Cold again. It gets better later in the day but it sure starts cold. Of course. it’s Winter, and that is what Winter is in the Northern Hemisphere. It did clear somewhat and warm a bit yesterday, but it was back to bone chilling cold at sunset. We have the extra special joy of a forecast that says “rain” today or maybe Friday. We’ll see what my microclimate does.
I got off to a bit of a slow start yesterday, but eventually got out and got some stuff done. Did my pickups. Stopped at the southside Goodwill outlet. Scored a bunch of Christmas and Halloween decor. Got some other stuff too.
Came home and took down some of the display stuff. Got the inflatables down, and some of the lighting. If the rain comes, at least that stuff won’t be wet, and I can put it in the attic today. Made grilled lamb chops for dinner. Heated some naan, and made some black beans as a side. Meat was from 2021. Delicious.
Today I should be at home all day, doing all the stuff I didn’t do yet. I’ve got laundry to do, and a lot of cleaning and putting away… It’s time to get the house back in order and put the holiday decor away. If I’m particularly efficient and motivated, I might even get some stuff ready for ebay. Don’t count on it though.
There is a bunch of new year IT stuff I have planned, and end of year paperwork stuff that needs to be done. I’ll start fitting that into my days soon.
And I need to talk to one of my other auction houses and see if I can get some stuff consigned with them. I need to get stuff moving. The cash would be nice too. There is a bunch of stuff to get out of the house…
I’ve got a lot to do. Not a lot of energy to do it with. We’ll see how it goes.
And I’ll still be stacking ‘cuz those preps aren’t gonna stack themselves.
nick
Time to check your stacks…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/winter-storm-heading-texas-grounds-134741522.html
Hmm…either @nick is hitting the hay earlier or I’m up too late.
Time for some sleep…
It seems it would be mentioned at either Monticello or Mount Vernon.
You guys stayed up late last night!
———–
42F this morning. Damp so it goes right to your bones though.
——-
Lunch is in the sack. Coffee is slowly – oh so slowly – filling my mug.
No nuclear sunshine of the manmade sort or natural shining in my eyes yet.
n
This is the first time I looked at the LA fire map in detail. Holy cr@p.
I used to live right between two of the fire/evacuation areas. I’ve got friends still there.
LA is a desert. Without water it turns brown and dries up and blows away. And it’s hilly and fractured by faults, so there is a lot of unbuildable “canyon” that runs thru it all, which is how the fire is spreading.
It’s not just the Palisades and “rich” neighborhoods that are burning or threatened, it’s poor and middle class areas too. They are all mixed together and jumbled up in those areas.
n
The route to our local Home Depot goes through a stretch of undeveloped former ranch land which has a lot of “urban outdoorsmen” camping out under the overgrown pecan and mesquite trees, just beyond visual range of the road.
Every now and then, I’ll notice a burned patch in the brush, where a campfire obviously got out of control.
The City of Austin has a converted business traveler hotel nearby which serves as a shelter, but the homeless get kicked out of there fast for using drugs.
City. Wilco Sheriff cracks heads and disburses encampments just outside the city’s jurisdiction, but the city government coddles the homeless.
I imagine the City of Houston is worse since the government is effectively insolvent.
COH (as the stencil on city property has it) will move homeless occasionally, when the encampment gets too big. There are jurisdictional issues, as we have TxDOT properties, COH properties, county managed properties, railroad properties, water and flood control district properties…
There is one area nearby where they were camping under a raised exit ramp. The area is on the edge of a “village” (one of the landlocked towns inside of Houston proper). TxDOT has authority on the roadway above, and the right of way under that roadway. There is a bayou that runs UNDER that same area that is under state/county/or quasi gov Flood Control District. No one will admit that they have the authority to boot the homeless from under the bridge. 4 jurisdictions overlap there, and it’s not unique.
The empty and overgrown lot two doors down from my secondary location has a big burn area where a campfire got out of control. Several of the semi-abandoned buildings (they have open roofs or walls, but people still live there or have businesses in them) on the way between my rent house and my secondary have burned down in the last few months. That is likely homeless or drug users, but could be “fire sales” or urban renewal.
n
I doubt the railroad properties see many homeless camps. My wife had several BNSF engineers as patients in the Northwest, and they took great delight smacking easement trespassers with anything handy in the cab as the train rolled by the point of encroachment.
“Hippie photographers” were a particular favorite target.
If the trespassers weren’t within reach, the location was reported to the railroad dispatch office for security to address. Management didn’t even bother with cops.
The Geico Gecko’s railroad.
21F this am, and clear and nearly windless here in the high desert..
Hopefully the conditions down below are better, but the CalFire Incidents page is not showing … again. I am guessing they haven’t a scalable cloud presence.
After weeks of not being able to use it because of overcast and winds I disassembled and put my telescope away Tuesday….
The railroads have special federal policing authority, iirc, and are famously brutal. Doesn’t stop the bums from using the right of ways or the areas around them here. But it does stop the local PD from enforcement.
Nor in LA if the pics of train tracks covered in amazon boxes from the train robbers tearing them apart.
n
LA is the Third World. After this week, there is no debate.
We’re supposed to be out there this Spring. Ironically, the “Emergency” vehicle display at the LA County Fire Museum is at the top of the “to do” list.
“BREAKING: Now Hollywood Is On Fire – Who Is Behind This?”
https://joehoft.com/breaking-now-hollywood-is-on-fire-who-is-behind-this/
“These fires appear to be intentional. Here we go.”
“Over the past two days, Pacific Palisades have been completely wiped out by a fire.”
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
We’re supposed to be out there this Spring. Ironically, the “Emergency” vehicle display at the LA County Fire Museum is at the top of the “to do” list.
I don’t think that you will have anywhere to stay. Los Angeles is burning down. There is no water in the fire hydrants. I suspect that there was a agreement with a federal judge to save the smelt tadpole so they closed all of the fire hydrants.
The route to our local Home Depot goes through a stretch of undeveloped former ranch land which has a lot of “urban outdoorsmen” camping out under the overgrown pecan and mesquite trees, just beyond visual range of the road.
Every now and then, I’ll notice a burned patch in the brush, where a campfire obviously got out of control.
Have you got water in your fire hydrants ?
I am reading that the fire damage in Los Angeles has hit $485 BILLION. And that the only real insurance company is the State Of California homeowner insurance fund which has nowhere near that amount of money in it.
But, the state of California has plenty of money for feeding and sheltering the homeless.
“Here Are All The Ways DEI-Crazed Officials Made The LA Fire More Deadly”
https://thefederalist.com/2025/01/09/here-are-all-the-ways-dei-crazed-officials-made-the-la-fire-more-deadly/
“As relentless fires burn in Los Angeles, thousands of residents who fled their homes are just learning how poorly public officials prepared for such an event. Emergency response leaders following bad public policy have been too focused on sending firefighting equipment to Ukraine, keeping the homeless safe, protecting fish, and adopting green policies to focus on things like making sure there is enough water to feed fire hydrants and guaranteeing that the strongest, best-trained, most-skilled firefighters are leading operations.”
“Officials seem to believe that when fire forces you to flee your home, there is just one thing on your mind: the skin color and cultural experience of the firefighters who will bring you to safety. Will they be diverse enough to rescue you? Never mind if they are the best for the job, are they anything but straight white men?”
“That has been a major priority of the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), which, in 2022, launched its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Bureau (DEI), purportedly “focused on ensuring a safe, diverse and inclusive workplace for all.””
Just freaking crazy.
“Musk: $2T in Budget Cuts ‘Best-Case Outcome’”
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/doge-trump-deficit/2025/01/09/id/1194452/
“While admitting that the target goal of cutting $2 trillion from the U.S. budget is overly optimistic, Elon Musk said his plan still could result in “an epic outcome” of “no inflation.””
I wonder if Musk is planning on cutting any western USA fire fighting equipment and people.
The stretch of road where I see the burned areas is inside the city limits. I live in unincorporated Williamson County. Wilco.
Williamson is headed blue but isn’t quite there yet. Trump won the county, but voters went for Collin Zachary over Rafael Edward in the Senate race. Plus, the ISD won its $1 Billion bond issue with a lot of nonsense.
I assume the fire hydrants have water. If not, we are two blocks from a fire station in the neighborhood.
The MUD was swimming naked in the Feb. 2021 freeze, however, so who knows.
Fixed it for you.
I would not be surprised if the illegal invaders are found to be the ones starting the fires. They like to turn their new “home” into the same shirthole(-r) that they left. Makes them feel at “home”. But with “free” money from the government.
Heard from both my buddies, one in Beverly Hills, one in La Canada/Flintridge, and they are currently ok. Beverly Hills is home eating lunch, La Canada is bringing in a gennie so that if they can return home he’ll have power. He sent me a picture of last night in the distance and it looked suitably apocalyptic.
——
I’ve been working on getting my most valuable ebay item ready to list. It’s cleaned up and the accessory is tested to not be working. I’ve no idea why, and it sucks because the value will be lower, but thems the breaks. I’m missing a setting though so I can’t do the final test and verify the main part is working. When W gets home it will be simple enough to do.
——
Time for some food, and then more clean up.
n
Sounds like you are selling your wife on EBay. 🙂
Over The Hedge: Twinkie Harvesting
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2025/01/09
What in the world is Polysorbate 60 and why would I want it in my body ?
Pearls Before Swine: Uncle Is Not Good With Money
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2025/01/09
Yeah, we knew that already. Uncle has given several hundred billion dollars to Ukraine. Might as well set the money on fire and thrown it in Atlantic.
The new Panasonic blu-ray player froze last night. I don’t recall ever having any DVD or blu-ray drive / player do this. It just did a freeze frame and none of the buttons I pushed worked. I had to unplug it. No problems since. I must have caused it, I had the remote in my hand.
One difference between Sony and Panasonic is Sony makes you press the OK button after you arrow around to highlight the item you want to play. The Panasonic is cool with pressing Play if you wish.
I prefer the Sony remote. It’s a little wider and that makes the buttons I push a lot a little larger. Not a big deal.
What disc were you playing?
BluRay or DVD?
Did the DVD have a “DVD Video” logo on the label?
Sony invented the BluRay format so their players are going to be the gold standard for compatibility with the standards.
BluRay discs can be complicated pieces of software depending on the extras the studio adds or the sophistication level of the copy protection.
I’ve noticed lately that the studios have given up on anything more than minimal copy protection for BluRay discs.
The latest phone scam over here is a nice sounding American lady leaves a message that I have unpaid taxes and to call them for help.
A couple of things… the phone rings once or twice and stops. Then I have a voice mail. They want me to call but it’s not the number that left the message. I block the number that called.
It’s so exciting over here.
A DVD disc. It has the logo. I was playing the first disc second episode of the second season of Deep Space Nine. No scratches or fingerprints. The part that froze played fine after power cycling the player.
I got the new rabbit watering system installed yesterday. I’ve got another couple days before temps drop and stay below freezing.
Carrying it down the hill turned out to be simple and low effort. No one was available to help me during daylight so I picked it up in the middle, crossed my fingers, and went.
It was a little tricky navigating the turns of the steps, and a little frustration producing getting it coaxed into place within the rabbitry. Mostly because I made it perhaps an inch too long. I adjusted for the whoops length by muscling the water reservoir a few inches over. 30 gallons of water weighs over 200 pounds. I did NOT want a bath at just above freezing.
Then when I cut the old water pipe at the pump to length I dropped the pump side and had to fish around. That was cold.
I fastened it into place, pumped about 10 gallons into a waste bucket to flush out any loose pipe cement. Water has a chemical smell in the system initially. Since I don’t know it won’t hurt the rabbits, I pump water into waste until I can’t smell it, then a few more gallons. No one has died in the past so I guess it works.
Fastened the pipes to cages, tested nipples, and done.
I need to go down and check on it to verify the water temp is where I expect it. The barrel was chill and I hope that’s because the water wasn’t mixed vs the stock tank heater failed. I have a spare. Of course.
Dinner went in the crockpot. Immediate obligations completed. Was covered in poop and odiferous.
That’s how you know it was a good day, right?
Maybe. At my age any day I wake up and can be vertical is a good day. Remembering where I am is a plus.
Big weather event tomorrow. Maybe 6″ of snow. Roads have been brined with whatever solution they use. I don’t think it will help much as the stuff does not work below about 20F and we are scheduled to drop to 15F. It may warm up before the moisture arrives. The schools have also closed for tomorrow.
Wife and I went to the grocery store for a couple of small items. The place was crowded. The eggs, bread and milk shelves were looking quite skimpy. After the getting off work crowd strikes shortly the shelves will be empty.
I fully expect to not be able to go anywhere for the next 3 days. This area does not have snow removal equipment in large quantities. Which I think is wise. Having expensive equipment that only gets used once, maybe twice, a year is a waste of money. It is better to shut things down and let Mother Nature take care of the event.
Blizzard French Toast!
Around here, the stores will be stripped bare of water too.
Went for a little walk after lunch, clear blue skies, 60F, a 10mph wind from the NE.
No trace of smoke on the horizon or any sign of the inferno’s raging down below.
Around here some people get their fluid intake after being processed through the radiator of a ‘57 Chevy.
@Rolf Grunsky (The Crimson Tory)
The Canadian provinces signed a constitution that embeds racial discrimination. In 1982–not some legacy article from the 18th century.
From my side of the border, the obvious solution is to quit trading with a country that defends racial discrimination as part of their constitution. Phooey. Wish I’d known 43 years ago–that would have been six vehicles produced in Canada that could have supported U.S. jobs.
And that $200 billion? Our bank account got emptied by a senile puppet–no more credit.
“JUST IN: Arsonists caught on camera setting fires in Santa Monica…”
https://revolver.news/2025/01/just-in-arsonists-caught-on-camera-setting-fires-in-santa-monica/
“California is drowning in an inferno of DEI mediocrity and failure—and on top of that, it’s literally burning to the ground. It’s a horrific, nightmarish state of affairs, with people and animals losing their lives and homes thanks to the gross negligence and DEI stupidity of so-called leaders and officials. Right now, California looks like all-out Armageddon, with water and firefighter shortages, mass looting, and, this just in: pyromaniacs are now jumping into the chaos.”
“When “politically correct” becomes “economic self-sabotage””
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/01/when-politically-correct-becomes.html
““Effective immediately, Daimler Trucks North America is pausing all orders for new internal combustion vehicles intended for registration in Oregon,” wrote Daimler’s general manager of product strategy and market development, Mary C. Aufdemberg, in a message to Oregon truck dealers.”
“Daimler, through its Freightliner and Western Star brands, is the leading producer of large trucks in the U.S., accounting for 40% of all new Class 8 trucks (tractor-trailers) sold in 2023, according to the American Truck Dealers association. (PACCAR Inc., the second-largest heavy truck maker, declined to comment on its sales plans.)”
“More pointedly, Daimler Trucks’ North American headquarters is in North Portland. The company is one of the state’s largest manufacturers and employs 3,000 people here.”
“But for now, the company that builds diesel trucks in Oregon has stopped selling them in the state.”
“The reason for that halt, the Oregon Journalism Project has learned: a new rule issued by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality that took effect Jan. 1.”
“Here’s how DEQ’s “Advanced Clean Trucks rule” works: Out of every 100 new Class 8 heavy trucks a manufacturer sells in Oregon in 2025, seven must be electric. That percentage of electric trucks will increase every year, reaching 40% of all heavy trucks sold in 2032. (In 2023, according to DEQ, Oregon dealers sold 1,708 new heavy trucks. Nine were electric.)”
“The company says that’s because there is “ambiguity” in how Oregon accounts for electric truck sales. Daimler fears it might fail to meet Oregon’s quota, triggering penalties. The company says that’s an unacceptable risk.”
Unreal. I guess that Daimler will be moving to Texas fairly soon.
“SpaceX: Lowering Starlink Satellite Orbits Reduces Impact on Astronomy”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-lowering-starlink-satellite-orbits-reduces-impact-on-astronomy
“The company has been working with an observatory and the US National Science Foundation to study the effects of lowering its satellites to 350km (217 miles) versus 550km.”
Incoming, everybody duck !
“Holding Their Own II: The Independents” by Joe Nobody
https://www.amazon.com/Holding-Their-Own-II-Independents/dp/1939473683?tag=ttgnet-20/
Second book in a series of eighteen alternate history books about the economic collapse of the USA in 2015. I reread the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback published by Prepper Press in 2012 that I bought new on Amazon in 2014. I own the first eleven books in the series and am rereading the first ten before my first read of the eleventh book.
Um, this book was published in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was really getting cranked up. The book has crude oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in 2015. Not gonna happen due to oil well fracking in the USA so the major driver of economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the book. That said, the book is a good story about the collapse and failure of the federal government in the USA. The book is centered in Texas which makes it very interesting to me since I am a Texas resident.
The $6 gasoline was just the start. The unemployment rises to 40% over a couple of years and then there is a terrorist chemical attack in Chicago that kills 50,000 people. The current President of the USA nukes Iran with EMP airbursts as the sponsor of the terrorist attack. And the President of the USA also declares martial law and shuts down the interstates to stop the terrorists from moving about. That shuts down food and fuel movement causing starvation and lack of energy across the nation.
The accumulations of these cause widespread panics and shutdowns of basic services like electricity and water for large cities. The electricity grids fail due to employees not showing up to work at the plants. Then the refineries shutdown due to the lack of electricity.
Bishop and Terri have moved out to their 250 acre ranch in far west Texas. Water and food are both in short supply but they are making it. And then Bishop’s employer comes looking for him in a light plane with his grandkids.
The book publisher has a website at:
https://prepperpress.com/
with a long list of apocalyptic books at:
https://prepperpress.com/post-apocalyptic-books/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (575 reviews)
Lynn
Well, at least the perishables will keep in cold weather w/o power.
Unlike Florida in hurricane season.
Another big Oregon employer is Lithia, one of the largest auto dealer groups in the country, based just south of Medford.
Lithia sells EVs, but most of their sales are traditional internal combustion vehicles, which Oregon is trying to ban.
Jaguar Land Rover also has a technology center in Portland, taking advantage of the proximity to Intel in Hillsboro.
JLR has EVs, but they will be toast trying to compete with Tony and other Federal Government wards like Rivian. The local combo dealership alread dropped the Jaguar product line to focus on Land Rover exclusively.
Yes, but your pipes will freeze, and most people living around here have no clue about how to deal with that possibility.
‘How long can you stare at your wife?’
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/lt-chairman-sunday-work-remark-outrage-watch-video-9769034/
Federal Court Blocks Biden’s Title IX Rewrite Nationwide
Mary Chastain writes for Legal Insurrection:
The Court stressed that Title IX’s phrase “on the basis of sex” means exactly what it says when Title IX became law: Sex is female or male. Title IX protects human beings born female. Basic biology!
The Department of Education also threatened to punish those who refuse to use a person’s preferred name or pronouns.
Well, the Court ruled that violated the First Amendment (bold emphasis mine):
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/01/federal-court-blocks-bidens-title-ix-rewrite-nationwide/
Two big wins.
No more men participating in women’s college sports, unless the schools want to loose their endowments to lawsuits. Wouldn’t be surprised to see civil suits based on past actions.
[Title IX required balancing money expended on college sports, by sex, and did not account for differences in popularity. Since there was no football option for women, the result was two-fold: expansion of women’s teams, which was not enough, and elimination of men’s teams to get their numbers down. This meant that sports like men’s golf and gymnastics got eliminated at some schools, despite being successful and long-established. Had the gender-bending nonsense existed, I have no doubt that a number of men whose sports were eliminated would have responded in protest by crossing over and taking starting slots away from real women. If they felt bitter enough and persisted, there would be no women’s soccer or basketball today.]
The second is a much broader First Amendment win, and should have a chilling effect on any government entity–particularly schools–that try to compel speech on this issue. Definitely expect some civil suits based on past actions. The NCAA and colleges have no cover–they were not going by a revision in T9, the revision was supposed to legitimize what they were already doing.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/01/adolf-hitler-communist.php
Fetterman: “I demand that I need to be made Pope of Greenland”
Trump: “Only if you take Canada, too.”
Yes. The Chief Historian of the Smithsonian once described Hitler as “right wing”.
Instant loss of all credibility.
“BREAKING: Supreme Court DENIES Trump appeal on sentencing”
https://therightscoop.com/breaking-supreme-court-denies-trump-appeal-on-sentencing/
Watch Merchan the traitor sentence Trump to four years in prison.
The 40 hour work week was instituted in part to make more jobs for union labor. It’s an historical aberration on top of that.
“Sun up to sun down, a farmer’s work is never done.”
Animals get fed and cows get milked EVERY day.
People left the farms and went to work in factories because it was EASIER.
TPTB banned piecework too. People used to work in their homes doing piecework, and doing as much or as little as they wanted.
—-
Even in the US only hourly workers typically work 40 or less, and only in undemanding jobs. Management and “information workers” are exempt from overtime rules. I routinely worked 80 or more hours a week
whoringI mean WORKING for canadian bigcorp. 40 hours a week is like half time. And as a salaried employee, I didn’t get overtime.Any business owner or contractor with employees works more than 40 every single week.
Even when I was working in the shop in Hollywood we mostly worked 6-10s, or 60 hours a week, and if we were really busy we added a half day on Sunday.
I’m not super sympathetic.
n
Discover the Astounding Secrets of Scotland’s Stone Age Settlements
In the Orkney Islands, archaeologists close the chapter on a legendary excavation, capping two decades of remarkable Neolithic discoveries
By Peter Ross
“there were years of post-excavation analysis ahead. There were books to be written, stories to be told.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/discover-astounding-secrets-scotlands-stone-age-settlements-180985627/
Peter Ross’ new book is A Tomb With a View: The Stories and Glories of Britain’s Graveyards.
4800 years ago
The Smithsonian still has the occasional gem.
Title should be “Trump the Cartographer”
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/henrypayne/2025/01/09/209587
@Nick
“And as a salaried employee, I didn’t get overtime.”
It is long past time for a revision of the qualifications of “exempt” positions.
Exempt effectively means “getting paid for a fraction of the hours you put in”.
I still have “fond” memories of the new department manager asking me what I was doing “traveling on company time”. I left the office at 1PM, caught a 3PM flight, got delayed 4 hours when the union had to replace the batteries in the emergency cockpit flashlight, went directly to the plant to prep for a vendor visit the next day, spent a couple hours dealing with a problem, and finally got back to the hotel to a stack of messages that ended with “Call me when you get in.”
I remember literally pulling the landline phone away from my ear and looking at it before I replied:
Friend of mine worked for a company doing software support. Hourly and got overtime. They promoted him to an exempt position, had him doing the same work and taking home less money for the same hours. They tried to claw back the OT they had paid him earlier in the year.
His problem was believing the b.s. he got about not having a degree. After the third or fourth time I advised him to do a job search based on his actual skills. Two years later he was working for a smaller company. He and his son flew to the Corvette factory and drove his new ride home.
Canadian Doctors Suggest Harvesting Organs From Euthanasia Patients Before They’re Dead
https://thefederalist.com/2025/01/08/canadian-doctors-suggest-harvesting-organs-from-euthanasia-patients-before-theyre-dead/
Another application of the PLT Hypocritical Oath.
Have a gummie and pass the bug spread for the green crackers.
>>“SpaceX: Lowering Starlink Satellite Orbits Reduces Impact on Astronomy”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-lowering-starlink-satellite-orbits-reduces-impact-on-astronomy
“The company has been working with an observatory and the US National Science Foundation to study the effects of lowering its satellites to 350km (217 miles) versus 550km.”
When everyone is a beta tester.
>>“SpaceX: Lowering Starlink Satellite Orbits Reduces Impact on Astronomy”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-lowering-starlink-satellite-orbits-reduces-impact-on-astronomy
“The company has been working with an observatory and the US National Science Foundation to study the effects of lowering its satellites to 350km (217 miles) versus 550km.”
When everyone is a beta tester.
My latency to the first satellite is 20 ms. Pretty good !
>>I am reading that the fire damage in Los Angeles has hit $485 BILLION. And that the only real insurance company is the State Of California homeowner insurance fund which has nowhere near that amount of money in it.
Don’t worry, Governor Harris grew up in a middle-class area…
>>Over The Hedge: Twinkie Harvesting
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2025/01/09
What in the world is Polysorbate 60 and why would I want it in my body ?
Skippy vill eat da tvinkies und be happy.
>>I am reading that the fire damage in Los Angeles has hit $485 BILLION. And that the only real insurance company is the State Of California homeowner insurance fund which has nowhere near that amount of money in it.
Don’t worry, Governor Harris grew up in a middle-class area…
Now I am seeing $52 billion instead of $485 billion. Sounds more … reasonable.
The destruction of entire neighborhoods is incredulous.
https://discern.tv/it-literally-looks-like-a-nuke-went-off-we-are-witnessing-the-costliest-fire-disaster-in-u-s-history-by-a-very-wide-margin/
“Heels Up Harris Sure Didn’t Like Bathhouse Barry Chatting With President Trump at the Carter Service”
https://rumble.com/v67m3as-heals-up-harris-sure-didnt-like-bathhouse-barry-chatting-with-president-tru.html?e9s=src_v1_upp
Trump and Obama are budds now ???
It is long past time for a revision of the qualifications of “exempt” positions.
Exempt effectively means “getting paid for a fraction of the hours you put in”.
– oh, I agree completely. By the actual legal definition I was getting screwed, so reform wasn’t even needed. I was still making six figures though. What rankled was the papered engineering staff in the office working 36 hrs and thinking they had it tough when they had to stay a half hour late. Field guys were away from home 100-250 days a year.
Trying to have us fly on Sat and Sun so we could work even more on Mon-Fri was the last straw though.
The simple fact is that when you are away from home you are actually working 24hrs a day. The simple test is, “could I be working for someone else during that time?” If not, then my employer is getting exclusive use of my time and should compensate me.
But that is an argument for another life. I’m done with that.
n
One plus to working the hours, you get a whole lot of experience in half the time. That helps you level up.
my buddy called to let me know they’d lost power at the BOL. It’s back on, only a couple hours off. I looked at the weather station– 2.5 inches of rain in the last 24hrs and currently 37F.
I’m gonna guess the lake is still high.
n
That’s true. In my first real job, I worked 08.00-23.00 five, and often six, days a week. It took only about two years of that for me to become a world-class expert on my, admittedly very specific, subject-matter. I was a junior professional, knew what I was getting into, and accepted the long hours on low pay in return for the learning experience.
These days, I still work more hours than I am compensated for, although there is a fig-leaf arrangement to possibly recoup some of the extra hours as time off. My reaction is to limit any additional hours to the absolute minimum. With the benefit of many years’ experience, I can work smarter, not longer, and usually get the day’s work done within the regulation working time, which is better all around.
Still snow on the ground and the trees here this morning. There were a couple of inches new snowfall overnight, but the plows have been busy, so the roads are nice and clear. Temperature is around freezing , or a couple of degrees below. It looks a bit like some blue sky is trying to poke through the cloud. That would be nice…