Hot in Houston. Muggy. Probably clear, but micro climates… it was hot at the BOL but a steady breeze helped. When that went still, it was drippy wet. It was a hot sunny day after the overcast and rain.
Which, combined with the relatively short work day, meant I did little things and not major projects. I found a new home for 8 buckets of bulk food and moved some stuff around. Still not “organized” but better.
Which brings me to the actual title and topic of today’s post. Organization. You need it. HOWEVER. That said, you need a system that works for you. If you try to impose a system, it won’t work as you’ll fight it and undermine it so that it fails, thus “proving” your original determination that it wouldn’t work for you. Or is that just me?
Anyone with important stuff, or a lot of stuff, needs some way to organize it so that it can be found and used when needed. A lot of preppers have borderline hoarder tendencies to begin with, and it’s hard to say what will be useful and what won’t so there is a bias toward keeping it “just in case.” This can lead to a whole lot of stuff jammed into a small space and become the opposite of ‘organized’. I had an epiphany recently about how I organize and thought I’d share.
First off, I don’t make lists. I don’t do spreadsheets. I don’t do written inventories. I don’t track inventory. There is nothing wrong with those things. Many people find great comfort in using them, reviewing them, updating them, etc. If you are one of those people or could become one, I honestly think that is awesome. My only warning or critique is “don’t let the system become the boss.” The goal ISN’T a shiny inventory management system that is up to date, and complete. The goal is to be ready to survive and thrive when the bad thing happens. If the barcoded spreadsheets, inventory management, and labeled shelves help you meet the goal, awesome. If they have become an end in and of themselves, or you find yourself making decisions based on “pleasing” the system (like buying 22 cans because that fits in your tray, and there are 2 trays per shelf but you know you will use 26 cans during your time frame), the system may not be helping you achieve your goal.
I store important things where I can see them. I want to look and see what I have and what I need. I don’t actually look often enough and sometimes my mental model of what I have and the reality don’t match. That’s an argument to review more often.
I ‘unitize’ things when I can. I like to store food in “meals” or “months” not calories. I don’t sort by type. I’ve mentioned previously using cardboard flats (not any more) and rectangular tubs (still) and most recently even using milk crates to group cans into “meals per month.” It is easy to see at a glance, x many buckets = x many months of rice or flour, or pasta. X many flats of cans = x many months of side dishes. I’ve added to the Mountain House variety packs to build x number of days food for x number of people, and then written that on the box. In other words, if you could serve a dinner consisting of one meat, one veg, one starch, dessert and a drink, that is what you could stack, without counting calories in each can, or each cup of rice, and call that unit “one main meal”. Put 30 of each of the pieces together in one place and get the unit “one month of main meals”. Or one bucket rice, one crate meat, one crate veg, one crate misc. Don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. If you already think in terms of meals, stack meals.
But, there is a lot more to prepping that just stacking food. For other things, I’ve realized that I organize by association and place. In other words, I organize by “clumps.” I’ve been doing it for years. Decades even. And that was my epiphany, especially wrt getting angry and frustrated when other people {cough} move my stuff.
I put “like with like” and I put it somewhere TOGETHER. Then I leave it there. I can and do retrieve stuff from my stacks that I put away 10 years ago. I can walk up and put my hands on stuff that I put away even longer ago than that, IF no one moved it. I don’t even have to know for certain that something is somewhere or that I even have the thing.
What I know is that IF I have a plumbing part, it will be with the plumbing supplies (top of the stairs in the garage attic, just to the right, irrigation in one box, materials in another, parts in a third, and whole items (like a faucet, or soap dispenser) in yet another. If I have a need for wall wart power supplies, they are in bins sorted by voltage and the bins are stacked. If I need computer stuff, it’s all clumped together too.
My books are sorted alphabetical by author for fiction, but they are clumped by subject for non-fiction. Radio stuff is clumped by use. Tools clumped by type and doubled up in clumps by use (ie. a tile toolbox, a plumbing bucket, a carpentry box, an airtool cabinet, metalworking area…)
Like goes with like, and they have a place to go. New stuff is added to the old in the same place.
Of course there are issues and problems with my system. I know where the clumps are, but someone else might not. They can see them though, and if they find the plumbing clump, they will find the item if it’s there. Another problem is not sorting and adding stuff as it comes in. That can lead to ‘orphans’ that get lost because they aren’t in the right area, with the other similar stuff. Frequent review and staying on top of sorting and putting away can help to mitigate that. The biggest deficiency though is that someone else can move items or mix up the clumps. Of course they can do that to any organization system, even libraries have issues with mis-shelved books. It’s just not always obvious to an outsider that the clump is all related, and all in one place.
In any case, as loose and haphazard as it might look, it is a SYSTEM, and it works reasonably well for me with VERY LITTLE overhead cost in time, effort, or money. It lets me focus on the result and not the process. A little extra effort (organizing the clumps into a system that makes sense spatially (shelving everything, or storing it in the same place) could be spent to help others participate in my own system, and maybe with my kids grown up enough to contribute, that will happen. I’m trying to make it happen at the BOL, but we are only now transitioning from a jobsite to a living home…and I have a year invested in knowing where the clumps are. There are things that are obvious improvements, like putting all the food in one area, and all the tools somewhere else, with the supplies and parts in another… and I’m working on getting that done.
Whatever your own organizational system is, you should have something that is consistent, and useful and USED because ‘If you can’t find it, you don’t really have it.’
Today and really, all of this week, will be nuts. Swim team, my client’s changes and upgrades, some issues at my rent house, and getting ready to do the earthmoving at the BOL while the girls are away on a trip, are just some of the things pulling me in different directions. All the normal daily stuff is going on too, as are some additional ‘summer learning’ opportunities. I’ll be working off a calendar daily for this week and next. Not what I envisioned for my summer vacation…
Stack it high my friends, but do it in a way that makes sense to you…
nick
Good advice, Nick. I’d add,
Second post!
Second second post!
That was a fantastic article today, nick. Thank you!
We survived yesterday’s trip to Dallas, but the convention center was overrun by another conference for spa (as in female pampering) owners so parking was as bad as a typical Saturday when the comic shows are overrun by civilians looking to score Pokemon or N64 games on the cheap.
(Again, that isn’t happening on a show floor, but many keep dreaming.)
I’m not exactly sure what an “esthetician” is or what is involved with an “anal bleaching”, but that conference attracted a couple of thousand (mostly) women to learn about the technique in several large rooms we passed.
Does “esthetician” involve a license for all of the ‘hands on’ people? I gotta wonder on that one.
I guess men aren’t wanted in that field.
The irony is that I saw the help wanted billboard up at the Owens Corning plant in Waxahatchee when we drove past. Why itch or sweat for $40/hour — my guess — when you can be an “estetician” administring an anal bleaching indoors for $15/hour, sipping lattes between clients?
Yeah, the economy as currently constructed is doomed.
BTW, what is it with restaurants being so overwhelmed with people in Dallas?
Before leaving, we went out to The Colony so my son could try the Portillo’s, and the time involved, between the moment we arrived – 6PM on a Sunday – and finally got the food at the counter was pushing 90 minutes, the service running 50-60 order numbers behind the pickup announcements. Two hours for “fast” food total. For a friggin’ hot dog and an Italian beef sandwich.
At first I thought it was the newness of the restaurant, but when leaving, I noticed all of the neighboring places still similarly overwhelmed. These were mostly chains like Cheddars.
Sunday?!? 8PM?!?
Yeah, the economy is toast.
It IS muggy and hot this morning. Bright and sunny too.
Wife and D1 are out and doing their thing. D2 had a friend sleep over. They were up at 12:30 playing mario cart when I went to bed. I warned them that people would be up and moving in the morning and that they should go to bed, not crash on the couch… So I have two zombies sitting on the couch staring ahead blankly.
I think I’ll start with some breakfast. That is generally a good idea, right?
n
You think it’s men or other women telling women that their anal area is too dark?
n
I’ve long maintained that a pure service economy isn’t sustainable. We can’t be a nation of workers giving each other backrubs and cutting each others’ hair. Someone has to create lasting value.
They do it for themselves. Just like they spend two hours on hair and makeup before going out for themselves. And get lip filler and lipo and BBLs and other implants for themselves. Not as competition with other women and certainly-not-put-that-thought-out-of-your-head for men.
Shut up, misogynist! Why do you have to devalue the work that women do?
It isn’t so much general services that are the problem, since those are very much supply/demand based, but the pseudo medical services like massages and, I’m asuming, anal bleaching which can be paid for with FSA/HSA money.
And I doubt the anal bleaching ‘hands on’ business is nearly as lucrative as the training for the practitioners. All of the downstairs of the convention center was that group’s this weekend, and I saw a door open to a kitchen where a staff was prepping meals on a mass scale– generally a sign of a big convention, done to keep the attendees from overwhelming the local restaurants.
Not that people seem to mind in Dallas.
Please. When the nurse at UT Southwestern’s transplant program (!) collected on my father-in-law’s life insurance policies after he passed under mysterious circumstances (waggle fingers), her older idiot son who had a CS degree from UT opened a day spa with his share of the largess and obtained a LMT certificate for himself in addition to hiring other contract-based workers.
The last time I checked, he still ran the spa. A few lawsuits, but, like I said, he’s an idiot.
Whether it is a “woman’s work” all depends if the customers trust a male to do the procedure. Maybe a massage, but I imagine that something like what I’m picturing associated with the term “anal bleaching” is far more intimate.
Of course, the training is an equal opportunity business. I heard a male voice over the PA through an open door to one classroom yesterday. The training … models (?) appearing onstage are paid to be there.
In some sense, optional services like massages are a sign of a wealthy economy. Without wealth, no one could pay for them.
Also, as technology advances, the unemployable have to do something. Whether that’s massage or crystal therapy, or…that other thing y’all mentioned – it’s all better than living off of social programs.
Busy restaurants fall into the same category. Eating out is a luxury, not a necessity, and restaurants employ a lot of staff.
Some more pictures from Europe; Norway, Austria and Prague. First time we have been to Prague. Long day of walking around. Place is swamped with tourists from everywhere. Of course, we were a couple of them.
First picture is of our seats on the plane from Atlanta to Amsterdam. First class lay flat. I have news for you, the lay flat sucks. The seats are hard and the breaks between the seat sections is uncomfortable. I did not sleep anymore on those seats than I have done in coach.
http://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/Europe
Private link, avoids Google and prying eyes. Of course, it is possible that Google is probably harvesting this site.
Tomorrow is the 4.5 hour train ride to Regensberg in Germany. Then Wednesday is the 9 hour train ride from Regensberg to Hövelhoff. It will be a long day.
link fixed – RGH
link fixed – RGH
Did I have another brain fart?
Speaking of which, it is just as fun to fart on a crowded subway train as it is on a plane. Grimaces are fun to watch along with teary eyes that are looking for who to blame.
Regardless of whether a given job is “women’s work” or “men’s work”, there’s no denying that a large fraction of women in the workforce are doing jobs which exist only because of the luxury of excess wealth or because of extrinsic demand. There’s also no denying that when corporate belts are tightened, positions generally held by women are disproportionately cut.
@ray – your link included an ‘nbsp’ at the end, which borked the link. Removed it; all better.
Leave fart bombs in the cushions, so the offense and the casting about for blame occur when you’re well away.
In the US, a lot of pseudo-medical “therapies” such as massage are eligible to be paid through employer-sponsored FSA and HSA tax free spending accounts. It isn’t a sign of wealth but of misplaced spending priorites and the awfulness that is current US law with regard to healthcare.
The FSA is a more common account but has strict timing, regular deductions from paychecks, and must be spent completely by the end of the year or be forfeited to the IRS. A lot of people use massage therapy expenses and similar charges as a means of keeping the account drawn down in the absence of more serious issues.
Or because they like it and see the money as “free” since they don’t understand their own pay stubs and/or benefits at their employer.
An HSA is less common, particularly in places like my current employer which are invested in the agenda as a major government supplier. Rules about employee eligibility are tougher, but the account does not get forfeited if the money left unspent at the end of the year.
Usually, my employment benefits package is all about the HSA, but I don’t have one now so we are back to FSA at my wife’s job. She gets regular massages, particularly later in the year, to keep the account spent down.
The US is broke in a very serious way. But, then again, so is much of the rest of civilization.
My Baracklyspe stack is still 4 months of freeze-dried for 4 plus dogs (added some separate FD protein to get daily calories to 2,500+). I find stacking and rotating a pantry for the Baracklypse too demanding. I have a regular pantry and fridge full of food. I’m prepared to “stand in the goobermint food line,” as Dr. Bob used to say.
Thanks, Rick.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/plus-size-travelers-slam-airline-seat-policies/index.html
Imagine sitting next to that blob of flesh on airline flight for a couple of hours. She wants her rights. What about the rights of other passengers? If I pay for a seat, I want a full seat. I am not paying for one of her ass cheeks to occupy half my seat.
When they have to spread butter on their thighs to get down the aisle without sticking, they should not be on a plane. Hire a U-Haul.
Be very careful at banks that offer such accounts. The bank that my last employer used charged me $25.00 to close the account. Had I drained the account the bank could try to charge, but with nothing left in the account they would get nothing. The bank could refuse to close the account without payment, so what, leave it open.
Imagine how she smells.
BTW, what is it with restaurants being so overwhelmed with people in Dallas?
Before leaving, we went out to The Colony so my son could try the Portillo’s, and the time involved, between the moment we arrived – 6PM on a Sunday – and finally got the food at the counter was pushing 90 minutes, the service running 50-60 order numbers behind the pickup announcements. Two hours for “fast” food total. For a friggin’ hot dog and an Italian beef sandwich.
At first I thought it was the newness of the restaurant, but when leaving, I noticed all of the neighboring places still similarly overwhelmed. These were mostly chains like Cheddars.
Sunday?!? 8PM?!?
Yeah, the economy is toast.
The average household income in that area is over $100,000/year and may be pushing $200,000/year. There are probably a quarter million homes within ten miles of The Colony so when they go out to eat, they all go out to eat. Getting lunch after church in that area is always an adventure in patience.
– and there is the category error. You aren’t paying for an experience. You are paying to be moved from one point to another, by a means that has to take weight and volume into consideration. Currently, most airlines count on averages to balance the over- with the under- weight. Don’t think for a second that a carrier that demands that their own in flight magazine produce more revenue than its weight costs in fuel, isn’t acutely aware of the weight of its passengers plus their baggage.
The restrictions on baggage and additional charges were a form of stealthy shrinkflation. A large number of passengers dramatically reduced the amount of weight they brought on board, reducing the cost of transporting them and their baggage. Some paid a fee that more than covered the cost of their baggage’s weight, but I’d guess that in general the airlines saw significant savings in fuel, or were able to increase their high margin freight on each flight.
If times get tight enough in the industry, you will see per pound charges above a “standard” allowance, just as you see with the current upcharges for heavy bags, or additional bags.
n
BTW, when the allowance went from 70 pounds per bag to 50, that was a HUGE reduction and cost savings for the airlines.
Nice hit piece and staged photo op…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12186347/Disney-heir-says-grandfather-spinning-grave-Nazi-flags-seen-Disney-World.html
Keep in mind the DM hates Disney… and they had to torture and twist the phrases to make something out of nothing.’
n
The general forecast for Houston is 102 F on Thursday and 104 F on Friday. We live outside the heat island known as Houston so we are are only forecast for 101 F on Friday. My prediction for Friday is that we may be putting a fire in the home generator.
ERCOT may be in trouble, hard to tell at this point. We are forecast to hit 76,000 MW today, the last summer peak was 80,000 MW. We may blow right past that on Thursday or Friday.
https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards
Without looking at the details, about three of the coal power plants are still down across Texas. The #8 unit at Parish, a 700 MW Wyoming coal power plant, had a hydrogen fire two years ago. Looks like GE is still building them a new generator. That is a $50+ million fix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WA_Parish_Generating_Station
“Tucker ‘will not be silenced’: Defiant attorney for ex-Fox News host rejects network’s cease-and-desist letter demanding he pull his Twitter series that has drawn 169 MILLION views”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12185883/Fox-sends-cease-desist-letter-Tucker-Carlson-ramps-Twitter-series.html
Something is really wrong at Fox News.
“Coming soon to a store near you?”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/06/coming-soon-to-store-near-you.html
“I see that moonbats in California, the land of fruits and nuts, are trying to make it even easier to shoplift.”
“That sort of attitude, plus the breakdown in civilized standards and law and order, is prompting an increasing number of retailers to pull out of California’s cities. Why should they do business there when they know, in advance, that they’re going to be victimized and lose money?”
Two seats should pay two fares, whether it is one or two people.
The only “rub” here is the damned airlines downsizing seats and whether there should be a standard based on human factors engineering that requires a minimum amount of space based on a 95th, 99th, or better percentile.
Imagine how she smells.
Probably immersed in a bottle of cologne. Some of the women come to church like that, causes me to start coughing.
copying 236 movies from my HD to a portable, basically all the rips I’ve done in the past year… windows says “6 hrs remaining”. It’s a bit more than 150Gb and win8 was notoriously slow at file ops.
n
Probably immersed in a bottle of cologne.
-naw, chicken soup and feces.
n
You guys HAD to take it there, didn’t you? I was being so good…
n
If they stand in one spot too long, and puddle, that is too much perfume. The stuff is probably applied with a mop, from that $1.98 a gallon stuff from the local Quikee Mart. Makeup is applied with a spatula to get an even coverage. Or spray gun.
I have had that experience with an extremely large person getting on a plane. I was sitting next to the window, one empty seat, then the aisle. Small plane. It was getting close to closing the door. Nope, no such luck. I saw this behemoth wedging her way down the aisle, huffing and puffing with the effort, thumping past the seats. She got to my row, lifted the armrest and flopped in the seat. Squishing me against the wall. One her butt cheek was halfway on my seat.
I squirmed and slammed the armrest back down wedging it in the blob that was her gut. She got pissed and said she could not fit in the seat. I said back to her, “too damned bad, I paid for a full seat”. She was pissed and complained to the flight attendant. I was relocated to another spot two rows back and she spread to fill almost the entire seat row. The thought of that space between the seats wedge up her crack haunted me the entire flight.
The flight attendant had add two extensions to the seat belt. After the flight was in the air the person in front of her reclined their seat straight into her chest. She could not move. She again complained to the flight attendant who stated the passenger in front of her had the right to recline his seat. That lady spent the rest of the flight (about two hours) wedged in that position which had to be very uncomfortable.
She would occasionally look back at me with much effort and glare at me. I would just grin and the puff out my cheeks. That seemed to anger her further. I did not care.
She got off the plane before me, again fighting the seats and thumping her way up the aisle. I passed her in the gateway as she was huffing and puffing her way up the gateway. She said something to me as I passed to which I responded with a digital salute.
Well, so far, great.
I pulled the SSDs from Moa and put them in portable cases. Re-connected the spinning rust drives and Win7 booted. After changing the name from moa to moa1, I re-booted and now it wants to run chdsk. I unplugged the Ethernet and let run chkdsk, I don’t know how it took as the machine was running normally an hour or so later. I dug into the SlimServer settings and un-checked start at system boot. Rebooted and yeah, chkdsk again. Ignore that and shut the box down. It’s been a good PC but it’s 10 years old and always on.
Meanwhile, in the house, I renamed the new PC from Win11’s random gibberish to moa and assigned a fixed address to both Ethernet and wi-fi. Wi-fi was like “no network” so back to DHCP there. Installed SlimServer and no Squeeze Players available but hang on, the players connect to the server, not server to players.
Toted the new moa and other parts out to the EDC. The hardest part was threading the power cord through the tangle of wires. Booted up, turned wi-fi off, and it’s running perfectly. (patting myself on my back)
So it’s all slick and just right. Time to image the drive.
The cheek puffing is funny. 🙂
The flight attendant had add two extensions to the seat belt.
Wow, that might be 600 lbs of woman. Scary, heart attack waiting to happen.
Ray, Thank You for the pictures.
“JPMorgan to Pay $290 Million to Settle Jeffrey Epstein Accusers’ Suit”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jpmorgan-chase-agrees-to-settle-jeffrey-epstein-accusers-suit-9dbbabff
“The Doe plaintiff said she was sexually abused by Epstein from 2006 to 2013 and trafficked to his friends. She alleged that Epstein paid her and other victims with cash withdrawn from JPMorgan. She accused America’s biggest bank of profiting from Epstein’s activities and assisting in his alleged sex trafficking by enabling him to make payments to women for sex acts.”
So, if someone comes to your bank, gets cash out of their accounts, and pays off a debt, the bank is liable for their actions ? I do not understand this.
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
You can read the article if you jump to it from The Drudge Report webpage.
@lynn:
I think I smell lawyerly intervention. Pay money to make it go away, especially if they can get a signature on an NDA.
“If there’s no court case, it doesn’t exist.”
G.
@lynn:
What if the airline refused carriage, due to the enhanced risk of medical emergency? But that would probably lead to a suit for discrimination.
I, personally, don’t have a problem with oversize people paying for 2 (or even 3!!) seats, provided that the threshold for needing multiple seats is set by a non-airline body. Airlines should not be permitted to say, “If you don’t fit in one of our seats, you pay for 2 seats”, unless the size of one seat is set by an independent body… I know, fat chance.
G.
@paul:
Seconded.
G.
Abigail Disney is a nutter. The Mail knows this.
That said, the media beatdown of The Mouse is coming, probably when “Elemental” opens weak against “Batman”, signaling the end of the Pixar franchise.
RIP
Okay, purists, “The Flash”.
I made a mistake last night. I stayed up too late in my St. Louis area motel, watching YT videos, and then got up at 4:00 AM Central so I could catch a plane. I figured I’d take a nap in Spokane at the motel when I arrived at 2:00 Pacific. I got to Denver, and then they canceled my Spokane leg.
So now I have to kill a whole day at DEN and get to the hotel after midnight, and I have an appointment with a lawyer at 10:00. And a dinner engagement with old friends at 6 in the evening. Any I may or may not have a rental car; the agency closes about the time I land in Spokane.
I’m happy I got to visit with 2 of my sons and I got a good share of live music and theater in my brief stay, but I really messed up my sleep schedule.
I saw my first Rav4 Prime in person during the trip yesterday, but that was in a day parking lot in Dallas proper near the convention center.
Except for the “Prime” badge, it looks like every other Rav4, kinda how the Civic R-type hides behind a slightly sporty look … but not too sporty.
The Colony had lots of new Nissan Rogues running around. The vehicle stands out because it strikes me as somewhat top heavy and a bit too long.
At least Nissan is making bank on their latest deal with Brie Larson. Disney won’t.
Next year, we will go back to Hops and Hens in the Omni.
That was a much more mellow scene late on a Sunday afternoon when we went last year. A little pricey, but not terrible. The staff was awesome, and the bartender had MeTV running instead of sports to appeal to the geek crowd.
Microsoft Travel used to prohibit first class, even personal upgrades, but everyone got to keep their airline miles, which some employees used to buy two additional coach seats in the middle on the redeye 767 flights to Seattle from Atlanta.
I witnessed this operation first hand on one flight in early 2000. The guy didn’t sleep like most of the passengers, but, instead, he opened a laptop which featured two massive screens that unfolded like a puzzle box. I figured the laptop was something special from Japan. He definitely needed the tray table space for the screen real estate.
Friends who flew for GTE to the West Coast reported similar experiences out of ATL.
I had to go to the campus today for an “all hands, in person” meeting which management made clear would not be on Teams.
I feared the worst, but the meeting turned out to be two hours of push for everyone to return to the office at least three days a week. However, we were told no one would be checked on an individual basis so I’m not sure how effective the session was in getting minds changed about remote work.
Not that I was really worried. Another really crazy customer request came in this morning which was so off the wall I blurted out, “Yeah, we don’t do [x] that way.”
As long as I don’t say “Yeah, we can do that easily”, I’m not in trouble, but I think we looked like idiots since we heard the pitch from the customer, and not *our vendor* who claimed it was possible … in theory.
Who knows. If they put up enough money, signs a waiver, and management allots sufficient time I could do [x] the way they want.
Sigh. I’m tired.
And the waiver is about certain metrics, nothing illegal.
>> I’ve long maintained that a pure service economy isn’t sustainable. We can’t be a nation of workers giving each other backrubs and cutting each others’ hair. Someone has to create lasting value.
You can survive fairly well without haircuts, or DIY or just shave your head. (Stack a straight razor, a whetstone and a strop for the latter. Plus razor can do double duty.)
As far as DIY “bleaching,” likely too many of us here no longer are that flexible and/or have bad backs.
A Flowbee aka The Suck Cut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tTLbyPEtpU
I’ve long maintained that a pure service economy isn’t sustainable. We can’t be a nation of workers giving each other backrubs and cutting each others’ hair. Someone has to create lasting value.
You forgot bleaching other’s anuses. I am fairly sure that is not a lasting value though,
Many years ago I read part of a scurrilous unauthorized “biography” of Humphrey Bogart in which as a young actor before he achieved fame he was given advice about how to be successful in the studio. One successful actor advised him to bathe in milk to bleach his anus, and proceeded to drop trou and bend over to exhibit his own success.
Flowbee is still around and had quite a resurgence during the home imprisonment conditioning of the population.
Made in Texas.
@Nick
ayup.
A few thoughts:
A spreadsheet is about as useful as a computer file of your favorite recipes: ok for a few people, but a time sink for most. Photos can be useful for slow-turning inventory, if you can locate the photo and where it was taken.
You need storage space before you can store things.
I knew guys in the 80’s and 90’s that had buildings full of antique furniture. Might have been worth a fortune if they could have sold it off, or it might have saturate the market. Time passes and styles change. Not much demand now for pressed back oak or cane seat chairs that need caning (not an easy repair). Wonder if they are still there? Doubt those old boys had any heirs that could find anything, now.
Dad worked out of one building and he got to the point where he had to “throw out the $5 stuff to keep the $50 stuff”. I wanted to pour a 12′ wide slab in the back, cut the rear wall off and pull it back 12′, fill in the gaps in the walls, drop in a few roof trusses, and then re-roof the whole thing. Never found the time.
Stuff outgrows storage every time–show me a guy with an empty building and I will check his pulse if the building is more than a month old. I did heard once that a guy built a storage building that was too big. Call me skeptical.
If you build, cubic is cheaper than square footage. Second-hand pallet racking and industrial shelving is readily available in 12-14′ heights. I bought the 12′ shelving from a defunct Kmart and hired two guys and a truck to help me take it out along with some pallet racking. Had to trim 6″ off to fit the building. 2’x4′ shelves adjustable at 2″ intervals. 11 shelves–a shelf every foot–gives me 88 ft2 of shelves between 138″ uprights. Metro wire is mostly 72″, maybe 84″ tops with 5-6 shelves unless you buy extra. I have twice the shelves if not twice the volume, and they’re easier to adjust than wire (no mallet required).
Grassley: Burisma executive who allegedly paid Biden has audio recordings of conversations with Joe, Hunter
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/grassley-burisma-executive-who-allegedly-paid-biden-has-audio-recordings-of-conversations-with-joe-hunter
Link from AoSHQ looks like this:
No wonder they indicted Trump.
Home from the swim meet. Kid did ok. She’s not practicing or working very hard, so the results aren’t great. She is still improving.
I think I’ll try for an early night. Doesn’t usually happen that way, but it’s worth trying…
n
STILL worth trying…
n
Man, I hate estimating properties for a chemical when the dadgum sources do not even agree what the chemical structure is. They do have vapor pressure and liquid density curves. But no ideal gas heat capacity curve or heat of vaporization curve. Our software can estimate them but the chemical structure must be exact.
https://w-refrigerant.com/en/latest_refrigerant-en/r1233zd/
and
https://w-refrigerant.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/R1233zd-Honeywell-Solstice-zd-Brochure_EN.pdf
>> https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/06/coming-soon-to-store-near-you.html
Text of the bill is quoted in the article so this is based on that, didn’t skunk around for the actual text…
So “no employee,” would seem to then allow, say, an off-duty police officer, working as an independent contractor, to approach a shoplifter?
Yesterday was a full day of meetings, required for all personnel in the school. After an introduction of the school’s plans and goals for the next 10 years or so, we gathered in smaller groups to express our views and comments. Sounds great, no?
Of course, I went to the group interested in teaching. You’d think that would be the main focus, after all, this is a college, but it was only one of about 10 different groups. Anyway, the one concern expressed over and over again was: the school’s goals are impacting the quality of teaching. The result of our efforts was a 2-3 minute summary delivered to the larger gathering, where our actual concerns were never mentioned. But I suppose we are supposed to feel like we have been heard.
Then we were treated to a presentation by a renowned education expert. This will revolutionize college education! In addition to learning whatever a course is teaching, students should also generally learn how to analyze problems, how to communicate, how to make decisions, etc, etc. – there’s a whole laundry list.
These incidental skills have always been on the radar: Have students analyze problems, have them write, have them present – across all courses. This is nothing new, but the education experts invent new terminology so that they can reinvent the wheel every few years. Now these are called “future skills” (even in German). But I guess it got this guy his doctorate and his professorship, so there’s that.
I had to leave mid-afternoon, because my BS container was overflowing.
Good night all…
Last US post – unless @lynn is still on-line rather than reading!