Cool and clear, warming later. I almost wish for some rain, because the grass is getting a bit crunchy… but that’s why we have sprinklers I guess. To bad they’re not working at the BOL. If we don’t get rain this week, I’m going to have to spend more time and energy on that. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the mild weather.
Mild or not, I did get sunburned and now I’m itchy. My neck, face, and arms are noticeably darker.
Did my final cleanup and secure everything, then headed home yesterday. The kids sorted themselves out and I wasn’t under the time pressure I expected. Still, good to get home.
Home sweet home… so much to do here. I’ve definitely been slacking and need to put in some serious time. Projects have stacked up. Stuff has stacked up. Stacks have stacked up…
It’s easy for me to put stuff off, and just deal with today’s emergency, or new priority. The easy way isn’t the best way.
Do something hard today. And stack.
nick
Nick Frost as Hagrid in the new “Harry Potter” miniseries?
“By the power of Grayskull!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cun-LZvOTdw&t=136s
Warm and sunny today, maybe?
Anyway, I’m up, lunch is made. Kids are poked.
n
@Lynn or @drwilliams
I was discussing yesterday with a friend, he said me that he never saw an article about reciclyng of N2 from NOX on gas turbines . Regardless of the economical question, is there any?
The only one I was able to discover was a chinese article on sciencedirect.
Thanks
For calendar year filers, today is the day to PAY federal income taxes. There is no extension that I know of, so Nick is right: pay up suckers.
However, a six month extension to FILE is available to most people by simply filing a form. We do have to estimate the bottom line to pay what we might owe. That can require a bit of work.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/04/trump-responds-to-harvards-defiance-by-freezing-2-3-billion-more-in-grant-funding/
Harvard FO: $2.3 billion frozen, another $6.7 billion under review.
Here’s hoping they pull the rest by Friday.
The entire state of TN was given an automatic extension of the deadline until November 3, 2025 to pay taxes.
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-all-of-tennessee-qualifies-for-disaster-tax-relief-various-deadlines-postponed-to-nov-3
That seems sort of a broad extension in my mind. I, nor my area, was affected by any storms. Many other states were also given automatic extensions of the deadline. Texas is not one of those states.
I believe all of Los Angeles County has until October, because of the fires.
I believe the reason for the rather wide brush was because some people have had all or most of their records destroyed and need time to re-create them, and it’s easier simply to let everyone file late rather than to individually investigate each person and allow/deny permission.
It is the 113th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
Recent research confirms eyewitness testimony that the engine room staff kept the power and lights on until the end – not one man from there made it out alive.
A toast then, to the black gang, who helped save hundreds.
New environmental unit (A/C and Heating) is being installed today. $10K+. One of the most efficient units available from Trane. The old unit was 15+ years old, had several issues corrected, not the least of which is the unit is leaking refrigerant from micro holes that develop over time. Not big leaks, a pound of refrigerant every three or four years. However, it will only get worse over time. Failure will occur on the hottest day of the year. This new unit has 5 years parts and a labor warranty.
I will give the installers a $25.00 gift card each. The wife is baking chocolate chip cookies for the installers. I am certain they will appreciate it and it is probably not something they get on every installation. In this area recognizing repair people may pay dividends when there are real problems. It makes them feel appreciated.
>>Mild or not, I did get sunburned and now I’m itchy. My neck, face, and arms are noticeably darker.
Sunscreen FTW. Beats the possible alternative.
The entire state of TN was given an automatic extension of the deadline until November 3, 2025 to pay taxes.
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-all-of-tennessee-qualifies-for-disaster-tax-relief-various-deadlines-postponed-to-nov-3
That seems sort of a broad extension in my mind. I, nor my area, was affected by any storms. Many other states were also given automatic extensions of the deadline. Texas is not one of those states.
We had hurricane Beryl that traumatically shut down the entire Houston area for weeks in 2024.
Everyone outside the area forgets but we don’t.
I found a voicemail on my phone yesterday. It’s the “We are going to serve you with papers unless you contact us and pay this debt” folks again. What debt and to who they don’t say. This time it’s a strung out sounding female. Maybe she’s new and doesn’t know the script yet.
Anyway. A voice mail only. No phone call. I wonder how they did that?
I have a second number with Xfinity Voice. I cannot use the number for anything, did not ask for the number, and am not paying for the number. I don’t even know why it exists. It rings on my phone, but just a blip ring. The calls cannot be answered. It always goes to voicemail.
Someone that owned the number before me was a real deadbeat. I get three or four voicemails each month where someone is looking to collect a debt. A few have been quite threatening. I listen to the message before deleting out of morbid curiosity.
Thought we might get some precip as we had overcast grey most of the day, and it didn’t get really hot, but now it’s opened up and blue sky…
Someone probably got rain.
n
Hit the goodwill on the way home. Got a nice set of waterford crystal for resale, a shirt for kid2’s presentation on Thursday, a sculpture for resale, a bose wave radio, a Denon home theater amp (same as I bought for my client 2 years ago) and some other smalls for very low prices. Dunno what happened, but it was the right place at the right time.
Stopped in for the shirt, will probably be even if I sell the sculpture on ebay and the amp and radio are headed to the BOL.
———-
one of the lots I was picking up was a bunch of LP albums. No clue on genre from the listing, but t hey ended up being funk, early rap (Kurtis Blow, Funkadelic, Rick James, Sugarhill Gang, etc), R&B, and a couple of 80s pop. Some really good resale vinyl in that crate, and some stuff I’m keeping for me… also got another colman lantern and a dozen kero lanterns… some of them will probably get sold too.
A good afternoon…
n
Climate Alarmists Coming for Our Dogs
Yeah, well, “modelling suggests” that f***ing yourself is not possible, but these modellers should spend their time trying rather than torturing defenseless electrons.
Letitia James Facing Federal Criminal Charges
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2025/04/15/new-anti-trump-ag-letitia-james-referred-for-criminal-charges-n2187908
So, did her father also perjure himself on that loan document?
Be a shame if Letty’s daddy ended up in prison, too.
For those who commented on various special extensions for fires, floods, etc., yes, that does happen occasionally. In January of 2023, California had widespread flooding, and some people lost property and records. Both federal and state income tax filing and payments were given automatic extensions. This was on a county by county basis, but anyone who could state they were impacted was also allowed an extension. I took advantage of the extension, because my county was extended, even though I am in an area unaffected by the flooding. Perfectly legal, and a small windfall. The reverse was probably true for other counties.
I think California learned that the county by county approach was a complicated idea. Something over 90% of the counties were extended, so giving the rest would have had little financial impact, and would have made things simpler. Even better, giving extensions only to those who claimed hardship would have been better for the state revenue, and fairer. Governments are not in the fairness business.
Sometimes, extensions are granted for federal and not state, and vice versa. This probably confuses things. Also, I have to file in another state because I have an investment there. My tax guy said we could extend that state without doing anything, even though that state had no obligation to follow California. Since I didn’t have to pay any tax, this was moot, but sometimes these things can get messy.
Reminds me of when I was a resident of three states back in 1971. I had to file income taxes in all three. Their residency requirements for state income tax purposes were all different. I had thought it would be messy, but it actually wasn’t. The instructions were clear and pretty simple. Now, clear and simple seem to be extinct.
Ours was submitted but was bounced due to a typo. Now it can’t be submitted electronically, but it is timestamped. So it’ll go in the mail tomorrow.
We owe a bit. Not much, but more than most people have saved for emergencies.
n
For a lot of people that amount would be $138.43.
New A/C unit is installed. There is a problem. I cannot turn on the fan manually. The thermostat runs the fan 15 minutes out of each hour. That was not working. I turned on the fan and got nothing. Some wire is in the wrong location on the thermostat or is not making a connection. I have to have the installer come back.
High efficiency Trane systems have a proprietary protocol between the thermostat and the control board. No more four wire simplicity unless you buy a single stage heating and cooling system.
The local installers try to talk homeowners out of the simple systems. I belive they have an incentive to do so from Oncor.
Our new upstairs unit is simple, but the techs still brought the proprietary Trane thermostat out and tried three times to get me to acknowledge that I wanted that replacement.
Three times, I told them ‘no’ until they finally gave up and put my old thermostat back.
High efficiency Trane systems have a proprietary protocol between the thermostat and the control board. No more four wire simplicity unless you buy a single stage heating and cooling system.
So do Ruud heat pumps. I had to purchase a new $400 Ruud thermostat.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/04/15/some-half-brain-dead-man-who-thought-he-was-president-spoke-tonight-n2655587
So what if the Jackup Juice was a little on the light side tonight? If he can get up and give a speech he can testify before congress about the pardons that he didn’t sign.
High-efficiency furnaces and “proprietary” thermostat protocols are just boondoggles designed to extract money from gullible buyers. I’ve yet to see a high efficiency furnace upgrade that made economic sense, much less after factoring in a realistic number for lifetime.
As a former field service guy, I’m a HUGE fan of open standards, hard wiring, and proven protocols. Automagic isn’t, far too often. Stuff should be discoverable, and explore-able, and shouldn’t blow up if done wrong. Put some diodes on your board, and some surge protection. Put labels on the board for connections. USE the standards that exist.
Lock in sucks. Punish the manfs that do it in the marketplace.
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and now to bed, perchance to sleep, but most likely to toss and turn for a bit first.
n
High-efficiency furnaces and “proprietary” thermostat protocols are just boondoggles designed to extract money from gullible buyers. I’ve yet to see a high efficiency furnace upgrade that made economic sense, much less after factoring in a realistic number for lifetime.
All of our 700,000 to 850,000 hp steam boilers built in the 1965 to 1980 time period were high efficiency boilers on natural gas or fuel oil at TXU. Most of the steam boilers could hit 92% efficiency.
However, in order to do that we had condensing of water vapor with a minute amount of sulfur dioxide in the air preheaters. Yup, that is called sulfuric acid. so we had to replace the tail end of the air preheater rotating baskets every year. And no, stainless steel baskets did not help. You just just grab the 40 lb baskets and they would crumble into your hands.
@lynn, before I go to bed, did you see ayj’s question at the start of the day?
n
Spare a thought too for the musicians, whose playing on deck helped prevent a mass panic, allowing many people to make it into the lifeboats who would otherwise have drowned.
Father Browne’s photos of the Titanic are fascinating.
https://titanicphotographs.com/Browne/indexfatherbrowne.html
W1 and I celebrated our silver wedding anniversary with a party this weekend.
We received a considerable cash amount in gifts from very generous friends and neighbours. We’ve decided to earmark it for a really good Hi-Fi system for the BOL, as we both enjoy listening to (mainly classical) music.
Neither of us is into the audiophile hobby, so I have no idea where to start looking for good gear. We don’t have or collect vinyl, so a turntable is not necessary, but we do need it to play CDs and be internet-radio capable. It would be nice if it could handle the sound output for our smart TV and for DVDs / Blu-ray. I would also like to have a remote control that is not limited to line of sight (i.e. radio, rather than infrared).
Any thoughts and suggestions from the hive mind? At our main house, we currently have a Bose Dolby 5.1 system (which is getting a bit long in the tooth, but sounds good) and a Bose compact two-speaker + woofer CD system (which is a nice unit, but maybe a bit underpowered). Bose unfortunately doesn’t seem to offer units with CD player any more.
I was thinking of hitting the Bose, Bang & Olufsen, and Harmon Kardon websites as a starting point. Any others I should be studying?
Hmm, never had a submission bounced.
I always wanted to pay a lot of total tax for the year. It would mean I am doing well, assuming I am taking full advantage of the rules.
I hate it when installers don’t check their work, but, to be fair, they need to move on so they can charge every customer less.
That short dissertation contains a lot of wisdom. Too bad the world has moved on from it.
My own system adheres to those principles, and has served well for over 40 years with normal maintenance. Common parts, such as relays, pumps, and motors, are readily available.
Indeed. I had never seen those. Thanks for the link.