Cool and damp again. Hopefully clear, as that will make all my driving nicer… It was 50F when I went to bed. National forecast is for more of yesterday, so I should be ok.
Didn’t get much done. It’s mostly mental, but I’m still not 100%. I feel better, but tired, and weary.
Plan for today is pick up rental trailer, use it to pick up two pallets of stone, and some geotextile, then pick up my pallet jack, and whatever else I can get on the trailer and head to the BOL.
If everything goes well, and I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get there in enough time to meet the gas guy and maybe we can work out some temporary reprieve so we can at least have hot water while I get the line replaced.
Which is sub-optimal but may be unavoidable.
Family will join me later today if there is hot water and heat….
I’ll be bringing up a few bins of stuff including about half of my OTC meds. I went through and divided up the stuff I stocked up on 2 years ago, and I might end up with it all at the BOL, because I have normal stuff here already, but for now, I’ll just send half. I need to split up the first aid and wound care stuff too. To be an actual BOL, it needs to be stocked as if we weren’t coming back to Houston. Yet, I need enough stuff stacked here to stay if we can’t or won’t leave…. It’s an interesting balancing act. One consideration is that we won’t USE the stuff up there at anywhere near the rate we use it here, and so turnover will be a lot slower. More spoilage, more waste. Oh well, we’ll figure it out as we go. Or we’ll get caught short. But I hope to get it at least 80% right.
One solution would just be stacking all the same stuff in the same quantities, starting from scratch so it’s not already aging out… and I’m trying to take the newer stuff up there, not the oldest, but I can’t afford to simply double everything at this point. As I said, interesting balance…
One thing for sure, keep stacking.
nick
46F and saturated. Chilly in other words. Too early to know if it will be clear…
n
Bluetooth interception works for academic purposes and definitely beats treadles (the “hose” across the road) for studying traffic flow. Reliable individual transmitter identification from a distance at highway speeds was still a long way off when I left that business, however.
Treadles have to be replaced all the time, and my experience was before 7000 lb EV Jesus Trucks which will still be classified as “light” vehicles.
The surface streets in Houston already have issues, and the city is insolvent on a long term basis due to pensions. Again, Summer 2024 in Texas is when things will get interesting if I had to pick a specific point in time.
I’ll be bringing up a few bins of stuff including about half of my OTC meds.
I just ordered my second “Jase Case” of antibiotics. I tapped into the amoxicillin from the first case for my root canal tooth and it cleared up the infection. I hopefully put off the implant procedure for some months.
For traffic density and speed calculations, I guess they don’t actually need 100% accuracy, just enough out of the flow to get the data they want. I’ve linked before to the article where they talk about it. It was very hard to find out what they used. I thought they were reading toll tags but they said it was blutooth. The question of data retention came up, they say they discard it. They say that they also discard data linking more than one blutooth device together, ie. if a and b are both read in a vehicle, and a and b are read again at the next point, they discard a or b so no record of them traveling together is retained.
You can take their assurances with whatever seasoning you want.
I imagine that very soon, all the records will be maintained, and they will be able to set up alerts for ‘hits’ on specific devices. That’s what I’d want if I was a despot.
n
In the news you can’t make up department:
John Bolton Eyes a White House Run
There is no way Mustachio Boy can get the nomination. He mentions beating the declining tRump as his primary motive. No mention of plugs destroying the country. He’s not even a RINO. A chicken hawk Dumbocrat.
Kevin McCarthy on 1/6/21 – “The violence, destruction, and chaos we saw earlier was unacceptable, undemocratic, and un-American. The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.”
Kevin McCarthy on 1/13/21 – “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump, accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest and ensure President-elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term.”
McCarthy is not fit to serve as speaker.
Those voting for him are not fit to serve in congress
@MrAtoz, thanks for that link. I was not aware of them. I’ve had to vaguely suggest people look to one of J. Wesley Rawles’ sponsors for ‘fish meds’… or to visit a ‘travel medicine’ specialist, who will often prescribe meds to take with on your travels to second and third world destinations. Like Detroit.
n
(and while the pricing seems high, it is also totally legal and above board, and involves actual Drs…)
MrAtoz, how large is the Jase Case? I have limited freezer space, at least until I break down and buy another chest freezer. (And more troublesomely find a place to put it.)
62F in the sun, clear sky. Hooray.
And I double dipped the garbage pickup. We had lots of trash because of Christmas, and being out of town we missed a pickup… so if you were Oscar the Grouch, there was no room at the inn.
Fortunately, I’m on the side of the street that gets picked up first, so if I’m vigilant I can set out the can, have it emptied, and fill it back up, and move it across the street before the truck makes it back to my house. Then the truck empties it again. And I get rid of the extra trash. Winning!
n
(and only someone older than 50 would even THINK to write something calling that “winning”.)
The Jase Case is the size of a small Dopp Kit about 8x5x4. The meds are in standard pill bottles. You can get a kit for every adult with a goobermint issued ID. One per year. I don’t know about kids.
But you can certainly give them something out of yours (responsibly). You get a little guide book of use and a pdf of same.
The Jase Case has:
I’ll pay the price for real meds.
>> If everything goes well, and I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get there in enough time to meet the gas guy and maybe we can work out some temporary reprieve so we can at least have hot water while I get the line replaced.
@nick, did I miss why reuse of the current line is not allowed?
I believe @Nick bought a new line from Amazon that was represented as suitable, installed it, then had the gas company disagree.
I believe @Nick bought a new line from Amazon that was represented as suitable, installed it, then had the gas company disagree.
– that is correct. I might have been fooled by weasel wording. The original line, ½ copper tube with flare fittings, ran across the septic system and had to be removed. There were at least 4 splices buried in the first 6 feet of the pipe, made as flare to short black iron nipple, to flare… so all the buried nipples were rusted. It also wasn’t buried deep enough.
The new line is plastic jacketed CSST flexible pipe, with pre-attached ends. The state of Texas apparently doesn’t allow CSST to be buried in plain dirt, but does allow it to be buried inside ‘conduit’. No explanation of what ‘conduit’ means in this case or what might be acceptable.
– no way the new heavy CSST is a bigger risk than copper tube.
– finally got my trailer, got the stone and the geotextile. Grabbing my stuff and headed out soon.
n
Nick, would a length of 1.5″ PVC pipe, with elbows glued on as needed, suffice as “conduit”? Or is that what you need to discuss with the propane guy?
Yeah, that’s the question. If I have to do “conduit” a lightweight plastic water line would be cheap and flexible. It might be cheaper to just put in the twice damned copper, but then I need to redo the transition into the garage too. It’s enough to make me want to stick 5 ft of copper on the end, bury all the rest, and call a different company.
n
The 128 GB USB stick arrived. R-clicking in Explorer and “Open as Portable Device” says it has 115 GB free. Disk Management says 115.92 GB.
I know they count funny. 1024 versus 1000 and all that. But dang, that’s worth 13 GB?
The file system is exFAT. Is that best? Or FAT32? Or NTFS?
For conduit, perhaps that black poly stuff will be good. No seams, anyway. Otherwise, inch and half or so Sched 40 would be my guess.
Maybe the corrugated drain line stuff. I bought a lot of it years ago to do a drain to the ditch from the EDC sink. Nice…. DitchWitch digs just a little too narrow. So I went with 2 inch black poly pipe. No seams. The only problem has been tree roots growing into the end of the pipe for the water.
@paul:
Don’t use FAT32. It’s not designed to handle storage media that size. I use exFAT on external 4TB drives, and it Just Works, because I need to use the drives on macOS or Linux. NTFS is effectively M$ only.
On FAT32, you’ll lose a lot of space to the granularity of space allocation. exFAT and NTFS are better for this, they allocate space in 4k increments. On a drive that big, FAT32 will allocate in 32k increments.
G.
Ok. So exFAT it is. Thanks!
Paul, the gibibyte (base 2) vs gigabyte (base 10) funny counting accounts for part of the difference. The other part is space held back for failing sectors. Memory devices also have reserved space but I don’t know if that comes out of the count.
That’s what I figure too, SteveF.
Heh. Bits or Bytes.
“EPA proposes tightening fine particulate matter standard, potentially affecting coal power plants”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/epa-fine-particulate-matter-standard-soot-PM-2-proposal/639800/
You know, you would think that the workers at these power plants would all die early deaths in the their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Yet, the workers on average live longer than the general population. I wonder why that is ?
“PG&E, Energy Vault plan largest US utility-scale battery, green hydrogen long-duration storage project”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/california-wildfires-battery-storage-fuel-cells-hydrogen/639771/
“The hybrid system, with at least 293 MWh of dispatchable carbon-free energy, would be capable of powering about 2,000 electric customers on a PG&E microgrid in Calistoga, California. It’s expected to provide a minimum of 48 hours of backup power in outages and would be the first of its kind and largest utility-scale green hydrogen project in the U.S., Energy Vault said.”
Now this actually makes sense until the new modular nuclear power plants are built. Of course, that cannot happen in California until Jane Fonda dies.
Whelp. The real estate dude for Mom’s house got a nibble. The price has already been dropped from 93k to 85k. He is Expert, so, whatever.
They offered 50k. Cash and done in 10 days. I replied to him that the County says the place is worth 66k, so…. that’s a low ball.
His commission is six grand. He seemed surprised I went with that. But, hell, Sell The House Dude and you get six grand and not 3% of 60k. Incentive. So yeah, no, ain’t selling the place for 50k and then the commission and fees coming out of that.
So he sent a counter offer of 68k. Hey, gotta do some dickering, right? Put 60 grand in my pocket after all of the BS fees and such, I’m good. 40 grand? Not so much.
We’ll see.
“Ram Reveals Electric Pickup Truck Concept at CES”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/ram-reveals-electric-pickup-truck-concept-at-ces
“The Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept doesn’t enter production until 2024, but the Stellantis-owned brand teased a third row of seats, detachable dash screen, and more here at CES.”
Oh look, another $100,000+ truck.
You’ll never get the plant up to operating temperature because of all the folks that say they want to piss on her grave.
Hanoi Jane is probably a card carrying member of The Neptune Society. She knows her grave is gonna get desecrated.
A year in review – hmmmm…
https://defector.com/what-did-we-get-stuck-in-our-rectums-last-year-3/
ht to Peter
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-list-is-painful-even-to-read-much.html
The actual production date isn’t until 2024, most likely for the 2025 model year when 54 MPG CAFE goes into effect, making the gas/diesel engine alternatives pricey too.
“Quote of the day – 2023 edition”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/01/quote-of-day-2023-edition.html
“From Sarah Hoyt:”
“Biden Admin Quietly Admits Canceling Keystone Pipeline Killed Thousands Of Jobs And Billions Of Dollars”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/01/biden-admin-quietly-admits-canceling-keystone-pipeline-killed-thousands-jobs-billions-dollars/
“The report, which the Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement, says the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4-9.6 billion, citing various studies. A previous report from the federal government published in 2014 determined 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs would be created during construction which was expected to take two years.”
and stack ’em high while you can.
I am also! Card no.: S27990.
“Dark Lightning (Thunder and Lightning)” by John Varley
https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Lightning-Thunder-John-Varley/dp/042527408X?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number four of a four book young adult space opera series. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Ace in 2014 that I bought new on Amazon since my books are packed in the garage. This is my third or fourth reread of this book. I will buy any fifth book in the series. In fact, I will buy and read just about any new Varley book.
Each one of the Thunder and Lighting books highlights a new generation in the connected families since the first generation of the connected families in the first book. This book specifically covers Podkayne and Jubal Broussard’s twin eighteen year old daughters: Cassie (Cassiopeia) and Polly (Pollyanna), the fourth generation to live off the Earth. And yes, there are serious Heinlein fanboy comments all throughout the series as Varley is very heavily influenced by Robert Heinlein.
Cassie and Polly were born and raised on the “Rolling Thunder”, the hollowed out eight mile long by four mile wife asteroid that Travis and Jubal Broussard, their families, and 200,000 other people are taking to a faraway star system. The journey is taking many decades so most of the people are spending the entire journey in stasis, the black bubble technology invented by Jubal Broussard using his squeezer technology as a base. BTW, Earth is becoming uninhabitable at this point due to seven huge aliens from Europa who have destroyed the climate.
Jubal Broussard comes out of his bubble every month for a week to spend time with his wife and daughters. But this time, he comes out of the bubble and yells, “Stop the ship, or everyone will die”. The ship is traveling at 0.77 of the speed of light and cannot be stopped easily, requiring twenty years of deceleration. Due to the seriousness of the situation, a significant portion of the 20,000 crew members who are awake decide to mutiny and take over. Not good.
My previous review of this book: “Book number four of a four book series. This is a MMPB book. This is probably the end of the series. I have yet to read a bad Varley book and this is certainly one of his best ones. Very heavily influenced by Heinlein’s young adult series as one of the characters is named Podkayne. This is a series about the creation of a new power source and the subsequent application of that power source for intrasolar and interstellar space travel. The Earth is becoming uninhabitable due to an alien invasion so Travis, Jubal and 20,000+ of their best friends build a spaceship out of a six mile by four mile asteroid and leave. The story is told from the perspective of the two twin daughters of Jubal who pops in and out occasionally using a stasis bubble.”
John Varley has an active website at:
https://varley.net/
My rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (224 reviews)
Biggs, Gaetz and Good will finf theit new offices some where in the basement with their name painted over Janitor.
Jeeze this is stupid. McCarthy’s not perfect but really who is better. You know he’s pretty conservative; he’s from Bakersfield.
More money in The Gecko’s pocket, however.
The actual production date isn’t until 2024, most likely for the 2025 model year when 54 MPG CAFE goes into effect, making the gas/diesel engine alternatives pricey too.
If there is a $20,000 gas mileage surcharge tax on all of the five million trucks sold in the USA in 2025, heads will roll. All the way to the White House.
Yes, there are five million trucks sold in the USA every year. Ford, Chevy, GM, Dodge, Toyota and Nissan. That does not include the 250,000+ (SWAG) commercial Class 6, 7, 8 and 9 trucks sold each year that get 6 mpg to Walmart, Pepsi, Amazon, USPS, Busch, UPS, FedEx, Exxon, Shell, independents, etc, etc, etc.
Biggs, Gaetz and Good will finf theit new offices some where in the basement with their name painted over Janitor.
Jeeze this is stupid. McCarthy’s not perfect but really who is better. You know he’s pretty conservative; he’s from Bakersfield.
McCarthy raised and donated millions for the House holdouts now voting against him. Not much loyalty there. “McCarthy’s political operation spent millions on lawmakers now opposing his speaker dreams”:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/04/mccarthy-political-action-committee-opposition-00076377
“The GOP leader’s PAC donated directly to many, and the super PAC aligned with McCarthy spent heavily backing several rebels in past battleground races.”
“Remember the food crisis warnings?”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/01/remember-food-crisis-warnings.html
“Cofigeo, a group which owns several food companies in France, has shut down four of its eight factories over energy costs, amounting to 80 per cent of its total production.”
So where are the renewables for cooking our food ?
“An FTC Proposal Could Kill Noncompete Clauses”
https://gizmodo.com/noncompete-tech-jobs-linkedin-ftc-salary-promotion-1849954126
“The Federal Trade Commission estimates that the new rule could aid the estimated 30 million Americans bound by noncompete clauses.”
Devil’s advocate: It was McCarthy’s job to fund electable Republicans. It was the candidates’ job to express their principles and get elected. What they promised their constituents was conservatism.
Is it incumbent on the winning candidates to turn around and elect a RINO squish for speaker? Did he buy them? Are they also required to vote for pork, gun control, open borders, because McCarthy funneled party money, not his money, their way?
“TIOBE Index for January 2023″
https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
“C++ is TIOBE’s programming language of the year 2022. It has won this title because C++ gained most popularity (+4.62%) in 2022. Runners up are C (+3.82%) and Python (+2.78%). Interestingly, C++ surpassed Java to become the number 3 of the TIOBE index in November 2022. The reason for C++’s popularity is its excellent performance while being a high level object-oriented language. Because of this, it is possible to develop fast and vast software systems (over millions of lines of code) in C++ without necessarily ending up in a maintenance nightmare.”
If you think provider turnover at your primary care group practice is bad now, just wait.
The Jan 6 Committee needs to be rounded up:
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2023/01/06/journo-shares-eye-opening-thread-about-what-he-witnessed-firsthand-on-j6-with-ashli-babbitt-footage/
@Lynn
x=
1) these power plants
2) the Agent Orange plants
3) the fluorochemical plants
to name a few.
And any mechanic that did brake jobs at least up until about 1974 blew the dust off with an air hose and put billions of “deadly asbestos” particles in the air, yet…
And according to the State of California, everyone who visited a beach in the ‘60’s died of silicosis.
Well I got here. 60F and clear. Really nice. Giant full moon.
Some flags at half staff, for Ashley? Seems unlikely. Did I miss something?
Gas guy coming 8am, with truck. Maybe I’ll get a fill up after all
.speaker deal revealed Crenshaw to anyone that didn’t believe me when I said he’d turned. That was worth it, by itself.
Family is about 2 hours still behind me. MaybeI can get some quiet time on the dock….
N
“Capitol Police suck ass!”
–Ashli Babbitt’s mother, arrested today on the second anniversary of her unarmed daughter’s murder by Capitol Police
https://twitter.com/FordFischer/status/1611461545015345153
Used to laugh when the girls and fatboys couldn’t hang on…
https://ifunny.co/picture/IJyKmf1S7
NO Bears on the deck!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=69&v=c0KeBPmYb9w&feature=emb_logo
5:45 is “Day after Mardi Gras”
>> Some flags at half staff, for Ashley? Seems unlikely. Did I miss something?
Uhh, just turn on CNN and you’ll see what “died.”
Alan says:
American Decency.
And there was just almost a fist fight on the floor of the House – the inmates are for sure running the asylum.
So it was Rep. Mike Rogers from Michigan who lunged at Matt Gaetz after Gaetz cast the final vote in round 14 against McCarthy.
Looks like there might be a 15th vote tonight.
For a little while, I thought that they were going to take Gaetz behind the speaker’s podium and shank him.
And there was just almost a fist fight on the floor of the House – the inmates are for sure running the asylum.
Huh, it wouldn’t be the first time !
The people’s House is not a pristine place. The 20+ years leading up to the Civil War was serious acrimony all the time.
Oh my, the half staff was for the “insurrection”? Jebus H. they are shameless.
64F down by the water. Picked up a new telescope at the goodwill this week so I thought I’d give it a try tonight despite the bright sky. It’s a Tasco Starguide motorized, but the control pendant is missing. 3 or 4″ dobsonian… nice compromise between the big scope and the smaller tabletop ones. The moon fills the eyepiece . Worked pretty well standing on a table. Since it’s smaller and cheaper, it’s less of a big deal to get it set up. The optics need to be cleaned, and it would be nice to have the motors working… but it looks like a good scope for looking at the moon.
Mars is a circle not a point, but I don’t think it will be great for planets. If the seek can be made to work, it might be a good tool to locate stuff for us to look at. The tripod legs are damaged so only the top half is there, but it works well on the table. Now I’m swimming in ‘scopes.
Some clouds blew in at 11 so I put everything away and came back up.
Nice night. If a bit damp and chilly.
n
And we have a Speaker for the people’s House after 15 votes.
So supposedly tRump called Gaetz before ‘Round 15.’
Use your imagination as to what the former promised the latter to change his vote.
And the new
membersofCongressmoney grubbers struggle not to doze off by repeatedly booing as the BS-filled speeches drag on and on.Just about every Rep bill will die a quiet death in the Dem-controlled Senate and little of McCarty’s lofty goals to help us peons will ever come to fruition. All their time will be spent on investigative committees, fundraising, junkets and getting reelected. /frustrated
Tabs for W11 File Explorer
https://www.reviewgeek.com/141295/windows-11-gains-our-favorite-macos-feature/
What eyepieces do you have ?
And a Barlow lens is a useful accessory.
Support for a run for Governor if I had to guess. The Florida 1st is a very safe seat, and being the holdout most likely bought the Congressman a lot of cred in places like The Villages.
Interestingly, Gaetz’ sister worked for Jeb! in 2016, but the family has been prominent in Florida Republican circles for a long time.