has a canal in the back yard, so it is surrounded by water. An interesting feature is that it is elevated construction over a well-ventilated crawl space, not slab construction. The windows were replaced with good double-panes at some point in the past. We do have the cellular shades that paul mentioned, but we generally open them during the day to let in the light. The attic is well insulated in both the joists and the rafters. Since at least one of us is usually home, we have our TStats set to a constant temp. We get a fair amount of shade from the giant live oaks in the yard, but I keep them trimmed way back away from the roof, so there’s no shade on the house in the middle of the day.
So my thoughts based on everyone’s helpful input:
Number one is that there is a lot of thermal mass. As Greg mentioned, in Summer it never gets cool at night (I don’t think we have seen anything below 79 since the beginning of May). For five months or so, that mass is probably always 10 degrees warmer than what Wx wants for the target inside temperature.
Since the house is elevated, I think that gives another vector for moisture to get in. The inspectors told me that the floor is well insulated, and there are no signs of mold; that said, I will be taking their word for that. I will NEVER be going into that confined crawl space; my shoulders won’t even fit through the access door. The idea of crawling on my back in a tight space surrounded by potentially venomous critters reminds me of another time in another geographical region. Nope.
The appliances are all Energy Star rated, but there are two refrigerators, a full-size upright freezer in the unconditioned garage, another smaller beverage fridge outside by the pool, washer, dryer, range, dishwasher, etc. They are all electric. Add in two 4-ton AC units, the pool pump, and the hot tub pump, and that’s a lot of amperage. The pool pump runs on a twice-daily schedule, and the HT pump just runs when we use it (3 or 4 times a week.)
I am curious about the ceiling fans’ electrical usage. We have five of them that are usually on. They could be a target for reasonable ROI if they are replaced. I’ll have to check the labels or put a current meter on them. Only one of them is new-ish; the others came with the house.
The lights are all LED, but Wx likes things bright, so there are always some on.
What am I missing?
@crawdaddy, electric heat and appliances? Electric hot water? Storage or on demand?
If the house is tight, do you have a mechanical heat recovery ventilator always running?
n
I have a small Hunter Original, 30 or 36 inch, oil bath and all, in the living room. It’s almost always running on low speed. I have a gifted to me fan in the bedroom, blowing down on low. On the front deck I have a Chinese Hunter from Home Depot or Lowes. All I recall of the specs is it uses 7 or 9 watts on low. It runs most of the time to keep birds and wasps out of the area. I think it uses 60 watts on high.
I don’t worry about turning lights on. Two bedrooms have the usual tow bulb fixtures. Cree 60 watt equivalent. Instead of using 120 watts, they use 20.
The tracks and recessed lights are all LED, 10 watts each which beats 65 or 75 watts each. Almost no heat.
Unless you are having trouble with the fan, don’t touch a Hunter Original predating – 24 years ago.
A new fan will not save you a meaningful amount of electricity, and the build quality of true Hunter Original is much better than anything “modern”.
If you insist, of the newer fans, the only one I like which moves air in a serious way is the Big Ass Fan Haiku, and even that has drawbacks.
Upright and breathing. An Oracle 11 to 19 upgrade for four instances that includes an operating system and server move is kicking my butt for the last umpteen weeks. Thought I had it then it blew up in my face.
Had to replace the roof over our front deck a year earlier than scheduled and were unable to save any of the original roof. It was made of 3×6 solid cedar tongue in groove. We thought it was a more modern sheathing style. Trusted skilled friend doing the work bit off more than he could chew and two days turned into two weeks and a couple thousand over budget. Fool didn’t fully math it out because it was easy. Been there, done that, got the pile of ashes, so I understand. Friendship intact.
The deck repair by normally trustworthy company is crap. The reused hardware, including the nails, and I’m hassling them to come back and do it right. Next big quake it’s going to be rack and ruin and I don’t have the strength or height (I tried, I tried).
So completely over half-done jobs by very expensive people.
I’ve picked up a couple extra on call shifts to refill our savings hit by the repairs.
New mayor has already thrown the cops under the bus after they killed a young adult for threatening family then cops with a knife. Guess she didn’t read the studies on knife lethality at which distances. Hilariously Fairbanks cops capitalized on her wicked ways by running a promotion to hire our cops away based on respect and trust. She mealy mouth apologized and damage controlled after that ad ran.
Last kits of the season were born this week. I’ll be down to my breeders by Halloween.
Going to New Zealand next year with family. Stumbled across cheap cheap cheap tickets, a super cheap airbnb. Gotta see family before they die off. And need to figure out how to make our urban menagerie easy for the house setter and not lethal to the livestock. I might set up winter quarters under an overhang in front yard. That’ll reduce effort which should increase quality of care while we are absent. Thinking.
Working on obtaining the paperwork for my citizenship by descent for myself. Doesn’t help my daughter or husband but I’ll be able to get dual nationality and NZ passport. No downside that I could find and get, two is one and one is none.
Haven’t kept up with anything but bare essentials this summer. Gotta make it slow down soon.
All ok. More frenetic than I like despite best efforts to rein in the chaos. I get a week break in September and I’m doing NOTHING hah!
Blue cello remains awesome. Participating in a recital in two weeks.
Go see “Deadpool & Wolverine”.
You will have to leave you daughter at home.
Even if you aren‘t a fan, the money line from the movie’s big surprise cameo is profound, not just about the state of Disney but American movies in general.
No big trips for us this year, but we have nosebleed seats for Sting and Billy Joel in San Antonio in October.
Next week is people watching at the big anime show in Texas, also in San Antonio.
San Antonio always includes a trip to Schilo’s, the city’s oldest and coolest restaurant.
Paragraph above from GN answers this question: https://www.youtube.com/live/ohWe9v3KsQQ
It isn’t one of Livingston’s lists, but how about books that shaped (described?) Silicon Valley:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/08/which-books-and-blogs-are-in-the-silicon-valley-canon.html
I think I have read about ¼.
As the commenters point out, some weird omissions.
Knuth. Chomksy.
And while the works are papers, not books, Metcalfe’s Ethernet description and McCarthy’s “Recursive Functions … (Part I)”.
There never was a Part II.
BillG wants to be Feynman, but he’d settle for Metcalfe, whom I imagine Gates also viewed as a poseur.
Barbara has had a heart attack, but she’s OK.
Oh, no! My prayers and best wishes go out to Barbara!
Seventeen out of the 43.
@Greg
Go see “Deadpool & Wolverine”.
It was really fun and whoa, yeah not for my daughter. Though I saw her age and younger watching. Yowzers. I learned some new descriptive phrases.
I don’t recall the surprise cameo but often miss stuff like that. It was raunchy fun and a nice break.
It is 100 F in my backyard at noon. So much for the forecast of 93 F. I thought that forecast was strange anyway.
@Greg
Oh!
We took her to the original Ghostbusters last week. She really enjoyed it, though was sensibly put off by Murrays hysterically overplayed lechery. Boys are gross still though I think she’s entering the phase where boys are intriguing and grossed out that she finds it so. Junior high is so darned awkward.
This weekend husband and I are seeing Rear Window. And soonush Mesn Girls the original is playing, she’s just the right age to be suitably horrified by the bad behavior.
@CowboyStu
Visiting Big Bear / San Diego in September, still up for a visit?
I had no idea that Leslie Uggams was Blind Al, the old woman rattling off the cocaine euphemism list, until the credits.
I don’t want to spoil the cameo, but, after all they’ve been through in life, that person showed up in shape and ready to play their character again after all these years. Instant respect … and then they drop the line.
Yes, indeed, there will only ever be one.
Go see “Twisters” too.
”Twisters” is fairly kid safe. If anything, the flick needed a sex scene even if off camera and implied.
PG-13. The storm scenes are intense and probably too much for pre-teen.
>> Newsom Expected to Sign Bill Approved by State Senate Committee to Allow 0 Down Home Loans for Illegal
Great comment on X…
Can one renounce citizenship, become an illegal , and then get on all them programs without leaving the house? (Asking for mi amigo.)
The Deadpool celebrity guest was most welcome. The Googles will tell you who. The trilogy by the guest is one of my faves.
YES!!!
I used the phrase “make your girl bits go all squishy” last night to horrify my two teens… there was much wailing and pretend vomiting…. fingers in ears, and “NNNNNNNOOOOOOOO”
n
(the discussion was about the nature of love, and how to know you are really in love, and the gross out was part of the things that by themselves aren’t love…)
Got the tenant’s A/C working again. Airflow in the house was reduced by a completely blocked filter, and both caps were bad in the condenser unit. $25 later, and about 10 minutes of hands on work, change the filter, and the house was cooling down again.
—
Picked up the trailer, adjusted the return time to Monday, and hit one storage unit and my secondary location. Came home for lunch and to cool down. It is 100F in the shade and much hotter in the sun.
Time now to head out to the other unit that has most of my stuff for this hobby show. Then home, unhook and go shopping for refreshing drinks…
n
This weekend husband and I are seeing Rear Window. And soonush Mesn Girls the original is playing, she’s just the right age to be suitably horrified by the bad behavior.
Even I like and was appalled by the ‘Mean Girls” movie that my wife and daughter love. The original “Mean Girls” movie with Lyndsey Lohan.
The wife and I watched Ghostbusters III (Afterlife, $3.99 on Prime) and IV (Frozen Empire, Netflix) last weekend. Recommended.
BTW, the young girl, Mckenna Grace, on III and IV wears bulky clothing since she is wearing a full length back brace due to her scoliosis. She had corrective back surgery between the movies to restore her back leanover from 45 degrees to 6 degrees. Not good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mckenna_Grace#Personal_life
I used the phrase “make your girl bits go all squishy” last night to horrify my two teens… there was much wailing and pretend vomiting…. fingers in ears, and “NNNNNNNOOOOOOOO”
n
(the discussion was about the nature of love, and how to know you are really in love, and the gross out was part of the things that by themselves aren’t love…)
You are a much braver man than me.
Got the tenant’s A/C working again. Airflow in the house was reduced by a completely blocked filter, and both caps were bad in the condenser unit. $25 later, and about 10 minutes of hands on work, change the filter, and the house was cooling down again.
Why can’t people replace their own dadgum filters ?
Caps in the condenser unit ?
I was doing technical support for a test driver in Abu Dhabi last night at 3 am. When English is your second or fourth language, they tend not to read the instructions on our website and just click on anything and everything. But, I got them going after a while.
“The Bonds of Eternity (Perry Rhodan #69)” by Clark Darlton
https://www.amazon.com/Bonds-Eternity-Perry-Rhodan-69/dp/4416601530?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number sixty-nine of a series of one hundred and thirty-six space opera books in English. The original German books, actually pamphlets, number in the thousands. The English books started with two translated German stories per book translated by Wendayne Ackerman and transitioned
to one story per book with the sixth book. And then they transition back to two stories in book #109/110. The Ace publisher dropped out at #118, so Forrest and Wendayne Ackerman published books #119 to #136 in pamphlets before stopping in 1978. The German books were written from
1961 to present time, having sold two billion copies and even recently been rebooted again. I read the well printed and well bound book published by Ace in 1975 that I had to be very careful with due to age. I bought an almost complete box of Perry Rhodans a decade or two ago on ebay that I am finally getting to since I lost my original Perry Rhodans in The Great Flood of 1989. In fact, I now own book #1 to book #106, plus the Atlan books, and some of the Lemuria books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan
BTW, this is actually book number 77 of the German pamphlets written in 1963. There is a very good explanation of the plot in German on the Perrypedia German website of all of the PR books. There is automatic Google translation available for English, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese,
French, and Portuguese.
https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/In_den_Fesseln_der_Ewigkeit
In this alternate universe, USSF Major Perry Rhodan and his three fellow astronauts blasted off in a three stage rocket to the Moon in 1971. The first stage of the rocket was chemical, the second and third stages were nuclear. After crashing on the Moon due to a strange radio interference, they discover a massive crashed alien spaceship with an aged male scientist (Khrest), a female commander (Thora), and a crew of 500. It has been over seventy years since then and the Solar Empire has flourished with tens of millions of people and many spaceships headquartered in the Gobi desert, the city of Terrania. Perry Rhodan has been elected by the people of Earth to be the World Administrator and keep them from being taken over by the robot administrator of Arkon.
Atlan, Perry Rhodan, Reginald Bell, Pucky, and a crew take the Drusus, a 1,500 meter (one mile) diameter Titan spaceship, into the Druuf star system again. A fleet of thousands of robot space ships from Arkon is there trying to keep the Druufs from leaving their planet. And a long lost mutant is trying to contact Perry Rhodan. Perry Rhodan finally answers the continuous contact from the Robot Regent of Arkon to discuss strategy to defeat the Druufs.
BTW, there is a two part serial of the marriage of Perry Rhodan and Thora of Arkon ended in this issue. This short story was written by Clark Darlton specifically for the English book series but, written in German so it had to be translated also by Wendy Ackerman. And Clark Darlton wrote the short story in the Ackerman’s house in Los Angeles on a German typewriter.
Two observations:
1. Forrest Ackerman should have put two or three of the translated stories in each book. Having two stories in the first five books worked out well. Just having one story in the book is too short and would never allow the translated books to catch up to the German originals.
2. Anyone liking Perry Rhodan and wanting a more up to date story should read the totally awesome “Mutineer’s Moon” Dahak series of three books by David Weber.
https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856?tag=ttgnet-20/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 0 out of 5 stars (0 reviews)
Lynn
“Supreme Court Strikes a Blow to Illegal Aliens Registering to Vote”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2024/08/22/supreme-court-hands-arizona-a-win-on-voter-fraud-prevention-n2643792
“The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a new Arizona law — which requires individuals to provide proof of citizenship in order to register to vote — can go into effect immediately. ”
Good.
My truck is showing 103 F right now. You have got to be kidding me.
“Peddling Fake Racism”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l8X4R6fycc
Ah, politics in Fort Bend County means that you find somebody not on Facecrack, impersonate them and call yourself racist names.
And then when you get caught and arrested for identity theft, scream that you are being targeted.
107f here. It was 80f when I got out of bed this morning about 6:30. I walked the dogs, fed the cats, had a cup of coffee. Put some trash in the truck and hauled of over to a fiends place. I checked his mail and drove to his house. I didn’t go in. I didn’t see water running out of the door, so, cool. By 8:30 it was 86f.
It’s Summer. In a few months we’ll be complaining about the cold.
“cellular shades”. That’s the name. Thanks for the link.
“Target CEO Shreds Kamala Harris’ Claim That Retailers Are ‘Price Gouging’”
https://slaynews.com/news/target-ceo-shreds-kamala-harris-claim-retailers-price-gouging/
““We’re celebrating this morning, the fact that we delivered a margin rate of over 6%,” he said.”
““You talk to other CEOs who are delivering up income of 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%,” he continued.”
““So we’re in a penny business.””
““It is a penny business, and it’s a very competitive space, and we provide the value consumers are looking for,” he added.”
Sean Hannity keeps on playing the sound clip of Kamala saying “price gauging” instead of “price gouging”. I’ll bet that she has not been in a grocery store in decades.
I just measured. My Hunter is 39 inches. I did a good job balancing it, it doesn’t wobble at any speed. It’s not electrically reversible. You push the blades toward the motor and change the pitch.
It’s been here since ‘93 after a few years at the old house in Austin. I did top up the oil when I installed it here. Things slosh around…. I checked it about five years ago and it’s still full of clean looking oil.
Buddy is getting a bit antsy. Time for a walk. Then a cookie for both. They’ll get supper around 6:30 and bedtime walk a couple of hours later. We have a routine going on. It’s not exciting. Just kind of mellow.
Wasn’t it Shrub’s Dad that was amazed at scanners in the grocery store? Way back in ’83 or so. Like he ever did the grocery shopping.
If she went in a store on the West Coast, it was most likely a Safeway chain, Whole Foods, or Trader Joe’s.
The unionized stores in CA, WA, and OR put the “gross” in groceries. The lefties forget that Trader Joe’s is fiercely anti-union.
I believe the bullseye is on Publix with the threats of price controls over “gauging”.
Matt Gaetz will run for FL Governor with Publix’ help. My guess is that The Witch will be his running mate whether or not she keeps her House seat.
Maybe 87 or 88 when the elder Bush ran for President.
Possibly 92.
He was touring … NCR … ? … back when that company was still a big deal, and the context of the video was a demo of the scanner reading a torn label.
The breeding with pinhead socialites didn’t really start to affect the family until Jeb!/Shrub’s generation
George P. (Diddly) Bush, four generations in, should never become Governor of Texas, but I wouldn’t put it past the “Republicans” and the family’s supporter cabal to try it.
Don’t let the kid see “Caddyshack” until she’s much older. Like 40.
Murray’s “Monkey Woman” bit still irritates my wife.
To be fair, Murray improvised everything in the old days and it was up to his directors to decide what to use.
The genius of Bill Murray. This was the first movie scene he ever filmed, 100% improvised, and the legend is that the outfit is what he wore riding his motorcycle up to Canada to the set from New York that morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-UdwBkXJBI
The studio blinked with “Frozen Empire”.
The shame of it was that Dan Aykroyd obviously came ready to play.
I have “The Great Outdoors” in my movie backlog on my Kindle Fire. There is a reference to that flick that I know I’m missing with the selection of that house as the Rikers’ home in the first season of “Picard”.
The characters ripped on the house in the third season once they realized they both hated it.
“Retro prairie hipsters”.
That reminds me – I need to have the big tree in front of our house trimmed before a winter storm dumps an inch of ice on the branches.
In the 2021 freeze, we didn’t leave the house for a couple of days, and, with all of the cars blocked in the garage by the drooping tree limbs, I had to pry my 22 year old Toyota’s door open on the passenger side in order to get into the car when we finally decided to get out.
Hecho en Canada. The car started without any hesitation and got warm fast.
@Lynn – If your wife has not seen season three of “Picard”, it is a must watch for any “Deep Space Nine” fan.
Toss in the “Hear All, Trust Nothing” episode of “Lower Decks” if you’re streaming on Paramount Plus.
@Greg
genius of Bill Murray
The man is absolutely remarkable. I’d never seen that clip before. So inappropriate. So hilarious.
We were in the last tour group at Taliesin in November, and we had two wannabe Retro Prairie Hipsters in the group.
They were also at House On The Rock when we stopped the next day.
I suppose I’m not your typical fan. Not even close, really..
I watched Star Trek, TOS, when it originally aired in Junior High School.
I was part of the letter writing campaign that gave us an additional season.
I hated the first movie, and didn’t watch any others until the one with the whales in it. The Voyage Home? Wife dragged me to it, because she was desparate for a date night and thought it would appeal to me.
Never watched another one.
I watched the first episode of TNG, and decided it was trash, and worthless, and only caught the occasional odd couple of minutes of other episodes while changing stations. I’m also not a fan of Patrick Stewart. He’s ok; his Scrooge is my girlfriend’s favorite, and my 4th favorite, after Scott, Owen, and Caine, but ahead of Murray, Sim, and Hicks.
Basically, while there are arguments that the follow-on productions may have been improvements, in my mind they were really derivative and superfluous.
Same thing, really, with Star Wars. Loved the first movie, 2nd was just ok, never watched all of the third or any of the derivatives.
The good thing about this attitude is that my heart remains unbroken. None of the compromises nor wokeness or changes to canon affects me in any way. The original Art stands alone.
Far West San Antonio. My truck was showing 118 at 5:30 PM. I should have worn my Nomex gloves; the steering wheel was almost painful to touch.
Far West San Antonio. My truck was showing 118 at 5:30 PM. I should have worn my Nomex gloves; the steering wheel was almost painful to touch.
Wow ! The most I ever saw working for three years in West Texas in Colorado City was 115 F. Just stroll into some shade and it feels like 85 F, there was no moisture in the air, maybe 10% humidity at most.
We got about a ¼ inch of rain at 5pm. Made our 730pm walk almost tolerable at 89 F and 100% humidity (maybe some exaggeration there).
“Fast-Food Restaurants Fight to Keep Customers as Food and Wage Costs Spike”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/business/fast-food-restaurants-fight-to-keep-customers-as-food-and-wage-costs-spike-5709243?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=TheLibertyDaily
“‘Restaurant owners are really stuck between a rock and hard place,’ says economist Thomas Savidge.”
“It has become more expensive to eat out over the past five years, with food away from home increasing by 30 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In just the past year, the cost of eating at a fast-food restaurant has increased by more than that of a full-service restaurant.”
I am seeing more like a 50% increase, especially at Chik-fil-a.
I ate brunch at In-n-Out: 2 double-doubles protein style, no spread, and a diet coke. Nearly carb free.
$13.96
But I do occasionally like food that someone else cooks for me.
Next time, I’ll try Puppy Patties instead. A little cheaper, and I’ll get 6 to make up for the missing cheese, lettuce, and tomato.
Next time will be at least a month away.
That doesn’t seem to slow them down here in North Austin.
The Dutch Bros. up on the corner which I noted yesterday will be fast food franchise #5 on that corner to either open or start construction within the last year.
I paid almost $9 for a standard sandwich and large drink the last time I stopped there.
The food service at work on the first floor of the building closed for the last two weeks citing a mysterious “mechanical issue”.
I think they were conducting a trial run to see how many people would complain.
Many did. Food service reopens Tuesday.
@lpdbw
I missed a few of the original series in first run, and didn’t get them all filled in until college. Script quality varied, and there were some that the cast could not salvage. Heinlein might have called them “stinkeroos”.
I skipped the first movie after multiple negative word-of-mouth comments. It’s amazing that Gene was able to recover. II and III you should watch–they are as timeless as the best of the original series. IV was 80’s eco-silliness. Personal opinion is the V would have been better but if Shatner had been beloved like Nimoy.
STNG was an amazing production mining years of pent-up demand. The OS had no special effects budget left after the transporter dissolves, but it holds up extremely well, NG had the budget, and the effects are, IMO, the all-time sweet-spot before CGI got so cheap that “awesome” was supposed to carry the show over bad scripts and bad acting.
Much of STNG was done as story arcs, some spanning the entire series (“Q”). There are some notable one-off episodes that are well-worth watching–the third-year “The Survivors” is a personal favorite purely for guest appearance of the instantly recognizable John Anderson and the ending.
I read Alan Dean Foster’s novelization before the movie came out. I figured that if he couldn’t save the story it wasn’t worth watching. When I watched it years later it confirmed my opinion. It survived as the only game in town for hungry science fiction cinema fans. I watched 2-4, but 4 was it.
Having novels written in the ST and SW universes by experienced and upcoming authors was brilliant marketing, even if the product was reliably bland, even from the best.
Got the trailer loaded. I’ve got one more bin with the expensive stuff in it, that will go in in the morning. I’ll stop for ice and donuts on the way in.
IT WAS HOT. MAN O MAN.
No air at all in the back of the storage unit. Sweat soaked me to the skin.
Found some stuff I was looking for though, so that is good.
Last things on the list… I’ve got to turn on the ppt lappy and let it update if needed. And I’ve got some decorative lamps charging, that I’ll have to remember. I might even get to bed at a decent time.
——–
Wife and kids will be going to the BOL today for a last “girls weekend” with some of D1’s friends invited. It’ll be the first show that I didn’t have D2 to booth bunny for me… I’ll miss having her there.
Now to wrap up and shower…
n
I worked for a company that was proud of their cafeterias staffed by company employees. The food was very good. The typical lunch routine was a 2-3 minute walk with a couple co-workers to the cafeteria, take your tray to a table that held 8 or so, usually joining some already there from the same department, with the group changing as people came and went. 30 minutes total was leisurely.
The bean counters came in and the cafeterias were contracted to Aramark. Food quality down, prices up. A lot more people left for local options. 2-3 people in a car, go to fast food, no one there you recognized. at 10 minutes out and 10 minutes back, plus parking, longer queue, etc, lunch was now 55-60 minutes and not leisurely. The company effectively lost 25-30 minutes per day.
When the patronage didn’t meet projections, Aramark complained. Company might have gotten away with putting the screws on refrigerators used to lunch and soda, but they made the mistake of trying to do away with coffee pots. Hard no. Stupids never comprehended that taking another 2-3 times 10 minutes out of the day to “let’s go get coffee” might not be a good thing. They dodged that bullet.
The oil company cafeterias in Aberdeen and Stavenger were both really good. Lots of people eating there. Their cafeteria in the Houston office was ok, and the price was ok too. The move to Aramark or the other one is not a good thing for diners. They just don’t care.
n
The oil company cafeterias in Aberdeen and Stavenger were both really good. Lots of people eating there. Their cafeteria in the Houston office was ok, and the price was ok too. The move to Aramark or the other one is not a good thing for diners. They just don’t care.
Aramark can screw up a hot dog.
Company cafeterias; in California, Roseville HP’s cafeteria was outstanding. I was an occasional contractor there, and at the Intel plant a few miles away. The Folsom Intel facility’s cafeteria was nearly as good. That was in the mid-90’s. Then after 2000, I had to get a “real job”.
The Last Truth of the Day:
“Maxwell House coffee brewed weakly and served from an urn in a church foyer has more flavor than Starbucks Blonde.”
Emergency Backup
FoodOvernight Thread – August 22,2024—Buck Throckmorton
AoSHQ
NB: Other blondes may have more flavor, and research continues…
“FreeBSD considers Rust in the base system [LWN.net]”
https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/985210/f3c3beb9ef9c550e/
“Unlike Linux, the FreeBSD operating system kernel and user space are developed together as the base system, maintained in the FreeBSD source tree (often referred to as “src”). This means, for the purposes of discussing using Rust as a language for the FreeBSD kernel or other programs/utilities in the base system, the Rust toolchain would need to be present in base as well. Currently, the languages supported for FreeBSD’s base system are assembly, C, C++, Lua, and shell scripts written for sh. In the distant past, Perl was also part of the base system, but was removed in 2002 prior to FreeBSD 5.0.”
Interesting. My web server runs FreeBSD. FreeBSD has been ported all over the place to many platforms.
Hat tip to:
https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1ewpkes/freebsd_considers_rust_in_the_base_system_lwnnet/
Managing Corp RE is a thankless job. The best result is to have everyone equally unhappy with you. Sometimes the alternative is a dead-end position in “the sticks.”
@crawdaddy: Thanks for the detailed information. I expect the main issue is that the house was built in the 1960s, plus it is quite a large house. Insulation standards were a lot lower then. Even if your attic has since had more insulation added, I expect the walls have little or none, and the floor only a minimal amount by modern standards.
Unfortunately, retrofitting insulation can be difficult to impossible, so there’s probably not a lot to be done. Still, it might be worth asking a professional to have a look. Not a contractor who is looking for a contract, but a neutral advisor. Here, at least, the government maintains a list of “energy experts” for exactly that purpose.
@Jenny: Good to hear from you! Either I missed your posts, or you’ve been to busy to post.
Not in the cinemas – I’m all done with that unpleasantness. I plan to try to buy it, when the cinema run is done in a couple of months. Buying legally likely won’t work, because of stupid games with regions. If it doesn’t, well, Ahoy Matey!
The first movie really was awful. The movies had some sort of weird pattern, though: all the even-numbered movies were good: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. The odd-numbered ones tended to be off. The final handover movie (“Generations”???) with both Kirk and Picard was also good.
I watched some of STNG, but Crusher and Wesley were horrible characters, and they were central to way too many episodes.
I made it through the first season of Picard, but it took some effort. I guess I’m just not into TV series any more. Packing a story into 45 minutes, with embedded cliff hangers to allow for commercial breaks – it’s just too artificial.