And it will be hot again. I have to wait for afternoon so that I’m working in shadow, because that sun is broiling hot when it’s 100F and humid. Today should be the same as yesterday. HOT. And soaked to the skin from sweat in this Houston humidity.
Unfortunately my evaporative cooling vest doesn’t do much in high humidity and my ice pack based one is at the BOL. I did bring a bouncy house fan and having the moving air helps a lot. That fan is small but moves tons of air.
I spent yesterday afternoon and evening moving stuff from the last of my storage units to the shop, and stacking and organizing to make room for it. I found some stuff I’d forgotten about, both for my ham radio swapmeet and for my non-prepping hobby. You’d think I couldn’t misplace and forget about several black bins full of stuff, but I could and did.
There is a lesson there that is probably something like “you should go through all your stuff at least once a year to remember what you’ve got and where it is.” There was far too much stuff I set down and never got back to.
And that friends, is one of the drawbacks to focusing on stacking. I’ve got the stuff, but do I really have it if I don’t remember it, and can’t put my hands on it?
Nevertheless, having it is better than not having it. Stack!
nick
First post. I beat chicken boy and that foreigner suffering in the heat.
Just for grins, I widened my search for a red Grand Highlander Platinum. Big cities, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, among others. None were found in red. All but a dozen in other colors were all in the build phase. Average time on lots was less than a week. I think I got lucky finding what I wanted.
I also believe someone, whom proclaims to be an expert in Fortran, is celebrating another trip around the nuclear powered golden orb. Happy Birthday anniversary oh wisened bit fiddler.
No gunfire or fireworks tonight, and only one gigantic cat that trotted by on the street. Well, it moved like a cat but it was as big as a medium sized dog.
The beast is probably transitioning.
I want to move the 830 am church service to 230 pm. I kept on waking up, dreaming that somebody that somebody was breaking into our bedroom. I was up at 4am checking things out and draining the bladder.
Aint nobody wise around here. Getting dumber by the day.
Try Kileen/Harker Heights. A lot of money sloshes around that area because of DoD largess.
Kileen was the only dealer plate frame I saw for about six months on the new Land Cruiser.
Before that, the only Rav4 Prime I saw in Austin carried that dealer’s name.
Just did. Only one Grand Highlander available, in the build phase. Highlanders are very popular vehicles. Toyota knows this and manages the building of the vehicles to keep the prices high. Finding a Platinum trim in the Grand Highlander model is difficult, finding one in red has proven to be almost impossible. I got very lucky with the dealer in Atlanta. The one the dealer had in the build phase, had everything I wanted except for a couple of items the dealer can install. There was one item in the build I did not want, all of $29.00 so not an issue.
My used, 2013 Highlander Limited, is going for $12K in Atlanta. I paid $30K 10 years ago so the vehicle has held its value quite well. Yes, I could probably private sale for more than I am getting trade. I just don’t trust the process with scams. Fake money, checks that eventually bounce, new owner fails to register and racks up tickets, or stop pay on the check because they have remorse or are attempting fraud. Yeh, not worth the hassle.
Standard Highlander models are hybrid only, which has increased the desirability of the Grand Highlander.
Plus, the Grand Highlander boosts Toyota’s bottom line and offers a cross shop with the Grand Wagoneer, a much more expensive vehicle.
The Grand Wagoneers are starting to pile up on the dealer lots around here. A lot of people can’t justify $50k much less $100k.
In that class, I see a lot of “new” Durangos rolling around, but that is an old platform in terms of design.
The Durango is the only model keeping Dodge alive.
Sadly true. In my hobby club over the years we have acquired a lot of equipment and hardware and tools and marketing material. It has been dispersed to various member’s care, and no one knows what we have or where it is or what shape it’s in. Just this weekend we had to buy a propane griddle and have ANOTHER set of promo banners printed, since none of the previous 3 sets showed up spontaneously. People were getting lost trying to find our event because we didn’t have banner up.
For a hobby that appeals to engineers, there’s a lot of poor planning going on.
The Durango is the only model keeping Dodge alive.
– is that because it’s a jeep without the jeep badge and price?
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I’m up and moving. Stiffly. Lower and mid back are crying… and I’m generally tired. But I skipped a lake weekend to do this stuff and I need to keep moving.
———-
Starting with coffee and breakfast.
n
Next year, starting with the 2027 models, the standard Highlander will be electric only. No gas option available. According to two sales (persons, peoples, lot lizards?).
Sweaty foreigner here.
Happy Birthday, O wizened one!
The birthday party was late/early. We left at 02:00, the hosts at 05:00.
I was back at 10:00 to open the bar at the shooting range. Fortunately, it is in the basement shade, and cool, as was the beer!
Back at base now. There must have been a front passing through, the garden is full of leaves and bits of branches. I will let them wilt a bit tomorrow, then hit them with the leaf blower. Unfortunately, our cherry-plum tree, which is gravid with unripe fruit, seems to have taken a hit. One branch has cracked and is hanging down. I will wait and see if it still manages to ripen the fruit on that branch, then take the damaged branch down. A pity, as it was the easiest one to harvest.
Happy Birthday anniversary oh wisened bit fiddler.
Thanks!
And Fortran is very difficult to change individual bits in. We just multiplied and modified by 1000 and 1000000 to do minor bit twiddling.
No. The Durango’s standard engine is a 3.6 L V6 and a Hemi, and a V8 is available for less than $50k.
The tow rating even on the V6 is 7200 lbs with a truck design based on the Dakota.
Plus, the platform dates back 15 years so a lot of stupid features are absent.
Fiat will probably change it next year for compliance reasons, but, for now, it is a taste of what life was like in the before times.
Next year, starting with the 2027 models, the standard Highlander will be electric only. No gas option available. According to two sales (persons, peoples, lot lizards?).
Not only the pure electric only, but the electric Highlanders are claimed to be solid state batteries. Toyota is saying that they figured out a secret process to mass produce solid state batteries without a PhD Chemist babysitting the process.
The Rav4 with a gas engine option is as big as the Highlander used to be just a few years ago and the Crown Signia is in that size class with only a hybrid drivetrain available. Something had to give in the lineup, and a lot of Tonymobiles are coming off lease without a replacement Model X available.
I see a lot of Model X in the parking lot at work. It is a Colonist vehicle of choice but also a favorite of Show Ya around here who are praying for a rerun of the Labor Day 2017 “gas shortage”.
Maybe we’ll see that this year if the war continues.
I drive past a big TESLA building on 290 and for a month they had a parking lot full of cybertrucks, and a large number of them parked on the grass next to the lot. Those all vanished about a month ago.
You can’t swing a cat around here without hitting a tesla of some kind.
I have seen a bunch of other EVs too, the Iconiq I spot a couple of times a month, and some other big sedan I didn’t recognize. Fair number of Rivians too.
n
added — unless you have your own solar capable of charging an EV, they really don’t make sense in an area that can be without power for days or weeks at a time. Ditto for anything that needs an internet connection to run or enable all of the features.
n
I see a lot more Tesla cyber trucks around. There was one in front of the supermarket this morning in a handicap parking spot. No wrap, just the (dirty) stainless steel. They had apparently backed in…
I also saw three Raptors, one squeezed in front of me between me and the semi directly in front of me on the freeway (100′ gap maybe) so that he could get off at the next exit. There was probably 1000 feet of empty road directly behind me…
The other two were matching white with some sort of off-road trim traveling together through town. Maybe some sort of road test thing by the manufacturer, although you usually see four or five when that happens.
This story makes no sense, motive not mentioned, although I guess it was robbery. You get the end and discover the “teen” had mental and behavior issues, and then you see the girlfriend who I bet was the motivating factor.
Teenage koi pond employee who burned boss alive learns his fate in court: ‘I deserve whatever I get’
n
Yeah dumb@ss, you let your girlfriend talk you into robbery and murder.
I watched Hulk last night. Not a bad movie. Might watch again.
I have questions. When he turns into the Hulk, where does the extra body mass come from? Plus, his clothes rip apart but Hulk is wearing what looks like boxer briefs.. And then when he goes back to normal, he’s naked. Not even wearing shorts five sizes too big.
Yeah. I know it’s a movie based on a comic book. But still.
I watched Hulk last night. Not a bad movie. Might watch again.
Which one? There are 3 or 4 plus the Bill Bixby tv show with Lou Ferrigno that was fun.
Oh. The 2003 movie. Nick Nolte as Hulk’s father.
This one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CDR1FG?tag=ttgnet-20
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scott-mcclallen/2026/06/28/rfk-jr-dr-oz-over-1-million-enrolled-in-obamacare-with-no-social-security-number-n2678441
If U.S. Congressmen and Senators were paid what they are worth, the average would be less than $100.
Yeah, Pelosi, we’re still reading the 1000-page bill that was immaculately conceived without benefit of any elected official writing it, and we’re still finding bigger and better ways that the U.S> taxpayer has been taking it up the backside ever since.
“Teenage koi pond employee”
Second commenter jhas i right:
“Execution within 12 months of conviction is an appropriate punishment”
They’re still counting bodies in Caracas. The regime is incompetent but as a practical matter if there are 50,000 people missing there is not a realistic way to deploy resources to get better end results–most died in the 60 seconds after the first earthquake hit no matter they expired days later trapped in the rubble.
Mother Nature just demonstrated that life is not precious at all.
Snuff this P.O.S. and his girlfriend and move on.
have questions. When he turns into the Hulk, where does the extra body mass come from? Plus, his clothes rip apart but Hulk is wearing what looks like boxer briefs.. And then when he goes back to normal, he’s naked. Not even wearing shorts five sizes too big.
Next time watch “A Room With a View”.
Look up “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex”
Then ask yourself if you want to be entertained or sit around sticking needles in your eyes.
SpaceX bought a bunch of Cybertrucks a couple of months ago.
The IPO was about burying the costs a lot of things besides building rockets.
Heed the wisdom of the MST3k theme song.
“Then repeat to yourself it’s just a show, I should really just relax”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcUkKltAidM
Delusion? Doublespeak? or an actual ignorance of facts and history?
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15936139/missing-girl-seattle-jungle-encampment.html
no mention of arrests for who moved her across state lines or who was trafficking her. Then the bulk of the article is about street people, maybe to distract from the lack of action against the criminals involved.
– we go from bums to homeless to unhoused to now “unsheltered”.
the stunning lack of something in the statement “lack of shelters” instead of “psychiatric facilities” or “loony bins”…
btw,
so between 40% and 16% of the urban campers are so crazy or violent that the shelters won’t take them…
But people keep feeding them and giving them tents.
n
added– I missed them calling the encampment a “historic neighborhood” and the pile of stolen bike parts clearly visible in the pictures.
Think that you are doing all you can to be anonymous on the interwebs? Consider visiting this site to see what your browser is telling about you:
Interesting information on the SinceYouArrived site that you might want to take some time carefully looking at….
And then, to get even more paranoid, carefully (and completely) read this article about things that are happening on US government sites. Before you automatically assume anything about the article’s intent or ‘leaning’, take a close look at what the article says about what the PostHog code on those sites is tracking. You’ll need to read the entire article to get all the details; skimming won’t be sufficient. Note that the next excerpt has a link to the PostHog web site, so you might want to be careful there.
And ad-blockers aren’t blocking PostHog stuff, since the browser is not seeing the Posthog request. The page code is running PostHog on the web server, so it can’t be blocked. Even ‘incognito’ mode isn’t a protection.
In the immortal words of Sergeant Phil Esterhaus’s (Michael Conrad) morning roll call catchphrase in ‘Hill Street Blues’. – “Let’s be careful out there”.
On expensive trucks …
Years ago (50+) I read Travels with Charley, and contracted a mild case of wanting a truck camper:
https://ltamerica.org/exclusive-inside-john-steinbecks-famous-travels-with-charley-truck-camper-rocinante/
My 2019 Ram 1500 is a very nice half-ton, would buy again, but doesn’t really have the needed payload at only 1450#.
Looking around on line at the one-ton trucks, F-350’s and the like … yikes. Add to that the cost of a modern truck-camper and it is six figures, easy.
Still, not getting any younger here.
@EdH – instead of a bed-mount camper, maybe a small trailer. This article shows towing capability of your truck: https://truckguider.com/2019-ram-1500-towing-capacity-chart/ .
A small trailer might meet your needs. Your truck would still be available for other uses. And you might find some used smaller trailers at good prices. Much research (and inspection) on the trailer is advised, along with a professional pre-sale inspection. Bouncing around on the roads can cause be detrimental to trailer systems, so inspections are strongly advised by the RV crowd.
I sometimes wish that I had investigated a small travel trailer on my retirement, or sooner. Now, a bit too old for that, I fear.
@OldGuy: I have thought of that.
Unfortunately my experiences in campgrounds in the last few years have shown that the travel trailer sections are insanely noisy, you might as well be parked on a city street. Generators and TVs and Bluetooth speakers everywhere, kids with their phones and iPads, at all times.
With a truck camper you can park over in the tent camper area – which is much nicer, noise wise, usually.
You can even do boondocking on public lands by yourself without neighbors, which is hard with a travel trailer.
Though I get the impression that the better areas are over used these days.
Truthfully it’s just nostalgia for my younger days, when it was just me and maybe a friend, in sleeping bags.
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I have looked at the travel trailer market, as you say, and the quality of modern manufacturer is clearly pretty atrocious. Combine that with the beating they take you have to be very very careful if you go used – it’s probably best to think of them as aging in dog years, i.e. a one-year-old trailer is like a 7-year-old car.
Well, I am not too concerned. It had my city incorrect by dozens of miles. It had the incorrect ISP.
The “Since You Arrived” site is interesting. If for nothing else than viewing the page source. If I were in the mood.
It says I’m in Dallas. Starlink. True enough. It’s near midnight, Reykjavik time.
How Dallas and Iceland vibe together is unknown.
I’m cool with “being in Dallas”. Blend into the crowd, eh? A few times I’ve been in Phoenix… says the Home Depot site.. I never liked being pinned down to Burnet with the wISP connection. That’s too close to home.
I’m on a tablet? Nope. “Your screen accepts 5 simultaneous touch points”. That’s certainly news to me. Maybe I should read the instructions that came with the monitor? I just looked at refresh rates and screen size settings. Then let the PC decide.
Interesting site. Very interesting. It doesn’t tell me much I didn’t know. Perhaps gives a few hints on stuff I need to try to block.
We thought about it. We had a nice to us trailer. The truck that could pull it went away. Ok, we can put that kind of hitch in the bed of the Dodge. Or…. maybe not. Pricing was almost two grand for the hitch. Hey, let’s sell the damn trailer and just stay at mom and pop motels when we travel.
And then the Dodge puked the head gasket. Replace the head gasket? Ain’t such a thing. So almost ten grand for a new engine. Sure was a nice truck….
But hey, on the bright side we saved twelve grand. We can just drive somewhere. Even at $100 a night, twelve grand covers a lot of nights.
And then, well, someone had the nerve to have a massive heart attack. I saw his irises fully dilate. He was gone before I could get to the phone to call 911. They were here in like five minutes. Seemed like five minutes. It takes me almost 15 minutes to get to the HEB. Time warp.
Yeah. Two years on and I’m still wondering if I did everything I could have done. I suppose I will always wonder.
It’s all like a thorn in your foot. You can feel it but you can’t find it with a pair of tweezers. Shrug.
You did, stop wondering!
My best friend of 29 years had a sudden heart attack. Big one. The ER doctor said that if my friend had been in the ER when he had the attack, he would have still died. It was an unsurvivable heart attack.
Olympia is a long way from Seattle.
Thurston (Olympia) and Pierce counties were frequent filming locations for “Cops” back in the day.
@paul, the real world numbers are much more grim than tv and media would have us believe.
That’s the AI overview, so could be lies.
But. Even in the hospital, the results aren’t great. And your first step should always be calling 911 to get them moving.
You did what you could.
n
Sad news. The St. Augustine “Caddyshack” restaurant had an unbelievable collection of memorabilia related to the Murray brothers careers.
A new Buc-ee’s opened across the street since the restaurant renewed the lease.
https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2026/jun/28/murray-bros-caddyshack-closes-after-25-years-at-world-golf-village/
The number I heard in my last training session was an unplanned in-hospital heart stoppage had about 50% chance of survival to live discharge.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were lying to me and sugar-coating it. They lied about everything else.
How do you know a hospital administrator is lying? Her lips are moving.
You haven’t come up with the “one other thing” because you did the best and the most that you could.
No tiny little fire tonight. Sore and tired, so I’m headed bed, after my shower… nice hot relaxing shower. I do love civilization.
n
Visited mom after church and had a nice lunch together at the Assisted Living place. Visited with several of the inmates XXXXXX inhabitants. After lunch, we watched the Astros beat up on the Tigers. Nice.
Mom insisted on giving me a nice check for my birthday to help with the F-150 engine fix and/or rebuild. A very nice check. I am not a fool, I took it. She thinks that my 50+ trips to Port Lavaca in the last year did not help the engine in my truck, I told her it would have failed anyway. I honestly thought I had a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty, I was wrong, I have a 60,000 mile powertrain warranty and 64,000 miles on the odometer.
My wife made Stauffer’s Lasagne for dinner (always good!) and white moist cake with chocolate cream cheese icing. Real freaking good. Stepping on the scale in the morning is going to be real bad. My son has lost 55 lbs in the last year, he has some regrets too. But it was so good.
We talked a lot about programmer opportunities after dinner. He thinks things are much worse for white males than I do. I think they are bad, he thinks real bad and virtually unemployable. Unless, you are a Asian Indian.