Cool and clear, maybe. Forecast says – no rain. But it’s Houston. Yesterday started nice, warmed up, then got a bit overcast, with patchy clouds late in the day.
I was at home all morning, then picked up the kid. Did my pickups, mostly BOL stuff with a bit of Christmas mixed in. Came home, chauffeured D2 to an appointment, then worked on adding some decor to the yard display.
I got three cheap artificial trees, put them in the yard, and overloaded them with lights. There are colored and white on each tree. Adding the white really gives the trees shape at night, and stands in for snow, right? In any case, they look good and help fill out the yard.
I also got a couple of Star Wars inflatables at Goodwill, the droids and a Chewbacca, both about 5ft tall. I think they are pretty cool. Wife is less enamored. I have just a couple of things I will add, and then I’ll be happy. I’ll try to get to it today, so I can relax.
Today I’ve also got a pickup, or two. I could do them Friday but my wife wants to head to the BOL for a couple of days before Christmas. I’d like to too, but have auction stuff going on that I’d have to move. Since she waffled instead of planning, we’ll probably stay home. Getting the pickups out of the way today gives me options though, and I like options.
Last night while getting dinner ready I discovered that between taking stuff to the BOL, spoilage, use, and a lack of sales for replenishment, I’m almost out of pasta… Hard to believe, but the kids eat a lot of it, and it really hasn’t been on sale in a long time. I must have taken more to the BOL than I thought, as I should have a bucket or two… Maybe they’re at the secondary. Stuff is still scattered around as my ‘clean up and reorg’ project stalled, and hasn’t been completed. FAIL!
While opening buckets I also discovered one of white flour that has water intrusion. So that one is done. I think I’ll pop lids on several buckets and check on the contents. The red beans bucket has an odd smell. Not bad, or offensive, but not neutral like I expected. I’ll have to look at it in daylight.
Check your stacks people! Rotate your stock, and try to use it as part of your daily life. I budget for and accept that I’m going to have higher than average spoilage as my storage conditions are terrible. You should be able to do better than me.
And even if you can’t, more stacks will help compensate. Be like the Quakers, when you plant your garden, plant 10% extra for God’s creatures, and don’t sweat it when they eat.
nick
Use the money for the purpose for which it was donated? Are you crazy???
I used to have to pay attention to what they said, because stupid managers, executives, and political appointees (for the government offices) paid attention. Before long I got the impression that the consulting firms were filled with lumpens who couldn’t really cut it as engineers or programmers or executives, and who had to “make their mark” by forecasting something surprising regardless of whether it made sense; see also editors, managers, and other gatekeepers who have to show that they matter by pissing in the work of those capable of real work.
But after a while I came to the more cynical conclusion that the consulting firms were trying to move the industry in some direction or other in order to make money for someone.
re pasta, look into getting a pasta machine or a pasta attachment for a KitchenAid mixer. Pasta dough is easy to make, you’ve indicated that you store white flour, and the press or whatever it’s called works fine. It’s not as convenient as pulling a box off the shelf but it’s more flexible.
I just bought – as in, haven’t even opened the box yet – a new KitchenAid stand mixer. Someone burned out my previous one. The new one will stay in the basement and someone won’t touch it. I’m still going through financial straits but a good mixer is high priority so far as kitchen utensils go.
Atlanta. Not enough palms greased or walkin’ ’round money distributed.
And the church needs a new roof. That old one is lookin’ bad. Think of the children.
I believe the Dems will make a change at the top of their ticket, but it won’t happen before the Mother of All Walkin’ ‘Round Money Distribution disguised as their primary in South Carolina.
What’s this about the toll road consulting racket?
No manual handle mechanism is available. Great … until the doors freeze shut.
The passenger side front door on our BMW X5 rental had a tendency to not unlock using the remote on cold mornings.
Fortunately, pulling the door handle from the inside resolved the problem until the temperature warmed up.
That BMW was a mess. Brand new.
News this morning said Tesla drivers suck.
That’s ok, so long as the news acknowledges that Prius drivers still suck worse.
I’ve looked for, and failed to find, an article or study quantifying the sucktastic loserliness of Prius drivers as a whole.
The latest episode of “For All Mankind” blames the loss of an asteroid capture on the Rooskies not correctly converting anchor bolt design from foot/pounds to newton/meters. The head of the Soviet design team tried to cover it up and is hauled away by the KGB.
In this alternate history timeline, The Goreacle is President. I like the show and recommend it. Apple TV+ production. Weed apparently grows well on Mars in a hidden hydroponics garden.
I predict she will resign in 3, 2, 1…
But, you know how this works. She will be hired by some DEI firm for twice her current salary in a backroom PLT deal. Her salary will probably be funded by tapping into all those Harvard Bucks in some consulting deal.
Raycist.
I do also. Some of the stuff is a little slow, they could skip the queer stuff. Al Gore as president! Ack. Interesting story lines, the smuggling to and from Mars, political posturing, North Korea still off limits even in space, greed, and illegal booze.
Al Gore sits on the board of Apple.
The GoreHole is an empty suit filled by the overflow of his own colon. The rotting face of climate alarmism. Poster child for the Worthless Offspring if Famous Fathers Club.
@SteveF
The upper end of the sucking drivers scale is dominated by Jetta owners.
All of the German makes around here attract iffy drivers, particularly the Grocery Getters.
Maintenance also seems to be an afterthought. I pulled out a factory air filter from the Jetta we bought from my wife’s nephew. 68,000 miles. The vehicle was a lease in South Florida for three years, with dealer maintenance according to records.
The Jetta has a lot of nanny tech, even a 2016, which may explain why the drivers seem clueless.
I once overheard a young woman talking about the cool tech in her Chrysler, I think. With automatic lane control, the cruise control that paces the car in front, and automatic braking, she could spend her time doing other things than driving. That explained much to me.
And I had an acquaintance who used to regularly commute on an arrow-straight interstate with a 70 mph limit, where the average traffic speed was high 70s to low 80s. She would drive her Prius at 38 mph, since that was “best for the planet.” I explained to her that every single car that came up behind her had to brake, and then power around her when there was a gap in traffic, which made her driving much worse for the planet. Her response was that everyone should be forced to drive much slower. (As an aside, most of my vehicles get their best efficiency with average speeds over 70,)
And +1 for Jetta drivers, excluding present company, of course.
Back before there were the modern EVs, my two favorite Prius jokes:
I always pronounced Prius as “Pious”. I explained to people that the people who bought them were fervently religious in the green religion,, so the “r” must be silent.
What’s the difference between a porcupine and a Prius? On a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside.
Unless things have changed, when both of my kids had VWs the Vag-Com allowed plenty of low-level tinkering…of course, plenty of opportunities to muck things up if you didn’t know what you were doing.
We bought the Jetta on the assumption (incorrectly, it turns out) that the car had been maintained carefully. I don’t like driving the vehicle because of the turbo, and something feels “off” about the car at high speed.
New tires mitigated the “off” feeling to a point, but something still isn’t right.
Newish VW does not encourage tinkering. Just changing the air filter required a Torx screwdriver, something I only had from time spent opening up early 2000s Apple hardware.
I’m going to do the next oil change … or try. We’ll see how far I get.
66F and overcast today.
Slept in, but have been up for a while.
Stuff to do!!
Guess I should be doing it.
Looking thru the grocery store circulars, I see whole pig heads, and fresh pig thighs (ie. hams without the “ham” part). Is this a hispanic seasonal thing?
I might buy one to have another go at curing a ham…
n
@ SteveF:
Actually, my statement was an example of success rather than being statistically applicative. If there are some instances where GPS devices have standard deviations within ±3 ft such as my device in my backyard, then my device and the satellites are performing as expected. However, neither my device nor any other will pruduce valid data if being used downtown between skyscrapers.
Oh yes, I purchased my slide rule the first week in my technical high school.
Once my wife asked me to pick up “ham which isn’t ham” when I got groceries. Attempts at clarification yielded no useful information. Fortunately, the guy at the meat counter knew what she meant: uncured pork butt or thigh.
Not a problem. I figure that the problem was with the maps rather than with the satellites. Why correct the maps out in country areas? I mean, it’s not like farms and ranches produce anything that anyone cares about.
I have more drivers than I really want but fewer than I need. Torx, something that looks like Torx but isn’t, security Torx (dimple in the center of the star), oddball drivers for fixing Gameboys or Apple products, 000 Phillips for something or other, and I don’t know what else.
A few years ago I estimated the replacement value of the tools in the garage, the shed, my car, my backpack, and the multi-pocket wear-everywhere vest. Car tools, house tools, yard tools, everyday tools. Tens of thousands of dollars. That doesn’t include craft items like the laser cutter, just stuff for fixing and maintaining things. It also didn’t include fasteners and jugs of oil and antifreeze and paint and chicken wire and other consumables. And all that made me sit back and ponder the value of the stuff in my dad’s shop. Quarter million? Half million?
I would wager that you still have that slide rule and it still works perfectly. I bought my Pickett metal slide rule in 1966 for about $15.00. A princely sum back then that represent 10 hours of hard physical labor. I still have it, it still works, although most of the stuff I have forgotten. Back then there was always a huge 10′ slide rule at the front of the school room used for the math classes. I even remember slide rule competitions.
“If you’re not a part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.” – Justin Sewell
It’s been comfortably (or rather, uncomfortably) below freezing all day. May get up to freezing tomorrow but probably not. The weekend and Monday should be much warmer, mid-40s by Monday.
Chickens have been complaining all day. Not sure why. Their feet might be uncomfortable, but they should be able to go into the coop if they’re cold. I just cleaned it yesterday, so stink shouldn’t be a problem. (And they pooped in their water and food until I elevated them to make that more difficult, so I don’t think that sanitary conditions are high on their minds.) There might be some bullying going on, with the older hens not letting the younger into the coop. Regardless, there are several layers of cardboard and a thin layer of straw atop the patio stones, so cold stone underfoot shouldn’t be a big problem.
I found a heated roosting rail on Amazon. It won’t be here for a while, but Tractor Supply didn’t have any and Agway’s out of business so Amazon it is. I figure to turn it on in the morning when I open the coop and let them use it or go into the heated coop as they please (or as bullying allows), and not worry about heating the world.
The birds might also be annoyed because they were only out of their run for a couple hours today. Spoiled brats. Sorry, but I had things I needed to do today. (He says as he types several comments on a forum which has nothing to do with earning a living…)
@steve, think of it as a “wellness break” which used to be called a “mental health day”…
And of course the little dinosaurs are going to be feisty… Or did I mean “tasty”…
I don’t even want to try your valuation exercise. The county clerk just waves their hands for a while before pulling a number out of their fundament to value my “business personal property” which consists mainly of used tools, fixtures made from scrap wood, and piles of broken or leftover auction buys. They never even looked at it before assigning a number. A number which TRIPLED one year for no reason other than ‘because we can and we need the money.”
The amount of unsold but in the ebay pile stuff is well past 10 thousand… and I could certainly use the money, but I’m … well … something…
n
So I guess it’s not just the US after all. /sarc
Finally people are doing more than waiting like sheep.
n
Czechia is one of the few European countries in which it is feasible to get a carry permit for a gub, and many do carry. It will be interesting to see whether the madman’s evil spree was ended by an armed citizen or by the police. If the former, the anti-gub media will be sure to bury that tidbit under calls for stricter citizen disarmament.
In a previous professional function, one of my activities was organising training for office workers about what to do in the event of a terrorist attack or someone running amok: run, hide, fight. Still good advice.
Reminder that the Harvard devaluation has been going on for years:
At some point during the eight years of idiocy, it was turned up that while editor of the Review, The One did not pen a single editorial.
I never used a slide rule in a class, but I have most of my calculators still in working order except the two HP 28 models I used through most of undergrad.
The first, a 28C, was stolen with my bookbag out of the cafeteria while the other one, the 28S followup with more RAM, simply stopped turning on after about a decade. By that point, the plastic, Hecho en Oregon, was brittle to the point that I kept the battery door closed with tape.
I didn’t keep the calculator for sentimental reasons. Junk is junk, and I live with three people who have my in-laws’ characteristic hoarding compulsion. Why add a fourth?
HP calculator manufacturing left the country after the HP 28.
I wonder how RPN gets explained to students now that HP calculators are no longer the standard in STEM classes at the university level.
@Nick
”ten thousand” in eBay sales is not ten thousand in value.
Huge difference between cost of acquisition and sold price, with several discrete steps between. The effective eBay commission is about 20%, so the last step between a fully inventoried, evaluated, photographed and described item and a sold item is minimally that.
Slide rules; I had a medium-quality slide rule from high school math, and a couple of circular slide rules for air navigation. In 1978, I was an undergraduate teaching assistant proctoring “Intro to Physics Lab” at the University of Kansas. One day, one of my “students” strolled in with backpack FILLED with new-in-box top-grade slide rules; the KU bookstore was giving them away and would stop carrying them – because of the availability of cheap calculators. The student was giving them away to his friends, and gave me one as well. I still have it. I also still have my TI-59 programmable electronic calculator, but I haven’t used either since I got my first actual desktop computer.
It doesn’t matter. He’s The One.
>> New tires mitigated the “off” feeling to a point, but something still isn’t right.
@Greg, if it gets to the point where you want to try and resolve it, I’d suggest looking for a reputable VW only mechanic. The VW Vortex forums should be a good place to look for one.
In the early ‘90s I worked at a GM dealership. They brought in a business consultant at one point, to help them ’stop leaving money on the table’. Since warranty work* is a substantial part of dealer income, although not profitable per se, I spent a lot of time with him while he was there. He told me that most of his clients want essentially a 5 or 10 point list of improvements to make, and he would create that. Then the clients would implement the 2 or 3 that they agreed with and ignore the rest, and wonder why the expected improvements didn’t happen.
*I was the warranty administrator
I’m not going to worry about it. I have plenty on my plate at home.
“The Best Science Fiction Books with Gas Giants” by Dan Livingston
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-science-fiction-books-with-gas-giants/
I have read:
10. Cold as Ice by Charles Sheffield – 1992
3. Leviathans of Jupiter by Ben Bova – 2011
2. 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke – 1982 (the movie is awesome too !)
Other gas giant books are “The Ophiuchi Hotline” by John Varley (awesome) and an early Perry Rhodan book where PR and crew land on the “surface” of Jupiter using force fields and anti-gravity.
Yes, and I bought it in Sept. 1952. It was a Dietzgen which factory was a few blocks from my house and we new some workers there.
Several times in the 1990s I was hired to help software departments get CMM Level 3 certification, either as a consultant with one task or as a staff programmer with that as part of my job.
In every case, no exceptions, the effort ground to a halt when the managers or owner realized that getting from Level 1 (“chaos”) to Level 2 (“repeatable results”) relied mainly on getting requirements and changes under control. This meant that the boss or the marketing team could no longer make changes three times a week. This was unacceptable. The whole plan was to get the programmers under control because they’re the ones not getting the software out on time and why don’t you understand this?
At least one of these companies never did get CMM or ISO-9001 certification, but they worded their product literature to make it sound like they’d met all of the requirements and were just waiting for the paperwork to come through. Scummy place, actively dishonest rather than well-meaning but disorganized or ignorant.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s The One.”
History will properly value him as The Zero.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12869313/viral-fast-fashion-quality-tweet-proves-clothing-quality-ruined.html
Note that they don’t deny clothes getting cr@ppier, they try to make it sound like a good thing.
My contention is that if you want to “save the planet”, buy only well built things, preferably used, repair them (and buy repairable things to start with), and buy fewer but better. Quality clothes, in conservative styles will last a lifetime. Men have this easier than women,because quality men’s wear still looks the same. Duke of whatever isn’t wearing fast fashion, nor is the partner at the law firm. Men’s oxford shoes, wing tips, etc, still looking great. Button down oxford cloth shirts, ditto. Conservatively (classically) cut suits, same same.
Heck, it even works for blue jeans. Levis are still in demand, while PHATFARM and FUBU probably not so much.
Classic womens wear, little black dress, etc is harder to define, but quality that lasts is still better than disposable trend following. FFS, who WANTS to FOLLOW?
n
Same thing happened at my college about that time. Maybe it was a consignment thing and at the manufacturer told the college bookstores to give them away?
I attended my college of engineering from 1972 to 1976. I had 2 years of chemistry in high school, and my stupid entrance counselor put me into first semester chem. So I challenged the class, and took the final, and passed it, got the credit, and moved to second-semester, which was still review for the first half.
But I digress; in order to take the final, I borrowed a calculator from a wealthy friend. It was the first portable one I had ever seen. It was the size of a portable cassette recorder, had nixie tubes, and was 4 functions only. I also brought my 22 scale Pickett slide rule.
Some time later, I bought my only calculator through college. A TI SR-10, 4 function LED plus square and square root, with scientific notation. No trig. I always had my slide rule to do trig lookups. It cost me over $100.
Fast forward to 1976 and my last final exam of my undergrad career. I was in one of those lecture halls with stadium style seating, and I was in the highest row. I wanted to fix this moment in my mind, so I looked all around the hall. Every other student was using and advanced calculator with all the functions, most of them HP35 or HP45. I was the only one still using a slide rule. I still had my SR-10.
Tony needs another distraction…look over there…COWS!
https://news.yahoo.com/austin-problem-tesla-descends-battery-111607306.html
“It doesn’t matter. He’s The One.”
History will properly value him as The Zero.
Wait a minute there. The winners write the history books and the crazies are winning right now.
So “The Oracle” owns 15 percent of Paramount…what outcome is he betting on?
https://www.newsweek.com/warren-buffett-investment-paramount-raises-eyebrows-1854447
>> Classic womens wear, little black dress, etc is harder to define, but quality that lasts is still better than disposable trend following.
The problem with women’s wear are those that wear something only once, then it goes to the back of the closet, and eventually to the thrift store (where @nick buys it for pennies on the dollar).
I found this somewhere. I forget where. A random X thing? No matter.
Anyway:
Can’t say he’s wrong.
Ok, I got a thumbs down. Cool. Mind explaining why?
The way I see it, and I’m not a genius, is that if Colorado’s nonsense stands, well, hey man, isn’t one of the BIG DUTIES of the President to protect the borders? NOT open the borders wide?
So…. If Trump is off of the ballot because of hurt feelings and zero trials or being convicted of anything, other states can play that game too.
Let Texas drop Biden from ballot. For not enforcing the border. Never mind all of the rest that is being shoved under the carpet.
I suggest letting the stated reason be that he’s not protecting the border, but all of the press releases on the topic should show him molesting little girls. There certainly are plenty of them out there, waiting to be made into a collage. (As I and others have done.)
Perfect.
I’m smart enough or stupid enough, your call, to think opening the border to illegals from all over the world is at least a violation of his oath of office, minimum…. more like treason.
The Gecko playing Paramount is relatively recent. He’s not there for the long term.
Some Paramount franchises would be immensely valuable if put on the market separate from the rest of the company.
A recurring rumor on “Star Trek” fan sites concerns a secret pilot shot earlier this year, ordered by the merchandise licensees, which is set in the “current” TNG timeline (early 2400s) and completely free of any input by the creative teams at Bad Robot or Secret Hideout who currently run the shows, including the people involved with the third season of “Picard”.
Hecho en Bangladesh Levis do not last.
Boss Plugs will get that Duke boy.
https://deadline.com/2023/12/john-schneider-secret-service-joe-biden-hanging-comment-1235680080/
Erased … from existence. It will be weird to drive by that spot in Tampa and not see the hotel.
Eventually, that’s where the train station will go for the Tampa to Disney and Orlando Airport high speed rail line, but probably not in my lifetime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEmPDW8bk-Q
Power Outages Force Maine to Delay Vote for Electric Vehicle Mandate
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/12/power-outages-force-maine-to-delay-vote-for-electric-vehicle-mandatr/
You think stategov and the Big Swingin’ Richards will give up their Big Black SUV’s?
Tell the dipstix to lead.
Convert all of state government, including law enforcement–to pure EV and live with it for 5 years.
In the meantime they can pass the law requiring all owners of rental property to provide indoor heated parking with chargers, because nothing else will keep them going in the wintertime when the battery is used to heat the cabin and capacity starts to fall off as the battery pack cools down.
>> I suggest letting the stated reason be that he’s not protecting the border
Don’t forget that Plugs appointed The Kamel as border czar…two birds, one stone.
FJB appointed Mayorkas, too, with the approval of six simpering fools:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/6-gop-senators-voted-confirm-dhs-secretary-mayorkas
https://hotair.com/headlines/2023/12/21/buick-dealers-revolt-against-gms-ev-strategy-n600583
Marching voluntarily into the disintegration chamber…
CAROUSEL !!!11!!!
n
Removing people from a ballot, after they qualified to be there, is a precedent that anyone with brains would know is a Really Bad Idea ™. It says you are afraid of the voter’s choice, and by definition, anti-democracy (let the voters choose). And it opens up a whole new battleground for political partisans.
But then they already broke the ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ not to prosecute the big players once they were out of office…
So time to go nuclear on the Klintons. Unless like harry reid, and the guy at the top of the room in the Haunted Mansion, they want to take the ‘easy way out’.
n
IIRC, Obama’s car czar and the caretaker pinhead CEO Ed Whitacre cut about a third of the GM dealerships 14 years ago during the financial crisis.
GM used the shuttered dealerships to stash unsold vehicles for about a year.
The Dems imploded in Florida and will be out of power for at least another decade. If this 14th Amendment interpretation goes against Trump – who has not been tried/convicted on the charge of Insurrection — DeSantis could direct the Secretary of State to remove Biden from the ballot over the border situation with the support of the FL Supreme Court.
Elections have consequences. So does running a known meth head for Governor in order to “make history”.
GM’s fully electric fleet will be bought entirely by .gov, like most of their current fleet, and it will coincidentally facilitate the plan outlined above 🙂
And Maine’s plan is vehicles SOLD in Maine, which will just mean every single dealer goes broke in short order and Maine’s citizens buy their cars in other states. Or buy “used” vehicles with 100 miles on them.
n
If Mayorkas ever shows up in Texas again Abbott should have him arrested for endangering the citizens of Texas, aiding and abetting invasion of the state by criminals, and accessory to murder. Careful selection of the jail would give him a chance to get up close and personal with the problems.
“So time to go nuclear on the Klintons.”
Past time for Clintons and Bidens. It’s one thing to politely agree not to criminalize political differences. It’s quite another to ignore the rape of the country and pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Feds buy a lot of the output of the GM Arlington plant, big trucks/SUVs, eight cylinder engines with Allison transmissions.
Note that the strike got settled really fast once the union voted to take Arlington out of production.
What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.
Or, as Al Capp put it:
Right!
He makes the rules
And he intends to keep it thataway
What?s good for General Bullmoose
Is good for the U.S.A.
>> transition to all-electric by 2030. As a result, GM will end 2023 with just 1,000 Buick stores nationwide, down 47% from the beginning of the year when it had about 1,890 stores
What exactly is the Buick demo these days? Used to be, I thought, 65+ and white. Currently, IIRC, the brand is very popular in China.
Buicks in China pay attention to the back seat experience, which is where most of the car owners actually sit… iirc.
——————-
– vegas has a real violence problem in their schools.
n
I have a friend whose family ran a dealership. It’s an ugly, ugly business. His family owned one of the largest dealerships in Dallas. When his dad (with all the political connections) passed away unexpectedly, the other dealers in the area descended like sharks , cut backroom deals with GM, and forced them out of business.
Anyway, dealerships mostly exist, because of protectionist laws requiring them. Tesla, whatever you think of them, has shown that dealerships are not necessary. You need a delivery point and maybe a couple of demo cars for test drives, but not full-blown dealerships with parking lots full of unsold vehicles.
Anyway, most dealerships make their money in service. EVs need a lot less servicing, so EVs automatically mean fewer dealerships.
The big issues with EVs are (1) electrical infrastructure, (2) charging opportunities for people living in apartments, and (3) in really cold climates, indoor parking is important.
FWIW we are pretty happy with our EV. We aren’t impacted by the above issues, since we mostly charge at home using our own solar.