Hot hot hot. Humid, humid, humid. 100F or more today, with sun. Like yesterday. It’s hot.
Got my trailer, got to SA, got it loaded, and safely home. Today I will take it to the BOL and unload. Still not sure if I’m just staying up there and installing the stuff or if I’m turning and burning for home. I have not gotten enough stuff done at home recently, but there are jobs to do at the BOL too.
D1 going to camp on Sunday complicates things, as W and D2 will stay home to get her ready and then to camp… otherwise, I think my wife would just bring the kids up for the weekend too. Staying at the BOL by myself feels a bit like hiding from the work down here. Which is really weird.
Oh well, I’ll play it by ear. Maybe I’ll split the difference.
In any case, I’ll be heading up later today. I do have a pickup to make and I want to get a couple of things from Lowes so that should fill my morning.
There is always more to do. I will have to make choices.
Making choices sucks because once you do, you have collapsed all the possibilities down into that one choice. And what if it’s the wrong choice?? Don’t be paralyzed by that fear. You can change it later. There may be more cost, there may be opportunity lost, but for almost everything, you can fix or modify it later. So make a choice. It’s also why I try to have costs as low as possible, so the impact of a wrong choice is minimized, at least financially.
One choice NOT to make is to put off prepping. Do it. Stack some things. Otherwise, you will be cursing yourself later.
nick
re: choices
Looking back at my analysis paralysis, I realize I wasted a lot of my life trying to make the “best” decision. I would have been better off realizing when I was younger not to sweat it so much. Throw away the bad decisions, and pick one of the good ones. Realize it’s better to do something good enough rather than dither and do nothing out of fear of being suboptimal.
I won’t say everyone who gets older gets wiser, but it is possible to learn from experience.
re: tipping strippers
I love this community. The fact that that question gets asked in the first place, and that an answer is found on the interwebs in short order. Amazing.
Then the memory leaks start.
A new one for me, and probably too much TMI. I have a yeast infection. Yep, about where you would think of a yeast infection.
Here is the strange(r) part. The medicine is $100.00 a tube at the local pharmacy. Nope, not going to pay that amount. I need to get the VA to provide it. The pharmacist offers another option. Two tubes, same stuff as prescribed, just not mixed as in the $100.00 stuff. The cost to me is $0.00. Apparently the maker of the mixed stuff filed a patent on mixing the two components and has exclusive rights to the mixed stuff. And charges a whole lot more money.
@ray:
Like Martin Shkreli, the pharmabro.
G.
Moonlighting as a Canadian stripper, Mr. Ray?
Tucking filthy bills into your G-string.
I think it was due more of a dirty brass pole as I only take debit cards.
Painful humor at my expense aside, it is actually a side effect of taking Jardiance for blood sugar. The VA is stopping the Jardiance and providing something else, which arrives by mail today. The urologist thinks the infection will go away in a couple of weeks with twice daily application of the medicine.
Attempting to pull the burned out 20 A fuse for the 12V outlet in the Jetta yesterday without being able to see the panel clearly, I pulled a 30 A fuse for something by mistake.
I think the fuse is for the heated seats, but none of the online resources show a fuse panel layout consistent with what I see in person. Lots of empty sockets, and 4-5 possibilities.
VW.
The car starts and is drivable (yes, with headlights) so I’ll assume it is the seats. Now I gotta figure out which empty slot gets the 30 A fuse as well as figure out which 20 A is the 12 V outlet. That is, if one of the empty sockets doesn’t belong to the 12 V outlet, something my wife’s nephew and/or ex-brother-in-law pulled but didn’t replace right away.
Always a possibility.
The added bonus is that Autozone had an inventory snafu and the local staff substituted parts for my online order of replacement fuses instead of cancelling the order and sending an email. The new fuses don’t fit the sockets mechanically. Pinheads.
@ Greg Norton
A valuable “trick” I learned about absent fuses: Look at the empty spaces for fuses on the panel – 99.9% of the time you will see only ONE contact in the socket, this is NOT a missing fuse, but merely means that function is not provided.
Where you see TWO contacts in the socket is where you are actually missing fuses.
hth
So, do you “swab your gun tube” or just apply it externally? Gun enthusiasts want to know.
Once again, Letterman’s channel on YouTube signals another celebrity passing before a lot of media had the story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLeholWwQDo
Don’t – DO NOT – tell us where the cards are swiped.
Your phone is your friend. Turn on the camera and look at the screen. You can get a much better live view than with bare eyes or with a mirror. A webcam connected to a laptop might give a better view, though less convenient.
We have an endoscope, one of the free-if-you-test-and-review products my wife gets. I don’t use it often enough to pay cash for one but it’s handy every now and then.
Not to worry, the dealer’s manual and Hayes/Chilton’s are also wrong. Leastways, they are for Chrysler, Toyota, and Mazda products and I have no reason to think that they’re correct for VW. There are enough errors and omissions that I think it must be deliberate, an attempt to force people to use maker-certified shops.
I don’t want to take an electrical problem to the dealer.
Being an old hippie town, I’m sure Austin has a VW specialist if I really get stuck, but I think I can untangle the mess.
When the Solara’s timing belt broke, I lucked out to find a mechanic who could do the job at a reasonable price. However, when I went to the shop, I noted that he was surrounded by new office parks with some familiar tech names such as the Magic Leap scam as well as several Soy Boy apartment buildings under construction.
“Soy Boy” as in just enough space for a Soy Boy and his dog — the Soy Boy always has a “little buddy” — with EV charging in every garage space. Future tenement slums. There is a reason the land was originally set aside for warehouse and light industrial space, but, in Texas, “zoning” is an interesting suggestion, especially in boom times.
External application for the inquiring minds.
Silly you. I only use contact readers. I did that after the smart cards arrived and the option to insert rather than swipe appeared. Now that you really don’t want to know.
Don’t judge me. I’m shopping for something like the Squatty Potty.
I found a review article that contained the following gem of a paragraph:
Flushed. Strained. Eliminate.
ay my brain!
– only 82F at them moment, but plenty of sunlight to help that come up…
wrt the squatti potti thing, their mechanical argument makes some sense, but I like a tall throne myself. There are a lot of them at the goodwill and the bins, so I assume that they don’t work for everyone. Perhaps start with something cheap? A couple of foam yoga blocks?
@ray, I feel for you buddy. One thing I’m always careful about is being dry before dressing. And powdered. Because the alternative is REALLY uncomfortable.
—————-
I’m looking at today’s Microcenter sale flyer, with both intel and amd ‘build your own pc’ combos on sale, and I’m wondering, is the intel combo really worth 2x as much as the “equivalent” amd level ? IIRC they used to be very close in performance, and amd was cheaper, but not THAT much cheaper…
But it’s been a long time since I really looked.
—————
Doing my morning thing. At some point I’ll head out.
n
At full retail MSRP, I’ve found that Intel generally offers better performance on paper than the equivalently priced AMD CPU/motherboard combination, but late in a CPU generation lifecycle, AMD can offer better discounts.
Right now, AMD is moving from AM4 to AM5 as their mainstream socket, and the AM4 discounts are significant. The same AMD 5600X I put in my primary desktop build earlier this year for $270 is now available online from many vendors for $150, and that price includes a stock cooler which runs at the limits but still protects the CPU if you don’t mind some fan noise.
I don’t have any complaints about performance, but my goal with that machine was to have a sufficiently modern CPU and decent chunk of memory to use to play with Docker for Windows without any limitations.
Your mileage may vary, especially in California.
Where you may get hosed at Microcenter and other places with combos is on the quality of the motherboard. Of course, that is possible with both Intel and AMD, but a lot more mediocre AMD boards are out there given the price sensitivity of the buyers.
And any prebuilt desktop machine with AMD from the warehouse clubs will be junk IMHO. AMD sells whole processor families into the OEM market which are not generally available through retailers catering to DIY, typically APUs with integrated graphics and less-than-stellar IO and memory bandwidths.
AMD has pretty much caught up with Intel on performance. My new machine is AMD.
Whichever you choose, don’t skimp. You certainly want the virtualuzation instructions (and be sure to enable virtualization in the BIOS). RAM is also cheap. 16GB minimum, and more is better.
>> Painful humor at my expense aside, it is actually a side effect of taking Jardiance for blood sugar.
And since it feels like every other ad on Hulu is for an (expensive) prescription medication we pretty much know all the possible side effects of Jardiance. Of course, they usually relegate “death” (or your man-bits falling off) to the fine print at the bottom of the screen.
Just remember you have politicians to thank for making the US one of only two countries in the world that allow the advertisement of prescription drugs direct to the consumer.
I don’t remember seeing a yeast infection as a side effect in the advertisements. I was told when it was prescribed there might be some inflammation. You got that right. I started in February of this year; in March I needed the medicine. I thought it was just inflammation, a side effect of Jardiance. Well, sort of. The inflammation is a yeast infection. I was told to only apply the creams (I mix them myself) when it bothered me. I guess lately I have become immune because I was told by the lady urologist (after examining my junk) that it looked painful and I need to apply the creams morning and night.
I just picked up a new prescription for the creams, two tubes I have to mix. My cost: $0.00. Pre-mixed: $109.00. The same exact stuff as exists in both tubes just mixed in the expensive stuff, and effectively half as much as the tubes are the same size. Effectively $218.00 to have some machine mix the stuff in the same quantity I have in both tubes. Drug companies
can beare evil.As to why my cost is $0.00, I don’t know. I think the pharmacy participates in some drug discount program and since I don’t have drug coverage the pharmacy applies that plan. Works for me. Otherwise, I would go to the VA to get the mixed stuff at no cost to me.
I built both of my new machines with 64 GB RAM, identical pairs bought from Crucial.
Whichever motherboard goes first donates the RAM to the other system since both can accommodate up to 128 GB RAM.
Even Linux really wants 8 GB RAM minimum anymore to use a GUI effectively. I get away with 4 GB RAM on my “road” laptop, but that is thanks to zRAM standard in Fedora, dedicated swap, and the current arms race between GCC and Clang adding compiler optimizations at the application level.
I also choose a “road” machine so that I cannot do work work easily.
Jerks.
The husband of the wife’s mother has/had oil royalties. He is deceased as is his wife. My wife is the sole heir to her mother’s estate.
There are unclaimed dividend checks for him that were sent after he passed away. Uncashed and forwarded to the state as unclaimed property. The MIL tried to get the royalties turned over to her when she was living. The oil company, based in Illinois, said nope. The will has to be probated in Illinois. Expensive as a lawyer is needed plus a trip to Illinois. That is not worth the time and expense for $2K. Royalties are only about $200.00 a year.
I am trying to claim the unclaimed property from the state of Texas. That is proving to be a daunting task. The state wants proof that the husband of the MIL (further referred to as the clod) owned the claim. The oil company will not give me the proof because I am not on the account, nor is the deceased MIL. Ownership cannot be changed until probate, in Illinois. Thus, I cannot get the proof. If the state has the money under the clod’s name, that should prove ownership.
I have uploaded several documents to the state site, death certificates, marriage license, MIL’s will, and some deeds I found in the paperwork. I have no idea if this will be enough or the state will want more proof.
Any money, currently $2K, will need to be split with the brother-in-law. I don’t think it is worth any more of my time and effort for that sum of money.
When I found money in Washington state that my uncle had, it was fairly easy. I supplied a couple of death certificates, explained I was their nephew, raised by them, and the aunt and uncle had no natural children, and that was it. I got the money, about $220.00.
It’s like mud wrestling with a pig. We both get dirty but the pig likes it and owns the mudhole.
When I sold Mom’s house the title company was wanting all sorts of stuff about Dad. Who died in 2010. When asked “why” they said they had to make sure there were no outstanding loans or liens. Ok. That sort of makes sense but don’t you think if there was any of that /someone/ would have said /something/ since 2010?
Oh. This is all e-mail with copies to the real estate dude. Who promptly freaked on me with “don’t make them mad” to which I replied “Eff them I’m paying them, I’m the boss.”.
One fainting couch coming up. 🙂
Then the title company wanted something else. I forget what, something weird like “where did the money to build the house come from”. Yeah, like I saved any of the hospital bills from my motorcycle wreck or any of what the lawyer finally got me? That’s all gone to the trash… tho I do have an x-ray of my hip if you want to see it. Dad borrowed $18 grand from the settlement and left me with almost $4 grand to piddle away. Which I did over the next three years or so in my addled state, because cracked helmet. Whatever it was they asked for, I told them I don’t know that, have no papers in Mom’s stuff for that, I know you have a list of check-boxes to check but this is /nuts/ for a man that died almost 13 years ago.
It was bumped to a “supervisor” and then it’s all done.
So yeah, a lot of the hassle we have is “I have a check list”.
>> I think the fuse is for the heated seats, but none of the online resources show a fuse panel layout consistent with what I see in person. Lots of empty sockets, and 4-5 possibilities.
@Greg, you probably have checked the VWVortex forums, but if not, they’ve always been my go-to for anything VW.
I ran into a “Checklist Chaniqua” recently. Some medical office had emailed me one of their patient’s records. His name was the same as mine and the email address was almost the same. Simple screwup but still a HIPAA violation. I called them up to tell them and the first person on the phone got my name and the problem, then said she had to get my date of birth and SSN before she could proceed. “No, you don’t need it.” She blustered and repeated that she had to have it, then finally put me on hold and got a supervisor. The supervisor had the authority and/or brains to identify and address the actual problem, without strict reliance on the checklist.
Note that I’m not blaming “Chaniqua”. Her job performance rating no doubt depends on how well she adheres to the checklist. She might have realized quicker that this situation wasn’t addressed by the checklist but that’s the only fault I find.
>> The urologist thinks the infection will go away in a couple of weeks with twice daily application of the medicine.
…two birds, one stone…
One of the pinheads who answered the phones at my wife’s office in Florida was “Chanique”.
Get the spelling right.
Not a pinhead, or at least she’s got talent: Shamekia Copeland, Johnny Copeland’s daughter.
The link is a track recorded with Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
I worked with a guy who played sax with Johnny Copeland.
Y’know, I’m cool with Dad borrowing most of the settlement from my motorcycle wreck. That was a s-load of money back in ‘78-ish. They were building another house. Like closer to town so you had shirt(-r) things like running water. What they sold the previous house for is unknown. What a Marine Master Sergeant got for retirement after doing Iwo and Korea and ’Nam upon retiring in ’66 is unknown.
We never went hungry. So….
Anyway. Mom and Dad came to visit a few times. On one visit Dad asked if we were even on the leg money. He was surprised when I said “I guess, I didn’t keep track”. Why would I, he’s the guy that had a huge sheet of paper where he kept track of the bills and such…. before PCs and Lotus123 existed. Anyway, he seemed surprised and I told him (a) I don’t think you would rip off your own son and (b) there were a lot of months where that $100 check in the mail was a great thing, and the best thing since sliced bread.
It seemed an odd thing for him to ask. Thinking back, I think he dropped a zero somewhere. But when I moved to Austin and was getting my feet under me, a hundred bucks almost every month for 4 or 5 years was priceless.
Everyone needs a boost at some time. I gave Mom and Dad a boost to build their house, they gave me a $100 almost monthly boost back. I sold the house they built and well, Treasury Direct looks interesting.
@paul, I had almost the same thing with my parents. I used my motorcycle accident settlement check to pay off their remaining mortgage, they wrote me that check every month. Kept me from completely pIssing it away at a time when I would have. Don’t know, don’t remember if they “finished” paying, or if it just stopped at some point. My siblings thought that money was mom and dad supporting me. Nope. Loan. THEY were the ones getting support checks from the ‘rents… not me.
n
I have dealt with clueless people that want too much information.
When my son bought his house, I gave him enough money for the down payment to avoid PMI. Obviously, he had to show the transfer from my account into his account and I had to state it was my money. The title company wanted to know where I got the money. I told them since my name was not on the loan papers it was none of their business. They persisted that they needed to know that I did not borrow the money. I had to remind them again that even if I did borrow the money my name was not on their loan. So none of their business.
When I got the Real ID on my driver’s license three pieces of information had to be provided. Proof of citizenship (my passport), proof of address (my county tax bill), and my SSN. The first two items required a piece of paper. The last item was stated “SSN must be provided or if not known SSN card”.
The clerk insisted on my SSN card. I told her no as I knew my SSN. I pointed out the document from the state website stated “SSN must be provided or if not known SSN card”. I asked her what part of “OR” she did not understand. She said she needed a supervisor.
The supervisor came to the window with her power walk and stated I needed my SSN card. I again stated that the state website says “OR” and asked what part of “OR” she did not understand. The supervisor got huffy and said she was going to call the state and show that I was wrong.
After about 10 minutes on the phone the supervisor came back, huffed and puffed some more, and said they would take the application without the SSN card but it probably would not work. And if it did not work, I would have to go to the DMV and the DMV would require the SSN card. I reminded the supervisor again that my information was straight from the state website and posted on their wall was exactly the same information. The SSN must be provided or if not known the SSN card”. There was nothing on the page that said the SSN card was mandatory only that the SSN must be provided. The supervisor would never admit she was wrong. The application went through without any issues.
“OkieLand” ?
Link here ; news stories in multiple sources.
Why should I worry about the spelling of Chaniqu[ae]? I’ll bet that most of the women with that name can’t spell it the same three times running.
Would you expect any of those with minimal brain functions to admit there idiocy?
>> A new, $2 billion theme park and resort is being planned for northeast Oklahoma, which is expected to be comparable in size with Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom Theme Park.
Buc-ee’s?
>> Why should I worry about the spelling of Chaniqu[ae]? I’ll bet that most of the women with that name can’t spell it the same three times running
https://youtu.be/Dd7FixvoKBw
Mirror, mirror…
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2023/07/20
Oh-oh, not my idiocy…. my keypunching:
“Would you expect any of those with minimal brain functions to admit their idiocy?”
What kind of tax breaks is the Cherokee Nation prepared to offer?
That’s priority #1 for The Beaver with expansion outside of Texas.
I’m sure that a casino will be involved with the theme park. NE Oklahoma around Grand Lake is a whole lot of nothing beyond bass fishing.
At least five minutes of unskippable commercials. I wasn’t interested enough in whatever that video was to put up with that.
Now that I think about it, the spelling may have been “Shanique”.
The one bright spot about the move to WA State is that we got out of that liability pit in Florida.
https://adblockplus.org/
https://ublockorigin.com/
I can try them, but the YT ad blockers that used to work, no longer do, at least on this browser on this OS.
SF Business owner: ‘I’m f***ing fed up with this…city’
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/07/21/sf-business-owner-im-fing-fed-up-with-this-city-n566217
The “suspect” doubtless has a history of violence, and will do it again. Let’s hope that he comes back to the sandwich shop and tees up on the owner again, rather that pick a new victim.
@lpdbw
Re your comments last night:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemical-engineering/vacuum-deposition
T minus 5 weeks 2 days and … 13 (?) hours.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts is asking homeowners to take illegal aliens into their homes.
How many rooms in that guvernoors
manpersonshun agin?ah, the start of the school year. ..
Got to the BOL without issues. It was only 88F so I unloaded ¾ of the load before the light faded too much for me to see.
Enjoying my HungryMan dinner, then perhaps, some radio on the dock. It’s currently 83F so if there is any breeze it should be nice.
Lot of loud people up here this weekend. Weird. I guess they know that summer is ending soon.
n
Update on trans lawmaker arrested for kiddie porn; it gets worse
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/07/20/update-on-trans-lawmaker-arrested-for-kiddie-porn-it-gets-worse-n565986
Endorsed by Beto and Eric Stallwell.
have a barf bag handy
New Greenland Ice Sheet study Shows Why It’s Called “Climate Idiocy”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/21/new-greenland-ice-sheet-study-shows-why-its-called-climate-idiocy/
Did aliens rescue the polar bears?
We never went hungry. So….
Yup, that is a big deal. I am continuously shocked how many kids dont get food at home and only get food at school. All because the mom and/or dad thought that beer, cigs, and drugs are more impotant than food.
Probably. I’m going to spend some time on this mini project again on Sunday morning.
We certainly don’t need heated seats right now.
That’s no Bang Bang.
>> Meanwhile, Massachusetts is asking homeowners to take illegal aliens into their homes.
Okay, read that a bit too fast and missed “illegal.” Except reading it that way somehow didn’t phase me.
>> have a barf bag handy
Ouch, “that” needed a ‘you can’t unsee it’ warning.
Good DX tonight. I don’t usually hear much on 20 meters, but tonight I heard a guy in Cali talking with a guy in France, and I heard a guy in Catalonia Spain chatting with people in the US. Shortwave was pretty good on the upper bands too, New Zealand was booming in.
Only one shooting star tonight, with moderately clear sky.
Time for bed.
n
Elsewhere you said you had trouble seeing the fuse panel. Are you sure it isn’t labeled? Sometimes, the labels are molded in, and not a contrasting color; good light at an angle is essential. How about on the inside of the cover, if any? In my experience with older VW beetles, either the fuse panel is labeled, or there is a layout in the owner’s manual, I can’t remember which. All my Chrysler products and my one Ford (68 Mustang) have labels on their fuse panels, or on the inside of the cover if there is one.
Also, don’t forget that owner’s manuals are often available on the manufacturer’s web site. I doubt very many have detailed fuse panel diagrams, however. As you found, I would not trust Chilton’s, Haynes, or other third party sources, with the possible exception of ALLDATA.
VW is the world’s largest (revenue) auto maker. There must be some good information available for free or at a reasonable price.
I just Googled “VW Jetta fuse panel diagram” and found lots of information. You didn’t say what year.
Oh, another trick is to use an ohmmeter or test light to probe from the dead socket back to the fuse panel. Most fuses can be probed in place, so this can be easy and fast. Might be useful on today’s more complex cars.
I didn’t see any using the Brave browser. I realized I had seen the video before, so didn’t watch beyond the first few seconds, but I just went back and didn’t see any while skipping through and stopping at several points.
When I was on Linux, I used Firefox. I tried most of the popular ad killers, but never found a combination that worked very well. Either there were still some ads, or lots of sites wouldn’t load until I disabled the extensions. YouTube was the worst, and I was considering paying for no ads. At the encouragement of a friend, I tried Brave on Android, and it worked almost flawlessly. I have been using it for about four years, and there was one period of a week or so where there were some unskippable ads. This was fixed. I highly recommend Brave, and have always used it with no added extensions. Sadly, it wasn’t available for my Linux distro.
Its only quirk is the browsing points or some other kind of reward system, which I have always ignored. Not sure what that is. It bothered me at first, but when I discovered I could ignore it, I have never looked back. I now use Brave as my main browser on Windows 10, and it works fine for me.
Before Brave on Windows 10, I used and still use Chrome. It is second best, and not very different, except for ads. I also don’t use any extensions with Chrome. I started using it as the open source Chromium on Linux, and liked it there. The Windows version is better, because it seems to preload linked pages on some sites so they appear instantly. This was more important when I had slow Internet. Brave seems to do that as well. Both Brave and Chrome outclass Windows Explorer and Edge for me. Edge is particularly clunky.
There are other browsers. When I was looking, I tried several, but skipped Vivaldi, which is highly regarded by some. From what I read, it seemed to require a lot of configuration to get the most out of it. If so, that is not for me.
If anybody has some recommendations, I will eventually try them. I started with Mosaic, and every browser I have used had some problems. I think it is because there are a lot of sites that don’t adhere to standards.
We dont need no stinkin standards !
The good thing about standards is there are so many.
For ads, I use Vivaldi (Chromium based) on Linux with the Privacy Badger extension installed to block tracking cookies. This has the effect of blocking most ads, as well. I could play the YouTube video with no problems, and no ads for the short time I watched it. Now that I think of it, I don’t usually see ads on YouTube, so it seems to work.
2016. The online diagrams are inconsistent with what I saw on the fuse panel, but I was losing daylight Friday night so I called it a day. I have time Sunday morning before the temps get out of hand..