Starting cool, and getting hot later. It was clear in the afternoon and evening, and ended up pretty nice, but that was true the night before and we still started with overcast and rain. Dunno what today will be like but there is weather in the Gulf of America so I suspect more of the same.
Did one pickup yesterday, along with household stuff. Moved the luggage back to the attic. Moved some other stuff too, hoping that it looks like a big improvement when W gets a good look at it. I’m trying to get my stacks of stuff organized and out of the living areas. Trying.
Today I’ve got at least two pickups that have to happen and they are in different directions. One is all the way down in Alvin. I’ve also got the kid’s dentist appointment in the morning, and taxiing her around in the afternoon. Maybe I can move one pickup to Friday and combine it with some others…
It’s a busy time, and I’m running around doing stuff when I should be selling and fixing and completing projects.
At least I’m working on it. Always be working. And stacking.
nick
Nick tries, but he’s not as trying as SteveF! 😉
Thursday. Greetings. I think it is the morning. Worked on megaproject until 2am, and was back on it just after 6am. Having breakfast now, noon-ish. Grump. Yawn.
Have a beautiful day. It is a lovely midsummer one here, not that I will get to enjoy it. Grump, grump.
Hummingbirds! How cool is that? I think I saw some in Australia a long time ago. Magical creatures.
Rogue Ales in Newport, a far exurb, went bankrupt last year.
The largest creditors were various levels of state and local government in Oregon.
The auctions stopped being anything more than a fig leaf almost 20 years ago.
The housing and stock markets would crash without the printing presses running at the rate of $1 Trillion per year.
Once again, there is no trust fund. The government is prevented by legal precedent from running one. SS is general welfare.
The Greatest Generation trusted Uncle Franklin implicitly, and whatever came out of his mouth was gospel.
Fools.
Roosevelt was the ultimate Fancy Lad, but he died humping a cousin in the backwoods of Georgia.
Effectiveness of the state unemployment plans varies, but TWC prevents a lot of mischief by employers in Texas. I speak from personal experience.
“Rogue Ales in Newport, a far exurb, went bankrupt last year.”
Let that be a lesson to any marketing puke that thinks peanut butter belongs in beer
I’m looking askance at your self-appraisal: You were cool when you started out life and, now that you’re later in life, you’re getting hot.
I suggest that you talk to your teenage children to bring your ego under control.
Not quite right. Franklin married his cousin (and did not get a divorce after she discovered his affair because that would have spiked his political aspirations). He died while humping his mistress, who was not related to him.
Up and moving, coffee in the machine. Sun is shining so there is that. Mid 70sF to start the day.
Stuff to do.
n
The senior level of humor is quite trying to someone as cool and hot as me… dad bods RULE!!
“SS is general welfare.”
Hardly. General welfare does not have a dedicated income stream where millions of workers have paid in trillions of dollars.
Congress has spent generations expanding payouts to people who were never intended to be covered by social security, and never made significant contributions into the “trust fund”.
The federal government administers multiple pension plans whose beneficiaries have made fewer contributions than social security recipients. If the solution to extending the solvency of the trust fund is trimming benefits, we can trim the fedgov pensions also.
i was always told that Lucy was a distant cousin, but Wikipedia currently doesn’t include the genealogy.
The Bill Murray movie hints at the family ties, but that wouldn’t be any more authoritative than Wikipedia.
My family goes back a long way in that part of GA, and my father gave the docents a hard time when we toured Franklin’s sugar shack and they started spewing the revisionist history.
The docents were Church Ladies, right out of the SNL sketch.
The co-creators of the sketch, Terry and Bonnie Turner, also had Georgia roots.
Doh! The Turners worked for Turner Broadcasting (no relation) in Atlanta but had roots elsewhere.
They definitely got Church Ladies, however.
Baltimore, you say?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/welcome-baltimore-chaos-gunfire-and-roaming-youth-mobs-transform-bar-district-warzone
Probably better than Portland.
As I’ve posted before, I’ve been an Ooma user since it was a startup. I only use the app now since I can’t get new equipment without paying for a plan.
The app works fine for when you travel away from home. You receive and can make calls just like on the home hardware. I leave it running in the background on my phone. You can turn off ringing through, so it is like an answering machine.
There is no texting unless you purchase the Business Office plan or some such.
Did I mention I have free lifetime service since I bought in for $200 in 2004. That includes Canada and Mexico. That’s like at least $2,640 in savings over 22 years at $10/mo. since I’m at the Premier level. The basic level is still just taxes etc., so a good deal if you want/need a VOIP line.
I just called D5 and then the talking Canada automated time to confirm the app is still working fine.
We also use Grasshopper for our business line. We don’t use a physical line, just the app. We ported our toll free number. You can make calls from the app and Caller ID shows our business line. Incoming calls are routed to individual cell phones for info, accounts, etc.
We use MyFax for a virtual fax since some goobermint agencies (mainly schools) insist on faxing us contracts and such. You can fax right a document right from the PC or use the app to send a scanned document.
Oh, yeah, incoming faxes are emailed to our general info email so everybody gets it. You can also login over the web and do stuff like review your history.
Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and Bono are helping Big Mike open the new presidential center.
If Stevie has ever wondered if being blind could be a blessing, now is the time.
D5: I ran the company payroll, payday is today.
MrAtoz: Why today and not Friday?
D5: Banks are closed Friday.
MrAtoz: Why are they closed?
D5: For Juneteenth.
MrAtoz: Hahahaha! That’s stupid.
D5: Grrrrrr. (Because she’s a Millennial).
I’ve been wary about AI, but never really could say why.
Justine Bateman, over on X, came up with this in response to a post about psychopaths:
I felt a shiver down my spine.
The Child occasionally pisses and moans at me about some of the opinions I express. And about some of the facts and reasoning which went into forming those opinions. I sometimes point out that my attitudes were formed when the United States had a healthy culture and was expanding and increasing by most measures. Her attitudes were formed in a sick society which is in decline by most measures. She is highly resistant to such observations. (To be fair to her, I have decades more experience in both logical argumentation and rhetoric. If I make the effort to push on a topic, I steamroll pretty much anyone who does not close their ears and simply shout their own points louder with every repetition.)
And The Child is one of the more level-headed and open to discussion people of her age group that I have talked to.
The only thing that leaves me with a shred of hope is that every generation despairs at the younger generations. (And observes their parents’ generation with bemused contempt.)
If your payroll date is every two weeks, you get to repeat the fun with the next check since the July 4th Federal Holiday falls on the 3rd this year.
The point of creating the Memorial Day weekend was to stop the insanity of endless state and local commemorative holidays across May and June, particularly in the South.
Juneteenth weekend used to be something the police departments in Florida dreaded since it ended up being an excuse for Amish criminal antics.
And now it’s just another fake holiday imposed in an attempt to appease the descendants of obsolete farm equipment.
Home from the dentist. Kid has a new filling, and very numb cheek. Donuts were the lunch de jour. Very soft donuts.
I think I will push my other pickup to tomorrow. That way I can combine it into a bigger loop.
One 2 hour pickup, even leaving from the dentist which was ⅓ of the way there, is enough for a day.
n
The wind was gusting to gale force (Beaufort scale using calibrated eyeball and the bending of trees) with steady winds in the “strong breeze” category. Picked up the chicken run and smashed it some more. Most of the brackets are broken now and I needed to put some braces under it to hold the top up. Rolled the tarp, which should keep it from being flung around more but which leaves the chickens exposed to the rain which has been deluging for the past half hour. I’d say “Bah. Stupid weather.” but it doesn’t seem strong enough.
The second time the run was picked up, most of the chickens had escaped by the time I noticed and got out there. They came running up to me as soon as they noticed I was there. “Treatbringer! Fix it!” Well, guys, I did what I could.
Chores all morning, but should be done by noon.
Winds were so strong yesterday (40+) that they snapped off a couple of larger tomato plant branches, despite the plants being flush against the lee side of the house. I have tied things up – same winds predicted for today – but jeez.
But on the bright side I found a few more ripe cherry tomatoes.
Currently I think the cost averages out at about $10-20 a tomato, but it as more ripen that should go down.
I love the photo of Shrub giving Big Mike a BJ at the Obola Sand Crawler abomination.
The opening ceremony honors the Native American land the Empire stole to build the almost billion dollar atrocity.. Instead of giving it back, Jarrett says, “Thanks bitches, for the free land.”
He’s working on brain implant chips too.
n
Yes, Musk is. He has apparently killed many monkeys and is undergoing human trials, somewhere.
“Yet again, a command economy is derailed by human greed”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2026/06/yet-again-command-economy-is-derailed.html
“In late May Chinese leaders travelled to the Zhoushan National Oil Reserve and discovered the nation’s strategic oil reserves weren’t there. For over a year, the disruption of oil supplies from Venezuela and Iran had left Chinese oil reserves reduced. Despite that, government documents indicated that China still had 1.2 billion tons of oil reserves. That’s equivalent to 8,756,117,022 barrels.”
“China’s strategic oil reserve, to the surprise of the government officials who went to verify the reserves in May, was instead composed of water, sludge, various debris and overflow from nearby sewer lines.”
“What happened to Chinese oil? It was soon discovered that corrupt government officials and oil reserve personnel had sold the oil and pocketed the proceeds. The local buyers were often operators of small, locally owned refineries that turned the oil into commercial products that were sold throughout China. Most of these oil criminals then fled, often leaving China for sanctuary states that would welcome any affluent Chinese and their new wealth. The only winners were a few conniving Chinese and the Americans, who continued to dominate the global energy system.”
Truth or a very strange lie ?
We are going to regret not bombing the Iran oilfields into the stone age.
The auctions stopped being anything more than a fig leaf almost 20 years ago.
The housing and stock markets would crash without the printing presses running at the rate of $1 Trillion per year.
Once again, there is no trust fund. The government is prevented by legal precedent from running one. SS is general welfare.
The Excel spreadsheet at the Federal Reserve is inventing $2 trillion per year. They don’t even print most of the worthless money anymore. Just a token amount.
FTFY.
Effectiveness of the state unemployment plans varies, but TWC prevents a lot of mischief by employers in Texas. I speak from personal experience.
The Workers Unemployent Insurance in Texas is not horrible as it is 33% efficient. For every three dollars I send them, they send out $1 in benefits. The employees do not pay a penny of it.
I have had multiple employees quit and then try to get unemployment payments from TWC. I fought every one of those pleadings and won every one.
I had an employee quit in January. She told me that she got tired of me planning on firing her and shutting the business down which was news to me, I had no such plans. I have been waiting for her to file unemployment.
Home from the dentist. Kid has a new filling, and very numb cheek. Donuts were the lunch de jour. Very soft donuts.
Wait, was the filling a result of donuts from before?
That question is hate speech!!!!!!!!!
Helvering v. Davis.
“Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson comedy ‘Brothers’ sets premiere date”
https://www.chron.com/culture/tv/article/brothers-apple-tv-release-date-22311038.php
“The series plays on the real-life rumor put forth by Harrelson that he and McConaughey, who have been best friends forever and are both from the same region of Texas, could actually be blood brothers.”
“During an interview in 2023, McConaughey said that during a trip to Greece, his mother mentioned she “knew” Harrelson’s father. Harrelson co-signed the rumor on Late Night With Stephen Colbert, telling Colbert that they may have the same father. They determined that the timelines matched up, and that the possibility McConaughey’s mother knew Harrelson’s father became a point of interest for both actors who clearly enjoyed thinking about the possibility.”
Crazy.
Fleming v. Nestor put the decisions about who should receive SS payments and how much into Congress’ hands.
The option is there to give you nothing.
Read the preamble to the Constitution carefully. That lays out the order of spending prority and places general welfare at the bottom of the list just ahead of securing the blessings of liberty.
You may view the wording as unimportant, but legal minds doing contingency planning for FedGov default and/or debt ceiling scenarios take the parsing of the paragraph seriously.
Let’s make Monday an informal holiday.
We’ll call it “Juneteenth My Ass”
Helvering v. Davis does not change the facts any more than Roe v. Wade did.
And “legal minds” and the rest of the slicky boys need to parse the 400 million multiple caliber Second Amendment votes that will decide the appeal.
Dadgum, the electric rates have really picked up in the Houston area.
$394.81 for 2,963 kwh from May 14, 2026 to June 15, 2026 for my house.
13.3 cents/kwh of which 8.0 cents/kwh is energy and 5.3 cents/kwh is Centerpoint (distribution and transmission). The Centerpoint charge has almost doubled in the last five years due to storm damage and hardening the local grid.
I paid $0.091 per KWH of electricity last month. I have no idea what the breakdown is for delivery, maintenance and actual electrons. The rate is fairly cheap do to hydro and nuclear by TVA. TVA is where my utility purchases their power. Last month I used 1,300 KWH of power. This month will be higher due to higher temperatures and running the pool pump. I figure the pool pump costs me about $0.75 per day.
My water bill is higher than my electric bill. And that is for two people.
“US company gets approval to build the world’s first fusion power plant in Washington”
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/worlds-first-fusion-power-plant-washington
“Helion Energy has an agreement with Microsoft to supply 50 MW of fusion power by 2028.”
Did I miss something? Did somebody actually come up with a nuclear fusion reactor that works for more than a minute?
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
My water bill is higher than my electric bill. And that is for two people.
My water bill for my house is averaging around $200 per month for three people. When I do not run the lawn sprinkler system, that cost drops to $100/month. I have not run the lawn sprinkler system in over a month, when I do, it runs $200 to $300 per month.
Summer is here. It is 96 F outside with a humidity of 70%. The dew point is 81 F.
I’ve gone out a couple times when it wasn’t raining to pick up stuff blown around by the wind and to fix things that got knocked down or pulled apart, a fair few items. Checked on the chickens who are not happy but are safe enough. Each time I went out, the rain started again within three minutes of my walking outside. Bah. Stupid weather.
The clock started ticking on Roe the moment Time “leaked” the decision a few hours before publication by the Court. That was a bad decision.
Helvering v. Davis won’t be overturned absent a radical change in composition of the Court, a willing Chief Justice, and a interesting argument. The decision has been there for 90 years.
“U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sides with Texas man, rules it’s not a crime for marijuana users to have guns”
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/06/18/supreme-court-marijuana-guns-texas-ali-danial-hemani/
and
https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-sides-with-challenger-to-law-banning-drug-users-from-possessing-guns/
“Ali Danial Hemani successfully challenged a federal law prohibiting people who illegally use drugs from owning guns. Justices said that ban is a Second Amendment violation.”
Good. The Second Amendment is not a secondary amendment. The right to bear arms cannot be casually taken away.
When I work for Texas DOB we had “optional holidays”. We had Federal holidays of course. Then there were State holidays.
I don’t remember all of them. I think there were six, pick any three. Juneteenth was one. Confederate Heroes Day was another.
I worked Juneteenth because almost everyone took it. So, easy easy day at work. I took Confederate Heroes Day because it was in February. Not much happening and taking it annoyed some folks that needed to be annoyed.
Heck. I would get accused of doing nothing but reading the newspapers. Both Dallas papers, both Houston papers, the WSJ, the Austin and San Antonio papers. But I had 95% of my job duties (and others as assigned) done most days by 10 am.
Then again, the guy that made the noise about me reading newspapers, no one else complained, I think he wanted in my pants and I wouldn’t give him the time of day.
First real job: After being sure to show up for work on time, the Big Rule was you Don’t Get Your Meat Where You Get Your Bread.
So, what can I say?
I think there should be many more Federal holidays. Make it one a week. Every Monday, no Fed gov stuff.
The Post Office can figure out how to deliver mail just five days a week or exempt the Post Office just so they don’t get behind on deliveries. Let the banks stay open.
County and City offices? Whatever. How often do you deal with them? Other than buying license plate stickers and paying the rent on my house and land, aka property taxes? Twice a year.
Oh. And we’re not just going to a four day work week. Cut their pay appropriately.
No wait. Don’t cut their pay. Just none of that sweet 5% COLA raise for about five years.
I forget what the COLA increase percentage was for SS this last year. But Medicare raised the price. I ended up with an extra dollar a day. Enough for a 30 of Miller High Life and an almost $9 bag of store brand jerky.
50 MW for how long?
Microsoft. Gates. Paging Hank Scorpio …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSW-PoZ3570
I don’t know if Gates loves German beer.
The clock started ticking on Roe the moment Time “leaked” the decision a few hours before publication by the Court. That was a bad decision.
Helvering v. Davis won’t be overturned absent a radical change in composition of the Court, a willing Chief Justice, and a interesting argument. The decision has been there for 90 years.
Social Security will be means tested in my lifetime.
The crazy one is Medicare which is already means tested, IRMAA.
Medicaid may be thrown away soon as the fraud in it is skyrocketing.
It’s “just around the corner”. The last thing I heard was that Skunkworks (I think) had a microwave concentrator doohickey to heat the fuel.
97f. Sunny but an odd color of Sunny. Hazy. The color of the sky is between blue and light gray. Maybe the annual dust from the Sahara is here?
Wrong IP. The Obama monstrosity is definitely something from the Klingon homeworld.
As is Big Mike.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSW-PoZ3570
All of the Klingon women I can recall were much prettier than Big Mike.
I just spend 2.5 hours today checking the websites of Toyota dealers in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia for a Ruby Red Grand Highlander. I found just four such vehicles. All of them are in the build phase with sales pending. None of them had all the options I wanted.
I think I got lucky in Atlanta when the salesperson found what I was looking for, coming to his dealership, and in the build phase. And the vehicle is missing one option I wanted, a tow hitch, which the dealer will add, at a price that to me seems excessive. But it is a Toyota hitch and not some U-Haul hack job. The vehicle should be here in about a month.
Then I spent about a half hour working on the trade-in value of my 2013 Highlander. Carmax was $6K, the local Chevrolet dealer would give me $9.5K. That gives me a range for trade-in. I would really want $7.5K in trade from the dealer. Doing the trade saves me the sales tax on the trade amount.
I could probably sell private for $12K but again there is that sales tax thingy, and the real possibility of getting scammed. I have heard of people that accepted a check and 30 days later the check bounces. People have been given cash and some of the money was counterfeit. Others have been sued because the vehicle broke down two days later. They were found not liable but had to defend themselves.
I have to negotiate the price of the new vehicle but I am afraid there is not going to be much wiggle room. With the vehicle being so difficult to find, and in demand, the dealer will just say “don’t buy it, it will be sold tomorrow for what we are asking”.
I have not told the dealer if I will finance of pay cash. I will be paying cash. The salesperson told me that if I finance, I would pay Georgia sales tax and then pay nothing in TN. Seems odd. I suspect that using Toyota financing or GA financing. If I pay cash I pay no GA sales tax but would pay in TN when I register the vehicle.
I downloaded the owner’s manual. There is a boatload of settings, options, and features. The usual safety stuff, 360 backup camera, lane departure, collision avoidance, and most surprising, a digital rearview mirror. If the back area is block flip a switch on the mirror and the backup camera is sent to a display on the mirror.
There are 13 USB-C ports on the vehicle, 12 for charging, one for entertainment like CarPlay. There are two 12V outlets and two 110V outlets.
Heated and cooled front and second row seats, auto headlights (dimming, power and adjustment), memory seats, and some stuff I am just beginning to explore.
The half human Klingon women.
Quark’s ex-wife, Grilka, came the closest to “pretty” among the 100% Klingon female characters in the Stage 8/9 era.
Grilka was definitely more petite than Big Mike. She had to play well on screen with Armin Shimerman.
They had the unfair advantage of being women.
@Jenny – If you’re lurking today, Fathom Events has Gene Wilder’s “Willy Wonka” coming up in August for the 55th anniversary.
You can definitely take the offspring.
Hopefully, the Ellisons give Fathom the uncensored cut. Nothing that wouldn’t pass TV standards in the 70s, but really out there if you are paying attention.
Ah, one of life’s little pleasures; destroying the opposition with logic, facts, rhetoric and panache.
I hope the chickens are OK!
Thursday, now Friday, well past my bedtime. Body clock is messed up by megaproject. I couldn’t keep my eyes open at 5pm, and am wide awake now. Grr. Goodnight!
Klingon folks is general are a puzzle. Klingons with the forehead stuff? How do they wash that and keep it from being a giant zit?
Actually it’s all a puzzle, we can interbreed? With Vulcans and Cardassians and Romulans and Bajorians. And more I’m missing.
We can all eat the same food.
So….. where and who is the originating race? From over there in the Dominion? Where Odo came from?
Anyway.
Several of them were upset but they settled down once they saw me and got close. As much as they act afraid if I reach down to scratch one, they cluster around when something scares them.
I (repeatedly) got the run set up after the wind moved and twisted it, then got everyone back in and when they were home they were happy enough (until the downpour started again). I brought them a treat a while ago (and didn’t get rained on, difficult as that may be to believe) and a ring of fat, fluffy butts surrounded the treat dish. Om-nom-nom.
They aren’t actually fat, by the way. What they are not is skinny, like many egg birds are. A number of people who have kept chickens and other livestock have seen them and mentioned how good they all look. Well, my birds have plenty of room to run around, a heated coop in the winter, shelter from rain (except when I have to take the tarp down because of the stupid wind), plenty of food and clean water (despite their continuing efforts to poop in the water), treats, and the opportunity to run around the yard most days. They have a pretty sweet life. Compare to the chickens kept by several people I know. About 3 sq ft per bird, never let out, fed only pellets. The horror!
Not to mention the plucking and eating part….
n
Klingon folks is general are a puzzle. Klingons with the forehead stuff? How do they wash that and keep it from being a giant zit?
Actually it’s all a puzzle, we can interbreed? With Vulcans and Cardassians and Romulans and Bajorians. And more I’m missing.
We can all eat the same food.
So….. where and who is the originating race? From over there in the Dominion? Where Odo came from?
Anyway.
It is a common trope in Science Fiction that a long ago alien race went through the Milky Way Galaxy and seeded all of the planets in the Goldilocks zone with their DNA and other such stuff.
“U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sides with Texas man, rules it’s not a crime for marijuana users to have guns”
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/06/18/supreme-court-marijuana-guns-texas-ali-danial-hemani/
and
https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-sides-with-challenger-to-law-banning-drug-users-from-possessing-guns/
“Ali Danial Hemani successfully challenged a federal law prohibiting people who illegally use drugs from owning guns. Justices said that ban is a Second Amendment violation.”
Good. The Second Amendment is not a secondary amendment. The right to bear arms cannot be casually taken away.
Wait, I missed that this was a unanimous decision. That just makes it even cooler. So Jackson and the other two crazies even got righteous on this.
One of my potential new homes for WinSim just got heavily marked down from $790,000 to $715,000. Dadgumit, they may sell it at that price. I ain’t ready at the moment to buy anything.
https://www.har.com/homedetail/8131-brinkmeyer-rd-needville-tx-77461/11372861?lid=10610488
One of my sons in Illinois has a medical MJ card, and a concealed handgun license, but when he got the card he was told he can’t buy any new guns from an FFL because of the fed’s restrictions on MJ use. The FFL form has a specific question on this, which I assume will now be invalidated.
I think it’s all a crock, and I think MJ is seldom helpful and always harmful, but it is what it is.
The crock part includes: Needing a license to carry, needing an FFL and forms to purchase, prohibiting MJ, smoking MJ, MJ as a helpful medicine (although I’m in favor of real, honest scientific studies, if such things exist anymore.)
The TOS Klingons didn’t have that problem. Just shoe polish. Ack! Ack! That is BlackFace and raycissss!!!
My neighbor marked his house down below $500K. He started at $620K.
It’s a bachelor pad, needs updates, and has a workshop instead of a back yard. Still, I think people are missing the potential there.
n
The question that immediately springs to mind is “Why?”
What are the long term plans for that highway?
What is the potential for Colonization in Needville?
They’re busy up in the remote parts of Williamson County to the west and north of Georgetown.
At this point, I think only a complete collapse of the Monkey Trick would stop the invasion.
It isn’t a question of money — they’re all from wealthy families — but, rather, winning “Visa Lotto” by getting a green card.
What is the potential for Colonization in Needville?
The colonists have taken over the entire east side of Fort Bend County and are moving into the west side now, with the delineation line being the Brazos River.
What are the long term plans for that highway?
What highway? That is a country road in front of that house.
The question that immediately springs to mind is “Why?”
I gotta have some place to put WinSim when I sell the current place. Probably won’t happen until the end of next year when the new toll bridge crosses the Brazos River with a two lane bridge for now.
I just realized that all of the men working at WinSim have beards. Coincidence, I think not.
@Ray; when the dealer installs the Toyota hitch and wiring, have them add a 7-connector plug in addition to the four-wire standard plug.
The wiring for the tow hitch is waiting on the left-rear fender (inside near the gas inlet). There is a dedicated 12v circuit wire there waiting for the hitch wiring. SInce the 7 wire plug is basically the four-wire (left/right signal, brake light, ground) plus a 12v line and ground (as I recall), they can tap off the 12v line that powers the 4-wire circuit and run that to the additional 7 wire plug.
That will give you the standard 4-wire plug plus the 7 wire plug. The extra 12v wiring will be handy if you ever want to tow a small trailer. Or to have a power-lift wheelchair lift, which would need the 12v for the lift motor. I had to run a heavy-duty 12v line from the engine battery underneath to the back hitch area for a separate plug for the lift.
I wish I had done that to my Highlander when I got the dealer to add the hitch. He wanted to charge $800 for the hitch install (parts/labor), but I told him that it only added $400 to the price in the configurator, so got it for $400. (In addition to the negotiation I did to get him down to my target price. Which took a couple of hours.)
You should be able to get the hitch install instructions online somewhere – it has the full install instructions, plus the wiring diagram showing that the 12v line is already there on the left-rear fender (inside, accessed through a little door on the inside).
I’d also recommend adding running boards. You can find them on Amazon at less cost than the dealer, and easy enough to install. Wife really likes them to help her get into the vehicle.
YMMV, of course.
Why did they lower the price?
Friends trying to sell a house in Florida are having a hard time finding a buyer.
Why did they lower the price?
Friends trying to sell a house in Florida are having a hard time finding a buyer.
The real estate market is doing a slow reset with the current mortgage rate at 6.5% for 30 years.
I am listing my mother’s house in Port Lavaca for $675,000 this week. I was planning on $799,000 a year ago after my father passed away.
I have 7 and 4 on my truck. I don’t need 7 on the Highlander as we will never tow something needs brakes and power. The hitch will be used for the bike rack and maybe a small utility trailer. We towed a wave-runner with our first Highlander.
That trailer was too short to back easily and visibility on the Highlander sucked. When backing the empty trailer it was worse on visibility. I would have the wife back the empty trailer and I would pick up the back of the trailer and walk it down the ramp. People would laugh until they saw us make it down the ramp in one try. My wife could back the boat trailer quite well, shaming some men.
That‘s a good idea to negotiate with the dealer about installing the hitch.
The factory configuration includes running boards. It would be nice if the boards retracted like my F-150.
I quit looking for a BOL because of my fear of dropping real estate prices. I didn’t want to buy something in a declining market.
It seems my fears have come true.
Texas is growing, but illegal immigrants are also leaving/being deported, and that’s a factor that will keep prices (in general) down.
Of course, I’m screwed if the zombie apocalypse happens, but I’d be screwed anyway, just less so and later.
I Greg is right about Texas politics, I’ll be heading for Tennessee anyway.
It would be nice to see the H1-B colonists sent back home, but I’m not holding my breath. Maybe if the monkey trick collapses.
List it at $799,000. And then they can jew you down to what you actually want.
For real. We wanted to sell the travel trailer. Ok, we want, bottom line, $1500 in our pocket. Offer it at $3000. “we can’t do that” and I’m like Mexicans bargain, listen to me.
Sure, the tires have suddenly turned to peeled tread. “Oh. That sucks. Ok. I’ll lower the price because you have to buy new tires.”
And we got $2000 for the travel trailer. He got a good deal.
He did get a good deal.
I think this upcoming election is the key to what happens in Texas long term.
I’m not sure Tennessee is a solution. Nashville has decided that it wants to be Austin to the point that Broadway has a 6th Street-style bacchanalia every night and Comcast now owns the Grand Ole Opry.
We didn’t make it out to Ray’s part of the state in our abbreviated run across TN in 2018. The furthest east we went on the last trip was the other side of Cleveland, TN, out to Etowah.
And the tires. They were not flat, just a few pounds low. Like 25 psi and not 35 psi. So I aired them up. He saw the trailer. Then brought his wife. SHE really liked it. And things move slow because folks have things to do and two months later the tires shed their tread.
Har har har. You made a funny.
she got her instagram little brown baby without having to sleep with the brown man…
Genetic parents of baby born to another couple in IVF mix-up were forced to give up the child against their wishes
n
Never gonna happen for me. It’s all pretty much all Yankees north of Waco. Def all Yankees north of Dallas.
And snow? Eff that noise.
The dogs have had supper. The usual dry stuff and tonight a spoon of canned dog food stirred in. “Beef cuts in gravy”. It smells ok, like canned stew but it needs salt. Not sure what “beef cuts’ are. look like tofu to me. But the dogs are happy.
Penny ate all of her food. Buddy was a bit slower. Then Buddy got antsy. Ok, outside enough to pee, not doing a walk right now.
Penny is on the dog bed. Buddy is laying in the hallway. On the fake wood laminate flooring. Where he can watch me.
He’s a well fed lad. Right now he looks like a sausage. With legs. A beagle sized sausage that snores.
Panspermia – the origin of all life. (the sophomoric humor spreads itself)
My hillbilly grandma had a little piggy of a dog named Midge. Midge was a bleach bottle with thread spools for legs.
n
There was a ST:TNG episode in which everybody was collecting DNA fragments; GROK has details.
https://grok.com/c/5e4dea20-332c-42b3-a61a-8a39df171ecd?rid=9b76871e-d637-4ed1-bdcd-2b4dbc794066
And in “earlier” SF (the E.E. “Doc” Smith “Lensmen” stories) the Arisians seeded every planet in the Galaxy with potential life.
Not just apple serial locking trivial components in phones and computers. Automakers are apparently doing it too.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-or54rqEjVk?feature=share
“radar module” in tail lights, VIN locked to the ECU so no used parts for you!
n
I have sugar ants in my 1990 Northgate keyboard that I have been using since 1992.
I treated my entire exterior of my office building with ant spray in the brick weepholes and with Amdro granules for the long term.
So, should the sugar ants go away very soon, like overnight?
According to the WikiPedias, ‘overnight’ is probably not going to happen (emphasis added):
Although that kind of bait is good to use because the ants take it back to the nest.
And if they are in your keyboard, sounds like you have been doing too much snacking while using the keyboard. Might be good to take apart the keyboard and shake out all of the cookie dust to remove the food source and any ants hiding in there.
We use liquid ant baits at the BOL and around the house here. I treat the mounds with “mound destroyer” granules that are suppose to work in 15 minutes. They do seem to against fire ants, less so against other ants.
If you find them in a line, you can use febreze to disrupt the hormone trail they are following. Start at the farthest point, and slowly work back toward where they are entering. The line will hit your sprayed area and turn around. you can march all the ants back out if you are patient.
Alcohol based sprays seem to kill them pretty quickly too.
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Had a tiny little fire and read for a while. It’s cooled down and there was a bit of a light breeze for a while. I didn’t feel as overheated as last night. No wildlife or gunfire at all tonight.
Time for a shower and bed, as soon as I finish my snack.
n
I have a small black dog looking very hopeful that there will be some skyfood sometime soon. Maybe there will be.
People keep mentioning the “long weekend” and I finally figured out what they were talking about. Friday will be a normal day for me, and for my wife. Not many places around here will be taking it off…
n