National forecast has Houston in clear weather for the next three days. Goes without saying it will be hot and humid. Beautiful just a couple of hours north though. Ah well, it is what it is.
Started yesterday at the BOL, did a bunch of work, and came home. Now I get to do a bunch of work here too. It’s all the normal stuff, plus the stuff that got put aside. I don’t know what I’d do if I could actually catch up. Up north I didn’t get back to my garden weeding, it was just too hot in the sun, so the carrots will have to compete with the grass for another week. Here I’ve got grass to mow, gardens to weed, and maybe some blueberries to harvest, if the birds didn’t get them. Plus a ton of stuff to move or put away, or organize.
Then there is all the stuff that needs fixing… and that is a growing pile too. And the hurricane season has officially started, so there is all the normal hurricane prep to do. This is not the time I’d have picked for rotating stored gas, but again, it is what it is.
It will be a short work day for me on top of everything else, as D2 has a swim meet tonight.
Monday is not my fun day.
But hey, no rest for the wicked.
Do some stacking. Don’t get caught lacking.
n
Let us not also forget that this is the anniversary of one of the greatest military operations in history. Where thousands of brave men, on both sides, lost their lives. I cannot imagine being in one the assault vehicles knowing that I may very well be seeing my last sunrise. Those were some exceptionally brave men. Large chunks of Europe owe their existence to the sacrifices made by those men.
It is the sign of a feeble mind which is unable to make a valid statement and has nothing of value to contribute. My suggestion is that everyone ignore, not respond, to the individual involved. Responding only serves to fuel their desire to make waves. Having no friends and only able to antagonize others must be a very miserable existence.
I don’t mind dissenting viewpoints. I often disagreed with RBT. Name calling was never involved. I don’t mind being corrected when I am incorrect. I don’t like being called names or other use of disparaging comments. Attack the viewpoint, but not the person putting forth the viewpoint. To have one individual attempt to turn this blog into a cesspool of name calling and personal attacks is not warranted or civilized. Rational human beings can do better, irrational people no other choice as they live on the left side of the bell curve.
Spousal unit and I have a trip to Texas planned for early August. I know, hottest time of the year. Big concern is what I will have to pay for gas. I figure at least $1,000.00. At least there is, well today, gas available. Unlike the shortages of 1974 when the government got involved with price controls.
I talked with a couple making a trip from California to North Carolina pulling a travel trailer. Using an F-150 they get about 10 MPG. They had planned the trip about a year ago. Now they are saying their fuel costs have tripled from what they had planned. Nothing they can as they have to travel or lose a lot more money in reservations in RV sites and the occasional hotel already booked.
Biden and the democrats are destroying the economy. They are all so short sighted they fail to see the long-term impact of their policies. Biden shuts down oil reserves and pipelines. Now he is planning to buy more oil from foreign entities. That is just flat out stupid.
Shortages created by executive orders. Baby formula not available because a plant was shut down in a knee jerk reaction. Billions in profits to covid vaccine manufactures. All accomplished to benefit the few while destroying others.
$15.00 an hour minimum wage mandated to be paid by federal contractors. Significantly affects my area due to the nuclear facilities all under federal contract. Prices are significantly higher as other businesses are being forced to pay more for labor. That is increasing the cost of the product. People may be paid more, but their buying power has not increased. Democrats don’t understand that concept.
I also fail to see the rationale for sending billions to foreign countries that generally hate the U.S. when the U.S. is unable to pay its own bills. Trump had it right, the U.S. should be the first consideration. Other countries always place themselves first. The U.S. has sent substantial aid to other countries when those countries have a disaster. Yet those countries have sent nothing to the U.S. when the U.S. faces a disaster. Thanks for the statue France, but that does not pay the bills.
Democrats are all about control and maintaining their elite status. They have placed themselves in positions of power and that power has corrupted them. They are hooked, addicted, attached to that feeling of power and will do whatever is necessary to benefit themselves. Giving money to people is not to benefit the recipients, but to buy votes to keep the democrats in power.
Hopefully the sagging economy, high fuel prices and shortages will wake people from their slumber. Perhaps the voters will realize the democrats went too far in their quest for power and have severely impacted the economy.
A nice summary by Kim Dotcom of what the NWO is planning:
This may be the most important thread I ever make.
This is not news to most of us here. The only way the FUSA survives is to nationalize all debt and flip the bird to the Bilderberg. We need a tRumpian President and Congress. Even then, two terms is a mere course correction.
You know it’s the end when Kim Dotcom is the voice of reason.
My suggestion is that everyone ignore, not respond, to the individual involved. Responding only serves to fuel their desire to make waves.
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
Until and unless NaN wants to join the conversation as opposed to crashing it, then a good old shunning is the way to go.
You know things are getting bad. My spouse (not a prepper) thinks we should start getting some food put aside as she has heard that things are going to get bad.
Finally! Now to figure out what food to stack given a restrictive budget.
It seems according to the mainstream media that anytime two or more people are killed and/or injured, in any combination, that it qualifies as a mass shooting. I did not know that a mass of people was two or more. Of course calling such events a mass shooting fuels the agenda and sells news stories. Even gang events, such as Chattanooga, are now called mass shootings. Gang events are not mass shootings, they are gang wars and any loss of gang members is a benefit to society. Let the gang members kill themselves, good riddance. To call mass shootings rather than gang wars is probably racist and not politically correct.
The media, and democrats, are failing to recognize that the AR-15 style of weapon has been around for 50+ years. Originally developed for use in Vietnam, the weapon has remained popular. I trained using such a weapon while in the military. Easy to break down and clean, shoots well and accurate, reliable, well at least today. The first couple of iterations were subject to jamming.
If the congress critters are successful in banning the AR-15, some other weapon will be used by the thugs. Then that weapon will now become the subject of banning. I had a .22 semi-automatic rifle when I was a youngen. I could easily fire off 15 rounds in three or four seconds. Once congress starts restricting weapons that is a snowball that will just get bigger.
At the Ford dealership, place where I bought my truck, getting the vehicle serviced. Walked into the showroom, only two vehicles. One that caught my eye was Shelby Mustang. Factory price is $105,000.00, dealer add-ons (wheels, brake calipers, rotors, etc.) tack on another $30K. The sticker an that vehicle is $135K. A vehicle with no back seat, a trunk that barely holds a Yeti cooler, a cheap looking interior (all black, yuck). But it will go fast.
@Darryl, Nick zeroed in on that a couple of weeks ago, with one of the best recommendations I’ve seen. This would work for even a small apartment, as the 5 gallon buckets can just be stacked in a closet or a corner:
Just buy a couple bags of rice each trip, leave it in its package, and toss it into a 5 gallon bucket. And you have nutritious food. Add a few Bay Leaves (from the spice aisle) to keep weevils away (yes, it really works. If if doesn’t you’ll have to rinse the rice before cooking.).
Someone else has been recommending lentils instead of beans, because lentils cook faster, and unlike beans, they don’t get “hard” after a long time in storage.
I’ve always “stocked up” so my sons grew up with the concept, but they live in cities, where they can get anything at any time, so they’ve been more like your wife – not preppers. However, when one of them came down to visit for Memorial Day, he brought two 5 lb bags of rice, and a 10 lb bag of pinto beans, and asked me to add it to our stores. He said his adult children are growing concerned, about availability of gas as well as of goods. They’ve never encountered this kind of scarcity.
The key point.
LOL, Obola 2.0:
Biden will take executive action to ramp up domestic energy production (no, not of oil & gas)
There are no commercial solar panels available that will replace oil and gas. Another ploy to destroy the FUSA and convert to NWO Bilderberg rule.
OK, groomer6.
@Jenny, hand-pump sprayers can be frustrating – the O-rings always give out before I am finished – and I’ve never had a cheap one last longer than a month, if that long, so I usually treat them as a one-use disposable. But some jobs just go better if they are sprayed on. I can’t imagine trying to apply Thompson’s with a roller or brush… the stuff is like water LOL If you can’t afford one of the fancy sprayers, see if you have a leftover one with the battery in it around the house from either bug spray or roundup. Residue won’t hurt a thing for that job. I have a couple from Ortho Home Defense, but other brands make them too. I always save them after they are empty to avoid having to buy the crappy ones.
The so called ‘assault rifle’ ban had no significant effect on shootings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban
Of course, semi-automatic rifles are used in very few crimes. More people are killed each year in the US by hammers than rifles.
The scare quotes around ‘assault rifle’ is to differentiate between real assault rifles, automatic weapons like the M-16 and M-4, and semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15. There are a LOT of misconceptions about AR-15 like weapons.
I could go on for days, but this should be a good start.
@darryl,
To get some food stored quickly, and cheaply, besides the rice, which as pecancorner points out you can buy in smaller bags over time, I’d add canned veg, and something to flavor rice.
I have a couple of shoeboxes full of gravy mix. I’ll make gravy with it, but it’s mostly in there to dump over rice if that’s all there is. At $1/ packet, it’s more expensive than canned veg so I’d put off buying gravy, but bullion cubes, curry packets, soy sauce, etc. have cheaper per meal costs.
I tend to think in terms of “meals” rather than ‘calories’ because it seems more natural, and the calories from food are not actually interchangeable.
So for my BOL, I just took two flats of canned veg (24 cans) up to add to what is already there. With rice or pasta (or some homemade flatbread like tortilla) and a can or pouch of meat, and a can of veg, I have a (skimpy) meal for two adults and two kids. OF COURSE, I’ll add more if available, my normal meal now uses two cans of chicken added to whatever, but at a minimum, I’ve got one meal a day with that menu.
Add a big box of oatmeal, cream of wheat, or something else for breakfast, again, maybe not what you’d choose to eat every day now, but much better than nothing, and a way to stretch anything that is available. A lot of cultures eat rice for breakfast too, you might add a bag of sugar, a jar of cinnamon, or some other flavor to add to rice at breakfast.
Think about versatility with the ingredients. I stock more canned corn and peas because I know more ways to use them than green beans. Peas can go in curry, mixed veg with rice, shepards pie, or be eaten plain. Look for carrots and mixed veg, other kinds of beans, there are lots of canned veg (and starch) that you might not notice in the store normally, but def should look for.
I have canned cabbage (sauteed’), canned potatoes, canned kale/collards (sauteed), even canned boiled peanuts, along with lesser varieties of beans like lima, or red beans. I have canned red beans and rice that is actually a favorite of my wife’s for Girl Scout camping. Dump it in a pot, add sausage chunks (or not) and you have a quick meal.
Nicer canned food is more than $1/can, but adds variety and choices to your menu and it’s still pretty cheap.
Most groceries have an “ethnic” section that has some good stuff on the shelf. You might find a local asian grocery or “international” store too. They are all worth checking out. I first saw canned cream in the asian market, but found it in the baking section of my regular store too.
Protein is the big question mark for long term storage for most people. Fortunately there are so many choices compared to 20 years ago for Y2K prepping!
I stock costco chunk chicken in cans as my primary meat. It’s easy to get, and very versatile. I use it in several “Chicken Helper” box meals that the family likes, as well as chicken tacos, curry, and other meals.
I also stock shredded (pulled) pork in the same sized cans that costco used to sell in our store. They are available from other places too. These are very good and we eat the pork directly as sandwiches or mixed with bbq sauce.
I’ve got some cans of chicken with buffalo hot sauce stored, also from costco at one point.
Costco canned beef chunks are better than dinty moore in my opinion, but might not be available everywhere. I just add them to egg noodles for a hearty meal.
My asian store had canned regular sized hot dogs, from Holland of all places.
I’ve got spam, of course, in several flavors. D2 loves it and asks for sliced spam at breakfast, the rest of the family, not so much. The asian market had a wall o spam and spam knockoffs in all kinds of flavors.
I’ve got those canned “dutch” hams.
I don’t stack dinty moore beef stew, ‘cuz I don’t like it, but it used to be the most common non-tuna protein.
I do have some Sweet Sue canned chicken products, and some Swanson “Chicken a la king” cans.
I don’t stack much tuna or canned fish, except for variety.
I’ve got a tub full of pouch meat in several flavors. Our HEB grocery has several “hispanic” flavors, along with shredded beef, pulled pork, and bbq pork from american suppliers. I’ve found all of them to be tasty, and to last FAR past their best by date. (try searching for Chata, Rip-n-ready, Hereford.)
Of course, many people are shouting at their screens about beans. Beans can sub for meat as protein, I guess. So stack some. More about beans later.
I wouldn’t recommend starting with freeze dried foods, “emergency buckets”, or the more “prepper” canned meats. They are very expensive per serving. If you get lucky and find some at an estate or garage sale, by all means, grab them. They have a place in preps and if money is no object, ordering a pallet of mixed Mountain House is a great jumpstart to food security.
a quick word about beans. All the prepper sites list dried beans as a staple. I’d argue against them. They are cheap (I guess) and store forever, both good things. It might be worth having a bucket or two put back. For most people, CANNED beans are a much better choice. Canned beans are ready to eat. You can heat them quickly, or in extremis, eat them cold. You don’t need water or time, or fuel to prepare canned beans. Water, time, and fuel are all in short supply during a disaster, and maybe in a long term economic collapse too.
an even quicker word about rice. I store “minute” rice as well as buckets of normal rice for the same reasons I store canned beans. In a disaster (most likely use of my preps) time, fuel, and clean water are all in short supply. Minute rice is a quick way to get a lot of nutritious food on the table without spending time or energy. In fact, we ate more CANNED rice (see red beans and rice mentioned above) during the freeze than anything else. VERY dense energy delivery system!
Remember that you are not a backpacker. Canned and ready to eat NOW beats light weight, needs clean water and much cooking to be ready later.
To wrap up, start with rice, along with that stack some canned veg and canned beans. If budget allows, add canned meat too. Try for discrete “chunks” like “12 days of dinners” if it helps you organize, especially so you don’t end up with just rice, or just canned corn… buy 10 pound bag of rice, a flat of mixed veg in cans, and 12 cans of meat, for example. Add a box of something for breakfast. Do that every time you go to the store. Vary the meat, the veg, and the breakfast stuff each trip. Add flavors like sauce mixes, soup or bullion (can be added to rice or noodles, etc) when you have space or money left in the trip’s budget. Sub flour or prepared pasta for the rice on a trip or two…
STORING the stacks is a whole ‘nuther topic, see also the keyword “rats” on the right. In fact, the keywords on the right will lead to all the previous articles and comments that have been tagged, and are a good starting point (although not necessarily a well organized starting point). Posts with some sort of “book” tag are most likely to be relevant.
The search tool at the top of the page will search posts AND COMMENTS here. Remember that much of the value here is in the comments, so if the search returns a post that doesn’t seem to match, look thru the comments as it might have sparked a discussion there.
nick
(welcome back Darryl, glad to see you again.)
@rick, that long comment was the first ISE 500 error I’ve gotten since the server move. I had copied it before posting, thankfully.
n
And then I got a “secure connection failed” page upon reload.
n
I have a Korean pressure cooker rice pot from HMart which can cook normal rice quickly using a limited amount of energy, but using the thing is something I have yet to master completely.
The end result is always edible, but texture isn’t the same as an electric pot from Jojirushi, etc, either undercooked or burned.
I’ll have to make a point of restarting the experiments. The pot works with heat from the side burner of our gas grill.
If you want to see how far our currency has tanked compared to Korea, price the pots at HMart — I paid $70 for mine a decade ago, and the last time I looked, the same pot was over $150. The store puts them high on a shelf, requiring assistance from staff, for a reason.
@pecancorner
can’t imagine trying to apply Thompson’s with a roller or brush
Part of the deck railing abuts our property line, with the neighbors house, ferns, water feature immediately adjacent. I’ll use brush / roller there to ensure I don’t intrude. To tarp I’d have to go on his property. Simpler to do it the hard way.
I‘ve had my eyes on the Kobalt power sprayers that use the 40v batteries. I’ve got several of the Kobalt tools and they’re just right for my needs. The 40v battery chainsaw is shockingly good. We have taken down some substantial trees with ours. Keep it lubricated, use the 6ah battery, and sharp chain? Better than the gas ones on shared jobs.
Anyway – the cedar siding needs attention. That’ll include spraying a product. I’m not fooling around with a hand pump for that job!
@Darryl
I started with best bang for the buck with calorie density as my metric. I’m a nerd. Rice, beans, lentils. We’ve got more variety now but that’s where we started. Mice / shrew are a concern in my environment so most is in 5 gallon buckets. I’m not where I want to be with our preps but we work on it every month.
Our first target was for disruption caused by large earthquake, and then imagined incrementally more damaging quake. Next was imagined failure of the Port of Anchorage (it’s in desperately bad shape and our short sighted state elected officials are too busy playing election games every year to adequately fund its repair). A failure of our port would be a true disaster as it brings in something like 90% of our food / goods. It’s a very real possibility that it will fail.
The key is to start. I approached it as an investment and I bought stuff we would eat anyway.
I am ashamed that when my brain told me the date was important, I only thought of D-Day.
Today is also the anniversary of our late host’s birth, in 1953. RBT rarely made a big deal of it, but did mention it, in one of the most consistent uses of hexidecimal, and probably the only one I still see.
Put a bucket on the shelf in his memory…
n
Regarding 500 errors, etc….
The number of those has gone way down, I believe. You guys aren’t complaining as much about them.
I think the errors that Nick mentioned are related to the slow queries. Each page load requires a bunch of queries to the database (about 80). Some of those queries are against the comments table in the database, which is quite large here. Response time for all queries is about 9-12 seconds usually. That is higher than expected, even with the large size of the comments table. Response time should be less than 5 seconds.
The server move done two weeks ago has improved response time. Right now, the big bottleneck is the queries against the database. I think that is mostly because of the SQL server box that this site is connected to. It needs to be faster.
Yesterday, I sent off a message to the hosting support guys, detailing the information above. They seem to think that there is some database optimization that is needed. But that is not the issue – it is already optimized (there aren’t any ‘orphan’ type records in the database). I think it is the capabilities of the SQL server box.
They have offered to move the database to another box that has higher capabilities. That will probably happen starting tonight , or at least one evening this week. Should not affect site availability, I think, but good to be aware of it.
I’m hoping that moving to a new SQL server box will improve response times here. A page should load in under 5 seconds, even with the size of the various tables in the database. The issues here have been mostly server-capability-related. There is progress being made, and I am continually monitoring things.
Jenny, I have had this idea for decades, but haven’t needed it. I have an old galvanized steel pump sprayer that I used occasionally. The pump is not very effective, so I considered installing a Schrader valve to pressurize it using shop air, regulated to an appropriate pressure (20 psi?) of course.
One step further would be to connect t into a regulated air source. Or, just buy a suitable pressure tank plus a spray wand and hose. I also have a paint pressure pot that would work.
You get the idea. Everyone should have a small air compressor. I bought my Harbor Freight oilless pancake compressor for only $40 five years ago, and only use it occasionally, so it should last a long time. It is very noisy, but is one example. If I only had one compressor, it would probably be one of the $100 better units. But I digress.
I have tried a couple of the one-hand pump sprayers. They are convenient, but too small for your needs. How about one of those larger backpack sprayers? Thoughts.
Some sprayers are better than others… I sealed my whole fence with a hand pump sprayer. It could be related to the orifice size of the nozzle too, if it’s too big, you get a whole lot of product and release the pressure very quickly.
One of the Wagner “power painter” electric sprayers would probably work fine too, and they are not expensive.
n
On the subject of our late host, a reminder that if you suspect you have something going wrong in your body, go now, especially if you are of a mind that the collapse is coming soon.
Not all doctors are Progs. Mine – separate from my wife – is not, even if he has to suggest the jab on every visit to avoid problems.
One point of disagreement I had with RBT, albeit polite, was that the doctors were all Progs or at least leaned left. I understood where he was coming from having financially supported my wife’s associate and her idiot “cocktail blogger” pro (as in the Hunter Thompson sense of the word) alcoholic husband in Vantucky, but the reality is that the profession is all over the political spectrum.
If you *don’t* like your doctor … find a new doctor!
Getting a problem identified while the medical infrastructure is still relatively intact is another prep.
FJB. More inappropriate use of federal powers. Defense production act is for national defense priority items. Solar panels are ENTIRELY discretionary. And note the difference between ‘panel’ and ‘cell’. Panels are assembled from cells. IDK of any mass market manufacturer in the US making cells. I didn’t dig, but I’d bet money that the only cells made here end up on spacecraft or .mil projects.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10888977/Biden-use-executive-powers-kickstart-solar-power-waive-tariffs-Southeast-Asia.html
The irony of removing tariffs to increase imports in the name of building domestic production seems entirely lost on everyone involved in the article.
n
This is caused by lack of Gravatars.
This is caused by lack of Gravatars.
This is caused by lack of Gravatars.
Sunpower (?) is still trying to make a go of the facility that was part of Solarworld outside Portland.
Solarworld was Oregon’s Solyndra-style “green” energy boondoggle when we lived out there.
Solarworld never made money. My guess is that any US cell manufacturing facility is the ward of government at one or more levels.
The inflation is not just limited to people stuff. My dog’s science diet has jumped from $14.99 to $19.49 since Nov 2019. That is a 30% price increase in less than three years.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003CLAJ6E?tag=ttgnet-20/
Regarding 500 errors, etc….
The number of those has gone way down, I believe. You guys aren’t complaining as much about them.
I have not seen a 500 error since the move to the new web server box !
Congratulations !
Monday is not my fun day.
I see what you did there. The Bangles “Manic Monday”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsmVgoXDq2w
@MrAtoZ – your entreaties fall upon deaf ears….
Well, how about this, Rick:
The troll infestation is caused by lack of Gravatars.
The troll infestation is caused by lack of Gravatars.
The troll infestation is caused by lack of Gravatars.
We don’t have an infestation, we’ve got a mosquito buzzing around our ear. Rawles, and a variety of others that have had to put comment moderation in place had an infestation.
And his comment with links was well done, although I’d have disputed their authority, as Clayton did. {tips hat}
n
@SteveF – nope. The errors were happening before the troll proliferation. (If ‘proliferation’ indicates a quantity of one.)
Might be related to the knee-jerk reaction to a singular person’s comments. As in “no matter what the comment, I’ll disagree”. And “your comment is ‘troll-ish’ ”.
And a favorite quote “Don’t bother me with facts, my mind is made up!”. (See https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/02/13/confuse-me/ )
@greg, sunpower made panels, not cells, and they aren’t even doing that anymore.
https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/sunpower-to-stop-manufacturing-solar-panels
–even with tariffs, they couldn’t make them cheaply enough to be competitive.
n
I see what you did there.
–I do try to hide an egg every now and again…
n
I’m listening to a science news podcast which is currently doing a puff piece on a new “solar farm”. The genius “science journalist” just asked the spokesman if there’s a variation in output when the sun isn’t up.
Now, maybe I’m missing the point here, but I think that when the sun isn’t up, the output of a solar farm will be consistently well nigh zero.
Rick’s denial that problems are caused by lack of Gravatars is caused by lack of Gravatars.
Rick’s denial that problems are caused by lack of Gravatars is caused by lack of Gravatars.
Rick’s denial that problems are caused by lack of Gravatars is caused by lack of Gravatars.
Each page load requires a bunch of queries to the database (about 80).
…
They seem to think that there is some database optimization that is needed.
80 queries seems excessive for one page load.
Are the queries customizable? Is it possible to capture the queries to see where indexes may need to be added or tuned?
It would be handy to know the schema and existing indexes. Do you have access to SSMS against the database?
I’m very experienced with SQL Server and I will offer to help. I’ve seen order of magnitude improvements by adding indexes or modifying queries to force index usage.
I prefer “indices” but I gave up that fight a long time ago.
BTW, I got an internal server error and had to retype this. Then 3 more, and had to use the stub/edit trick.
I lost my quote formatting in the process.
@SteveF
OK, now you are just being redundant and repetitive.
Not true. The Tonopah solar plant on the NV/CA border puts out power 24/7. Er, the gas turbine backup probably helps at night. A little. To be fair, it is one of those molten sodium jobs that run steam turbines, so there is some energy output at night with out the gas turbines. The original company went bankrupt some years back, I think. And it only puts out 50% of what the design said it would produce. Your goobermint at work!
In other news…
Taco Bell is sold out of their resurrected Mexican Pizzas.
Solarworld definitely ran a fab in Hillsboro, OR, but I haven’t kept up with that story like I did when we lived out there.
The people I knew who worked in the building were jerks, recruited from a fab in Arizona with raises, relo packages, and flexible scheduling/work from home which wasn’t really possible in a manufacturing environment intended to be profitable. I wasn’t sad when Solarworld went bankrupt and canned 2/3 of the “bunny suit” people.
The biggest jerk I knew there was carrying $1 million in underwater mortgages between Ridgefield, WA and Arizona while both he and his wife had new Nissans, an SUV and a big truck. He wasn’t shy about finding my employment situation entertaining since he took grief for years in the fab industry over his lack of an EE degree, and his wife even tried to scam us out of our house equity — the only cash we had at the time — for a pinheaded retirement scheme after our FL house closed.
The fab belonged to … BP … (?) … up until 15 years ago, and, before that, it was an old chip facility for someone other than Intel. Maybe Analog.
A lot of solar cell fab boondoggles in the US were chip facilities which couldn’t keep up once architectures got into sub micrometer scale, repurposed at taxpayer expense in the hope of catching the “green” energy wave.
Spousal unit and I have a trip to Texas planned for early August. I know, hottest time of the year. Big concern is what I will have to pay for gas. I figure at least $1,000.00. At least there is, well today, gas available. Unlike the shortages of 1974 when the government got involved with price controls.
I just paid $100.00 (two $50 bills) to put 21.7 gallons of regular unleaded in my truck ($4.59/gal) which has a 38 gallon tank. And it was not full but close to it as my gas gauge was under a half tank when I started. I usually pay cash for my gasoline when I buy since those outside pumps have the most credit card ripoffs, I have been cloned twice in the past few years. I guess that I will need to start throwing three $50 bills at my gas station dude. I don’t carry $100 bills since they freak people out.
Let us not also forget that this is the anniversary of one of the greatest military operations in history. Where thousands of brave men, on both sides, lost their lives. I cannot imagine being in one the assault vehicles knowing that I may very well be seeing my last sunrise. Those were some exceptionally brave men. Large chunks of Europe owe their existence to the sacrifices made by those men.
I watched “Saving Private Ryan” again last year. I cannot imagine what bravery it took to be the first men to get in those junk beach landing craft and assault the beach. I have been all over the Gold Normandy beach and the cliffs that Rudder’s Rangers scaled. Simply amazing.
I was wondering why there were these huge holes in the ground above the beaches. And then I realized those were the 16 inch guns on the Iowa and the Missouri shooting Volkswagen sized shells at the beach to force the Germans back. The German 6 inch and 8 inch guns are still there, but they were spiked and welded shut.
Charles Schultz did a great job of tribute to those men assaulting the beach.
https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/2022/06/06
Pearls Before Swine: Pig Is Not Wrong
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/06/06
Yup, getting up before noon is a downer.
I saw that plant in the daytime on my trip to Ely Nevada. Awesome sight. Really bright. My first thought it must be an awesome bright sight at night. My second thought was a blank stare.
– yep, that’ll work, because nothing will put an end to speculation like obfuscation and secret details…
– how is that even possible? And who does that? Is there another ‘suicide’ in history like it?
– no mention of Arkan-cide?
–just another pervert who couldn’t live with himself? because nothing says “hey I did this” like driving 30 miles to somewhere you’ve never been and have no reason to even know about, and then
–musta been a pretty short barreled shotgun for that to have worked.
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10882101/Family-late-Clinton-advisor-Mark-Middleton-block-release-files-relating-suicide.html
>>
DemocratsPoliticians are all about control and maintaining their elite status. They have placed themselves in positions of power and that power has corrupted them. They are hooked, addicted, attached to that feeling of power and will do whatever is necessary to benefit themselves. Giving money to people is not to benefit the recipients, but to buy votes to keep thedemocratspoliticians in power.Sorry @Ray, but needed to FIFY. Things will only get more interesting when the Dems lose control of the House.
Spousal unit and I have a trip to Texas planned for early August. I know, hottest time of the year. Big concern is what I will have to pay for gas. I figure at least $1,000.00. At least there is, well today, gas available. Unlike the shortages of 1974 when the government got involved with price controls.
The gasoline and diesel shortages in 1973 were caused by the Arab Oil Embargo against the western nations of Europe and the United States in response to the USA involvement in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israel was losing the war and the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir had phoned President Nixon that she had just launched four F-86s with two nuclear weapons each to Cairo, Egypt. President Nixon begged her to call the planes back and said the USA would resupply Israel. She agreed and he sent over the 300 F-15 and other planes that we had in Germany. The pilots landed in Tel Aviv and were taken to a USA destroyer in the Mediterranean. The planes were refueled, rearmed, and Israeli pilots destroyed the huge tank column in the Sinai Peninsula. All of the Arab nations except Iran cut off the oil shipments to the western nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis
The gasoline and diesel shortages in 1979 were caused by Jimmy Carter’s new Department of Energy taking over gasoline distribution from the refinery jobbers. We were barely making it and the DOE decided that they would control distribution of gasoline and diesel in the USA. Their resulting mismanagement was a freaking disaster and was one of the factors that got Ronald Reagan elected President of the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis
And yes, one of Ronald Reagan’s first acts as President in 1980 was to cancel the Nixon price controls on crude oil and natural gas in the USA therefore causing an oversupply of the same in 1982 when I graduated from TAMU and looking for my first engineering job.
I think someone once referred to it as “the most inefficient gas turbine power plant in the US”.
>> I could go on for days, but this should be a good start.
This was interesting…
Debunking Every Major Mass Shooting Myth
I recall them lying about the reason for the 50%: Due to the exhaust trails from the jets flying from LV to LA.
I heard it was the chemtrails
Nice article
Vince Foster in Fort Marcy Park.
Another increment of the Clinton body count. It will probably continue to increase long after Bubba assumes room temperature.
Hmmm.
Getting a CloudFlare error from apple.developer.com. That’s probably not good.
I concur with your fix. Sleazebag, scumbag, cheater, liar, corrupt, worthless; all interchangeable when dealing with politicians.
I’ve got nine Whistling Duck ducklings in the office north pond today. Just about two inches tall each. They are all out on the water and mom and dad are in major protection mode. Dad just had to stand off six bachelors who wanted to eat the ducklings. The male ducks turn cannibalistic when they are not in relationship with a female duck. Very crazy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistling_duck
I’ve also got a buzzard taking a bath in the pond and a three foot tall crane walking around in the water, looking for small fish. But the turtles have eaten all the small fish so there is no food for him.
I few years ago I got a crisp new $100 bill from the bank because I wanted to see the security features for myself.
The security strip didn’t glow in the same UV light that worked so well on the $5, $10, $20, and $50 bills. I hastily took that $100 bill back to the bank. I don’t know for sure that it wasn’t legit, but I did freak out a little bit.
My kitchen sink faucet has gone south and something is broken inside. My plumber says replace it with Kohler. All of the Kohler faucets seem to be 1.5 gpm, is that good enough ? Me, I would like to have 10 gpm.
https://www.amazon.com/K-596-VS-Single-Hole-Three-Hole-3-function-Technology/dp/B001U6I1Y0?tag=ttgnet-20/
“Proud Boys Charged with Sedition in Capitol Attack”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/proud-boys-charged-with-sedition-in-capitol-attack/ar-AAY9u69
“Enrique Tarrio, the former chairman of the Proud Boys, and four other members of the far-right group were indicted on Monday for seditious conspiracy in connection with the storming of the Capitol last January, the most serious crime to be charged in the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation of the assault.”
“The sedition charges against Mr. Tarrio and his co-defendants — Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — came in an amended indictment that was unsealed in Federal District Court in Washington. The men had already been charged in an earlier indictment filed in March with conspiring to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which took place during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.”
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
I think part of that problem is that they’ve modified them so much over the last few decades (3rd version now?) that despite their best education efforts few people in retail seem to know what they should look like and aren’t comfortable accepting them as a result. I understand trying to stay a step ahead of the counterfeiters, but if they make a currency nobody accepts then what’s the point? Perhaps alter 20s to have a similar styling so people are more used to looking at it?
Remember that you are not a backpacker. Canned and ready to eat NOW beats light weight, needs clean water and much cooking to be ready later.
Amen !
At the swim meet. Real nice day to be sitting in the shade with a strong breeze by the pool. Weird not to be part of the dominant male pack running things.
N
Kitchen faucets are either1.5 gpm or 2.2 gpm, although I see some 1.75gpm on the Zon. The 1.5 is probably a result of restrictions on flow rate in some states.
The higher-flow rate are more expensive. And may not be available in your area due to state restrictions on flow rates.
Note that the design of some faucets don’t have a removable traditional aerator. This may be a problem in hard-water area. (You can check your toilet tank to see if your water is prone to small dirt particles/sand.).
The actual purpose of Biden’s order is to transfer money from the taxpayers to Democrat labor unions. It’s Solyndra squared.
Well, pretending to run things while the dominant female pack actually does……
N
Kitchen faucets are either1.5 gpm or 2.2 gpm, although I see some 1.75gpm on the Zon. The 1.5 is probably a result of restrictions on flow rate in some states.
The higher-flow rate are more expensive. And may not be available in your area due to state restrictions on flow rates.
I did find a 1.8 gpm model for the same price:
https://www.amazon.com/Kohler-K-560-VS-Single-Hole-Three-Hole-3-function/dp/B0053XPRIE?tag=ttgnet-20/
>>… male pack / female pack…
Are you a qualified biologist?
I like my Kohler faucet, which probably has about that as a flow rate. It is only tedious when I am trying to fill a gallon jug to water plants, or the spaghetti pot or the water bath canner.
Mine is more than 10 years old, and unfortunately is due for replacement – “they don’t make ’em like they used to”. But I will still replace it with another Kohler. The aerator piece broke, and I bought an attachment from China for a couple of dollars to replace it. The attachment doesn’t look as nice, but it has two settings: a wide spray that is great for rinsing dishes, and a narrow one that I use for filling that gallon jug mentioned above. I like that bit a lot more than the separate sprayer that I never use. However, with our water, the sprayer has had to be replaced twice, so our next faucet will not have a sprayer at all.
>> My kitchen sink faucet has gone south and something is broken inside. My plumber says replace it with Kohler. All of the Kohler faucets seem to be 1.5 gpm, is that good enough ? Me, I would like to have 10 gpm.
Last time I replaced a kitchen faucet I was able to remove a flow restrictor that was not shown in the parts diagram. Don’t recall its stated gpm.
The other thing to check for is the housing material – a lot are plastic, i prefer metal.
When the position is blown to shreds by a wikipedia reference it’s revealed as a cheap Democrat polemic,
Two reasons people in retail don’t want $100 bills:
(1) not much change in the drawer (most businesses used to only keep a $100 bank)
(2) if stolen or lost, it’s a bigger loss.
Oh, make that three reasons:
(3) the old guy who only carries $100 bills so that he can get away with not buying his own coffee, but shows up wanting to buy two postage stamps or a pack of gum, in order to get change when he needs it for a business that won’t take his $100.
When I was at the post office, I got wise to those ol’ boys real quick. They are almost as bad as the snowbirds who do the same thing with Canadian Dollar Traveler’s Checks and want their change in US dollars. 😉
For a while I carried five $20 bills (grubby ones) just so I could say “Here, Ed, I can break it for ya.”
HAHAHA!!!
@Pecancorner
I actually did it twice.
The second time I had asked the bank teller for some bills destined to be withdrawn, and one of them had been scotch-taped.
I was ready a third time, but with “filthy fives”. Turned out not to be necessary.
by a wikipedia reference
Yes, but the method was correct.
Btw, no way to apply formatting like italics to pasted text. Huh. Or any text because once selected, only cut copy and paste are available. On the phone that is. Android specifically.
N
Phone/Android issue. Here’s some pasted text, but not blockquoted, done on my laptop (Win11):
On the phone that is.
As you can see by me italicizing the word ‘phone’. Blockquotes, but default, have italicized text, plus the light cyan background, plus the left bar.
…although blockquoted text is italicized in the editor, the site’s CSS does not italicize blockquoted text. Here’s the result after posting.
You don’t see italicized text in the blockquote in the editor. But it’s there when posted.
Yep, phone issue.
There are some weird subtleties in the comment editor, but I’m probably the only one who notices.
N
There is a newer/updated version of the CKEditor5 program (that is what is used in the comment editor here to give you all them fancy buttons up there). Don’t know if that particular issue is one that has been fixed.
I need to get the new version of CKEditor5 into the next revision of the theme here.
It’s on the list…..
“Biden to pause solar tariffs for 2 years amid supply chain disruption from Commerce investigation”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/biden-to-pause-solar-tariffs-24-months-southeast-asia-commerce-module-probe/624928/
“President Joe Biden on Monday issued plans for a 24-month exemption from tariffs for solar panel imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.”
“Nearly 80% of the panels U.S. companies use currently come from those four Southeast Asian countries, according to the American Clean Power Association. The preliminary probe could lead to tariffs of 50% or more on imports of those parts and panels, according to the Department of Commerce.”
Apparently those countries have been re-exporting panels from China to escape paying the tariff.
“Rogue Planets In Our Galaxy Might Be Massive Alien Spaceships, Study Proposes”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgpex8/rogue-planets-in-our-galaxy-might-be-massive-alien-spaceships-study-proposes
“Scientists estimate there are billions of free-floating planets in our galaxy, and we should investigate them for signs of “cosmic hitchhikers,” one scientist has proposed.””
Yup. Read this in a book, John Scalzi’s “Agent to the Stars”. Recommended.
https://www.amazon.com/Agent-Stars-John-Scalzi/dp/1250176514?tag=ttgnet-20/
I have no doubt that anything Kohler makes is a marvelous piece of equipment. Toured the factory in Wisconsin once upon a time. Very impressive high quality stuff. My actual only real world experience was with Kohler branded low profile toilets at my parents’ forever house. Very sleek, but truly a PITA to keep functioning. Things ate flush valves at an absurd rate having a very tight tolerance (due to being so low profile) for shut off at fill. Water was so soft that it would be a good candidate for ED remedies.
Delta faucets are easy and cheap to rebuild. Moen are inexpensive enough to re-valve and an experienced guy can do it in his sleep. OTOH, inexperienced handymen will struggle, especially getting that blessed little retainer clip back into it’s slot.
The trick is to find an all metal model with the $tyle and function desired. 🙂
Planet-sized spaceships have been imagined long before Scalzi.
Robert Reed’s stories of The Greatship have been novel, novella, and short story length. The first tale is found in this collection::
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/r/robert-reed/greatship.htm
Still sitting here reading while a bunch of kids swim. Breeze has been steady and strong, so much so that I want to see what the radar shows in the Gulf…
Reading the Bob- verse book for the first time. Fun.
N
Reading the Bob- verse book for the first time. Fun.
Bobiverse is awesome for the first two books. The other two are just real good.
https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse/dp/1680680587?tag=ttgnet-20/
The 1.2 mile walk at dusk tonight had an excellent breeze coming and going both for once.
Planet-sized spaceships have been imagined long before Scalzi.
Yup, David Weber in his 1992 Mutineer’s Moon which I should have mentioned.
https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856?tag=ttgnet-20/
Water temps in the Gulf are still about five degrees too cold for serious storm development.
The “Windy” site https://www.windy.com is great to look at all things weather related, including sea temps (and rain and lightening and lots more). There is also a Windy app.
Planet-sized spaceships have been imagined long before Scalzi.
James Blish’s ‘Cities in Flight’ series comes to mind.
Spindizzies forever!
n
Blish’s Jack of Eagles was my intro to ESP and all the paranormal stuff the 60s hoped for….
n
Yup!
What was the series, maybe Alan Dean Foster, about a giant hospital ship in space for all manner of aliens?
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10890643/Antony-Blinken-accuses-Russia-stealing-Ukraines-grain-exports-sell-world.html
Blish is best known now for his work on Star Trek.
The Okies (Cities in Flight) originally appeared as a series of short stories.
Some of his other shorts appeared in Ballantines “The Best of James Blish” (an excellent series for getting to know authors) and there have been a couple of other decent anthologies, but he has yet to get the definitive multi-volume story collection. He had a habit of revising his own work, which makes for a colossal editing headache.
As a critic writing as Atheling, Blish had a tremendous influence on other writers.
He died way too soon.
James White’s Sector General
Hey, looks like we have a new database server !
“Climate Madness: Prince Charles Backs Face Masks For Cows In Bid To Tackle Climate Change”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/06/04/climate-madness-prince-charles-backs-face-masks-for-cows-in-bid-to-tackle-climate-change/
You have got to be kidding me.
I have known a few cows in my day. One was a 2,000 pounder. She hated me with a passion. Even the bull was scared of her. One day I opened up the front gate and when I turned around, she was in my face. She had spotted my grandfather at the barn and I was in her way. No way I would ever try to put of these contraptions on her.
Sector General, that’s the one!
I must have read library versions as I don’t have them on the shelf.
Still have my paperback Cities in Flight.
n
@lynn….yes…a new database server as of about 10pm PDT.
More information about this tomorrow.
I forgot to mention, I got about half a cup of DELICIOUS SWEET AND JUICY blueberries off one plant. I have one other plant with unripe berries, and a few more on the current producer… Man o man they were good. Too bad that my pathetic sticks don’t thrive here, it would be awesome to have a few big bushes dripping with berries by now. At this rate it will be 100 more years before I get enough to make jam.
Oh well, at least the ones I’m getting are tasty.
n
>> Hey, looks like we have a new database server !
Page refresh looks faster on my phone.
refresh was a three count instead of 6-8 count.
n
For tuning up sql databases I’ve used mysqltuner for a few years now. With good results give it a try, it doesn’t make changes,just analyses and recommends.
https://github.com/major/MySQLTuner-perl
Yee haw. Rain came days sooner than predicted.
my application of Thompson’s was applied about 25 hours prior to tonight’s 20 minute hard rain.
Rain beaded. Once it stopped I brushed it off.
Not looking forward to redoing it if the rain damages the application.
Watched a DVD with old footage about D-Day. The intestinal fortitude of that generation is astonishing. Tonight we attended our Community Council to pass a resolution opposing AO 2022-66. The AO gives our Assembly to remove a Mayor, where they are judge and jury with no path defined for appeal and no public testimony.
A strange juxtaposition of thoughts. Contrasting the young men of D-Day with the foul oath breakers currently running roughshod over our city’s charter. Yowzers.