Cool again, and maybe staying cool all day. Weird weather for May. We do have May flowers, since we got April showers. The rose bushes are still producing, and whatever bulb based perennial flower is in the beds is still occasionally blooming.
Saturday was a good day. My non-prepping hobby meeting went well and was well attended. After that, my drive to the BOL was uneventful too. Beautiful weather all day.
I had time to cut my lot and the HOA lot next door when I got up here. Had a chat with one of the neighbors too. He was just getting his bass boat out of the water when I was finishing up the HOA lot. Didn’t catch anything, but still had a good day on the water…
Today I’ll unload the solar stuff from my truck and get some stuff put away. Wife has been putting LVT plank flooring in the hall bathroom. She’ll hopefully finish that and then we can take the boat out for some practice driving, even if the kids think it’s too cold to get wet.Both kids were being brats yesterday so I hope they’re better today.
We’ll put the solar project in the “working to improve my situation” category. And I’ve got a couple of things to stack – a water filter and a storage bladder for the shelves here. Some more cleaning supplies will go in the stacks too. It’s mostly tweaks at this point.
Do what you can with what you’ve got, when you can. Stacks will help.
nick
It is 62 F at 7 am and partly cloudy on the west side of Fort Bend County. I love global warming XXXXX XXXXX climate change XXXXXX XXXXX climate disruption.
This is very odd weather for May in South Texas.
I had one phone call about the office For Sale sign yesterday, the first of many. The guy did was not totally shocked at the price. He is an investor, not an owner so he is a shark.
Ugh, almost 100F yesterday, roughly the same today. But now a cooling trend is predicted for a couple of days next week.
Spent yesterday putting up the remaining awnings, getting the tomato beds ready for plants, cleaning up some of the yard debris before arrival of loaner Chihuahua’s on Monday.
Still need to clear out a space inside the garage for kennels … that will be a big job, it is a mess right now.
On my water heater in Vegas:
The plumber recco’d a cleanup/repair company after showing me water damage to the pedestal the WH sits on and surrounding walls. I agreed and EcoDry showed up an hour later. They handle all the insurance claims which is nice. He checked in the garage and inside for wall damage. Luckily there was no significant damage. They just had to rebuild the pedestal. They have a dehumidifier and blower running in the garage. Monday an insurance inspector comes to assess the work. I’ll be out the $500 deductible on the insurance. I submitted the WH bill to the home warranty.
They were all amazed the WH lasted 16 years. Me too since I was too dumb to check the date on it. I got lucky the thing didn’t burst and will get a grand from the home warranty. We have a couple of plumber friends here that could have done the work cheaper, but they work for companies and don’t have their own liability insurance. I have them do simple stuff, but replacing a WH could end in disaster.
I’ve been using this YT advice to replace Google search with ai search:
Google Search SUCKS! The AI Tool Everyone Is Using
Since I’m using the iPad a lot traveling, I bought the small app (iPad only supports the canned SE) that lets you insert custom characters in the address bar to initiate the search. It works good on the iPad and is supposed to work on Mac browsers as well. I have been using the Ducks and Brave search, but like how Safari syncs to devices.
Maybe worth a shot since PC level browsers support more alternate search engines and the vid shows how to do that for free.
Yeah, but it is probably precisely calculated to return the best revenue & profit to Adsense and Alphabet , that is, after all, its purpose.
I do use DDG, but it isn’t all tbat good either.
I am old enough to remember you might get 50 or a dozen returns for a really esoteric query, (and occasionally doing a bit of accidental google whacking), now it is pages and pages and pages of slop,
somemost that isn’t related at all.And good luck trying to exclude a popular but not really related result…
Maybe AI is the way to go.
Perplexity is Bing underneath the AI.
Happy Mothers Day Jenny!
————-
I’m up. Coffee in hand, and it’s 66F with overcast.
Wife is up, kids are not.
Time to get some bacon in the pan.
n
Mothers’ day for me was in March, but it is celebrated today where I am now. Either way, I miss you, Mama!
Friends kindly invited me over for a pre-lunch apéritif, before their children arrived for the Mothers’ day celebration. That was nice.
Our propane water and central heater at the BOL conked out with a “no flame” fault this morning. The fuel tank is showing 50% full and several relight attempts failed. I will verify that the fail-safe valve on the gas supply has not triggered (a failure of, or dip in, the electricity supply can let the solenoid down). If that is not the issue, I’ll be calling the installers tomorrow first thing.
Brother-in-law is not doing well. It seems he does not know who or where he is. Very worrying. Please keep up the prayers…
The overflow pan should be dry under normal circumstances. It is a mitigation measure of last resort when the tank starts to lose integrity.
Make sure they give you the alarm box for the pan and check the battery once a year.
Search engines? I use DDG for simple searches, but I’ve started using Grok.com for everything else. You can even take a picture of something, paste the picture into the search interface, and it will tell you what it is. I was trying to describe a small duck that has been in my yard. Grok suggested a few different things, but when I searched for that using DDG, the pictures it found didn’t look like my duck. So I took a picture, pasted that in, and Grok said that those were “Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks”, and when I searched for that, the pictures that DDG returned were exactly like these ducks.
And just now, I asked Grok “what was that duck that I searched for last week?”, it gave me a recap of the descriptions and the image I had searched for. Now THAT’S a search engine!
I bought myself a portable shortwave listening radio- CCrane Skywave SSB – and I figure I should start with something I know I should be able to hear here, like WRMI Legends.
Per Wiki, it only broadcasts 3 hours, currently 9PM to midnight.
What frequency did you find it at, Nick? Wiki says 5.05 MHz but you said it moved…
Thanks.
I guess you buy gold plated WHs. I’ve replaced four in my days and none has come with an alarm box. I do have Moen sensors at the SA house. I’ll get some more for Vegas.
Jeff Duntemann has a post today on using X/Grok, the results are mixed:
https://www.contrapositivediary.com/?p=5404
Now this was a summarizing question, not a search engine query, but still..
Not quite:
From Perplexity:
From Grok:
deGasBag:
Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Latest Deep Thought on Jesus and Guns Has the Intellectual Depth of a Splash Pad
Atheist says wut?
They always try to use Jesus as a straw-man.
There are so many lies and spins from the LSM this week about tRump I don’t even know where to start.
You can’t hate the LameStreamMedia enough. Geez.
I have been called a “Mother …” several times in my life. Should I be celebrating today?
If you have a mother, as so many of us do, you should be celebrating today. Actually, EVERY day is a day to celebrate SOMETHING.
I’m a Jew, and even I know the answer. Firearms did not exist in Biblical days, But there is this, about his apostles:
Luke 22:36
He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
So Jesus was definitely a 2nd Amendment type guy!
I have been called a “Mother …” several times in my life. Should I be celebrating today?
I have been called an asshole and I have one, so …
I’m a Jew, and even I know the answer. Firearms did not exist in Biblical days, But there is this, about his apostles:
Luke 22:36
He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
So Jesus was definitely a 2nd Amendment type guy!
Yup.
“Speaker Mike Johnson Says the House Majority Will Grow in the Midterm Elections”
https://rumble.com/v6t8fuz-speaker-mike-johnson-says-the-house-majority-will-grow-in-the-midterm-elect.html
I hope that he is correct.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
I hope so, too. But hopium is a hell of a drug; “hoping” rather than “working” won’t make it happen. Johnson needs to get some actual MAGA legislation passed, because the “republican” party wouldn’t exist without MAGA voters. And at this rate, the MAGA voters will vote to primary most GOP “representatives”.
This X 1,000. One thing Dumbos do better than Redumbos is vote in lockstep. Stop with the giant ass bills with tons of pork. Also, get out there and promote Redumbos running against Dumbos. Grow a spine.
Vance’s only job from now to the mid-terms is promote Redumbos and attack every Dumbo cause.
“Texas House votes to strictly define man and woman, excluding trans people from state records”
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/05/10/texas-house-trans-bills-advance/
“If it becomes law, the bill would define sex based on reproductive organs and require state documents and policies to comply with that framework.”
We do not need to coddle mentally ill people.
Busy week so far. My wife and I are on day 4 of our UK trip. The first three days were in London using only the tubes and our feet. Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London, Kensington Palace, SOHO, a couple other churches. Lots of walking around and good food. I’ve suspended low carb for the trip. Scones are awesome.
Today we picked up the rental and headed to Levanham, Bury St. Evan’s, and finally stopping in Moulton. Driving is interesting. I got a Vauxhall Corsa – manual transmission. I am getting used to being on the wrong side of the road, though turns need me to verbally say “stay left” so I go in the correct lane. I think the hardest part is just judging where the left edge of the car is. Narrow roads don’t help in this endeavor.
My favorite thing in London was Westminster Abbey. We booked a tour (10 in a group) and our guide was excellent. So much history.
Getting out of London, the countryside is beautiful. We are making our way to York and then over to Wales, before heading to the Cotswolds. My wife is the master planner and has done a great job, as usual.
Our son is home from school house/dog sitting.
Oh, we also saw royals – William and Kate. Well, we saw their motorcade as they left Kensington Palace on their way to the VE Day celebrations.
We are here another 10 days, provided my bank account doesn’t cry for mercy.
What or, more specifically, who are you going to see in the Cotswolds?
The Farmer’s Dog, perhaps?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bES105gIB0
Yes, we have a reservation!
We are going to drive by the farm shop if it’s open. A stop will be determined on how busy it is.
It will be busy.
After May 23?
Busy won’t begin to describe it.
I don’t believe the Labour government will survive Season Four.
>>Today we picked up the rental and headed to Levanham, Bury St. Evan’s, and finally stopping in Moulton. Driving is interesting. I got a Vauxhall Corsa – manual transmission. I am getting used to being on the wrong side of the road, though turns need me to verbally say “stay left” so I go in the correct lane. I think the hardest part is just judging where the left edge of the car is. Narrow roads don’t help in this endeavor.
The first time I did some right-hand driving (many years ago), the hardest part for me was remembering which way to enter the round-abouts. Somebody still needs to be punished for allowing this to happen in the first place.
@itguy1998:
That should be “Lavenham, Bury St. Edmunds”, I think.
@greg:
Not helped by the fact that school half-term week starts that weekend, in London, at least.
G.
@ lpdbw, I think WRMI Legends is having some financial or other issues. They moved transmitters and studios from TN to FL not that long ago, and they have been moving around the day on WRMI. They just moved frequencies, I looked when I couldn’t find them on 9.455 last night, and they seem to have significantly reduced their hours.
I was listening on 5.050 earlier, then after 9 or o10 pm they move to somewhere in the 7.5 area.
At the BOL, I usually start tuning around about 1030pm, and I can almost always hear programs on 3.215, 4.840 (used to be Alex Jones), several religious broadcasters, mainly a guy I think of as “mummbles” in the 7s… someone is usually just below 5.000 (WVVR time signal), and if you can hear Cuba, they have several stations in the 6.000 – 7 range, notably 6060, and 6160.
Hams on USB in the 3, 7, 14 mhz ranges if you have SSB on that radio.
I often check the time stations just to see what propagation is like, 2.500, 5.000, 10.000 and canadia at 3.333, sometimes 15.000 is audible.
I’ve got about 30ft of #14 AWG stranded wire that I alligator clip to the antenna, and if conditions are really bad, I wrap the other end around my 16ft flagpole.
Some nights it’s just poor listening conditions. And sometimes your location will just be too noisy.
(but then you know that, I”m just including it for completeness sake.)
n
Made it home safe around 830pm. Got most of what I could get done in a one day trip finished. Or started.
Unloaded the solar panels and inverters. I even have a battery pack I forgot about. Unfortunately none of the inverters are a good match for the panels. I will have to look at a couple more here, and maybe the auctions will bring me something better.
Took the boat out for a spin, even though it was chilly. The precip came and went, can’t really call it rain, but it was moisture from the sky. Every so often we’d get a spattering of little drops. Never actually got going though.
Eventually we wrapped up and headed home.
——–
I’m heading to bed early tonight. I’ve got a ton of stuff to do tomorrow, and I need my beauty rest.
n