Cold today, at least to start. 44F when I went to bed. Never got very warm yesterday either. Rain shell jacket and a long sleeve T with a dress shirt over it kept me comfortable. It stayed clear and sunny too. More of that would be nice for today.
Did my driving around an got my pickups done. Picked up another kayak, it was only $40 so I couldn’t really say no. Smaller and lighter than some of my others, it should be easier to manage. It’s a little beat up, but a plastic kayak is pretty sturdy and near indestructible.
Since one pickup was near the store I stopped in at Deseret Industries, the LDS thrift store. Quality stuff. If there is one near you, it’s worth going by regularly. This time I picked up a novel rat trap that should be good for a couple kills before they figure it out. I got a couple of technical books, and one for the kid. Found a netgear firewall/vpn router for the BOL. Found some great T shirts for myself and for the kid. They don’t really have any cr@p, they send any that is donated to the dump or recycle or other thrifts. And prices are very low, even by thrift store standards.
Stopped in at an in person estate sale on my way home, hoping for some vinyl or audiophile gear, but it had all sold. The home was almost empty and it was a one day sale, so the prices were really good. They had a couple of nice watches left, a beautifully sleek Longines dress watch and a Seiko Kinetic diver with a pepsi bezel, but there was no way they’d fit my thick wrists, and there was about zero chance I’d find the extra links for the bracelets…and the Seiko was filthy. At ‘end of day’ 50% off they were a good price, so way overpriced earlier. Still too much for me if I couldn’t wear them. Funny that the watches would be so overpriced while the rest of the house was priced to move. And the family must have kept the turntable and amp, because only the giant speakers were for sale.
I miss going to in person estate sales. Online is easier, but there are usually hidden gems at the in person sales.
D2 had a babysitting job, so we STILL haven’t set up the Christmas tree. That will definitely happen today. AFAIK, we are all home, all day. Time to get caught up on family stuff.
So the only stacking I’ll be doing today is putting away stuff I picked up this week. It’s still progress…
Stack something of your own.
nick
Not this guy.
https://www.sherwoodforestfaire.com/
I give it 50-50 that he was the snowflake whose complaint over my use of the f-word twice resulted in me being fired from the tolling company.
You would think he heard that a time or two out at the “Faire” or at his previous job at NI.
The insult was not even directed at him or anyone else in particular, but the bosses wanted something to get rid of me. The HR investigation did not uncover the Me Too issue they really wanted.
Yeah, that will be a really short book compared to the managers at that place.
Fortunately, given the circumstances, using the F-word twice even though it was against stated policy is not grounds for termination in the State of Texas. I was awarded $2700 in back unemployment by TWC after they ruled the termination as “failed to defend”, and the case file number is my permanent Get Out Of Jail Free card covering a lack of management references out of that place.
And, yes, my current employer knows everything.
39 F and partly cloudy here on the west side of the Brazos River. Both varmints have been out twice and declared it to be too cold for man or beast. I gave them both treats to break their fast
I put a fire (electric) in the coffee maker and threw my remaining corn fritter in the microwave (more electric fire). No Bible class at church today and next Sunday, just worship.
Coffee is good. Even cut it a little so it would pour.
Blood pressure is high (138/77 @ 51) so taking a second blood pressure pill this morning. This happens weekly lately.
Research the model and make sure it is still maintained with firmware releases.
Don’t trust it for duty as an IPv6 firewall if the router is not maintained.
Even protection via IPv4 NAT could be iffy on an unmaintained device, especially if the GUI includes a checkbox for the “IPSec Passthru”.
“IPSec Passthru” was never standard and even convention within the manufacturer would vary.
I’ve got both natural gas fired (real fire) heating systems going in the house. 68 F in the kitchen and 66 F in our bedroom. Modern life is so convenient !
We have a ceramic Christmas tree setup on the dining room table. That is all we get anymore. It has a battery (more electric fire) operated Santa that goes around it with lights. It is only 18 inches tall.
I was Bad Daddy yesterday after insisting that the streaming media and books stop in the house to decorate the bare tree after I pulled all of the paraphernalia out of the attic.
This led to an all day display of anger culminating in a second child car accident with significant property damage in less than six months.
The child T-boned a RAM 1500 while turning left out of a shopping center parking lot without paying attention, still angry at Bad Daddy who was sitting in the back seat. The truck was turning left into the lot.
I estimate $10k damage to the truck. Easy.
I’m praying the child didn’t bend the frame.
Our vehicle is probably not totalled, but I don’t have collision on the kids cars.
BTW, the truck driver No Habla, Guatemalan passport as ID, with Loya Insurance. That doesn’t eliminate the responsibility for the property damage, but we’ll see how quickly he files the claim.
I thought Texas DPS required a drivers license after 30 days.
I doubt the other driver was illegal. He tried to get APD to respond for a report to no avail. The child lucked out in that she would have received the ticket had the police rolled.
It is all Bad Daddy’s fault.
TN lost to Ohio. I am not surprised. TN has been highly overrated this year. Many of the teams they beat would struggle against a north Texas high school team. Beating a high school homecoming opponent team is not something to get excited about.
There may be some black ice on I-75 south from all the tears of the VOL fans and the cold weather.
Ouch.
Stating her grievances with admirable succinctness, Broccoli said: “These people are f***ing idiots.”
https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2024/12/21/will-this-be-the-end-of-bond-james-bond-n4935348
I’ve long believed in Pournelle’s Cultural Weapons of Mass Destruction theory and that dropping nuclear weapons on the suburbs of American cities in the 80s would have done less cultural damage than basic cable.
Lately, I’ve started to wonder if the impact of streaming will be far worse. Most of what is out there, even on “quality” services like Netflix is just cr*p which kids spend endless hours “binging”.
The anime is really disturbing and something I regret letting into the house with the kids underage.
Yesterday, I had to bite my tongue while in the local Japanese book store, when a 9-to-10 year old (guessing) was trying to sell his mother on using his allowance for “Dandadan” manga (an anime series also exists).
The mother, a little younger than me, heard the kid’s description of the book being about “kids investigating aliens and ghosts” and agreed to the purchase.
The kid neglected to mention the aliens on “Dandadan” being obsessed with stealing one child character’s “banana organ” after harvesting same character’s testicles.
And that’s just what I’ve picked up via osmosis walking through the room when my kids had the anime running.
Both 18+ BTW, but I’ll admit that I never really paid attention when they watched the cr*p underage.
Boo hoo hoo. The Broccoli’s let “Fleabag” co-write the script for the last movie which emasculated the character before killing him off so their credibility is shot as far as preserving the series leagacy is concerned.
The only film the Broccoli’s got right with the Daniel Craig era was “Skyfall”.
They botched using Christph Walz in the follow up film, the man born to play the modern Bond villain.
Of all the “Legend of” tech billionares, Bezos is the one most likely to go full “Bond villian” megalomaniacal IMHO. Yeah, Gates is dabbling with buying a nuclear reactor making the “You Only Move Twce” episode of “The Simpsons” remarkably prescient, but BillG wants to be Richard Feynman, not Earnst Blofeld.
Gates’ needle fetish is just a hobby.
The clip supporting my point about Christoph Waltz being the actor born to play a modern Bond villan. The Oscar race was over after the first reel of “Inglorious Basterds”, but this is the clip which really drives it home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT2VWEC3IUE
“Inglorious Basterds” is a tough watch, but that is an amazing flick.
Yeah, revisionist history.
After talking with his family, there will be a massive claim for bodily injury including loss of relations with his 18 wives, inability to play with (what he thinks are) his kids, probably no longer able to work. Look for a demand for a multi-thousand dollar settlement demand.
It has happened to me. Wife bumped a guy, scratch on his bumper, $700 to replace the bumper on the van. I get a letter from a lawyer demanding $25K because the driver of the other vehicle is horribly injured. The lawyer said I had to pay immediately or he would issue a warrant for my arrest.
I wrote the lawyer back and told him to pound sand. In so many word I told the lawyer that courts issue penalties, not lawyers. Additionally only a judge can issue a warrant, not lawyers. If you, as a lawyer, are that stupid, you should not be a lawyer. I told him to contact the insurance company and any further contact with me and I would have charges pressed for harassment. I never heard back.
I did find out the lawyer asked for $150K from the insurance company and they also told him to pound sand. If he did not like it, take them to court. And they (the insurance company), had very good, expensive lawyers. And when he lost the case the insurance would seek reimbursement for their legal fees.
All the insurance paid was $2K for physical therapy. Which in my mind was way too much but it prevented the other driver from filing further claims.
We had not only the longest night of the year but a cold front coming through. The heat light in the chicken coop wasn’t enough to keep it warm; thermometer was showing 21F while the outside temp was just over 0F. Supposed to be colder tonight. Today I’m going to find more material to insulate the coop, mainly to set up a wind break. I’ll throw more straw into the “floor” tray but it probably won’t accomplish much. Whenever I put fresh straw or wood chips in, the “girl boss” hen walks up the ladder, looks into the coop, and then starts kicking the fresh straw out the door.
On the plus side, the birds all seem to have survived the cold. They came right out to eat and drink (heated water tank; works fine so long as it’s kept out of the wind), wandered around a bit, then mostly went back up to the comparatively warm coop.
Texas survived, but I believe that they are overrated.
Setting aside the victories over patsy teams, beating Clemson was only win #8 for “Seven Wins Steve”, the Coach’s nickname when he ran the program at University of Washington when we lived up there.
The TV bowl game to watch will be “Coach Prime Conquers the Mormons”.
No playoff consideration for CU, but “Coach Prime” has the 2024 Heisman winner and a quarterback, Prime Jr., expected to go early in the first round of the NFL draft.
Developing a pro-level quarterback who will draft high and have a solid career in the NFL isn’t easy. Just ask Jimbo.
The NCAA establishment still hasn’t forgiven Sanders for not knowing his place as a patsy and beating TCU last year, putting that program into a slump from which they have yet to recover in Fort Worth.
He spent ten minutes on the phone trying to get Austin PD to roll a vehicle out to file the report. He seemed pretty coherent to me listening from a distance even though I don’t Si Habla.
The other driver even changed his shoes right in front of me. He may have been driving barefoot but had Puma slides on when he got out of the truck.
The insurance caps out fairly low. The only accessible assets to go after at our house would be my stocks and mutual funds outside of the 401(k), which wouldn’t even begin to touch the bills for one of the ambulance chasers who advertise on TV.
Texas law protects the house and retirement plan holdings which are most of our net worth.
Still looking for an affordable 360-degree dash cam that can actually capture license plates.