Mon. Oct. 3, 2022 – foundation work today, yea!

Should be cool and crisp to start, then warming up later.  Very nice up here.  It will make all the concrete breaking and shoveling much more tolerable.

And that’s what’s on the agenda for today.  Getting the foundation guys started, and expediting whatever I can.  I will start by clearing some stuff out of the way, and re-marking buried utilities.  Then we’ll see what they need from me.

Spent yesterday getting ready to come up.   Filled the bed of the truck, again. One of the things I got on my mad dash to the auction pickup Saturday was a roll of Romex.    I thought it was just one roll, but ended up being two.  150ft of 8/2 with ground, and 50ft of 10/2 with ground.   $40 for all.   Crazy good score.

Dropped off my ebay sale at the post office.  The main local office has a big secure drop box in the lobby so I can leave a package, even on Sunday.  I’m pretty sure they won’t scan it in properly,but it will get delivered.

I resisted the urge to hit the Goodwill Outlet, which is next door to the PO…. had to get on the road.

So I made it here in good time.

Stacked  a few more things in the freezer, and a couple of things in the cupboards.    If I can learn to fish, my neighbor told me he’s caught catfish here bigger than 60 pounds.   The other guy said they get even bigger than that.   That’s a lot of free meat to stack…

So I better get to it.  You should too.

nick

 

47 Comments and discussion on "Mon. Oct. 3, 2022 – foundation work today, yea!"

  1. brad says:

    Cat is seriously pissed. All the doors are broken, none of them will open to let her outside. She’s going from one to the next, stating her displeasure in very clear terms. It’s really strange, how all the doors break on a day that she has to go to the vet. This, of course, is also driving the dog mad. Despite our best efforts, he’s convinced that she is his personal sheep to herd. So having her wandering around, well, she’s not properly herdable, so he’s stressed out. To preserve our sanity, we’ve locked the two of them on different floors in the house.

    Another hour to the vet appointment…

  2. Greg Norton says:

    The big difference between Git and older systems like SVN is that you have two levels of repositories: The central repository and a copy on each machine. This is very useful: You can use commits, see the project history, etc. – even if you are offline. You can make a series of commits that only you can see – until you are ready to share with the team.

    Git can also have a local central repository in addition to services like GitHub. This is much simpler to set up and admin for a one-person operation than SVN – just add user “git” to a Linux box on your local network, load public keys, and go.

    One upside of SVN is that it is much harder for a non-admin user to trash the central repository beyond a point where only restoration from backup will resolve the problem. Of course, again, done properly, SVN requires someone to pick up the admin skills for the facility itself plus a few more like Apache, even for a one-person operation.

    There are upsides and downsides to each approach to revision control. Asking for an opinion as to why a place would pick one over the other is one of my favorite interview questions to weed out the Hot Skillz crowd from serious thinkers.

  3. Greg Norton says:

    Another hour to the vet appointment…

    Our cat isn’t even welcome at the vet without a tranquilizer administered several hours before the appointment.

    We give half of the prescribed dosage, and the animal is still out of it all day.

    One associate vet at that office I won’t even see anymore because she O-D-ed the cat prepping for a teeth cleaning last year to the point that we thought our pet was going to die that night. 

  4. Brad says:

    Our vet is one of those people whose very presence seems to tranquilizer the animals. Dog growls? Not impressed. Cat pulls out the battle claws? Not impressed. The animals seem to get the message and stop fighting, at least, ours do.

  5. ITGuy1998 says:

    Another topic altogether: IOT devices calling home.

    I just install pihole yesterday, and I’m looking at the overview this morning. Interestingly, zero queries have been blocked. My wife and I both use ad-blocking browsers (Vivaldi and Brave), and apparently they do a good job.

    So what queries have been going out? The big two are Netgear (those must be coming from the Orbi WLAN) and Fronius (the manufacturer of the inverter for our solar installation). Lots of others as well, but those two seem to send out a DNS query once-per-minute.

    So: what happens if I block IOT queries like this? Good thing to do, or bad idea?

    I really need to move a pihole project up my priority list. I have the same questions. I’d just do it and see what doesn’t breaks.

  6. ITGuy1998 says:

    Vets – its funny how each pet behaves differently. The lab we just lost hadn’t been to the vet in years. He was absolutely terrified. We had a mobile vet come out for the euthanasia. He got to go to sleep in the back yard in one of his favorite spots while being petted by his people.

    Contrast that with the other lab we lost in January. He was so laid back. He loved the vet – more people to love on him. On his last trip, he was happy right up to the point he went to sleep.

    Golden1 (the 6 month old) likes the vet. Once again, more people to love on her. We will see how Golden2 does next week. She’s a little more reserved, so I’ll bet it will take some more coaxing.

    Golden2 has been with us for 2 days now, and she is coming out of her shell. She does well sleeping in her crate. We aren’t sure if she is housebroken, but no accidents yet. We just have to figure out her signals and help her develop new ones too.

  7. ITGuy1998 says:

    Oh, and I did hit my goal of getting my son’s bedroom painted this weekend. I still have the trim/baseboards to do, but I’m debating on waiting until after the carpet cleaners come on Friday. I’ll probably wait so I can give the paint on the walls time to cure enough so I can tape for the baseboards. I’m definitely not good enough to paint straight lines without painters tape.

  8. Ray Thompson says:

    I really despise dealing with online support people at my credit union. They are clueless about technology and try to snowball me with statements that are blatantly untrue.

    No, [you cretin], the computer did make a mistake posting that check. A human keyed in the wrong number.

    No, [you cretin], the problem is not in my browser, cable modem or computer. Your website not showing account history is your problem. Which you clearly acknowledged two hours later in a Facebook post.

    No, [you cretin], that hold on my account from 20 years ago should not be showing in the account history as the hold no longer exists or is valid. I am not going to restart my computer, clear my browser cache or try a different browser.

  9. lpdbw says:

    @Ray

    I remembered this cartoon.  In my memory, it included rebooting, but I couldn’t find one like that.

  10. Nick Flandrey says:

    Guys are here and breaking concrete.   Gorgeous day, 68F, 69%RH, and sunny.

    n

  11. drwilliams says:

    Ya break 16 tons, and what do ya get?

  12. EdH says:

    @Nick:  Good luck with it today!

    Stay safe.

  13. Nick Flandrey says:

    Work progresses.  many strange things revealed.   Concrete is thick in a lot of places, not just where i’ve been digging.

    I’ve moved a cubic yard of broken pieces to backfill the bulkhead with several more to go.  Much easier with them breaking the concrete first.

    🙂

    n

  14. lynn says:

    @Lynn

    “There is already an access easement dating back to 1948.  But, that easement is split 15 feet on my property and 15 feet on the property to the east of us.  I have yet to find the original easement document but I found the 2004 document affirming it.  ”

    If the original easement is still in effect, why is there any conversation beyond having your attorney write a letter to that effect and saying you have met your legal obligations and are not interested in further conversation? Have him attach your hourly consulting rate schedule and explain that calling you will get him a bill at your max rate plus attorneys fees.

    I just don’t know.  Here is the property in question, listed again for $950K:

        https://www.har.com/homedetail/8639-fm-2759-rd-richmond-tx-77469/9688313

    It gets weirder and weirder.  Now the parents of the ex-wife of the previous lawyer buyer are interested in buying the place.  She called my wife this morning, we have gone to church with them for over 30 years.   She is very unhappy with the previous buyer as he was not nice to their daughter and her three kids.  

  15. Alan says:

    And the lawyers always win… 

  16. lynn says:

    “Supreme Court to hear challenge to Big Tech’s Section 230 liability protections”

       https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3671946-supreme-court-to-hear-challenge-to-big-techs-section-230-liability-protections/

    Ok, this decision might be very interesting as I suspect it will protect freedom of speech no matter what.

    Hat tip to:
    https://drudgereport.com/

  17. lynn says:

    My lawyer sent me an  email this morning saying to hang in there.  He thinks that the property seller is trying to play me as a new easement might require relocation of the easement road along with the side ditches, up to county standards of concrete, curbs, ditches, and sidewalks.  Expensive, very expensive.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Who is going to pay that money, not me !

  18. Nick Flandrey says:

    Moved some more broken concrete.   Some of this slab is crazy thick.  And the bad (soft) sand is in other places too.   Destined to fail.

    Got to get back at it.

    n

    (took a little time to put the new tires on my lawn tractor.  I was feeling a bit sketchy driving sideways on the hill with a load of rocks.  If the downhill tire failed I was gonna be rolling down the hill with the mower rolling over me.  Good new tires and wheels working well.)

  19. paul says:

    They want a 100 foot easement?  They have 15 feet now.  What about the other side of the fence?  Anyway, me, myself, and I vote for “leave the existing easement and SELL them an 85 foot wide strip of land.

    Then they can pave it like a four lane with left turn notches Plano Blvd with sidewalks and bougainvilleas in the center strip of grass.  They can have bike lanes, too.  I’d add a few magnolia trees myself. 

    I mean, make the road wide with 15 foot wide lanes and a median the same width.  That’s 75 feet.  Add side walks and “hiking trails” and whatever.

    Or they can run cattle on the 85 ft wide strip they buy from you.  Their land.  Not your problem. 

  20. Lynn says:

    “Elon Musk Shows Off Working Optimus ‘Tesla Bot’ Prototype”

         https://www.pcmag.com/news/elon-musk-shows-off-working-optimus-tesla-bot-prototype

    “Tesla envisions deploying ‘thousands, maybe millions’ of these bots in factories and other locations, though it’s still early days. Musk suggests they could be made for less than $20,000.”

    I am fairly sure that Musk has read the Isaac Asimov robot books.  I am also fairly sure that robots will be banned on Earth in the next 100 years.

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  21. paul says:

    I was feeling a bit sketchy driving sideways on the hill with a load of rocks.

    Don’t do that.  Seriously, do not do that. 

  22. Lynn says:

    “More than 600,000 customers still without power in Florida; FPL has restored power to almost 80%”

       https://www.utilitydive.com/news/more-than-600000-customers-still-without-power-florida-fpl-hurricane-ian/633153/

    Very impressive.  I suspect most of those restorations were just fuse replacements.  Now comes the rewiring jobs.

  23. Lynn says:

    They want a 100 foot easement?  They have 15 feet now.  What about the other side of the fence?  Anyway, me, myself, and I vote for “leave the existing easement and SELL them an 85 foot wide strip of land.

    Actually, that would landlock my place which I do not want to do.

    And 100 ft width would require selling them the land that the Centerpoint power pole easement is on.  Centerpoint might have something to say about that.

    At some point, the county is going to take away that easement land from us and build their own road. It is just a matter of time.

  24. Lynn says:

    “”2023 Will Be Year From Hell” – Martin Armstrong Warns Europe ‘Could Suck The Rest Of The World Down The Tubes’”

        https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/2023-will-be-year-hell-martin-armstrong-warns-europe-could-suck-rest-world-down-tubes?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=957

    All the pension funds are insolvent. Europe is fiscal mismanagement on a grand scale. There is no way it can sustain itself, and we are looking at Europe breaking apart.”

    Don’t worry, I am sure that the bureaucrats in Europe will survive the disaster ok.

  25. Lynn says:

    “The Texas hurricane season is done and dusted for 2022”

       https://spacecityweather.com/the-texas-hurricane-season-is-done-and-dusted-for-2022/

    Premature.

  26. Greg Norton says:

    I just don’t know.  Here is the property in question, listed again for $950K:

    Haircuts all around!

    This is a link to what I believe is where my wife’s associate lived in Vantucky. Two years of hit to my household’s bottom line supporting that couple is in the equity of that place.

    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2421-41st-St-Washougal-WA-98671/69221634_zpid/

    A little over a month on the market and the price is already down $25k.

    I like to think a divorce or the wife losing her job at the clinic forced the sale. It is the romantic in me.

    Checking quickly, however, I see that the associate is still ensconced in the clinic. 

    They did ok buying at $475k. Daddy cash probably made the payments manageable.

  27. dkreck says:

    “Tesla envisions deploying ‘thousands, maybe millions’ of these bots in factories and other locations, though it’s still early days. Musk suggests they could be made for less than $20,000.”

    How long before the UAW wants to organize?

  28. Lynn says:

    “Agreement between Belgian and Danish governments clear way for Europe’s first trial of CO2 storage”

        https://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/news/2022/09/agreement-between-belgian-and-danish-governments-clear-way-for-europe-s-first-trial-of-co2-storage

    “Vincent Van Quickenborne, Belgian Federal Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the North Sea, Flemish Minister for The Environment and Energy Zuhal Demir and the Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Energy Supply in Denmark, Mr. Dan Jørgensen, have today entered into a ground-breaking agreement to enable captured CO2 to be shipped across their boarders to be permanently stored in a sandstone reservoir 1800 meters beneath the seabed of the Danish North Sea. The agreement allows Project Greensand to move forwards with Europe’s first ever trial of the entire supply chain for carbon capture and storage to be carried out later this year.”

    These people are absolutely freaking nuts.

  29. SteveF says:

    Banning the industrial robots is OK. Banning robotic automobiles is OK. But they’d better not ban the sexbots!

  30. CowboyStu says:

    These people are absolutely freaking nuts.

    Remember the leaks when the natural gas co. here in California stored CH4 in Porter Ranch, somewhat NW of LA?

    Okay, lots of names of politicians there.  Any of them with a degree in Chemical Engineering?  Maybe the Ukraine Natural Gas Company should hire Hunter Biden back.

  31. drwilliams says:

    What was the name of the Asian lake that turned over and burped CO2, killing whole villages?

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  32. Greg Norton says:

    “A” for effort in organic chemistry?
    Please publish that list of students!

    The students are probably awful, but still teaching at 84?

  33. Mark W says:

    I really despise dealing with online support people at my credit union. They are clueless about technology and try to snowball me with statements that are blatantly untrue.

    Like any corp, you get a lot of people who would rather blame someone else rather than fix the problem.

    Sounds to me like they know they have a problem with the banking core servers but don’t want to admit it.

  34. SteveF says:

    drwilliams, you’re probably thinking of Lake Nyos, in Africa. Lake inversion has happened elsewhere, probably including Lake Erie ten or fifteen years ago. (Fish kills but no human deaths that I recall.)

  35. Nick Flandrey says:

    Eating like a king!   Neighbor gave me homemade purple eye peas and homemade cornbread to go with my dinner.   The cornbread is from scratch.  Fresh ripe tomato too.

    Put a half kielbasa sausage on the plate with it.

    Killed a snake in my bathroom.   Have to look him up, but he did try to strike at me several times.  Any snake in the house earns a death sentance.   Only about a foot long, maybe 14″ but that is about 12 ” too long.

    Guys will be back tomorrow morning to finish the prep.    I moved another cube or two of debris.   Hardly made a dent.

    n

  36. Nick Flandrey says:

    Snake looks a bit like a diamond back, and aggressively struck the can I used to hold him down.   Probably he’s a Slowinski’s corn snake though.   Don’t need snakes in my bedroom/bath.  NO idea how he got in, but everything was vibrating like mad with all the hammer drilling to break the concrete.

    n

  37. Nick Flandrey says:

    Was bidding on some gub parts, 80% lowers/frames.  Didn’t win them.  Thin pipe sux.

    n

  38. Rick H says:

    @Nick – the googles tell me there is an app called ‘Snake Snap’ that lets you take a pix of the snake and it will identify it. Info here https://www.snakesnap.co/ . Apple and Android versions.

    There are similar apps for bushes/trees, I think one is called “Leaf Snap”.

  39. Kenneth C Mitchell says:

    Rick H:  I haven’t seen a “Leaf Snap”, but I do have an Android app called  “PlantSnap” that does an OK job. 

  40. Nick Flandrey says:

    Both apps sound cool.   I’ll have to try to remember them when I get back to civilization.  

    Time for a fire and a drink.

    n

  41. Alan says:

    Is this even “news” anymore? I guess maybe if CNN started leading the hour with it…

    https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/10/03/things-go-way-off-the-rails-during-joe-bidens-trip-to-puerto-rico-n636942

  42. Alan says:

    First Monday in October…

    SCOTUS Delivers Disappointing Decision on Vaccine Fight by Health Care Workers

    Some bad news on the legal front on Monday from the Supreme Court.

    The Supreme Court has declined to hear a case challenging Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for health care workers at facilities that get federal funds. The case was pursued by Missouri, Nebraska, Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The case is Missouri v. Biden.

    This would apply to most of the healthcare workers in the country, some 10.4 million, who are subject to the mandate, although there are medical and religious exemptions. The case is Missouri v. Biden.

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  43. Nick Flandrey says:

    Every documented instance of inappropriate behaviour is worth it.

    And what is up with Elon Musk?Not happy making money, must stir the pot?

    n

  44. Alan says:

    Here she comes to save the day…

    https://nypost.com/2022/10/02/hillary-setting-up-2024-presidential-bid-with-open-borders-critique-of-biden/

    “Once Biden pulls out, the polling will show that the Democrats are leaning toward some crazy radical like [California Gov.] Gavin Newson, [Vermont Sen.] Bernie Sanders. Maybe even AOC herself,” Morris ​said, referring to progressive lightning rod Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. 

    ​“That’s going to drive the Democratic Party leaders to go to Hillary and say, ‘Hey look. Please run again. We need you to save us from the crazy left,’” ​Morris said.

    “Otherwise we’ll have Sanders as our candidate. We’ll lose Congress by a ton. And we’ll get wiped out in the presidential race.’”

  45. Alan says:

    >> Nick Flandrey says:

    2 October 2022 at 11:00

    Welcome back Mr Atoz

    n

    added- I should make a joke about you ‘sniffing around’ or offer my butt as a dog for re-introductions…
    n

    Two down, one to go…  🙂

  46. Alan says:

    >> Forgot my laptop power supply.  

    @nick, so if some day soon (after your foundation work)was TEOTWAWKI, what else would you wish you had brought to the BOL that wasn’t an ‘in-transit’ item (like the PS)? Do you have a list? I didn’t but I’m starting one now. Just pondering things here while staring at the dark desert sky…

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