Fri. June 9, 2023 – there’s always an excuse…

Cooler, but damp and warming up later.   Probably get all the way to hot.   It certainly followed that path yesterday, but ended in “cool” when the front rolled in around 6pm.   Gusts and 10 degree temperature drops say “excitement is on the way”.   So we retreated to the cars.   Well excitement never arrived at the swim meet, but the cooler temps were appreciated.

I did my pickups yesterday.   Got D1 from the airport.  She’d been with grandma for the last week.  Got a couple more pickups done on the way home, and then got D2 to swim.   Not a lot of time in there for messing around with restacking food on the shelves.

Maybe I get it done today.   If not, most of it is under cover or in covered bins and can sit for another few days.   I say ‘maybe’ because I’ve got two pickups in the morning (stuff for the BOL), lunch with my sibling who is in town, then possibly a quick trip to my client’s to tweak some things before the weekend…  It’ll make him happy and his wife too, so IF I can make the timing work it is worth doing.

Then load the truck for the next trip up to the BOL and head out.   No non-prepping hobby meeting on Saturday because of a scheduling conflict with the venue.

Full day.   Full night.   Full life.

Over at BayouRenaissanceMan, the inevitable commentor when Peter brings up food shortages.. “But I don’t have money or room for those things.”    Might be true for a very limited subset of people, mainly those in care or institutions, but it’s REALLY unlikely.   As shown here by RBT and me both, and in innumerable other prepping sites online, you can MAKE room and it doesn’t have to be expensive.  It’s easier to find reasons not to prep than it is to prep, but the reasons don’t sound very convincing to anyone who has begun the journey.

The best time to plant a tree might be 5 years ago, and the same might be true for prepping, but there won’t be any stored food in 5 years, or any new trees if you don’t start NOW.  Stop looking for reasons not to, and look for was TO prep.   There are lots of resources out there, and  a whole bunch here, just use the keywords on the right.

Get started stacking up food and other preps.   If you already have some nice stacks, congrats!  Now do more!  Take control of your life and your future.  Take this step to ensure both.

nick

 

41 Comments and discussion on "Fri. June 9, 2023 – there’s always an excuse…"

  1. Greg Norton says:

    Musk is not a scientist like Tony Stark. Musk is an engineer who knows how to hire awesome people who can get things done.

    I don’t discount “He’s the real life Tony Stark” and the influence of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” which was the US movie market for a while and hit at the right time. People wanted to believe.

    Unfortunately for “Tony”, whats left of the dumpster fire that is current Marvel under Disney is using one last gasp of credibility and marketing power this Summer as a paid (my guess) shill for Nissan.

  2. SteveF says:

    The best time to plant a tree might be 5 years ago

    A few years ago, I think when Trump was pushing for an oil pipeline and increased drilling, someone in Congress noted that it would take more than ten years to get the oil into production and reducing prices. (I think that he was referring to building a pipeline from Alaska to the lower 48 but am not sure.) He then noted that the proposal was first made in the 1970s and that if the wells and pipeline had been built then, we’d have been energy independent since the 1980s … but the project was never started because “we wouldn’t be able to use it for ten years”.

  3. Greg Norton says:

    Another month, another arrest of a Disney employee for child pornography by Sheriff Grady Judd.

    Another stucco cr*p shack in Davenport, not far from Disney’s Western Way complex.

    Pedo Junction.

    https://www.polksheriff.org/news-investigations/2023/06/01/pcso-computer-crimes-unit-charges-eight-for-possession-of-child-pornography-during-operation-may's-monsters

  4. Nick Flandrey says:

    They are everywhere.

    Coffee is ready, and I’m moving.  Kids have stirred, at least D1 who has been on Eastern time for a week…

    Stuff to do, stuff to do….

    Sunny and warm.

    n

  5. Clayton W. says:

    Another month, another arrest of a Disney employee for child pornography by Sheriff Grady Judd.

    The descriptions made me ill.  Several of them had images depicting BABIES!  Ugh

  6. Greg Norton says:

    Another month, another arrest of a Disney employee for child pornography by Sheriff Grady Judd.

    The descriptions made me ill.  Several of them had images depicting BABIES!  Ugh

    Of course there is a Sheriff Grady Judd press conference with some cool quotes. The Disney employee’s case rundown starts a little after the 9:30 mark.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGiGX1txZvw

    Willie Sutton.

    “‘Did I marry a monster?’ Yes you did.”

  7. SteveF says:

    They are everywhere.

    Seemingly concentrated in government and large corporations. Odd, that…

  8. MrAtoz says:

    I guess they have tRump, this time? This is all going to crash down on us dirt people. Our goobermint doesn’t care how much they spend; it’s not theirs. Meanwhile, the plugs crime family walks free. Please great FMOD, drop just a chip on DC.

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  9. Alan says:

    >> There is a piece of pie for sale in my neighborhood for $399,900.

    Always put the most important information first… 

    If you ever thought of building your DREAM HOME, this is it, away from the city but not too far from the shopping mall,

    @lynn, what does the lot back onto? Is that water? 

  10. Ray Thompson says:

    Back from the day trip to Kaufenberg. Absolutely beautiful area and city. A small smattering of the pictures thus far. All were taken with the cell phone. I have a lot more that I may post later. WiFi in the hotel has poor upload speed.

    https://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/Europe 

    I have put nothing on Facebook and the link above is private and not published except here.

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  11. paul says:

    Nice pictures.  Thanks for sharing.

  12. Lynn says:

    >> You know, I am beginning to think that Elon Musk bought twitter just so he could get his tweets out.  Even the crazy ones.

        https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1666971942237372418

    So looks like the ‘auto-delete his crazy tweets’ code is working. @lynn, what was the gist of the tweet?

    Those AI robot coders never sleep.

    It was a tweet that Taylor Swift is Napoleon Dynamite in drag.

        https://twitter.com/AXSTV/status/1655361872432865281

    Yes, I am beginning to agree that Ambien and the other sleep drugs cause dementia.

  13. Lynn says:

    >> There is a piece of pie for sale in my neighborhood for $399,900.

       https://www.har.com/homedetail/1235-nautical-ln-richmond-tx-77469/9367451?lid=7869122

    Always put the most important information first… 

    If you ever thought of building your DREAM HOME, this is it, away from the city but not too far from the shopping mall,

    @lynn, what does the lot back onto? Is that water? 

    Yes.  Section 3 of my neighborhood has a mudpit called a lake in it.  That lot has about 20 feet of shoreline.  No power boats allowed.

    https://www.google.com/maps/@29.5156537,-95.7121738,1620m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

  14. paul says:

    Fun with the electric bills!

    House used 499 kWh for May.  Last May was 761 kWh.  $70 vs $96.  Nice.  It has been a few degrees cooler this year.

    I do open windows and turn the central air off if it’s cooler outside than inside when I have to do the 2AM or so potty break. 

    EDC used 350 kWh vs 630 last May.  Same fridge and freezers and PC stuff.  The new window unit a/c made a huge difference. 

    I need to get moving on the new Moa PC.  Same model PC I have, same model UPS.  On this machine the UPS software says the load is 29 watts.  Versus 95 watts with the soon to be replaced Moa.

    So.  Mess around some more, install VLC and SlimServer and whatever else is on that box.  Copy my music files over.  Get it the way I want, and Win11 fully updated.  Then how about I run Acronis and do the drive image again? From the new WD drive to the whatever-brand that came with the PC.  Seems like a good idea.  Acronis may have a different idea but there’s only one way to find out.

  15. paul says:
    There is a piece of pie for sale in my neighborhood for $399,900.

    Almost a double of what the county says it’s worth.  But hey, gotta try.

    It’s like selling my Mom’s house.  Put it up for 94k.  Dream on.   Drop the price after six months of being nicked for yard work to 83k.  Some dude comes along and offers a low ball of 40k.  I came back with a couple grand more than what the county says it’s worth.   That was cool.  After the various leaches had their meals, I have a bit over 52k more in my bank account.  I think Dad would approve.

    I’m shed of it.  No more monthly elec and water bills where nothing is used, just paying for the meter. That’s about $60 a month.  Plus property taxes. 

  16. nick flandrey says:

    Microsoft Is bringing OpenAI’s GPT-4 AI model to US government agencies

    Microsoft Corp. will make it possible for users of its Azure Government cloud computing service, which include a variety of US agencies, to access artificial intelligence models from ChatGPT creator OpenAI.Microsoft Is bringing OpenAI’s GPT-4 AI model to US government agencies

    Microsoft Corp. will make it possible for users of its Azure Government cloud computing service, which include a variety of US agencies, to access artificial intelligence models from ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

    Microsoft, which is the largest investor in OpenAI and uses its technology to power its Bing chatbot, plans to announce Wednesday that Azure Government customers can now use two of OpenAI’s large language models: The startup’s latest and most powerful model, GPT-4, and an earlier one, GPT-3, via Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service.

    The Defense Technical Information Center — a part of the Defense Department that focuses on gathering and sharing military research — will be experimenting with the OpenAI models through Microsoft’s new offering, a DTIC official confirmed.

    Microsoft already offers OpenAI models to its commercial clients, with the Azure OpenAI service growing rapidly in recent months. Microsoft said in May it had 4,500 customers for the service, a jump from 2,500 the previous quarter, including Volvo AB, Ikea, Mercedes-Benz Group AG and Shell Plc. The initiative announced Wednesday is the first known effort by a major company to make the chatbot technology widely available to the US government.

    (Source: Bloomberg via Yahoo! finance)

  17. nick flandrey says:

    Had a nice Benihana lunch with my sibling.   Got a birthday gift to give to D1.   Then did my pickups.   Not gonna make it to my client’s place today.    

    Time to load the truck for the drive.

    And after that, maybe I’ll shower and cut my hair.  It’s almost 100 in the shade.

    n

  18. Lynn says:

    “Way to go, Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk!”

         https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1666928190445477890

    “I’m absolutely loving the progressive left-wing melt-down over Tucker Carlson’s use of Twitter to reach his audience and fans.  I’m also loving Fox News’ ridiculous attempts to threaten him with legal action if he doesn’t stop.”

    “Best of all, because Fox is still paying him according to his (very lucrative) contract, Tucker doesn’t have to charge anyone to view his work on Twitter.  He can afford to do it free, gratis and for nothing, thanks to the same people who censored him in the first place!  Oh, the irony…”

    Tucker is doing ok.  After all, his middle name is Swanson.  His mother is a Swanson, eastern seaboard old money.  Of course, that $20 million per year that Fox News is paying him to sit on the beach helps pay the bills.

  19. Greg Norton says:

    Tucker is doing ok.  After all, his middle name is Swanson.  His mother is a Swanson, old eastern seaboard money.  Of course, that $20 million per year that Fox News is paying him to sit on the beach helps pay the bills.

    Adoptive mother. He has to tiptoe around that because she is also the niece of Clinton “mentor” William Fulbright, who, as Rush Limbaugh was fond of frequently pointing out, was an avowed segregationist and voted against the Civil Rights act along with Al Gore Sr.

    The Swanson fried chicken dinner money is probably seriously diluted by now unless they went into something else with the money like the Parlucci clan — think Jeno’s Pizza Rolls and Chun King — who plowed their fortune into developing Heathrow north of Orlando.

    The house that pizza rolls built:

    https://www.sanford365.com/the-amazing-estate-of-jeno-paulucci-in-sanford/

  20. RickH says:

    Got any spare change?

    John Reyes, a realtor from the Inland Empire area, is trying to figure out what to do with more than 1 million pennies he and his wife discovered in her father’s former home in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles.

    Story here

  21. nick flandrey says:

    I’ve seen a really cool floor treatment  with pennies as tiles….

    n

    Oh, 102F in the shade.

    n

  22. CowboyStu says:

    The Ralph’s/Kroger that I go to has a machine that coins can be dumped into and it converts them to ……………….

  23. CowboyStu says:

    Looking forward to a great day tomorrow.  SIL, GD and I are going up to Lone Pine, CA.  Will stop along the way and meet up with JimB around lunch time.  Then up the Sierra Mountains for a revisit to Kennedy Meadows and then down to Lone Pine for the Best Western Motel and an evening at Jake’s Saloon (a C & W HonkyTonk).

  24. Alan says:

    >>  Microsoft Is bringing OpenAI’s GPT-4 AI model to US government agencies. 

    Version 4 is the one that no longer makes sh!t up, right, cause with the gov nothing can wrong go. 

  25. Alan says:

    >> The Ralph’s/Kroger that I go to has a machine that coins can be dumped into and it converts them to ………………

    Coinstar, iirc, hits you with a 9% fee. Fee is waived if you opt for a ‘Zon gift card. 

    If it were me, I’d offer to sell all the pennies for $7,500 to anyone that removes them all. 

  26. Lynn says:

    “NHTSA Proposes Automatic Emergency Braking Requirement”

        https://www.carpro.com/blog/nhtsa-proposes-automatic-emergency-braking-requirement

    “The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing a new rule that would require automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection on nearly all U.S. passenger cars and light trucks.  The proposed rule would require more effective, advanced systems that include things like pedestrian AEB capable of recognizing pedestrians at night and also ensure systems work at higher speeds.”

    I like this idea.  This a real thing.  But, there will be false braking events.

    Wear your seatbelt !  Don’t blame me if the auto braking system throws you through the windshield.

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  27. Greg Norton says:

    I like this idea.  This a real thing.  But, there will be false braking events.

    Wear your seatbelt !  Don’t blame me if the auto braking system throws you through the windshield.

    The patents must be getting stale for the backup camera systems mandated in the last decade.

    The checks must keep flowing to PO Boxes in Los Gatos/Los Altos.

    Toyota’s camera module which enables all of the saaaaaafety gadgetry on current generation TNGA (Camry/RAV4/Highlander) is a $1200 part without installation labor.

    I’m wary of all these optical based safety systems. To get 99.95% accuracy at the tolling company for our “open road” system (no dividers between lanes), we had to survey down to the centimeter and mask anything moving in the frame of the 3D cameras which could be misinterpreted by the system as a vehicle. I can’t imagine trying to get even that level in a moving environment.

    If I missed 10 cars in a 20000 vehicle rush hour shift, no one died. I expect that the standard will be much higher to protect pedestrians.

  28. CowboyStu says:

    Most of the pedestrians in my area that are killed have been hit by drunk drivers.  Tell your ahole dumbocrats to have drunk stoppage installed in cars,

  29. EdH says:

    @CowboyStu: Have a great trip! 

    Wish I was going and that we could meet up, but have some annoying stuff going on here. 

    It is a bit brisk out, so bring a windbreaker!

  30. Greg Norton says:

    Most of the pedestrians in my area that are killed have been hit by drunk drivers.  Tell your ahole dumbocrats to have drunk stoppage installed in cars,

    A kill switch for DUI offenders has already been mandated in every car for … 2026?

    Another BS story that Corn Pop likes to tell is how his first wife, Neilia, was killed by a drunk truck driver. Total nonsense – the accident was determined to be Neilia Biden’s fault but the report later amended to read that there may have been visibility problems on the road at the time.

    The driver of the truck was not drunk, but Plugs likes to spin it that way when it is convenient.

  31. Lynn says:

    Most of the pedestrians in my area that are killed have been hit by drunk drivers.  Tell your ahole dumbocrats to have drunk stoppage installed in cars,

    Most of the pedestrians that get killed around here are drunk.  We even had a guy passed out on the railroad tracks the other day.  He did not make it.  I suspect that his relatives will be suing BNSF though for failure to stop the two mile long train in time from 50 mph.

  32. Lynn says:

    A kill switch for DUI offenders has already been mandated in every car for … 2026?

    Just in time for Johnny Cab to drive you home in your Tesla according to Musk.

    I wonder how much all of the safety systems weigh now in each vehicle.  The pillars in my F-150 crew cab are about 8 or 9 inches wide, providing a huge visual obstruction.  But, my truck gets five stars in rollover protection.

  33. Lynn says:

    I watched the first season of FUBAR with Arnold on Netflix.  Not bad, not great.  3.5 stars out of five stars.  75 year old Arnold is getting a lot of scenes built for him to stand and talk, not much action.

    I looked for his youngest son, the one who looks like him, in the series but I missed him. Reputedly he is acting now so I figure that he would make it into a scene or five.

    Oh yeah, Tom Arnold was in the series as a freelance torturer as needed. It was funny.

  34. Greg Norton says:

    Just in time for Johnny Cab to drive you home in your Tesla according to Musk.

    Johnny Cab quit the driving gigs, went to medical school, and joined Starfleet.

  35. Greg Norton says:

    Most of the pedestrians that get killed around here are drunk.  We even had a guy passed out on the railroad tracks the other day.  He did not make it.  I suspect that his relatives will be suing BNSF though for failure to stop the two mile long train in time from 50 mph.

    Posted No Trespassing, and the right of way belongs to the railroad. The BNSF engineers on the coal train runs in Vantucky bragged to my wife about smacking photographers with baseball bats who got a little too close to the train tracks.

    Fell asleep on the tracks. That’s a classic Brent Spiner “Bob Weeler” bit from “Night Court” about how Granny Wheeler died, but I’ve not seen it on YouTube.

  36. Greg Norton says:

    Fell asleep on the tracks. That’s a classic Brent Spiner “Bob Weeler” bit from “Night Court” about how Granny Wheeler died, but I’ve not seen it on YouTube.

    YouTube has everything. Start at the 2:00 mark.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VboItM4UqtU

    “Didn’t even charge her for the ride.”

  37. Alan says:

    >> The driver of the truck was not drunk, but Plugs likes to spin it that way when it is convenient.

    “convenient”… Beau, Beau, Beau … tRump though. 

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  38. Lynn says:

    YouTube has everything. Start at the 2:00 mark.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VboItM4UqtU

    “Didn’t even charge her for the ride.”

    Thanks !  That is 30 minutes of my life that I will never get back.

  39. Nick Flandrey says:

    At the BOL.   Played Catan with the kids.   LONG game tonight.   Really unfortunate resource distribution. 

    79F at the water, with 93% humidity.  Sky is cloudless but there is too much water for observing.

    No fire or radio tonight, I’m beat and headed to bed.

    n

  40. Lynn says:

    “Kerry Unhinged: Fighting Climate Deniers is like the D-Day Pushback Against Hitler”

        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/06/09/kerry-unhinged-fighting-climate-deniers-is-like-the-d-day-pushback-against-hitler/

    “Apparently its OK to shake the hand of an accused narco-terrorist on the DEA’s most wanted list, but disagreeing with Kerry about climate change makes you worst than Hitler.”

    So, Climate Deniers are Nazis according to Kerry.  Well, Kerry is a lying scumbag.

  41. Ray Thompson says:

    The whackos have their agenda. Any other option, or opinion, is completely invalid. There is only one path, their path. Science be damned, logical and critical thinking be damned, intelligent discussion be damned. Anything else is wrongful thinking and shall be punished.

    Easy day in Vienna. May walk around, may watch a movie, may sit in the garden, a nap is definitely on the agenda.

    Tomorrow is a train trip to Prague. We will meet another exchange student. She is from Germany, but likes to travel. She has never been to Prague so she decided that would be a good place to meet. Works for me.

    Those cheap plug converters I purchased off Amazon are crap. Never again. I had to buy a converter here because of the polarized plugs those cheap converters do not support. Wife’s hair dryer is 120/220 but we could not plug it in because of the plugs. We have a transformer for her curling iron so we had to use that for a couple of nights. With the newly purchased adapter she can use both at once as the hairdryer can use the new plug, the curling iron the transformer. Lesson learned.

    No more plane rides until we head home from Frankfurt so the hassle of separating the liquids is over for awhile.

    Saw several armed police in the train stations, either standing around or walking around eyeing everyone with suspicion.

    Things are expensive here in Austria, but not as expensive as Norway. The exchange rate in Norway is 11-1 so one would think there would be bargains. Nope, Norway just increased the prices of the goods, 40-50% higher than our last trip. People in Norway are complaining about the high prices.

    The train ride yesterday to/from Vienna to Kaupfenberg was a good train. Quiet and smooth. The train did slow down going up the grade from Vienna into the mountains. I suspect it is a fairly strong pull and takes some power. Lots of picturesque curves over pretty bridges. A really good train ride, maybe even just to ride and look out the window. Expensive though as it $72.00 each way for the wife and I.

    Tomorrow we will take an Uber from the hotel to train station. I don’t want to drag the suitcase half a dozen blocks, onto a train, then change trains and platforms, then to the final train. An Uber is $45.00 and at some point it is easier to pay for the convenience and less hassle.

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