And it’s cool and wet today. Forecast shows clearing, and it is almost guaranteed to warm up, which will make it pretty humid. Still, we needed the rain. We need more actually, but now I can wait until after Halloween.
I spent part of yesterday working on the laundry room pantry project. W decided she needed to repaint before I put the cabinets in place. Cue the removal of all the OTHER stuff, coat rack, shelving, laundry supplies, hurricane preps, keys, backpacks, hats… Big mess. But she should finish today, and then I can get my part done.
The rest of the day I moved from small thing to small thing, with some auction stuff in between. No big thing got off the list though.
Today I need to make some more progress on a few of the smaller things that will enable bigger things later. And probably not things that need me to be outdoors. I am glad I didn’t get more decor set up, as it’s not super sturdy and would likely have been damaged by the rain and wind. I don’t know how much we actually got but it was pouring down and the wind was howling.
Anyway, there is a pile of work in front of me. I’ll do some of it, and count it as working to improve. I’ll stack something too, just because I always do.
nick
Fill it in… I also saw a renovation program once, where they turned a swimming pool into a sheltered eating and seating area: some raised beds for plants, a fountain, etc.. Dunno how they handled the drainage.
You have to punch big holes in the bottom of the swimming pool. Or else the dirt that you throw in there becomes soup.
65 F and very wet outside after our drought of two months.
Very dark too, daylight savings time sucks. The kids will be waiting for the bus this week in the absolute dark, very bad.
Generally “in”. The Gecko has a consistent stream of float from the insurance operations which must go somewhere to stay ahead of claims while maintaining the illusion that vehicle and home ownership is still “affordable”.
Even GM can’t control the EV fire problem. En Fuego!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpOA5jWdVYA&t=1s
I have to call The Gecko this week ahead of my policy renewal. He wants $700 of float for the next six months to insure my driving the Solara a couple of times a week. Liability only.
Why is Trump building a ballroom? That seems completely tone deaf. But then, I swear he governs by rolling dice every morning. Tariffs up, tariffs down. Country X is good, no, country X is bad. If he wants to promote industry and jobs, someone needs to let him know: What industry most needs is stability and predictability.
I have no idea why Trump is building a ballroom. I literally do not care either, I have way bigger problems to fix. It is pissing off the dumbrocrats that does make me happy.
You gotta understand, Trump’s main job is to be cheerleader for the USA. Whatever he needs to do to make that happen is fine with me. If he has to knock down blocks in thr dumbrocrat enclaves, I am fine with that.
To be honest, I have no idea how Trump gets up in the morning. He has so many problems to fix. I would just curl in a ball and tell them to try again tomorrow.
My Aggies trounced the LSU Tigers last night 49 to 18 at LSU. It was a beatdown. We have the best team money can buy !
I have to call The Gecko this week ahead of my policy renewal. He wants $700 of float for the next six months to insure my driving the Solara a couple of times a week. Liability only.
Is your daughter still on the policy ? There is a hefty surcharge for 3 ? 5 ? years after a wreck.
I got the impression that your father had things pretty well dialed in at Fidelity, to the point where they had a revenue stream that they drew on without touching capital.
Bailing on my one managed fund at Vanguard over the past couple of years has been expensive in terms of capital gains taxes. My rule whenever I cash out shares is that I have to find somewhere for the money to go to cover the IRS’ share within 12 months, and that has been hard to accompish lately unless I just go for one of the growth funds which are largely NVDA.
Someone dropped a dime on Lane Kiffin last night.
Texas is going to buy a playoff slot. The Manning Family will not be denied this season.
When I turned on the TV last night, I caught an NBA game going to commercial before I changed the channel, and the first ad to appear was pro basketball’s official online sports book.
Stick a fork in the Trailblazers if not the entire league.
Beyond the $11k immediate property damage settlement on the other party’s truck, the final tally on the accident won’t be known until well into next year.
Since $11k is obviously not adequate to replace a 2017 Silverado extended crew cab in the Texas market, the other driver has engaged a PI attorney who asked for the maximum $50k per person my policy will pay for injury claims on the basis that their client was severely injured in the accident.
Translation: Papi needs the truck to work.
The next step will be a deposition for my daughter in the Spring leading to an arbitration hearing.
I believe The Lizard is dragging out the case on the possibility that the other driver is no longer in the country. He will have to show for any arbitration, but the earliest that will happen is next Summer.
I did see a speculation that the Ballroom is cover for an elaborate Fuhrer bunker. Obama did something similar on the West Wing side. The cover stories then didn’t pass the smell test. Washington is topologically a big bowl and there is already a multi-year, multi-billion drainage Deep Tunnel project running for miles and miles around the Federal Mall complex. Water table must be pretty high…
During the first Orange Man term, the Trump family owned the hotel near the White House which was the converted DC Main US Post Office. Apparently, a lot of business got conducted at events there.
The family no longer owns the hotel, having sold it in 2022, but having an equivalent modern event facility available at a moment’s notice under the President’s control in DC is still desirable.
They looked impressive last night.
Bama got it together late in the 4th quarter and survived SC. If it weren’t for an early pick 6 and a late fumble recovery, Bama would have lost the game.
Both teams have tough schedules remaining.
@Lynn
As noted in the article, the software used by Zillow was contradicted by history, the federal flood maps, and the flood insurance requirements. That made it an extraordinary claim. My guess is that the software development team produced a green weinie disaster-weighted model with not consideration of the existing flood maps, and they had not people with the requisite expertise to interpret them.
I am acquainted with one of the primary developers of the modern flood maps who has literally spent decades predicting and validating. The devil is in the details, and in this case, predicting where the waters edge will progress as flooding proceeds. I should give him a call and make sure that he is aware of the lawsuit. He has all the personality of a mud fence, but I suspect that one of his employees is more personable.
Still, there is a big difference between a SWAG and a WAG.
@Lynn
Fill it in… I also saw a renovation program once, where they turned a swimming pool into a sheltered eating and seating area: some raised beds for plants, a fountain, etc.. Dunno how they handled the drainage.
Pool is on the must-have list for a lot of people shopping for such a property. Covering it might make sense if it’s not going to be used.
NBA has been dead to me for almost 30 years. Sports gambling will kill it off.
Be interesting to see what happens when AI is developed enough to referee the games. LeBron will be retired so he won’t have to learn to dribble, but the rest of them…
re: White House Balroom
the wiki entry is interesting:
So it’s not a whim of the moment and it addresses a real need. Seating for 200 can’t accomodate a small high school, much less a national event.
Trump should have CSI in to test the carpets in the residence, and publish a map of cocaine contamination overlaid with rooms used by Hunter.
having an equivalent modern event facility available at a moment’s notice under the President’s control in DC is still desirable.
– this is the stated reason for the construction.
———————————
Up. I was up until 3am so still not feeling completely rested.
Sunny and pretty still out. My weather station says 77F, 80%RH, and 3.5″ of rain. I believe it, as it was pouring down. The streets clear quickly, but anytime it comes faster than 1″ per hour, they fill up.
TIme for some coffee.
n
Just found out via Facebook that my brother-in-law died Thursday.
We were not close, mostly due to age differences and 2000 miles distance. And my misanthropy. There was some entertainment in his marriage to my sister, however. Before they married, he was married to our cousin and raised 3 kids, our first cousins once-removed. After my cousin died, and my sister’s first husband died, they married. That made my sister’s kids his step-kids, and their second cousins also step-siblings. If you worked at it hard enough, you could get an “I’m my own grandpa” moment.
A few years ago my sister died, making him widowed twice, both due to breast cancer.
He was a not-particularly-devout Mormon, who told me my one-and-only Mormon joke.
Why do you only invite Mormons to go fishing with you in pairs? If you only take one Mormon, he’ll drink all your beer.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-15223959/winn-dixie-florida-based-grocery-closes-stores.html
n
RIP June Lockhart. I missed her passing a few days ago. I liked her.
panopticon
They dropped one of the major pieces. They left DNA all over the place. How could someone so bumbling, plan and execute the theft?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15228281/Two-arrested-Louvre-heist-century-raid-Frances-76million-crown-jewels.html
n
I’d use the “time machine and a contraceptive” line from Douglas Adams, but I don’t think anyone would get it. Ok. Cue the clip from the best episode of “Star Trek” produced during the Stage 8/9 era.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzrVvhSVYsc
Winn Dixie has been circling the drain for 30 years.
While it is easy to blame Publix and WalMart, Winn Dixie’s problems date back to an aggressive expansion by Food Lion into Florida in the early 90s.
Even after the “Primtime Live” expose wiped out Food Lion outside of their established base region in the Carolinas, Winn Dixie never recovered market share.
RIP June Lockhart 1925-2025
https://parade.com/news/beloved-tv-mom-june-lockhart-had-a-surprising-wild-side
June Lockhart was one of many topics Billy Mumy touched on in this recent interview.
Mumy also recollects about the early Allman Brothers encounter thanks to Lockhart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8kYhEW4h4g
Fact Check: Democrats still pernicious, vile, and stupid liars:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/10/cnn-performs-rare-fact-check-on-democrats-after-outrageous-lie-about-trump-and-ballroom/
The best “D-Con Chamber” interview to date IMHO. Especially relevant with Guillermo Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” – sadly without Doug Jones – in theaters this weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akivd148HlM
We are heading out to see “Frankenstein” tonight.
Netflix finally realized that they may have a Best Picture film and put the movie into wider release with a website listing screenings.
https://frankensteingdt.com/
And the restroom facilities were port-a-potties, per reports.
The head of security was even more bumbling.
That is two more branches than an Alabama family tree so don’t feel special.
We got our biz condo under a sales contract on Wed. An investor made a cash offer which we took. We’re currently waiting on the HOA sale packet. The investor put up $5K of earnest money, so we’re pretty sure the sale will go through. We were just about to switch to a rental company, so yay!
The house in SA is packed and I’m looking for movers and then sale of the house. That will put us in one house. I can’t wait to get the garage mini-splitted so I can have my cave.
I think I’m going with the spinning unit. There is a corner in this room where it will fit and hopefully look decent.
I looked a bit today for shelf units with a max height of 38 inches. No luck. Why 38 inches? There’s a countertop between the kitchen and living room. We call it The Bar. It has like six inches of leg room on the kitchen side, about 15 inches in the living room. We’ve never had bar stools and never wanted any. Because it would push our chairs at least four feet toward the center of the room. Make the place feel cramped. Besides, we have this place called a Dining Room.
I thought about building my own shelving to sit under the bar. And ya know? I can. I’m not a good carpenter but my stuff doesn’t break. But visually, I’m not seeing it as looking nice. Two shelf units five feet wide with four shelves each is a lot of storage space. If I’m measuring correctly, a five foot wide shelf is about 100 DVDs. So, 800 DVDs?
I think the spinning shelf unit, rated for 576 DVDs, will hold all of the DVDs I would ever want to watch again.
There. All decided.
Hired, sacrificial help. If they were smart they would have known they were sacrificial.
Pretty clearly bribed.
Hanlon’s Razor cuts deep.
EdJ … my evil twin …
Hmmph. My evil twin doesn’t make on-point comments for me. My evil twin fed a neighbor’s kids for four months when her husband was dying in the hospital. My evil twin did free car repair for a college student who would have had to go without food for a month to pay for a shop to fix it. My evil twin…
Er…
I don’t think I like the way this is going.
More thinking.
There have been plenty of years where paying the property taxes were a real big deal. Because big bill stuff like house insurance or a major car repair seemed to happen at the same time. Coughing up five grand hurt. So. Plenty of messing with cash advance checks from credit cards happened.
Hence the t-bill deal and pay taxes when the t-bill pays.
I’m not trying to keep more than $1500 in savings to avoid a $10 account fee. Heck, they call me now wanting to be My Personal Banker. I’ll just pay the dang taxes the next time I go to HEB for beer and dog cookies. Be done with it.
Let the t-bill stuff I set up happen as scheduled. It’s a wash. Pretty nice to have enough money to not be sweating this. But old habits die hard.
Angels and Devils, all the same.
I once referred to a friend’s daughter as “someone’s evil twin” after she described some teenage girl battle thing.
She thought it was funny.
Girls are scary.
A girl at my daughter’s school was named* Alexandra. Her name was written “Alexandria” somewhere or other. I asked if Alexandria was Alexandra’s retarded twin.
* Probably is still named Alexandra.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-15224591/astonishing-statistic-gen-z-workers-infuriating-bosses.html
– evidence that it’s not just anecdotal.
n
(is there another word with cd in the middle?)
Although the DDG AI couldn’t figure it out (it provided words with intervening letters between ‘c’ and ‘d’), a regular DDG search came up with this link: https://www.bestwordlist.com/m/c/2/10letterwordswithcd.htm
including this word ‘SYNECDOCHICAL’ . which is “Synecdochical refers to a figure of speech where a part of something is used to represent the whole, or vice versa. For example, using “wheels” to mean “car” is a synecdochical expression.”
Wohoo! Finally… the new Hi-Fi system is installed and working at the BOL. Fired up straight away when I gave it mains voltage.
It took me the better part of my entire week off work, but my ears are telling me it was worth it, and my eyes are thinking that W1 will pass it on aesthetic grounds. I managed to retain and sympathetically adapt the existing furniture that she likes.
There is a little bit of cable-salad visible if one insists on looking under the shelves, but I couldn’t hide it any better in the tight quarters available, without being able to access everything from the rear.
I am not enamoured of the manufacturer’s recommended means of connecting the speaker wires to the amp. Strip about 10mm (3/8 inch), twist the wires, and stuff them under a clamp nut. I see the twisted ends working loose over time, as the equipment warms and cools.
I will have to see about either “tinning” the wire ends with solder, or finding some suitable U lugs to crimp on. The clamping nuts unfortunately seem to be captive, which will prevent using cable eyes, which would be a much better job.
Does anybody have a recommendation for decent lugs to fit 4 sq. mm cable and Denon connectors?
I provided a physical disconnect, so the whole setup can be isolated from the mains power when the house is not in use, or when lightning is on the cards. Hopefully the humans will remember to avail themselves of it…
I am shattered. Now to bed, to dream of beautiful acoustics…
Congratulations!
There are lightning detectors on Amazon, with audible alarms, for stuff within ‘x’ miles.
An imperfect aid, but if your gear costs as much as a small car maybe worth it.
BTW, just how big is your disconnect? A 4mm air gap might not cut it.
anecdote and its variants
synecdoche
ecdysis and its variants (including ecdysiast, a fancy word for “stripper, pole optional”)
socdolager
ecdemite
I got these from Gemini Pro. (I have an account for one of my paying gigs.)
>>I think the spinning shelf unit, rated for 576 DVDs, will hold all of the DVDs I would ever want to watch again.
@paul, given enough time, maybe I could come up with two dozen movies that we’d watch more than twice.
But then again we just stream and we have a long ‘to watch list.’
Just finished “The Lazarus Project” (good but the time travels can get confusing) and halfway through Season 3 of “The Diplomat” (l suspect Season 4 is coming.)
And Keri Russell is ‘easy on the eyes.’
SYNECDOCHICAL sounds like it shares a root with anecdote … or a similar derivation. The letter combination just suddenly struck me as very odd.
—
@denis, the denon should have what are called ‘5 way binding posts’ on it for speaker connections. They will take a ‘banana plug’ in the center hole, which is the method I prefer when I’m being a pro installer/integrator just because it is easier to do and undo. There is also an end you can solder or crimp on that is a ½” long needle, that slips under the binder post, where you just have the wire now. They are more often used for the spring connectors that you jam a wire into while depressing the spring clamp. I think they would work loose over time.
FWIW, I’ve done a LOT of installations, maybe a hundred? and just putting the twisted wire under the binder post is fine. I don’t recommend soldering/tinning it. The tension from squishing the twisted bundle of strands will keep the binder post from unscrewing. The plastic ‘ring’ denon uses around the bottom of the binding post that means you can only stick the wire under from one direction makes it harder to insert the twisted wire without loose strands potentially shorting. As long as there isn’t shorting, and you don’t intend to make and unmake those connections frequently, I’d say “done is good” at this point.
I have seen other installations using very fine stranded wire that soldered only the end of the twisted bare part. That keeps stray strands to a minimum, makes it easier to insert, and still maintains the ‘springy’ quality of the twisted bundle that keeps tension on the screw thread of the binder post, keeping it from unscrewing.
There is a lot of snake oil in ‘audiophile’ circles. Even if you believe it, and have the money to spend, any improvements are far below what normal hearing can discern. Simple to fix things are much more important than ‘oxygen free copper’ wires. Speaker placement, speaker polarity, and the quality of the signal chain equipment make more of a difference in sound. MOST notably speaker placement and polarity. After that, room tuning makes a huge difference.
Pro level audio is achieved with surprisingly mundane materials.
n
Watch: California Facing $160M in Withheld Federal Funds Over CDL Issue
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2025/10/26/watch-california-facing-160m-in-withheld-federal-funds-over-cdl-issue-n2195513
Strip immunity from the State of California and officials at all levels. Make them personally liable, too. Indict, prosecute, find guilty, and imprison every official from the issuer at the counter up to an including Gavin Newsom. Pass federal legislation making it easy to file civil suits. Sequester the withheld funds in anticipation of successful lawsuits–$160 million will only cover two, tops, so Sec Duffy should keep going.
Give Newsom 30 days before invalidating all CDL’s issued by California, and then issue the order after 15 days if there hasn’t been movement, and order all drivers with CA CDL’s off the road in 24 hours.
So much for the outer rings of the Barber of Seville diagram.
grep /usr/share/dict/words with the regular expression “.cd.”.
Meh, that’s too time-consuming and bureaucratic and boring. What I say is, the US nuclear arsenal has a bunch of warheads that are nearing end of life. Rather than go to the time and expense of disassembling them and throwing away the irradiated parts, just dispose of them ballistically. Sacramento, definitely. LA Basin, probably.
And then the Prez should tweet “Portland, I have my eye on you.”
Downtown Portland would be easy to pacify. No nukes necessary. Raise the drawbridges, starting with the one on I-5.
The problem with nuclear weapons is the fallout. Other that I have some realtives in California that are not part of the problem …
NASA tested my chain theory in space–Steve Mould
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtZaP8VMv0c
7MM views in 10 days…
and counting
Guillermo Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is very good.
VA Prosecutor Fired for Sending Tish James File to Her Personal Email
https://hotair.com/headlines/2025/10/26/va-prosecutor-fired-for-sending-tish-james-file-to-her-personal-email-n3808220
This was the one the PLT’s were lauding for being “principled”.
Looking forward to a perp walk and prosecution.
They are ALL scumbags. The evidence is pretty clear.
n
>>There is a lot of snake oil in ‘audiophile’ circles. Even if you believe it, and have the money to spend, any improvements are far below what normal hearing can discern.
‘Placebo Effect,’ meet Denis’ wallet.
My S1 has been doing pro-level audio (and video) in NYFC for 30+ years and everything that @nick says is on point.
Bro wants to retire but he has too many regular clients that “won’t” let him.
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use regular expressions.” Now they have two problems.
Some people when confronted with these two problems ask an AI to write the regex … now they don’t know if they have problems or not.
The man with one clock always knows what time it is. The man with two clocks never does.
———
Tiny little fire by the water feature as I get pummeled by acorns. IDK how they can hit that hard, with just falling. @ 66F it was a little damp and chilly.
Now it’s time for bed.
n
“GOP Moves to Revoke Zohran Mamdani’s Citizenship”
https://www.independentsentinel.com/gop-moves-to-revoke-zohran-mamdanis-citizenship/
“Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani boasted he was a “proud democratic socialist” Sunday as he arrogantly dismissed congressional Republicans’ threats to revoke his citizenship over his naturalization paperwork.”
“Mamdani, 34, denied being a communist after opponents claimed he lied by not disclosing on his 2018 citizenship forms that he was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.”
“Citizenship should mean something, and Zohran is a communist no matter what he calls himself.”
Interesting.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
Is it black pilled of me to think that Mamdani is an example of “Immanentize the eschaton”?
At least, for NYFC.