Warmish, and dampish, with chance of some real rain. Although the national forecast has us right on the edge of the ‘possible storm’ zone, and that usually means we won’t get rain, it’s still possible. ‘course pretty much anything is possible but very little of it is likely.
Did some chores yesterday. Will do some more today. One of the things I picked up, because it was $3, and ya never know… was a fuel tank. It’s an OEM or replacement tank for a vehicle of some kind, nicely made from steel. And the reason I even bid was that I could see that it had a fill hole with a push and twist locking ring for a cap, and it was mostly rectangular. Most vehicle tanks are very odd shapes, have a big hole for a sending unit, and no way to close up the tank. I would like to have more bulk fuel storage at the BOL, and it seemed like this might be a cheap way to get some. I don’t need more projects, so I’ll just put it to the side up there, and when there is opportunity or need, it will be ready.
A lot of my preps are like that.
Putting something aside against a future need, especially if it’s very cheap or easy now, but might be very dear indeed later, seems like a no-brainer to me. I understand that there are costs associated with doing that. Opportunity costs with the resources diverted, burdens from storage, etc… but there are benefits too if and when the item or skill is needed. Fuel is something I’ll need no matter what happens globally. Water, food, meds, tools, materials- those are also things I know I’ll need to some degree. Am I prepped past that point? Or am I short of what my eventual need will be? Since we can’t predict the future with any certainty, we have to choose what level WE find appropriate.
Some of you think I’m a nut for having the stuff I have. Some of you think I’m falling short of where I should be. I agree with both! I’m both those things at the same time, for different things, and at different times for the same things. It’s a continuum. A journey. It is fractal and ever changing. And most of all, for me it’s a way of life now.
I look around and I can’t imagine living any other way. I can imagine other people living other ways… but I also am imagining those people joining me in getting prepped, to whatever level they think meets their need. Do it. Start today.
Stack something.
n
Brought The Child when I went grocery shopping last week. She’d been humorously complaining about a classmate who’d been teasing her about having a crush on another classmate – a non-existent crush, she was at pains to inform me. I pointed her at the shelf of Valentines Day stuff and suggested she get a pack of cards and address them to all of the boys in school, from her newly-declared nemesis. The Child’s face lit up and she tore over to the shelf to find the most repulsive set. They should have been set out yesterday but I haven’t heard the tale because our schedules were busy and I didn’t see her.
@stevef:
Isn’t the whole point of Valentine’s Day the anonymity of the sender?
That said, I can perhaps see the point if what she wants to do is get back at her @nemesis’
G.
Try debugging the code of someone who got a little too into templates chasing Hot Skillz.
At the tolling company, that was the model matching toll tags to vehicles. The developer was self taught. The model worked but was nearly indecipherable when approached from the outside by anyone else.
The ultimate write-only language is still Perl.
68F and saturated. I’m vertical, coffee making robot has been activated, and kids have been given first wake up.
Headlines show that nothing major changed overnight.
Hooray.
n
EV batteries won’t sit on a shelf like a spare fuel tank.
Classified briefing to congress on Ballongate.
Seems they can’t find the last three they shot down.
Rumor is than gun camera of one shootdown shows a payload that looks like “Happy 12th Birthday Juanita”
@Nick
Lots of engineers in jobs that don’t do science. Sales is a good example.
Several SF authors made the list by virtue of “computer science”, which is arguably not science.
B.S. may be “Bachelor of Science”, but a mathematician at that level is a lot less likely to be doing science than a chemist.
I know PhD’s that have never done what I would call science–think about managers you may have known.
I’d suggest that the definition is a lot more nuanced.
Quoted for truth, with the caveat that I’ve only surveyed about 20 programming languages. There may be a worse one; I just haven’t seen it.
O’Reilly had “The Camel” book covering Perl 4 in the early 90s which was fine, but then they expanded their list of titles to fill a complete shelf at Barnes & Noble with mediocre texts, probably by design. That’s when the problems started. Hot Skillz!
The legend is that, back before he joined Microsoft, Steve Ballmer used his Harvard Math degree to design Duncan Hines cake boxes to squeeze out any competition on the same standard shelf unit in a grocery store. I wouldn’t discount the possibility that O’Reilly did the same thing with Perl books. Tim O’Reilly seemed to get bored just publishing books.
The absolute worst I ever saw was C on Symbian. What a piece-o-cr*p. Objective C on iOS with the ability to mix in C++ was heaven compared to what came before in that space so the iPhone ate the world.
I’d suggest that the definition is a lot more nuanced.
–of course, hence the tongue out “because I say so” 😛
n
although if we’re gonna split hairs, there are a lot of people TRAINED as engineers, some of whom even did engineering, that are doing other things. If you are managing sales for region 6, you are not an engineer, you’re a sales manager….
And there are plenty of “scientists” that are really just skilled grant writers.
Turning to weather, it is 32 degrees in Hell this morning.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stephen-colbert-trump-meatball-ron_n_63ec71c9e4b0808b91c361bd
Trump needs to apologize for losing his nerve, which is never going to happen.
“Meatball Ron” brought Disney to its knees this week, won reelection by 20 points, and redrew the Congressional districts in Florida to deliver the four vote swing which is the current House margin. What has the Orange Man done for the party lately?
@Nick
Not splitting hairs at all. Just recognizing that a degree of any kind does not equate with scientist.
And I made a grievous omission in not stating that their are also a lot of scientists that do not have degrees, making that an even poorer metric. Fewer as time goes on–credentialism is rampant–but a lot of advances in science during and after WWII were do to inventive minds without degrees.
And another bona fide scientist to add to the list of sf authors: Suzette Haden Elgin. A fascinating and very nice lady. Seems there is at least one other linguist that should be on the list, but the name isn’t coming up yet.
What has the Orange Man done for the party lately?
5-1-3. The gift that almost keeps giving. He’s not responsible for Chief Squish.
Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were 1:1 replacements for their predecessors on The Court. Only Amy Comey-Barrett is a change in the Payola Seat, and she’s not 100% at times.
Similarly, Ginsberg broke with the Liberals on money issues occasionally, most notably voting against the overturn of National Bellas Hess.
The seat shapes the Justice.
Republicans need to hold Trump accountable, especially if something is found to be wrong with the jabs.
DeSantis has a grand jury working on Pfizer and Moderna now.
It’s not rocket science, it’s rocket engineering. Science was solved long ago. Now it is just a matter of making it work.
Clever he be Master Yoda.
And in other news, my IRS refund is waiting at the credit union. Apparently sent via ACH last night. Nine days to get the refund electronically. My experience has generally been less than two weeks, but this is the fastest I have gotten a refund.
I hate getting a large refund. I would much rather I get a few dollars, less than $100, or better yet I owe the IRS a couple hundred dollars. I have no control over this scenario. The redemption of my TIAA-CREF 401K is done over a 10-year period. TIAA-CREF only allows a minimum of 20% to be withheld. I cannot change that.
The good news is that my total federal income bill was less than $1,500.00. My property taxes were more than that amount.
Yep, tRump’s SCOTUS appointments are his legacy. He should shut up and become a rallying force for the Redumblicans. I won’t vote for him in the Primaries. I would vote for him over the current crop of PLT Dumbocrats. Who wants four more years of pedoplugs.
Ehat is seriously evil, in the best possible way. Raising the child in your own image, are you?
Much ado about nothing at all. One article pointed out that more than 1000 weather stations worldwide regularly send up weather balloons. Add in all the amateur or scientific balloons sent up for whatever purpose, and finding a few drifting over the US is no surprise at all…
When the government makes such a big deal out of something so trivial, I have only one question: what are they trying to hide?
That is my goal as well. I did my first pass in TurboTax this weekend. After inputting all income and deductions, I was at the point of owing $106. Then I got to the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which gave me a refund of almost $900.
I did have a minor cardiac event while doing the taxes. When inputting my 529 info, TurboTax’s guidance was less than ideal, and it reported I owed $1500. I backed up and redid everything, and got the correct result of not owing any tax on the 529 distributions. The gyrations we have to go through for taxes is almost criminal.
This weekend I’ll rename the saved file and redo the taxes. If I come up with the same amount, I call it good and submit.
“Not at all unusual. See? It happens all the time….”
“This is starting to get out of hand.”
With a B S Chem Eng Degree, I never created new scientific laws of nature. However, working on a rocket launch team, I did use such scientfic laws such as Confucious Law: “What go up, must come down”.
Now, if the GPS unit in your car works, I made no fatal mistakes.
A big train wreck happened in Ohio last week which may have been the result of a faulty design on a tanker car. Only one manufacturer of tanker cars remains in North America, a unit of Warren Buffett’s BNSF railroad subsidiary.
Beyond the implications for Berkshire Hathaway’s bottom line directly, with Buffett’s vaunted Shareholder Letter due within the next couple of weeks and the stock price flat, a key principle of US energy policy under the current administration is that oil can be transported by train safely – and profitably by BNSF tanker cars – making pipelines unnecessary.
Also the Dems seem to hang on Buffett’s every word lately. Even the troll parrots Buffett’s spiel about S&P 500 Index mutual funds, a huge bit of hand waving perpetrated by The Gecko to distract from scary succession possibilities in the board room of Berkshire Hathaway.
Disclaimer: I own BRK.B. No hypocrisy since I am very open about it. I also understand anything I own, and that includes Buffett’s antics.
“This is starting to get out of hand.”
see what I did there?
The only thing I’d add is “It he’d been convicted of that felony, he wouldn’t have been able to LEGALLY buy a gun ever again. ”
n
BTW, where are the BLM advocates for the murderer? His original charge came because the cops rolled up on him while he, a black man, was sitting on the stoop smoking. Just ‘smoking while black’, yet they ‘profiled’ him, asked him if he had a weapon on him…. and found he did in fact have a gun, and was carrying it illegally…
classic case of racially biased policing, right? The equivalent of ‘stop and frisk’, the now discredited program of shaking down people that look like criminals…
n
Early attribution of the train wreck cause is broken axle, not design flaw. Railroad union claims manpower reduction gives then thirty seconds per car for inspection.
And this little tidbit that has moved off the front page…
[emph added]
– so our ‘God fearing’ murderer was working loading trucks while he “turned his life around”. Hmm. So what was his previous life for all those years? A life that was so dangerous that getting out of it “saved his life”.
This guy didn’t come out of nowhere, the stop and frisk wasn’t his first time breaking the law, and all the gun laws in the world won’t stop someone who doesn’t follow the law from doing whatever he wants.
Murder is already illegal. Funny how that works. Car in a parade or truck on the sidewalk, or gun on campus (a gun free zone for certain), killers gonna kill.
n
@brad
As noted before, radiosonde balloons have a flight time of minutes and a payload of ounces. Time is limited because balloons expand and break.
If the payload size descriptions of targets 2-4 are accurate, these would seem to be designed for long flight. Not accidental.
It seems we’re in agreement, Nick. This guy, and innumerable others, shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near a gun. It’s a shame no measure was taken to disarm him after he repeatedly showed he was wildly irresponsible with weapons.
Still not great optics for Warren Buffett with the Shareholder Letter release imminent.
He’s spent a lot of time crowing about the effectiveness of the railroads and the BNSF tanker cars in particular in recent years, and last year’s letter highlighted how Berkshire is the largest capital spending corporation in the US right now because of the investments they’re making in BNSF.
Nope NaN, you’re putting words in my mouth. My point is this guy is a criminal. Existing laws, starting with the prohibition on murder failed to stop him, and I point out that within that framework of existing laws (however unconstitutional they are) they can’t work if you don’t enforce them.
.gov wants laws so they can persecute and control those who allow themselves to be controlled. And despite that, they let this guy continue to freely break the law. His neighbors did, his father did, the prosecutor did. Plenty of fail to go around and the result is the needless deaths and injuries of his victims.
And with that, any of your further comments will be deleted because YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.
n
>> Alright ! Our far left county judge wants to build a homeless residential center here in Fort Bend County for 1,500 families. I can just imagine what that will look like, probably 15 stories. The cops will only go inside in groups of six or more. Things will be thrown off the balconies, hopefully not human.
Where are these 1,500 families now? Homeless? Waiting en Mexico?
I guess hotels, families, friends, foster children aging out, etc. Yup I would not be surprised if half of them are illegals. There are reputedly 40 million illegals wandering around the USA now.
I reread the article. Apparently Fort Bend County is paying the rent for 1,500 families since Covid began and the money is running out. I am amazed that the idiot judge thinks that he can build and run a 1,500 family PRC for less money than the rent payments are. And, if the county is running out of rent money payments, where are they going to get the building money and the operating money from ? Lots of pie in the sky here.
And why is FtBend paying their rent?
n
@Greg
No, optics for BNSF not good, no matter the cause.
Back in the early 70’s I visited a former classmate on the east coast. Had dinner with his parents and talked to his father, who was wrapping up a major safety redesign of chemical tanker cars for Dupont. They identified several major failure modes and changed the specifications. The vinyl chloride cars are at least two generations better than they were then.
Was invited to take a tour of several of their facilities. Duponts original black powder manufacturing buildings are preserved. Small buildings with blowout walls facing the Brandywine. If one went up, they were far enough apart to protect the others, so facilities and workforce weren’t wiped out.
Because it’s a human right to live near White people. If the downtrodden can’t afford to live near White people, then it is White people’s obligation to pay for it.
I don’t know of any courts which have used exactly those words but a number of courts in the US, UK, and Western Europe have expressed the idea in ordering people to be let in, residents to pay for housing, and so on.
Try debugging the code of someone who got a little too into templates chasing Hot Skillz.
At the tolling company, that was the model matching toll tags to vehicles. The developer was self taught. The model worked but was nearly indecipherable when approached from the outside by anyone else.
The ultimate write-only language is still Perl.
To me, Python is almost write only also.
And why is FtBend paying their rent?
Because, Covid !
Ah, the miracle wuflu, is there anything it CAN’T do?
n
“U.S. on Track to Add $19 Trillion in New Debt Over 10 Years”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/business/national-debt-biden.html
“WASHINGTON — The United States is on track to add nearly $19 trillion to its national debt over the next decade, $3 trillion more than previously forecast, as a result of rising costs for interest payments, veterans’ health care, retiree benefits and the military, the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday.”
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
My son and I had a long discussion about the forthcoming financial apocalypse of the USA. I maintain that it is 5 to 15 years away. He maintains that the agreement has already been made that the USA will give up the Dollar in the near future after tremendous inflation and we will transition to a One World digital currency. I don’t know which is worse. In both cases, the middle class of the USA will drop into the poverty class.
I’m religious about not putting Python into production until the Pylint report is clean, as close to a final score of 10 as possible, and I run that utility constantly while developing a script. That helps considerably to mitigate the “write only” problem.
I had a friend who was a product manager at Nielsen whose overseas developers were fighting constantly with Azure support about Python process issues, and, at my suggestion, he implemented a rule of just having a positive score out of Pylint on anything going into production.
Problems solved.
My son and I had a long discussion about the forthcoming financial apocalypse of the USA. I maintain that it is 5 to 15 years away. He maintains that the agreement has already been made that the USA will give up the Dollar in the near future after tremendous inflation and we will transition to a One World digital currency. I don’t know which is worse. In both cases, the middle class of the USA will drop into the poverty class.
I forgot to mention that he still thinks that coming Depression will make the Great Depression look like a cakewalk. The layoffs are already starting and most of the numbers coming from the feddies are already faked. I shudder to think what 50% unemployment will look like in the USA.
They’re going to repurpose older hotels if I had to guess. Keep an eye on the business traveler places near the old Compaq campus once HP begins moving to the new HQ up near the airport.
City of Austin has at least a half dozen repurposed hotels IIRC.
“Raquel Welch Dead at 82”
https://www.tmz.com/2023/02/15/raquel-welch-actress-model-dead-dies-82/
“According to family members, Raquel died this morning after a brief illness.”
Lots of brief illnesses going around.
Big tech is seriously rolling the dice on AI triggering a hardware buying spree.
Coming Depression? It started last year.
“Minnesota Democrats Vote to Freeze in the Dark by 2040”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/02/14/minnesota-to-return-to-ice-age-by-2040/
“Governor Tim Walz today signed into law legislation establishing a Minnesota carbon-free electricity standard. With Senate File 4, Minnesota will take steps to lower greenhouse gas emissions, combat the climate crisis, and create new clean energy jobs. The new law ensures Minnesotans will continue to have reliable, affordable, and safe energy resources. Governor Walz signed the bill alongside legislators, labor, and environmental advocates at the St. Paul Regional Labor Center.”
So shall it be mandated, so shall it happen. What could go wrong ? And Minnesota’s neighbors, the Dakotas, are not happy.
“EU lawmakers approve effective 2035 ban on new fossil fuel cars”
https://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/news/2023/02/eu-lawmakers-approve-effective-2035-ban-on-new-fossil-fuel-cars
“The European Parliament on Tuesday formally approved a law to effectively ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the European Union from 2035, aiming to speed up the switch to electric vehicles and combat climate change. The landmark rules will require that by 2035 carmakers must achieve a 100% cut in CO2 emissions from new cars sold, which would make it impossible to sell new fossil fuel-powered vehicles in the 27-country bloc. The law will also set a 55% cut in CO2 emissions for new cars sold from 2030 versus 2021 levels, much higher than the existing target of a 37.5%.”
Scooters for all !
No. It started with the lockdown in March 2020.
At this point, no one wants to go back to work.
Golf carts.
On a related note, Ford’s EV truck plant has been down for a week?!?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/02/15/ford-f-150-lightning-battery-issue-production/11262141002/
The last number I saw was that they’ve only moved 15,000.
No. It started with the lockdown in March 2020.
At this point, no one wants to go back to work.
Yup. My sales went into the ditch with the fake Koof lockdown and have yet to recover.
But that is the Recession. The question is, when will it transition into The Greater Depression ? I am fairly certain that it will happen before 2029.
Golf carts.
On a related note, Ford’s EV truck plant has been down for a week?!?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/02/15/ford-f-150-lightning-battery-issue-production/11262141002/
The last number I saw was that they’ve only moved 15,000.
Golf carts are expensive ! They start at $10,000 around here.
That Ford EV truck plant shutdown is serious. I wonder if they had a truck burn down on the line ?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-stops-building-f-150-124301311.html
Like Pournelle said, it is probably a cabling issue.
Mostly because the country is much more urban. Who has a big garden and a few chickens any more?
Toss in about 80 million illegals and the various folks living on EBT and it’s gonna be “interesting” when the money machine crashes.
Googling around about the Ohio accident, it turns out someone else still makes tank cars in North America, but not in the same numbers as Union Tank, the Berkshire Subsidiary which started as part of Standard Oil back in the day.
https://www.gbrx.com/tank-cars/
If you see a tank car train, look for the UTLX markings. Those are Union Tank cars.
“New cars”. I didn’t see anything about used cars. So here’s what happens…. Volkswagen and Renault/Nissan build plants elsewhere. Like in Russia. The 2035 “new model” car will be dated as a 2034 and therefore “used”. With a bit of computer stuff through the OBDI port, set the odometer to whatever the EU wienies decides qualifies as a used car.
TADA! You can buy a brand new car that rates as a used car.
And meanwhile the EU wienies are flying around in their private jets while Oma and Opa are freezing.
Mostly because the country is much more urban. Who has a big garden and a few chickens any more?
Toss in about 80 million illegals and the various folks living on EBT and it’s gonna be “interesting” when the money machine crashes.
Is that that point when several of the flyover states secede from the Union ?
My Ameriprise Financial newsletter waffled about the recession, noting that the old definition qualifies this as recession, but the new definition does not.
– of course that uses official numbers and we have seen those manipulated and later ‘corrected’ to be the opposite of what was initially reported.
– and they’re waffling on whether one is coming.
Their eletter was from the end of Jan, and is based on numbers that are even older than that, so here are the assumptions…
–emph added – and that isn’t really what’s being reported now.
n
A neighbor around the corner has Tesla Energy out today, installing solar cells on his house.
I assume those have power walls as well.
Thankfully, he isn’t immediately adjacent to my house.
(some catch-ups from last night…)
>> Yes. In theory, getting out of DVC is easier than, say, Westgate, but it is still a timeshare at heart.
From what I’ve hear lately, whereas in the past you had a hope of giving away your (traditional) timeshare for free, now you probably have to pay (in the thousands of dollars) to “give it away.” There are also varying legal discussions going (state by state) as to whether or not a state’s probate laws allow an heir to decline a timeshare that they have been bequeathed.
>> And using language like “everyone – even celebrities with fancy attorneys – is held accountable under the law”” should be prejudicial enough to move for a change of venue at the least…
Does the DA really want to be on record saying that defendants shouldn’t be able to get competent and effective legal representation?
Maybe the DA has higher political aspirations. In any case, the judge probably denies a change of venue request, to which the defense objects, the judge denies the objection and the defense has it noted in the trial record, establishing a ground for a potential appeal. Same for the DA’s dumb remark, another point for an appeal.
>> ”WRT medical records, I would really like to know some of the things that were done to me as a child, that are [presumably] long gone.”
The main thing I’d like to know are vaccines administered and when. Records could be in my late parents’ house in one of many cardboard boxes filled with “stuff”. Not sure my brotherwould make it a priority to look for them. Absence of tonsils confirms their removal and I know of no other childhood surgeries. I have my own records summarized in a couple of spreadsheets starting at age 18.
>> >> Perhaps the ‘regulars’ here were busy heading to the local CVC to get the gifts they forgot about.
CVC?
Gotta be CVS.
Our CVS has a well-stocked selection of “As Seen On TV” items. Always a good choice for a last-minute romantic gift.
To me perl is write-once. I wrote some int the late 80s, then again in the early 2000s and didn’t enjoy it either time.
I’m learning Python currently and it seems ok. Kinda like a mix of C and PHP at this point, but I’m just starting. It’s the basis of another Cisco cert.
>> Anthony McRae, 43, was arrested in 2019 for having a loaded gun without a concealed carry permit. It he’d been convicted of that felony, he wouldn’t have been able to buy a gun ever again. But instead, the Ingham County Prosecutor at the time – Carol Siemon – agreed to lower the offense to a misdemeanor. He was given a two-year, probation sentence, from which he was discharged in 2021.
Hey Hunter, about that possible change of venue…nudge, nudge, wink, wink…just a suggestion from a friend…
A couple of years ago I tried to get a door key made for the van. Walmart had the blanks. But the key I have, has a chip. So, no “just unlock the door” key for me. Because of liability. Somehow. But I can have the $65 chipped key they stock cut. I’d still have to go to the dealer to have the key programed into the computer.
No spare key for the van yet. But we don’t lock it because sometimes the tailgate won’t un-lock. Which is awesome when you have the behind the back seat area filled with groceries. Who’s gonna steal a 2004 Ford Freestar anyway?
Knowing all of the above, I bought a couple of keys for my truck. Two chipped Nissan keys for the hefty price of $12.89 delivered from eBay. I took a key to Lowes yesterday. First stop on the way through Marble Falls and all. They cut my key. No guaranty it will work. No problem, I have a spare. No charge.
It works to unlock the tailgate and the door. Which is what I want. I have no idea what happens if I try to start the truck with it. I’m sure it would involve having it towed to the Nissan dealer because of Safety and The Children and Diversity and whatever.
I bought a crappy Hide A Key box. Like $5.50. Went to Walmart, same exact thing different printing was $3. Pretty sure Walmart would not have cut the key for me. So, overall, Win.
My next little project is to google what is under the plastic.
Yes, a rejection of bequeathal is possible in every state, but the time frame varies for filing that paperwork.
Bruce Williams used to be the point man on the subject of getting out of time shares when he had his radio shows. The irony is that he built and the family still runs Jellyrolls at the DVC Boardwalk Villas property.
Ramsey, essentially Williams’ spiritual successor, will talk about it from time to time.
Oh. I remember having my tonsils out. I was promised all the ice cream I could eat. And it’s not going to hurt. Yeah, I seem to recall I laid face down for a week because I couldn’t swallow my spit. It seemed like a week.
I can definitely tell you that a little kid can nibble a piece of buttered toast so that it looks like it was cut with a knife.
But I don’t get sick anymore. Not much anyway. Not like before.
Didn’t get any ice cream either. Because Adults lie.
I went to the local county property tax office, the one that handles taxes and property records. I just deeded over my timeshare to the company that owned the property on which my timeshare was based. Problem solved. The property company does not even have to sign the paperwork.
We had a limited value timeshare. We bought when weeks were the thing, before everyone started converting to points. Our property, limited value due to limited amenities (no golf course), did not provide much in the way of points. For the 25 years we owned the timeshare we traded with some really nice properties including one in Spain.
I think we paid $4K for the property, maintenance fees were about $250 a year. That fee started going up. Because of the limited trading options, the pressure to convert to points at a significant cost, we decided to get rid of the timeshare. We offered to give it away for six months with no takers.
A lawyer advised to just deed the property back to the company. We did. We now no longer owned the property and when the next maintenance bill came due, we sent a copy of the current deed and told the company that we will not pay fees on something we don’t own. We never heard back.
I don’t regret the purchase and figure we probably did a little better than net zero, but not much. We even stayed there multiple times as it was in Pigeon Forge, a really big tourist mecca.
The ProgLibTurd utopian dream. It will never be reached. Excuse after excuse…more money…all the States need to do…and on and on.
“CBO warns of sharp uptick in Social Security, Medicare spending”
https://thehill.com/finance/3860012-cbo-warns-of-sharp-uptick-in-social-security-medicare-spending/
“The result, the CBO estimates, is that combined spending on Social Security and Medicare will almost double by 2033, when required funding for the two programs will approach $4 trillion, representing more than 10 percent of the country’s total economic output.”
WOW ! ! !
I’m doing my part to help with that Social Security and Medicare spending.
I am there with you. And my wife. Along with the VA sending me money every month. I basically live on the government dole. Some would say leach.
However, I, along with my employers, paid into SS so that money is rightfully mine. Will I recoup what was paid in over 47 years of working? I may have to live to be 98 years old. Something that is not likely to happen.
As for the VA money, that was earned by signing a contract with the U.S. government where I became government property. The government could use me for anything, up to losing my life, in their pursuit of who knows what. Vietnam was the biggy when I signed that contract. Two brothers also signed such contracts. I was injured during that time and for that the compensation is justified.
In hindsight the best thing that ever happened while I was in the service was getting injured by suffering a broken back. I didn’t feel that way at the time.
I would never call you a product or solution obtained by leaching.
Ggggaaaaaacccckkkk, spell chucker got me. Leech, write it 100 times on the blackboard .
Google and Pylint are your friends when learning Python.
I correct most Pylint complaints except for documentation issues.
Jenny has chickens.
It’s almost always pilot error:
Tennessee National Guard Black Hawk helicopter crashes into Alabama highway and explodes in huge fireball killing ALL military personnel who were on board
RIP at least two pilots. Usually a crew chief on board. 11 troop capability.
>> It seems we’re in agreement, Nick. This guy, and innumerable others, shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near a gun. It’s a shame no measure was taken to disarm him after he repeatedly showed he was wildly irresponsible with weapons.
Who would be doing the disarming? And on what grounds? Who defines “wildly irresponsible?” Are these state or federal statutes? It’s all a slippery slope…
>> Ah, the miracle wuflu, is there anything it CAN’T do?
Uhh…identify the source of the three mystery flying objects??
Got my driver’s side door handle swapped out on my Ranger. It broke off in my hand on Monday. Fortunately I have a donor truck. Freaking thing is plastic. New replacements are not expensive, but I have a donor so…
While I was in the door I swapped out the mirror control switch (only part worked for several years) and cleaned up the contacts for the power door lock switch. All back together and all working.
Next up is the HVAC blower motor. I’ll look up the parts online to see if I really can steal the one from the donor, or if it would be cheaper and easier to order one. If it’s hard to get out, I don’t want to do that twice, and take a chance it doesn’t run or will fail like the current one.
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went thru some pokemon cards I got out of the bins at goodwill. A dozen or more are in the $5-15 range, and the rest are $1 cards. Good haul for essentially free.
started the grill for dinner. Pork chops, acorn squash, and something green to be picked out soon.
n
I remember when the Corvette MSRP went over $10k.
Between the time I started paying FICA and now the dollar has inflated considerably.
Yeah, the vandals lost the handle. I’ve been pointing out for two decades that the only thing that keeps the national debt from skyrocketing is low interest rates, which coincidentally are also used to screw older people who have saved money and would like to keep it in interest bearing accounts.
I see they’re heavily advertising the fake “kinda gold” replica coins clad in 12 microns of pure gold. How many suckers think they’re investing?
@Nick
I assume the handle broke inside the door. If it was outside and due to UV exposure you’re on borrowed time unless the donor truck was a garage queen.
Does YT have a “5 things that most often do wrong with 2xxx Rangers” video?
>> I went to the local county property tax office, the one that handles taxes and property records. I just deeded over my timeshare to the company that owned the property on which my timeshare was based. Problem solved. The property company does not even have to sign the paperwork.
So what’s to stop them from doing the same thing, deeding the property back to you and look to collect the maintenance fees?
I have no idea. Possibly because they own the property, I just owned a week of time? They pay the property taxes?
It is basically the same thing those companies do that advertise to get people out of timeshares. Only they charge lots of money.
@CowboySlim
Jenny has chickens.
Chickens, and rabbits, do surprisingly well in an urban environment. Rabbits are quieter than the chickens, most times, and easier to keep odor free. Good for being a good neighbor.
Chickens have experienced a renaissance of sorts in my town. Rabbits are more popular but I think are harder for folks to come to terms as a food source. Because fluffy.
I recall turning down the ice cream when it was offered.
>> I see they’re heavily advertising the fake “kinda gold” replica coins clad in 12 microns of pure gold. How many suckers think they’re investing?
Oh, probably plenty of them… the swindlers aren’t stupid, they know which scam to use when.
MrAtoz says:
Helicopters don’t actually fly. They just beat the air into submission, a collection of spare parts flying in loose formation. I remember, long ago, newman Harry Reasoner had a segment about helicopters. … And here it is, I LOVE the web and search engines….
“The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by its nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly.
“A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.
“That’s why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant, extroverts. And helicopter pilots are brooders, introspective anticipators of trouble.
“They know if something bad has not happened it is about to.”
https://www.southerneaglesquadron.com/harry-reasoner-on-helicopters/
We should say the same thing about politicians.
I’m pretty sure politicians taste oily, and they probably smell very bad while processing, since they are so full of sh!te.
n
“A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.
“That’s why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant, extroverts. And helicopter pilots are brooders, introspective anticipators of trouble.
“They know if something bad has not happened it is about to.”
I used to work with a guy who was a helicopter medivac pilot in Veitnam. He was really worried about things from below coming up and killing him. The first thing he did was take off his flak jacket and put it on the seat before getting in the helicopter.