Probably raining when I get up. Definitely still wet. Also probably a bit cool. That’s ok with me. It finally did rain yesterday after dinner time. And then it kept raining, and raining, with short pauses. Dunno what we eventually got, but the bayous will be full today.
Hit an estate sale, and spent $150. Got a LOT of good stuff. Camping cookware, water filter, ham radio stuff, art supplies, pipes, a little of everything. Guy was in my nearby neighborhood. Wish we’d have met. Then I did a couple of pickups. The main was was for two more of the 400 watt panels. I also got stuff from several auctions that had piled up at one of the guys. Then it was a flurry of kid taxi until D1 went to camp and I took D2 to her hobby meeting.
Today I have two pickups and a bunch of stuff to do. Mainly household stuff from the list, but also some other “pop up” stuff. And I need to get a bunch of stuff put away.
But first, a little bit of sleeping in.
Then stacking.
nick
Someone else would have stepped up. Maybe management who isn’t bored with the concept.
IIRC, Texas is getting more Ollies as that chain takes over ~ 40 Big Lots stores.
Ollies will be important in the upcoming Disney Bankruptcy since that’s where The Mouse and Hasbro liquidate the unsold licensed toys.
The Geico Gecko speaks in Omaha today so the stock popped huge yesterday. The financial press hopes he will speak on tariffs and drop a zinger on Trump.
Stories are also floating around that more formal succession plans will be discussed.
Still no word on definitive plans for Warren’s stock when he assumes room temperature.
Or Buffett buying Oxy outright in the short run.
Lots of screaming over the last few days as the new tariffs close the De Minimis package loophole.
Americans, you can live without that $20 “One Piece” Lufy the Pirate hat.
Bored stay-at-home mommies shopping on Temu or Shein are the bigger problem, however. A lot of them around here are Dem voters.
Today was supposed to be the big community yard sale. All the neighborhoods in our area doing yard sales at once. Unfortunately, it’s raining. We were prepared to haul quite a bit of stuff out, but decided it wasn’t worth it. I’ll sell the big thinks on FB Marketplace. I also have a bunch of mom’s crafting supplies which I might put on ebay. Someday.
Straight up :
“No.”
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2025/05/03/absurdity-continues-as-judge-declares-its-unconstitutional-for-trump-to-pull-security-clearances-n2188641
Shut off the power to the courthouse.
What? Perkins Coie?
I’m shocked. Shocked!
One of Boeing’s law firms long before they were Dem chore boys/girls. Losing security clearances would be a problem.
I thought that the new Governor of WA State came from that firm, but Bob Ferguson’s Deep State career went through K&L Gates.
Yes, as in the same family as BillG, Boy Genius. One of the founders was “Trey’s” father, “Jr.”
Super sunny and clear, and only 68F! D2 is home from her thing, and D1 should have a nice day at GS camp without rain pouring down.
Breakfast is in my belly, and coffee is joining it. As soon as I can feel the caffeine in my veins, it’ll be time to get moving.
Slept poorly and my whole torso aches. D2’s thing last night had me sitting on the ground for 1 ½ hours… I tried to do some gentle stretching during that time, but still ended up crippled for a while. Thankfully it still goes away.
n
The “other” Dollar Store near my house in SA was taken over by Ollies. More useless crap that you can get in a dozen other places near by.
The Twins love Daiso. There is one near us in Vegas and SA. Lots of useless Japanese crap.
Five Below is another useless crap store.
My remaining IRA is up $15K before the tRump dUmp. It is still too early for a real recovery, but I hope for a doubling in a year.
Fundamentals.
The real economy responds to a president who looks to improve the world of the average Joe Citizen. Whether the tools used are good or bad actually means less than the attempt.
People see the attempt and appreciate it. OTOH, a lot of bankster and bankster-adjacent people and instituitions are so fixated on their current graft of the day that they can’t see even a quarter down the road.
Eventually ‘trickle-up’ will improve even their positions, though they will be loathe to admit it.
LOL as Mr. Greg predicted. Also, “stark warning on tariffs”:
Warren Buffett stuns crowd as he steps down from Berkshire… and issues stark warning to Trump
I guess he thinks we should just let the rest of the World rip us off on tariffs. What tRump is doing is not “an act of war.” I bet Warren croaks within a year.
MAGA!
My parents, 86 and 83, have their thermostats set at 79 F. I am dying. I talked Dad into setting the den at 76 F. He is under a blanket now.
My wife and I are “summer people”; we like it warm. We keep OUR house at 79 degrees, which is expensive in the winter, but saves money in our Texas summers.
Frankly, Lynn, if the house gets down to 76 degrees, we’re looking for sweaters.
Buffett is 94. That’s a safe bet.
Fixed it for you.
I keep my house at 70F in the winter, 76F in the summer. Except at night. Then winter drops to 60F at 10:30 PM and cooling drops to 74F at 10:30 PM. Thermostat starts early in the winter and has the house at 70F by 7:30 AM when we think about getting up.
“Warren Buffett announces plan to retire as Berkshire Hathaway CEO at end of the year”
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/finance/warren-buffett-announces-plan-retire-berkshire-hathaway-ceo-end-year
“Buffett, 94, recommended Greg Abel as CEO after his departure.”
Well, that’s old, but am not sure betting against Buffett is all that “safe”…
0.2518260.251826 is the probability of a 94 year old dieing in the next year.
That’s about 25%, or 1-in-4 chance. Which means 3-in-4 chance he’ll live another year or more.
Actuarial tables: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
I don’t know if those tables have been updated to deal with the realities of post-covid-vaccines.
Edit: Last update 2021, so it does not reflect induced myocarditis, strokes, or turbo cancers due to mRNA vaccines.
Wife is vehicle shopping.
She has it narrowed to Honda Pilot Trail Sport, and Outback Ascent Limited, 8 passenger.
Both 2025. Anyone have any direct experience or gotchas with either?
n
Subaru drivers as a group exhibit the same kinds of behaviors as Volkswagon Jetta drivers, although more clueless than entitled.
https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2025/05/03/wow-dc-circuit-hands-trump-administration-a-huge-win-that-will-have-far-reaching-implications-n2188653
“the failure to require a bond for the injunction will cause irreparable harm to the government.”
In other words, the taxpayers will never get the money back.
Teso Life is the up and coming store featuring lots of Japanese cr*p like Daiso, but Teso Life has a bit more, including food. The chain is also based in New York.
A lot of retail will have to be relearned in this country, and we are just getting started. The new chains that emerge or overseas players filling a vacuum will be interesting.
We went to two Bookoff locations while in California. That’s another Japanese chain just getting established in the US. Their stores are more media focused, however, and carry a lot less junk.
Just guessing, but I think Warren realized that the “intrinsic” value of the Berkshire stock will not meet the “book” value again within the time he has left, and, if it did, that would probably be the result of an event so cataclysmic that he wouldn’t want to be in charge.
We were at NFM in The Colony this afternoon taking advantage of the shareholder event discount to get a new hydra HP all-in-one printer. We had to be in Dallas today anyway, and the printer was 30% off the Big River price.
Buffett isn’t buying Oxy. Chevron’s EGo lawn gear has its own mini store at NFM, a new addition since last year.
The Gecko holds a lot of Oxy, but he has a big investment in Chevron as well.
The NFM store was busy. Last year, the place was a ghost town on the day of the shareholder meeting.
The Honda would get the nod for the non turbo 3.5 L V6 engine and conventional transmission.
A 10 speed transmission is kinda concerning with Honda, but if you are the original owner with a history of previous Honda ownership, you have a lot of leverage with the company if something happens out of warranty.
There really isn’t any escaping 8-10 speed transmissions unless you shop smaller Mazda. The CX-90 cross shop with the Pilot is going to have an 8 speed transmission with mild hybrid tech, making long-term durability a question mark.
Sadly, the CX-90 is not available with the diesel like it is in Australia.
Australia, where Toyota still sells Land Cruisers with V8 engines.
Guzzolene!
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Another “judge” ruled tRump’s pulling of Perkins Coie secunity clearances unconstitutional. POTUS can pull any security clearance he wants.
Anything, SCOTUS, anything?
She has it narrowed to Honda Pilot Trail Sport, and Outback Ascent Limited, 8 passenger.
Both 2025. Anyone have any direct experience or gotchas with either?
My buddy with the Subaru Forester complains that the AWD system requires that any tire problem requires that all four tires be replaced. Otherwise he loves it.
Some things are just incredibly useful and have remained so for years, while so much has changed.
Windirstat for example. Just works. Graphically shows you the file sizes of everything on your drive. It makes it easy to find the space hogs, and delete or move them.
My main drive on this pc was almost completely full, just a little under 2 Gb free… I found a very deeply buried folder with downloads from several of my cams, deleted it, and got over 300 Gb back. I’m back to having a third of the drive free.
n
(how deeply buried?
C:\Users\Nick Flandrey\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Virtualized\C\Users\NickFlandrey\Downloads\SDRecordDownload
this for a file that I was supposed to be able to find after d/l from the camera. I had no idea IE would be “virtualizing” the actual d/l.)
Did I mention how beautiful today turned out to be? Low 70sF and sunny all day. High pressure zone is nice…
———-
after my pickup, I went back to the estate sale from Friday. There was enough stuff there, that letting buyers “peel off a layer” is a good strategy.
I did get a few things, extension cords, 3 packets of mountain house, batteries – including eneloop, a couple of nice kites, and more art supplies. One of the things was a vintage stanley folding rule, that apparently is worth $150 on ebay. Sometimes more. That will pay for almost all of the first day’s purchases. The western digital 3.5 TB external drive (that was being used as an apple backup) is already in use, and that was a $1… it was a good sale.
There were some crazy things too, they wanted $60 for a bare xbox 360. Not even a power supply. I found the psu and controllers/kinect in another room and brought them to the checkout, but she wouldn’t budge on price. Nuts. She really didn’t even want to include the accessories in the $60. Sometimes I wonder about the sellers. Do they check prices? Most should, most know about what stuff sells for, but the unsold TV was marked $300. you can get new at costco for less, but they hate hearing stuff like that. A bare xbox 360, no guarantee it doesn’t have the red ring of death, should be about $20-30. That’s easy enough to check. TV prices are too. Do your homework ladies, you have a fiduciary duty to your customer. Of course, sometimes their ignorance works in a buyer’s favor, like the lady running the garage part of the sale. Lots of just arm wave pricing for stuff she really didn’t recognize or understand.
I’m happy with my purchases, and I spent a little over $200 total.
n
Is that the PC dual booting with Mint 19.3? The NT support in Debian/Ubuntu was still unstable at the time, and weird artifacts could get left in the file system by Mint that the real Windows NTFS drivers would interpret in weird ways.
Nah, that’s the massive dell business machine I bought 13 years ago, running win8.2. Still running great, with only a few issues over time.
That virtualization for downloads threw me for a loop when I first realized it. I remember writing about it at the time, when I was trying to get video off the cams for the cops. I’d forgotten that I left that video in place, so getting rid of it was easy.
Dunno why IE did that, don’t recall any settings or choices to do with untrusted sources or active X add ins or anything like that.
n