Hot and humid. Really. In Texas in summertime. Who would have thought? Add in a chance of rain too. We had such a beautiful long Spring, the transition to Summer is a bit brutal. Saying that, it was 67F when I woke up at the BOL yesterday. And 74F when I finally got moving. I did some extra work outside figuring it would be months before it was this cool again.
That extra work was cutting down a tree. The other work was cleaning up from the rain and wind storm. Neighbor had a huge oak blow down, I just had some standing dead wood and the top of one medium sized tree that landed on the deck.
It still took a while to get all the other loose debris and branches added to the burn pile. And I was pretty sweaty and hot by the end, despite the <80F temps. Got everything cleaned up and eventually headed home. This is a really short week for me. Kids have half days due to testing. Then we're going to see mom and sibling in Fla. Maybe see the new Universal stuff. Maybe some mouse stuff. That means, no bidding on stuff until I get back, and getting everything I previously bid on before I leave. Oh, and wrangling the kids through doctor's appointments and their normal activities. All while getting ready to go out of town. Joy. These are the good old days though, so I'll suck it up. Not much stacking goin' on... nick
Raining. Pretty steadily.
Time to wake the kinder.
n
Can you get stats about what is routed through the MVNO bandwidth and what goes over satellite?
The question isn’t whether Starlink works. The question is whether the bandwidth to fulfill The Pizza Box Dream is available.
I still believe Starlink is a stalking horse for the remaining terrestrial TV and radio bandwidth being sacrificed for The Dream.
We really mean it this time!
Sure, we promised $40k half ton EV trucks cruising at Ludicrous Speed so you gave up V8 engines in family saloons and $20k Honda Accords, but how were we supposed to forsee the end of 2% 10 year Treasuries?
Who could have possibly forseen that?
Call your Congressman!
“Redfin” thinks home prices will fall.
Why should anyone believe a report from someone who doesn’t know the difference between “less” and “fewer”? Or who blames “Chinese tariffs” for higher interest rates?
And it takes a whole month to sell? Still seems crazy fast to me.
n
@greg,
why not give up OTA spectrum at this point? The idea that .gov can sell spectrum seems pretty well entrenched at this point, even though I personally disagree, TV got a HUGE chunk of spectrum for ‘free’ and fewer people use OTA every day.
Since they mainly function as a propaganda arm for .gov, WTF should they freeride?
n
With 30 year Treasuries creeping above 5%, sellers will have to accept reality unless the Fed starts buying the mortgage paper with printing press money again.
The short term bond fund at Vanguard weighted 75% in Treasuries is yielding 4% annually.
The Bond Ghouls as Rukeyser called them are once again stirring in their crypts.
And that’s ignoring the problem here in Texas that will develop later this year unless more surplus gets directed to property tax “reform” by the Legislature.
Yeah, falling home prices suck for sellers but unless you made some sort of REALLY BAD deal, no one should be upside down yet.
The only type of seller “panicking” or “desperate” to get out of a market should be investors, or hedge funds, and they take the risk upon themselves, and contribute to higher prices in the first place by inflating demand. Miami didn’t suddenly lose 100K jobs, or become less desirable as a place to live, but it might not be a good place for speculators…
People are adjusting. They’ll either pay or not.
And if the only inventory available is too high for buyers to get financing, then either prices will fall, or inventory will sit on the market.
n
And of course, when I have a busy day, my client is having issues since the big storm blew thru. He’s been on generator for a while and the UPS on our rack is acting up. Probably did its job and caught something bad. add a site visit to my list today.
n
Six and seven percent home loan interest rates, like the current, aren’t particularly high, historically.
Even here in California I’m seeing development still going up, both residential tracts and commercial corner & strip malls.
It takes a while for companies to adapt to the higher rates (big companies like KB are already there), but it’s certainly not impossible.
Of course the background tax structure is different from the last century, federal, state, county and even local taxes have gone up considerably, and the mandatory insurance on home loans almost rivals the principal payments.
There is zero mention of any connection to the cell phone networks.
You can get a multi-wan router and connect a cell hotspot as a back up. But you can do that if you have cable or fiber, too.
2 and 1/8th inches of rain in the gauge this morning. The usual puddles in the driveway have soaked in. Not much sign of run off.
You are possibly the only person here with Starlink who is on the satellite 100% of the time.
Starlink is an MVNO in addition to a satellite operator.
Miami? Desirable?
Mainland Dade hasnt been desirable since the Nixon Administration.
People live in Miami but they go north as soon as they can afford to make the move.
An artificial floor of $250k was installed under house prices with the $8k first time home buyer credit and 3% down mortgages in 2009.
Try to find anything for less which passes inspection located less than an hour from a downtown core in a top 20 metro.
The market right now reflects a growth from that floor with the expectation of a new tax credit of $15-$20k under President Harris which didn’t happen.
As long as rates stated low, the banks could keep the plates spinning.
Haircuts are coming. People adjust but not their incomes.
Time to wake the kinder.
Our public school system LCISD ended last Friday. It restarts on Aug 11, smack dab in the middle of the cooling season and very high electric usage.
And of course, when I have a busy day, my client is having issues since the big storm blew thru. He’s been on generator for a while and the UPS on our rack is acting up. Probably did its job and caught something bad. add a site visit to my list today.
We had several mini outages last night but never long enough to start the genny (10 sec). The storm was really lighting up the place until 4am.
You are possibly the only person here with Starlink who is on the satellite 100% of the time.
Starlink is an MVNO in addition to a satellite operator.
My office is 100% on Starlink until I reconfigure my Peplink 30 WAN box.
What is a MVNO ?
Mobile Virtual Network Operator.
An MVNO buys bulk service wholesale from the condominium and resells at retail rates.
Think Consumer Wireless.
Starlink supplements the satellites with conventional 5G cellular data in dense urban areas.
The irony of your office service is that the Starlink 5G link probably uses a minicell or “unlicensed” spectrum (WiFi) connection to the pole where the AT&T fiber would run from if you paid their extortion
Home. I spent the night in Atlanta.
I am rather ticked off at Delta and will be composing a nasty-gram. When flying 1st class bags are supposed to get sky priority. Mine didn’t. My wife’s bags were the last to appear on the carousel, #6. We waited five more minutes for my bag to appear. It didn’t. Just as we were making our way to find the lost baggage counter, I got a message from Delta that my bag had arrived on carousel #5. That is hardly what I would call priority baggage handling.
This is the problem. Everyone’s need to live in the same dozen places. People seem to have forgotten supply and demand. I’m guessing you can still get an affordable home in Salina, Kansas; Columbus, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Stillwater, Oklahoma; Casper, Wyoming; Etc. Except, nobody wants to live there because we’ve allowed Madison Avenue and Hollywood to convince us we should all be living cosmopolitan lifestyles in major metros otherwise we’re hicks.
And I am OK with that moniker.
Yep and damn glad about it.
Stillwater, OK will not be cheap due to the presence of OSU.
College town real estate has been distorted by another Obama era decision – the nationalization of the Federal guaranteed student loan program to fund the ACA, passed early in 2010.
As of 2018, the paper became the most valuable asset the US Government held.
As for the rest, any near military installations will have distorted real estate values thanks to repeated off base housing allowance expansions passed since 2009 by Obama, Trump, and Biden.
I know Cedar Rapids has comm system contractors so someone must be in town on an allowance to monitor the manufacturing.
“A reader asks about snubnose revolvers for defensive use”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/05/a-reader-asks-about-snubnose-revolvers.html
“First off, let’s get arguments about the platform out of the way. I agree that a semi-auto pistol has several advantages over a revolver when it comes to defensive shooting (which is why I usually carry one). They include a more easily concealed weapon, larger ammunition capacity, greater ease and speed of reloading, (usually) a smoother, easier trigger, and greater familiarity with the platform among most modern shooters. However, for pocket carry in particular, a pistol has corresponding disadvantages. The greatest of these is that, if it’s necessary to shoot from the pocket, the slide can (and usually will) get caught up in the material of the pocket, preventing its normal operation and jamming the pistol. Secondly, in order to fit in a typical pocket, the pistol must be smaller in size than a normal full-size or compact pistol. All other things being equal, in the hands of all but well-trained and -experienced shooters, smaller handguns are harder to shoot fast and accurately than a larger weapon. Finally, many modern pistols are equipped with optical sights. It’s very hard to fit such sights into a pocket, on top of the gun itself, meaning that the shooter will have to rely on old-fashioned, much smaller “iron” sights – something with which they may no longer be very familiar.
My daily carry is a 5 shot .357 340 PD with a titanium cylinder. I carry .38 +P hollow points in it.
https://www.smith-wesson.com/product/j-frame-103061
My truck carry is a Ruger GP100 7 shot with a 2.5 inch barrel.
https://www.ruger.com/products/gp100/specSheets/1774.html
I carry both in the appropriate Sticky Holsters.
I have severe tendonitis in my right wrist and arm due to my shattering my right humorous as a child. And of course I am extremely right handed. I used to carry an XDM but my limp wristing causing misfires got worse and worse as I approached 60 years of age a few years ago. I even wear a wrist bandage by Sparthos continuously as I restretch the right wrist tendon all the time without the bandage.
https://www.amazon.com/Sparthos-Wrist-Support-Sleeves-Pair/dp/B07G4KVGQS?tag=ttgnet-20/
“Phillips 66’s Los Angeles refinery layoffs to begin in December, sources say”
https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/phillips-66s-los-angeles-refinery-layoffs-begin-december-sources-say-2025-05-22/
“NEW YORK, May 22 (Reuters) – Phillips 66 (PSX.N) is expected to lay off most workers at its 139,000-barrel-per-day Los Angeles-area refinery in December, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.”
“The company announced in October it would close the facility and begin winding down operations in October 2025. The workforce reduction will begin two months later.”
“The Los Angeles facility has about 600 employees and 300 contractors. Over half of the employees are hourly workers represented by the United Steelworkers Union.”
This is what happens when you legislate infrastructure out of business and make it impossible to make a profit. They quit or leave your location.
I predict that gasoline and diesel will be at least $10 per gallon in California in the very near future. The future gasoline and diesel supplies will be coming from the Gulf Coast via the Panama canal which is now charging $3.1 million per canal transit for Panamax carriers.
The irony of your office service is that the Starlink 5G link probably uses a minicell or “unlicensed” spectrum (WiFi) connection to the pole where the AT&T fiber would run from if you paid their extortion
My office ain’t dense and it ain’t urban. The nearest cell tower is over a mile away. And my office building is clad with the metal insulation under the bricks. Phones have a tough time getting their signal through.
We had three outages that were long enough for the generator to start, but not long enough to let it pick up the load. I was in the garage doing laundry, everything went dark, and 7 seconds later, the lights came back on – just as I heard the generator starting up. It’s a great generator, but we still need several UPS systems to keep the electronics running for that 7-second gap.
It still took a while to get all the other loose debris and branches added to the burn pile. And I was pretty sweaty and hot by the end, despite the <80F temps
I cleaned and moved the last bookcase in the garage into my master bedroom yesterday afternoon, behind the 55 inch tv. I am tired of the wasps building dirt dobber nests in my boxes of books in the garage. I now have six 72 inch by 36 inch bookcases in our master, my wife is not amused. I have talked about adding a gameroom behind our bedroom for $150K but that is not going to happen.
We had three outages that were long enough for the generator to start, but not long enough to let it pick up the load. I was in the garage doing laundry, everything went dark, and 7 seconds later, the lights came back on – just as I heard the generator starting up. It’s a great generator, but we still need several UPS systems to keep the electronics running for that 7-second gap.
I am considering getting two Tesla Powerwalls to act as UPSes for the entire house. I just need enough power to keep things running for 10 seconds.
Miami? Desirable?
– not to me or you, but it’s a big destination for wannabe influencers and females looking to snag a 666 bro. and for the bros that prey on them.
n
*666 – six pack abs, six figure salary, six foot tall
Home from my pickups and kid taxi service. I should get something out for dinner, but I’m unmotivated.
Kid2 has her activity tonight in a couple hours, so I have a short break. I could do something productive…
n
Any less of a free ride than the stockholders of Southwestern Bell and Bell Atlantic have enjoyed as the cobbled together the current telecom CoDominium from the remnants of more innovative wireless competitors, failed Baby Bells, and smaller ILECs like GTE and, now, CenturyTel?
Regardless, I doubt Tony can sell the Pizza Box Dream in Congress even if the additional bandwidth would make the key difference.
It wouldn’t BTW.
– not to me or you, but it’s a big destination for wannabe influencers and females looking to snag a 666 bro. and for the bros that prey on them.
n
*666 – six pack abs, six figure salary, six foot tall
That is the prototypical traveling salesman. They can charm the panties off just about any female.
College town real estate has been distorted by another Obama era decision – the nationalization of the Federal guaranteed student loan program to fund the ACA, passed early in 2010.
As of 2018, the paper became the most valuable asset the US Government held.
Nah, the federal gooberment owns more land in the USA than any else. 28%. “The federal government owns roughly 640 million acres, about 28% of the 2.27 billion acres of land in the United States.”
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R42346
640 million acres X $10,000 per acre (SWAG) = $6.4 trillion. That price per acre is probably way low.
Income generating asset. Sorry.
The link was from a Ramsey website page, but I don’t know where that went offhand.
The Feds would never give up the paper completely. A blanket forgiveness like that would require a very complex act of Congress to convert the asset into more debt without violating the agreement with the Senate parliamentarian which allowed Obamacare to pass under reconciliation once the underwear model took Uncle Ted’s seat in 2009.
Somebody just listed 4.76 undeveloped acres for sale down the road from my office property.
https://www.har.com/homedetail/0-fm-2759-richmond-tx-77469/17054616
4.76 acres for $950,000 -> $200,000 per acre
That is my target price for my 14 acres plus my four buildings at a price of $3,900,000
My aunt’s second husband. He was the lapsed priest John Deere salesman and black sheep of the family behind this landmark business in Redondo Beach.
https://redondomarine.com/
I only knew his last name until our trip to California.
My wife went to med school in Dade but lived in Broward. The last time we went back was 2015, but I doubt the place has changed that much since Covid.
The only student in her class who lived near the school, in North Miami Beach, slept with a full auto AK and a 30 round magazine under the comforter next to her in bed. She was fully trained to use the AK.
A conservatively dressed Latin female driving a Volvo can pull into a gun show in Miami and walk out in a couple of hours with just about anything short of an anti tank gun or a nuclear weapon.
The anti tank gun would take a few days.
If you send a kid to school down there, make sure they live north of Sheridan in Broward.
OTOH, the cr*p may have spread north in the last decade so make it Stirling, where the Jewish mafia controls the turf around 46th.
A conservatively dressed Latin female driving a Volvo can pull into a gun show in Miami and walk out in a couple of hours with just about anything short of an anti tank gun or a nuclear weapon.
The anti tank gun would take a few days.
In the SF book that I am reading now, citizen ownership of Stinger missiles is a big plus.
We watched the four available “Clarkson’s Farm” episodes from Season Four over the holiday weekend.
The jabs at the British government fly frequently, but the production team is very careful not to overdo it.
Free speech in Britain is whatever Parliament decides it to be.
Reading between the lines, the pub Clarkson & co. renovate in the back half of the season is a former gay bar which, at one time, featured on site sexual activity out in demolished bathrooms adjacent to a “picnic area” which has to be maintained by the property owners according to the local government.
With the bathroom demolished, the main pub building has to supply restroom facilities to “picnickers” upon request.
The next episode should be fun.
… or I could fall asleep in the chair.
Which was easier.
Wife took the kid to her activity and the other went with to shop. I guess I’ll eat something from the freezer.
Maybe I’ll finish bill paying and go to bed early.
n
I emailed the CEO of Delta about the lack of priority handling of my Delta Sky Priority luggage. I know he never read it, but someone did and I was credited 2,500 miles to my account and my wife’s account. About what I expected. Looking at my account I have a tad over a quarter million miles flown on Delta. Probably a trivial amount to Mr. ATOZ.
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 am the manager and 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.
What the h*ll happened to you, Germany?
https://apnews.com/article/volkswagen-germany-diesel-emissions-court-fraud-3878fcf6c06c9574bf5bff8d31029f90
Back in the day, the response to a complaint from the US EPA would have been:
Ja, we "cheated". Should we call you a wahmbulance?
Dial ze nine-wah-wah!
Well, I decided to vac seal the meat I bought last week. A big vac pack pork loin, and 6 pounds of prime NY Strip…
Did that, no issues. Pork roast, some chops, and trim for carnitas or pulled pork. Then I decided to put stuff away.
I had a Christmas santa display I bought, sitting in a box, so I set that up to see what it really was (and how big a d-bag do you have to be to return USED Christmas displays after Christmas?) I decided to cut down the box it was in before putting it away in the attic.
Turns out that knives are sharp. I cut into the top side of my pointing finger on my left hand. It’s about a 1″ long cut, at an angle thru the skin, mostly skimming along, so not super deep. And not in very far. I was worried at first, but I have full motion, only venous bleeding, the tip is perfusing well, and it stopped hurting much. I steri-stripped across it, covered it in triple ABX, then a bandaid. If it shows any sign of infection in the morning, I’ll go see the doc in the box. Of course I’m the only one home…
I’m glad it was not worse.
n
@nightraker, that’s some pretty sound sleeping.
When I was in college, someone would set off the fire alarms in the building at least once a month by drunkenly putting something in the toaster oven then passing out. Pizza, burrito, pot pie, didn’t matter, none do well for an hour at 450F…
The smoke stinks really bad. It got to the point where we were being fined for each call out to basically open windows and shut off the alarm, and some of us figured out how to access the panel, and reset it ourselves.
n
whoops…
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2025/05/27/shoe-dropped-trump-pauses-student-visas-across-the-board-n3803181
“The Vistra fires and the truth about lithium-ion batteries”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/vistra-fires-lithium-ion-batteries-dry-electrode-det/748903/
“A technology exists to mass-produce safer lithium-ion batteries that can prevent disastrous battery fires, at potentially lower cost.”
But the batteries are noticeably bigger and use more lithium, more cost.
“Congress Failed to Enact Any of the Nearly $1T DOGE Cuts”
https://www.independentsentinel.com/congress-failed-to-enact-any-of-the-nearly-1t-doge-cuts/
The House is a bunch of assholes. So is the Senate.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
HEB has tetanus shots if you haven’t received one in a while.
Or they did back before Covid.
The Jeb! branch of the Republican Party in Florida is fighting back against DeSantis.
He’s still Governor for two more years.
That fire was the most excitement I had in managing apartments. There was considerable delicacy with the insurance claim. The owner had 1 fire per year for 4-5 years with a ~70 building portfolio of places from 3-150 units of various vintages. Many were 1920’s and 30’s age. All were on the East Side of Milwaukee, essentially downtown. No people were hurt and damage was typically confined to the involved unit.
I stood next to he owner across the street for one of those first fires as the MFD dumped ½ a million gallons on a 5 story, 10 units of 3 bedrooms vintage place. The story went that a disgruntled ex-boyfriend had broken into a top floor unit, spray painted some very unflattering graffiti on the walls of her bedroom, doused the bed with accelerant and tossed a match. The fire got the many layers of asphalt roofing going really well. Took more than a year to rehab the joint. The air shafts became HVAC spaces so each unit had central AC and updated kitchens/bathrooms. The owner remarked that nothing good was going to come out of that disaster. The water damage killed occupancy for everyone.
“My” building was comparatively modern mid 70’s construction: 3 floors of brick veneer stick building over a concrete bunker garage, elevator lobby, laundry, boiler and storage rooms. The 1st floor fire apartment was stripped to the studs and redone. 2 other apartments were severely smoke damaged. One because the girl resident didn’t close the door during evacuation. The other was where the FD brought the hose through to reach the flames.
I was specifically forbidden to speak one word to the insurance company’s guy flown in from the coast. 2 “consultant” adjusters, hired by the owner, handled him. The munificent settlement did have to be spent on the place, hence the new kitchens.
Residents were allowed to return home within a very few days. Upper floors almost right away. 1st floor units after demo and Kilz prime paint of the hallway. The nasty oil based brain cell killing kind. The company had a small crew of illegals for that, even then, at the turn of the century.
I have a feeling I’ll be at the doc inthe box for infection tomorrow. It’s not a closed injury or a puncture so I’m not worried about the tetanus, and I am pretty sure I’ve had one in the last 10 years. I’m pretty good at poking myself with stuff… and do it on a fairly regular basis.
n
The stinky Killz is the best. If you REALLY need it to be primed and sealed, that’s the stuff. I”ve never had it fail.
———
I think there is a special paint for encapsulating smoke and char damage. One of the flipper shows back in the day bought a house and when they got into the attic, it had been burned at some point.
Speaking of burning, there are a surprising number of big structure fires on the west side of Houston over the last 6 months. An office building, a couple of low end hotels, etc. One big tilt up warehouse near me.
That’s not mentioning the apartment and house fires that seem normal.
n
The stinky Kilz is, indeed, extremely effective. It’s marketing materials show it being used on charred timbers. We used it on decking or concrete underfloor for cat urine damage.
OTOH, for most uses, the latex stuff is almost, nearly, similarly just as good. Cigarette damaged drywall or plaster or water staining damage comes to mind.
https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2025/05/27/new-video-shows-just-what-the-heck-went-down-with-secret-service-agents-brawling-outside-obamas-house-n2189679
Please assign all the USSS DIE agents to Obama and Biden. If there are any left over: Harris, Schumer, Jeffries, etc.
12 cents on the dollar:
https://hotair.com/headlines/2025/05/27/rubio-reveals-how-little-usaid-was-helping-n3803143
Time to start heading for bed. Maybe I’ll actually get to bed today, rather than tomorrow…
n
>>metal insulation
metal??
>>I had a Christmas santa display I bought, sitting in a box, so I set that up to see what it really was (and how big a d-bag do you have to be to return USED Christmas displays after Christmas?) I decided to cut down the box it was in before putting it away in the attic.
Turns out that knives are sharp. I cut into the top side of my pointing finger on my left hand. It’s about a 1″ long cut, at an angle thru the skin, mostly skimming along, so not super deep. And not in very far. I was worried at first, but I have full motion, only venous bleeding, the tip is perfusing well, and it stopped hurting much. I steri-stripped across it, covered it in triple ABX, then a bandaid. If it shows any sign of infection in the morning, I’ll go see the doc in the box. Of course I’m the only one home…
I’m glad it was not worse.
Yeah, but is Santa okay?