Another warm, damp, and probably overcast day. It wasn’t a 10 at 10 day yesterday after all. It took quite a while to really start getting warm, but it was mid 80s F by afternoon. I had the windows down, but the air on “blast” too. And today should be more of the same.
I did stuff around the house yesterday morning, then did most of my pickups. I missed one, but it’ll only cost me $8. I hate that. I didn’t print the invoice, so when I was in that area, I didn’t remember to hit that seller too. Dumb mistake as I even had time.
Then it was kid taxi duties, until the younger one’s band concert. We’d all forgotten about it, thinking she just had her normal Tues/Thur thing. Good thing we remembered. I wasn’t looking forward to the Beginning Band portion, but it turned out fine. Didn’t even need my earplugs. The Band Director is a genius with bringing the kids along. He’s building quite a group in just a few years. The Beginners were good. They even did multipart numbers. The Advanced Band (really just kids with prior instruction, or second and third year at the school) rocked the house with Peter Gunn, and Oye como va, among others. The difference as they’ve progressed is stunning.
Ate dinner at Chuy’s which has condensed their menu even further, if I’m not mistaken. Food was good, and not crazy high priced, but they don’t seem like they’re on the way up. Kid loves the food there though.
Today I’ll either do some cable pulling at my client’s house, or push that to tomorrow and do a couple more pickups. I’m leaning toward pickups, just because of timing, and because I don’t have the replacement gear yet. I like to combine trips and spend more than an hour or two onsite as it’s a one hour round trip for me. OTOH, I can get there early, pull the cable, then leave before getting sucked into issues and still make my pickups. That has the benefit of being cooler in the attic too.
I’m going to play it somewhat by ear.
In any case, I’ll be stacking some do re mi, and that is a good thing.
Get you some!
nick
First post for today. This dude (or dudette) is on a roll.
@ray, or you’ve got insomnia…
@alan, Did I miss something? Re Chinese tiles…
– maybe? I think I’ve told the story before… the reference was from my personal experience during my couple of visits to Shanghai. The western hotel I stayed in, nice place, but the finishes were half the thickness they’d be in the US, trim was left off so I could see how thin the shower tiles were, and a variety of other issues with the fit and finish led me to the conclusion that the appearance was more important than the reality.
I ran into this again and again, and when you add that to the “face” culture, the social striving, and the willingness to cheat in all things, you get what we’d call “quality” issues. The stuff looks good, but really isn’t.
I see it in the amazon returns auctions every day- the item LOOKS just like the real item (like a dyson vacuum) but isn’t aluminum and quality plastic, it’s all cheap plastic with a shiny aluminum finish. As soon as you touch it, or look closely, or use it, the attempt to deceive fails.
If they can’t tile a bathroom properly, how can they maintain the systems necessary for nuclear weapons to function? WE can barely do it, and we have/had a culture of competence, hard work, honesty, and perseverance.
n
74F and I’ve got coffee in my mug. Sweetener and heavy cream too.
Kid’s lunch is packed. They’ve been poked. Not much stirring going on amongst the creatures though.
n
No, just up early. Couldn’t sleep. Went to bed at 11:00 PM (23:00 for MrAtoz).
I’m heading out to pull some cable. It’s probably a lot easier and safer to do it before the attic heats up.
n
I stayed in a (then) brand new room-to-condo conversion at the Georgian Terrace 16 years ago, and the moment I put a bar of soap on the freshly-installed dish in the tub, the entire piece of fiberglass fell off of the wall, revealing the grout substrate beneath.
Downtown Atlanta. Flaghsip hotel. The “Gone With The Wind” premiere party happened there among many other major events.
This popped into my head the moment I heard about Va Kilmer last night.
RIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7YEeIdZBGc
I can’t even use the execuse of being on my phone.
The PLT judge won in WI Supreme Court vacancy. She ran on redistricting so WI could gain two Dumbo seats. Yet, the LSM is chanting Musk lost. No mention of the multiple PLT billionaires who backed the winner. At least voter ID is enshrined in the WI Constitution. But I bet her second objective after redistricing is to declare it unConstitutional.
>>“Back in theaters starting June 5 … Unless it gets banned again.”
Haven’t seen this yet…loved the classic deadpan delivery by Carlin in the trailer. Looking forward to seeing it.
Still alive. Thanks for the kind wishes. Hoping that the equine-sized tablets are having an effect other than causing GI distress. Had I known, I could have scheduled a colonoscopy!
Odd weather here, warm and sunny, but very windy. It was nice to catch a few rays when I felt up to leaving the bed. That went better this evening than this morning, so there appears to be progress, albeit slow.
YouTube and Bavarian classical radio are godsends. If I had to pass the downtime watching broadcast TV, I would lose my marbles. With YT, I can choose content that does not instantly result in brain death. I have discovered Julius Sumner Miller, whom I had not heard of before. If you like him, look up Andrew Zbigniew Szydlo, who seems to be the modern equivalent. Which all reminds me of our late host and his home science enthusiasm. Sadly missed.
TBH, I never really got the Kevin Smith thing.
Unlikeable characters, non-existent or preposterous plots.
To each their own I guess.
I am more of a MeTV kind of guy.
“Dr. Mary Talley Bowden: How Vaccines Got Politicized and the Medical Industry Lost All Credibility”
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-bowden
“Mary Talley Bowden tells Tucker:”
““According to [the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System], there have been 38,000 deaths from these COVID shots. Under normal circumstances, the FDA would have pulled it. But instead, they’ve doubled down. They’ve put the shots on the childhood vaccine schedule. All babies are expected to get three COVID shots by the time they’re nine months old.””
This has got to stop. No wonder most of the moms that I know are barely vaccinating their kids with the minimum.
A government agency NEVER admits to a mistake or error regardless of the facts.
The PLTs use the public school system to “enforce” this. Even daycare places. No clotty, no enrolly. Unless the kid is a crimmigrant. Then nothing applies apparently. Except a stolen or fake SSN. Imagine experimenting on babies and toddlers like that. What, if a child gets three clot-shots by nine months they somehow develop lifelong COVID immunity? Is there any study anywhere that shows this is effective?
“’Family-Friendly’ Restaurant Based on Sex, Hooters, Hit by Devastating Financial Development”
https://www.westernjournal.com/family-friendly-restaurant-based-sex-hooters-hit-devastating-financial-development/
“The restaurant chain best known for its tightly clothed female servers and wings (in that order) has filed for bankruptcy protection, according to the Associated Press.”
““HOA Restaurant Group filed the motion for Chapter 11 protection Monday in the North Texas Bankruptcy Court in Dallas,” the outlet reported.”
“One curious move that Hooters is making in light of these financial hardships appears to be moving to be more “family-friendly,” a tacit admission of guilt if there ever was one. The “family friendly” phrase was used multiple times in a glowing Bloomberg piece chronicling Hooters’ new direction.”
Hooters will not make it out of bankruptcy.
“Democrats Are Down to 21% Approval”
https://www.independentsentinel.com/democrats-are-down-to-21-approval/
“Democrats in Congress now have a 21% approval rating and 68% disapproval rating. They are self-combusting. Perhaps the problem is that they keep doubling down on the policies that cost them the election.”
“Democrat voters are turning against the party and Congress. They think Democrats are doing too little. They’re listening to AOC of all people, and condemn Chuck Schumer for not shutting down the government.”
I cannot understand why anyone would follow the dumbrocrat party.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
What, if a child gets three clot-shots by nine months they somehow develop lifelong COVID immunity? Is there any study anywhere that shows this is effective?
My parents had the two original clot shots plus one booster shot. My Dad got Covid after the third shot. He immediately said no more shots.
My mother has shingles now. She had both shingles shots.
Ugh, that stinks. I just got my 2 shingles shots last year. Having chicken pox was bad enough as a sophomore in high school – I really don’t want shingles.
BC: Making Furniture
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2025/04/02
Yup, you gotta start somewhere.
Pearls Before Swine: Piece Of Mind
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2025/04/02
No, no, no, no !
“Lawdog voices an increasing concern”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/04/lawdog-voices-increasing-concern.html
“I’m sure most of my readers have read The Lawdog Files – either the old blog, or his books. He’s a personal friend of long standing. Lawdog is now writing on Substack, and a lot more frequently, too. Do yourself a favor and bookmark his new online home, and visit it frequently.”
“Here are excerpts from one of his recent essays, which I endorse completely.”
“There are a whole bunch of 50-70 year-olds in the United States who fought the Cold War in dark alleys, midnight ports, and moonlit rooftops with knives, brass knuckles, and silenced pistols.”
“There are a whole bunch of 30-50 year-olds in the United States who fought vicious CQC battles in places like Mogadishu, Tora Bora, Fallujah, Najaf, and Mazar E Sharif.”
“There are 20-somethings from places like Compton, El Paso, Chicago, Detroit, Tiajuana, “the barrio”, “the ghetto”, and “the heights” who have stainless-steel teeth and thousand yard stares.”
“There are uncounted numbers of immigrants who have come here from war-torn hell-holes — and brought the skills and attitudes that enabled them to survive along.”
“On top of all that — America is the only country that I know of where a man of good record can walk into a school, hand over cold hard cash, and get a weekend of training that Special Forces in the Third World are envious of.”
“This is what I’m worried about.”
“I’m worried that when Biff the Hygienically-Challenged and his Coterie of Fanatics decide that sucker-punching neo-nazis just isn’t enough — or torching electric cars doesn’t have that same rush — and mission creep themselves into Proper Fanatical Stupidity, that some truly scary people are going to start whacking and stacking in response.”
This is called Civil War 2.0 and nobody will know where the battle lines are at.
I guess you could say the profits are “sagging”.
Hooters of Amercia will not survive bankruptcy intact, but the restaurants in the original founders’ territory in Central Florida will continue.
HOA is the franchise operation. I wouldn’t be surprised if the founders’ group bought it out of Bankruptcy.
“The Remaining: Aftermath (The Remaining, 2)” by D. J. Molles
https://www.amazon.com/Remaining-Aftermath-D-J-Molles/dp/0316404179?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number two of a six book apocalyptic science fiction series. There are another two series in the same universe with the main character. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Orbit in 2014 that I purchased used in 2025 from Amazon. I have ordered the third through the sixth books in the series.
Captain Lee Harden of the US Army is a member of the US Special Forces. His duty is to live in his remote US Army built home with a steel and lead concrete bunker underneath it. Any time the US government gets nervous, he goes down into his bunker with his dog and locks the vault door. He then talks with his supervisor daily over the internet until released by his supervisor to leave the bunker. His duty is to stay in the bunker during any event and come out thirty days after he has zero contact with his supervisor. Then it is his duty to find groups of people to restore order in his portion of the USA.
Then one day, Captain Harden has been sitting in his bunker for a couple of weeks and his supervisor does not call. A plague has been sweeping the planet and things are getting more dire by the day. Apparently the infected do not die but their brains are mostly wiped out. Zombies. A A month later, Captain Harden and his dog emerge from their bunker to find a total disaster with infected roaming the countryside.
Captain Harden’s home and bunker were burned out after everything to eat or shoot was stolen by a gang of bad guys. But he has a secret, he has ten bunkers built by the U.S. Army strategically located around the state. And only he can open the bunkers. But the bad guys are chasing Captain Harden to get the rest of the food and ammo from him. And nobody trusts anybody.
The author has a website at:
https://djmolles.com/blog/the-remaining-universe-reading-order
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (3,166 reviews)
Lynn
I guess you could say the profits are “sagging”.
Good, sturdy foundations will take care of that problem.
Since the court said Hooters couldn’t pick and choose waitresses, the “sexy” part has disappeared. They are wearing more covering than a burkini.
—
Home. Pulled the new cable, sweated to the skin. And it didn’t solve the issue. Turns out, the switch, which I tested, works good when powered by PoE, as long as there isn’t any DATA on the PoE port… which is a failure. I’ll be replacing the switch.
Meanwhile, I’ve put an injector at the switch, and moved stuff around so it’s at the end of the chain, allowing power and data to enter on different ports. What a weird failure.
What a waste of time and effort pulling the new line.
Oh woe is me.
At least I can bill for the time.
—–
Did two pickups on the way home, solar panels and stuff for my next hamfest. In a few minutes, I’ll head back out to get youngest from rehearsal. Oldest is at a track meet so didn’t need a ride.
—-
It’s been windy and threatening rain all day. I’ve even hit a few drops here and there around town. I better tarp my pickup before leaving for the kid’s pickup. I don’t have time to do the teardown before the rain comes.
n
My guess is that RFK jr is going to fire all the advocates (or send them to the rez) and pull the EUA.
Once they dig into the files they can find out how available treatments were ignored and denigrated and the EUA was improperly issued. Then they can prosecute the whole lot and give them the option of doing public service health missions in Haiti.
Geez, Mr. Nick, would it be cheaper to scrap the whole system and start from scratch? Your client must be loaded. Like a rich, oil software baron, that posts here.
I have reason to believe that the shots actually provide NEGATIVE immunity.
Some researcher spoke with John Campbell on his YT channel about that, but I don’t bother watching the videos any more. I feel comfortable with my knowledge about Covid, its origins, and the bioweapon that is both the original virus and also the “vaccine”.
Hooters of Amercia will not survive bankruptcy intact, but the restaurants in the original founders’ territory in Central Florida will continue.
HOA is the franchise operation. I wouldn’t be surprised if the founders’ group bought it out of Bankruptcy.
If Hooters Founders was not able to come to a deal with HOA before the bankruptcy, that is a bad sign. But the bankruptcy trustee will have infinite power now once they are appointed.
I have reason to believe that the shots actually provide NEGATIVE immunity.
Some researcher spoke with John Campbell on his YT channel about that, but I don’t bother watching the videos any more. I feel comfortable with my knowledge about Covid, its origins, and the bioweapon that is both the original virus and also the “vaccine”.
Me too. I am waiting for the next bioweapon.
“Wave of protests in Europe rise against Islamization: “Europe is Christian,” the people fiercely proclaim.”
https://gatewayhispanic.com/2025/04/spain-and-france-rise-against-islamization-europe-is-christian/
Too little, too late.
Private equity ran HOA into the ground like many other companies. If Hooters Inc. buys out HOA, the point will be to regain control of the brand.
The footprint of the chain will shrink dramatically.
The orange man just crashed most of the world financial markets. This will not end well.
Greetings again, all. Still very busy and very tired, so not talking much, but I get the occasional “You alive?” message so I’m here to announce that I am, indeed, alive.
(Though note that I’m a competent web and automation developer and could easily write a program to post a message here at some arbitrary time in the future.)
I don’t recall what I’ve mentioned before, so here’s the summary of issues: All of my relatives who live anywhere near me have had medical issues since the beginning of Summer. I’ve been doing an awful lot of driving people to appointments, taking people home from the hospital, and so on. The most disruptive has been the mother-in-law, who had a stroke and something else around early November, went to the hospital, went to hospice, didn’t die, went back to the hospital, went back to hospice, and then came home when she continued to not die. When she isn’t hospitalized herself, my wife has been doing basically nothing except take care of her mother. (And drive into things. I hear that some people have wives who don’t drive their cars into things. I wonder what that’s like.)
I’ve been doing everything else, grocery shopping, shoveling the driveway, taking The Child to piano lessons, keeping the house and land and animals in good shape, and working as many hours as I can, around driving people around or fixing the furnace which stopped working one day. (It turned out to be the thermostat, a $15 fix which took under an hour including driving to get a new one, but only after I wasted probably six hours looking for problems in the furnace itself.) Since Grandma came back home, I’ve been averaging slightly under four hours a night of sleep because she starts shouting at any hour and I’m a very light sleeper and rarely go back to sleep after being woken. It gets wearing after about the first month.
I’ve been saying, possibly including here, that I’m likely to be busy up to my ears until a few people die. That wasn’t just me inflicting my dubious sense of humor on everyone around me.
Hooters is gone, like tears in rain, so let it all burn…
What proportion of the worlds financial markets are actually worth the electricity their data centers use?
Us mice scurrying under the feet of the dancing elephants will tune in tomorrow and find out…
Considered Bourbon of the Month Club?
Or maybe Port?
The orange man just crashed most of the world financial markets. This will not end well.
The financial markets were looking for a reason to crash. Any reason.
We will see tomorrow what really happens.
“Mental Illness, Pregnant Tranny Edition”
https://rumble.com/v6rkrct-mental-illness-pregnant-tranny-edition.html
“How can a man be pregnant ?”
Surely that is a skit. Surely.
“Welcome back !”
Since Grandma came back home, I’ve been averaging slightly under four hours a night of sleep because she starts shouting at any hour and I’m a very light sleeper and rarely go back to sleep after being woken. It gets wearing after about the first month.
My brother-in-law was yelling all night at his group home that my wife’s sister put him in last Thanksgiving. He was yelling so much that the next door neighbors called the police. His doctor took him off several of the meds that he was on and he stopped yelling at nighttime.
would it be cheaper to scrap the whole system and start from scratch
– It would have after the last lightning event, maybe, but he self insures, ie. pays out of pocket for anything. He said the insurance company wanted 10% of the home value every year as a premium. That’s a BIG number.
I’ve got about $1000 worth of networking in that front attic, maybe more when it was first installed. It’s been nuked twice now. If I was a gear swapper, I could have saved myself the hard work of back pulling the homerun cable by just replacing both switches right away. My diagnostics failed me. If I’d have had my cable verifier or even the tester that shows pairs and crossovers, I’d have known the cable was good, and kept looking for other issues. My pair tester had a broken circuit board, and I normally leave the verifier at home… it’s an expensive tool to have knocking around in the back of the truck.
My client is finally retired this month. This was his second trip thru the C-suite, having already retired once. They made him a deal he couldn’t say no to. And he did it for 15 years. They’re in a good position, which is great. He and his wife both came from very humble circumstances and worked hard, first in school and then in the job. They haven’t forgotten where they started. I like them, or I’d have transitioned away a long time ago.
FWIW, rich people get and stay rich by being careful about spending. They spend when they want to, on stuff that they want, but they watch to be sure they’re getting good value.
And being rich is expensive. He keeps at least a dozen of us employed on the various systems around the house. If you have a lot of stuff, it takes time and money to keep it working.
Lawn, housecleaning, pool cleaner, alarm, mosquito, pest control, septic- those are all pretty standard, but then me as IT dept., a kitchen appliance guy, gas guy (outdoor kitchen stuff), pool controls tech, HVAC service, generator service, access controls (front gate), whole house vacuum guy- not everyone is there every month, but at least quarterly. I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, and he must have a mechanic shop for the two ordinary cars, as well as all the services like lawyer, accountant, financial advisor, etc.
He’s already told me that he’ll be cutting expenses now that he doesn’t have the paycheck coming in.
———
The replacement theater receiver is delayed until “before 10pm tomorrow.” I actually picked a model one down from what blew up, because it was $600 cheaper, and still had the serial port, two HDMI outs, and enough inputs and power to drive the speakers.
n
Scanned the headlines and I’m a bit confused. Elon quit? Or he didn’t? Trump followed thru on his pronouncements and wants tarrifs, and people are surprised? Or they’re not?
I’m gonna sit here and wait for a bit to see what actually comes out.
n
My employer’s stock tanked in after-hours trading around 8 PM EDT.
It’s all pretend money anyway. No one has it until they sell it.
I’m not saying it won’t have real effects on people and the world, just that it’s all pretend gains and losses until you turn it into cash.
————-
I just realized that instagram and tictok have turned the whole world into the reality show confession booth.
————
Remember that one of my possible scenarios was that the left decided to let trump win, then crash the economy and blame the republicans and trump, and then run a savior candidate?
The crash is inevitable, only the timing is TBD.
n
@steveF, hang in there brother. It will get better.
n
D1 is watching JoJo Rabbit in history class as part of their look at WWII. The trailer looks very strange, and it’s Wackii Tahiitii as a director. It can’t be anything worth watching in a school setting is it?
n
Have you considered getting the state involved to put Grandma into a qualified care situation?
If your wife has siblings or first cousins, especially Number One Son cousins, any remaining assets in Grandma’s name will attract Asian relative attention like flies to sh*t.
Don’t leave yourself open to any accusations of elder abuse.
>>I’m gonna sit here and wait for a bit to see what actually comes out.
Considering the possibilty that April 1st could be involved, getting something more definitive makes sense.
And being rich is expensive. He keeps at least a dozen of us employed on the various systems around the house. If you have a lot of stuff, it takes time and money to keep it working.
And that is why I want to sell my office complex. I personally do half of the jobs by those dozen people and spend lots of dollars on the other half of the people. For example, lawn mowing, almost $1,000/month. Trash dumpster, $340/month. And I am not rich, just comfortable, contrary to what some people think.
FYI, cleaning up a one liter of EVOO spilled in all directions when glass meets granite takes roughly two hours and a quarter roll of paper towels. W2 regrets putting the oil that was in a plastic bottle back on the shelf.
@Ray, safe and sound with all the treacherous weather in your general vicinity?
Gerrymandering at its best. It’s everywhere. When I lived in Austin, I remember some snake like district reaching in to encircle UT. Dunno if it’s still that way, or to whose advantage it was. But still: seems like an issue that could easily be solved with a couple of general rules about district construction.
If true, that’s nuts. I am very pro-vax. Between the military, and a couple of projects in Africa, I have had a crazy number of vaccinations – and never had a problem with any of them.
After having had 3 (or 4?) Covid vaccinations, I stopped. The last one caused myocarditis, which was pretty scary. It seems obvious that the Covid shots (especially the mRNA versions) have some problems they need to work out.
I bought the first book, on Lynn’s recommendation, and I am about 1/2 way through. Very well written, and the author is obviously trying to be as realistic as possible, for what life in a lawless, collapsed society would be like. Depressingly so.
I’m not sure I want depressing realism in a book I’m reading for fun…
Um, what? Do strip clubs have to hire fat strippers? It was always clear that the primary purpose of the waitresses was to be eye candy. Don’t like it, don’t go there. Or work there.
I’m confused too. Digging around, I found one site that said Elon had only agreed to run DoGE for 130 days, after which he would need to get back to running his companies. Maybe his role was just to get it set up and running?