09:05 – It was 60.4F (15.8C) when I took Colin out at 0700, partly cloudy. Barbara is cleaning house this morning, after which we’ll do more science kit stuff. She had a pretty physical day yesterday, working out in the yard, so today we’ll do mostly inside stuff that doesn’t require a lot of physical labor. Labeling bottles and so on.
Our science kit inventory continues to dwindle as fast as we can build them, so for the next several weeks we’ll be covered up building and shipping kits. I have several thousand more bottles due to arrive Tuesday, which is just in time. We’re running out of bottles.
We just looked at the new stuff to be available in September on Netflix and Amazon streaming. There’s nothing we’re interested in, other than the latest season of Call the Midwife on Netflix. Streaming is becoming a vast wasteland of garbage.
Most of the decent stuff, series we might want to watch, is behind paywalls established by crappy little VoD streaming services like Acorn, Britbox, and PBS. We’d actually consider subscribing to one of those if they had comprehensive catalogs of British TV, but all of them play games, pulling stuff off that they should just leave available. Oh, well. There’s always torrents, although the demise of Kick-Ass Torrents has limited the selection greatly even there.
So far, the hurricane seems to be less catastrophic than feared. Only one death and a dozen or so injuries reported so far, which is a lot less than might have been expected from a Cat 4 hurricane making landfall in a heavily populated area. None of my dozen or so regular readers in the area has reported any significant damage to their properties, yet. Of course, there are three or four more days of rain expected, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed for them.
We just looked at the new stuff to be available in September on Netflix and Amazon streaming. There’s nothing we’re interested in, other than the latest season of Call the Midwife on Netflix.
My wife is currently working through the Essie Davis “Miss Fletcher” series, watching episodes as the pop up on PBS and filling in the gaps with Netflix. I don’t remember if you’ve mentioned the show here.
None of my dozen or so regular readers in the area has reported any significant damage to their properties, yet.
We started getting more wind at our house. The Navy’s map places the eye of the storm over San Antonio this morning.
So far, here in Austin, we have been lucky and the storm has simply highlighted the bad trades work done on our house over the last five years.
This morning’s adventure was quieting the water heater drain pan alarm in the attic — no leaks, just water coming down the flue. Our regular plumber installed the alarm as a courtesy when he saw the Ben Franklin Plumbing sticker on the heater. Chuckling, he said, “Call me when this goes off.” Fortunately, I won’t need to call him … today.
Unrelated to the storm, while in the attic I took a good look at our new AC system’s POS “smart” thermostat relay panel. The installing company hasn’t returned my calls since the thermostat started trashing our WiFi (it is currently blacklisted at the router), but replacing the controls will require a professional just to get the wiring back to a level where I can do an out-of-warranty swap with non-Trane hardware down the road. Say it like Hank Hill: Austin (shudder).
I suspect that your Texas readers will fare better than average. Even though the water levels are rather high, they’ve made reasonable decisions prior, so their preparedness is higher than the average citizen of the area. Just having enough food and water on hand to ride out the storm before the storm came on the radar puts them above 95%+ of the population.
Just having enough food and water on hand to ride out the storm before the storm came on the radar puts them above 95%+ of the population.
The storm went from a typical depression to a hurricane in ~ 30 hours.
I’d put the unprepared portion of the population at 99%. I remember Jeb! Bush got into minor trouble in Florida near the end of his term about 12 years ago when he asked (paraphrasing), “Who lives here and doesn’t keep a few days worth of canned goods in the pantry?”
Lots of Floridians, Jeb!. Not very many natives or even near-natives left in the state.
As I said to someone while I was out “You’ve had EIGHT YEARS to get ready….”
That said, I didn’t get my whole house gennie installed before the season, AND took my giant UPS completely out of service, and got rid of a bunch of my mid size ones in preparation. The whole house gennie and more water storage were the two big lessons learned from IKE.
This storm did sort of spring up quickly, but I’d been watching a whole string of them form and then dissipate on my FEMA daily briefing newsletter which includes the NOAA national level forecast. I was not surprised to see it reform. In fact a day or two before that my wife asked/or commented snidely about some of the stored food and why there was so much. I replied that several storms had already formed, and then died out, and not every one would. No negative mentions of stored food now.
I’d done a big fresh food shopping trip on Tuesday because of having house guests, so could casually top up when the chance to do so easily arose.
Last minute preps were limited and typical of a storm. Get out the gennie. Top up water storage. Secure the grounds.
Bigger picture, we bought a house on the west side of town to be further away from hurricanes, and on the right side to bug out without having to cross or avoid the city. Those weren’t the only reasons to buy, but they were a factor for me. We bought in an established subdivision so we could have some yard space, and not have too onerous CC&Rs.
some planning, some luck. Like life.
n
We’re up to date on Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, as well as several other Aussie series, including The Doctor Blake Mysteries and A Place to Call Home. We watched McLeod’s Daughters several years ago, but gave up on it. It jumped the shark when they killed off my favorite cutie by sending her vehicle over a cliff.
“a Cat 4 hurricane making landfall in a heavily populated area.”
Where it landed is far from “heavily populated”. It’s mostly poor and working class, and heavy industry and ports. There are several big terminals and refineries down there and big chemical plants, but relatively few people. They were able to evacuate and shut down a whole county right there.
THAT saved us. If it had turned north toward houston, it would be a different story.
n
*I* consider it heavily populated, but you have to remember that we live in a county with a total population of about 11,000 and the nearest big city has a population of about 1,800.
Got water in the Garage. Another 2 inches and it will be in the house. Got critical files backed up to the cloud and stuff onto counters. Last to go will be our computers. Have a bag with meds and passports and a change of underwear ready.
It jumped the shark when they killed off my favorite cutie by sending her vehicle over a cliff.
The cutie must have asked for a raise. That pattern seems common among UK shows.
I joke with my wife that “Downton Abbey” seems to kill daughters as frequently as “Little House on the Prairie” blinded children.
Yeah, Downton killed off my favorite cutie, too.
But I keep adding new cuties, most recently Morven Christie, who could be Helen Baxendale’s daughter.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1410360/
” the nearest big city has a population of about 1,800.”
that’s not even a town.
Mayor of Houston just gave a good brief and sitrep. Very down to earth. I like him even more now (at least as a person, don’t really know his politics.) Slapped down reporter who asked why mandatory evac wasn’t issued for (basically) all of Houston and Harris County. 6.2 million people. Where would they go? Lots more would die on the road than if they stay home. Admitted that it’s impossible to evac Houston. Food for thought, esp considering a shipping container full of nuke material in the port, just for example.
n
“that’s not even a town”
We do have several huge metropolises within 30 or 40 miles of us. Elkin (4,000 people), West Jefferson/Jefferson (3,000), Galax (7,000), and Mt. Airy (10,000!).
Water getting into the master bedroom, which is lower than the rest of the house. Some seepage in the dining room. All the critical stuff is on counters, etc. I have critical files pushed to the cloud and a backup is about done of the wife’s computer. Mine was backed up a week ago.
We might get a slacking of the rain in a while, and if it breaks for an hour or two we might be in not too bad shape. If the house gets bad, we might relocate to somewhere else for a bit and decide on selling to a developer or fix it up. We do have flood insurance.
Yeah, Saint Albans itself, three miles up the road, is another huge metropolis, at around 7,000, tops. But of course we have Burlap just 30 miles away at about 50,000 and it’s a college town straddling a couple of busy major roads and just off the interstate. 75 miles north of us is the island city of Moh-ree-all, but any major evac or golden horde situation will occur toward its southwest, along the Saint Lawrence to Ottawa and Toronto.
Let’s hope Mr. ech and family are OK; he sounds like they’re about ready to bail out.
Good luck Mr. ech. I hope you have ServPro or similar on speed dial and flood insurance to cover everything.
“The reactive opposites are decentralization and individual autonomy. Individuals now have unprecedented capacities to wage violence, communicate, and compute. Since World War II governments are batting virtually zero trying to suppress insurgencies waged by guerrillas fighting on their home turf. Try as they might to suppress the Internet, they can’t go too far without severing their economies from the backbone of the information economy. Individuals perform computing feats on their smart phones that were beyond the capabilities of room-size computers fifty years ago. These are the forces pushing back against governmental centralization and coercion.”
https://straightlinelogic.com/2017/08/27/supervolcano-alert-by-robert-gore/
And another “march on Washington;” maybe this will be the trigger. Apparently a bunch of slaver Confed statues along the route to destroy.
https://theslot.jezebel.com/a-ten-day-march-from-charlottesville-to-washington-is-s-1798463710
They say they will “occupy” Mordor. I’d like to see that trick.
Core Democratic constituency. The area is heavily populated in what matters to the MSM. The only thing better would be if the area were mainly occupied by Mohammedan refugees.
Now, I’m not saying that 90% of tradesmen should be put to death in painful, creative, and amusing ways…
And they should be allowed to die. The species has a surfeit of stupid members. It’s kind of rough on the kids who are too young to be held responsible for their own safety and survival, but if their parents are that stupid, odds are that the kids are stupid, too.
The good thing about pulling down Confederate statues is that they make the Second Revolution not to have happened.
And that means we can make slavery not to have happened. No reparations, no guilt trips, no more excuses!
Alternatively, it means we can make emancipation not to have happened. Back in the fields, slaves!
Sauce for the goose and all that.
Except that they won’t stop at Confed statues; they’re already going for Jefferson and Washington and where will it end? What about the fiat currency? The stamps? All the schools, streets, roads, bridges, buildings, etc., etc., ad infinitum?
The thing with the commies is that nothing will ever be good enough or solved; the war goes on permanently. The struggle must continue! Until they’ve racked up enough of a body count and the country lies in ruins, of course. To wit, oh, never mind; it’s tiresome to list them all so far. And today’s marchers and smashers evidently have no idea of that past century of misery and squalor and atrocities. “But we have to keep trying….” No you don’t and not on our watch, fummamuckers.
True, but irrelevant. The main purpose of my proposals is to make the grievance whores shit themselves to death, or have apoplexy all the way unto coma, or die in some other fitting fashion. I’m following the guidance of my self-professed betters on the Left: truth does not matter. All that matters is rhetoric to achieve an effect. And the effect I want is the death of my enemies.
Now, I’m not saying that 90% of tradesmen should be put to death in painful, creative, and amusing ways…
The problem isn’t so much the tradespeople as it is the management and the sales personnel. Most of the time, the employees who do the actual work aren’t the ones ignoring the phone calls.
@ech, you are in Meyerland? Brayswood?
We’re still good here on the west side… my station is saying 7.7 since 1am.
Addicks is filling up, it’s already over SH6.
n
And another “march on Washington;” maybe this will be the trigger. Apparently a bunch of slaver Confed statues along the route to destroy.
8 miles a day actually marching? End of August into the beginning of September? The snowflake generation? That’s not gonna happen.
With all of this mess, I’m surprised there hasn’t been more fuss in Texas about the statues of and number of things named for the state’s founding fathers who ranged from outright slave owners (Houston) to leaders having a “flexible” attitude about the practice (Austin).
For the same reason we don’t have our marches turn into riots….. homey don’t play that.
HPD jumps on that mess right away.
n
“And they should be allowed to die. The species has a surfeit of stupid members.”
–it’s a common complaint about PA and prepper fiction that the heroes are hyper-competent and well prepared…. but disasters, true disasters, tend to naturally select for those attributes. The stupid and lazy die off quickly…
n
HPD jumps on that mess right away.
With the major cities in Texas facing insolvency problems due in part to police pensions, the situation in this state could get real interesting in a few years.
I like where we live, but our property taxes are already brusing up against $9000 for ~3000 sq ft, half of which is for the local ISD to p*ss away money on things like HOK-designed football stadiums. In seven years (when our youngest finishes high school), the way things are going, we’ll have no choice but to get out.
I am in Meyerland near S. Rice at Beechnut. Do have flood insurance, btw.
“the local ISD to p*ss away money on things like HOK-designed football stadiums.”
–turn it into an opportunity. Sh!t like that puts the food on our table. and we make money on both ends, when they buy the stuff (wife), and when they sell it off at auction (me).
n
“hyper-competent and well prepared….”
That would be our group. Nothing fictional about it.
Our property taxes are about a third of that, and they’ll be further cut when I do the paperwork for my disabled vet status. We’re lucky in that there are still several large manufacturers in the town, including big Ben & Jerry’s plants. And several others.
Buy B&J ice cream. Never mind the hippie-dippie fake-commie founders.
“Our property taxes are about a third of that”
We’re in the county rather than the city. ISTR that ours are something like $1,200/year. Of course, we have to pay $27/month for weekly garbage pickup, so call it $1,500/year equivalent.
–turn it into an opportunity. Sh!t like that puts the food on our table. and we make money on both ends, when they buy the stuff (wife), and when they sell it off at auction (me).
As the ISDs get bigger budgets and more students, the major players get the contracts to sell off the surplus. In the last year, Round Rock ISD has held just one public sale, and that event was just for heavy furniture that the neighborhood Indian and Pakistani electronics resellers won’t touch.
A lot of the surrounding agencies and ISDs sell at online auctions. The richer the ISD the better the salvage.
n
State surplus store in austin sells online too.
n
I’d put the unprepared portion of the population at 99%. I remember Jeb! Bush got into minor trouble in Florida near the end of his term about 12 years ago when he asked (paraphrasing), “Who lives here and doesn’t keep a few days worth of canned goods in the pantry?”
Lots of Floridians, Jeb!. Not very many natives or even near-natives left in the state.
My friend in Jacksonville, Florida calls it Floriduh !
Only Cherry Garcia. Otherwise Blue Bell or HEB’s Creamy Creations.
One rain gauge here says a hair over 1″. I’m pretty sure the nearby tree is blocking. The other gauge is a bit over 1.5″. It’s 20 feet from the house but…. more blocking. The rain is coming from the northeast and usually at a 30 or so degree angle. The wind was extra gusty a while ago and the bedroom windows were wet to the top.
I was raining when I went to bed last night. It was raining when the old dog wanted out at 5:30. It was raining when another wanted out at 7 and has not stopped. No run-off, no puddles in the usual places.
We lived in north Austin in a neighborhood whose entrance was a block north of where Breaker Ln. crosses Lamar. Maybe 1800 climate controlled sq ft. You bet! If the room didn’t have a air vent it didn’t count…. so add on a 12 ft sq laundry room and a two car garage with a 12 feet sq “shop”. All brick exterior. Taxes 24 years ago ran about $1800. The city annexed the neighborhood a couple of years later, so no telling what Austin charges.
We moved out here to a Jim Walter house about the same physical size as the old house but no garage. Sitting on an acre of land. Taxes are about $1300 a year. Oh, plus another $50 for the other 25 acres. Sure, I don’t have cable TV or city water and sewage and trash collection. The nearest neighbor is about 1000 feet away. We manage to suffer along without neighbors 20 feet away.
If you needed any confirmation that the vast majority of people are stupid, just scroll thru the comments on this pic
https://twitter.com/MattSitkowski/status/901782145814978560
TL:DR
it didn’t take long for it to be …. Trump’s fault, globull warmening, wrath of god take your pick.
The picture is of the great big ditches doing what they are DESIGNED TO DO, by the way. The streets and highways are DESIGNED as water detention and flood control channels. EVERY DROP of that water is water that is NOT in someone’s house.
Houston floods. We get hurricanes. It’s what happens. We are built with that in mind. They’ve made great strides since Allison, and Katrina/Rita, and Ike. It’s like complaining about hot days in Phoenix or cold days in Nebraska. Is this bad, yes. Is it Armageddon? no. will the dead rise and walk the earth? NO, they’ll swim. 🙂
“ordinary fuckin’ people, I hate ’em.” – Harry Dean Stanton in Repo Man [cult classic]
n
Is it Armageddon? no. will the dead rise and walk the earth? NO, they’ll swim.
Ok, _that’s_ funny.
The Swimming Dead?
WRT taxes… I pay on 2 properties and my business. The most unfair is ‘business personal property’ as it is tax on items you already paid tax on, and it repeats every year.
That said, we don’t have state income taxes. That saves me 9% of my Federal tax burden (what I paid in Cali.) Our state wide AVERAGE for sales tax is 6.25% and most years we get a deduct on our Federal tax based on either our actual sales tax spending or a standard deduction, IIRC it was $2500 one year. Nice. Cali is base of 8.25
n
“a Cat 4 hurricane making landfall in a heavily populated area.”
Where it landed is far from “heavily populated”. It’s mostly poor and working class, and heavy industry and ports. There are several big terminals and refineries down there and big chemical plants, but relatively few people. They were able to evacuate and shut down a whole county right there.
THAT saved us. If it had turned north toward houston, it would be a different story.
The world biggest plastics plant is in Point Comfort, TX. Right next to Port Lavaca (across the Lavaca bay). That plant makes 200 million tons of plastic film and pellets a year. They are getting ready to add another 100 million ton/year train (they have two trains now).
IMHO, a 147 mph Cat 4 hurricane in Houston would literally kill a million people from wind damage and storm surge. And since we only have one north-south interstate in the Houston area, there is no way to get out.
Channel 13, WFAA, is carrying an awesome 24 hours news feed right now. It is streaming at
http://www.wfaa.com/news/live_breaking/tropical-storm-harvey-coverage/32629471
All of the school districts in the Houston area just announced that they are going to be closed all this week. Many of the schools are flooded. School was opening here in Fort Bend County tomorrow.
I just got a picture of my brother’s house 8 blocks away from Brays Bayou inside 610. He has six inches of water in his garage and two ft of water in the street. His street is 8 ft higher than North Braeswood. That means that Brays Bayou is at least a 1/2 mile wide. His house is 4 ft higher than the garage though so they are good.
Folks, we are still forecast for another 20 inches of rain over the next four days.
“ordinary fuckin’ people, I hate ’em.” – Harry Dean Stanton in Repo Man [cult classic]
Harry Dean Stanton is awesome in the “Twin Peaks” reboot. I’ll be disappointed if the season wraps and he doesn’t feature prominently in the resolution of the major storyline.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/After-floods-surfaced-the-casket-of-a-woman-6299995.php
At least she stayed dead….
n
And decent of the other funeral home to take care of the whole thing for him, too. This kinda chit happens all the time; a lot of cemeteries were laid out along scenic rivers and lakes and guess what? We’ve had caskets floating down the rivers up here, too. Back in those days nobody was drilling holes in them to avoid future flood flotations.
Another sunny day up here with blue skies, temps in the high 60s, bloody perfect! I am on the outside yard details accordingly, as best I can manage them.
All the local school districts are off this coming week. That means that some of your employees are home stuck on childcare.
As an exercise for the reader, assume they are home due to widespread illness/ pandemic threat which has closed the schools. What percentage of your workforce won’t be coming in? How many can telecommute, as long as everything stays up? What does your cash flow look like? How many of your customers are NOT buying because THEIR employees are at home with the kids? How long can you survive this? What is your plan to minimize the damage to your business? [what is your EMPLOYER’s plan?]
Houston’s economy and productivity are gonna take a big hit, both for the direct damage and for the time and effort diverted toward fixing the issues. On the other hand, a lot of places will be needing the stuff my wife sells. There is opportunity in every situation. Is your business capable of grabbing those opportunities?
n
There is opportunity in every situation. Is your business capable of grabbing those opportunities?
Very well put nick. !!!
My grandfather made a fortune in the depression. He always told me that every disaster is someone’s opportunity.
Just to give you an idea of how corrupt CNN news has become. They are reporting two deaths from the storm, big headlines.
“A woman who drove her vehicle into high water in Houston was killed, and fire killed a man in Rockport.”
Uh, those were not storm related. Driving into high water is a stupid act that has nothing to do with weather. Dying in a house fire has nothing to do with the storm.
Here is a clue CNN. No deaths have yet been the result of the storm. You have manufactured headlines to boost your ratings with tabloid reporting. Report the facts, not your illusions of grandeur.
Guess they’re not counting the looter shot to death by a homeowner for some reason…
n
Maybe the looters had dusky skin so reporting a couple of shot looters would be raycist.
Hey Mr. H. Combs, just curious, what did grandpa do?
Wife is getting reports that the flood doors that were supposed to protect the underground utilities and facilities in downtown Houston failed. There will be lots of ‘opportunity’ for replacing electrical equipment and switchgear….
n
“The Swimming Dead?”
What network, CBS, Showtime, or CMT?
Except that they won’t stop at Confed statues; they’re already going for Jefferson and Washington and where will it end? What about the fiat currency? The stamps? All the schools, streets, roads, bridges, buildings, etc., etc., ad infinitum?
Some moron tried to blow up a Christopher Columbus statue here the other day. Yes, he was white. Yes, he had prior explosives charges. He did federal probation before. He’ll do ten in Big Spring now.
Lynn, he was trying to blow up the Dick Dowling statue in Hermann park on the South side near the bayou and golf course. He had been early released from probation last year. He promised to be good and study chemistry with good intentions. As I recall, he has wealthy parents.
They just changed the peak forecast height for the Brazos River to 59 ft. That is 4.3 ft higher than the “new” peak set last year, 54.7 ft.
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=HGX&gage=RMOT2
Our levee here in Greatwood is supposedly good for at least 61 f, maybe 63 ft, I am not sure. The old river gauge at Richmond supposedly read 61 ft in the 1913 flood. They replaced the Richmond river gauge 50+ years ago and did not correct the old readings to it. But that was before the ten dams were built up river into Oklahoma. I think that my office building is good for 67 ft on the Richmond river gauge.
Lynn, he was trying to blow up the Dick Dowling statue in Hermann park on the South side near the bayou and golf course.
Huh, I got him mixed up with another MZB. Isn’t there a Christopher Columbus stature around here that someone messed with last week or so ?
BTW, I went to Dick Dowling junior high in 1972 – 73. It was a good school back then.
Well, the Corps of Engineers announced they are doing some releases from Barker and Addicks dams. More water for downtown and med center.
Currently 31 ft of water in Addicks. 17 more and we’re over the top. they are predicting we won’t get there, but will be above the last high water mark.
then he lied and said there was no cause for concern, but followed that up with a statement about how they are constantly patrolling the dam. Why patrol if you have no concerns?
Since school is out, I’m not worried about my kids, but there are a lot of houses next to the dam.
n
BTW I’ve been going thru my food pile and am finding a lot more was eaten by my pest than I thought. There are a whole bunch of empty packages….
n
Uh, perhaps y’all need to move upstream when you can. But, you know that already.
There are some really nice places around SA and north along 281.
Toxic masculinity and privilege.
“If he’s still single by nightfall, I’ll be disappointed in you Texas ladies.”
(H/T: Instapundit)
Hey Mr. H. Combs, just curious, what did grandpa do?
He started as a history / football teacher at a high school. Then bought a movie theater in the late 20s. Turned that into a chain of theaters and drive-ins. Used the cash flow from the theaters to buy property cheap in the depression. Then he would develop housing estates and shopping centers. When I was a kid driving with him he would point out a block of houses or a retail mall and say “There’s my retirement”. He tried to put together a consortium to buy one of the Hawaiian islands in the 60s. We visited Hawaii several times with him looking for opportunities. He had an intuition for finding property that would appreciate in the future.
My favorite comment on the rescue pic, said with total seriousness by someone with a “Resist” avatar- “Yes, sarcasm is very helpful right now. Thank you so much. What would we do without your comments making light of a tragedy? I dunno.”
I guess we’ll just have to muddle on despite all the lefties blaming trump, globull warming, and white privilege for the disaster– in every comment thread I’ve read so far.
n
In the mean time, antifa assholes are apparently running wild in berkley…
n
H. Combs wrote:
“My grandfather made a fortune in the depression.”
My (paternal) grandfather had the opposite experience. He bought a large chunk of our suburb just before the Depression. When the arse fell out of the market for vacant blocks of land and the local council was pressing for rates he offered them a block in lieu. Nope, they wanted the dough. He survived the depression financially and for my father’s 21st (in 1945) gave him two adjoining blocks of land upon which the family home was built.
Our family never had much luck with real estate or the share market.
Well, in my ongoing battle with memory leakage in FireFox, I have thrown in the towel and loaded Ublock Origin. Voila ! No more memory leakage.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
I just wonder what is going to happen as more and more websites block browsers running Ad Blockers.
My travails are somewhat documented at:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1392137
I have to kill FF in Task Manager several times a day when it hangs. Driving me nuts.
Any suggestions on good addons? Especially to block popups. (The Chron had gone from annoying to intollerable.)
Our family never had much luck with real estate or the share market.
It is easy. Just buy high and sell low. Or, is it buy low and sell high ? I seem to usually buy low and sell low.
Cops are investigating a possible tornado touchdown at U of H
n
I have FF (latest) and uBlock (latest). I had memory problems and slowdowns with previous FF versions, but those haven’t happened for about 6 weeks.
Of course, I have the latest versions of FF 55.0.2 (32-bit). Whoops, just notices at the Help, About screen that I need to restart FF to get the update.
Wait one…
Exited FF, restarted, auto-update to 55.0.3 (32-bit). Used History, Restore Previous Session . All is well.
Brazos river levees may over top Tuesday, a mix of mandatory and voluntary evacuations tomorrow. Hope Lynn is outside that zone.
Also, FEMA is doing a full court press. Boats and crews from California showed up. Coast guard sent a 3 star to oversee ops and 50% of their choppers east of Rockies in US are here now.
Hey Mr Ech, you guys ok?
n
My brother, living 8 blocks off Brays Bayou inside 610 loop, has 200 people in his house. His house is the highest house in his neighborhood since he built it 5 ft above the ground. They are air lifting people out of his neighborhood now.
Mrs. OFD and I are both fretting over our friends in TX; hoping y’all are still OK.
WRT browsers: I have several tabs open in FF now w/o issue so far, but have imported all my bookmarks and am now mostly using the Brave browser. When I do searches in FF I use StartPage.
On schedule for dumping everything Google by Labor Day. Assholes.
Got my first homework assignment for the lab course already and did it already; couple of chapters in the book and some exercises. I got the book off AMZ and dumped it to my Kindle Fire for $25 less than either the new or used price at the college bookstore or in paperback from AMZ. Even so, it was still $73. Damn. But the VA will cover it for me.
Wife is at her AirBnB place in Sacramento and it’s 103. 63 here in Retroville.
From the Department of Bag Jobs:
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/08/26/evidence-suggests-charlottesville-was-a-complete-set-up/
And probably cooked up months before by the commies and their asshole enablers in gummint and the cop shops.
Someone really is trying to trigger something big.
And from the Department of Push-Backs:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-25/damores-revenge-google-faces-growing-legal-threats-other-googlers-come-forward
Along with the church lawsuits against the SPLC and AMZ.
Unfortunately, Google owns the Tube:
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/08/27/youtube-economically-censors-ron-paul-labels-videos-not-suitable-for-all-advertisers/
I’m grabbing what I can that I’ve identified as being useful here, and then ditching that, too. Waiting to see if they shit-can Jimmy Dore, too, because, though a flaming Bernie prog, he relentlessly hammers the Dems and Cankles supporters and other assorted libtard assholes. And is funny about it. Looks like Paul Watson is done and gone back to InfoWars. He was a riot, too. And Gavin McGinness, ditto.
The high quality content is because of the low ad noise….
and the relatively small number of readers. Much higher signal to noise level than bigger sites.
n
added- most of the frequent commenters here are philosophically opposed to ads and run a variety of adblocking tools.
added some more—and many of us won’t EVER go back to sites that use various ads-in-our-face techniques and pop-ups and paywalls.
Plus we’re mostly a bunch of cantankerous wingnut pricks and killers. Best to avoid.
Brazos river levees may over top Tuesday, a mix of mandatory and voluntary evacuations tomorrow. Hope Lynn is outside that zone.
The Brazos River is currently forecast to go to 59 ft on the Richmond gauge Tuesday evening. I just found out that our levee is shorter than I had thought. Our levee is only 60 ft leaving one foot of freeboard. If this is truly the case then we are going to bug out tomorrow to the office since it is 10 ft higher. I will take mattresses and a few items that I can truck out reasonably. I honestly thought our levee was taller since there was a Brazos River flood in 1913 at 61 ft.
https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=hgx&gage=rmot2
The Greatwood Levee
Posted on http://www.greatwooddistricts.com/
Urgent Notice
8/27/17 At 10:20 p.m.
Fort Bend County Judge Hebert issued a voluntary evacuation order for many neighborhoods in Fort Bend County including Greatwood. The National Weather Service is projecting the Brazos River will rise to unprecedented levels. If the Brazos River reaches the projected levels (59′ at the City of Richmond gauge), there will be less than 1 foot of freeboard between the Greatwood levee and the flood waters. It is possible the River will reach the top of the Greatwood levee in certain locations. The expected time for the River to reach this level is Tuesday evening. Our concern is if the projected levels are actually higher, the Brazos River could exceed the height of the levee. Fort Bend County Levee Improvement District No. 11 is taking all precautions to protect against breaches of our levee, but you should carefully consider your family’s safety and individual circumstances in this situation. It is impossible to predict the actual River levels and its potential impact on the Greatwood community. IF the levee breaches or overtops, it will be impossible to exit Greatwood at that time. Please continue to listen to local media as well as the Fort Bend County OEM website. At this time evacuations are only voluntary.
@lynn, your cabinets full of food and water at the office will prove their worth. Don’t forget something to cook with and eat off of.
I hope you don’t need to bug out, but if you think you might — GO. The one universal we’ve seen is that by the time you decide it’s already too late. At least make a trip with some stuff immediately. You will be able to judge the route, and move more stuff.
n
My gun store buddy is trapped on the second floor of his house.
ADDED- he and his wife intend to stay there until morning light, then reassess. They are secure and dry, currently have power and OTA tv.
BtW, I expect infrastructure to start failing tomorrow, Tues at the latest. Water, sewer, power…
n
Lift stations and substations will fail due to flooding first.
Likewise, those of you in Texas are in my thoughts as well.
The weather radar doesn’t look good..
Stay safe..
I’m off to bed. We got 12+ inches in the last 24hrs. but our neighborhood is still draining and the street is currently empty of water. It looks like we’ll get a break for a while. We need it.
n
@Mr. Lynn: what Mr. Nick said; don’t wait too long to move on out.
Best wishes to all down there in the great Lone Star State.
Pax vobiscum, fratres…
We are going to bug out unless things get radically better tomorrow. I figure that I have a 10% chance of getting 8 ft of water in my house Tuesday night. Just too much of a risk to take. Plus, if the water comes over the levee then the bridges out of here will already have three foot of water on them.
And my son is trapped in his neighborhood so he cannot help. His house is high so he is safe from flooding. And he has plenty of water, food, and ammo.
And no, I do not have flood insurance. I have a levee … and irresponsible levee directors.
56 years ago I started to get my radio licensebut I procrastinate. Now because of RBT I have a general license, thank you.
I find the Australian media a better source of info than the US…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-28/tropical-storm-harvey-houston-flooding-tipped-to-worsen/8850396
“56 years ago I started to get my radio license but I procrastinate. Now because of RBT I have a general license, thank you.”
Congratulations!
That is some epic-level procrastination.
Congrats Mike D.
Long wait, but now you have it.
n
I sure am glad that we are at 440-feet above highest flood stage.
It used to be that you could only get flood insurance if you were in a flood plain. However the Big Insurance was losing too much money and started to sell flood insurance to anyone. I looked into it, it would be more than 5-times more than our current home insurance rate. Considering that there is not another Pleistocene glacial outburst flood on the horizon I’ll take my chances.
WRT Firefox:
Many people have problems because they have way too many extensions/plug-ins running in Firefox. Add to that other programs/apps you have running in the background and you are setting yourself up for problems.
I continually test/try 64-bit Firefox and IMHO it is still a long way from Prime Time.
Keep your Firefox up-to-date and minimize the extra stuff and you will have a far more pleasant experience.
Finally, if you are using a VPN, some of them really slow down Firefox.
I’m dumping Firefox, too; they’re just as compromised as Google and have very unsavory bedtime playmates now, like Soros.
Yes, I know; the media and browser tentacles reach into everywhere nowadays and it’s getting harder to pick and choose what we use and what we actually NEED to use. I don’t need Google or Firefox, and when I can manage it, I won’t need Apple or Microsoft anymore, either.
FF64 running here & at home. uBlock & Evernote plugins. No problems. YMMV.