Or anyway that’s what it looks like out my window.
Only 71F with 90%RH, and while this does meet my ‘Rule of 10s’ it feels like it will be cooler today. And modern life is all about the feelz and not about reality. So I’m just being modern! 🙂
I hope Colin made it through the fire works without too much distress. Our little dog isn’t bothered by thunder or fireworks, and I’m reminded to be thankful for that at least a couple times a year.
I’m also thankful that there weren’t any attacks yesterday. Every day without is a good day.
Go buy some ammo, spend an hour at the range, teach someone to shoot.
nick
83Âş and a little muggy. Should rain this afternoon & early tomorrow.
Working with the kids at the fireworks last night – they wanted to stay at the playground for the fireworks & play with their newfound friends. I didn’t want to take them out of there, so we stayed. #1 son went invisible shortly, so the two girls helped me look for him. We found him in short order – he hadn’t left the playground, but was sitting with a friend off to the side. Pulled them all together & gave them the meeting place when the fireworks were over. 2 minutes after the finale, we were all together, ready to go. They’re good kids.
They rarely complain about “time to leave” anymore. Complaints always lead to unpleasantness and embarrassment, while obedience leads to nice things when we get home and ready to go next time. They’re free to ask questions & discuss as we’re leaving, but we are leaving – right now.
Thanks Nick. Colin did okay considering someone put on a full blown fireworks show right across the highway from us. Not sure if was the church or the people that live up on the hill. I waited until 10:15 when it was over to coax him outside for a last time. While I was in bed reading someone else started popping them off down the street. He hid under my desk until all finally went quiet sometime after 11.
Poor pup!
I know my little guy hears ok, because he’ll come running at the tiniest little “tink” of treats hitting his bowl, but the booms don’t bother him. No idea why the difference between dogs, or breeds. One of the mysteries I guess.
n
Well, it did not turn out to be a quiet 4th here in Tri-Cities WA.
Yesterday I posted about an averted event in Pasco WA, a gun spotted by an alert citizen and rapid action by the police. Some of the gang members are still at large.
Richland WA was not so fortunate, a gunfight between gangs of a certain South of the Border ilk broke out in Howard Amon Park. Poor shots, only one person hit that we know about. But, the park was full of picnickers and a fleeing panic ensued.
Learn to recognize gang tats and be prepared to defend yourself.
Add: Also know what the gang colors are in your area and be extra vigilant if you see even 2 people wearing different gang colors.
It wouldn’t be the morning of July 5th if we didn’t wake up to doggy accidents. They refuse to go out due to the noise on the 4th. If you drag them out they won’t do their business anyway. So, in the wee hours of the night they finally go… on the carpet… *sigh*
Both of our dogs hate fireworks, but one also cannot handle thunder. We love them both, but when they pass on I think we’re just going to enjoy some pet free years for a while.
We stayed home last night. 14 yo son had no interest in going out to see one of the local shows, so we didn’t need any more convincing to stay home. We have a big box of sparklers from 5 ? years ago that we bust out every year. Still have enough left to last until he’s out of high school, at least.
The neighbors behind us put on a show.I’m just guessing, but they had to spend at least a couple thousand on fireworks. They had big ones, and lots of them. We sat on our back porch watched. Our two dogs aren’t scared of them, though the yellow lab didn’t want to go outside while they were going off. Of course, he doesn’t want to go outside if it’s raining either…
Our other dog, a mixed black lab, started barking and chasing the fireworks. But when both dogs were back inside, they showed no interest, or acknowledgement of, the fireworks.
In our neighborhood we have fireworks anarchy. From dark to 10:30 security closes down the causeway between the two lakes and it’s shoot-em-if-you-got-em on the causeway. We have the local VFD on hand if anyone requires medical assistance.
Last night was spectacular as we had a continous display of some of the largest comercial fireworks available fired by multiple families. Our 5 year old granddaughter was delighted with each new starburst for the first 10 minutes, then became bored and played on the park swings with friends. Another example that you don’t need government to do everything.
I’ve added some additional security to the site with a custom/private plugin. The functions/processes shouldn’t affect viewing the site; I’ve done lots of testing of it.
There are some anti-hacking/anti-attack features in the plugin. For instance, blocks the use of the xmlrpc.php file, which I’ve mentioned before. It also removes the ability to query for author by ID number (a great way to get an admin-level user user name, in preparation for a dictionary attack on that user). I wrote about that here, for anyone interested.
And, there are some other security-related features of the plugin. It will go on all of the WP sites I manage to reduce the possible attack ‘footprint’.
So, if anyone notices anything slightly different, add your comments here.
Predicted 99°F for here tomorrow. Won’t be wearing my insulated Red Wing Irish Setters tomorrow on my dog walk (link below).
https://share.garmin.com/StuNicol4
Our county Sheriff’s deputies are pretty lenient the night of the 4th and if there’s bad weather on the 4th they’ll ignore the fireworks on the 5th. Outside of that, they’re pretty good at policing the late night fireworks. Fireworks tend to end abruptly at 10PM leading up to the 4th and there’s rarely any after midnight on the 4th.
We had some late, and some quite close to us, but in general, WAY down from previous years. Lot less drinking leading up to it I guess.
Didn’t notice any gunshots in particular either.
n
maybe the sheep are waking up?
“http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5920839/Are-watched-TV.html
Millions of Smart TVs track everything you watch, and tell advertisers exactly which devices are inside your home”
and this —
“Google Chrome WARNING: Popular browser extension is secretly recording EVERYTHING you do online
Finding was made by Robert Theaton, a software engineer from San Francisco
He discovered the add-on ‘Stylish’ was recording his history since January 2017”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5921861/Popular-browser-extension-secretly-recording-online.html
I guess we’ll see if any of them disconnect….
n
Fireworks washed out by rain in SW FL, but the rain was the regularly scheduled evening deluge not uncommon this time of year.
I really don’t like fireworks. I worked with high explosives for 5 years in the oil field and disliked them more the more I was around them. Great tools but very unforgiving. A co worker of mine had an accident that killed someone – not his fault but ruined his life.
I wonder about the guys with PTSD whenever fireworks are going off – probably not the best way to celebrate independence for some of the guys that have actually been in the fight. Seems there is never a vote on spending tax payer money on ever increasing numbers of fireworks. I get it, people like loud noises and bright lights but there seems to be more and more all the time (get off my lawn!). Oh well – I did shoot a large handgun at the gun range the morning of Independence Day.
The good news is our Springer Spaniel pup (11 months) was totally unaffected – hope she stays that way.
Regarding PTSD; just watched “Goodbye Christopher Robin”. A. A. Milne comes back from WWI with a very bad case of shell shock. It is a major driver for him to move his family out to the country and write the very famous (and childhood favorite) stories.
Recommended movie – very well done and puts the stories and Milne in a new light.
I wonder about the guys with PTSD whenever fireworks are going off – probably not the best way to celebrate independence for some of the guys that have actually been in the fight. Seems there is never a vote on spending tax payer money on ever increasing numbers of fire works.
Number one son was a mortar gunner in the USMC (he adjusted the legs of the mortar and dropped the round in the barrel). He really enjoyed it until he got mortared in Iraq. Now he does not like mortared fireworks at all.
We did not have very many fireworks last night. The four inches of rain canceled all of the authorized fireworks in Fort Bend County. The volunteer fireworks were few as we were annexed by Sugar Land last December and they are big on no firework possession, much less actually shooting them off.
ADD: Here is my son on a 81 mm mortar team in California, he is the gunner (warning: typical marines, lots of four letter words and gestures):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKndW86etjQ
I heard not one firework yesterday. Too dry.
We had a quarter inch of rain and the grass has greened up quite a bit.
I installed steps on the truck today. My neighbor has a lift in his garage. That his garage has a/c is a nice bonus. First side took about an hour with sorting the parts and figuring how it all connects. As expected, the second side took about 20 minutes. They look nice. They are stainless steel and go well with the polished aluminum wheels and other “chrome” stuff on a dark blue truck.
Next project is repairing the power seat.
Good to hear about Sugar Land and fireworks. They are sure popular up here. Rules say “no” but are totally ignored if it is around one of several holidays. Our neighborhood lots average around 3 to 4 acres so not many houses up our little valley street. But it sounded like a war zone for hours last night.
Biggest local official display got rained out so they will do it tonight (joy). At least they will probably have a couple of those really big, high altitude, white ball, loud report ones – those are fun. But no way am I going to drive to a better viewing spot – wife brought that up last night and I gave her “the look”.
We have been married long enough that each of us can veto a suggestion without further discussion occasionally.
ADD: awesome video Lynn! Thanks to both you and your USMC son.
I installed steps on the truck today. My neighbor has a lift in his garage. That his garage has a/c is a nice bonus. First side took about an hour with sorting the parts and figuring how it all connects. As expected, the second side took about 20 minutes. They look nice. They are stainless steel and go well with the polished aluminum wheels and other “chrome” stuff on a dark blue truck.
I need to bring my 2005 Expedition over to you. The a/c is emitting a horrible mildew smell. I sprayed Lysol in the window base inlet and now I get a Lysol and mildew smell mixed. I am wondering if I should elevate my truck and look at the a/c drain underneath to see if it is blocked. I am just too fat to crawl underneath without elevating it some. And the Ford dealer told me don’t even bother bringing it in as they cannot fix mildew smells.
Ok, I am amazed at the audacity of some people. I am in the business of writing software and selling licenses to use it. We’ve been doing this for 49 years so we have seen it all. So, a user contacts us back in 2017 about using our software on their LNG ships. The sales person and I say, “goodie, lots of ships (102 planned), lots of licenses”. The user comes back and says “no, we changed our mind and are not going to do that”. The sales person and I cry lots of tears.
Today, one of their technical people contacts me about moving their calculation server using our software to AWS. They have it up and running on a Windows server and are not paying me a penny. Lets just ignore the fact that they are not licensed to use my software in that manner. They are only licensed for 28 desktop users. No servers. I want to scream.
Anyone know any Norwegian intellectual property lawyers ?
“Google Chrome WARNING: Popular browser extension is secretly recording EVERYTHING you do online
And absolutely no surveillance problem existed with Google Chrome prior to installation of the extension.
I am wondering if I should elevate my truck and look at the a/c drain underneath to see if it is blocked. I am just too fat to crawl underneath without elevating it some.
Triple Coverage
Anyone know any Norwegian intellectual property lawyers ?
ISTR a case from circa 20 years ago where a vendor either remotely revoked a client’s license or repossessed the software for non-payment. Can’t remember whether or not the action was deemed to be legal.
Just sayin’. 🙂
I am wondering if I should elevate my truck and look at the a/c drain underneath to see if it is blocked. I am just too fat to crawl underneath without elevating it some.
Triple Coverage
You know, I am an idiot. I just remembered that I have a hydraulic jack and jack stands in my garage. Somewhere in my garage. No old tires and wheels though. Except the spare on my truck.
I would prefer to get my truck running though on a flat surface so I can see it draining. One would think that five tons of A/C would drain a torrent.
ISTR a case from circa 20 years ago where a vendor remotely revoked a client’s license for non-payment. Can’t remember whether or not the action was deemed to be legal.
The district attorney put the vendor in jail. It was here in Houston. They charged the vendor with computer mischief. I have no idea how long he spent in jail but it put the fear in me. It was a Houston vendor and a Houston customer. I remember the case because they perp walked the software vendor on the news.
And I do not have remote access capability to our software. That is more trouble than it is worth. If I did though, I would reach out and kill off the thousands of unlicensed users around the planet. I just this afternoon watched a person in Ecuador crash our unlicensed software on his pc since his Chinese friend did not find all of the security traps.
The customer’s password and contract do expire next spring. I may remember this at that time. I did spend an hour this morning writing a somewhat nice email to the guys involved stating that they owed us money.
And tomorrow I am going to fire my sales person since they dropped the ball from our side. I am unhappy, very unhappy.
I try to park with the nose slightly downhill to help with drainage. My ’03 ranger still smells nice despite 13 years here in the swamp.
There is a treatment, but it’s nasty and involved. Don’t remember what exactly (some sort of fog) but I remember thinking “man that stuff is dangerous”. Sold the truck.
n
I am on blood thinners (Coumadin) due to my afib and tachycardia issues. I flunked my INR (time to blood clot) test last Thursday (was 1.9, suppsoe to 2.0 to 2.9). I did not want to increase my Coumadin (Warfarin) again so I actually started reading up on vitamin K in foods. Did you know that blueberries have 30 times more vitamin K in them than the average food ? I love blueberries ! This is so not fair. At least bananas are just average. And I have been eating a lot of salads lately so that goes away.
http://inrtracker.com/nutrients
I love everything on this page, this is so not fair ! Except kale, kale is nasty.
http://inrtracker.com/articles/diet/vitamin-k-foods
Sold the truck.
Yeah, I am now thinking that I made a mistake fixing the tranny. But I don’t want a stinking truck payment !
[snip] If I did though, I would reach out and kill off the thousands of unlicensed users around the planet. [snip]
That’s the sort of direct action I’d heartily support. Unless, of course, you mean you want to get rid of the software …
That’s the sort of direct action I’d heartily support. Unless, of course, you mean you want to get rid of the software …
Uh, kill the unlicensed software, not the user. I did have a guy in the Houston area threaten to file criminal charges on me for crashing his hard drive while he was running our software designing small refineries when I started emailing him about licensing our software. I told him that based on the fact that he refused to pay for software, I could just imagine what his hardware looked like.
I threatened to file an ethics complaint on his partner who was a licensed professional engineer in Texas. So, they stopped using our software. Never did offer to pay me for the 18 months they used it. And I should have filed the ethics complaint anyway since they popped up again a couple of months ago.
Today, one of their technical people contacts me about moving their calculation server using our software to AWS. They have it up and running on a Windows server and are not paying me a penny. Lets just ignore the fact that they are not licensed to use my software in that manner. They are only licensed for 28 desktop users. No servers. I want to scream.
Try contacting AWS to see what they say about the situation. IIRC, they aren’t keen on unlicensed software running on the Windows VMs.
Hey Lynn, batten down the hatches, big storm headed this way from the north east. Check out the wundermap.
I can see the big lightning in the distance, and the thunder is really starting up.
n
Gust front is just getting here….
n
I have had some good results with automotive AC evaporator cleaner. Don’t recall a brand but it was a spray can that you spray into the air intake in the cowl. If you have classic “dirty sock syndrome”, it may fix it. Worth a try.
If the drain is plugged, you will likely have a wet carpet. Just let it run when parked on a humid day and you should see a steady drip of water – typically behind the passenger front tire. If it is dripping, I would ask the local auto parts store guy what brand has been working for people.
I am interested in HVAC because I design commercial HVAC equipment. So, my input is that you may want to try a simple experiment. Does not cost anything (small amount of fuel) and may fix the problem. Next time you get home and everything is up to operating temp, set the heat to full, fan to full, recirc on, AC off (also do not select defrost). Just let it idle in your driveway like that for 10 or 15 minutes while you grab a cool beverage.
Biological bugs that make the smells on evaporator coils have a max temperature that they can’t survive. Not sure what that is for your particular infestation but typically it is around what makes us very uncomfortable.
Like I said, worth a try and it is free – just remember to end the experiment within a reasonable length of time, remove pets, heat sensitive things, and other friendly life from the vehicle and don’t do it parked over combustible material. Report back if the results are positive. Even if the heat does not kill them all, it should dry out the coil which will kill off most or all of the bad stuff.
Thanks Bill, that’s a great trick to know!
I’ve done that to dry out moisture, followed by running the AC for a couple hours. Seemed to work well for that.
n
I need to bring my 2005 Expedition over to you. The a/c is emitting a horrible mildew smell.
You’re sure that you don’t have a window leak?
I had a 93 Ford Probe which had horrible issues with rubber trim deterioration. I traded it on a Toyota not long after I paid off the car.
The high temp/dry out cycle is worth a try for a vehicle. If it gets bad enough on your “A” coil at home the only solution is to clean (or replace) the coil – which can be a major job…
There have been some interesting issues that have developed for indoor coils since houses got tighter, more construction material started arriving from Asia, other unknowns.
Copper formicary corrosion (aka ants nest corrosion) started to be a big deal for what are still really unknown reasons pushing the industry to all aluminum indoor coils for example.
White powder generation from evaporator coils is a strange problem that still randomly pops up. It scares people because of the anthrax attacks. It is safe – only a by product of a specific type of aluminum corrosion but it is a big deal when it shows up in a school for example. I heard a story that a certain high end automotive company had a new flagship model that proceeded to blow white powder out of the vents onto the CEO’s wife’s black evening gown. The problem was quickly solved by using a coating on the coils in that case.
More than anyone wants to know about trials and tribulations in the heat exchanger world, I will sign out now and wish every one a good evening.
@BillF, always interesting to hear about someone’s area of expertise. And with no exaggeration, we’ve got some real experts here. I’m continually surprised by the range of experience and expertise.
n
And I don’t know why, but the rain has missed me.
I have had some good results with automotive AC evaporator cleaner. Don’t recall a brand but it was a spray can that you spray into the air intake in the cowl. If you have classic “dirty sock syndrome”, it may fix it. Worth a try.
If the drain is plugged, you will likely have a wet carpet. Just let it run when parked on a humid day and you should see a steady drip of water – typically behind the passenger front tire. If it is dripping, I would ask the local auto parts store guy what brand has been working for people.
I was going to try that a/c cleaner next when the Lysol smell died. I guess that I will go into Autozone and see what they have.
No, no wet carpet. But it drips a lot (puddle two ft wide) and then not at all for a while.
The dripping may be intermittent as the system cycles. Definitely worth a try with a cleaner and/or the hot cycle I discussed above.
If you have not already, change the cabin air filter (any car after 2000 or so will have one, high end cars back into the 90s or earlier). It is typically above the glove box – not a big deal to change. I had one car with a nasty smell. It was a mouse nest built on top of the filter – easy fix in that case.
No cabin air filter on my 2005 expedition Eddie Bauer. It was optional for that model.
I flunked my INR (time to blood clot) test last Thursday (was 1.9, suppsoe to 2.0 to 2.9).
There is a fair amount of variability in these assays. A single test being 0.1 out of the range for a patient on warfarin therapy should not be a reason to change dosing. If you have had more than one test in a row that is low, or the last several tests have been showing a steady decline, then you might need to rethink the dose. If the result is “real” then changing diet is a good first step.
By the way, I am not a doctor (nor do I play one on TV). But I am a scientist in the development department of a pharmaceutical company. My current projects are blood clotting and anticlotting agents.
Nope, sorry, JLP, but your opinion doesn’t matter. You’re only allowed to have an opinion if you meet one or more of the following criteria:
– You are a lawyer
– You have a journalism degree
– You are a member of a distressed minority community
– You are a mother of young, photogenic children who are at risk from the issue of the day
Please keep this in mind before sharing your unwanted opinions in the future.
@JLP — ignore @SteveF — he’s just grumpier than usual.
In my opinion…..
Grumpy? No, not at all. I’m screwing-around-ier than usual. Well, not so much, really. About the same as usual, I think.
I flunked my INR (time to blood clot) test last Thursday (was 1.9, suppsoe to 2.0 to 2.9).
There is a fair amount of variability in these assays. A single test being 0.1 out of the range for a patient on warfarin therapy should not be a reason to change dosing. If you have had more than one test in a row that is low, or the last several tests have been showing a steady decline, then you might need to rethink the dose. If the result is “real” then changing diet is a good first step.
Yup, my INR has been dropping for the last couple of months. It was 2.9 in February or March, I would need to look at my notes. Then I started eating salads again as the days got warmer.
I take 7.5 mg per day of Warfarin on Sunday through Friday. I take 5.0 mg on Saturday. I am definitely back up at the moment as I have a nice two inch diameter bruise on my left hand where I hit a door the other day. I am a real klutz.
My dad has had a mechanical heart valve, a St. Judes valve, for 20 years now. He has to keep his INR at 3.0 to 3.9 to keep blood clots from forming on the metal. It has a cobalt coated ball in a titanium cage, a simple check valve. You can hear it when his heart rate is above a 100 beats per minute.