Hot and wet? Or just hot? [I suck at weather prediction, 73F and sunny]
Yesterday got pretty hot. Started overcast, then cleared to sunny and steamy. Mid 90s at least.
I worked mostly on the sprinklers yesterday. I spent way longer than it should have taken to put a new rain sensor on the system. I’ve had it for years, never installed it. Finally did today. Haven’t TESTED it yet, but it’s pretty simple.
Then I spent 3 hours getting the two zones for the front yard working. I never have winterized the system and only replace what’s broken each year, whenever I get to it… which is lazy and all kinds of wrong, but then I’m not super motivated by how my yard looks. It does make it easier to keep the veg gardens watered though, which was my primary motive this year.
So, fire up the system and see what doesn’t work…
Two zones with 4 heads each shouldn’t take three hours to touch up. But it did. As the mechanisms age, they wear, and the sun causes parts that are supposed to be behind a cover to break down. Those little parts are like limit switches as the head pans back and forth. I ended up messing with those A LOT. I had to swap parts around from heads I’d retired in previous years (hooray <s> hoarding </s> preparedness. Then a couple of the plastic parts needed some heat to reshape them a tiny bit… and I needed to dig out the valves because the handholes had filled up with debris over the years.
In any case, years of slapdash maintenance and patchwork replacements caught up with me. Still, I was able to get them all running and wetting the areas they are supposed to wet without any trips to the store or ordering parts. Today if it’s not raining I need to confirm they work with the control system and then get the other 3 zones sorted out too. The front yard will keep the neighbors and the HOA happy, but the other zones will all end up watering my gardens for me (and also keep the back yard nice for the kids.)
I’ll have to change out some heads and move some stuff because I’ve moved beds, and put a great big generator right in front of a head… which really shouldn’t have water sprayed into it every other day. I’ll steal one head to water my ‘window box’ planters too. More projects.
I’m also still ordering bits and pieces, and receiving them for the repairs and upgrades at my client’s house. I still need some income, and that’s a good way to get it. Not perfect as I have to leave isolation, but it pays well and keeps him happy.
Ebay sales were starting to get going again, and then the lockdown hit. I’ve sold only a few items since. I do have a bunch to list, and getting them sold and out of here would be a Good Thing ™.
WRT the wuflu, things are still changing. Blood clots may be the way it actually kills you, either the first time or the next. And it may have mutated in a way that changes its severity, as it appears we might have two main strains here, one on the west coast, one on the east. No idea what those of us in the middle might have. The economic impacts are just starting to arrive.
Disney posted a huge loss of income, United Airlines and American both posted ~$2Billion losses, Virgin is looking for buyers, and the others will be following soon. I was a proponent of the ‘pent up demand’ theory that the economy will come rushing back. Now I’m not so sure. Think about what it would take to get you on a plane, if you didn’t know you were immune? How about a trade show or a theme park? Cruise ship? Gold’s Gym is filing for bankruptcy protection, can 24HourFitness be far behind? Sitting in someone else’s @ss sweat didn’t have any appeal for me BEFORE it could kill me. Certainly doesn’t now. My wife is sure that pro sporting events will bounce back, because fans are crazy anyway, but I’m not so sure. They are a huge terrorism target, and attendance has been falling with the players’ political shenanigans. I don’t feel the need to sit in the nosebleeds, eating $15 hotdogs, just to see the ants move around in real life…
I’m pretty sure the world has changed for good, and we’ll be watching how those changes play out over the next decade. Short term, people try to cling to what they know, until forced to change. Things will continue on, degrading a little at a time, until they finally change.
Start planning for that. There will be opportunities.
Dinner was ham slices, mac n cheese, and the canned carrots left over from the previous day’s curry. Dessert was frozen cookie dough, heated up and oh so good…..
Stay in, stay safe, keep stacking.
n
The airline industry is a special case. They have been on such a race to the bottom, that planes were already hugely unpleasant: tiny seats, every seat full, and inadequate ventilation. You can fly across the entire US for $100 – that makes no sense. So this may be one positive side-effect of COVID: this will not be sustainable in the future.
Until the airline industry provides more personal space and better ventilation – or until it is forced to do so – people will stay away in droves. The crowded airports with their long lines provide even more incentive.
More space on airplanes will force higher prices, which will reduce the number of people flying, which will reduce airport crowds. All good.
Boondoggle.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8290413/Houston-pledges-100-percent-energy-renewable-sources-like-wind-solar.html
The cities are laying the ground work for “congestion tolling” of city streets with these pledges. At first, tolls for “green” EVs with special tags will be free/cheap, but once the trap is sprung, everybody will pay full price.
Of course. Without gasoline taxes (which are a lot higher in Europe than in the US), they will be missing a lot of money. Be assured that some sort of alternate tax will follow. Probably road-pricing, where you pay for kilometer driven. On top of your basic car-ownership tax. On top of your license tax. On top of the VAT you already pay on everything.
I was a proponent of the ‘pent up demand’ theory that the economy will come rushing back. Now I’m not so sure. Think about what it would take to get you on a plane, if you didn’t know you were immune?
The lockdown has gone on long enough that *business* travel is no longer going to come rushing back, and that is the big problem for the airlines.
It isn’t so much that employees are scared of infection as it is that a lot of people have had time to contemplate the value proposition of what it is exactly they receive in lifestyle in return for dedicating huge chunks of time to sitting on an airplane. Americans used to be really gullible on this point, but not so much after the last few months, especially after standing in line at HEB to purchase the same Mexican brand toilet paper and one (1) meat item that they could buy with a six figure household income or minimum wage subsidized by EBT.
As much as the virus is a piss poor excuse for a lot of poor management who were in trouble before the lockdown, it also provides an opportunity for push back. In my own case, the bosses would love to have me in VA right now just for hand holding with the customer, but, darn it, the licensed, highly educated medical professional currently sitting in the Governor’s Mansion has the state locked down until June 10, and who am I to argue with his credentials?
I had a root canal a year ago, and the dentist prescribed Naproxen. I had a root canal many years ago, and had moderate pain the next day, so I filled the prescription. The pharmacist had to talk to me. He said something about it being an NSAID, and I remarked, “Just like aspirin?” That set him off, and he lectured me about the perils of aspirin. Took the stuff, and it had absolutely no effect. THEN I found out I couldn’t take aspirin or any other pain reliever for at least 24 hours. Went to bed, and the next day was OK.
Part two of the two part root canal a couple weeks later. Mentioned my experience with Naproxen to the dentist, and asked if aspirin, which is about all I normally take, and very seldom, would be OK. Yes, with some reluctance, because this session was expected to cause more pain than the last one. I took aspirin, and it worked. No pain at all. I guess I tolerate it very well.
I have read that if aspirin were discovered today, the FDA would never approve it. Pity. Some consider it a miracle drug. In the early days, people took much higher doses without apparent trouble. I had a friend with bad arthritis, who took a lot of aspirin, and it worked better than the wonder patent drugs; this was twenty years ago. Of course, YMMV.
It seems that as the years go by, they find that certain foods, medications, lifestyles, etc. that we were always told are good for you, are bad for you. Every year there is more added to the list. But with Aspirin, every year that goes by, they find more and more good things about it. But every time I mention the word “aspirin” to a doctor or pharmacist, they make the sign of the cross to ward off evil and recommend Tylenol.
Be assured that some sort of alternate tax will follow. Probably road-pricing, where you pay for kilometer driven. On top of your basic car-ownership tax. On top of your license tax. On top of the VAT you already pay on everything.
Long term, some kind of electricity tax will also be required in the US to rebuild the power grid for EVs. Texas barely manages hot summers, and rolling blackouts are a regular part of the “cold” — 50 degree high temps — Christmas seasons which still happen in Florida every five years or so.
(Shorts at Christmas dinner are every Floridian’s God-given right, and the high water table in population centers south of Gainesville, essentially swampland, makes installation of gas lines problematic. Crank the heat to 74, Ma, and check the turkey.)
I’m always looking for a reason to not fly. Honestly, if it’s a drive I can do in one day (say 10 hours of driving or less) then I’d rather do that. I figure I’m going to spend all damn day in the airport anyway (arrive a couple hours before flight for TSA nonsense, flight time, layover, flight time,get baggage, get rental car…). So, if I’m going to be tied up most of the day I might as well drive it. Then I have a car when I get there and all the space and leg stretching I want.
The theory is they brought that stuff in case they were arrested before they even got started, they could claim help as US Citizens. I know, maroons.
Another day, another recount of COVID deaths. I think it’s time to start exhuming cemeteries to check if the interred *really* died of COVID. We should go back to the 1800’s. Just to be sure.
In other news, man eaten by shark, *still* dead from COVID.
Question for the musicians here. I’m thinking about picking up the guitar. Is 64.9 years of age too late? I played a little in HS. I’d go electric from the start with a practice amp and some kind of iPad effects app.
Visited the Muskogee Creek Nation Tag Agency yesterday. They reopened this month with by-appointment-only service. My appointment was at 1pm so I drove up early, a 90 minute drive, to grab lunch before visiting the tag lady. They have very strict documentation requirements for getting Indian tags but I had all my paperwork in order so it only took half an hour. Now both my cars are registered in the Muskogee Creek Nation and have nice red Creek tags. The tag for my new car was $155 in Mississippi but is $35 in the Muskogee Nation. This was the last bit of moving bureaucracy I needed to complete.
Stopped by the local Dollar Tree on the way home to buy Ant Bait. I noted that they had plenty of paper products and meat available. No shortages that I saw. Normalcy is returning.
Update: My wife noted that she heard then saw two coyotes trotting across the golf course behind us last night. We haven’t lived here long enough to know if this is normal or unusual.
” Normalcy is returning. ”
–in that case, part of me says, Watch for the new Big Bad to start in the news….
Speaking of news, it looks like wuflu is getting to the point in S. and C. America that it can’t be hidden or ignored… Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Mexico have all been mentioned in the last week.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8292391/Bodies-Covid-19-victims-lie-streets-Ecuadorian-city.html
It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8292485/Dr-Fauci-reveals-called-CNN-anchor-friend-Cuomo-day-coronavirus.html
And those people you guys are seeing when you go out to the store and running errands? They’re likely carriers. Note that these are poor brown people, (that was the focus of the study) in mostly service jobs.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8290801/San-Francisco-study-finds-90-people-tested-positive-coronavirus-going-work.html
Read the article not just the headline- LOTS of infection among those who have continued to go to work.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8291271/Tyson-Foods-resume-limited-production-largest-U-S-pork-plant.html
And to lighten the mood, you can’t make this stuff up…..
“Eight-year-old girl goes viral with a hilarious original song called ‘I Wonder What’s Inside Your Butthole’ – and is now being hailed as a ‘musical prodigy’ by delighted online fans
Lisa Rieffel-Dunn, 45, from Los Angeles, took to Twitter over the weekend to share footage of her daughter, Jolee, singing the viral hit in her pajamas ”
n
30 years ago each neighborhood shopping area had DVD shop. They have all been replaced by exercise facilities. In the meantime, obesity has substantialy increased, how absurd is that?
People would go to the video store twice a week. On average, people with gym memberships go once a month.
(Numbers made up, but qualitatively correct.)
30 years ago each neighborhood shopping area had DVD shop. They have all been replaced by exercise facilities. In the meantime, obesity has substantialy increased, how absurd is that?
Video rentals didn’t go away. Redbox supplanted Blockbuster but with a higher density of outlets capable of stocking the same number of physical copies of new releases.
Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon to come home from the video store empty handed so families found something else to do, especially in Summer. DVDs actually didn’t hit until 1995, and, prior to that, the bulky VHS titles were expensive for independent video stores to stock multiple copies.
Plus, in the last 10 years, the streaming options enabled by Roku have multiplied. Creating a Roku channel is dead simple, but running a quality service is challenging.
People also eat out more.
Hard to remember, but didn’t Redbox come AFTER netflix stopped sending out DVDs?
And aren’t they partnered with their main distribution points? Or owned by them?
n
Imagine my surprise in moving to rural America to find several Family Video stores still open and apparently thriving. I haven’t looked inside yet to see if it’s all DVDs or still some VHS. My sole remaining DVD machine hasn’t been unpacked yet and I feel no rush to get to it.
BTW: My MIL still has several VHS machines including one with dual drives for making duplicates.
Here’s a photo of the Ector County, Texas SWAT team in action closing down that bar in Texas.
VHS tapes and players still sell well in the thrift stores around here. I see tiny little “everything” stores selling native language programming on VHS to various communities too which would explain why they’d want a VHS player, and once you have the player, why not the disney tapes too?
n
VHS tapes and players still sell well in the thrift stores around here. I see tiny little “everything” stores selling native language programming on VHS to various communities too which would explain why they’d want a VHS player, and once you have the player, why not the disney tapes too?
VHS is a *lot* more kid/technophobe friendly than DVD, especially the players built from the early 90s on which would detect the presence of the “read only” hole on the side of the tape and automatically play/rewind the tape endlessly.
DVDs and the players are fairly fragile, and while the heads on a VHS player can wear out, it isn’t common in most home environments. As long as you have a nearby shop capable of overhauling/cleaning the mechanisms every couple of years, VHS players last a long time.
Taylor, TX has an old school VHS shop, not far from our test facility. I’ve not had a chance to stop, but the sign on the door indicates that they do rentals and offer repair services. They probably survived the virus because I can’t imagine a store like that run as anything but a labor of love/hobby.
@nick – regarding the issue with the link you put in yesterday’s post (and later removed).
There is a plugin that I wrote that automatically adds an affiliate link for any Amazon product link. The affiliate link is mine; I get a minor amount of revenue for any purchases made via that link. That amount is mid-2 figures (around $50-70 / year), so doesn’t amount to much, and there is no extra cost to the purchaser.
The process is automatic, and has been here for years. It works well when you use the proper procedure to put in a link. In the Classic Editor (and I think in the new and useless Block Editor), you can put in a link by manually pasting in the link, or use the ‘link’ icon in the editor. (That’s also how you can enter a link in the comment editor: paste in the link or use the ‘link’ button above the comment box.
Looking at the edit history of the post, it looks like you typed in the ‘href’ code manually, rather than using the link buttons or just pasting in the link. And that href was not properly formatted – it appeared to have the missing ending quote, which caused the problem.
So, using the link buttons in the editor, or just pasting in the link itself, is how links are put in posts (and comments).
I suppose I should fix the plugin to check for the closing quote of a link that is manually entered by typing in the HREF tag. Part of what I call “SAD” in programming – “Stupid Answer Detection”.
Amen. I my wife had a similar experience less than a year ago when she visited the ER with a suspected kidney stone. This happened once before, and she was told it could have been passed with no evidence. It apparently wasn’t a kidney stone this time, but she had taken some aspirin, and the PA wigged out. Ran a blood test, and said she had to wait until the salicylate level abated, which was only a half hour, suspicious. Only then could she get some other pain killer. I will admit I don’t know much about salicylate poisoning, but when I looked it up later, I was impressed (not) with all the woo woo anti aspirin stuff I saw. It was so thick that I quit.
We won’t have acetaminophen in the house because of the potential for life threatening OD, although there are no kids, and we are supposedly too careful to make this mistake. We did get some when there was the ibuprofen scare associated with the coronavirus. Again, I tried to find anything about using aspirin in place of ibuprofen, but only found acetaminophen. In *all* of Google’s results!
I fortunately only need any kind of pain reliever a couple of times a year. I have tried acetaminophen and ibuprofen, but found they don’t seem to work as well for me, so plain old aspirin, but with an enteric coating.
Hey Rick,
I often compose posts for here in a word processor, then copy and paste here. Sometimes when I do that I get the message Go away spammer! This is with no links or apparent sensitive words. Lately I have noticed that if I just hit the back button and click the Post Comment button, sometimes two more times, it works normally. What gives? Not much of a problem, now that I discovered to just do it over. But… isn’t that one definition of insanity? 8:-P
WRT aspirin, one of the weird and somewhat suspicious things is that there are no ‘improved’ versions of aspirin. There are only different doses, and different coatings.
No ‘derived from’, no ‘similar but minus the unwanted effect’…. if the molecule is that unique and robust, it must mean that all those effects are actually interrelated naturally.
But it seems weird to me that chemistry 100 years old hasn’t been tweaked at all or led to ‘similar’ compounds.
n
@rick, I always use the “link” button to put in links. I can’t remember the href syntax.
My workflow for that post was type the words Vermont Curry in the sentence, then highlight, then click the link button in the editor (classic, not block), then paste the link into the popup box (possibly with a trailing space, as you recommended for the link button in comments) then “ok” and back to typing the post.
IIRC, the word ‘curry’ vanished, along with the tags being in the wrong places, but I could be wrong. I looked in text view, saw that the link href was messed up, then just deleted it and the a close tag. no idea why the problem with the tags would mess up the page formatting either, but it’s simple to fix, just don’t put links in the Post…. (which I try to avoid anyway, so that nothing external gets in the post).
n
I’ve been thinking about cultures of abundance (the US) and cultures of scarcity (everyone else, mostly) for a while. I am concerned that there are forces in the world that want to destroy that abundance so that we can be like everyone else. It really is a fundamental difference in outlook.
John Wilder almost always has something interesting to say, and an amusing way of saying it….
https://wilderwealthywise.com/will-covid-19-be-the-end-of-abundance/
@MrAtoz
picking up the guitar
Do it! You may not be a prodigy, you may turn the air blue swearing, but you’ll have a lot of fun and make some racket.
I don’t play electric but I make a racket on several stringed instruments and wind instruments. You’ll suck for a long time. So what.
The key to practicing every day (and you’ll need to to get those callouses that turn pain into joy) put the instrument and gear in the open where you’re tripping over it. Make it as easy to play as reaching out your hand and picking up the guitar. I keep my instruments on the dining room wall and laid across a table under the wall hung TV. They’re staring at me all day and I do practice as a result.
Don’t let the sales guy sell you cheap and pretty. Get a guitar playing friend, or an instructor, to listen to what you want to do and then advise you. Poorly built pretty instruments undermine music. Beware crap instruments on powerful amps in the store as they can make a sucky instrument sound good.
Lots of lessons online now. I’ll try to find and post later today.
Yay MrAtoz – you’ll have such fun.
Thanks, Ms. Jenny!
Ruh Roh:
Gov. Abbott calls for immediate release of salon owner Shelley Luther
Who’s right who’s wrong?
Another Ruh Roh:
Andrew Cuomo thanks health care workers who volunteered to fight COVID19 in New York by making them pay income tax
Fcuk you very much, first responders, nurses, doctors.
Freefall: romcoms are deadly assassination plots
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3500/fc03430.htm
I had no idea that reproduction was deadly for squids.
I was gonna link to this article based solely on the headline. Then I read that it was a chinese team, so I’m certain it’s BS. Then I read further and the BS becomes even stinkier….
Green, huh? Where does the electricity to run the air compressor come from ? Where does the electricity for the microwave generator come from? Jet engine? Only if the plane carries an enormous generator, burning fossil fuels, since only they have the energy density needed….
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8292353/Scientists-design-plasma-powered-jet-propulsion-system.html
n
@jimb
Another plugin of mine installed here attempts to block comments that are not manually entered – those done by comment bots that directly access the comment form processing page via CURL or similar programs. (Called “comment spam”, and a problem with many blogs.)
The plugin does this by checking for a specific hidden field in the form, and check the contents of that field for a specific random value. It the field contents when submitted do not contain that random value, then the form is not being filled in by a ‘human’, and the ‘die spammer’ message is displayed.
Normal operation of the comment entry should not cause the ‘die spammer’ message, as the comment was entered in a ‘normal’ fashion (by typing). The hidden field is not changed to the random value until a short delay happens. This is because another way that spammers fill in comment spam is by pasting into the comment field and immediately submitting. That doesn’t allow the random value to be entered into the hidden field. Normal text entry (manual) will allow that delay to happen, and the hidden field will have the proper value.
So, by copying your content into the form, then immediately hitting ‘post comment’, you are sensed as a form-filling bot, which causes the ‘die spammer’ message to appear. If you were to copy into the form, wait a bit, then “post comment”, the comment will be processed normally.
Note that the plugin also makes sure that the hidden field has the plugin-generated random value, and checks for the correct random value. This prevents the bot from submitting the hidden field with a value – only the random value is allowed. Another protection for bots.
The plugin works quite well – after implementing it on several sites that started to have comment bots problems (this site included), the bots were properly blocked from submitting comments. You may have noted (and @Nick certainly has) that comment spam is very rare around here.
Your problem occurred because you were too fast to paste then submit. Normally, this is not an issue, but you were caught by your “quick-clickety”.
Aspirin: we have a dr in the family (which is nice) but if you mention Aspirin he says “well you know probably you really shouldn’t take it” but never gives a coherent reason and if you push him he says “I suppose you could if it’s not causing you any problems”.
So whatever. I take it. I think reducing the chance of a stroke or preventing a bad covid outcome is worth any risk that they can’t articulate.
yeah they’ll always tell you to lose some weight, eat ‘right’, and watch cholesterol level too.
n
I have read that if aspirin were discovered today, the FDA would never approve it. Pity. Some consider it a miracle drug. In the early days, people took much higher doses without apparent trouble. I had a friend with bad arthritis, who took a lot of aspirin, and it worked better than the wonder patent drugs; this was twenty years ago. Of course, YMMV.
It seems that as the years go by, they find that certain foods, medications, lifestyles, etc. that we were always told are good for you, are bad for you. Every year there is more added to the list. But with Aspirin, every year that goes by, they find more and more good things about it. But every time I mention the word “aspirin” to a doctor or pharmacist, they make the sign of the cross to ward off evil and recommend Tylenol.
I was watching some old furniture show a few years ago and they showed a foot wide deep wooden bowl from the 1700s ???. The wood was a certain tree that produced aspirin naturally. People would put water in the bowl, let it sit for a while and then drink the water. I have no idea if the story was true or not.
And the story appears to be true ! I guess that bowl was made from a Willow tree.
https://www.healthline.com/health/willow-bark-natures-aspirin
And I take a baby aspirin every day. I was on Coumadin for six years before my heart ablation surgery in 2018. I still have extra heartbeats several times an hour and a little bit of afib occasionally. Nothing like I had before though, that was horrible. And of course there is the missing right coronary artery problem.
Yeah, and coffee is bad and alcohol is good. Or vice versa. Cover your bases and drink Irish coffee!
“Death toll could hit 350,000 by end of June if all states lift lockdown restrictions, new COVID-19 model predicts”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8292747/Death-toll-hit-350-000-end-June-model-shows.html
We are all going to die !
Long term, some kind of electricity tax will also be required in the US to rebuild the power grid for EVs. Texas barely manages hot summers, and rolling blackouts are a regular part of the “cold” — 50 degree high temps — Christmas seasons which still happen in Florida every five years or so.
There are literally 100 solar power farms (100+ MW each) in the conception stage for Texas. There are also about a dozen more gas turbine power plants (200+ MW each) in various stages of completion. You gotta have both so you can start the gas turbines at 5pm when the solar power output drops to zero. Or 6pm if your solar panels point towards the west but that reduces your daily output. California pays more for solar panels oriented west for this issue.
With all of this virus nonsense, we may see the 200,000 to 500,000 people moving to Texas each year drop to nil. One can only hope.
We are all going to die die die die!
U.S. Death Rate 1950-2020
United States – Historical Death Rate Data
Year Death Rate Growth Rate
2020 8.880 1.120%
2019 8.782 1.120%
These people need to up their virtue signaling ! There is no way COVID hasn’t caused a growth rate of at least 1,000%
I’ve been thinking about cultures of abundance (the US) and cultures of scarcity (everyone else, mostly) for a while. I am concerned that there are forces in the world that want to destroy that abundance so that we can be like everyone else. It really is a fundamental difference in outlook.
Abundance combined with a politeness that many other cultures view as a weakness.
The Chinese love that “You Ain’t Got No Ice Cream” game way too much to ever be a serious superpower. That and the much-vaunted respect for what the elders say, no matter how bat-eating crazy the advice, nearly drove the world over the edge this Spring. The lessons won’t be forgotten regardless of how much revisionist history gets spun.
I had no idea that reproduction was deadly for
squidssqids.FIFY. 😀
Regarding aspirin – I also take a full-strength aspirin every day, due to my occasional AFIB (well-controlled with Flecanide 100mg twice a day). My AFIB happens maybe once a month, for several hours; I take one or two Metoprolol (spaced several hours apart) to get things back to normal.
My previous cardiologist took me off of Coumadin because of the limited AFIB episodes, moving me to a single full-strength aspirin once a day instead of the Coumadin to reduce the chance of blood clots.
And it’s interesting about the bark of the willow tree being a ‘natural’ pain reliever. You sometimes see that mentioned in the classic Western fiction books.
Dangnabit! Why is there no vinegar in the grocery stores?
When I broke my leg and they fixed it with four 6 inch pins, I had Demerol. Just as I started to like the stuff, they said no more take this Tylenol. Yah, I can’t tell if the stuff works for me. After a couple of days of complaining they gave me a couple of aspirin. They did say to watch my wound for bleeding…. plasma was ok.
It might all be in my head. But aspirin works for me. Tylenol, unless Tylenol3, does nothing. The other two NSAIDS… they seem to sort of work, one gives me really weird dreams. I think it’s the brown pill.
I don’t know. It’s not like I take a lot of aspirin, maybe two or three a month.
Not even the 9% ?
Question for the musicians here. I’m thinking about picking up the guitar. Is 64.9 years of age too late? I played a little in HS. I’d go electric from the start with a practice amp and some kind of iPad effects app.
What was the Beatles song that George Harrison screamed out at the end that his fingers were bleeding ?
Dangnabit! Why is there no vinegar in the grocery stores?
Another disinfectant, but not as good as bleach.
”
Dangnabit! Why is there no vinegar in the grocery stores?
”
–vinegar is a cleaner. It’s very popular with the stay at home mommy bloggers and the instagram set. Can’t get bleach? Don’t like the smell? Use natural vinegar instead.
n
None at my local HEB. Now I’ll have to ration my last jug, over half empty. They had two gallon boxes of “Members Mark” on Amazon for $25. At Sams, it would be about $9, the pirates. I’ve been holding off going to Sams, but guess I will have to since the stuff I want is “out of stock” online, but you all have been posting it is in your local Sams.
Candling eggs: A short piece of foam pipe insulation is handy for the end of your FLASHLIGHT as it pads the egg from the lens and seals out other light. Or rather, focuses the light like a lamp shade so you can look at the egg without the glare.
Don’t candle too long, the baby doesn’t need to be cooked.
It’s very cool to watch the chicks grow.
With emu you have to weigh and control the humidity. Because of the dark green shell. But once you get that sorted it’s like hatching chickens or guineas. Temp is about the same in a 3 degree F range. Cooler takes longer. Emu eggs need lower humidity but that’s (I think) a function of the size of the egg.
And why care about the humidity? Well, that’s how the chick gets oxygen. As the egg white evaporates, air is pulled into the shell and absorbed by the “placenta” (wrong word) lining the egg shell.
Pay attention to your nose. Smell the eggs. If an egg is seeping, carefully take it outside and throw it far away.
Incubating emu is easy with a Natureform incubator. Program it and walk away. Incubating in the hatcher isn’t much harder. Just watch temp and humidity, keep the water pan full, and relax…. Goofy roosters have been hatching chicks for millions of years.
Chickens are even easier.
I buy the HEB 9% because I’m cheap. Forty cents more per gallon than the 5%.
Hey, what can I say?
Dangnabit! Why is there no vinegar in the grocery stores?
Another disinfectant, but not as good as bleach.
Vinegar as a shower mold cleaner is worthless to me. Does not work at all, even after 6 hours. Now 3% bleach, that is freaking awesome. Especially after 2 hours.
With emu you have to weigh and control the humidity.
If the Chinese Flu gets to the point where I’m candling emu eggs I think I’d rather you took me out and shot me.
Goofy roosters have been
hatchingwatching chicks for millions of years. FIFY. 🙂I had no idea that reproduction was deadly for squids XXXXX sqids.
FIFY.
???
“Gov. Greg Abbott’s list of businesses that can reopen on May 18, under certain rules”
https://www.chron.com/coronavirus/article/Gov-Abbott-businesses-reopen-May-18-coronavirus-15250650.php
“Gov. Greg Abbott’s rules for salons and pools, which can open Friday, May 8”
https://www.chron.com/coronavirus/article/Gov-Greg-Abbott-s-rules-for-salons-and-pools-15250701.php
Barbershops can reopen on May 8. Dadgumit, I gave myself a haircut this morning with my beard trimmer.
Helter Skelter
The big problems with aspirin:
– can cause GI bleeding, especially with long term use
– can exacerbate any clotting problems you have
– in kids can cause Reye’s syndrome
I had no idea that reproduction was deadly for squids XXXXX sqids.
FIFY.
???
Sam is actually a space sqid, not squid: http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3400/fc03362.htm
There is a strip in which Sam complains about those who misspell the name of his race, but I don’t have the time to find it.
Added: Me, a pedant? Smile when you say that, podnuh! 🙂
Lol, a little pedantry never hurt anyone. It’s pederasty that gets you in trouble…
Nobody knows how to make a pencil. A classic from economics.
https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/
I’m 70+ (will be 71 in September). I eat 3 eggs every day. I take 15 aspirin every day. I take 30mg of Hydrocodone every day. This is for the past more than 30 years. I get examined by my doctor every 3 months and that includes a full blood panel. All the good blood numbers are solidly in the upper quartile and the bad blood numbers are in the bottom quartile. Every doctor I have ever seen in my adult life is in awe and says basically “don’t change a thing, but…”.
They and we don’t really know what is good for us. Politics, business, the Stock Market, and the latest book by an author with no true experience or credibility drive what we are told is good for us.
What is good for us is us. Common sense and moderation, if you can really even define either of those.
Heredity is the big thing. I had Polio because my heritage on both sides had it for many generations back. The same goes for my Diabetes. My blood is good because my ancestors were beef farmers. Understand, what you are health-wise has more to do with your ancestors than anything some so-called experts or the “latest fad” says.
It’s getting close to pickling season? You might try Aldi’s, or an IGA or other independent if you have one nearby. I bought 3 gallons of 5% in Aldi’s last week for $2.39 each I think it was, so that I will have extra on hand as the garden starts coming in. I only use vinegar for canning and cooking… I clean with other stuff. Hopefully cucumbers will produce this year and I can restock our pickles.
We’ve long had a false abundance and a dearth of choice. It’s like the old song: “57 channels and there’s nothing on”. It’s all the same under different names. So many producers have embraced the falsehood that it’s better to offer 3 similar choices to hook the customer than to have a genuine selection. They drop the bottom 60% even if those products are solid sellers. As one example, I needed a few terracotta tiles. Three local stores offered 75 shades of gray or white, but terra cotta and browns are out this year. The only browns are fake wood. They couldn’t even order anything else…. they suggested I try a discontinued outlet in one of the cities. BTW, many ceramic tiles today do not have the color & glaze fired on. It is a plastic wrap applied to the base tile.
A very wonderful thing from our county: a regional classic car club did a “Nursing Home Run”. The staff brought everyone outside with their masks on, sitting at distance, many in wheelchairs – it looked like darned near their whole population was out in the fresh air – and the club paraded past in their restored old trucks and fast cars. Smiling faces evident even behind masks. A friend of ours was involved and posted a few pics on Facebook yesterday.
Another article stating that Black people are getting the worst of SARS-COV-2. “‘It’s gone haywire’: When COVID-19 arrived in rural America”
https://apnews.com/b2a2add19ce7f4f75f42b29331034706
“The patients were very sick. Some died within hours. Some died on the way, in the back of ambulances. The region is predominantly black, but still African Americans died disproportionately, Steiner said. African Americans accounted for about 80% of the hospital’s deaths.”
“Black people have been dying at alarming rates across the country: the latest Associated Press analysis of available data shows that African Americans represent about 14% of the population in the areas covered but nearly one-third of those who have died.”
I wonder where they got their stats from.
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
With the unemployment at 20+% and heading to 30+%, I do see this hastening up moving us to Medicaid for All ™. I’ve thought about the Medicare for All ™ versus Medicaid for All and decided that Greg is right, this will be a VA (veterans administration) level of medical care. Not real bad, not real good, just a treatment of immediate needs. If you have an advocate then the treatment level is better. In other words, Medicaid, not Medicare.
@Rick Hellewell, thanks! Been away for a while, just catching up.
Now I understand. Much more complicated than I had guessed. Def not insanity. I will go a little slower and see.
I only use the external word processor occasionally, and mostly when the comments are flying fast. I hate it when I can’t see what is going on while I am typing… just thought about that. I think I have another solution to try (second instance while typing in the first one.) Being called for dinner. Thanks again.
“Starship SN4 Breaks “The Cryo Test Barrier””
https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2020/04/starship-sn4-breaks-cryo-test-barrier.html
“Late last night through early this morning, SpaceX Starship prototype Serial Number 4 achieved something the first three serial numbers never did. It survived a fueling test with liquid nitrogen (in place of methane).”
“Late on Sunday night, SpaceX completed a critical cryogenic test of a Starship prototype at its launch site in South Texas. The successful test, during which chilled nitrogen was loaded into pressurized fuel tanks, was reported on Twitter by SpaceX founder Elon Musk.”
“The vehicle, dubbed SN4—which stands for Serial Number 4—was pressurized to 4.9 bar, or 4.9 times the atmospheric pressure at the surface of the Earth. This pressure is not as high as Starship’s fuel tanks and plumbing system are designed to withstand, but it is enough for a basic flight.”
Cool. I had no idea that SpaceX was at prototype #4 for Starship.
And the eventual fuel for Starship will be LNG, Liquefied Natural Gas.
With the unemployment at 20+% and heading to 30+%, I do see this hastening up moving us to Medicaid for All ™. I’ve thought about the Medicare for All ™ versus Medicaid for All and decided that Greg is right, this will be a VA (veterans administration) level of medical care. Not real bad, not real good, just a treatment of immediate needs. If you have an advocate then the treatment level is better. In other words, Medicaid, not Medicare.
VA for All? Oh, that’s not even remotely affordable. Trump has spent serious money on the VA as of late.
VA for All? Oh, that’s not even remotely affordable. Trump has spent serious money on the VA as of late.
Most of that new money for the VA has been spent in the private sector. The VA had a bunch of surgeries and such on the back burner which suddenly became available. My father-in-law was forced out of the VA system six years ago and into private care through the ER. So he had to back pay into Medicare at age 81 for his four ER surgeries in one month of 2014. I still don’t know what the cost was but it was significant, at least $30,000, maybe $100,000. Nowadays, the VA would cover all that.
Shot Girl will kill SpaceX when she eliminates all fossil fuel use in 2024. She will sign an Executive Order announcing a project to travel to Mars using wind power.
I would not be surprised if a bunch of bureaucrats are working in a sub-basement of the White House on a plan for Medicare for All ™ right now. As I said, with 30% unemployment that will not recover for two years at best (if ever), Trump is wondering how to get all these unemployed people on health insurance. They will call it Medicare for All but as you said, it will be Medicaid for All.
As Rahm Emanuel so famously said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”. And the checkbook is OPEN. And the cost will be so much more than it is presented to the public as. Somewhere in the range of 150% to 200% more.
Plus, don’t you know that the CEOs of Ford, Chrysler, and GM are talking to Trump right now about a potential lockout of the UAW. Those three are paying $40,000/year each for the healthcare of 2.2 million UAW retirees. That is $88 billion/year for the UAW retiree healthcare. That number won’t fly as their sales drop by 50% for the next two years.
My brother turned 65 and was moved from Medicaid to Medicare. He was horrified. Under Medicade he had no co-pay for anything. All his diabetes and other drugs were free. He had a shoulder replacement done at no cost. Under Medicare he is having to pay some for everything. It’s broken his budget. He was moaning to me yesterday that he couldn’t afford to get his (1987) Rolls out of the shop till August because of medication costs. He buys high end cars at auctions then try’s to fix them up. He currently has the Rolls, two BMW 5 series, a Lexus, and a 1913 American La France fire engine converted to a speedster. None are fully functioning and he has no intention of selling anything. A hoarder?
My brother turned 65 and was moved from Medicaid to Medicare. He was horrified. Under Medicade he had no co-pay for anything.
Which state Medicaid?
Arkansas. Is it different in other states? Shows what I know.
Plus, don’t you know that the CEOs of Ford, Chrysler, and GM are talking to Trump right now about a lockout of the UAW. Those three are paying $40,000/year each for the healthcare of 2.2 million UAW retirees. That is $88 billion/year for the UAW retiree healthcare. That number won’t fly as their sales drop by 50% for the next two years.
Obama gave the UAW equity stakes in Chrysler and GM, and some of the retirement plan details were rearranged in return.
Cash for Clunkers 2.0 is coming in some form. Any of you holding a GNX in a storage unit on blocks somewhere, get in touch here before trading it and letting the pinheads destroy that engine. *Nothing* modern justifies the crime against auto history, and I remember at least one on the list of destroyed cars in the first Cash for Clunkers.
GM only made 547.
A nice assortment and a good start 😉
Speaking of hoarding, ever been to the Henry Ford museum? The Boss was a serious hoarder, who had several employees who combed the countryside in search of interesting stuff. Filled warehouses. I believe the museum, which is huge, is just a small sample of the holdings.
Just finished a puzzle. 300 pieces, 14″x 16″, couple of hours. I like doing puzzles and we’ve been doing a new one once a week on average. Tonight I just did one by myself, until my wife swooped in at the last minute and put a few pieces in. I stole the last piece though, and held it until the end…
n
Aspirin may be getting bad press these days but the 81mg daily dose is still recommended to prevent heart attack or stroke. Apparently acetaminophen and ibuprofen don’t have a comparable effect.
I use acetaminophen myself, mostly due to availability, and the fact that I have a really odd reaction to ibuprofen; when I took ibuprofen for a headache, I ended up with the sensation that my head was hollow and the pain was pushed to a halo around my skull. I’ve never been able to find an explanation for this but I just decided to use the product that didn’t make me feel like an extra in a bad ‘House’ episode.
@Jim
I was once at Ford Museum, nice site, if it is only a sample, he was a serious hoarder surely, but not only things, houses too
In most states, if you are on Medicaid, they pick up the charges at the same level as before you move.