Cool and wet in Houston today, maybe with some breeze? Who knows, I’m just guessing anyway. It did end up nice at the BOL, with clearing later and moderate temps. Sunset was nice and the sky was black when I left.
I didn’t get a full day of work in, but I did button up a couple of things and poison the fire ant mounds. That’s a constant task, and usually the last one I do before leaving. I don’t want the dog or kids getting in the poison.
Spent some time talking with one of my neighbors up there. He’s just getting into prepping. He told me about suddenly realizing he needed some longer term food stored, and that he bought some. Canned meat, mostly spam and vienna sausages… We talked about it, and I gave him some stuff to think about, describing my “one month of cans in each milk crate and buckets of rice” system. He’s started getting some solar together, some water purification and storage, and he’s thinking about it. One more person prepping is one less victim or marauder…
I didn’t “out” myself, but he is getting the idea I am already a prepper…
Unfortunately, while showing him the charge controller for wind systems that I took up there this week, we noticed the distinctive smell of burnt electronics. Someone probably burnt up the controller, then returned it. Amazon returns fraud bites my @ss. I will open it up and take a look, but the burnt pixie smell is pungent. I’m no closer to getting a wind system set up than I was.
I did get the LaCrosse weather station set up. I even got it online. I haven’t tried looking at it from home, or tying it to Weather Underground yet, but I will. It’s supposed to do it, so we’ll see. That will give us another thing to monitor the BOL. Next is cameras…
There is a list, and it gets longer every visit.
But I am working on improving our situation. And I’m stacking.
As this year closes, take a bit of time to evaluate where you are, where you would like to be, and how you might get there.
And then stack!
nick
Indeed it does. In my case, twice bitten, third time shy. The first was an airbed with a leak, the second an air compressor that had been mis-assembled, damaged thereby and returned.
In fairness, I could retrieve the latter to proper function, and big river refunded the former, so no harm done, but now I know if it looks too good to be true, it is…
A very happy and festive feast of Saint Sylvester to you all.
Off now to take a cable car up a snowy mountain. I don’t like heights, but W wants to enjoy the view, so needs must.
Just to add, many thanks for all the support for our friend who is on the operating table this morning.
The active ingredient in Amdro is a hormone which messes with fire ant reproduction.
In theory, Amdro is harmless to kids and pets, but I imagine the animal would have an upset stomach if he ate a bunch of it off of a mound.
Today’s Tyler Durden cowardice covers part of the legacy of Governor Kirkland Brand in WA State.
Governor Jay Inslee’s tenure ends today at Midnight. Twelve years, but WA State hasn’t seen a Republican Governor in 40 years.
Inslee was elected as Costco’s chore boy for liquor deregulation. Once accomplished – Costco’s lobbyists wrote the new rules for hard booze distribution — they really didn’t care what he did with the rest of his time.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/64-trans-child-molester-sexually-abused-female-cellmate-washington-prison-suit
Evergreen State. That’s all I needed to know about the prison official.
UPDATE: Inslee’s term extends another couple of weeks into 2025.
The rumor is that he will move to Idaho.
I have only a limited experience of WordPress. I have a wordpress.com site to support information sharing for a casual sports group I am involved with.
My brother is active in a local community organisation which has the usual problems of aging officers and access to low cost (zero?) IT skills. Their web site is based on WordPress, so he has increased his awareness of WordPress web site operation to help resolve varied support issues they have been experiencing.
He has recently therefore decided he would like to gain more non-disruptive experience with managing a WordPress site, so approached me, as I have an active hosting service contract, able to support multiple domains.
Through ‘WP Toolkit’ I attempted to install wordpress into a subdomain, which generated installation errors. I noted I also had access to ‘Softaculous’ another installation tool. I therefore retried using the Softaculous dialogue and successfully installed (I think) an operational WordPress site for my brother to experiment with. We will see where that take him. I have advised him that he is largely on his own on this one!
WTAF?
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/12/31/calling-pete-hegseth-n3798364
Fire a
The rot is deep.
Time to pay attention again.
n
Sunny and blue sky with some breeze. Haven’t looked at the thermometer yet, but it looks nice out.
Had a good sleep, vivid dreams, but not disturbing- which was a nice change.
Have a cup of joe in front of me, and a wedge of coffee cake inside of me and I’m slowly moving toward sentience…
n
@p-t-m,
WP is easy, but also hard. Like switching between apple and windows products, stuff is obvious or it’s really NOT. And there are many choices for add ons, templates, stores, galleries, etc. that can overwhelm you. I found many things to be extremely frustrating. Some come from my existing expectations of how to do things, some come from the history of WP, some are just because the person who did it had never done it before and made bad choices…
A lot seems to happen in the background, and since the complex thing is working, by some unknown miracle, and I don’t REALLY know why, I am loath to mess with parts of it.
I feel like a savage, poking a machine with a stick. I found the spot to poke that makes it do something (the on button) and the spot that makes it stop (the off button) so it LOOKS like I know how to control the machine, but really? I’m just poking the monster with a stick.
It’s cool that all this power can be embedded in something that I can treat as a black box, and yet, for someone that came up knowing the inner workings of computers, it’s scary at the same time.
n
And searching for help is difficult as the results are for all versions, over a decade, and there have been BIG changes in WP over time.
Our friend survived the surgery, which turned out to be much longer and more extensive than anticipated, meaning that the malignancy was larger or had spread more than expected. Not great news, but still less bad than might have been.
It sounds like the start to a hard path to recovery. Thanks for the continuing prayers and good wishes.
Oh, and I forgot the whole thing about there not being any working fridges or freezers anywhere, because reasons… Freaking chest freezer runs for decades and sips power, and people have and use solar panels and even generators, so why not freezers?
Yesterday’s freezers used piston operated compressors. Not very efficient but very hardy. They can take the pressure surges from frequent power outages easily.
Today’s freezers use centrigal compressors. The seals are easily bent or ripped off by a pressure surge from a power outage. The large systems (1,000 hp) have pressure event detection and power shutoff. The small ½ hp units, not so much. A rolling power outage, on off on off on off on off on off, can kill one of these compressors.
Pick your poison, efficiency or hardiness. The federal government has mandated efficiency. Good luck with that.
Tonight I will attend church services at Our Lady of the Dauber. That’s the NYE Bingo Extravaganza at the Green Valley Ranch Resort and Casino. Beenie Weenie hors d’oeuvres included.
May Lady Luck shine her light down on you and bathe you in her neon magnificence!
n
and munificence!
n
If I was a REAL prepping blogger, I’d be inventorying my stacks tonight, or loading mags, or sitting in a sniper hide with my NODS and scanner waiting for the rioting to start….
We’ll probably clean house and maybe watch a stream of the ball drop with the kids. Once I’ve been assured that no one has walked mortars into Time Square, I can go to sleep.
n
Showered, shaved, trimmed the facial hair, cut my hair… all cleaned up for the big night…. of sitting on the couch.
n
Showered, shaved, trimmed the facial hair, cut my hair… all cleaned up for the big night…. of sitting on the couch.
I am working at the office …
I didn’t get a full day of work in, but I did button up a couple of things and poison the fire ant mounds. That’s a constant task, and usually the last one I do before leaving. I don’t want the dog or kids getting in the poison.
I have given on treating the fire ants at the 14 acre office complex unless they are coming in the buildings. My well house has six inches of fire ant dirt inside of it that I need to shovel out some day.
At home, I am thinking about investing in Amdro stock. I chase the fire ants all over the 1.2 acres.
I am currently fighting the fire ants in my master bathroom. There is a wood shelf projecting five feet into my bathroom and they have tunneled through it. It was fun showering with fire ants. I responded by spraying ant / roach killer into 20+ brick weepholes and I may have gotten them. But now my master bathroom smells like ant killer.
My main business got our third IRS ERC refund check for 2020 yesterday. The IRS sat on our application for a year and then suddenly decided to go ahead and pay us. Now I have to get the business’s tax return for 2020 amended by my CPA then the shareholders have to amend their 2020 tax returns. Nothing is free !
“China is Showing Off New Military Capabilities in Time for Trump Inauguration”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/china-is-showing-new-military-capabilities-time-trump/
That is a big aircraft carrier. Too bad those ships are redundant today with all of the new drones.
“Scott Jennings Unloads on Jimmy Carter on CNN – Gets REAL Honest About Carter’s Destructive and “Borderline Treasonous” Record In and Out of Office (VIDEO)”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/scott-jennings-unloads-jimmy-carter-cnn-panel-gets/
I cannot decide who was a more incompetent president, Jimmy Carter or Joe Biden. They are neck and neck in the race.
I still wonder what happened to my Iranian friend and fellow engineering student at TAMU. He lost his homeland and he lost his funding for his Mechanical Engineering degree at TAMU at the end of of our junior year. Several of his relatives were murdered. The rest were exiled from Iran. All because Jimmy Carter deposed the Shah of Iran.
“SpaceX’s last launch of 2024 puts Starlink satellites into orbit (video)”
https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-launch-group-12-6
“A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 21 Starlink broadband internet satellites, including 13 with direct-to-cell capability, lifted off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday (Dec. 31). The launch occurred at 12:34 a.m. EST (0534 GMT).”
“The launch marked SpaceX’s 134th Falcon flight in 2024, surpassing the company’s prior year total by 38 missions. Of this year’s launches, 89 were devoted to expanding the Starlink global network.”
At a billion dollars each, that is an incredible amount of money and investment.
At a billion dollars each, that is an incredible amount of money and investment.
– DoD wants their COTS internet in space so they can fight the coming war.
as a bonus, they get location/mapping/routefinding capability to replace the GPS when it gets taken down.
Might get a satellite killer hidden among all the other stuff too… or just build some dummies that you can intentionally “conflict” with target sats… Much harder to keep track of what your enemies are putting in space when they do it 30 sats at a time…
or maybe I’m just paranoid.
n
“Tuesday, December 31, 2024
A Life In Summary: Jimmy Carter, R.I.H.”
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2024/12/a-life-in-summary-jimmy-carter-rih.html?m=1
Yup.
>>And searching for help is difficult as the results are for all versions, over a decade, and there have been BIG changes in WP over time.
Speaking of WP, have we heard from @RickH lately?
Happy New Year to all!
We will be celebrating 2025’s arrival with a neighborhood party starting with sunset on the lake. I don’t know if we will actually make it to midnight, but there will be adequate food and drink if we do.
We can hope for a better 2025. I put some plants in the ground today, and I read somewhere that to be a gardener is to be an optimist…
Younger son spent a couple of days here with his SO. She mentioned that her sister met a guy in Iran online. I said something about that being a…strange? courageous?…choice. Wife and elder son called me out. But…really? Iran does not treat women well. Maybe this guy is different, and maybe not.
More attacks in Germany, nationalities so far not available. Including one really weird one of a guy going crazy with a digger, forcing the police to shoot him.
Anyhow, weird new aside, here’s wishing all a happy new year!
The old Sunday School teacher prevented the Dems from nominating Ted Kennedy out of desperation at the convention in 1980, despite knowing he would lose in November.
Carter was incompetent because he was clueless. He did try. He was basically a good person. Biden is incompetent because it is intentional. Biden, and his family, are criminals. Biden is not a good person. My vote goes to Biden.
Also, try to imagine Corn Pop graduating from the Naval Academy, even at the bottom of his class like McCain.
“Visas, immigrants, and adversarial politics in the USA”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/12/visas-immigrants-and-adversarial.html
“The rot at the heart of universities in the West goes beyond expecting very little of students. It also shows up in the politicised nature of what they are asked to do. Engineering students … complained after they were set the task of creating ‘a product for LGBTQ+ people focussed on providing education or safe spaces’. Students, not unreasonably, questioned what relevance this task had to engineering, and why it was worth 70 per cent of their module grade. Previous cohorts of engineering students apparently got to build a Mars rover.”
My senior design class at TAMU had to redesign a bulk handling system for Alumina. The Alcoa guy came in at the end of the semester, looked at all of our designs, and stated that they had tried them all and all failed to work any better than the current crappy system.
BTW, if you ask a bunch of Aggie engineers to design “A Safe Place”, I can almost guarantee you that you will not like what you get. A one sided bus shelter comes to mind.
Younger son spent a couple of days here with his SO. She mentioned that her sister met a guy in Iran online. I said something about that being a…strange? courageous?…choice. Wife and elder son called me out. But…really? Iran does not treat women well. Maybe this guy is different, and maybe not.
Hey, I saw that movie. An American girl marries the oh so charming middle eastern muslim who beats her and takes off with their kids back to the middle east one day. And then the USA State Department tells her that they cannot do anything to bring her kids back. And her 13 year daughter sends her a letter about wearing her new burka and meeting her new 55 year old husband.
Also, try to imagine Corn Pop graduating from the Naval Academy, even at the bottom of his class like McCain.
Jimmy Carter was the last of the diesel electric submarine captains. He was the captain of the CIA sub that went into the Barents Sea and tapped the Soviet sub base phone line.
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/1610393589
He was suppose to be the captain of the nuclear sub after the Thresher and refused a direct order from Rickover to do so. He retired citing family circumstances (his father died) and took over the family peanut farms.
They can pry them out of my cold, dead hands…
The original product’s plastic parts were subject to damage–the target rings as well as the vanes of any Jarts laying flat (i.e. didn’t stick) could get hit and holed through by another Jart. The weighted shaft of the Jart was pretty much indestructible and would not need to be replaced under normal use.
As the ban was for lawn darts that could cause puncture injuries, selling the box, target rings, and vanes is legal.
There’s a “soft plastic tip” version currently for sale. The vanes look very much like the original game, but without a close inspection I would not guess whether they could be repurposed on the original shafts or a modified new version.
The mechanical demands of use make it unlikely that 3D printing is going to produce a vane that would hold up. If I were going to reproduce them I’d make prototype injection molding tooling (good for 1-10,000 shots) and offer original equivalent polyethylene or a “pro” upgrade to polyurethane.
I am grinding thru doing mile mileage summary for W to get started getting our tax stuff together for our accountant.
Those trips to the BOL add up.
Gas alone is a significant expense.
n
@drwilliams, I watched the Wesley Treat ep while doing my addition in my mileage book…
Yeah, his fins are crep. I think they probably need to spin freely too, like the original, and balance is critical for performance.
The scene where he test throws, repeatedly, has an easy fix… move the foam 4 ft closer to him. All of his throws were the same length, just short of his intended target.
Yep, it was a lame ep. compared to most of his work.
I’d love to be in his position, doing custom fab that was pretty close to art.
n
“Carter was incompetent because he was clueless. He did try. He was basically a good person. Biden is incompetent because it is intentional. Biden, and his family, are criminals. Biden is not a good person. My vote goes to Biden.”
There is ample testimony that Carter was never a good person. His long-time secretary never got a “Good Morning” as he went past, and no “Merry Christmas” either. See the link to the article by the photographer that spent a year with him.
As a president Carter was petty, vindictive, deceptive, and out-of-his-depth. But it wasn’t until after his term that he traveled the world in the service of evil regimes.
Biden has never hesitated to do evil for a buck. He was never competent as a senator or anything else, and has always had a knack for making the worst choice given two. His mental deterioration has allowed an order of magnitude increase in evil done in his name, as the puppeteers try to destroy the country on the way out.
Blame for the damages can be laid at the feet of Harris and the others who betrayed their oaths of office and refused to do their duties under the 25th Amendment. They need to be impeached, impoverished, convicted, and imprisoned, although driven to suicide would be acceptable.
“All of his throws were the same length, just short of his intended target.”
He was too shy about his garage door.
And 2″ foam is not going to stick those darts like proper dirt.
“I’d love to be in his position, doing custom fab that was pretty close to art.”
I suppose I could 3D print one-use molds for low-pressure plastic injection…
BWahaha: Washington Post Top Political Reporters Flee for The Atlantic
https://hotair.com/headlines/2024/12/31/bwahaha-washington-post-top-political-reporters-flee-for-the-atlantic-n3798376
Easier to make the case that The Atlantic is simply an operations arm of the DNC, and deny them White House Press credentials.
>> It’s tedious, and definitely not up to his previous work.
W2 does freelance editing and the work is drying up.
Too many authors with an “editor? Who needs an editor?” mindset.
Also gotta have the right skin-tone and the right pronouns.
The Atlantic is wholly owned by The Widow Jobs while The Post is Bezos’ media toy.
“Clementine Breen Was Given Puberty Blockers at 12 and Double Mastectomy at 14 — Now She’s Suing”
https://rumble.com/v64ngha-clementine-breen-was-given-puberty-blockers-at-12-and-double-mastectomy-at-.html?e9s=src_v1_upp
They will call themselves “The Mutilated”.
I got home for our walk and walked into the kitchen with 50+ snickerdoodle cookies cooling on the stove. I had four warm cookies and two more before going back to the office. Little bundles of fat, sugar, and cinnamon.
How do we all not weigh 600 lbs ?
GLP-1 will be sold over the counter some day.
If it passed inspection, that would be an easy $240k sale in Austin.
A disturbingly large number of late model cars with blacked out rear passenger areas park around the perimeter of the parking lot for the Lowes and WalMart shopping center near my house, just inside the city limits.
Had leftover chuck roast, and did my part to further reduce the amount of baked goods in the house.
Finished my 2023 mileage, now I SHOULD do my 2024…
n
Too many side effects.
The other night, watching a “Harry Potter” marathon on SyFy, we noted that every commercial break included the same Instacart and Wegovy commercials, sometimes repeating the Instacart commercial twice in the same break.
We see basic cable only a few times a year, and the decline is noticeable.
At least SyFy wasn’t running a “Lethal Weapon” marathon like they did last year.
On Friday night, SyFy even had a quality classic flick, scheduling the original “Planet of the Apes” in a prime time slot.
That is a deep movie for 1967, with no less than Rod Serling sharing a screenwriting credit with Michael Wilson, who wrote “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Bridge on the River Kwai” uncredited while blacklisted.
Of course, “Planet of the Apes” had the same set of commercials.
Spearing the ring was a five-point score.
The Wegovy manufacturer, Novo, is in deep financial doo since the late studies on their next generation weight loss drug returned less-than-promising results.
Sorry to hear about Stu, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure open heart surgery at 86 is a dumb idea.
Don’t forget,
The end is NEARER!
New Year’s Eve. I will be in bed by 23:30. After seeing 73 January 1st’s, another is ppppppffffffftttttt.
Rocket engineer, the science is settled.
Going to watch a couple episodes of Slow Horses.
Happy New Year to All.
W wants me to go out to the store and get some sparkling apple juice since we have an extra kid tonight. I would prefer to stay in.
I’ll probably go.
Grr.
n
Rocket engineer, the science is settled.
No, the science is not settled. We need a way better propulsion mechanism than the combustion of two common chemicals, methane and oxygen or, hydrogen and oxygen. Probably something nuclear related.
Single Stage To Orbit is still out there.
Two Stage To Orbit won’t be enough.
In the near term, the X37 or the sucessor needs to demonstrate 24 hour turn around.
Lots of science left.
Of the approx 20 people I looked at at HEB, I’d say at least 3 were visibly drunk. And driving.
n
The new “Wallace & Gromit” hits Netfix on Friday.
A little repetitive, but it is not screwed up like so many other franchises.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0ZGf2B01uU
Three. Lightweights.
“Egg Prices in Commiefornia Soar to $9 per Dozen”
https://discern.tv/egg-prices-in-commiefornia-soar-to-9-per-dozen/
Commiefornia is just becoming a severe screwup.
Elon Musk who now calls himself Kekius Maximus: “2025 Here We Go”
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1873943610581999931
Just being in the cage with that creature is dangerous. Performing that act is suicide.
Hat tip to:
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2024/12/31/elon-musk-stirring-the-pot-as-always-changes-x-handle-to-kekius-maximus-why-n2183798
In the “Worst President” contest, Biden wins, hands down. Obama is #2, and Jimmy Caca slipped to 3rd place. Both Biden and Obama are actual corrupt traitors; Carter was merely a corrupt idiot, and not even a “well meaning” one.
So Elon Musk is a big fan of “Path Of Exile 2”.
https://pathofexile2.com/
Looks like a swamp game to me. I live in a swamp. I would rather play Spider.
Out in Fredericksburg, I noted that the 290 Wine Shuttle starts rolling at 10 AM on Saturdays.
“Sippin’ Sunday” service doesn’t begin until noon.
Happy New Year everyone!
These are the “Interesting Times”.
Lots of fireworks and celebratory gunfire outside. Joy.
Dog isn’t hugely bothered but he doesn’t like it.
n
Wait. A Sentra can do 107 without that CVT going ‘splody?
Oh, yeah, the driver was playing a video game.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/distracted-driving/speeding-video-428563
I’ve seen a Chevy Spark do 100 at the tolling company’s test range. I made a point of not being in the car.
The problem isn’t so much accelerating as braking.
We had a Charger R/T all week and then the rental company came to take the car back because their telemetry told them that the vehicle was due for an oil change. Hence the Spark, deemed an adequate replacement.
They’re always watching.
I got my 80s Chevette to 83 mph once or twice. Given the tires on that POS, I’m amazed I didn’t wreck. Used to do smuggler’s turns with it too, using the emergency brake…
It was a POS from day one, but it took a LOT of abuse.
n
Welcome to 2025, may it be a safe and prosperous year for us all.
n
If we be bragging, I’m sure I topped 85 on the east side of Altamonte pass in a ’57 GMC (Jimmy) pickup which I rebuilt after finding it abandoned in a field. Cost me $400 from a couple Jewish brothers who had a glass shop in Santa Cruz. They were tickled pink I’d got their ancient nag back on four legs. $400 didn’t help, either.
Jimmy went on to appear in Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
I can’t remember what happened to the old behemoth, but it was amazing how much personal space such a big old ugly yellow truck made on the street
>>A disturbingly large number of late model cars with blacked out rear passenger areas park around the perimeter of the parking lot for the Lowes and WalMart shopping center near my house, just inside the city limits.
Crown Vics by any chance?
>>I’ll probably go.
HWHL
>>How do we all not weigh 600 lbs ?
Role models…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_600-lb_Life
WARNING: links to pictures you may not want burned into your brain.
nightime for nick, happy new year everyone.
n
Happy New Year to the gang, wherever you may be…
May 2025 be healthy, happy and prosperous for all.
Off to bed…
Brr…
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-gas-gazprom-supplies/33259941.html
Happy New Year from the bingo parlor.
Happy New Year all!