Hot and humid, some sun, and hotter when it’s shining. We did get some very light showers yesterday and they were VERY localized. Like it was a blue sky but somehow we were still getting wet, but 1000 ft later it was gone, localized. Just another day in the Bayou City.
I did my pickups, and shopping yesterday, but it definitely was a grind. Lowes is almost useless for real stuff. They had 20 ft of battery powered LED lighting. 20 ft of china plastic crap LED lighting, but not a single metal spotlight or flood fixture to replace the old incan floods on my dock. 20 ft of low voltage landscape lighting too. It’s all crap, cheap plastic crap.
Amazon isn’t much better. I had two choices for spot lights and two choices for flood light, and they were different brightnesses, so really only one choice each (120v LED fixture, to replace the existing and mount on existing boxes. Used to be you could easily do that with lampholders and R40 bulbs.) But they will be here today, hopefully before I leave.
Everywhere in the store the choices were either very restricted, the item was missing, or only cheap china crap was available. But they had aisles full of household stuff like shelves, blinds, decor, cleaners, and storage bins.
Today is my (supposed to be fun) hobby meeting in our new space. Then we’ll have a board meeting about why stuff isn’t getting done. MY STUFF is done. My ‘gimme’ tchotchke came in yesterday, all 225 of them. I even spent far too long doing half @ssed edits to a flyer that one of the other guys did using AI. Looks good but the dates are wrong, the QR code was wrong, and the location of the event is missing… and there isn’t an easy way to edit the result.
Then I’ve got an hour round trip to do an auction pickup. It was worth it, but the timing is unfortunate. Follow that up with taking the family to the airport, coming home to swap trucks, loading the pickup with the rest of the stuff for the BOL, and then heading back out of town past the airport…
It’s gonna be a busy day. Expect comments from me to be few and far between.
Use the time to work on improving something, or stacking!
nick
Saturday. Good morning!
I must have been tired. I just woke, and it is nearly 11am.
Still posting before Chicken Boy, though!
I gave W1’s flowers an emergency water. She is away, and there would be consequences were she to return to wilted petunias. Good thing I remembered.
Every job is fractal. I noticed that the hose connector on the outdoor tap is spraying water all around. Probably a bad O-ring. I will see what is in the stacks. Might even use the excuse to go to the DIY shop and admire more of Nick’s favourite Chinese crap …
Have a beautiful day!
Now that we’re a few weeks past the solstice, I don’t need to open up the chickens until 0450. They came right out when I opened the door but they hadn’t been yelling at me as I walked up. Why, someday soon I’ll even be able to sleep until 0500! (Assuming I’m not woken by the mother-in-law’s aides dropping something, etc.)
I understand. Ever since that Bricks and Mortar debacle, Lego collections have lost some of their charm.
(I’m not weighing in on the original consignment of the old man’s collection. To the limited extent that I’ve paid attention, it appears to have been an honest screw-up with no definite ill intent by any party. But OH MY GOODNESS did BAM fumble the public relations on this one.)
I’m so old that I remember when Lowe’s was a hardware store. Or maybe I’m so old that my memory is playing tricks on me and it’s always been a home improvement store. You can tell the difference by the number of women walking around, not counting the paint counter. Yah yah, muh sexism. And I realize that some women rassle 4×8 plywood sheets and such. By and large, spending time in the electrical aisle and trying to find enough outlet boxes of the correct size is a highly gendered activity.
I am so old that I remember hardware stores. I miss them!
SteveF, blaming astral bodies and chickens for your abject slugabedness is a low trick! It is clearly really caused by global cooling climate warmening change…
Isn’t KP George more hated?
Colombians are not Cubans. The Republican Party still hasn’t learned this.
The Republicans in Williamson County did not use the machines in the full primary at my usual precinct, but the ballot scanners were at the polling location I used for the runoff.
I don’t think that the fix was in for Paxton as much as Mays Middleton in the Attorney General race.
I’m not voting for “MAGA” Mays. His political career needs to go bye bye now, similar to P. Diddly’s.
Who is the Libertarian running for Attorney General?
I don’t understand why that iteration of Cringely and Oregon Public Broadcasting aren’t making a big deal about the 30th anniversary of “Triumph of the Nerds”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP15q-s1yMM
I think it is safe to say that without “Triumph of the Nerds”, Apple may have gone in a different direction in the late 90s, maybe even Bankruptcy.
BTW, Bob Metcalfe. BillG wants to be Richard Feynman, but he will settle for Metcalfe.
Everybody sat for an interview with “Cringely” because no one thought that the documentary would see much play beyond Oregon.
The scandal also brought attention to the Mormon “good ol’ boy” network.
And, please, don’t pretend that one doesn’t exist.
Well, the A/C is not cooling. Fans are spinning, no weird noises, just no cool air. This could be related to a blocked condensate line, but diagnosing A/C problems is one of those things, like taking out garbage and grocery shopping, that I don’t do. So I’m going to my meeting and they can solve the issue themselves.
(I was hungry last night so when W came to me and said the propane was out, my first reaction was “So? I don’t do anything so the spare LP bottles ready to use AREN’T to be used, and YOU”LL have to change the bottle.” But I was hungry so I only said that and then took care of it.)
Petty? Someone had the opportunity to say “that’s crazy sweetheart, you do a thousand little things all the time to keep this place running.” But they didn’t.
———-
Enjoy the day.
n
Yesterday I signed up for a cell phone plan for myself. This is the first time since 2001 that I have done that. For all that time I have always had (and still have) a company provided cell phone. I’ve also been lucky to not have any of them managed by corporate.
I think I am in a very small minority at my current employer who has a company phone, as they have a BYOD policy. I am on call 24/7 for the labs, so the phone is a necessity.
I’ve been unhappy enough at work to consider trying to leave. I am using my wife’s old iPhone 13 and a $10/month plan from US Mobile (unlimited text and calls, 2GB data). I just need it for text confirmations.
The plan is to have all important sites (financial) use that number as the primary contact. I will use my wife’s phone as the alternate.
All other sites that need a number will use my google number. I’ve been lax about using that one consistently, so I have some work to do. I am just going through RoboForm alphabetically and changing info when needed. I’m also using this as an excuse to delete logins I no longer use.
The new-to-me phone will sit on my desk on the charger. No reason to carry it with me. I will continue to carry the work cell and use it as my primary.
AI is an incredible tool. Of course, that also makes it incredibly disruptive. It reminds me of the introduction of PCs into offices: over just a few years, entire classes of work were either eliminated or completely changed. We’re seeing much the same thing now: from programmers to artists to marketeers: lots of professions are starting to change.
It will get more interesting, as AI moves to run locally. I have a pretty decent model running on my PC. Compared to the commercial models (I subscribe to one), there are two differences: first, it is a lot slower. Second, it doesn’t have access to terabytes of cached websites, to search for information. Both of those limitations will inevitably be lifted in the next couple of years. When everyone can have a competent AI running privately, we will see the rest of the change happen.
Why buy the F-35? Switzerland is trying to buy F-35s. The delivery is delayed, and the price keeps going up. Meanwhile, the F-35 remains a hanger queen: last I looked, the full combat readiness rate was under 25%. Execrable.
This possibility is yet another reason that buying F-35s is dumb. Although they break so often that you don’t need an “off switch”. You just stop delivering spare parts.
I’ve seen this over and over again on the IT front. If you have a solid, competent IT team, there are very few IT problems in the company. Everything just works. Management then looks at the IT team and thinks: what a waste of money…
Those thousand little things go completely unnoticed. Just like good IT support…
Raining. Houston. Slime in the drain line.