Cooler and wet.
Got mist and rain throughout the area and the day yesterday, with the sun peeking through in the afternoon. I’m hoping my wife and girls don’t get wet for their Girl Scout camp weekend.
Speaking of which, the dog and I are gearing up for our wild women and parties weekend…. anyone know any? I thought I might watch an R rated movie or something last night, but instead I messed around on the internet. Like every night. My big splurge was supposed to be an Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger, fries, and a vanilla shake, but I forgot on the way home. So I had leftovers. Wahhhhh.
Almost all of my auction pickups were items for the household. Only one lot is at all prepping, and only if it comes to war. Not the most productive week. I do have an excuse- I’ve got the same crud clogging up my head and lungs that the rest of the area does. I’m better, but still not 100%.
After sleeping in a bit, I’ve got more pickups and the same old stuff to do. Maybe my potential ebay buyer will commit. He’s in Puerto Rico, using auto translate. He made an offer on an item, but the “free” shipping will be high. I can’t judge his offer until I get a shipping quote, and UPS won’t give me one without a street address. The potential buyer can’t give me his (ebay policy) and UPS claims that ever address I get from the google maps is invalid. I don’t think I’ll be able to accept the guy’s offer. This is one of the pitfalls of offering “free shipping” like ebay encourages you to do. In reality the shipping cost comes out of the sale price, and I can’t control the cost, so my profit depends on where someone lives…. (on this item, which is 30 pounds)
Jeez I’m whiny today.
Well, I better get something done.
nick
I thought I might watch an R rated movie or something last night, but instead I messed around on the internet
“Zombieland 2” will be at the Redbox on Tuesday, but you can probably hit torrents now.
Yeah, sequel, but the creative team didn’t screw it up. The flick is surprisingly non-PC most of the time, as if the world really did stop in 2009.
Bill Murray is still genius. Watch the credits *completely*.
The middle 1/3 of the BBC’s “Dracula” was our other holiday film favorite. We’re weird.
I tried to watch Joker last night. I turned it off after 20 minutes. Not my cup of tea.
While working on other stuff at the pc, I’ve somehow ended up with this in my youtube recco list….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7npaITynACk
This guy is REALLY funny. I haven’t watched comedy in years (although I worked for a comedienne for a while). Most of the Drybar channel stuff I’ve watched has been very good.
I’ve been letting it run in a window while doing low concentration tasks and I’ve been enjoying it.
n
I tried to watch Joker last night. I turned it off after 20 minutes. Not my cup of tea.
The nomination for Best Picture is mystifying, but Todd Phillips and Juaquin Phoenix have a lot of admirers in the Academy. Plus, the younger members seem determined to legitimize comic book movies in the face of negative comments from Martin Scorcese, Terry Gilliam, and others.
The Academy almost created a special category last year for “Black Panther” to win an Oscar, but then they got concerned that Tom Cruise would take it with a “M:I” film which was unintentionally a better statement about race relations.
Academy awards are now about nominating terrible films with black actors/actresses. In other words, race is now the determining factor for nomination. The very definition of racist if the selectees were white.
I have no use for Hollywood patting themselves on the back. The stuff that gets nominated these days is usually crap, promoting some social issue or having a “meaning”. I want to go to movies to be entertained, not some cerebral journey.
Gahh, the rain just started. And it’s coming down pretty good…..
At least the lawn guys got here first.
n
I wonder what their immigration status is.
DadCooks seems to be missing again. Hope all is well.
Yes, missing Mr. DadCooks. Grumpy Cat, where are you?
Edited to more accurately reflect my opinion.
Over The Hedge: Pterodactyl Pollution
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2020/01/18
Oh my.
You know, Jerry Pournelle said that he had quite a few projects in the fire before he passed away. He was not kidding. “Starborn & Godsons – eARC, THE LONG-AWAITED CONCLUSION OF THE HEOROT SERIES FROM GENRE LEGENDS LARRY NIVEN, JERRY POURNELLE, AND STEVEN BARNES”
https://www.baen.com/starborn-and-godsons-earc.html
and
https://www.amazon.com/Starborn-Godsons-Heorot-Larry-Niven/dp/1982124482?tag=ttgnet-20
_The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes_ by Robert A. Heinlein
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1647100011?tag=ttgnet-20
They found another Heinlein book ?
While cleaning out the fridge and etc. I found I have 3 and half pint jars of cooking grease. A mix of bacon, sausage patties, and brisket. Maybe a bit of chicken grease but not much.
Today’s happy project was “melt and strain into clean jars”. I rummaged around and re-discovered a 2 quart CorningWare tea kettle that I bought on eBay about eight years ago. Their name. It has a nice pour spout.
Nuke a jar for 30 seconds. Spoon out into the tea kettle. Heat it all with plenty of stirring until it’s a bit too hot to stick in a finger tip.
Ball canning funnel? Check.
Wire mesh strainer? Check.
A random bottle to hold up the handle of the strainer? Check!!!
I used Scott select-a-size paper towels for filtering. Just start at one end and as it clogs, move to a clean section.
Bottom line is 3 pints and 6 ounces of filtered meat grease. Looks like honey right now. Bonus is a tablespoon of solids that would be an awesome secret ingredient for a stew. Might be where the guy that came up with bacon salt got the idea. Anyway, the dogs will like the stuff in their food tonight.
Sealing the jars? Maybe a bit of plastic wrap covered with a bit of waxed paper (as a gasket). I’m using saved mayo jar lids. Because. And then to the spare fridge. And perhaps into the deep freezer after I see what happens with one jar.
My Dad had stories about how during the Depression they didn’t have butter, they walked along the train tracks picking up spilled coal, and lard on bread was good stuff.
Ok, I have some flavored lard. Just being a Boy Scout over here.
Still. Coal is a rock? How do you make a rock burn?
.
Still. Coal is a rock? How do you make a rock burn?
Soaking it in gasoline or diesel helps a lot.
Seriously, the coal powerplants that I worked at pulverized the coal into face powder and sprayed diesel on it to get it to burn. Once the furnace reached 2,000 F or so, the combustion became self sustaining.
BTW, coal is usually 60 to 80% carbon that really wants to be CO2. The other 20% is sand, H2S (really wants to be SO2), and entrained volatile gases (methane, ethane, propane, etc).
Where I grew up south of Chicago, you could walk along the railroad tracks and harvest asparagus. Gramma foraged in the Forest Preserve for wild mushrooms. Dad made gallons of wine and vinegar from grapes harvested in the dunes around the steel mill, and pulled 100s of pounds of coho salmon out of Lake Michigan.
(Dad also made sassafrass tea from roots he dug up himself in the state park where we were camped….)
There’s food all around us, if you know where to look.
n
Drove out to Wasilla for a gun show today. Held at the local high school, one of the larger and I think better shows in our area. Conducted by the Wasilla High School Hockey Team, I believe.
Many young families. Lots of couples.
How cool is that?
Kiddo has her eye on a BB gun. I saw a nice Marlin .22 – didn’t pick it up because I was afraid I’d buy it. Husband was mum about what he liked. Getting over a cold so cooling my heels in the lunch room while the fam finishes the rounds. Lots of friends and acquaintances to visit. Always great fun seeing the same faces.
Kiddo didn’t really want to go – gave her a couple bucks spending money and talked about what gun shows represent in terms of Liberty. Not sure how much the Liberty chat penetrated but she made suitably outraged noises.
Lots of fun.
The wind is bitter cold. Thermometer says 5 Fahrenheit but face feels like -15. Brrr!
https://www.adn.com/calendar/#!/details/36th-Annual-Gun-Outdoor-Show/7786439/2020-01-19T10
I stand corrected.
Soaking it in gasoline or diesel helps a lot.
Yeah. But in a coal burning stove? How does that work? A bit of kindling and you sorta light charcoal briquets?
I really do not know.
Soaking it in gasoline or diesel helps a lot.
Yeah. But in a coal burning stove? How does that work? A bit of kindling and you sorta light charcoal briquets?
I really do not know.
Newspaper and kindling are also accelerants. Especially if you build the combustion reaction into a chimney with lots of fresh air. Just get the temperature up to 2,000 F (or so) and the exothermic reaction of coal will become self sustaining. The minute those volatile gases start cooking out of the coal, you have a winner !
The trick to combustion is turning the combustant into a pseudo vapor. Add in plenty of oxidizer (air) and the gas – gas reaction quickly becomes self- sustaining.
Indeed. Long pork on the hoof.
Soaking it in gasoline or diesel helps a lot.
Yeah. But in a coal burning stove? How does that work? A bit of kindling and you sorta light charcoal briquets?
I really do not know.
BTW, one of my thermo profs at TAMU had a favorite question, “what are the three T’s of combustion ?”
The answer: Time, Temperature, and Turbulence. The more you can add of any of these (preferably all), the better your combustion process will be.
This picture isn’t “adorable”, it’s horrifying.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/01/17/12/23520478-7899123-image-a-16_1579264425648.jpg
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7899123/Adorable-cat-ravaged-frostbite-given-FOUR-prosthetic-paws-3D-printed-titanium.html
n
BTW, coal is usually 60 to 80% carbon that really wants to be CO2. The other 20% is sand, H2S (really wants to be SO2), and entrained volatile gases (methane, ethane, propane, etc).
A bunch of cr*p from the other 20% ended up in the Chinese drywall which went into a lot of new houses and home improvement projects in Florida about 15 years ago. When we left in 2010, the insurance companies were still trying to decide what was adequate remediation — even razing a house and taking the foundation out of the ground was questionable.
Lots of nasty stuff leftover from burning coal. The big clue if you had the Chinese drywall in your house was the rapid corrosion of the pipes, wiring, and AC coils — anything copper — due to the outgassing of the H2S.
On the one hand, you want to be sympathetic to the homeowner’s plight, but, around Tampa, a lot of the projects where that drywall got installed were one-offs for the “better than thou” wanna be mucky mucks, including many military families, speculating in what were once lower middle class neighborhoods on the Interbay Peninsula. Among other things, the first industrial buildings to go, deemed unsightly, were … drywall manufacturing!
Houses are homes, not investments. The US still hasn’t learned this despite the 2007 bubble popping and the inevitable popping of the current bubble.
Soaking it in gasoline or diesel helps a lot.
Yeah. But in a coal burning stove? How does that work? A bit of kindling and you sorta light charcoal briquets?
Think blacksmith bellows. O2 is also important.
We use a “chimney” and a few pieces of newspaper to get charcoal going. Dumping the coals can be a bit tricky, but the starter fluid taste doesn’t end up in the grilled items.
Major ash spill in my area from a coal burning plant several years ago. A holding area burst spilling thousands of tons of ash over the area and in the river. Such river I used to operate my boat.
The channel I used to travel through was blocked by TVA. Then the corps of engineers got involved and TVA was forced to dredge a new channel as the river was used for barges. This pissed TVA off. TVA stationed a boat at each end of the channel and stopped every boat to inspect for compliance. This sometimes resulted in a backup of half a dozen boats.
TVA controlled the river and shoreline. Corps of engineers controlling the channel. The pudding contest between the two made it an issue for boaters, anyone that used the channel.
There have been times when I used the river I would get stopped by TVA, TWRA, Kingston police, and Roane County police all in the same day, sometimes more than once by the same agency. All which used the river for revenue by fining boaters for minor offenses.
Lots of nasty stuff leftover from burning coal. The big clue if you had the Chinese drywall in your house was the rapid corrosion of the pipes, wiring, and AC coils — anything copper — due to the outgassing of the H2S.
SO2, not H2S. SO2 kills you slowly. H2S kills you immediately. The John Wayne Hellfighters movie had this very correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfighters_(film)
Some coal (Texas, Wyoming, and Indonesia) has up to 6% H2S in it. Nasty stuff. Used to just about kill me working on it since it would condense into Sulfuric Acid after combustion into SO2 in the back end of our boilers. You would walk around a corner and the entire boiler back ducting wall would be eaten away and you would be overwhelmed by the smell. They would come in with Scott Air Packs and rivet new plates over it while the boiler was running. In freaking August.
BTW, combustion of H2S into SO2 is almost as exothermic as combustion of C into CO2. Our boilers loved that stuff. But the plume out the 400 ft tall stacks was brown. Half of boilers did not have SO2 scrubbers in them since they were built before the clean air act. They were all shut down in 2018. 50 years of pouring millions of tons of SO2 into the Texas air.
SO2, not H2S. SO2 kills you slowly. H2S kills you immediately.
I knew it was S on the copper from something.
The drywall is a huge scandal which got buried. Until the current real estate bubble pops or a hurricane forces rebuilding, lots of wannabe mucky mucks don’t want to pretend those neighborhoods in Tampa are worth zip because of the contamination leeching into the ground from the drywall. One day it may well be as big in the legal community as asbestos is now.