It was crazy hot yesterday and today should be the same. I’m not looking forward to that. If I wasn’t working I could take a dip in the lake when I got too hot. I have to settle for laying on the cool concrete floor while a fan blows conditioned air on me…
My next door neighbor is up this weekend and I’ve been trying to get together with him on the dock for drinks and a tiny fire. He goes to bed early and rises early, and I’m the opposite, so we haven’t been able to meet up. I stopped by his other lot on my way home from the hardware store. He had a 40×60 foot metal building built to use as a shop and storage area but he’s doing some of the interior build out himself.
I saw he was working and stopped to chat. He was really hot. Still sweating but minor shaking in his hands so I got him in the shade and talked to him for about 20 minutes until he’d cooled off a bit. He was focused on some underground plumbing issue in the sun and didn’t notice. This heat is dangerous in the sun, since the humidity and lack of wind makes it very difficult to stay cool.
I used to live in Arizona, and did plenty of outdoor work, rock climbed, rode my bike and motorcycle everywhere, and learned to be careful and hydrate… but the 3% humidity meant you’d stay cool if you kept drinking and sweating. When the monsoon season hit and the humidity went up, it was miserable. Houston is a swamp. RH was 84% today and the real temp had to be over 100F in the shade. In the sun it was so much worse.
Consequently my work went very slowly yesterday. I had a fan blowing on me in the garage, but it was still dangerously hot. I did make progress. I’ve got about half the insulation done, and I hung three sheets of plywood. Took a break when my buddy finally stopped by, and went over and helped him fix his flagpole so we could change out his ratty flags for the 4th. Chatted for a while with him and his wife. It was good to stop working for a bit.
Pot roast was very nice for dinner. I do love slow cooker meals.
Today I should put in the rest of the insulation and hang another sheet of ply. That will let me put one side of the garage back together. Depending on how that goes, I might stay up here for one more night. I am thinking about leaving Monday, and checking out the boats my wife wants me to look at on my way home. Whenever I leave, I have to do a thorough cleaning so when we get back on Wednesday the house is ready for guests. I’ll have to budget some time for that. Spiders and red dirt dust are a constant issue.
And dishes, I’ll need to do dishes…
Stack some time with friends, and some time by yourself for reflection and recharging your mental and physical strength. You will need both.
nick
We should be around in October. I work near the intersection of the 45 toll road and I-35 if you’re road tripping down 130 on a weekday.
At some point, we have to finish our Tennessee trip.
I only went as far as Nashville last year to get my wife’s Nephew’s car.
We’re careful about OpSec going into this Fall. One week-long trip is planned.
Big Mike at the top of the ticket would be a problem for Rafael Edward and, possibly, Rick Scott (RINO-FL).
The Dems in Florida have an empty bench and are out of power for at least a decade absent a major Federal court decision forcing new districts before the 2030 Census. However, Rick Scott’s victory margins have always been thin.
In Texas, Colin Zachary (Allred) has a story which plays well with Wine Moms.
Did Roberts announce on Friday that Monday would be the final day?
If not, then rulings will continue through Tuesday by tradition.
The ‘T’ part of the rainbow has always been viewed with disdain by the rest of the LGBTQXYZ crowd.
Thought is not monolithic with the alphabet people.
I’ve seen various articles theorizing about a way around the same state restriction. The limitation only matters in the Electoral College vote and won’t matter if the 270 votes are there without Florida.
I don’t think either Rubio or DeSantis are seriously being considered, however.
Barry could run for either office and then the Senate would have to debate certification of the results.
The problem for the Dems now as it was in 2016 when the possibility foated is that the House delegations are controlled by Republicans, and the Presidential election would be decided in the House, one vote per delegation, with the Senate deciding VP with a majority vote of the individual Senators.
Ok. Roberts announced that Monday would be the end of the term.
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-decisions-roberts-4672bbd67480c7c1addf98b51eeea8fb
I’ll bet that upset a lot of travel plans in the various media subsidiaries of Vanguard/Blackrock.
Staff at ABC News were already sweating DIS opening below $100 on Monday, at 107 PE, creeping close to the magic 200 day number which will trigger the algorithms to sell with four trading days this week.
En Fuego!
Everyone was hoping just to ride out the month waiting for “Deadpool 3” to open.
My new Hamilton Beach coffee maker Brewstation died electrically after a month of usage. I went to their website and complained. A support person sent me an email and said that they are shipping me a new one this week. And, please do not ship the old one back.
I had to use Edge on their website as Firefox would not pop the message window. Firefox is very tightly wound these days for security with java scripts.
It is 79 F with 100 % humidity this morning. A clearless sky, it is going to be a HOT one today. I’ve got both home a/c units going strong.
And I did a full test on the whole house generator last week. No problems and full startup in under ten seconds.
I am debating how long the beard is going to last. I have not shaved in two months but I have trimmed occasionally. It is thickest on my neck.
“Rewriting History To Undermine SCOTUS”
https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/content/rewriting-history-to-undermine-scotus/
“I have been noticing a recurring movement by anti-gun extremists, who now appear to be trying to convince the public that Americans owning firearms is a relatively new concept. The goal seems to be an attempt to reimagine our nation’s longstanding history of large segments of law-abiding citizens embracing the Second Amendment by choosing to own firearms.”
“That’s simply ridiculous.”
“Americans have always owned guns, even before they were officially Americans. The British subjects who lived on this continent back in the 18th century eventually used their guns to help expel British soldiers and establish what would become the greatest nation the world has ever known.”
Academic liars in Ivy League schools. Who would have thought this possible ?
Ruh, Roh:
Biden ‘will discuss major decision with his family’ as they return to Camp David – as his campaign issues bizarre defense of embattled president
Love the picture with the plane towing: BI-DONE.
Although, they are probably going to discuss changing to Extra Strength Depends. Doctor Jill wants another 4 years as President, er, I mean First Lady.
Emory.
Fancy Lad schools are in deep trouble absent a large scale student loan forgiveness scheme which short circuits interest in exploration of Borrower Defense.
I don’t think any more schemes will be forthcoming from Corn Pop. Thursday night was the end of the Biden Presidency beyond the continued shuffling towards WWIII in Ukraine.
To paraphrase Bill Murray in “Stripes”, Doctor Biden has been kicked out of every decent opportunity she’s ever had to do something meaningful with her life because of Plugs and she’s got nowhere else to go.
@Lynn
“I am debating how long the beard is going to last. I have not shaved in two months but I have trimmed occasionally. It is thickest on my neck.”
Get a piece of rockwool insulation. Shave the beard. Go for a day, then wrap your neck in rockwool. See if it reminds you of anything.
Mining for Hockeysticks
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/06/29/mining-for-hockeysticks/
Willis confirms that the procedures used to create the original hockeystick do in fact create hockeysticks out of pseudorandomly generated red noise datasets.
Only 130 comments so far–I expect this to be over 1000 by this time tomorrow. One of them may be mine, after I think on it.
Brunton is the standard text to analyze data for meaningful patterns. The examples used to require Matlab, which has a learning curve, but the latest edition includes Python, lowering the bar of entry.
With a copy of that text, time, and an incentive (read grant money), I can find a hockey set in any data with a reasonable-enough explanation suitable for a scientific paper.
Emphasis because, contrary to the statements from the failed journalist, divinity/law school dropout, and “Fortunate Son” right out of the song, Albert Gore Jr., true science is never settled and should always invite challenge.
@Greg Norton
The original hockey stick was part of Mann, Bradley and Hughes 1998 paper and used “innovative” mathematical analysis to tease out the “truth of the hockey stick temperature graph”, which can be variously summed up as: temps are going up and we are all going to burn.
Willis current post is his personal confirmation of what others (notably Steve McIntyre and Ross McKittrick) had found before.
Proxies are used in the attempt to determine historical temperatures before the invention of thermometers and over a wider geographic and historical range than observations of any kind were available in an attempt to compute the elusive “earth temperature”. Only 200 years or so of thermometer data in a few geographic locations is available to compute correlations with proxies, and those correlations are then assumed to apply for the previous hundreds or thousands of years.
Historical temperature reconstructions using proxies are dependent on the validity of the correlations. Tree-ring data is a favorite, but tree rings are dependent on moisture and other factors in addition to temperature, just to point out one problem. There are many others.
It’s all in service of showing that human carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to “save the planet”, just incidentally requiring that 8 billion people submit to the dictates of a few wise leaders who will have godlike powers over the rest of us, who will be happy to serve them and their hereditary successors..
That ain’t hockeysticks, it’s horsehockey.
Wise leaders like Al Gore and John Kerry … who served in Vietnam, BTW.
86F, sunny, with a small breeze. And dew on the grass.
Which is one reason we went with buried drip lines for the septic system, that dew would be treated sewage water if we had sprinklers. And how many people have told me you don’t realize you have a problem with your chlorinator unit until you notice the bad smell from where your sprinklers discharge?
Yeah, I paid a bit more to bury the lines. I save on chlorine and the chlorinator itself, and I know that my wet lawn is just dew…
————-
WRT Ukraine, the radio program I listen to on shortwave has a nightly/weekly “report” from “Alexander” in Ukraine. Originally it was text to speech, now someone in the studio reads it. This week it was all about how the heroic Ukes were just going about their lives, parents and families, and were being bombed at work, schools, churches, factories, parents and children, children, and parents. And they were holding up against the Russians.
But now because the US missiles were cut off the Russians have been unfairly shooting at the Ukes from safety on their side of the border, from deep inside Russia. And the US missiles don’t work as well as they used to because the Russians are learning. But we NEED to get more US missiles so we can hit targets deep inside Russia. Not CIVILIANS, because we’re the heroes, but ammo dumps, drone factories, and rear areas.
It ended with a plea and a statement that the Ukes were fighting OUR fight, for freedom, and to stop Russia before they threatened Poland, or Germany, or the UK or even … the US.
– that’s the bizarro world we’re living in, where using US missiles and NATO assets inside Russia makes it LESS LIKELY that Russia will expand their war to include us. In the real world it is pretty much the textbook example of escalation.
————–
At least there is still coffee.
n
Who knew that taking fitness advice from a 22yo was a bad idea??
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13584625/Fitness-influencer-Alice-Liveing-admits-clean-eating-regime-ruined-health-hair-fell-periods-stopped-reveals-feels-guilt-former-fitspo-persona.html
– this is the kind of sh!te my daughters have to deal with.
n
It is 90F at 9am here in the California high desert, always a bad sign…. Still, the humidity is low.
The 3rd is projected to be 109F, the 4th to be 111F, and Friday to be 114F. Ugh.
I need to check my little Pulsar generator, make sure the LPG regulator works and all that. It actually has an OAT limit of 105F as I recall, so if I need it I have to remember to place a mister and fan on it.
Tomorrow I start the preparation process for another colonoscopy, my 3rd. Only broth tomorrow and Tuesday, the actual day of the procedure. Surprisingly soft drinks of any kind are allowed as long as they are not red. The flushing fluid procedure is different this time. Drink two quarts starting tomorrow evening at 4:00 PM and finish by 6:00 PM. Finish the rest starting at 8:00 AM tomorrow, done by 10:00 AM. The procedure is not until 3:00 PM but I have to be at the place by 2:00 PM. This is going to be another shirtty(-r) experience. Last time I was never able to finish drinking all the fluid.
Ok, I have reason to be interested in a particular Vietnam vet, Captain Richard Sasek USMC, who died July 6, 1967.
Every time I read this paragraph, I think of John F’n Kerry.
My last contact with the Captain was on 5 July. He asked to see the walking wounded injured when our platoon escorted five M-60 tanks into the action and brought back four disabled tanks. The tank I was riding lost a track while sliding sideways into a large crater. A few minutes after leaping off the tank we received about 30 rounds of artillery (probably from north of the DMZ). No one was hit with large fragments of shrapnel, however, five of us had small fragments. Captain Sasek let us know that if the wounds were not as serious as one on his leg (he rolled up his pant leg and said “I didn’t claim this”, showing us a two inch scar on his shin) it wasn’t going to be considered for a Purple Heart. Most of us had at least one P.H. and three meant going home. Had we not had a C.O. like Richard Sasek to keep us in line we would have given in to the temptation of claiming the less serious injuries even though they technically qualified. During that period we could have made necklaces of Purple Hearts if we claimed all our wounds.
Remember, the definition of “swiftboating” is: Telling the truth about Democrats.
IIRC, Germany had an advanced industrial economy until the US helped the Ukrainians blow up said economy’s vital gas supply pipeline.
I’m confused. Isn’t that an act of war?
Isn’t it fun? Due for my 3rd next year. Other than being a time sink it isn’t too bad.
Beats dying of internal cancers.
@Ray Thompson
I’d say we’ll be supportive without actually being behind you on this one.
Not at all, it was simply to help them decarbonize quicker.
All Hail Gaia!
Next time I have to start the cleanse early as I apparently have “a long colon.”
———-
Got the rest of the insulation I’m doing on this visit in place. Added another outlet in the garage for the a/c unit. It’s rated at 10amps so I don’t feel good about putting both on the same circuit. Extra capacity in the garage is always a good thing.
———
Taking a cool down break and eating lunch, before I cut and hang the last two pieces of ply.
———-
Someone asked about rockwool instead of pink, and I’d give it a try if I could get it. I was lucky to get any here in podunk.
Talc powder is your friend when doing fiberglas. Coat your exposed skin with it to “fill your pores”. It really does keep the little fibers from sticking and itching. If you do get the itchy, gently wipe the area with a white dryer sheet, and it will catch and remove almost all the fibers. Rinse with warm water, stroking gently under the rinse to remove the rest.
———-
n
“Isn’t that an act of war?”
Collateral damage or assistance in meeting CO2 emissions targets. Spin it any way you like.
Ukraine would not be fighting this war had the U.S., speaking for NATO, not convinced Ukraine to give up their Cold War era nukes in exchange for Slick Willy’s personal guarantee of U.S. protection.
And it wouldn’t be getting US support if not for being the world’s biggest money laundry….
—————
Talked about these guys before, now they’re expanding again… Flock.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13552111/FedEx-trucks-spying-cameras-police.html
Some of the neighborhoods around me have one of these on every road leading in or out. And they are expanding into other neighborhoods, and must be in partnership with the city, because they are starting to mount cams on City of Houston traffic control equipment and poles.
n
0h, oh
https://www.oreillyauto.com/flux-500.html?q=121g
Next time someone says you’re full of shirt(-r), it may not be far from the truth.
That can’t be the reason that FedEx stock spiked last week … could it?
Water temps on the projected tracking area of Beryl.
Gas shortage next weekend in Texas!
https://baynews9.com/fl/tampa/weather/tropical#Water_Temperatures-WX
Website: “This item is not available for purchase.”
Homer Simpson (or Carl Sagan, you decide) voiceover:
Yet. This item is not available for purchase, yet.
But once it is, it will always have been.
Spent almost 3 hours removing flamnable debris from the yard (with lots of cool down periods). Didn’t realize it had gotten so bad since the big abatement push in spring.
Perhaps 90% was dry vegetation blown in from that one DILLIGAF neighbor’s yard upwind. His yard is one bottle rocket away from being a firestorm.
Added an upduct to the attic hatch. The thermal safety latch is missing, so I have it fastened open with wire for now, but perhaps a piece of string or weed whacker line would work?
Done for today. Time for another shower.
There is really only one road through my little city. The road does split halfway through the city. There are license plate cameras on every end of the road monitoring incoming traffic. If a license plate matches a database of wanted vehicles, the police are alerted and will stop the vehicle before it gets to the other end of town.
Most of the infractions are for known drug dealers. I can tell when one is intercepted as three or four police vehicles with one car pulled over. The doors on the suspect vehicle are open as is the rear hatch/trunk. The occupants are usually standing around, sometimes in cuffs.
My nephew, who is a Texas state trooper, says that older Buick and Oldsmobile cars are watched carefully. He states that in many traffic stops of those vehicles drugs are present.
I got stopped one time in a DUI blockade by a state trooper. The officer asked if I had anything to drink that evening. I said yes. He asked how much. I said 32 ounces. He asked of what. I said water. That pissed him off. I told him he did not ask if I had any alcohol, just if I had anything to drink. I told him lying to an officer was a crime and I truthfully answered his question and that he should be more specific in his question. He spent the next three minutes with his flashlight looking through the windows. He asked me to open the center console and I said no. He then angrily told me leave.
In TN one year the state troopers put a sign on the freeway that there was a DUI checkpoint ahead. By state law the locations must be posted several days before and signs on the road. In this case the DUI checkpoint was actually at the end of the exit just after the signs. People would get off the freeway thinking the DUI checkpoint was ahead on the freeway. A lot of DUI and drugs were caught on the exit ramp.
TN also has a few semi-tractors that cruise the interstate. It has the state trooper color scheme. The high vantage point is used to catch drivers that are not wearing seatbelts and using cell phones. The truck will radio to a state trooper close behind who will make the traffic stop.
Georgia in Dalton has notorious bridge across the interstate. A local trooper will sit on the bridge with radar. A speeder is flagged a local trooper waiting on the on-ramp will be dispatched. I passed that bridge one time and there were six trooper cars waiting to pounce. It is big revenue for the city as generally people caught are not from the area and will not return to challenge the ticket.
Alabama had a new “move over” law go into effect four years ago at the height of pandemic kabuki. They’re still mining that gold from what I’ve heard from people heading eastbound into Mobile on I-10.
I guarantee they will set up the sting this week. The mass court date in that district will be the Friday before Labor Day, as it was when I got snagged.
It doesn’t matter if the trooper doesn’t show and the case is dismissed. $100 ticket. $149 court costs.
If you see flashing lights from a row of Alabama State Patrol vehicles on the side of the road, slow down to 20 MPH below the posted limit immediately even if the heroes’ cars look empty. The last two cars will not be empty.
On all road trips, the Waze app is loaded and running on my phone, which is visible in the dash holder.
The ‘police ahead’ alerts are usually accurate, although they are often an indicator of patrolling an area, and not their exact location. You can usually see more than one indicator of their prior location. That usually means that they are wandering in that area, so you should be watchful of your speed.
I usually try to not be the fastest car in the area. I let a few others pass me on the highways. Let them attract the attention of the po-po. And I keep right unless passing someone.
Waze is usually good about indicating an area where they are patrolling.
Waze is generally good along the West Coast and here in Texas, but driving across Arkansas last summer, I was the only one reporting the speed traps from SW of Little Rock all the way down to Texarkana.
I almost got snagged by one just outside of Little Rock, but another driver reported one when I was about half a mile out.
Over The Hedge: It Was So Hot …
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2024/06/30
That you could fry an Apatosaurus egg on the back of a Ankylosaurus.
The speed limit in Texas on I-10 is 75 MPH. Heading east into Louisiana the speed limit drops to 70 on I-10. On more than one trip I have seen several LA state troopers parked on the side of the road catching the unaware. And others who caught the unaware.
The “move over” law is in effect in TN and I suspect in all the states. A driver must slow down to 20 MPH under the speed limit if unable to move over.
North of San Antonio on I-35 in Schertz TX back in the early 80’s that small town was known as a speed trap. Only a short section of I-35 was within the city limits. That was prime hunting ground for Schertz police. In 1980 over 50% of the town’s revenue was from speed tickets. Locals knew about it, out-of-towners did not.
One time a person got on the CB and asked if the road was clear. They got a response on the CB the road was clear so no worries. The person got pulled over by the Schertz police. The person asked why because they were informed the road was clear. The officer answered that it was him on the CB that stated the road was clear. The person that got pulled over identified themselves as working for the FCC in a high capacity.
The officer was informed that using a CB by local police, except in an emergency, was against the law. The officer offered to forego the citation and was then informed that bribing a federal official was a federal crime.
The officer lost his job and Schertz was no longer allowed to patrol that section of the interstate to write tickets on the interstate. This was all reported in the paper.
I don’t know if the situation is still in effect.
Texas was 15 but the mandatory reduction was upped to increase the mulcting.
>> – this is the kind of sh!te my daughters have to deal with.
You could always suggest they delete all their social media accounts…right?…sure??
We have limited which apps they can install, and at home we have Circle ™ which blocks and filters, but we don’t block youtube, and all the socials cross post, or the youtuber is a “reaction” channel which posts the most “whatever” and reacts to it.
IOW, they see a lot of it, despite tech restrictions.
And the whole school uses instagram as a chat/phone/group chat app.
It’s insidious.
n
And just imagine, when we were kids, we survived by passing notes around in class…
It’s all in service of showing that human carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to “save the planet”, just incidentally requiring that 8 billion people submit to the dictates of a few wise leaders who will have godlike powers over the rest of us, who will be happy to serve them and their hereditary successors..
That ain’t hockeysticks, it’s horsehockey.
They want to use our children’s backs as footstools.
Which is one reason we went with buried drip lines for the septic system, that dew would be treated sewage water if we had sprinklers. And how many people have told me you don’t realize you have a problem with your chlorinator unit until you notice the bad smell from where your sprinklers discharge?
Actually, the aerator cancels the smell by continuously venting the septic system to the atmosphere. The chlorine just knocks the bacteria down.
Mom of War Hero Pat Tillman Furious ESPN Anointed Prince Harry Winner of Award Named After Her Son
https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2024/06/30/mom-of-pat-tillman-furious-that-espn-named-prince-harry-winner-of-award-named-after-her-war-hero-son-n2176209
sweet eff-A
@Lynn
“They want to use our children’s backs as footstools.”
And I want to use them for fertilizer, as a last step.
It is really smokey outside. There is a big fire in Brazoria County on federal land.
https://abc13.com/post/large-active-wildfire-brazoria-county-residents-cr-227/15014342/
YouTube tips and finds:
1) If your YouTube feed offers you a video that has only one previous view, watch it. Subject matter, language, etc. do not matter–it’s an honor. FYI, I think I know a guy in Japan that has a better way–maybe the jig, maybe the technique–to restring squash rackets.
2) $150-200 a quart. That’s how much the revolutionary VOC-free UV-cure wood finishes cost. Stumpy and the others making videos like to be coy about it. Rule of Thumb: If you have time to watch woke sf butcher history, your time is not worth the cost of $150 a quart varnish.
3) Restoring Airstream trailers is not easy. Looks to me like if you have the skills to work on riveted aluminum you should get certs to work on small planes and make serious bux.
4) Do you know anyone buying $1500 wood cutting boards? Neither do I. I remember when the experts declared that wood was dangerous because it couldn’t be cleaned properly, so we threw them away and got PE plastic boards, which it turned out can harbor bacteria through a standard dishwasher cycle, and then we found out that wood did not promote bacteria growth like the experts said, and millions of people in the past did not actually die from cutting up chicken on a wood cutting board.
5) Pretty sure we’ve seen Peak River Table, but we’ll know the blip has returned to the base line when they start burning most of the crappy slabs for fuel again. Seeing some of those slabs sell at auction gave me visions of guys taking up space in the garage and their next step was maxing their credit card on the Festool website so they could make their own $20k dining table.
6) Romex 3-conductor is now color-coded from Southwire and Cerro: Blue for 14/3, Purple for 12/3, and Pink for 10/3.
7) A Chicago 3-Way is not what you think.
Good Night, Gracie
Nice night on the dock. Dark sky, mostly clear, with some haze. Gentle breeze occasionally. Smoke from the tiny fire keeps the bugs away and the kero lamp doesn’t really attract them.
Radio was fairly good. Lots of noise on 80M but some central region hams chatting, 40M didn’t have much going on, but 20M did. Noisy, but Canada Day contesters were working. Heard Catalonia Spain working New Zealand… that’s a new one for me.
Aviation weather report was from Canada, it was coming in well enough for me to hear the airport names clearly this time. Commercial SW out of NZ was loud on 13Mhz.
I like Sunday nights up here, the lake is very quiet.
Time for bed though.
n
I’ve never been much of a fan of live edge furniture. The river tables are neat though because the live edge is in the middle… maybe played out, maybe just moving down market.
n
BTW, bidden isn’t a king, and jill’s not a “king maker”. She’s a desperate striver trying to hold on to a position she didn’t earn.
—————
And now I can’t find that headline…
————–
Maybe the shooting has started.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13586483/nebraska-shooting-neighbor-billy-booth-seven-injured.html
Neighbor, 74, shoots seven people, including four children, before turning gun on himself after telling the family ‘go back to where you came from’
n
— added — all but the shooter expected to recover.
Yup. I was just reading a post about some poor woman who has had all sorts of plastic surgeries, that have basically disfigured her originally pretty face. It’s women who impose stupid, unrealistic beauty standards on other women. Influencers and social media spread this sh!t even more widely, especially to teens.