But at least the temps have been held down by the overcast and rain. It drizzled on and off all day but I was able to work in between and it ended up a beautiful night. 76F when I went to bed. More like that would be nice.
Spent the day trying to do stuff and accomplished my goal for the day. Got more chimney down. I’ve got a pretty big pile of debris and I’ll have a lot more before I’m done. Hopefully someone will want some free brick rubble. Someone usually does.
Today I’ll keep at it. I don’t think I’ll try for an early start. My hands are starting to feel the strain, I’m not used to picking up brick, or holding and swinging a 5 pound sledge hammer. Getting old is not for the faint of heart.
But I’m making progress and getting work done. And stacking in between.
nick
Early start for me. Teen to the airport for an early flight. Extended visit with close friends. Rain, rain, more rain and cool temps here.
@Ray
Do what you need to accomplish.
We hired movers before she returned home to help with the heavy lifting. They also hauled away a literal moving truck of “recycling” (garbage) for us. Jeez you’d think it was gold for all the belly aching. We had no where to put stuff that had value. It was a necessity.
FiL keeps moving junk back into aisles impinging on the wheels of the walker. Not comprehending you’ve got to factor in clumsiness and navigation not actual width. He did it again tonight.
I said something in poor taste about he must be planning on cashing in her life insurance he was so determined to cause a fall. It was mean but finally pierced the void. He cleared the aisle in the time it took me to install the handheld shower head for her bathing.
>>Mother in law has graduated from the skilled nursing facility and returned home. Two stories with finished basement- they bought it ten years ago against our advice they hold out for a single story. So we emptied their dining room and made it a bedroom. Father in law has frequently joked over the years that “too much is never enough” and we felt the full force of him acting on that not so whimsical impulse as we struggled to make room in their home. First floor lacks a shower, she can sort of do stairs after lots of pt with a sturdy companion to steady her. Father in law is mighty ticked at us for intervening in making the home more or less safe for her after his months (years really) of inaction on their hoarder like living conditions.
One option is a motorized stair lift chair. Most have a decent level of safeguards built in. Not infrequently they can be picked up second-hand, from either CrackBook or CL, when the original owner ‘has left the building.’ More work to install but still an option if there’s appropriate open floorspace.
That is wrong on so many levels. The brand made its name with rugged vehicles able to handle any terrain. Grab a few 5 gal gas cans and some cans of food and head out into the wilderness! We’ll see you in a few weeks.
… And this atrocity is able to go maaaayyybe 50 miles of rugged terrain before you have to start wondering where you can find an electrical outlet. And it’s heavier than a gas Jeep so there will be more places that it can’t go. That’s on top of being more expensive that owners wouldn’t want to take it out in rough country in the first place.
But of course 80% or more of “sport utility vehicles” never leave pavement and their yuppy owners wouldn’t tolerate mud on them, let alone dents.
Bah.
And get off my lawn!
The brand was not built with splody Fiat engines like the one in the hybrid CJ.
Or CVT transmissions like the new Cherokee’s drivetrain.
I don’t know about how it works in Alaska, but, in Texas, the recycling and the garbage end up in the same place.
The only people who really care are recent West Coast transplants. Colonists don’t think about it.
My neighbor’s garage queen Bronco never leaves the throne room except on nice days with temps below 90.
Needless to say, I haven’t seen the vehicle out since Memorial Day.
I think they gave up on the iD Buzz garage queen, however.
I actually have a line on a ‘garage queen’ right now, a 2003 long bed F-350 4WD with 125,000 original miles. Technically it was the owners work truck, but that was really just an excuse, he hasn’t worked in 15 years.
It is the guys baby, he was the 2nd owner in 2005, and he has obviously taken very good care of it.
But now his health is failing and he wants to buy his daughter a car before he goes.
I want it for occasional truck camper duty, so I’ll probably head down below to look at it towards the end of the week.
Well, that’s mostly true out here in California, though people don’t want to admit it.
Two or even three complete passes of trucks through the same neighborhood to pick up stuff that is going to the exact same place. It is no wonder that the trash bill is so high.
@Greg
I don’t know about how it works in Alaska, but, in Texas, the recycling and the garbage end up in the same place.
True here as well.
Not really fair to hate on SUVs unless you first hate on the CAFE and EPA standards that created them. By killing the full size station wagon, the only option left for a vehicle to hold 6 or 8 people, suitcases or sports gear, and the seasonal mulch or garden supplies, that has actual interior space, is the SUV.
Look at the profile of the cadillac SRX. It’s a station wagon by any other name, especially on the street where the carefully staged photos don’t hide how long and low it is.
Most of them are sedans with higher roof lines and a hatch instead of a trunk. Look at how curved the rear hatch is now, you couldn’t put a cardboard box in the back, the hatch would hit it.
———
77F and saturated this morning. The muscle relaxer has to time out before I can really wake up, so it’s a late start, despite good intentions. I also spent about ½ hour in bed doing gentle stretches before putting weight on anything…
But now my delicious breakfast is done, and I need to gear up and get to work.
n
@jenny, glad to hear you check in. It sounds like you are very busy! Even more so than usual.
@Alan
chairlifts
We’ve got quotes for a couple options. Biggest obstacle is they’re basically hoarders. It’s tidy and mostly in banker boxes and neat stacks, but it’s anxiety inducing walking thru the aisles they’ve carved thru their precious treasures. We made a lot of progress downstairs by sacrificing their sunken living room as a storage shed. a lot of the mainfloor clutter is stacked there. Upstairs I’ve got nowhere to stack and restock because it’s so full. As a result I cannot reasonably make upstairs safe for her walker. As it is, going upstairs for a shower twice a week is going to be iffy. We ultimately decided against the lift as we cannot make it reasonably safe once she reaches her destination.
They think we’re being mean and overly protective.
Wrinkly toddlers.
@Nick
Take care friend. Bricks and chimney removal is dastardly hard work. And we aren’t spring chickens.
Yeah, it’s been busier than I like honestly. I scrapped the rabbits for now. though the care time is minimal, it has to be consistent and something had to give. Likewise cello and music. Wrangling the medical stuff and dealing with the fallout since the late March hospitalization then subsequent recovery of MiL, plus raising a teen, has required both my husband and mines full focus.
My first car, first new car and first stick shift was a 1975 Jeep CJ5. Intended as a “forever” vehicle I specified a build to order top trim line.
The sales office was bugged and Dad and I discussed the $200 bargain we were getting till the salesman came back with the news that $200 was just what the manager needed to sign off the deal. Sigh.
Price was $5500, quite the jump from the ’71 Olds Delta 88 rolling living room family car I’d been driving . Dad purchased it new at $3600. I saw a 2019 Wrangler model in the Chyrsler showroom when getting my current Subie Forester that year at $54000. Cheesh.
After violently surfing over a curb proving that 4WD was not a panacea for winter driving and damaging the catalytic converter, I had a speed shop remove the EPA equipment from the 304 V8 in favor of Holly, Edelbrock and Hooker hot rod goodies. Good mileage was 15MPG and gas was $0.50ish per gallon.
I also added some very stiff springs and coil wrapped shocks that turned every street into a washboard. Seemed fun then.
Ralph Nader got a bit in his cheek sometime in the late 70’s about the rollover tendencies of the CJ. I only scared myself once but a week after I sold it, there it was in a front yard “for sale” again with the windshield corners bent back. Oops! Did have a stiff roll bar.
During my abortive return to university in 2006, I wrote a paper on exactly that. The evolution of personal trucks and high-end SUVs was driven by those and the changes to vehicle safety standards, as truck-based vehicles required much lower levels of safety equipment originally. I worked at a GM dealership in the early ‘90’s when that was playing out, and watched trucks get bigger, fancier, more comfortable and safer as the price and profit margin went up much faster than a comparable car. For example, a Cadillac might have $3000 of margin on arrival, while a crew-cab truck with the same seating could have $5000 of margin. For reference, our best seller was a Cavalier, with $300 of margin on arrival. I can’t remember when exactly all the standards were aligned across vehicle types.
You know the Universe is in balance when your wife says” “Honey, will you make me a cup of coffee. Put some Scotch in it.”
I 3D printed something useful today. I have a Fluke iSee IR camera plugin for the iPhone. It comes in a cardboard box, no nice zippered case. Someone designed a case for it and it fits perfectly. Fee download.
Amazon Vine offers interesting stuff. Stuff like “you can buy this?”.
They often have replacement LED lights for various refrigerators. Usually a circuit board thing with surface mount LEDs and a wiring pigtail.
Is this really a frequent thing to replace? I think that in my entire life I have replaced exactly two 40 watt appliance bulbs. One in the oven and one in a fridge.
And the one in the oven in the old house. Not the oven I have that we bought back in 1992.
Hey! Texans! What’s the idea, sending your weather our way?
The software I use on Mac for deDRMing Kindle books is working again. An update by the developer was issued and I successfully deDRM’d a purchased book and some Kindle Unlimited books. It is licensed software, but I’ll pay to “own” my Kindle books.
I wish someone could develop a new deDRM plugin for Calibre. It was great until Bozos needed another billion for his yacht.
Ramming speed…
ICE Instructed to Cease Most Traffic Stops
More spinelessness by the Redumblicans.
I wonder if tRump did this? I don’t think he cares at this point.
It’s so you know what it’s like here and you keep yer dam yankee ass in New Yawk.
That’s all. Grin.
The stupid thing is, I certainly remember 100-degree days fifty years ago, probably a few every summer, and that was 500 feet higher and marginally farther north. But of course every warm summer day now is a crisis. Just like every winter snowstorm is a crisis such as never before seen.
The cure is to turn the TV off.
My idiot chickens, as if there’s any other kind, are still frightened of spraying water, so I dumped out their water tank and filled with cold water. Not much else I can do for them in the heat, other than let them into the forest but I hesitate to do that because there’s an increase in coyotes or wild dogs or something in the past few days.
You’d think that a properly evolved (or designed, if you go that way) chicken would molt in early summer and start growing new feathers shortly so they’d be grown in by the time the winter turned cold again. But no, they molt in the early fall, so they have full coats in the summer and are half naked when the temperature is dropping.
“Meet the all-new, all-electric 2027 Highlander—built to take on everyday adventure. With sleek, modern lines, three rows of seating and generous cargo space, it’s designed to carry your family, and everything that comes with them, wherever the day takes you.”
https://www.toyota.com/upcoming-vehicles/highlander/
“The 2027 Highlander will have a Battery Electric powertrain standard and be available in two grades, the well-appointed XLE or the top-of-the-line Limited. The XLE grade will be available in front- or electronic all-wheel drive (FWD or AWD); XLE FWD models will have a 77.0-kWh battery, standard; XLE AWD models will have a choice of 77.0-kWh or 95.8-kWh battery. The Limited grade will have AWD and 95.8-kWh battery, standard. AWD equipped models will also have features like Multi-Terrain Select and Crawl Control. All grades will have the latest in safety and entertainment, with Toyota Safety Sense 4.0 (TSS 4.0) and Toyota Audio Multimedia, standard. With a 320-mile manufacturer-estimated combined range rating on XLE AWD and Limited AWD models equipped with the 95.8-kWh battery, feel confident to take on the whole day.“
Gasoline engines are becoming a luxury item. So are big batteries.
@SteveF; I guarantee you don’t want our CURRENT San Antonio weather…..
Meteorologist warns ‘500-year flood’ is unfolding near San Antonio
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/weather/article/high-risk-flood-san-antonio-22344826.php
The Elder Child and his wife just bought a house a little west of San Antonio. I wonder if they thought to get flood insurance.
I have thought about this. Didn’t chickens come from someplace south? Like the jungles of Cambodia? So our little dinosaurs molt on solar time.
And maybe they are doing it right. Shed the old raggy feathers and have new feathers for Winter.
The new feathers grow pretty quick. Just keep the idjits out of the rain….
I think what we see as molting is the flight feathers. They shed the under coat “goose down” feathers when the weather got hot. So now as it cools off they grow all new.
I could be full of shirt(-r).
Well, I put my 2019 F-150 4×4 in the Ford shop yesterday and today they are putting a new engine in it. The old engine is shot with 65K miles on it. They did give me a choice of $16,300 plus tax for an engine rebuild with new heads and assorted stuff with a 2 year Ford warranty. Or $16,600 plus tax for a long block with a three year Ford warranty which I chose after I picked myself up off the ground.
One or more of the four cam phasers came loose and spread itself around the engine in small pieces after beating the heads and cams to death. I could hear it on every startup. The timing chain was just about gone.
I would have sworn that Ford had a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty but apparently they reduced it to 60,000 miles or 5 years a few years ago. Now I know why.
I am demanding that Ford pay for the new engine or half but I doubt that they will do so. If they do not, this is my last Ford. I will buy a Toyota Tundra next time and bad mouth Ford all over the place. I will also file a event at the NHTSA vehicle safety for a possible future recall.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem
The muscle relaxer has to time out before I can really wake up, so it’s a late start, despite good intentions.
No muscle relaxers for me, I see dead people when I am on them.
We’ve got quotes for a couple options. Biggest obstacle is they’re basically hoarders. It’s tidy and mostly in banker boxes and neat stacks, but it’s anxiety inducing walking thru the aisles they’ve carved thru their precious treasures. We made a lot of progress downstairs by sacrificing their sunken living room as a storage shed. a lot of the mainfloor clutter is stacked there. Upstairs I’ve got nowhere to stack and restock because it’s so full. As a result I cannot reasonably make upstairs safe for her walker. As it is, going upstairs for a shower twice a week is going to be iffy. We ultimately decided against the lift as we cannot make it reasonably safe once she reaches her destination.
They think we’re being mean and overly protective.
Wrinkly toddlers.
This is why I moved my mother into assisted living. The hoarding was unreal. She is hoarding in her 458 ft2 apartment now and I will have to do something about it soon.
Isn’t there a recall for that issue? Affecting “3.5L EcoBoost engine, and some 5.0L V8s from specific production runs.” Apologies if you’ve already found that to be a dry hole, but that’s a few dollars.
Isn’t there a recall for that issue? Affecting “3.5L EcoBoost engine, and some 5.0L V8s from specific production runs.” Apologies if you’ve already found that to be a dry hole, but that’s a few dollars.
They extended the warranty until 2023. I think it is coming again. They fixed the problem “supposedly” in the 2023 model by hardening the heads where the cam phasers attach to the heads.
Reddit is incredibly full of people complaining about the Ford Ecoboost engines and the 10 speed transmissions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/f150/comments/1i2jrhz/cam_phaser_class_action_lawsuit/
Apparently if your tranny has a hard shift into fourth gear that is a possible sign that the driveshaft in the lockup torque converter and gears is getting ready to strip the splines into your flywheel. Isn’t that special?
I have the same feeling when this octogenarian looks in the mirror. Who is that old guy and what did you do with me?
“One Justice Found to Be the “Most Partisan” on Supreme Court”
https://thelibertydaily.com/one-justice-found-be-most-partisan-supreme-court/
“The conclusion comes from a report in the Federalist about an analysis released to some readers by the Wall Street Journal.”
“That found Ketanji Jackson voted against President Trump’s plans and agendas in 98 out of 100 major cases.”
“Those often wrongly accused of being partisan – for President Trump – aligned with his arguments 89% (Samuel Alito) and 88% (Clarence Thomas) of the time.”
I am surprised that she voted for anything for Trump. She is a communist.
Starting to feel better, I overdid it this morning.
But trash day is tomorrow, and I missed out last week, so I was trying to beat the heat.
The humidity has dropped into the teens and the temperature seems to be holding steady at about 102, so things are fine. We even have a few fluffy cumulus floating over us, here and there.
—
Chihuahua’s are gone. I am still mentally cringing every time I walk outdoors, expecting the yipping.
—
Man, sounds like Ford has really lost it, engine-wise. Too bad.
“IBM stock closes down more than 25% after preannounced earnings results”
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/article/ibm-stock-closes-down-more-than-25-after-preannounced-earnings-results-150605880.html
Big Iron is having problems with all of the upstarts available today with better performance.
My Mom had paper grocery bags of old mail. All around the chair she sat in to watch TV. Junk mail, trash. I can see having a bag but 15?
I tend towards hoarding. I suspect it’s like having a stamp collection. But much bulkier.
Saving everything is a hard to break habit. My Dad was born in 1926, so yeah, Great Depression and all that. It rubs off.
I think I’m doing fine. Ain’t nothing on the dining room table now but a table cloth and a book. A year or so ago it was covered with about a filing cabinet of important stuff. I can’t tell you at all what was there, I threw most of it into the trash. Ditto the kitchen counters. Sure, one spare bedroom is getting a bit clogged up. Maybe I don’t need two spare monitors? But it’s just me here, and just one room, so, whatever.
Due west or northwest?
Northwest is the Hill Country and Kerrville, home of Camp Mystic.
The rain is highly unusual this time of year, and Austin has only seen a single 100+ degree day this year.
And the real pisser is that you’re only 50.
“this is my last Ford”
Just leave it right there.
Naw, tow it to Dearborn and just leave it on the lawn of their new HQ there. Let a local reporter know ahead of time what day you’re going to do It on.
My 2014 F-150 EcoBoost had 150K miles on the truck with no issues. Unlike you, I was also able to get 80K miles on the factory tires (Michelins). My mechanic had stated that getting more than 150K on the engine was on borrowed time. One of the reasons I purchased a new 2025 F-150 PowerBoost, which I guess is different from the EcoBoost.
Another reason I decided this year to purchase a new Highlander, not the regular, but the Grand Highlander. I suspect that eventually all Highlanders will be electric only. Then after seven years there is a charge of $30K to replace the batteries.
I changed my cell phone provider from Xfinity to Verizon. I had Verizon at one time, was happy with the service, but Xfinity offered $30.00 a month per line, whereas Verizon was $55.00 a line, at that time. I have generally been pleased with the Xfinity service. It does use Verizon towers.
But I am so pissed off at Xfinity I don’t want to give them any more money. Verizon now has an offer for $30.00 a line, unlimited talk and text. I have to use automatic payment and paperless billing, which I did with Xfinity.
The porting process was fairly easy online. I did have to remove the SIM protection on the Xfinity lines which delayed the process. I was able to do that with the Xfinity app. Then call Verizon and start the transfer again. In about 5 minutes I got a message on each phone that a new ESIM needed to be installed. That only took a minute. I removed the old Xfinity ESIM. The phones can store up to six ESIMS and I still have my ESIM from Europe.
Verizon will be the same cost, their app is better, their website is leaps and bounds better. (Side note: if you want to see an example of bad website design and especially performance, visit the Xfinity account sites. They really suck.)
I put a SIM lock on the new Verizon lines.
The entire process of porting numbers to new providers is leaps and bounds of where it was 10 years ago. All done online, done in minutes, with little hassle.
60% of medieval knight tales lost to time
New research suggests that an enormous amount of chivalric manuscripts disappeared.
https://www.popsci.com/science/medieval-knight-stories-lost-to-time/?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=popular-science-newsletter
The blockquote suggests that the same principles apply generally to human knowledge. I’d suggest that there may be even wider application: substitute “human behavior” for “knowledge”.
Modern communication and the internet in particular serve to scatter information far and wide, but lack the damping effect of humand cost and time which act as a “quality filter”.
The PNAS Nexus link:
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/7/pgag207/8724046?login=true
is worth following and the 16-page paper is not paywalled.
Alas! My hobbies are already legion and I do not need another.
Side Note: I have commented before that after spending more than fifty years in laboratories performing experiments, many of materials related, I have a short list of observations that are repeatable phenomena that seem to have no explanation in the applicable science. That list effectively has no existence–it is not accessible outside my own eco-system of knowledge. I am tempted to take one example and run it past AI, but as noted above my hobbies are already sufficient, and I am cantankerous enough not to care whether I might have the end of a string that leads to a new manufacturing process or a new branch of science.
I have a pile of bullshit incoming.
I told my little brother, years ago, if worse comes to worse, you have a place to come to. I mean it. I don’t want him here but he’s my little brother. But worse case, yeah.
My brother married a woman. Dunno why, she’s past having babies. But he married her. Instead of shacking up.
She’s a nice lady, but seems to be a gold digger where there is no gold. But brother likes her and well, no one listens to me. Not my life.
So. She was off all of the drugs and booze at the time. She got fired a little while back for showing to work wasted. Once, ok. Everyday for a week, bye!
A week or so ago we were talking and he wanted to move down here, with her, so she can’t get drugs. I said she will find that stuff here and I don’t want any of that shit in my house. You can come. Not her. Yeah, that ended the phone call.
And today he calls. He’s on his way. Ought to be here about 9pm. He seems really messed up about all of this. Duh. I don’t have an answer he will like.
But he’s my little brother. I remember teaching him to walk. So I’ll do what I can to take care of him. Like always. That’s what big brothers do.
And today he calls. He’s on his way. Ought to be here about 9pm. He seems really messed up about all of this. Duh. I don’t have an answer he will like.
I am guessing that you are going to have something to talk about now. She will show up sooner or later if he does not go back to her. I take it that he is unemployed.
“DEVELOPING: Suspect Fleeing Immigration Officers in Florida Struck and Killed by Semi-Truck”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/07/developing-suspect-fleeing-immigration-officers-florida-struck-killed/
“Last week an illegal alien from Mexico was fatally shot after trying to run over an ICE agent in Houston, Texas.”
“An illegal alien from Colombia was fatally shot in Maine this week after trying to run over ICE agents.”
Could have have been suicide too.
The bleeding hearts are out and crying all over the place. Can’t we just open the borders wide open and just live together?
Q: What do you call three illegals smoked in one week?
A: Way too slow.
I see the Mexican President is making noise about filing some kind of lawsuit. She’s on cartel payroll. Let’s get a lawsuit filed by everyone who has lost family to Mexixan fentanyl.
Oh yeah. The Big Brother thing. I’ve bailed both of my sisters out of their stupid things.
One sister got divorced and moved here for a couple of weeks. I had a barn full of her furniture. When I delivered it from Burnet to Edinburg she pitched a hissy fit that I wanted gas money. And she really got angry when, in front of Dad, I said if I knew you were going to be like this I would have just burned your crap on a pile of brush.
Dad grinned.. Like I cared. I didn’t get any gas money either.
The other sister. Oh. Snake. Come for a weekend with one child. Next thing you know all three girls are here. Good girls. Really. Fun to be around. And she divorced her husband and well, quite nice to have her bill collectors calling me twice a day.
Too much to type about that other than we bought the girls school clothes at the beginning of the school year for two years and sister says they lived here for just six months. But she’s really proud on Facebook about her 20 years sober medal.
Somehow, with my sisters, I’m the bad guy. I guess I missed the moment they each need a backhand slap across their face. ?
He still has a job. Just has to get away from all the carp for a few days.
Docs: Democrat Special Counsel Jack Smith Spied On, Lied To Congress
https://thefederalist.com/2026/07/14/docs-democrat-special-counsel-jack-smith-spied-on-lied-to-congress/
It is increasingly clear that under the corrupt regime of Joe “If It Ain’t Nailed Down Hard I’ll Steal It” Biden the American people were within an RCH of losing the Republic.
Merrick Garland, most of the Biden DOJ, Smith and his entire team knew exactly what they were doing and should be treated as the traitors that they are: prosecuted, found guilty, and executed.
The judges that issued those gag orders were part of the grand conspiracy orchestrated by the Democrats. Add them to the list, along with most of the members of Congress.
@paul
“I guess I missed the moment they each need a backhand slap across their face. ? ”
No, you just passed knowing you could never take it back.
Yeah. You are correct..
I don’t understand why they hate me. I just don’t.
You are happy and they aren’t?
You avoided totally screwing up your life and they didn’t?
Someone needs to be held responsible for their bad decisions and it isn’t going to be them?
SMS text messages go out as part of a maintenance data exchange. A warrant is not required.
A court order is usually enough, but the carriers don’t need one.
Wild guess: they don’t hate you, they are pissed they can’t manipulate you.
Well. SteveF and Gavin …. Yes.
@Greg Norton
The meaning of “required procedures” is not clear, but the perjury in congressional testimony is clear and needs to be prosecuted.
Well, well, well. Verizon will cost me $7.25 more a month for the two lines combined. Verizon adds on a non-sense charge for administration of their system. Such a charge should be folded into the cost of doing business. Oh well, paying an extra $7.25 a month to be out from Xfinity is still a good deal. I just wish there was an alternative to their cable system for internet and TV. When Xfinity was Comcast they locked down a franchise with the city, and pay the city a lot of money, to be the exclusive cable provider. No other entity is allowed to string cable, or fiber, and provide service.
And Xfinity charges way too much because they know there are no alternatives. 20 miles away the next city over is installing fiber as part of their utility system. The internet is 1 GIG each way and is half the cost of Xfinity for the same service. Of course, with the fiber service I would have to pay for a streaming service. And those services are proud of their product based on the prices.
I did look at some other providers for cell service. Visible, which is an offshoot from Verizon, has some good rates. But when the fine print is read, after clicking through half a dozen web pages, in grey font on a white background, it is an introductory price for a year. I don’t want to play musical providers every year.
It is well past time, as much as I loathe government meddling, to clamp down on these services for their mysterious charges, not divulged until the sign-up process is complete, and the difficulty in finding the real charges and plan restrictions.
Congress go after themselves. Silly you are aged Jedi.
The bureaucracy is just running out the clock at this point, expecting the Congress to change hands.
Well, they do in CA. And I thought that the FCC required similar easily found info also, but now they (FCC) have proposed chaging the rules for disclosure. See this story, among others (emphasis added):
Read More: https://www.engadget.com/2209914/the-fcc-wants-to-make-easier-for-isps-to-hide-junk-fees/
It’s nice that the FCC is helping us by removing that complexity…….NOT!
Wheeewwwww. Long day. Thankfully it stayed cool and overcast all day. I got twice the work done based on the number of garden trailers of brick I moved. I was getting 3, today I got six or maybe even 7. I worked just a little too long though, I was stumbling and crazy hungry.
Got a snack, changed clothes and floated in the lake for a while. Drank my fake beer michelada style while floating. Figured that was like an energy drink with the salt and clam juice.
The black soot is everywhere and I looked like a welsh coal miner until I got in the lake and scrubbed. The amount of burned brick, soot and ash where it shouldn’t be, and the foot of ash and dirt at the bottom of the chimney meant that just like the electrical, the fireplace was one bad moment from burning the house down. Never an issue for us, I took one look at it and ‘nope’d that as soon as we moved in, but old boy must have had a guardian angel.
Cheeseburger for dinner tonight, with another beer. I did keep up with my hydration, mostly, and even peed during the day. Well, at the end of the day. And it was too dark. Better than the last two days though.
Tonight I’m gonna have a tiny little fire, then really really this time for sure, get to bed early. And I’ll sleep in tomorrow too. This physical labor adds up, and I’ve got 3 more days to go.
n
“I did keep up with my hydration, mostly, and even peed during the day.”
Been there. As one ages, one recalibrates one’s sights.
A frozen cheeseburger? From where?
And really. If you are peeing with any color you need to drink more water.
“Communism”
https://areaocho.com/communism-4/
“For years, the only platform the Democrats have had is “we aren’t Donald Trump” and it’s cost them. The Socialists are changing that, and are positioned to push the Democatic party even further to the left.”
“This morning, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) wing of the Democratic party issued their new “workers deserve more” platform, stealing the idea from 90s Republicans and their “contract with America.””
“This platform’s points:”
and about 40 more items consisting mostly of FREE stuff.
Remember, when you are not paying for something then YOU are the product.
This platform will lead to Civil War 2.0 which will lead to a separation of the country into 2 to 10 separate countries.
Arlo and Janis: Navy Coffee
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2026/07/14
Hah, good book reference there.
Whew. I was afraid for a bit that they’d manage to pull off sounding sane to the normies.
Housing is a right but not healthcare.
Interesting.
“2 to 10 separate countries.”
None of which will be big enough.
Some will go openly into the arms of the ChiComs, finding out too late that they are then third-class citizens in what used to be their own land. They will become the fodder in the wars of conquest to follow as the ChiComs seek to take the rest of the U.S. in pieces.
I have a better idea: Kill our own communists now.
“Coffee comes in five descending stages: Coffee, Java, Jamoke, Joe, and Carbon Remover.”
Rufo in Robert A. Heinlein’s Glory Road
I’ve been on Visible for years now, at $25 per month. I switched because of unlimited data and ability to tether one device. I’m satisfied.
@paul
Best of luck with your family drama. I figure you already know this, but there are limits and boundaries in caring for other people. You gotta survive first, and then determine what time and resources you can spare to care for others.
As they say on airplanes, put your oxygen mask on first, before helping other people. You can’t help them if you become a victim.
Now that I’ve said that, I suppose it applies to Jenny and Lynn, too. Probably others.
All y’all, take care of yourselves.
Nice night with a tiny little fire on the dock. Super quiet, except insects and animals. 73F and chilly by the water.
The hot shower felt so good on my back.
I’m headed to bed.
n
“Supreme Court Justices Are Asking for $230 Million to Fund Security After Threats From the Woke Mob”
https://rumble.com/v7cqqgq-supreme-court-justices-are-asking-for-230-million-to-fund-security-after-th.html?mref=1htl22&mc=e16nv
They are going to put a big fence around SCOTUS.
Barrett needs impeached. Not because of overt crimes, but because courage in the face of danger is a requirement of the job, and she lacks it. She has revealed to the left that she is vulnerable to pressure against her family.
Just like being gay isn’t the grounds for denying a security clearance; it’s the vulnerability to blackmail.
Barrett needs impeached.
Nah, Jackson. She is a whack job. “What is a woman? I don’t know, I would need to consult a biologist.” at her Senate hearings should have disqualified her right there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWtGzJxiONU
Oh dear lord. I cleaned out my in laws fridge and he is mad mad mad despite agreeing to me tossing moldy and severely aged food.
That set of Harry and David sausage from 2006?
Not a typo. TWENTY year old sausage seeping and corroding its way thru the bin at the bottom? How DARE I?
I’m dubbing it sentimental sausage.
I’ve got an extremely strong stomach and have been cleaning up disgusting messes for 40 years this was hands down the nastiest. The fridge reeked previously. It doesn’t exactly smell fresh now however no longer corpse scented.
I chucked about 60 previously food items that were moldy, bulging with gases, many over ten years past their best by dates meaning they thoughtfully packed and moved them after their expiration dates years ago. I left alone the one and two year past expiration foods if they were high vinegar or sugar content and not bulging / moldy / etc.
I’m a horrible human being.
These two need assisted living. I hate that but jeez Louise. We will struggle through this for a bit to see if it settles however after today I am pessimistic.
Oh dear lord. I cleaned out my in laws fridge and he is mad mad mad despite agreeing to me tossing moldy and severely aged food.
That set of Harry and David sausage from 2006?
Not a typo. TWENTY year old sausage seeping and corroding its way thru the bin at the bottom? How DARE I?
I’m dubbing it sentimental sausage.
I cleaned out my father-in-laws fridge right before he had major surgery and we had to put him into rehab nursing care for 6.5 years. I made the mistake of not taking out the trash immediately. He came up to me later holding a 4 or 5 year expired bbq sauce and yelled “never throw my stuff away”. I threw it away again a month later.