Cool to start, but clear and warming later. The sun was like a laser and a phase conjugate mirror aiming system, and my arm was like a giant jiffy pop popcorn… It was HOT in the sun yesterday. Should be again today, and tomorrow.
Spent the morning getting ready for my afternoon. Most of my pickups don’t even open until 10am, and yesterday I had one at 11am and one at 2pm… that’s opening time. So not only am I trying to combine trips geographically, but in time as well. Anyhow, I did my pickups. Emptied the truck after and now I’ve got today’s pickups.
Today I’m on the other side of town picking up. I’ll also be dropping in on my auctioneer to see if he’s really sure he can’t fit some of my stuff in. If not, I’m going to go to a new guy. I need to get this stuff selling…
So I can buy some other stuff. Like a new boat lift at the BOL, or a deck, or replacement for the rotted dock posts, or all the other things… like a shed for the mower and mower stuff. Retaining walls. Tree felling. Mower deck. And the list goes on.
It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken…
Stack. Don’t weaken.
nick
Wednesday. Good morning!
Up again at 0 dark thirty. Saw a doe and a pine marten this morning, but no buck. Had the doe been a buck, it would have been coming home in the car with me, so my technique was good. Next time for sure…
Jenny, your trip sounds idyllic. Here in the densely populated Old World, that is not achievable. There is no wilderness left, just more-or-less managed landscapes. Alas. I hope one day to do something like your outing!
It is still feeling like winter here. Afternoon meal will be asparagus soup and ham sandwiches. But first, a nap!
Have a lovely day…
Who can’t be a wonderful example can at least be a terrible warning! 🙂
Up before 0500 so I could open the coop. And it’s still more than a month to the solstice. Ugh. Wouldn’t be so bad if I weren’t regularly kept up late or woken in the middle of the night. And are the fluffheads grateful? Of course not.
Work’s been pretty light for the past month. Paying work, that is. There’s an unlimited amount of work for which I won’t be paid. As a general thing, I’m willing to edit someone’s novel, help to untangle the WordPress plugins on someone’s site, and so on if I don’t have stuff of my own to do. To their credit, none of the people I’m currently helping have pushed for “can’t you do just one more thing?” or “can’t you get it to me quicker?” It’s very annoying when someone getting something for nothing isn’t satisfied and demands more. The proper response is to cut off contact. (Or to divorce them, depending on your relationship.)
As a general thing, though, I’d rather be getting paid for my time. I suppose this means that I need to further diversify my income streams. Wah. I might even think about looking for a regular job, though I am loath to do so. Double wah.
Or I could work to bring down society and the economy so that matters of income and ever-rising property taxes are no longer an issue. American society and economy have plenty of weak points and I know how to exploit several of them. Alas, I’m probably too lazy to do that. Guess I’d better look for another paying client. Wah.
Even if things reach the point where your doctor will consider accepting two chickens and a pie as compensation, the Colonist MBBS who takes their place will not.
I’m hoping that one of the side-effects of society collapsing will be that the ranks of the invaders will be winnowed.
It’s an environment they know well, and thrive in… so probably not. At least not due to conditions. If your skin becomes your uniform, then maybe.
—————
65F and clear so it’s looking like another nice day. I’ve got lunch packed and am debating about a nap. It was pretty late by the time I got to sleep, and I’m feeling it.
Or I could do office stuff that has fallen behind.
Or even clean the house…
n
Colonists you see here represent the top percentages of the demographics in their homeland.
Easily 95 percentile if not higher.
Their resources are virtually unlimited compared to yours.
Go look who is in charge at the infamous Round Rock ISD which has a documented history of using its police force against Whitey causing “disruptions” at school board meetings.
In particular, pay attention to the history of the Superintendent.
I pay almost $100/month for landline.
You may qualify for a subsidized rate being retired.
I think I’m at 20 years with no landline. I bought a lifetime Ooma plan in 2004 ($200). A couple years after that, during a move, we just used Ooma and cell. We had DSL ’net for a year at our first condo in Vegas but dropped it when Cox cable brought ‘net.
Ooma still lives as an app on my phone: line one for giving out a number on non essential stuff, line two for our side business.
We also use a virtual fax service for our main business.
We also use Grasshopper and have our toll free biz number attached to it.
Talking to the folks where we get our pool water tested and chemicals, except for shock which we get from Home Depot, the green water is a side effect of having those woven, strong covers. I get shock treatment from Home Depot as that brand seems to work better in my pool for reasons that are well above my pay grade.
I was told to up the PH a bit, then add 10 pounds of shock. That is a lot of shock treatment for a 25K gallon pool. And the price of shock treatment, another shock, is now up to $7.00 a pound. Last year it was $5.00 a pound. Five years ago, it was $2.00 a pound.
Memo to self: Do not stand down wind when dumping the bags of shock.
I’ve gotten lazy in my old age. I took care of my pool for years and went through that routine almost every year but since moving 2019 I’ve used a pool service. Worth it to me
Keeping our hot tub stable when I lived in San Diego was very challenging until I switched to bromine and a floating dispenser. A dozen people getting in and out would wreak havoc on the chemistry. The hot tub has a lot less ‘inertia’ than a pool.
n
I looked at Ooma. Their site says ~$6.64 a month for taxes and includes 911. Big River sells the hardware. Starting at $69. Plug in any phone.
Suppose to work with Starlink.
Vonage is $9.99 a month. Plus taxes I suppose. I figure the taxes would be the same as Ooma. I looks like their “magic box” is free.
Ooma looks like the better deal.
More investigation is needed. The whole point is sometimes I have no cell service. Sure, I might fall and not be able to reach my phone. But I want a working phone.
Sometimes I can hear just fine but the other end says I’m breaking up. I’m outside and not under a porch or any trees. I really do not think my phone is the problem. This was happening before I dropped my phone and broke the screen and I put the sim into a brand new phone.
@paul, you might be better off with a cell booster, or a cell micro site box attached to your internet. The booster provides more redundancy as it doesn’t use the internet at all.
I have versions of both for different carriers and can make you a very good deal. (probably just shipping if I have what you need. ) They are at the BOL currently, but I can bring whatever you need home with me after this weekend.
I had vonage, and dropped it because the price kept going up and the hardware died. It never worked well with the fax machine. I don’t need fax anymore though.
I did without for a while, then got an OOMA box for $10 at an estate sale. I’ve had Ooma since. I think I pay yearly. I’d forgotten that I had 2 numbers with them. The intention was to use one for craigslist and never answer it….
n
Oh, and look if you can enable wifi calling on your phone, that should cover you at home if you can’t get good connection to t he cell site.
n
The best thing I ever did with VOIP is buy into Ooma when it was a startup. I’ve posted before, Ooma is waiting for me to die. They used to let lifetime buyers buy new hardware with no additional fee. Now, if you buy hardware, even lifers have to pay a subscription. I’m fine using the app for the rest of my life. I’m so used to cell only I don’t need another boxen sitting around just for phone service.
You can also log in via the web and check your VM, set up black/white lists, etc.
We keep a landline. Part so teen can call friends and receive calls. Part because cell towers up here have demonstrated they can’t handle the load in emergencies. Last big quake communicating by cell was unreliable. Land lines were fine.
Pool – I remember my dad working very hard to maintain our above ground pool summers in California in the 70’s and 80’s. I think he enjoyed the work but it was an every weekend endeavor.
Eh? Isn’t it every teen’s right to have a phone with unlimited calls, texts, and data? I’m sure I read that in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Yup. Right between reparations and U.S pays all bills.
I spend an hour a week on the pool, unless a bunch of leaves fall in. I have a robot vacuum which helps a lot. That is just dropping in the robot, pulling it out when the battery dies, clean its basket. Chemical technology has gotten better. I use chlorine tablets in the skimmer and have few issues.
The water is now a dull, gray (or is it grey?), green which means the algae is dying. Getting rid of the dead cells will take a couple of backwashing cycles on the filter. I use glass beads rather than sand in the filter. The beads have better cleaning and backwash better so they have longer life before needing changing. They are about twice the cost of sand.
Last year we had to drain and refill the pool twice due to a leak. Counting those time I have drained and refilled the pool six times in 38 years. Water is expensive here as filling the pool is $750.00. Or was last year. It may be more now.
I have two pumps with one in reserve. One pump failed and I bought a new pump. I then had the old pump rebuilt/rewound. The new pump developed a leak after several years so it was removed from service and the rebuilt installed. The leaking pump was rebuilt by me as it was just seals and that pump sits in reserve. The pump is 240V, 1HP, runs 16 hours a day, and costs about a dollar a day to run.
The biggest issue has been the piping. The pump and filter are in the garage, below the level of the water. The wife dropped a ladder on the pipes and shattered one of the pipes. I took the opportunity to rebuild the piping and replace the metal gate valves with plastic ball valves. The brass gate valves were failing so the broken pipe just accelerated the inevitable. I added a couple of unions so that parts can be easily removed.
I had a filter rupture many years ago. It was plastic, cheap. I started the pump, a very loud bang, then water gushed out the crack that circled the (now) two filter halves. That filter was replaced with a spun fiberglass filter. I kept the old manifold valve and rebuilt it with new gaskets and seals.
Having everything in the garage is good as it keeps the sun from deteriorating the items and keeps the pump cooler. Until a pipe breaks and the system becomes a giant syphon.
My experience is that does not work for incoming calls if there is no cell service.
Somebody has managed to steal one of my corporate checks for almost $5,000 to American Express, relabeled it to themselves, and put it into their checking account. I cannot believe this.
So…. what’s the point of having wifi calling?
I think, don’t know, that a cell booster would be the better option. I am under a metal roof. I can go out to the boat shed and I have five bars and no complaints about me chopping out.
I’m on Verizon. 4g LTE if it matters.
I’ve tried a few times to enable wifi calling and it errors out. No message other that “failed”. Useful, that.
So a booster w/o the boost? Is there such a thing?
Or just get the cheapest Temu booster available…
Hmm. It seemed to work on our cruise, but they did have text available, so maybe that counts as “cell service”. Hilariously, our LG washer and dryer never failed to send an alert when a cycle was done. Even when I silence my phone/watch, it will chime for LG.
Today has been a day of procrastination.
I need to replace the carb on the string mower. The new carb is right there on the kitchen counter. It should be easy. Just not feeling like messing with it.
But….. suddenly the threshold at the back door is filthy. Suddenly dark brown going to black. I don’t step on it. Not sure about Buddy but Penny steps over it. So I poured some water on it and made it pretty with a scrub brush. Looks almost new. Then some time with some 409 spray and a dish towel to clean the grubby parts where the dogs rub the door and doorjamb.
Next is the rug in the living room. It’s about a year old, I put it down when I got the new flooring. It doesn’t leak through., “Water” aka Buddy Pee beads up. Or did until a couple of months ago. And it’s getting sort of smelly. Enough so that the dogs are walking around it. So I draped it over the bridge railing today and hosed it down. Sheesh. Might be dry in a couple of hours. But I have plenty of old bath towels to put under the wet edges.
Then I mopped the living room. Not sure if I actually cleaned it or just spread the dirt. But it’s all the same color now. So, yeah, the uncovered floor has not darkened with sunlight.
Maybe tomorrow the carb will happen. Maybe not.
Three fire trucks from the local station are working something at the other end of the street, near the Show Ya house with the E Mustang abomination.
Did a car go En Fuego?
Rand Paul Hearing Explodes After CIA Officer Accuses Fauci of Steering COVID Probe
https://redstate.com/ben-smith/2026/05/13/rand-paul-hearing-explodes-after-cia-officer-accuses-fauci-of-steering-covid-probe-n2202299
New: NIH Whistleblower Exposes Massive Coverup Over Monkey Bite Scandal
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/05/13/new-nih-whistleblower-exposes-massive-coverup-over-monkey-bite-scandal-n2202295
We need a large room with a hundred or more infected monkeys on short rations, all with good sight lines to a small, cramped cage in the middle.
Then we need a list of stupid, arrogant, dangerous dirtbag scientists who have no regard for human life scored by their demonstrated malfeasance. A naked Fauci gets a day in the middle cage and the rest get rotated through. The higher the score, the more often the dirtbag gets a day.
In accordance with the U.S. Constitution, this procedure is prescribed as therapy. Attorneys are permitted to visit their dirtbag clients on middle cage days.
ADDED:
Each dirtbag gets a regular shower–right before his day in the middle cage.
I’m sure I read that in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
– assumes most teens are humans…
————-
@lynn, there is a cheap pen that isn’t ‘washable’. I saw a short about it where new bankers all get that particular pen because it’s resistant to check ‘washing’ fraud. We had a check stolen from our mailbox and ‘washed’ but the amount or person was so out of character that they didn’t cash it, iirc.
As times get harder, thievery and fraud will keep increasing.
Living in a high trust society was nice while it lasted.
n
n
@paul, I picked a nice persian rug off the curb, and even though it didn’t smell, I sprayed it with pet stain remover and then power washed it. Came out nice. HEAVY AS heck when wet and took a long time to dry.
n
More “conspiracy theories” coming out as fact.
And the “Italians” hit hardest early on were really chinese sweatshop workers back in Italy after the festival in china that spread the infection…
n
A monkey … bite.
Ok.
Again, stay out of the bathhouses, kids.
Chinese New Year.
The holiday the following year was when Texas finally got caught “swimming naked”.
@lynn, there is a cheap pen that isn’t ‘washable’. I saw a short about it where new bankers all get that particular pen because it’s resistant to check ‘washing’ fraud. We had a check stolen from our mailbox and ‘washed’ but the amount or person was so out of character that they didn’t cash it, iirc.
As times get harder, thievery and fraud will keep increasing.
Living in a high trust society was nice while it lasted.
They scanned the check and then modified it in software. They then used a mobile upload of the check scan to their bank which does not capture the check modification features.
In other words, they did not even use my check. They scanned my check, modified the scan, and then use mobile upload for the scan.
I am shocked that somebody thinks that they can get away with this. I have their name, address, phone number, etc.
Wow, check washing gone digital.
n
You assume that they used their actual name/address to open the account.
I wonder if OpenAI will alter a check.
“Buck Out” by Ken Benton
https://www.amazon.com/Buck-Out-Ken-Benton/dp/1514666979?tag=ttgnet-20/
A singular book, no prequel or sequel, about a financial apocalypse in the USA. I reread the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (Amazon) in 2015 that I bought from Amazon in 2016. This may be the third time that I have read this book. If there is a sequel published, I will purchase it for reading. In fact, if the author publishes anything else, I will purchase it.
Of all the apocalyptic scenarios facing the USA, I believe a financial apocalypse to be of the highest danger, going from a remote concern in 2017 to an almost certainty in five to ten years. The current debt of the USA, 39 trillion dollars, is just about one and a half times the USA GDP. I believe that as the debt of the USA approaches twice the GDP, the financial stability of the USA will significantly weaken and be subject to attacks.
The scenario in the book is that China and Japan own 25% of the USA treasury bills. In a unspecified future date, China decides to sell all of their USA bonds and notifies Japan that they are going to do so. The Japanese follow the Chinese and the interest rates for the USA bonds rise from 3% to 23% over a period of six weeks as the bond markets are flooded and the bond prices drop precipitously. The Dollar, the effective reserve currency of the world, also drops significantly in value compared to other currencies. The stock markets in the USA drop by 85%. The rest of the story is about our protagonists getting out of New York City and to their retreat in West Virginia.
My rating: 6 out of 5 stars
Amazon: 4.2 out of 5 stars (262 reviews)
Lynn
At least it can be traced. It will be pulled out of the account in which it was deposited. Hopefully putting the account in the negative. The account owner may now be on the hook for bank fraud, interstate, which is a felony. The cretin was probably hoping you were a megamillion corporation and would not notice.
Clever they be Master Yoda.
Outgoing calls. We used WiFi calling from Europe back to the states to my technically challenged MIL who did not have Skype, Whatsapp, or even a smart phone.
Checks have gotten to be outrageously expensive for “security” reasons, then those same banks turn around and make security worthless by accepting digital images for deposit.
From 2019:
“The Coming Debtpocalypse” by Sarah Hoyt
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2019/08/05/the-coming-debtpocalypse/
“Well, pull up a rock and make yourselves comfortable. What if the economy crashes? What if our money is worth nothing? What if? Are things I can answer to. You see, I come from a Mediterranean country (not in geography, but in culture.) Which means I’m used to governments that run their purses like high school kids with an unending spending account and addicted to meth.”
“I’ve seen crashes. I’ve heard of crashes from grandma. NONE OF THEM KILLED A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF THE POPULATION.”
Interesting perspective.
Lynn
And still coming as fast as it can in 2026.
“Vance issues ultimatum to states: Crack down on fraud or lose some Medicaid funding”
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/vance-issues-ultimatum-states-crack-down-fraud-or-lose-some-medicaid-funding
“Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday announced that he had warned all 50 states to show they were effectively working to root out fraud in the Medicaid programs or face the loss of federal funding.”
About time !
Debit fraud losses and the cost of federal investigation from funds allocated to states.
Minnesota and Cali, among others, will not be getting checks for a decade.
The rug is mostly dry. Just a couple of bath towels needed at the edges.
It’s not clean. Smells better, still feels sticky. I got to thinking and it’s really not much more than a comforter or a thick quilted mattress pad. So off to the big front load German washing machine at the laundromat.
Plans. Got a few.
Totally crazy that I’m basically washing a giant puppy pee pad. Anyone else I know would take Buddy to the pound.
I wanted another dog to keep Penny company. And Buddy the Beagle is what showed up in the back yard one day. So, he pees on the rug. almost every night. Penny has company. Goal achieved, right?
I enjoyed Buck Out once but haven’t been inspired to revisit. The premise has the same error that the movie Rollover did: Why would countries wholly dependent on imported oil crash the means of exchange for that vital commodity. The hundreds of billions in Treasuries represent an immense savings account for fuel that they must have. If the petrodollar goes the way of the dodo, well, maybe,
If the petrodollar goes the way of the dodo, well, maybe,
– there are many forces at work to do just that. Oil is trading in rubles, and rimibi.
n
If the dollar goes down there is no other currency that will not follow in short order. Try to make yuan or rubles the currency for oil and there is no instrument that can chop time small enough to measure the delay before China or Russia declares that the exchange is what they say it is.
Trump has made the U. S. an oil exporting country. The sweet thing about having oil prices in gold and silver is that the trillions of dollars equivalent under the fat arses of the Europeans that was pillaged from the New World, India, Africa, and China are going to be flowing out.
Lots of countries have been repatriating their gold. They know they’ll need it.
——
76F and clear, a nice night to sit out and read with a tiny little fire. No wildlife tonight. No gunfire either.
——
Time for a shower and bed. I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow and I didn’t get a nap today, so I’m already running a sleep deficit. No printing press go ‘brrrrr’ for sleep deficits.
n
@Nick, how do you manage to “sit out and read with a tiny little fire.” If I tried that, the mosquitoes would eat me alive. Is there a mosquito repellent that works especially well?
Thanks.
Lynn, I suspect that “singular” does not mean what you think it does.
Singular: odd, peculiar, strange, having unique characteristics.
Single: there is one of it.
Sorry to come the grammar pedant, but the misuse rings a discordant note in your otherwise top-notch book reviews.