Hot, humid, sunny, some clouds. At least I’m guessing that is today, based on late yesterday’s weather. The weather in the Caribbean was nicer.
So yesterday was a travel day, and that meant mostly a sitting around the airport day. We didn’t want to rush in the morning, but didn’t have a good plan for what to do with the day, so we ended up sitting and reading at the airport. The issue was mainly what to do with our luggage if we wanted to do something. Dragging it around with us was not a real option. And the kids were tired of moving around. Naturally, after being at the airport for hours, our flight was delayed by a leaking hose… Did get home only an hour or two late.
Today will be a start to catching up with all the stuff I missed and put off by not being here. That’ll be super fun times…
Followed by more adjustments to the stacks. Several people mentioned after yesterday’s post that they stopped worrying about it since they had no control over what happens. While it’s true we can’t control the events, we can control our reaction to them and the impact they have on us. THAT is why we prep. And stack.
nick
Friday. Good morning!
Welcome home, Nick. Sometimes, just get to the airport and wait is the best option, even if there is always more waiting that one wants.
Half-day off work today, so busy now getting stuff out the door before I leave, and briefing colleagues about what to do in my absence.
The weather is like in November, cold and constant rain. Driving will be no fun, but W1 and I have symphony tickets this evening, so we have to get there somehow.
Brahms ought to be worth it. We’ll see (hear) about Bartók’s violin concerto… not sure it will be to my taste, but am keeping an open mind. The organisers always put the doubtful work before the interval. If they did the headline one first, half the audience would leave at the break and not come back.
W1 wants sushi for supper, so that should be nice.
Used to make colleagues in Cali sputter: “Where I come from we call that bait”
TPA has the temple of consumer excess known as International Plaza just across the east runway, accessible via cab or Uber.
Of course, the longer an airline at TPA has your luggage, the more likely it is to be sent to the “sorting” facility where TSA inspects the contents more closely and things tend to disappear.
This past weekend, my wife had some new shoes in a box from Dillard’s which we hid in my suitcase in the laundry bag under the dirty socks and underwear. The shoes arrived in Austin untouched.
Apartment stacking:
The scope of my program is best suited for financial armageddon rather than long term grid/utility service failure. Failure modes from neighbor fire or plumbing flood come with the territory.
The complex is ~200+ “luxury” units in dozen unit structures and a club house/office/gym/pool building. The neighborhood is the town’s up and coming growth zone. Luxury and nice suburban single family on modest lots surround the complex along with the county fairgrounds and summer concert venue nearby. 2 newer complexes are in process. The interstate highway divides the town perhaps 1/2 mile to the west. Most of the workman’s town is on the other side.
My ground floor unit is 1000 square feet, 2 BR, 2 Bath. Think like a single family postwar Levitown home. The floorplan is dominated by the kitchen with island, smallish but adequate sitting/TV area. There is an in unit laundry. The pantry is a phone booth sized closet. I doubled the shelves and packed it tight.
OPSEC suggests an appearance/decor that minimizes visible stacks. Fortunately, an absurdly large library dominates most walls with metro style chrome wire shelves and invite diversionary notice. Extended pantry and gub food stacks are camouflaged behind the books. Bed matresses are on top of freeze dried cases of #10 cans. Gubs live behind the reinforced door of the water heater closet.
An onsite single car garage and an offsite storage unit are poor BOLs.
I have another plan for reparations for those that call themselves African-Americans and are demand reparations.
Give them $10.00 and a one-way plane ticket to Africa. Deny them reentry into the U.S. for a period of 10 years. Let them enjoy the third world existence of their proud heritage for those 10 years. Use cow dung for cooking, cook insects for the one meal a day, crap behind a bush, drink water recently used by hyenas to crap in, sit in the shade when it is 110F. Let them experience their real heritage. Then maybe they will appreciate what they had before they claimed they do not get enough and demanded more.
Oh, and send Ben Crump, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Shiela Jackson and a few others along as sponsors and chaperones. AOC can be the tour guide.
Heatwave continues with 103F followed by 103,101,101. Pool temp at 90F. I may need to take off the solar cover for a few nights. Nights predicted for about 65F
iPhones and Cybertrucks.
Tony wouldn’t have to depend on today’s IPO grift to become a trillionaire.
The Monkey Trick faces its first test today.
I wish there were some sort of discount program: I have physical books, and would prefer to have most of them as e-books. But paying full price again? It’s put me off so far. I’m talking mostly fiction here, for example, I have about 20 of the Honor Harrington books.
We’re nowhere near that, and won’t be. We have a veggie garden and a big freezer. Probably 2-3 weeks, with meals getting weird towards the end. We have rainwater tanks for watering the garden, but they would also do for drinking water. I don’t think the spousal unit would approve of more prepping than that.
On the positive side, we will be getting more solar, plus a battery, plus an isolation switch sometime this summer. So we should be fine for power year round. There might be a week or two in Winter where we either have to buy power or else heat entirely with wood, due to heavy cloud cover plus snow on the roof.
This is also tied into the IQ question. It is completely unacceptable to mention that American blacks have an average IQ of 85. That is higher than African blacks, due to interbreeding with whites. African blacks have an average IQ somewhere around 70. Average IQ in the Middle East is somewhere around 85.
Lower IQ means less impulse control, inability to foresee the consequences of actions, and generally less ability for long-term planning. On a societal scale, it obviously also limits the ability to maintain a technological society.
There are various factors affecting IQ. In addition to the obvious genetic factor, IQ can be influenced by diet, disease, early childhood stimulation, and other factors. It might be possible to improve things! However, it is impossible to do anything, if you are not even allowed to discuss the subject.
FIFY
Black Americans Need to Drop the “African” From Their Identity
Preach it Andre
Most Americans have poor impulse control, hence our trade deficit.
Financial Armageddon would quickly turn into grid down in the US. Ironically, Texas would be among the first to go medieval, not far behind California.
91F here in the shadows…
Breakfast is in ma belly, coffee is in the mug.
W is at work, the kids are in bed, and the dog is curled up with D1.
—————-
Well. So we went on a cruise. Grandma (my mom) wanted to spend time with the kids and organized and paid for the cruise. We were on Royal Caribbean for 5 days and visited Costa Maya (somewhere almost to Belize) and Cozumel. We departed out of Tampa, south between Yucatan and Cuba (a day before earthquake), and south along the east coast of Mexico. One day at sea, one in Costa Maya, one at Cozumel, then a day at sea, then debarkation day.
“But Nick, you were gone a lot longer than that.” Yes, we front loaded the trip with two days in Tampa (one arrival, one at Busch Gardens), then a couple of days in Sarasota where mom and my sibling live. And yes, that means BACK to Tampa for embarkation, which is a lot more ‘to and fro’ than any of us like.
But is also meant we could do laundry before leaving on the cruise. That made packing easier.
So. Flying still sucks. I’ve got pre check, and IAH supports that and the facial recognition system, which they are building in addition to your documents. You still have to have your identity docs, so I don’t understand what “benefit” they are trying to sell. I did avoid the naked scanner as they were using the magnetometer for everyone. I did end up taking off my boots, but left the laptop and electronics in my bag. They kept going back and forth and finally opened the bag to inspect, of all things, my keyring. No idea why. Flying out late morning, mid week, we had only about a 5 minute wait at security.
United’s new planes have internet via Starlink, and overhead storage that is HUGE. The bins are deeper and come farther toward the aisle. You are supposed to put your bag on edge now, wheels first into the bin. They do hold a lot more, but make the passenger space smaller. Wifi internet was free to rewards members.
Tampa airport feels huge and empty.
Getting to the cruise terminal and dealing with a rental car and mom’s car, and all the luggage took some coordination but got done. Tampa streets are a winding, under construction tangled mess in that area. Cruise ship terminals look like ass. Dirty, dark, stained concrete and block constructions, it’s like a prison yard. Restrictions for items are pretty much the same as air travel, but your “checked” bags end up in your room with the restricted items (knives and lighters) still in them.
Apparently cigar smokers and “torch” lighters are the new deadly threat to transportation safety, despite never having been used in an attack. While the much more dangerous LiION power banks and batteries are tolerated and procedures about them are in place. Because it’s easy to just ban something that only affects a small group and impossible to ban the batteries. So they deal with them. TSA is getting rediculous. I had a torch lighter confiscated at Tampa TSA because “they are hot enough to burn the plane windows.” FFS NO ONE IS GOING TO LET ACHMED BURN A PLASTIC WINDOW, which isn’t even the ACTUAL plane window. Every thing in the cabin is supposed to be fire retardant.
I sat down with a group of guys at the tail end of “Cigars under the Stars” (an organized event on the boat every night) and they moaned that the crew had “left the ash trays, but taken the torch lighters”. I didn’t understand at the time, but either the boat confiscated the dreaded torch lighters that the guys brought when they saw them, or because TSA was supposed to grab them, the crew provided lighters for the duration of the event but wasn’t willing to leave them unsupervised after. (it’s common to have a cigar go out while talking, and need relighting. There was an ashtray full of only partly smoked expensive cigars in front of the guys.) I passed my lighter around and we chatted for about another hour.
TSA says no lighters in checked bags, but confiscates them if they are in your carry on. And they will give you attitude and point to a page online as justification. OR I could go back out and put it in my checked bag, or mail it home. Yeah, contradiction and I’m pretty sure you can’t mail compressed gasses (like torch lighters).
Both TPA and IAH had some kind of new scanner, where you stand with your arms down and out, between two ‘walls’ in an open area. Never saw that before and will have to do more research on that.
More later, as I have to get ready before the cleaning service gets here.
n
Thank Bill Gates and Jeff Vinik, the key investors in the “Water Street” development surrounding the cruise docks.
They finally got the flour mill condemned and torn down in the last five years which was an obstacle to improving access. We will see what the long term impact of that will be since the mill was a vital link in the food supply chain for most of the Florida peninsula, including The Rodent’s kitchens.
Closing the dry walk plant at the edge of the development, between the cruise docks and Ybor City bacchanalia district, led to the importing of Chinese drywall in the early 2000s. Hilarity ensued.
Autocorrect. Grr.
Yeah, there were a few brand new condo/apartment complexes and a lot of fenced lots. Also bums sh!tting in the corners and a few thug looking guys…
Vibrancy.
n
BTW, the biggest prepping thing that I did in 2025 was to get both of my cataracts lenses replaced. I have great distance vision in both eyes now and shoot and drive without glasses now. I need readers to read and I have about 20 pairs of cheap readers all over the place. And cheap black sunglasses.
If you have thirty minutes available, Jim Rickards is talking about gold, commodities, the Federal Reserve, and Spacex.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_djvFazlSzk
I like Rickards and haven’t heard him in a while. There is some interesting information here.
“SpaceX shares up over 20% from opening price, as CEO Elon Musk becomes world’s first trillionaire”
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/finance/spacex-shares-over-20-opening-price-ceo-elon-musk-becomes-worlds-first
“SpaceX’s debut saw its opening share price rise over 24% in its first hours of trading on Friday.”
“The shares opened at $150 and reached $166.90 at around 12:20 p.m. ET, according to the Associated Press. At that price, the company has a market value of $2.18 trillion.”
“Forbes‘ real-time estimates put CEO Elon Musk’s net worth at $1.1 trillion, making him the world’s first trillionaire.”
Yup, Musk is D.D. Harriman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delos_D._Harriman
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
Is there an option for this like there is for Lasik where you can get one eye done for close-up (reading) and one for distance? I think it’s based on the principle that you tend to use your dominant eye for distance/aiming. So, they correct that one for distance vision and then correct the non-dominant eye for reading. You’re supposed to rapidly adjust to it. It freaked me out too much to do.
And my webserver got rebooted last night for a security patch. It was up almost a month this time.
Is there an option for this like there is for Lasik where you can get one eye done for close-up (reading) and one for distance? I think it’s based on the principle that you tend to use your dominant eye for distance/aiming. So, they correct that one for distance vision and then correct the non-dominant eye for reading. You’re supposed to rapidly adjust to it. It freaked me out too much to do.
It is called monovision. My wife got her cataracts done this way. She loves it.
I would try contacts first to simulate the monovision before implementing it. My wife just got it done with her second cataract surgery since she she waited two years and effectively tried it that way.
I have glaucoma and am slowly losing my peripheral vision so I rejected this. I have lost 20% of the left eye and 10% of the right eye so far. I figure that I could just wear readers.
I will be trying my eye doctors new glaucoma laser soon. If, Medicare pays for it.
I had monovision LASIK 11 years ago. I pump up the font on my iPad mini and can read in good light without readers. Adequate light is the key for me for close-up. I do wear a pair of magnetic click-close readers around my neck. It is weird taking the DMV vision test if they use the “box” you look into. I have to close one eye to read the right side of the letters. At 71, the LASIK is still holding. The acid test will be getting my NV driver’s license. They use the “box”.
Over The Hedge: The Claude AI
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2026/06/12
Now self powering! What is to keep it from taking over the world?
Microsoft hacks…
Via Ambient Irony:
Well, if you read the entire article referenced by @EdH, you’ll find this at the end (emphasis added):
…which seems to indicate this is not as big of a vuln suggested by the hacker that presented the bug.
Most Americans have poor impulse control, hence our trade deficit.
They are just following the federal government’s lead.
Financial Armageddon would quickly turn into grid down in the US. Ironically, Texas would be among the first to go medieval, not far behind California.
Nah, Texas will secede. Our electric grid is already standalone, just ignore those DC interconnects to Oklahoma and Louisiana.
I figure as a part of the forthcoming financial Armageddon of the USA, the USA will split into around seven distinct countries. Hawaii will be taken by the Chinese fairly quickly.
https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/l0cwjc/context_in_comments_if_the_usa_was_split_into/
… around seven distinct countries …
https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/v18era/the_territorial_states_of_north_america_in_robert/
It is Robert Heinlein’s universe, we just happen to be living in one of the multiverses where “go juice” doesn’t exist, more’s the pity.
“Trump Admin Shuts Down Mamdani’s Attempt to Meet with Foreign Leader”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/06/trump-admin-shuts-mamdanis-attempt-meet-foreign-leader/
Good, we have enough communist wannabe dictators here already.
“Taiwan Fires Dozens of U.S.-Supplied Rockets Toward China in Historic Live-Fire Exercise”
https://thelibertydaily.com/taiwan-fires-dozens-u-s-supplied-rockets-toward/
“(Natural News)—In a significant escalation of military posturing, Taiwan conducted a first-of-its-kind live-fire drill on its west coast on June 10, launching 32 U.S.-supplied rockets from High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, into the narrow waters of the Taiwan Strait. The exercise, which also included 155 mm howitzers, simulated a response to a potential Chinese amphibious invasion and tested rapid deployment and precision-strike capabilities. This marks the first time Taiwan has fired these rockets westward toward mainland China, a move that is certain to further inflame tensions with Beijing, which considers the self-governing island a renegade province.”
I wonder if they know that we do not any HIMARS rockets in storage because that blankity blank Biden gave all of ours to Ukraine?
“SpaceX Requests Tax Break for Chip Manufacturing Facility ”
https://texasscorecard.com/local/spacex-requests-tax-break-for-chip-manufacturing-facility/
“The proposed facility would encompass more than 22,000 acres in Grimes County. ”
“SpaceX’s proposed facility will cost $119 billion in total, which will be spread across four phases and encompass more than 22,000 acres.”
Good night!
Rain came down in buckets depending on where you are in town. I got hammered in 2 different places.
Sun’s out now though.
N
“Cameras”
https://areaocho.com/cameras-2/
“For those reasons, I wanted to get a new camera system that overcame these deficiencies. I wanted this system to have:”
“What I decided on:”
Divemedic is very serious about his racks.
And this sounds like a lot of work. And expensive.
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Bay-RackStation-RS1221-Diskless/dp/B08T1RBD4L?tag=ttgnet-20
I installed the water softener in July early August 2012. When Penny was 10 months old.
The softener has a 5 micron filter in the line feeding it. I try to remember to change it once a year. Plans!!! But….. three years works. An old filter has a bit of tan color compared to a new filter. The filter is to protect the softener. I’ve never noticed any grit or sand in any faucet aerator in the pre softener times.
A bit later, I forget exactly, a few months, a year, I installed the R/O system under the kitchen sink. I know I’ve changed the filters at least once. Because I bought a set from eBay that had two filter changes and one “finishing” carbon filter. So maybe the system had a spare set of filters? I forget.
I figure that after three years or four years it’s time to change the filters. Just because. For extra fun, one is suppose to change the membrane filter. I forget the time period but fourteen years is a bit past that.
Which model membrane filter? 16 gallons a day? 25 gallons? 50 gallons a day seems to be the common item on eBay and Big River. So when I change the other filters, I’ll pull the membrane filter for a part number.
The prices for the membrane filter vary a lot. A single filter for $12. Or two for for $19. Or one can pay $120 for one filter. It’s just nuts.
If you have thirty minutes available, Jim Rickards is talking about gold, commodities, the Federal Reserve, and Spacex.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_djvFazlSzk
I like Rickards and haven’t heard him in a while. There is some interesting information here.
The big question for me is where do you stash your gold? I have serious trust issues with any repository. And storing more than a dozen one ounce gold coins at my house gives me the heebie jeebies because I just became a target.
You can stash a few bars here.
Lots of stashing places. Under the dishwasher. Behind the central air intake filter. Toilet water tanks.
And the ever popular “pull up the carpet in a corner”.
Divemedic is very serious about his racks.
And this sounds like a lot of work. And expensive.
– divemedic is a trouble magnet. So he has learned to take extra precautions. FWIW, if you camera system doesn’t capture the image you need, the whole system is a waste of money, so I think it’s worth it for good cams and storage. His storage is about double what I’d consider necessary though, as 30 days should be more than enough… but if he adds more cams, his retention time will go down, so it’s better to have more than less.
———
storing more than a dozen one ounce gold coins at my house gives me the heebie jeebies because I just became a target.
– how do you figure that? NO ONE KNOWS you’ve got the gold in the house. You are at the same risk whether it’s there or not. My wife was concerned about all the cookie money cash but that was reasonable as all the troop moms knew she had it. She had the same reaction as you to storing the gold and silver initially but she came around to my way of thinking. If no one knows it’s there, how could it make you more of a target?
———
Got my two pickups done. Then it rained buckets. Bad enough that there was some localized street flooding and the bayous were high.
———-
I have a zero halliburton suitcase I’ve been using for 30 years and united managed to break both wheels this trip. The damage is so extensive and so different from any I’ve seen in the last three decades that it must have been intentional. Someone slammed it against a sharp edge over and over.
It’s funny. Literally everyone who sees it comments on how heavy it must be, but it weighs exactly the same as my wife’s big red fabric case, 45.5 pounds. Airline limit is 50, so we stay under. Everyone thinks that because it’s metal, it’s heavier. Nope.
I’ve watched baggage handlers use the ‘gravity assist’ while unloading it from planes or carts, literally just pulling the handle until it falls out of the plane or cart to the ground. The difference between it and my plastic samsonite case is that it won’t break, just dent.
This one is slightly worse looking than mine. https://www.ebay.com/itm/178188567416 and clearly belonged to a tour guy. He’s got cooler stickers than me.
n
United breaks guitars
I don’t know if those videos are available any more or not.
The wife made me walk 3 miles tonight in the heat with no wind. At 2.5 miles I told her I was done. She told me to get my fat butt in gear.
I added the fat butt euphemism.
United breaks guitars
I don’t know if those videos are available any more or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
He wrote a book now! “United Breaks Guitars”
https://www.davecarrollmusic.com/book/
“United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media” by Dave Carroll
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401937934?tag=ttgnet-20
“ Songwriter Dave Carroll wasn’t the first person abused by an airline’s customer service. But he was the first to show how one person, armed with creativity, some friends, $150, and the Internet, could turn an entire industry upside down.”
“ United Airlines had broken Dave’s guitar in checked luggage. After eight months of pestering the company for compensation, he turned to his best tool—songwriting—and vowed to create a YouTube video about the incident that he hoped would garner a million views in one year. Four days after its launching, the first million people had watched “United Breaks Guitars.” United stock went down 10 percent, shedding $180 million in value; Dave appeared on outlets as diverse as CNN and The View. United relented. And throughout the business world, people began to realize that “efficient” but inhuman customer-service policies had an unseen cost—brand destruction by frustrated, creative, and socially connected customers.”
“ “United Breaks Guitars” has become a textbook example of the new relationship between companies and their customers, and has demonstrated the power of one voice in the age of social media. It has become a benchmark in the customer-service and music industries, as well as branding and social-media circles. Today, more than 150 million people are familiar with this story.”
The intarwebs let ordinary people “buy ink by the barrel.”
My suitcase is so beat up, there had to be malice involved.
n
“White Boy Summer”
https://notthebee.com/article/everyone-is-talking-about-this-photo-that-apparently-got-posted-to-reddit-and-then-deleted/
Dadgumit, these 7 foot tall elves managed to get off one of the intergalactic wormholes that are all over Earth and go talk to the President. Trump knows better than to talk with those people, they are all crazy.
The intarwebs let ordinary people “buy ink by the barrel.”
My suitcase is so beat up, there had to be malice involved.
I had a suitcase get caught in the wheel raising mechanism on a 747. Literally broke the suitcase in half. They delivered my suitcase and its contents to me in a large plastic bag. And said “sorry, you need a new suitcase”.
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2026/06/12/breaking-trump-channels-inner-tom-clancy-takes-out-tda-head-in-airstrike-n3815911
Fear the sky, ashholes.
“Trump knows better than to talk with those people, they are all crazy.”
As opposed to, what? Any member of the Democrat Party?
Give them tourist visas and suggest visiting NYC. 50% off coupons at the Trump hotel. Print a cookbook in their language with butchering diagrams to get the tender cuts from commies and anti-zionists. Let it be known that their religion allows carrying a personal illuminating device of up to 10 kJ.
Start treating the cartels like the terrorists they are. War, not law enforcement.
n