Hot and humid today, on the unofficial start of Summer. It was steamy all day yesterday even after the rain cleared out. Dunno if we’ll get rain today, but it would be nice to have a nice day.
Flags at half staff until noon, then raised to full, as we spend the morning remembering those who fell in the fight, and the afternoon celebrating what they fought for. Friends and family. It’s always that in the end.
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I spent yesterday chipping away at the list. Some additional items ‘spontaneously’ got added, and were dealt with. I did get the grass cut, and trimmed, and the debris blown clear. I pruned trees. I even bagged the peach tree with a giant mesh bag that is supposed to keep insects and critters from eating your fruit. We’ll see if any survive to be harvested this year. Most years the critters spoil all the fruit before it ripens.
Spent a few minutes talking to one of the neighbors here who lives in Houston and is a bit more prepper minded than most. He just installed a solar system with two Tesla Powerwalls for storage. It’s some sort of leased thing, where he pays a fixed rate, which was less than his utility bill. Don’t know the details, but it sounds like more of the financial shenanigans that most solar companies are dealing in, except that he gets the storage too. He’s just done it, and I’ll be interested in his results and happiness in a few months or a year.
I’m not sure I would want a big battery next to the house… but there is an appeal to having the system.
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Went for a short cruise around the lake with my wife. She enjoyed it, as it was nice and cool with the wind after a day working.
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Today we’ll be doing things to get ready to head home, and I still have to put solar panels somewhere, and unload my truck. It’s gonna be a move this and move that kind of a day, I think. They feel like just shuffling the deck chairs, but it is important. I found some things I’d brought up here while looking for other stuff in the garage, which drove home the need to properly put stuff away. If you can’t find it, do you really have it?
Stack stuff. Learn stuff. USE the stuff.
nick
>>If you can’t find it, do you really have it?
My power recliner power cord needs to be replaced, but the whereabouts of the spare cord set that I know that I bought escapes me. Reorganizing my shed needs to move up higher on the list.
I got the boulevard flags out late . There is just enoug breeze to move them, and I am enjoying a thirdish/fourthish cup of coffee in one of my new gravity chairs while there is still a bit of shade.
Thanks to all who served. Thanks to all who paid the ultimate price and left the country in our hands trusting that we would continue to keep it safe. We will not let you down. God Bless you and God Bless the United States of America.
Yes, we are flying from Vancouver to Seattle. We had to go through immigration at the Vancouver Airport. Passport cards are only good for driving or by foot, not by flying. No big deal. We travel with both as an extra measure against problems.
We left Vancouver late because the pilot wanted another 3,000 pounds of fuel added (he called it gas). Seems sort of short sighted. The late departure is not an issue for us. The pilot overshot the arrival gate and had to make a sharp left turn, then a sharp right turn to get to the gate.
I am not impressed with the Seattle airport. No paper towels in the men’s bathroom. The gate areas are crowded and don’t seem well managed. No seats at our gate so we are across the aisle at a Southwest gate. Our flight boards at 10:39.
The Delta App is quite good about providing information. It told me my bag was loaded on the plane. When I landed the app informed me on my watch my departure gate and the time. Of course my boarding passes are on the phone. I like that but have paper boarding passes for backup.
Tonight we stay in Atlanta and do the 4 hour drive home on Tuesday. It has been a good trip, no real issues anywhere and things seem to have gone by plan.
Pictures are located at:
https://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/Cruise2025/
There are several I will eventually eliminate. This was just a first posting of the pictures so people can see the images. All the pictures were taken with my iPhone as I no longer carry a camera for travel. The iPhone camera is quite good for that purpose.
At least you are flying in at a decent hour. I’ve flown into SeaTac after midnight.
And you didn’t have to endure the light rail homeless shelter into downtown.
We got quite the wind storm this morning. The front moved in and it’s 67F with distant thunder. No rain at the moment. I awoke to the sounds of limbs crunching down on the metal roof, which is the first thing I’ll investigate when I get geared up and go out.
I had to medicate last night as my neck and shoulder were spasming. That and the interrupted sleep kept me in bed a bit longer than planned.
Of course at home the power was out for a couple of hours. We got notifications but no reason. 2500 affected means it was upstream of our neighborhood this time. Last time it was just our side of the street.
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As a data point, the coffee I’m drinking went into the stacks in 2020. It is in the commercial 12 oz foil bag, which I vac sealed inside plastic with all the air removed. Then it’s been in the freezer since. It’s a light roast, and I prefer darker roast, but it still has good flavor. Aroma is lacking but that often happens with an open “in use” bag too.
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Time to get moving I guess, although I might just have a second cup.
n
Sean Baker, who won the Academy Award this year for “Anora”, rose to fame by shooting “Tangerine” entirely on an iPhone 4.
Baker is not shooting exclusively on iPhone cameras anymore, but the ending of “The Florida Project” was a guerilla effort which would have involved iPhones or similar devices to evade Disney security.
Uh, not so much. We had to get up at 4:00 AM (real late at night), to get a taxi to the Vancouver Airport.
I did get ripped off by the taxi driver. In Vancouver the price is determined by zones. I got suspicious when we arrived at the airport when I noticed the meter was not active. When we got out he said $50 cash please. Based on my earlier trip that is the price, in Canadian dollars, which is about $35.00 US dollars. He really did not want a credit card. I suspect he was working “off the books” and pocketing the full amount. I just paid rather than hassle. It was close to what I would have paid a regular driver, with a tip. It was not worth the time or hassle to haggle. Lesson learned though. Before the cab moves, make certain the meter is running.
Check in was easy, security was not. Because of the knee I get x-ray experience. This time I forgot to remove my watch which pissed off the security chap. Why is a watch considered deadly? Then the luggage scanner did not like my laptop. They had to remove it from the case and go through the x-ray machine again. Which seemed to irritate the agent.
The flight was delayed, no big deal. A short flight so no refreshment service. We still had plenty of time in Seattle.
I got a soft drink, Mr. Pibb, $4.65 for 20 ounces. Then the wife got a turkey and cheese sandwich, really close to $16.00. Bunch of thieves.
We get in to Atlanta about 7:30 PM. That flight should be OK as we are flying in 1st class. I might be able to get a little bit of sleep. It is a 5 hour flight. I have my AirPods with noise canceling which are quite effective at noise reduction.
I meant SeaTac after ~ 6:00 AM.
That place is practically deserted between midnight and ~ 6:00 AM.
The last time I flew in there at midnight, the lights in baggage claim were completely off except emergency lighting until the first bags from the flight started hitting the belt.
SeaTac. That place has its own special minimum wage separate from any of the neighboring jurisdictions.
I seriously looked at an apartment nearby when I needed a crash pad in Seattle in 2013. The apartments being located under the approach didn’t bother me nearly as much as the seemingly absentee management, which required three attempts to even get someone available to show me the place.
“Then the wife got a turkey and cheese sandwich, really close to $16.00. Bunch of thieves.”
I wouldn’t be so bad except it’s usually a turkey loaf pressed from trimming, cheese only in very loose definition, and bread that is insipid at best.
And then they want a minimum 20% tip.
I saw a report that hotel workers in L.A. will have $35/hour minimum wage when the Olympics is hosted in 2028.
Wow. I didn’t know they still had an Olympics.
President Trump negotiated that back in his first term. Now he gets to celebrate his accomplishment.
The olympics almost always bankrupt the host city (effectively or actually). LA in the 80s was the first time it didn’t, iirc. It’s almost always a REALLY BAD IDEA for locals.
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@ray, safe travels.
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Well, the crashing and banging was mostly my neighbor’s giant oak coming down. That or the good sized branch on the patio first hit my roof and slid off. Or both.
We had a standing deadwood redbud that came down too. So I got the pole saw out and cleaned up. I also took down a tree that was on the list, because it’ll be months before it’s this cool again. Burn piles are getting higher…
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Sun came out and the temp is rising. 74F atm…
Time to unload the truck. I picked a spot to store the solar panels, now I have to clean it out and make room.
n
Gotta love the hypocrisy. TRUMP is an existential threat to democracy, but subverting the power of the Presidency isn’t…
Biden aide admits staff ‘acted undemocratically’ because Trump was an ‘existential threat’ to democracy
n
Yes, tho i’ve seen numbers in the thousands of dollars per square foot for gross concession fee income at airports. The airport/gov’t might be taking half of the gross, or more, of what you pay. A flat fee to start, a yearly fee, a chunk of the gross, taxes…
The only thing that will save plugs’ legacy is for him to die so the digging stops.
“Discover® is now part of Capital One”
“We’re pleased to announce that on May 18, 2025, Discover Bank merged into Capital One, N.A. (“Capital One”). As a result, Capital One is now the issuer of your Discover Credit Card account. This notice applies to each Discover Credit Card account you may have. There is no action you need to take.”
https://www.discover.com/faqs/discover-credit-cards-capital-one-discover-merger/
Self checkout. The 20% is probably backed into the price.
Currently at 33K feet according to the seat back display. Moving at 532MPH in the 117 Degree compass direction. I am actually on the Delta WiFi, no charge to me as I am a Delta frequent flyer. Not that I fly that frequently, I just have an account. Delta is moving to make WiFi available on all their flights. I wonder if Delta is using those orbiting thingees in space.
Out organizing the garage today (tho in theory looking for some drip systems bits…).
I have two identical workbenches, with shelves and lights over them. I realized that my usage had changed; I rarely use the automotive tools these days, but I do use tools for wood working, working in the yard, and household improvement implements quite a bit.
So, swapping some stuff around: battery powered drills & saws & fasteners to the more accessible bench, other less used tools over to the less accessible.
Spent a few minutes talking to one of the neighbors here who lives in Houston and is a bit more prepper minded than most. He just installed a solar system with two Tesla Powerwalls for storage. It’s some sort of leased thing, where he pays a fixed rate, which was less than his utility bill. Don’t know the details, but it sounds like more of the financial shenanigans that most solar companies are dealing in, except that he gets the storage too. He’s just done it, and I’ll be interested in his results and happiness in a few months or a year.
A 19 Kw solar panel and two Tesla Powerwall system (with the base batteries) is somewhere in the $45K to $65K range. I would never allow a leased system to be installed on my house or on my property.
I’ve been tinkering w/ the new router. It has some nice features. Well, easy to set and un-set features.
I know the old router let you disable Internet access by mac address. But you had to piss with rules and mac addresses and re-booting the router. New router? A checkbox. And boom! my pc is off the Internet. Nice.
So now the NanoBeams are blocked. The UniFi flying saucers are blocked. None of them need to be hitting Ubiquiti or anywhere on the web for possible updates or whatever they are doing….. every 20 seconds or so according to the pi-hole. And my LAN still works.
The various Squeeze players are not blocked. They never try to ping “home”.
Load balancing…. the default settings, once you dig down, are for Metric and Weight to be the same. 1 and 3 are the defaults. Which I’m sure is just super duper if both WANs are working most of the time. The lower number for Metric gets priority. Weight seems to be for the amount of data load.
Starlink is Wan1. The wISP is Wan3 (because that’s the router port I used). Using 1 and 3 on both makes speed tests much slower and that good ol’ “can’t load the page” message show up. Ok, cool, load splitting / balancing in action!
So the wISP’s Metric was changed to 2 and after a few hours, what the heck, Weight to 4. For now. 4 because it’s a slower connection on its best day ever. All clear as a mud puddle so far?
When the wISP is actually up and running things are faster. Yesterday on Moa I saw 390 with peaks of 450 on the speed test. Once.
Anyway. I’m learning stuff. Not sure what, but…
Some dude named Arthur C Clark wrote it. I’ve read it several times. Call it a favorite….
I found there is a video of the book. Four hours. A SciFi channel project, I think. Four hours seems to be a bit short..
I bought it from Big River. Three DVDs in the set. Uh. I’m going to watch it. I REALLY hope it doesn’t ruin the book.
IIRC, Mittens turned a profit with the Salt Lake City event, but that was Winter Olympics, which is probably easier to stage with a smaller number of sports.
Montreal still has financial problems from the 1976 Olympics, including a giant white elephant stadium they cannot fill since the Expos left.
SciFi Channel did a competent job with “Dune” and the two subsequent books albeit on zero budget.
No one wants to touch the books after Leto II turns himself into a sandworm.
So…. Montreal is run by flaming idiots? I gradated from jail/high school in ‘76 and while no kind of genius, I’ve paid all my bills.
@paul: @greg:
I agree. I have long been a fan of Clarke, but SciFi Channel butchered it. Stormgren (the apparent hero of the first part of the book) is a Finn, a bachelor, and Secretary-General of the UN. not a Midwest divorced farmer, who somehow convinces TPTB that he has the inside skinny on the Overlords.
The timeline is massively compressed, far beyond anything plausible, and the Overlords themselves are black, not the onscreen red.
2 out of 5. Would not recommend. I resent having 4+ hours of my life stolen. Although it was nearer 8 hours, because I edited the adverts out of SciFi UK’s transmission, before DVDing it.
G.
Is that a rhetorical question?
The final bill for the stadium alone was $2.4 billion by the time the bonds were paid off in 2006.
Right now, the stadium needs a new roof to remain viable at an estimate of $700 million. That would only happen if the city lured another baseball team to use the facility as the primary tenant.
“BP May Cancel Teesside Hydrogen Project”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/05/26/bp-may-cancel-teesside-hydrogen-project/
Somebody told them that hydrogen just wants to be free and is very good at meeting that goal.
There is the famous (at least in Canada) Aislin cartoon of Drapeau (then mayor of Montreal) on the phone saying “Allo , Morgantaler?” Drapeau had loudly proclaimed that “The Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby!”
Parliament then passed legislation to allow lotteries. The Olympic Lottery was the first legal Canadian lottery.
We’re still paying for it.
Major League Baseball will never put another team into Montreal full time. Even the Blue Jays Spring Training games played there as a test in the last decade created a financial problem.
The saga is frequently in the Tampa Bay Times fishwrapper as negotiations continue for a new stadium to house the Rays.
Back in Atlanta. Delta was supposed to provide expedited baggage handling because of the 1st class tickets. They did not. The wife’s bag arrived after all but a few bags, almost last on the carousel. We waited another 5 minutes for my bag and it never showed. On carousel 6. Then I got a message the bag was delivered to carousel 5. Had I not had the Delta app I would have been at baggage services looking for a lost bag. Delta will be getting a nasty-gram.
Drive home tomorrow. Probably leave about 10:00 after the worst of the Atlanta rush hour as I have to use I-285 to get to I-75N. I will get gas in TN, Dayton, as the gas there is about $0.50 cheaper than Georgia. Might stop at Buc-EE’s on I-75 for a bathroom break and avoid buying anything.
It will be good to get home.
Ok. Forget the book and just hope for a decent show that happens to have the same title.
It’s raining like heck here. Wind from all over. Of course it’s time for the bedtime potty walk. Starlink is doing 20×16 though. If I still had DirecTv I’d have no signal.
I’m home too. Storms moving thru the BOL according to radar.
Took a while to get everything wrapped up. Speed limit or less all the way home, mainly due to the threat of “enhanced enforcement”. I do the speed limit assiduously because small town Texas thrives on speeding tickets. And because I’ve determined that it really doesn’t get you there much quicker– certainly not earlier enough to counter the costs of getting popped.
Had to drink some Dr Pepper later in the day than I should, so I may be up late… although I’m going to try for an early bed time. I’ve got a ton of stuff to do tomorrow.
n
@paul, learning stuff is always good on some level. Keeps the old bean from hardening too much, if nothing else.
n
It’s raining like heck here. Wind from all over. Of course it’s time for the bedtime potty walk. Starlink is doing 20×16 though. If I still had DirecTv I’d have no signal.
I have noticed that also about Starlink. It degrades during heavy rainfall but never goes away. Very impressive. I have heard that it has to melt snow off itself though after a couple of inches.
I am totally impressed with the engineering in Starlink. The satellite handoff every 30 to 90 seconds is also impressive that it continuously just works.
Had to drink some Dr Pepper later in the day than I should, so I may be up late… although I’m going to try for an early bed time. I’ve got a ton of stuff to do tomorrow.
I cannot go to sleep for roughly 12 hours after I have a caffeine drink. I will forget and drink a diet DP for the kick and the acid pleasure after 3pm and then I am up until the sun comes up.
I have heard about people winning the lottery and finding many new family members.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhoPwdwbeot7KmXHz9KtiFl00t8SZcawhPEGZPEJafgFHlFqb_mXuaYD6qm9AYPf0LhjXd2jQGrwbVW-955uTVkyq2anmaouzxnuEoUZYbpdoBlZlz1L_Kz1jz1bAxsuJlcu67PDSYYeS_Ogu1NNPcim4lvkdPF6dF8LrFui0XVaEguY8RKDvY-2-9kHU/s600/Meme%20-%20DNA%20kit.png
From:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/05/memes-that-made-me-laugh-263.html
How do you know that you are a REALLY sound sleeper?
When a container ship runs aground 20 feet from your house and doesn’t wake you up!
https://gcaptain.com/container-ship-runs-aground-just-meters-from-seaside-cabin-near-trondheim-norway/
How do you know that you are a REALLY sound sleeper?
When a container ship runs aground 20 feet from your house and doesn’t wake you up!
https://gcaptain.com/container-ship-runs-aground-just-meters-from-seaside-cabin-near-trondheim-norway/
I used to be a really sound sleeper. I could even sleep through a tack (moving the boom and sails from one side to the other side) on our 41 foot sloop back in the 1970s. For some reason, I was always the graveyard helmsman on overnight voyages.
Eisenhower’s memoirs title is “Stories I Tell on Myself”. I’m not Eisenhower, but…
I’d had a Starbuck’s quite late to see the midnight theatre release of “Blackhawk Down”. Didn’t fall asleep on the couch till quite early, ~3:30 AM. About 6:30 AM, I’m hearing the lady in the apartment above asking someone on the sidewalk about getting her cats out. Curious.
Then I noticed more than a few wisps of smoke surrounding the front door to the hallway. Looking out the window, there seemed to be quite a crowd of folks gathered on the far corner and the reflections of flashing red lights.
Dawned on me this wasn’t good. I informed the fireman on the sidewalk that I had keys to everything and they came to escort me out. The hall was a mess with every fixture melted, the walls black, the sodden
carpet pattern unrecognizeable.
The building is a “U” shape with the bottom of the “U” facing the street. The fire apartment was one of those facing the inner courtyard. The residents, baseball scholarship boys, had a liquid evening, started to make a frozen pizza when they got home, but passed out with the box on top of the stove. That caused the fire.
My place was on the outside arm of the “U”, just around the corner from that apartment. I’d slept thru the alarm, the fireman breaking thru the apartment on the street to reach the fire apartment and the general evacuation and extinguishment of the fire. Felt quite rested, though.
I heard the settlement was a 1/4 million dollars. All the common area halls were repainted and carpeted and each of the 50+ units got brand new kitchens: cabinets, counters, tile floors. Eliminated disposers, though.