Hot and humid, but less than Houston. Yesterday was clear, sunny, and although it started moderately it got pretty hot by later in the day. Ended up with a nice night.
I got a few things done. I did one last thorough vacuum and then spray down of all the parts of the dockhouse that got flooded. I scrubbed the 2x4s and the floor as well. W mopped and cleaned up all the muddy residue. It dried out pretty quickly with just the disinfection stuff sprayed on surfaces. I’ll still leave the walls open for a few weeks longer to be sure they are really dry.
I added back one electrical outlet, deleted one, and added a dusk to dawn uplight for the flagpole. The light is too bright and too wide, so I’ll have to do some sort of masking, maybe I can just lay a big washer on the top of the spotlight… it lights up the pole, rope, and the trees in the distance. Way too much spill light.
Had a nice dark sky but didn’t see anything too dramatic, I was mostly interested in the radio, with great DX on 20M.
————–
Today I’ll do maintenance like mowing the lawn, putting the cell booster antenna back up, and general cleanup. I might do another outlet in the dockhouse, if I can find the right box. I am moving all the outlets to about a foot above the high water line. Anything that got wet will be replaced too.
My buddy brought me the first 2 quarts of peas from our garden. There will be a bunch more over the next few weeks. And whatever was eating all my peaches last year has left me a few this year, so I might actually get a peach or two. There are a couple that are almost ripe, and good sized. I might grab them before I leave and ripen them at home. Better than letting them fall…
Next time we’re up will be the 4th of July weekend and we’ll have guests so I will want to leave the place ready for that.
I might get a chance to try the irrigation pump. It was under water, but I’m hoping that since it’s a pump, and rated for exposure, that it might be ok. If not, I’m seeing them in the auctions and I’ll bid a bit more aggressively. I’ve got two spares, but they are both smaller than the current pump, and it was barely getting the job done. I could go bigger, but I really don’t want to go smaller.
When you are providing most of your own infrastructure, and building backups for the rest, there is always more to do.
Of course, there’s always more to do anyway…
like stacking!
nick
Um. If you value dark skies, you shouldn’t be installing an uplight…
Dallas Fan Expo. Friday, June 7.
Shatner spoke at 5:45 PM in the Main Theater. Savage followed at 6:45.
While waiting for Jonathan Frakes to autograph my “First Contact” BluRay late yesterday afternoon, Shatner pulled up to his table in a scooter.
Yeah, he’s 93. Still, he was working the crowds as well as Frakes at 74 or Alany Tudyk on the other side, who is slightly younger than me at 53.
One hopes that Biden’s Depends are industrial strength.
I am halfway through 85 but not quite needing depends yet.
Dad will be 86 in a couple of months after I turn 64 this month. No Depends here either.
My Brother-in-law is 68 and hospitalized due to dementia with Lewey Body Dementia, stage 4. He has been using Depends for about a year. The disease has wrecked his mind over the last four years. It is grim. My SIL is moving him to a nursing home when the rehab gives up this week. We are all sad.
Yeah, he’s 93. Still, he was working the crowds as well as Frakes at 74 or Alany Tudyk on the other side, who is slightly younger than me at 53.
I have been enjoying Tudyk’s Resident Alien show.
Um. If you value dark skies, you shouldn’t be installing an uplight…
Uplights are not allowed in Fort Bend County due to the 40 ??? Inch telescope in Brazos Bend State Park for the public.
74 F on the west side of the Brazos River. We have bounced off 100 F for the last three days. Hot, hot, hot with 75 F dewpoint. Gonna bounce off 100 F today.
They just announced another 3,000 homes being built south of me. We are over 40,000 homes being built south of me now. The school district is in a total panic.
During my 2nd tour in Korea, the joke was that the NORKs didn’t have to spy on us. Just follow the porta-potty man.
During my first tour, we dug latrines and followed strict field sanitation regs, closed them with lime and marked them. Camoflaged them, too.
It would suck losing a war because of poor sanitation. Another waning military skill.
When my (mechanized infantry) unit in Korea went into the field, we often set up in fields near a farmer’s house and were encouraged to use his outhouse. Free fertilizer for his field next Spring and the APC treads churned up the dirt, so he was glad for us to use the fallow field or out-of-season rice paddy for a few days.
Tudyk had a long line.
Frakes was nice, but I got the impression that he would have preferred to be on a film set this weekend.
“Star Trek” is a question mark until the Paramount sale is complete.
Constructing new schools doesn’t matter with Subcontinent. Mama will find the schools with the highest test scores and work the system to get her kids into the “best”. Whatever it takes..
The most overcrowded high school in your district will continue to be overcrowded even if construction did keep pace.
Adam Savage got reallly animated when I brought up the Mythbusters appearance on Craig Ferguson’s show to do one of the infamous cold opens. I will forever associate their names with this clip.
Apparently, Jamie was not acting by appearing less than pleased, but it is a cool bit which someone will watch many years from now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6OQELwia7E
@Nick
Just had a belated thought.
I’ve mentioned sodium silicate (aka “water glass” ) before. It’s an interesting material with many uses (including preserving fresh eggs) that is virtually unknown today, except by long-time readers of Mother Earth News. The wiki article is a decent intro.
One application is in making fire retardant coatings for wood, ranging from a simple water solution that can be applied by spray or brush to a carefully compounded mixture. In it’s simplest form the water solution dries leaving a film on the surface that can be rehydrated by water, but it does not simply rinse off easily unless the water is very warm.
The water solutions of sodium silicate are alkaline, with a pH in the neighborhood of 11. A wooden surface treated with such a solution that is dried to a film would probably be very resistant to mold growth when exposed to water.
I’ve seen the speed with which mold grows in an a fiberglass insulated wall cavity after being exposed to flood water. It would seem that a simple experiment would determine if a simple sodium silicate coating would inhibit mold growth.
Too late, I know, for this rehab project.
@Greg
Thanks for the info!
(I don’t remember the Ferguson clip. Hilarious!)
Following the links:
AoSHQ Sunday Morning Book Thread (always recommended) has a contribution from a reader:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/05/a-working-writer-in-a-working-library.php
ultimately leads to:
https://www.millersbookreview.com/p/steven-f-hayward-working-writer-working-library
which has some nice photos but unfortunately lacks a floor plan to relate them. And as a sometime woodworker and designer and builder of many book shelves over 60 years, I always want the construction details in words and photos.
Dr. Hayward’s needs are doubtless different from mine. I notice three things:
– Uniform shelf spacing. Okay for shelving strictly by subject, but larger books need to be either upright on taller shelves, or spine-down on deeper shelves (look at your 4″ thick handbooks and how the text block droops at the bottom edge and the binding is strained at the top).
–No drawers
–No book stand for using heavy dictionary or reference books
Note that Professor Hayward is the Edward L. Gaylord Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine.
The coffee is gone and past time to get my backside in gear.
capulus carpe, deinde dies
Looks like a nice library, Most of the shelves are too deep. You have either a lot to dust or a lot of space for knick-knacks. That will need dusting.
Most of my shelves are 1x8s, so about 7½ deep. On shelf standards screwed to the walls. Easy to adjust the spacing.
Um. If you value dark skies, you shouldn’t be installing an uplight…
– conflicting needs. Flag must be lit if displayed at night. I used to bring it in every night, but that became a pretty good indicator that we were present or not. People did notice. So I leave it flying but have been using solar pin spots for the uplight. I need to refine the new uplight to be the barest minimum to do the job.
I’ve got a plan to shade the pole light in the park next to my property too, but haven’t had the time to drag a ladder down there.
We don’t have landscape or security lighting in place. Some of our neighbors across the lake do, and it’s REALLY obvious when they are present.
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Coffee. So good. With the periodic shortages, I store as much as I reasonably can, given that it doesn’t store well. For some reason HEB has Cafe Caribe’ vac sealed bricks at half the price of any other coffee. I usually grab one for the stacks if I’m thinking about it as I walk by. It’s an espresso grind, clearly not a premium brand or blend, but is plenty drinkable especially in a percolator or Moka Pot. Keep your eyes open…
Chocolate is currently seeing shortages and high prices too, apparently.
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85F and sunny with a very light breeze today. It’s gonna be hot later, fur sure…
n
The local Post Office leaves the flags up all of the time. Lighting is a 75 watt floodlight, maybe a spot, but just a naked bulb on the side of the building. Looks real classy.
It is my understanding that the flag code is not enforced. Or enforceable. Making the light technically optional.
That said, Nick’s requirements are a mess of contradictions.
Personally, if I could get away with it in the neighborhood, I’d leave it unlighted. Otherwise, I’d use a low powered solar spotlight, and I’d pretend that it lit the flag all night even though most of those have batteries that die after a few hours.
Low power so little light pollution. Solar so it lights whether you’re there are not.
If you’re a stickler for the flag code, you also need to fly it at half mast when told to. Do you follow the entire flag code, to the letter?
“REVEALED: Here Are the Five Women Who Made the Insane Decision to Keep Caitlin Clark Off of the 2024 Olympic Team – Was This a Racist Decision or Just Jealousy?”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/06/revealed-here-are-five-women-who-made-insane/
Wow, this does not look good. You take the best, no matter what. Clark is not a lesbo and is white. Not running her for either one of those reasons is a bad decision.
“Green Dilemma: Pennsylvania Fracking Wastewater Could Provide Half the USA’s Lithium Needs”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/06/09/green-dilemma-pennsylvania-fracking-wastewater-could-provide-half-the-usas-lithium-needs/
“The discovery of the potential for thousands of tons of lithium to be extracted annually from wastewater generated by fracking in the Marcellus Shale leaves proponents of a green energy future at a crossroads, Republicans said Thursday.”
You gotta produce the natural gas to get the lithium water.
As a Chicago student, I traveled upstate to Evanston to attend Northwestern University.
Do you follow the entire flag code, to the letter?
– pretty much. I don’t do half staff for victims. In other words, I do it to honor those who have done something (the trad reason for half staff) but not for those who just had something happen to them (half staff for shooting victims, etc). The modern tendency to drop it for any reason devalues the whole thing.
When I used to do public events I carried the little booklet with all the rules in my workbox. People take it EXTREMELY seriously. I make the effort to get it right.
————
Since I’ve got to re-aim my cell booster antenna, I broke out my hand held spectrum analyzer. It’s a perfect example of why a GUI or any HMI should be “discoverable.” It’s not, especially compared to my bench model which is covered with labelled buttons. I want “spectrum analyzer”, full range, all signals, then I want to be able to zoom in on a specific range based on what I see. Can’t actually do that with this thing. There is a lot of function packed into a big handheld, but it’s got invisible limits.
n
Re flags and lighting: My flag is mounted on one side of the garage door. There are lights on both sides that are controlled by an automatic light-sensing switch. So the flag is lit automatically when it’s dark.
The only time it is not lit is during a power outage, unless I start up the generator which is hooked to a bypass panel on my house electrical panel. One of the circuits powered by the generator is to the garage, which includes the two exterior garage lights.
Our HOAs (there are several around here) put up flags at the subdivision entrances for several legal holidays. At least three at each entrance. The entrances have street lights, so there is some illumination of the flags.
CONFIRMED: ‘Journalist’ Killed by IDF Held 3 Israeli Hostages in His Home, Wrote for US-Based Nonprofit
https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2024/06/09/confirmed-journalist-in-gaza-who-wrote-for-us-based-ngo-housed-three-israeli-hostages-in-his-home-n2175247
Israeli forces entered from the roof and killed every adult occupant that they encountered, with the exception of on “severely wounded”. That sounds like intell that was much too detailed for satellite photos.
Palestinianism Began with Nazism And Today Is Based on Antisemitism, Sexism, Homophobia and Denial of Human Rights. So Why Is the Left So in Love with It?
To ask the question is to answer it.
Nice recap of the Biden Family accomplishments:
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2024/06/09/the-bidens-are-a-horrible-bunch-of-people-n2640192
Once they had the house, anyone there was guilty. No need for additional intel.
——
Minister of Labor. It’s terrorists all the way down.
——113F in the sun.
I’m so old that I remember when Olympic athletes had to be amateurs.
The armagnac that I didn’t buy 23 years ago at $350 a bottle is now $4500.
That’s 11.75% compounded annually to 1286%
The phony inflation calculator says 2001 to 2024 is +77%
@Lynn
I was prepared to drill down to find out how they were going to extract lithium from fracking wastewater (remember, the gold in a cubic mile of seawater could make you rich) when I hit this:
and realized I was WTF’ed out for the day.
A street light isn’t enough. Sorry.
@Lynn
The women’s team will win barring a total meltdown, which I could be persuaded to not wish on them if my mother asked from the afterlife.
The decision cannot be defended with Britney Greiner on the team. You should also know that the 5 NOCOC’s also scheduled Clark’s “Olympic [sham] tryout’ during a week she had a previous commitment call ”The Final Four”.
The Washington, DC WNBA team recently hosted two teams on consecutive nights. Clark’s team was the second night, and put twice the number of fans in the seats.
If the Clark family started a fund and asked people to donate the cost of a ticket if they were disgusted by the WNBA and decided to skip going to a game, they could walk away stinking rich and maybe buy a team after the league went bankrupt.
I don’t know the extent to which the NBA is still funding the WNBA, but you’d think that the owners would suggest that it’s going to end if they can’t figure it out.
Maybe Clark should take a close look at her ancestry and see if she could claim dual with another country and play for their team in the Olympics.
Maybe even see about moving her pro career to another country.
They play a short 40 games per year season in the WNBA with only 12 teams. Not because women are necessarily not up to it, but because there’s not enough interest. Someone other than Clark needs to hire a sharp attorney to visit each of the 11 cities of the opposing teams ahead of those games, request a sit-down meeting with the county attorneys, and tell them that they will be documenting any criminal behavior associated with WNBA players and demanding charges be filed. They don’t need to talk to the other WNBA teams (____ them, and no, the missing word is not “screw” because the thought makes me ill), but a letter to the co-located NBA team’s counsel giving them a heads up and noting their financial relationship would doubtless bring some heat. Turn on the lights and watch the roaches scuttle for cover.
Biden Claims He Doesn’t Have Enough Planes to Deport Illegals
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2024/06/09/biden-claims-he-doesnt-have-enough-planes-to-deport-illegals-n3789915
The answer was mumbled Bidenese and misunderstood. He actually said he didn’t have enough “brains”.
https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2024/06/09/did-jill-biden-fly-back-to-paris-for-a-state-dinner-to-wear-that-dress-n3789914
I dunno. Mrs. Macron looks like a white sardine can.
Maybe The Dragon Lady will wear it to court Monday morning and try to impress the Jurors at Hunter’s trial with the wealth and power of America’s First Crime Family.
“The armagnac that I didn’t buy 23 years ago at $350 a bottle is now $4500.”
Antiques guru Harry Rinker used to write a column every year on his post-Christmas toy purchases. His headquarters was an old elementary school, IIRC, and he’d spend $100 (originally, it went up later) on discounted toys, discuss his purchases, and put them in a closet with the intention of pulling them out in twenty years and writing about the appreciation or lack thereof.
Mike Schupp wrote a 5-volume sf time travel series in which the hero was attempting to bankroll the technology to change the time stream and undie his one true love. I got bogged down and quit before the end, but I seem to remember that he had a warehouse that he used to store stuff that he knew would appreciate.
There’s a classic sf short that describes a guy that learned to master deja vu, and developed a daily routine where he communicated financial information to his yesterday self and received it from his tomorrow self.
I’ve sometimes thought about messages I would send back in time:
– Dad’s favorite collection was just a bit off. If I could have told him “Not that type, but these” the difference would have been hundreds of thousands when he passed and millions now.
–A message to my past self would be on the order of “Don’t look at that one! Don’t stop! Keep walking!”
If any of you have relatives that are buying homes right now, sit them down and show them the spreadsheet comparing 15 and 30 year mortgages. My first large spreadsheet (Lotus 1-2-3, natch) could compare real estate loans with different interest rates, terms, down payments, etc. Most of the students who have taken calculus are still pretty ignorant about the math in an amortization table, except in a very simple, abstract way.
Back to work.
The US economy currently depends on people being stupid about the numbers, particularly in relation to housing and cars.
uh-oh:
Cicada-Infused Malort Tests Mother Nature’s Boundaries
https://chicago.eater.com/2024/5/28/24166241/cicadas-malort-noon-whistle-brewing-eating-insects-chicago-illinois-entomophagy
Here , Billy, Billy, Billy. Your special enema is ready!
Re US Flag display (from the US Flag Code):
“It is the universal custom to display the flag only from sunrise to sunset on buildings and on stationary flagstaffs in the open. However, when a patriotic effect is desired, the flag may be displayed twenty-four hours a day if properly illuminated during the hours of darkness.”
“Properly illuminated” has no specific requirements, but general guidelines. Those guidelines are that the flag must be illuminated enough to see the colors properly, and the flag is recognizable as the US Flag.
The Cowboy State Daily is a treasure:
Jeremiah was not a bullfrog:
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/06/08/how-mountain-man-liver-eating-johnson-was-buried-in-wyoming-decades-after-his-death/
Rust never sleeps:
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/06/09/wyoming-rock-hounds-going-nuts-over-one-of-a-kind-2-5-billion-year-old-boulder/
Broke Teton Pass:
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/06/08/teton-pass-faces-long-closure-after-catastrophic-failure-overnight-friday/
Some paradise have no parking lots:
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/06/08/jackson-councilwoman-gets-ticket-for-parking-in-front-of-her-own-house/
(Click the home price link and quit whining about your property taxes)
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/06/projection-anyone.php
Absolutely not.
Use the Dem playbook: First extend the statue of limitations, then charge them with every criminal act they’ve ever done, including the ones they just thought about.
Make it a crime to receive support from crimes, and jail all the Bidens, all the Clintons, all the Pelosis. Dirty Harry Reid did dirty real estate deals that enriched his sons–jail their whole famlies.
Not enough room in the prisons? Mix them into the open-air gulags housing the illegal alien invaders that are waiting deportation.
Biden claimed he didn’t have planes. I have the solution: Gliders
A family friend went into France on D-Day in a glider. Over the weekend I caught part of a John Wayne movie with a very realistic (it looked like) depiction of glider landings.
Pull the plans, build them to the same specs–good enough for our boys, yanno–and off they go over the river to Mehico.
If the Mexican goobermint does not like the return trip of the army they sent north, build a special mothership glider, tow it over Mexico City, and launch 1000 drones to scatter little notes that say “Next trip we return the fentanyl that you have been sending us.”
https://www.toddstarnes.com/crime/teens-face-felony-charges-for-scooter-marks-on-pride-street-mural/
https://media.townhall.com/cdn/hodl/ha/images/2024/160/a6cb8e85-37bb-496c-b03f-b7d25d72313a-650×0.jpeg
https://x.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1799605682645152108
I filled up my 2019 F-150 4×4 truck with super unleaded Friday night. My truck was idling rough so I decided to try a tank of super first. $3.999 / US gallon. The regular unleaded is $2.899 / US gallon. The super is expensive stuff !
Anyway, I am getting 20.3 mpg on the first 50 miles on the new tank. Not bad for driving around town.
I am watching “2010” on Netflix before it goes off on June 30. Super awesome movie for being released in 1984.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010:_The_Year_We_Make_Contact
“Whether we are based on carbon or silicon, we should each be treated with respect”: Dr. Chandra.
Home.
Traffic was actually light, but I left very late. My buddy stopped by to say thanks for his b-day gift, an IFAK. Mowed the lawn, and the HOA lot as it was very overgrown. That took longer than normal as I have to go slow when the grass is high. And it was VERY high in the park.
Had a snack, showered, hit the road. Thankfully my A/C started working again after about a half hour or 45 minutes. That’s not supposed to happen, but hooray. The drive in the country was relatively cool, but it was getting warmer out as I came south.
—
House smells like dead rat. Gah, I’ll be looking for that in the morning. I’d look now except that everyone else went to bed and getting into the attic makes a lot of noise.
Super gross.
—
Time to do a quick internet catchup, then bed.
n
Sweden.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13501783/How-Sweden-haven-mafia-gangs.html
waking up but too little and too late.
n