Tues. Feb. 23, 2021 – no school for YOU! So says covid rules….

By on February 23rd, 2021 in ebay, personal, WuFlu

Mild and clear, shirtsleeves and shorts.  I hope.

Yesterday was beautiful.   Temps got up to mid 80s, and only went down to 48F at night.

Did some stuff around the house.  Sold more Mold Armor.  I expect that to start moving again.   Sold some specialty cable assemblies to a guy in Thailand.  I’m shipping to a forwarder in Cali, so that’s where my responsibility will end.  I’ve got to get the shipping out today.

Helped out another couple of people with plumbing supplies.  Offered to a few more.  I don’t have what everyone wants, but that’s ok with me.

Wife will be home today so I’ll be able to run errands.    And the kids will be home too.   Wife called daughter 1 in sick, and that activated their covid protocol, because any sickness is assumed to be covid until proven not.    Kid had a stuffy head, sore throat, mild and occasional cough, no fever and she’s better every day.  Can’t return to school for 10 days though or needs to show a negative covid test.  Daughter two can’t go to school either, as she’s just getting the scratchy throat.   She might as well get a test too, as she’s going to be locked out as well.   And wife’s office manager heard her making arrangements, and told HER to stay home until the tests come back negative.  It all makes perfect sense from one point of view, but seems like crazy overkill from another.   Naturally, I’ll be masked and avoiding contact with people too.

The cold snap just ate a week.   I don’t have a bunch of extra weeks laying around, so I guess I’ll have to step up my game.   Or just keep plugging away.  There’s always something more to do.   And I better get to doing…

I’ve got stacking to do.  So do you.   Water, food, meds, power, heat, light, defense, and sanity.  Make sure they’re not in short supply.

 

n

71 Comments and discussion on "Tues. Feb. 23, 2021 – no school for YOU! So says covid rules…."

  1. Nick Flandrey says:

    41F at 630am

    Up before the birds to get my little birdie ready for ‘virtual’ school. The other one is out sick and as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t need to do virtual. Wife disagrees.

    n

  2. Clayton W. says:

    I remember driving past the Florida State Fairgrounds the morning after Irma made landfall in Tampa and several of the parking lots looked like ‘linesmen bucket truck’ versions of the mega car dealerships I’d once seen alongside the highway in Dallas leading from the airport to our offices there.

    Remember that if the lines are down, the power company can’t make money. They have a vested interest in getting it fixed. And the asset sharing deals for hurricanes/ice storms allow them to surge assets. Florida is sending some assets to Texas.

    Storing fuel is a different proposition. What happened in Texas was unusual, if not unheard of. 30 year event? 100 Year? We can quibble. There is NO way a bean counter will advocate for not storing fuel. It has to be a regulatory cost baked into the contract or it won’t be supplied.

    And it would KILL renewable energy. There is no way they can afford back-up sources dedicated to waiting for a calamity.

    What does an LNG plant cost that could supply say 72 hours of maximum fuel usage? Diesel storage should be cheap. Wind and solar?

  3. SteveF says:

    The other one is out sick and as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t need to do virtual. Wife disagrees.

    If there’s anything worthwhile to be gained by “attending”, I’d have her join the call.
    If, on the other hand, virtual school is about useless, meh, let her sleep.

    I’m homeschooling my daughter next year, most likely. We’ll be doing a trial run over the summer; if she just can’t maintain self discipline then I’ll put her back in the private school she’s currently attending. What with the scumbag tyrant in the NY governor’s mansion, the pedo puppet infesting the White House, and the idiocy and inconstancy of the state and county health departments, the school is closed at least once a month and there’s disruption and delay even when it’s open. The clubs and sports have been stopped. Few if any of the kids like attending any longer and they’re not getting much of an education. I don’t blame the teachers or the board at all, but the school is no longer a good value for money and time. Add in that I need to be home to keep an eye on Grandma (as well as preferring to work from home) and home schooling sounds like it’s worth a try.

  4. SteveF says:

    This guy’s vote counts the same as yours.
    And he’s paid with tax dollars.

    1
    1
  5. Nick Flandrey says:

    The old guy I watch puttering around in his garden shed in England gets more views than that “Professor” and he makes infinitely more sense. He also does more for conservation by fixing old stuff instead of scrapping it, than 10 bins full of recycling.

    n

  6. Pecancorner says:

    There is a MWH graph out there for the first 20 days of February for ERCOT, I cannot find it again. I have seen it twice and failed to mark it each time. The graph is brutal. I though it was on https://wattsupwiththat.com/ but I cannot find it there now.

    @Lynn, is this the post you saw? There are a couple of graphs and a chart:

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/17/the-day-after-tomorrow-ercot-fail-edition/

  7. brad says:

    This guy’s vote counts the same as yours.

    I did listen to large parts of the video, until it became clear that he’s another person after “climate justice”. The Western world must impoverish itself, because… Well, frankly, only because we dare to have been successful. Nails that stick up must be hammered back down.

    “[Slavery] created the machinery for the Industrial Revolution”

    Um…no. Most of the major Western powers had abolished slavery by the beginning of the 18th century, before the industrial revolution really took off. There is almost no overlap.

    Anyway consider those poor slaves, being forced to…operate machinery? Which requires skills and training? Which slaves were rarely allowed to acquire? Of course, as long as we’re bashing the industrial revolution, we shouldn’t remember just how many billions of people it has lifted out of abject poverty. Far better to imagine the joys of farming without machinery, or to consider the peaceful life of a noble savage. /s

    Clearly, we are not his audience.

    I’m homeschooling my daughter next year

    Is she on board with this? That “self-discipline” is really the key. I’m seeing that with my students just now – good ones are doing at least as well as before Corona. The unmotivated ones…well…

    Anyhow, best of luck!

  8. Greg Norton says:

    Buc-ee’s in Florida. Even the Beaver headed for a warmer location last week ahead of the store opening yesterday. 🙂

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iewpPEfctKI

  9. Harold Combs says:

    “[Slavery] created the machinery for the Industrial Revolution”

    Actually, excellent arguments have been made that slavery held back industrial development. Access to cheap labor (not free, slaves are not a no-cost laborsource) removed the incentives for mechanization. The American North had to embrace the industrial revolution because labor was expensive while the American south could coast on low cost labor. I once read an article that the whole industrial revolution was delayed a thousand years because slavery made labor so cheap. The Greeks and Romans knew the basics of steam power but couldn’t see an economic advantage.

  10. SteveF says:

    I’m homeschooling my daughter next year

    Is she on board with this?

    She’s the one who was pushing for it. I’ve got my doubts about her self discipline and ability to stay focused.

    But.

    But the deciding factor was that I don’t want to not give her the chance to show she can simply because I don’t think she can. Another bit of The Wisdom of Steve: People may not live up to your expectations but they will always live down to them. I’m giving her a chance to succeed.

    10
  11. Nick Flandrey says:

    One plus of homeschooling as I understand it, is that she won’t have to focus for as long. The whole day’s curriculum usually fits in a couple of hours.

    n

  12. brad says:

    @Harold: Exactly, and well-explained. Of course, that doesn’t suit the narrative.

    The Wisdom of Steve

    Is that a book?

    “the deciding factor was that I don’t want to not give her the chance to show she can simply because I don’t think she can. Another bit of The Wisdom of Steve: People may not live up to your expectations but they will always live down to them.”

    Yep, I couldn’t agree more. Doing it right is likely to take as much (or more) of your time as hers. Sleep is entirely optional, did you know?

  13. Nick Flandrey says:

    “Sleep is entirely optional, did you know?”

    —I lived that life for a while. Not so much anymore. And sleep deprivation psychosis is REALLY ugly, although it has moments of humor.

    n

  14. SteveF says:

    The Wisdom of Steve

    Is that a book?

    It should be. I’m full of wisdom! Like “Don’t sweat the small stuff, but if someone annoys you enough that it’s not small stuff, kill him right away. The conflict will just escalate until you have to kill him so you might as well kill him now and skip the in-between stuff.”

    A couple months ago my daughter asked me for a pithy saying for her to use in writing class. I gave her that one. She was, um, appalled, I think is a good word. The teacher rejected it on the basis that “We do not encourage murder in this school.” I ended up giving my daughter the “but what would be different if he were” aphorism, which she used and which apparently led to classroom discussion.

    Doing it right is likely to take as much (or more) of your time as hers.

    Maybe. We’ll see. She’s a teenager, not an eight-year-old. She’ll be able to do a lot on her own. And we spend a lot of time together already, much of which ends up being education stuff in one form or another. (This used to be called “parenting”, but I understand that this has gone out of style.)

  15. MrAtoz says:

    –and apparently our Parks and Wildlife has more than 50 drones
    –snip–
    -Texas Parks and Wildlife Department: 585 personnel, 531 4×4 vehicles, 50 UAS, 1 aircraft, and 9 K9 teams
    n

    Well, duh! How else are they supposed to surveil, harass, and arrest people not wearing face diapers in the parks. The drones are probably those big cop drones with weapons on them. “I fired because I feared for my life from those maskless heathens.”

  16. Alan says:

    One plus of homeschooling as I understand it, is that she won’t have to focus for as long. The whole day’s curriculum usually fits in a couple of hours.

    Which leaves more hours for her to spend on FaceCrack – or is she more disciplined (self or otherwise)?

  17. Chad says:

    Which leaves more hours for her to spend on FaceCrack – or is she more disciplined (self or otherwise)?

    No one under the age of 35 uses Facebook. 🙂 As soon as everyone’s parents and grandparents started getting on Facebook the kids stopped. The kids have mostly stopped using Twitter too (except perhaps to follow whichever celebrities they’re currently worshipping). Instead, they’re on TikTok, Discord, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Instagram (and probably 3 or 4 others I am forgetting).

  18. TV says:

    @Alan (from yesterday)

    I would argue part of prepping includes working to have your overall jurisdiction (city / county / state, whatever) operate in a competent fashion so I can continue to use my bunker as a root cellar.

    “…competent…” Suggestions for any current jurisdictions to use as models? No, didn’t think so…

    As to voting your way out of it, for this specific example and paraphrasing Lynn, you had reliable power until the system changed in the 1990s. That change wasn’t magic. Changing back won’t be magic either. That is not to say it will be easy as there will be people and interests that like it the way it is now.

    But somehow both sides come to an agreement…and then they all sing Kumbaya, right?

    The poor will always get hit worse by price increases in anything. Best mitigation is having less poor, but that is a long term project (bring back the middle class).

    But no impact to the 1%ers, right, right?!

    Sorry, guess I woke up on the sarcastic side of the bed this morning.

    Wow, you really did. So taking your comments in order:

    Regarding competent jurisdictions? None, if you expect them to be competent, or worse, perfect, in all things. Like anything else, what is paid attention to gets done and perhaps done well. If you don’t want to spend any time insisting on good performance from your local government you will get what you asked for. Sure, it can make you feel like Sisyphus because you will not have to ask just once.

    On singing kumbaya? (NO SINGING!!!). No, there will be a lot of debate, disagreement, and probably hollering. I doubt (but don’t really know that) the change to how Texas regulated power in the 1990s involved choruses of kumbaya either. That why I said it wasn’t magic (or singing). You want reliability, you will have to insist on it.

    But no impact to the 1%ers, right, right?!

    No, they will experience a price increase too. It’s just that they will probably neither notice nor care. By definition these are people with enough income and assets that tripling their power bill would have no effect on their lives. No radical changes to lifestyle, no other economies required to pay the bill, etc… Why would you want to pay any attention to an impact on people for which it has NO practical impact? If they do notice or care, they may just leave, because while you might worry about them, they typically don’t worry at all about you.(“…the rich are not like us…”) The rest of us have fewer options, and the really poor none at all (so it is better to have fewer poor, but you will never have none).

  19. TV says:

    @Alan (from yesterday)

    I would argue part of prepping includes working to have your overall jurisdiction (city / county / state, whatever) operate in a competent fashion so I can continue to use my bunker as a root cellar.

    “…competent…” Suggestions for any current jurisdictions to use as models? No, didn’t think so…

    As to voting your way out of it, for this specific example and paraphrasing Lynn, you had reliable power until the system changed in the 1990s. That change wasn’t magic. Changing back won’t be magic either. That is not to say it will be easy as there will be people and interests that like it the way it is now.

    But somehow both sides come to an agreement…and then they all sing Kumbaya, right?

    The poor will always get hit worse by price increases in anything. Best mitigation is having less poor, but that is a long term project (bring back the middle class).

    But no impact to the 1%ers, right, right?!

    Sorry, guess I woke up on the sarcastic side of the bed this morning.

    Wow, you really did. So taking your comments in order:

    Regarding competent jurisdictions? None, if you expect them to be competent, or worse, perfect, in all things. Like anything else, what is paid attention to gets done and perhaps done well. If you don’t want to spend any time insisting on good performance from your local government you will get what you asked for. Sure, it can make you feel like Sisyphus because you will not have to ask just once.

    On singing kumbaya? (NO SINGING!!!). No, there will be a lot of debate, disagreement, and probably hollering. I doubt (but don’t really know that) the change to how Texas regulated power in the 1990s involved choruses of kumbaya either. That why I said it wasn’t magic (or singing). You want reliability, you will have to insist on it.

    But no impact to the 1%ers, right, right?!

    No, they will experience a price increase too. It’s just that they will probably neither notice nor care. By definition these are people with enough income and assets that tripling their power bill would have no effect on their lives. No radical changes to lifestyle, no other economies required to pay the bill, etc… Why would you want to pay any attention to an impact on people for which it has NO practical impact? If they do notice or care, they may just leave, because while you might worry about them, they typically don’t worry at all about you.(“…the rich are not like us…”) The rest of us have fewer options, and the really poor none at all (so it is better to have fewer poor, but you will never have none).

  20. mediumwave says:

    Followup on the Louisiana gun store incident:

    How the Jefferson Gun Outlet shootout unfolded: mapping the massacre

  21. Nick Flandrey says:

    I see why they keep insisting on calling it a ‘warning shot’ even though it is the opposite.

    n

  22. Alan says:

    So this would be ‘suicide by gun store’?

  23. Nick Flandrey says:

    “So this would be ‘suicide by gun store’? ”
    –I don’t think so. He had a brother and some kids with him. He went looking for more victims. I think there was a grudge involved.

    n

  24. lynn says:

    There is a MWH graph out there for the first 20 days of February for ERCOT, I cannot find it again. I have seen it twice and failed to mark it each time. The graph is brutal. I though it was on https://wattsupwiththat.com/ but I cannot find it there now.

    @Lynn, is this the post you saw? There are a couple of graphs and a chart:

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/17/the-day-after-tomorrow-ercot-fail-edition/

    Sorry, no. There is a MWH graph from Feb 1 to Feb 20 showing the 6 types of power produced. I saw it somewhere twice. I would have sworn http://www.wattsupwiththat.com or https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/ had the graph in an article.

  25. lynn says:

    What does an LNG plant cost that could supply say 72 hours of maximum fuel usage? Diesel storage should be cheap. Wind and solar?

    You can buy LNG at many of the major truck stops now. LNG is easy to make, just energy intensive as it is a cryogenic process. About six percent of the natural gas is used to liquefy it using the Phillips process that my dad and partner created back in 1969. And the reduction in volume from vapor to liquid is 3600 to 1.

    The USA is now making over 10 BCF (billion cubic feet) of LNG per day now and selling it on the high seas to Japan, China, India, etc. Other natural gas producers in the world also make at least ten BCF/day of LNG as a group: Australia, Qatar, Trinidad, Norway, etc. In fact, Norway may be up to over 10 BCF/day LNG by themselves now. There are now LNG transport ships over 1,500 ft long (400 ft longer than a USA fixed wing aircraft carrier).

  26. lynn says:

    Storing fuel is a different proposition. What happened in Texas was unusual, if not unheard of. 30 year event? 100 Year? We can quibble. There is NO way a bean counter will advocate for not storing fuel. It has to be a regulatory cost baked into the contract or it won’t be supplied.

    Somewhere around a 10 year to 30 year event. The last time it was this cold was 1989 but 2011 was dadgum cold then too. And we had rotating blackouts in 1989 and 2011 also.

  27. Greg Norton says:

    “Storing fuel is a different proposition. What happened in Texas was unusual, if not unheard of. 30 year event? 100 Year? We can quibble. There is NO way a bean counter will advocate for not storing fuel. It has to be a regulatory cost baked into the contract or it won’t be supplied.”

    Somewhere around a 10 year to 30 year event. The last time it was this cold was 1989 but 2011 was dadgum cold then too. And we had rotating blackouts in 1989 and 2011 also.

    Weren’t the decommissioned coal units still running in 2011?

    I don’t want to think about a similar event in 10 years when GM and other vehicle manufacturers are closing in on their goal of eliminating non-electric cars from their lineups.

    The neighbor’s new “Blue” Hyundai plug-in hybrid is still sitting under a tarp in front of my house, where it has been since Valentines Day. At this point, I’m wondering if the vehicle is even working.

    UPDATE: Well, shut my mouth. The Hyundai is gone as of a few minutes ago. We’ll see when it comes back … if it comes back.

  28. Nick Flandrey says:

    A youtuber I like to watch, 8 Bit Guy, is in the Dallas area and had frozen burst pipes and flooding. He makes a couple of interesting comments about his hybrid Volt wrt bugging out.

    Don’t read the comments unless you WANT your blood pressure to rise. Damn people are self-centered and dumb.

    n

  29. Nick Flandrey says:

    Wow, don’t know what is going on in town, but the surveillance op on the scanner just asked for a patrol officer and was told there were 85 calls holding for service and there was no way they were gonna get a patrol officer.

    That’s a lot more than normal.

    n

  30. lynn says:

    I am trying to remember how many times we set the house on fire …

    Ppfffttttt, you think that makes you special? I will raise you a 1/2 burned barn, and bullet holes in the roof of the house. Toss in one destroyed farm tractor and a flipped loaded hay truck and we can talk.

    I think many parents qualify because of stupid stuff done by kids.

    I may or may not have shot up my grandfather’s neighbor’s 12 cage dog pen when I was shooting turtles in my grandfather’s large pond (3 or 4 acres) on his 138 acres back in 1978 or so. Most of my .223 bullets were apparently ricocheting from the pond surface when I missed the turtle. The neighbor came around in quite a hurry and informed me of the same. Luckily, I missed all of his 10 or 12 dogs. I cannot remember if I shot up 2 or 3 thirty round mags.

    I have never flipped a tractor but I have wheelied one several times. We won’t talk about the offroad motorcycle and the power pole guy wire over the hill I jumped but I did walk away from that one. Kinda. Still have the scars.

  31. lynn says:

    The ceiling just fell in my small (450 ft2) office building. I knew it was going to happen, there was a lot of water up there and it was bubbling through the sheetrock and paint yesterday. Just makes more room for my plumber buddy to fix the water pipe.

  32. Greg Norton says:

    A youtuber I like to watch, 8 Bit Guy, is in the Dallas area and had frozen burst pipes and flooding. He makes a couple of interesting comments about his hybrid Volt wrt bugging out.

    Faucet sock. Those don’t work, especially as the Thinsulate ages stored in a garage in Texas.

  33. lynn says:

    “Storing fuel is a different proposition. What happened in Texas was unusual, if not unheard of. 30 year event? 100 Year? We can quibble. There is NO way a bean counter will advocate for not storing fuel. It has to be a regulatory cost baked into the contract or it won’t be supplied.”

    Somewhere around a 10 year to 30 year event. The last time it was this cold was 1989 but 2011 was dadgum cold then too. And we had rotating blackouts in 1989 and 2011 also.

    Weren’t the decommissioned coal units still running in 2011?

    Yes, they were shut down in 2017. Over 2.2 GW of coal power at 3 coal power plants: Big Brown, Sandow, and Monticello.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brown_Power_Plant
    and
    https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Layoffs-on-way-as-grid-operator-approves-coal-12372905.php

    “It was announced on October 13, 2017 that Luminant was to either shut down or sell to another concern Big Brown in early-2018 due to economic factors such as low natural gas prices and growth in renewable energy.[12] The following month, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) approved of the shut down.[13] ERCOT found the two-unit Big Brown plant was “not required to support ERCOT transmission system reliability”, and authorized its closure by February 12, 2018.[14]”

    ERCOT would had to pay big bucks to keep those coal plants running. Billions of dollars per year as I saw that Martin Lake was losing $50 million per year all by itself and it has SO2 scubbers. The coal plants that were retired did not have SO2 scrubbers which were going to have to be retrofitted according to Obama’s EPA.

    We could have used those plants and the others that were retired last week.

  34. Marcelo says:

    I don’t have a bunch of extra weeks laying around…

    Is that a prepper fail?

  35. lynn says:

    What does an LNG plant cost that could supply say 72 hours of maximum fuel usage? Diesel storage should be cheap. Wind and solar?

    You can buy LNG at many of the major truck stops now. LNG is easy to make, just energy intensive as it is a cryogenic process. About six percent of the natural gas is used to liquefy it using the Phillips process that my dad and partner created back in 1969. And the reduction in volume from vapor to liquid is 3600 to 1.

    BTW, I think that you can buy a small LNG plant on a skid for a couple of million bucks. Something that can make a thousand gallons of LNG per day. Of course, you still need the cryogenic tank facility (pumps, vacuum insulated piping, etc) also.

  36. lynn says:

    Whoa, Starlink is now taking orders for south Texas !
    https://www.starlink.com/

    “Starlink is targeting coverage in your area in mid to late 2021. You will receive a notification once your Starlink is ready to ship.”

    “Hardware $499.00
    Service $99.00 /mo
    Shipping & Handling $50.00
    Est. Tax $34.32
    Due Today $99.00”

    I was like, bummer, 2021. Then I went whoa, it is 2021.

    Starlink is getting real. I may do this for the office and drop one of my AT&T DSL lines.

  37. lynn says:

    “Starlink Download Speeds to Double to 300Mbps This Year, Musk Says”
    https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-download-speeds-to-double-to-300mbps-this-year-musk-says

    “SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also says his company is working to bring down Starlink’s latency to 20 milliseconds. It can currently achieve about 150Mbps with a 30ms latency.”

    Starlink is going to be way faster than the average server.

  38. lynn says:

    “Supposedly Retired, F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Jets Spotted Over Los Angeles”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/supposedly-retired-f-117-nighthawk-stealth-jets-spotted-over-los-angeles

    That is odd.

  39. Greg Norton says:

    “Supposedly Retired, F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Jets Spotted Over Los Angeles”

    That is odd.

    Drones. Replace the Carter-era computers and upgrade communications. That shape was all about stealth so “fly by wire” was the only way to get the plane off of the ground — quite a feat in the late 70s. Another Skunkworks miracle.

    Eight years ago, the military was soliciting bids on a mesh network system to deploy above a battlefield for more sophisticated drone deployments among other uses. Bidding on the project was that year’s “spin” of the company I worked for in Seattle briefly in 2013.

    I wasn’t with the company long enough for clearance so I’m not spilling national security secrets.

  40. lynn says:

    “A Giant Flaw in Texas Blackouts: It Cut Power to Gas Supplies”
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-20/a-giant-flaw-in-texas-blackouts-it-cut-power-to-gas-supplies

    “When the Texas power grid was on the brink of collapse and its operator plunged thousands into darkness, it didn’t make an exception for the oil and gas field.”

    “But leaving shale fields like the Permian Basin dark had an unintended consequence. Producers who depend on electricity to power their operations were left with no way to pump natural gas. And that gas was needed more than ever to generate electricity.”

    “As one executive described: It was like a death spiral.”

    They cut the power to the oil and gas fields and compressors again. You cannot cut the power to the gas and oil fields. Ever. All that equipment has to be manually restarted for safety’s sake. And the number of operators (pumpers) is limited since not many are actually needed. Until a crisis. In normal times, one pumper covers over a hundred oil and gas fields.

    Hat tip to:
    https://gunfreezone.net/snow-in-texas-and-the-biden-response/

    “I tell my greenie friends up north that one summer here in the heat and you’ll burn tires if it would run the AC. Same with cold.”

    True dat.

  41. Alan says:

    Wow, don’t know what is going on in town, but the surveillance op on the scanner just asked for a patrol officer and was told there were 85 calls holding for service and there was no way they were gonna get a patrol officer.

    When seconds count the police are minutes…or in this case days…away.

  42. MrAtoz says:

    Faucet sock. Those don’t work, especially as the Thinsulate ages stored in a garage in Texas.

    I had to go with “socks” since the stores didn’t carry styrofoam covers deep enough to cover the bib. I’ll need to measure the pipe to see if someone makes a foam cover deep enough.

    The backyard bib didn’t have any problems. The front yard bib leaked when it froze for some reason. Water expansion maybe. The “sock” had a big icicle hanging from it, but the bib survived.

  43. RickH says:

    re: faucet foam covers – couldn’t you make one with a simple wood form and some spray foam insulation?

  44. Greg Norton says:

    re: faucet foam covers – couldn’t you make one with a simple wood form and some spray foam insulation?

    The commercial covers add a foam gasket where the cover meets the exterior wall and a zip tie mechanism to secure the cover to the spigot valve. I paid $3 each at Lowes a few years ago. Big River has them for … $15 … ?!?

    I wrapped a big towel with a bungie cord around one outside faucet last year when I couldn’t get the hose disconnected the day before the prediction was 20s for the following afternoon’s high. That worked, but it was only one day.

    Later on, after the warmup, I cracked the spigot line trying to get the friggin hose off. $400 plumber call. Fortunately, the line was on an outside wall at the far corner of the garage. The small leak that drained mostly down the outside wall was just embarrassing.

  45. RickH says:

    The commercial covers add a foam gasket where the cover meets the exterior wall and a zip tie mechanism

    Easy-peasy. Stick-sided foam door insulation (sticky on one side) when you use the homemade form. And you should be able to poke a hole through the spray foam insulation. Or add a straw to your wooden form to leave a hole for the zip tie.

    McGyver it.

  46. Greg Norton says:

    He makes a couple of interesting comments about his hybrid Volt wrt bugging out.

    Six months without buying gas. Geesh.

    The hipsters in the office where I used to work who owned plug-in hybrids used to have a weird contest of how long they could do the regular commute without buying gasoline. One went as far as permanently damaging his Ford C-Max electrical system rigging the wiring and pushing the battery beyond the practical limit, but he saved on gas!

    I filled our cars on Saturday before snowmageddon and made a regular check of the Solara’s ability to start last week in case we needed to get out. Even under 1/2 inch of ice, the engine turned over immediately without fail.

    Toyota built the Solara in Ontario and mine did pretty well in the occasional 8-12 inches of snow we would get in Vantucky. 2001 — not a lot of safety crud so most of the weight of the car sits right over the front axle.

  47. Chad says:

    I’m not 100% sure of local plumbing code here, but while the spigot is mounted to the side of the house the valve it actuates is like 6″ inside the insulated exterior wall and is required to slope downward so when the spigot is off the remaining water drains out. -23°F the other day here (and -15°F for 24+ hours) and none of my spigots had freezing/leaking issues and none had Styrofoam covers.

  48. MrAtoz says:

    Easy-peasy. Stick-sided foam door insulation (sticky on one side) when you use the homemade form. And you should be able to poke a hole through the spray foam insulation. Or add a straw to your wooden form to leave a hole for the zip tie.

    McGyver it.

    Definitely possible. But, if didn’t have all the stuff to make it, $3 for a cover is probably a lot cheaper.

  49. MrAtoz says:

    Diversity czar in the title of this article says it all, but worth a read. No surprise to the non-woke people that haunt this site:

    School district’s diversity czar promotes Woke Kindergarten’s texts featuring black children lost to racist police violence

    h/t Twitchy

  50. MrAtoz says:

    I guess based on the above article, schools are now run by AA and woke WHITEY! commies.

  51. paul says:

    My experiment with using the kind of flex hose used to connect faucets to shut-off valves was… a success… so far. Much easier than recreating the mess that froze. I have hot water at the kitchen sink now. White Trash PEX for the win.

    Any concern about restricted flow to the dishwasher are unfounded. The darn fill valve for the dishwasher split in two and I soaked 14 bath towels mopping up the mess.

    Well, a $26 part on eBay and it’s suppose to be here by Monday, March 1st. Fingers crossed that the fill valve is the only damage.

    A real actual plumber is suppose to be here tomorrow. He can properly fix the hot water to the washing machine. Replace my White Trash PEX, too. I /can/ do this but mostly, I can’t see what the hell I’m doing. It was easy peasy 20 years ago.

    The fun part of the dishwasher is that the threads on the fill valve are garden hose. Why? I don’t know, maybe it’s a general thing to fill dishwashers from a garden hose. I rummaged around for parts and hey, wait, garden hose! Use a spare faucet to cap the line. 🙂

    It’s been a long day.

  52. Ray Thompson says:

    Wife and I are scheduled for COVID Vaccination courtesy of the school system. Thursday is the day. We are subs and interact with students.

  53. Greg Norton says:

    Wife and I are scheduled for COVID Vaccination courtesy of the school system. Thursday is the day. We are subs and interact with students.

    I assume the first shot is Thursday

    My wife had minor side effects from the first shot of the Moderna vaccine, administered at the VA, but the second shot put her out of commission for a day. Nothing serious, but she didn’t want to do much beyond sleep.

  54. hcombs says:

    We decided to homeschool our granddaughter when she was sexually assaulted in the middle school by a boy with a history of “discipline problems”. He shoved her in a closet and started grabbing her. She beat him up pretty good by the time a teacher showed up to see what the screaming was about. His parents accused our girl of assaulting him even though he had a long record of similar attacks. The school district apologised but said they “couldn’t” place him in a special facility as that would damage his self image. What bull excrement. Talked to a lawyer who advised us not to litigate as we would never recover the costs and probably loose.
    We bought a curriculum from an on-line school that was accredited and provided weekly testing and even graduation facilities. It was the best couple of years for her. When homeschooling ANYTHING is a learning experience from an afternoon shopping at the grocery (math & budgeting leading to graphs of cost vs calorie counts) to cooking dinner (outline the process, follow recipes, measuring etc.). Even history lessons can be based on local areas or even foods IE: where did potatoes come from and who invented French fries and why.

    Great choice.

    10
  55. hcombs says:

    Spent the day getting the wife her second Covid jab (Pfizer) and my visit to the Tribal Audiologist. Brand new Indian clinic and great service. The Dr. told me what I already know, my high-freq. hearing is shot. The hearing aids I bought in 2013 are shot. The tribe ordered me a new pair, top-of-the-line with bluetooth phone access and controls. My out of pocket cost will be $0.00. What Medicare doesn’t pick up the Tribe will pay. A good day all around.

  56. hcombs says:

    Heard on the radio today that the Congress is looking at reparations. The wife wants to be top of the list as she is 4% Neanderthal and her people victim of caucasian genocide. I want to be right behind as I am a registered Indian whose tribe was forced to leave our lands in the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The act was declared unconstitutional but Andy Jackson did it anyway so I think I have a claim on a few hundred acres of Georgia. I’ll take mine from the southern Atlanta area. But the wife reminds me that she has a Double-Dip as she has Jewish ancestry and the Federal Government must pay for her ancestors time in Babylon. Maybe she has a point. Anyway, I’m writing our congressmen to put forward our claims, hope to be millionaires soon. Of course by then a million won’t buy a Big Mac.

  57. Marcelo says:

    The following article seemed interesting to me and it reminded me of things we take for granted and live with without even knowing like what filesystem is being used in a thumb drive and is it a good choice for what it will be used for…

    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/looking-for-a-good-cheap-usb-drive-we-tested-seven-under-100/

    SanDisk drives have always seemed faster to me…

  58. lynn says:

    re: faucet foam covers – couldn’t you make one with a simple wood form and some spray foam insulation?

    The commercial covers add a foam gasket where the cover meets the exterior wall and a zip tie mechanism to secure the cover to the spigot valve. I paid $3 each at Lowes a few years ago. Big River has them for … $15 … ?!?

    I got two orders of 4 covers for $12 in 2019 for all of my buildings. 8 faucet covers for $24 plus tax.
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01251QKA0/?tag=ttgnet-20

  59. RickH says:

    The point of making faucet covers is when you can’t wait for the Zon to get them to you. Or if they are unobtanium for any reason. So you have to McGyver something.

    I suspect that a thick towel wrapped around the faucet and tightly covered with plastic would work short term.

    I believe most new homes have the ‘deep valve’ outdoor hose bibs previously described.; might be required by code. It is possible that there also needs to be a shutoff valve for the outside hose bib if there isn’t a freeze-proof bib installed. But IANAP (“I Am Not A Plumber”).

    Quick research indicates that outside uninsulated pipes with water inside will freeze at about 20F external temperature. The freeze-proof hose bibs are best – assuming that the actual valve part is not in an uninsulated space.

    I think you can tell if you have a freeze-proof hose bib if the handle is directly in-line with the pipe direction (handles are usually vertical).

  60. Ray Thompson says:

    The hearing aids I bought in 2013 are shot. The tribe ordered me a new pair, top-of-the-line with bluetooth phone access and controls

    Yes, the devices needed replacement. VA replaces every four years. My cost is $0.00, taxpayer’s cost is whatever the VA negotiated with the manufacturer. I suspect a good rate as the VA is the largest dispenser of hearing aids in the US, Costco is the second largest.

    Lot of advancements in technology over the last 7 – 8 years.

    @HCombs: Who pays for the supplies such as batteries (or did you get rechargeable?), wax guards, ear pieces and the little whisker thing that helps keep the devices in place? My cost is $0.00, taxpayers again foot the bill.

    What Medicare doesn’t pick up the Tribe will pay

    My understanding is the regular Medicare does not pay a dime toward hearing aids (part A and B) unless you have Medicare advantage (Part C). Even that is questionable as it may be paid by the insurer and not Medicare.

    Heard on the radio today that the Congress is looking at reparations

    Indeed. Let’s give the lazy and incompetent more “free” money to blow on gold chains, gold teeth, hair extensions and a 1992 Cadillac. Slavery ended many generations in the past. Those alive today, who consider themselves disadvantaged because of slavery, are just lazy and incompetent. Simply using their past as an excuse to do nothing and get rewarded. There has been enough time to rise above the past many generations ago.

  61. lynn says:

    The ceiling just fell in my small (450 ft2) office building. I knew it was going to happen, there was a lot of water up there and it was bubbling through the sheetrock and paint yesterday. Just makes more room for my plumber buddy to fix the water pipe.

    Sigh. We got the leaky valve and the awesome pipe split fixed. You could stick your thumb in the split. We did not get the second pipe fixed because my plumber buddy had reached his limit of ceiling sheetrock removal for the day. He has been working 16 hours a day since last Friday ??? and is wore out.
    https://www.winsim.com/pipe_split.jpg

    So we BS’d XXXX talked for a couple of hours. He told me that he is going to buy a Tesla Cybertruck as soon as they come out with the triple motors and the 600 mile battery. He bought an 2019 F-150 Limited 4×4 the same month that I did and is getting bored, even though he chipped the Raptor motor in it up to 25 lbs of boost, around 600+ hp. His F-150 is 16 months old and he has 36,000 miles on it. He thinks that the Tesla truck will be 2 seconds to 60 mph as his F-150 is 5 seconds to 60 mph.

    He has been doing some work in the tough sections of Fort Bend County. He has walked into a couple of houses in the barrio where the entire ceiling of the house has fallen in and the pipes are totally shot. He is using PEX pipe for bad situations where there are so many split pipes that he loses count.

  62. lynn says:

    I got my second shingles vaccine shot today. The Walgreens pharmacist told me not to get the first covid shot for at least two weeks. And he did check for interactions between the shingles shot and the covid shot, none.

  63. lynn says:

    “‘He’s lucky to be alive’: First cop to help golfer after he crashed speeding SUV reveals he didn’t realize extent of his injuries due to shock and said ‘my name is Tiger’ as he remains in hospital with broken legs and ankle”
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9292221/Tiger-Woods-hospital-rolling-car-L-road.html

    Tiger Woods has compound fractures of both legs ? Yeek !

  64. lynn says:

    “TEXAS: ERCOT Members Resign Following Revelations They Live Out of State”
    https://nationalfile.com/texas-ercot-members-resign-following-revelations-they-live-out-of-state/

    Good. The chairman lived in Michigan, one of them lived in Germany. I am not sure about the other two.

    Hat tip to:
    https://thelibertydaily.com/

  65. lynn says:

    “Bloodhype” by Alan Dean Foster
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345258452/?tag=ttgnet-20
    and
    https://www.amazon.com/Bloodhype-Alan-Dean-Foster/dp/0345310217/?tag=ttgnet-20

    Book number five of a fifteen book space opera with psi series. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Del Rey in 1973. In fact, I even bought a new used copy (the book appears to be out of print now) to acknowledge ADF’s righteous copyright battle with the contract breaker, Disney. I have all of the books in the series and am buying a couple of new ones for grins. Have I ever mentioned that I love Space Opera ?

    Please note that you can find the proper reading order of Pip and Flinx at:
    https://www.fictiondb.com/series/a-pip-and-flinx-novel-alan-dean-foster~1471.htm

    The book starts out with a space monster and a pair of Church agents investigating a drug called Bloodhype, the most addictive drug of all time. The action is intense and continuous from that point on. Flinx and Pip show up halfway through the book.

    ADF has a website at:
    https://alandeanfoster.com/

    My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
    Amazon rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars (140 reviews)

  66. Alan says:

    When Texans were in desperate need of electricity, ERCOT failed to do its job and Texans were left shivering in their homes without power. ERCOT leadership made assurances that Texas’ power infrastructure was prepared for the winter storm, but those assurances proved to be devastatingly false. The State of Texas will continue to investigate ERCOT and uncover the full picture of what went wrong, and we will ensure that the disastrous events of last week are never repeated.

    So looks like the battle lines are drawn as to who was the Big Bad Wolf – Abbott (above) or ERCOT. Does the Gov have what’s needed to come out on top??

  67. Greg Norton says:

    Limited 4×4 the same month that I did and is getting bored, even though he chipped the Raptor motor in it up to 25 lbs of boost, around 600+ hp. His F-150 is 16 months old and he has 36,000 miles on it.

    A F250 “Tremor” with the 7.3L V8 wouldn’t be interesting enough?

  68. lynn says:

    Limited 4×4 the same month that I did and is getting bored, even though he chipped the Raptor motor in it up to 25 lbs of boost, around 600+ hp. His F-150 is 16 months old and he has 36,000 miles on it.

    A F250 “Tremor” with the 7.3L V8 wouldn’t be interesting enough?

    That vehicle is not even as powerful as his 2019 F-150 with the Raptor engine in it. He even chipped his Raptor engine from 18 lbs of boost to 25 lbs of boost. 450 hp to 600+ hp. 510 ftlbs of torque to 650 ??? ftlbs of torque.

    He is a little crazy and likes acceleration. Lots of acceleration.

  69. Alan says:

    A F250 “Tremor” with the 7.3L V8 wouldn’t be interesting enough?

    What’s the out the door hit to the wallet for a truck like that?

  70. lynn says:

    A F250 “Tremor” with the 7.3L V8 wouldn’t be interesting enough?

    What’s the out the door hit to the wallet for a truck like that?

    “As mentioned, my F-250 included both notable options that are all-new for 2020, the 7.3 liter gasoline V8 engine for $2,045 and the Tremor off-road package for $3,975. With a few additional options (fifth-wheel hitch prep, panoramic moonroof, and so on) the MSRP of my go-anywhere-park-carefully F-250 came in at $77,480.”
    https://www.outmotorsports.com/2020/12/2020-ford-f250-platinum-review-towing-7-3l-godzilla-v8-tremor-off-road-package/

    Not gonna be many discounts for a while with that new monster engine. I had an F350 back in 1978 – 1980 (Ok, it was Dads truck that I was allowed to borrow occasionally). It had the 460 cubic inch (7.5L) V8 and 3 speed automatic. 2WD. And two 20 gallon tanks. It would pass anything but a gas station. Got 6 mpg in town and 8 mpg on the highway if you kept it below 65 mph.

  71. brad says:

    On the subject of vehicles: We want to get an EV towards the end of this year. The deciding features are AWD and the ability to tow our utility trailer when it’s full of gravel or rocks or whatever. So around 1.5t.

    Aside from Tesla, very few EVs are certified for towing. However, yesterday I tripped across a link from the UK, listing a whole pile of forthcoming EVs with towing ratings. One odd thing: many of the cars state something like 1500kg (UK) or 1500lb (US). Those are vastly different weights, and the article author has no idea why this should be the case.

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