Warm and moist, but maybe not wet? We’ll see. We did get rain yesterday, but it didn’t stick, and it was quite pleasant by nightfall. It would be nice to have a mild day today.
Did my hobby meeting in the morning. New location is nice. It’s not hard to get to, if a bit farther than where we used to meet. The meeting for our Fall event was a mess, but some progress was made. Our current president doesn’t listen to anyone, and doesn’t seem to remember previous discussions if they didn’t end the way he wanted. Oh well, I had a boss like that and I can cope but it does up the frustration and stress level. Hobby is supposed to be fun…
Today is Mothers Day in the US. It’s a bit of a ‘Hallmark holiday’ but the thought and intent is fairly noble. I can support it. I’ll probably cook something nice for dinner. Maybe a ribeye roast? Or more likely a ‘picana roast’ which is just the cap off of a sirloin roast.
And then I’ll see about working on the list. Maybe I’ll laze around and just do computer or networking…
Remember to spend time with loved ones.
And stack.
nick
Just finished working, on another of those projects which was paying enough to make it worth staying up late. 0327 as I type this and I need to get up at 0500. And I’m not 20 anymore. Ugggghhhhhh.
Sunday. Good morning!
SteveF, I feel your pain. The alarm woke me at 03:50. Still didn’t catch up on my sibling. Drastic measures are called for. But first, a nap.
Make the roast and tell the family that it’s only for you (as the cook) and any mothers or mothers-to-be in the house. Any non mothers-to-be can have a bowl of cereal or something. If your daughters try to get some roast, scowl at them and say that you need to have a very serious talk. #FollowMeForMoreParentingTips
The “experts” are now blaming the hantavirus on “climate change”. How convenient as I am certain that there is money involved.
Can I blame my hemorrhoids on climate change?
“But first, a nap.”
Found another t-shirt
“Can I blame my hemorrhoids AND GAS on climate change?”
FIFY
Does the virus spread well in warm, damp environments like tropical rainforests … or bathhouses?
The Somali community in Minneapolis wants to reopen the bathhouses there. Of course Minnesota Public Radio doesn’t want that part of the story known.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/04/08/minneapolis-bathhouse-ban-history
“Big Daddy’s Bath House”. Reallly?
83F and sunny with a little breeze, very little.
I had a nice sleep.
Time for some coffee though.
Kids are still in bed, and W is binge watching Poldark and The Outlander. Still. Or again.
n
It occurred to me that I should have named a chicken Wingie-the-Pooh, the chicken of very little brain. I am sad that I’ve had chickens for three years and did not think of it before.
Note that my chickens’ names tend to be more descriptions than names: Brown Hen, Black Hen, Red Rooster, White Rooster, and so on. Bully and Troublemaker were named by my daughter for their personalities.
Of course, I wanted to name my daughter Ann Accident. Before that, I wanted to name my son after the fashion of the famous Greeks Pericles and Heracles: Testicles.
While I do not agree with those who say that I should not be allowed to name anything, ever, I do at least understand why they might take such a position.
Many of the old Greeks missed the obvious in naming: Figacles
Nah, I take full credit for the gas. Al Gore can kiss my grits.
Anyone think the chinese are not facilitating the destruction of America by supporting the illegal drug trade??
https://hibid.com/lot/300317463/-688-fuel-bladder-emergency-tanks-for-extended-ran
They are producing these at scale.
n
Maybe it’s time for class action suits on behalf of aircrew and passengers against the estate of the idiot for interference with their travel and mental distress.
Many years ago a guy got drunk, climbed a fence around a local airport, stole a plane, and naturally crashed leading to his well-deserved demise. His family sued the airport owner, the fence company, the fuel company, the airplane manufacturer, any person who did maintenance on the plane, the manufacturer of the tools used during any maintenance, the owner of the plane, the manufacturer of the tires, any company with any product installed on the plane which included the instrument makers. Anyone, any company, anywhere, any time, who touched the plane got named in the lawsuit. Several dozen companies and individuals.
Most of the companies settled out of court for a few grand as that was cheaper than going through litigation even though the companies would win. Some of the individuals took it to court and of course were found not liable. Others just paid a few hundred dollars.
The net result to the family was a couple hundred thousand dollars. Fairly good payday for getting rid of the drunk family member. Who was basically worthless as he had no job, flopped from house to house of family members, and had zero assets.
Dick Cheney may have some advice.
I’m pretty sure Dick Cheney killed McDonnell-Douglas.
He spawned the she-devil Liz Cheney.
Shooting a lawyer in the face may be the best thing he ever did.
Mac-Dac merged with Boeing in 1997. Cheney was CEO of Halliburton then.
The famous “Last Supper” that caused the consolidation of the defense and aerospace industry was in 1993, hosted by Clinton’s SecDef Les Aspin.
During his tenure as SecDef, he had oversight of the A-12 project. General Dynamics and MDC submitted bids, and instead of accepting one, he forced them to “partner” in the development.
General Dynamics provided nothing at all except delays and cost overruns. All the materials design, all the avionics design, all the advanced composite work, all the airframe styling, were done by MDC.
The project, predictably, went over budget, in part because MDC had to redo all the awful GD work.
Then Cheney announced one day, after a program review, that the program was cancelled. I won’t say he was wrong to cancel it. It was the largest defense program ever canceled.
MDC could have survived that, maybe. But then they submitted a final bill to DOD, for $4 billion in progress payments.
DOD (Cheney) responded with “No, you owe us $4 billion in clawbacks for overspending.”
An $8 billion gap. It went into litigation, and before it could be settled, Boeing bought what was left of MDC.
Eventually, the courts found in favor of MDC. Too late to save an iconic St. Louis company. Boeing came out ok, though. Like buying a Brooks Brothers suit at the Goodwill, and finding cash in the pockets.
Les Aspin also gave the world “Black Hawk Down”, skimping on the mission in Somalia.
Agruably, this led to the situation in Minnesota with the Somali refugees fleeing the country in the aftermath.
Turns out W had a head full of plans for how her morning would go. Unfortunately, I’m not much of a mind reader, so those plans didn’t happen. Somehow I’m to blame.
Eventually some eggs benedict were produced and then eaten. And after everyone was done, the table cleared, and everything put away, I ate mine. [poor poor pitiful me..]
Somehow I’m in the doghouse.
n
Yes, yes, you are, sir. Enjoy the doghouse.
When Cheney wore that black fedora, he gave off that “Raiders of the Lost Ark” Gestapo vibe. SecDef, VP, Rep, CoS, and CEO. When you smell those fumes of Mordor, you turn to the dark side.
This guy is really interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/E_0BPv5EOdM?feature=share
That is a very different approach to manipulating people. And he has data.
n
I find that pulling back from the thousand unthanked chores that I do provides a salutary learning experience for my wife and children. Employers and coworkers, too, when I have them.
Suddenly, it’s really hot out. 97F or more.
n
It wasn’t unthanked chores at the TX DoB. I’d just wander around and hey, she’s almost out of scotch tape and her, over there, could use another ream of printer paper and a fresh bottle of white-out.
I’d notice and when I needed a case of paper for the copier, I’d pick up a few extra things. And just leave it on their desks. It’s just me, trying to make things run smoother. And yeah. Women need spoiling. Even if they all married and some well into their cronage, chicks like the attention. It’s a girl thing.
The guy running the supply room acted like it all belonged to him. After seeing him give a few secretaries the Fifth Degree for wanting a box of staples, for, like the stapler on their desk. yeah, that’s BS. He was a nice guy but he had his duties.
The supply room guy didn’t give me any grief. I’m doing all the Xeroxing of bank exam reports and him denying me a box of staples for the heavy duty stapler, or anything else I needed, that ain’t gonna fly. He tried. Once. My boss and my boss’s boss stomped on his ass. Because, yes, I do need that case of paper to feed the copier to do my job. Now, not tomorrow afternoon.
Yeah. Kinda got his point but the lady needs a ribbon for her typewriter. He was controlling stuff that no one is going to steal for home.
So long rambling story cut short…. I talked to a few friends that worked there about six months or so after I quit and all of the secretaries missed me. Even the ones that acted like they didn’t like me. Grin.
Women constantly expect men to be able to read their minds, even though this NEVER happens.
Big River found my lawnmower carpotato and DVD package. To be delivered by USPS. On a Sunday.
Yeah…. the mailbox is full or the package is too big to fit.
No problem. I’ll go to the PO tomorrow morning and get the package. Hopefully that negro woman with her huge attitude problem will not be there. I will try to be civil. Then go next door to the HEB for chips and tortillas for this coming weekend. I have a small shopping list. And buy beer. Of course.
Autocorrect? AI? Weird spellcheck? Some product I haven’t yet heard of?
Whatever, I like it.
I assume carburetor.
Yeah. Carpotato or carburetor It’s an old old joke we had. As I rebuilt carbs for various Mopar products.
Carburetors are like magic. So simple. So easy to mess up.
So simple. Fuel, air, fire… and yet so complex.
n
Did I mention my Passport actually arrived in Saturday’s mail? Three days. Wow!
Sunday bedtime ( now Monday). Drew even with sibling at the eleventh hour. Harmony is restored to the universe.
Looking forward to a full night’s sleep and not getting up for 4 am. I would love to sleep until the crack of noon, but until 8 or 9 will be fine.
The beautiful weather has broken, so I will be lulled to sleep by the rain. Goodnight!
The weather liars say that Austin is going to get severe weather this evening as a strong cold front rolls through.
It hit 117ºF on my outside sensor, 77ºF in the garage.
Mothers Day. Meh. Not a fan. I don’t want any of the crap Mother’s Day ads say I want. I don’t want it to be a big deal that someone else cooked or whatever one day of the year. If I’m cooking every other day of the year all someone else cooking on Mother’s Day is going to generate is resentment rather than gratitude. Glad I’m doing a good job as a mother and wife? Then say so more often than once a year. And share the load of raising the kid so it’s not soul suckingly exhausting. I’ve got a pretty good husband – we share the load and if it isn’t even-stevens it’s close enough.
A card if you must, otherwise let’s just stick with the regularly scheduled program and ignore the marketing garbage.
All that being said, my daughter completed three years of Lutheran catechism last week and was confirmed today. That was pretty great. She also created a lovely water color of my cello that stunned me when she unveiled it. That’s a pretty good day, and pretty good Mother’s Day.
Chickens were running free about 3 ½ hours this afternoon and early evening. I worked almost all night, slept briefly, did another day’s work, finishing mid-afternoon, and brought them out. They were reasonably well-behaved, mostly staying together and not constantly running hither and yon, so I was able to sit in one of the Adirondack chairs (I have three in the yard, and I sat in whichever was closest to where they were at the moment), read, and stayed more-or-less awake while sitting in the sun (and wind) and making sure they didn’t get into or cause too much trouble. They didn’t object too much to Go Home-ing, as they were full of worms, salvage from the compost heap, dandelion fluff, and the seed scattered around one of the wild bird feeders. (The wrens and jays and what-not have stuff to eat now but there’s still about 15 pounds of misc seed and sunflower seed left over from the winter, so I’ll keep filling the feeders until it’s gone.) om-nom-nom
A couple hours later, when I closed up the coop, I checked on them as always, mainly performing a head count, and found that they were disgruntled. They’d knocked their roosting rail down. Poor, poor birdies. Of course there was difficulty in putting the rail back up because several were standing on it and after I got them off it they were milling around, disturbed from being half-asleep, and getting in the way. Finally got the rail back up and before long their dim little chicken brains let them realize that they could get on it. Only six eggs today from the eight hens. Lazy birds.
Wife brought some yard eggs home from one of her coworkers and I was quite stunned by the colors. I didn’t know they had that many. It was like a pastel easter.
n
My first batch of hens was the “easter egger” breed. Red Hen’s eggs were definitely pink, Black Hen’s eggs were a light grey shaded toward blue, and Brown Hen’s eggs are almost white barely tinted brownish.
By contrast, all of my later hens laid or lay brown eggs, anything from a very light tan to a medium brown.
Breaking: National Democrats Want to Remove and Replace the Virginia Supreme Court
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2026/05/10/national-democrats-want-to-impeach-and-replace-entire-virginia-supreme-court-n3814792
Trump needs to restore the original boundaries of DC immediately.
And here’s that cold front Greg mentioned. The radar looks like a solid band of red and orange from southwest of San Antonio up to Waco, on east of Dallas, and moving southeast.
And my lovely bride just mentioned, “I HATE thunderstorms! But we really need the rain.”
I am very disconcerted. I was sitting in my chair having had my tiny little fire, but still reading, when something moved in my pocket. I thought my phone was slipping out and went to grab it. Something ran across my lap as I jumped up and shook myself off while frantically patting my crotch.
It was something very small, ping pong ball sized or smaller, but YEE GADS it left me weirded out.
Wildlife. No me gusta.
n
Now for a shower and bed.
n
Visited mom today with my middle brother. She was finishing eating breakfast at noon that they brought her.
Mom was having a bad day. Her mental processes were just not good today. She enjoyed seeing us but she has another leg infection. The nurses are all about getting it patched up. And they have called in a home health care for 60 days.
Mom confessed to my brother that she has been sleeping in the wheelchair again after I left. That cuts off circulation to her legs and she gets another infection.
Sigh. When she gets sepsis, she will not allow them to amputate her legs. And I will refuse to fight that battle.
Mom used to be the most level headed person on the planet. And she was fun when the three of us plus dad were not driving her crazy. Where did that mother go?
Mom is only 18 years older than me. I sure hope that the brain eater does not get me too.
@lynn
I’m sorry Lynn – that’s hard. 18 years feels like nothing when we’re comparing where we are to our parents and contemplating the future.
My MiL is 85 a currently in a SNF. When she’s having a good day I think we’re going to bring her home, then those bad days crop up and the optimism fades.
@nick
Something ran across my lap as I jumped up
Bwa ha ha haaaaaa – little mousey found a warm pocket.
We had a birthday party for the now 39 year old daughter today. Wow, we are getting older. So instead of walking today in the extreme heat, I had birthday cake. Ok, I had two pieces. Well, to be truthful, I had four pieces of birthday cake. White moist cake with chocolate cream cheese icing.
Yes, yes, I know. A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips. Except I am developing old man flat butt.
I remember when the wife and I were negotiating having a third kid. Then we showed up three months pregnant at the baby doctor and he begged my wife not to have any more after the first disaster and the second problems. We compromised on him cutting her tubes at the eventual delivery. One week later and she was on his table removing a 5 or 7 lb ovarian cyst that had fallen and twisted the tube, causing severe pain and potential sepsis. I had to sign a document stating that she would probably lose the baby. She did not lose the baby but the surgery was tough recovery, especially with a three year old who wanted to sit in mommy’s very sore lap real bad.
I am so amazed that any children are ever born but it seems that most of the time things go well. That was not our experience until way after delivery.
My MiL is 85 a currently in a SNF. When she’s having a good day I think we’re going to bring her home, then those bad days crop up and the optimism fades.
Sorry to hear that. Seems like a lot of this is going around.
My mother is 84. An old 84. Lots of problems with no real solutions. I am just trying to keep her comfortable at the assisted living center. I am dreading getting the phone call that they want me to move mom to the skilled nursing place.
My Mom made it to 91 living with us in Vegas. Her downhill turn lasted two weeks, and then she was gone.