Cool again, not cold. I hope. Because it was pretty dang cold yesterday, 36F when I got the kid on the bus. My buddy at the BOL said it got to 31F but warmed up shortly afterward. I’m hoping the lines I didn’t drain haven’t frozen yet, and kicking myself for not getting up there.
I should have been back at the BOL this last weekend, but my holiday party got in the way. Now I’m worried that the instant hot water heater for the outdoor shower got ruined, or the hose bibs I didn’t drain got damaged, or even that the irrigation system is even more broken than it was. It wasn’t cold for long, so I think everything will be ok so far.
Spent yesterday trying to do stuff around the house. Had to get the kids in the afternoon which really shortens my day. I’m going to have to get out of the house sooner if this continues, or I won’t get anything done. I did get a few things done, including tearing out the last of the original carpet in the house. It was in the “toy” room, and was old and nasty when we moved in in ’08. White carpet. Two kids, and a dog. The Bissell worked well, and the home version does a pretty good job, but it still accumulated stuff that just wouldn’t go away. This time, rather than clean it, I ripped it out.
I have enough of the same engineered hardwood flooring we put in the rest of the house to complete this one room- planned it that way, and stored a pallet of material at my secondary against the day, but now IDK if my wife will still want to go that direction. For now it will be concrete with a throw rug. Like the living room at the BOL… Because to do the job we’d have to move the book cases too. And that would be a task. (I just cut the carpet around them for now.) It’s always something.
Today should be me out of the house collecting some stuff for the stacks. I’ve got pickups all over town, and some people to see. Maybe even a drop off for my auctioneer too. It would be nice to continue some of the progress I’m making clearing stuff out.
I’m trying to make the hay while the sun, she is a shining…
And stacking. Doing that too.
nick
That is not cold enough to damage the pipes and outdoor fixtures. It needs to get below 30F for an extended period before freezing happens to pipes. Put a glass of water in a home freezer at 30F and it will take hours to freeze.
Sorry, Brad, but your point was invalidated because you typed reign rather than rein. Better luck next time.
Religious conservatives in the US are conservative in the traditional sense but not at all in the modern American “get government out of my business and my bedroom” sense. Religious “conservatives’” desire to use government power to make sure that everyone lives by their rules would seem to make them natural allies with modern American leftists. Except, of course, modern American leftists are all about tearing down the institutions and remaking them in their own narcissistic image.
Abortion is one of the issues which the “Republican” Governor and Legislature in Texas use to convince their base that they still support conservative ideals while voting with the progressives on fiscal issues as the state drifts left.
Also, Cecile Richards, daughter of the late Governor Ann Richards, ran Planned Parenthood for many years. Ann Richards defeated yet another in a long line of sleazy Texas Attorney Generals , Jim Mattox, in the 1990 election, and the RINOs never forgave her even though Richards was an easy target for Bush Jr. as that cabal built power and put Shrub into the Governor’s Mansion four years later.
I must admit that I voted for the current sleazy Attorney General both in the primary and general last year. The Bush Cabal needs to go away.
I’ve more often voted against someone than for someone.
Al D’Amato was a senator from New York for many years. Dirty. Everyone knew it. I swore up and down that I’d vote for Satan Himself over D’Amato in 1998. But then, then-representative Chuck Schumer won the Dem primary to run for the Senate, so in November I voted for D’Amato. Not that it mattered. NYC’s votes prevailed over the rest of the state’s. There’s no need to suggest irregularities in counting the ballots.
Cool, only 44F this morning. Clear and sunny thus far, but my joints are aching. Change in the weather inbound according to big toe science.
n
– so not that much demand.
n
Tommy Boy’s heart has never been in the production of that “truck”.
Good for getting reservations from Show Ya paid for with Biden Bux but not actually very practical.
Ford bought itself time in the fight with Tesla by running the Super Bowl ad fetishizing the vehicle, turning it into a sex toy like the Jesus Truck.
Is there a fight? The F150 is the best selling truck in the US and by numbers, probably the world. Tesla hasn’t even shipped the freakmobile yet. There are millions of Ford trucks on the road. A dozen? or less Cybertrucks.
Other than .gov mandates, Ford wouldn’t even bother with an EV truck as the market is TINY. The market for cop cars is orders of magnitude larger than for EV trucks, and Ford dropped the Crown Vic platform. Why go after the EV market at all? Other than because .gov says they better do it or else…
n
Commander Zero points out that North American Rescue has a 30% off sale going that applies to genuine CAT tourniquets and other medical preps.
https://www.narescue.com/
There are a lot of Chinese fakes out there. Supply chain matters.
n
An recent(ish) article on Wayland “Wayland Isn’t Going to Save The Linux Desktop” is here, via lobste.rs:
https://lobste.rs/s/ycuhxy/wayland_isn_t_going_save_linux_desktop
I haven’t done any Wd programming, and no X programming since the mid 90’s, but I recall X being a PITA then. With that said, I don’t recall there being any issues with X as a user in the last decade on any of the various Linux installs I have made (all single user).
The authors arguments about Wd seem a bit disjointed: W being too general and too restrictive simultaneously, but sometimes that happens.
Pays for advice when her own ideas have been failing her. Disregards advice. Continues doing what hasn’t worked yet.
Single woman, 38, reveals her horror at being REJECTED by a matchmaker who said she was too ‘high strung’ and needed to become ‘softer’ to be ‘worthy of love’ – after she paid $350 for a consultation
There is so much fail wrapped up in this article, commenting here because it’s cultural, and applicable to a look at social issues.
The ability of people to pair up and raise families has been significantly impaired over the last couple of decades. I usually link or comment about younger women and their insane ideas about worth, but this is an interesting subset of single females. She doen’t talk about her current or past dating, but I bet she was very similar to the younger women with a high ‘body count’ and a string of superficial relationships. I wonder if it is just now that she can’t find what she’s looking for, or if her personality scared men away for years…
And the commentors pointed out that the matchmaker said “not ready” but the woman heard “not worthy”. That right there is a whole lotta revealing, added to the “10 years of therapy.”
Run fellas, run.
Very alpha = intolerable beeyotch
Too high-strung = self-centered and neurotic
38 years old = post-wall
Ah, yeah, no and nope. Why would someone at or more her level of money want to marry her? Odds are she’s too old to have a few kids so why get married? Being “type A”, probably doesn’t want children anyway because of her career. And then cost him no telling how much when she divorces him in a few years?
Forty is a bit old to be chasing a toddler. Get a puppy. Or a few cats, it’s easier.
There’s no evidence for the “gift cards” besides his assertion. And given some of the other stuff he’s said in the past, I think it has to be taken with a block of salt. Some illegals are given cell phones, which are not smart phones and have tracking software in them.
Developing a usable X GUI for a commercial environment in the mid 90s was about Motif until Java came along. The problem with Motif is that the library was licensed, and use in a commercial environment meant going with one of the commercial vendors’ Posix environments, all of which had downsides, with HP being the least bad in my experience.
Wayland offers performance but at the price of introducing many of the security problems which X set out to avoid with its client/server model.
The last number I saw was that the F150 represented 90% of Ford’s profits. They couldn’t take any chances with the Jesus Truck because people were – and still are — really horny for that vehicle and Tonymobiles in general.
Elon is the real life Tony Stark! Of course, four years ago, when the Cybertruck was unveiled, that meant a lot more than it does now, with Disney having run Marvel into the ground and facing Bankruptcy.
Ultimately, Impeachment killed the Crown Vic. I have photos which I took personally of a prototype update I saw running around Chicago in March 2019. As soon as the hearings about Russia Russia Russia started rolling, all the rumors about the new car stopped cold. Ford realized Trump was done, and that was before he lost his nerve in the pandemic.
All cellphones are tracking systems under the complete control of the carriers at all times. If the phone doesn’t have GPS, triangulation with RSSI is used.
The carriers must know the geographic location of the phone whenever the hardware has power in order to meet license requirements and to optimize the use of their bandwidth, making sure everyone gets their Baby Yoda.
38. Tail end of GenX depending on how you define the generation. Raised on basic cable in what was probably a divorced household.
If our friends and family are any indication, she probably paid for the matchmaker service with a monthly check she still receives from parents.
The DM is really lazy lately.
Both “Death in Paradise” and the spinoff “Beyond Paradise” have Christmas specials this year.
‘nuf said
@lynn, that is one of the classic trade offs and arguments for renting- owning property comes with steady bills for stuff renter’s just don’t pay for. I’d still rather own than rent, but it does get to be tiresome.
n
Yup, however we are enjoying the new 1,200 ft2 driveway entrance. The old driveway entrance had up to four inch elevation changes which were dangerous. At least to me, I forgot about the elevation change and managed to take a dive taking out the trash. All falls are bad to you.
I won’t rent without a plan to own. I do not want anyone to determine my future for me. That said, it is getting very expensive to own as the property values and replacement value are jumping like crazy.
Regarding Rain-X® Original Glass Water Repellent, the (product), I’ve been too busy to answer the comments in detail until now, so here goes.
I apply the product once a year, just before our rainy season. It lasts at least a year. Our cars are garaged, not used for commuting, and are seldom driven in rain, so the coating seems to last a long time. When I used to commute to work, the sun did deteriorate the coating, but it still lasted all rainy season. Wiper use seems to be its worst enemy. I use wipers very sparingly, because they wear the coating, and because they are mostly unnecessary. Many years ago, my wife drove three hours to pick me up at an airport. She had the wipers on low the whole time in light rain. The coating was beginning to streak. I didn’t have any product to retreat the glass, so I just left the wipers off for the trip back; rain still blew off at highway speeds. I now carry it on trips, because if the coating starts to break down with wiper use, there will be streaks that make visibility very bad. I don’t use the wipers unless there is some very dirty road spray on the glass, and then only one swipe. The rain blows off at speeds above about 30 mph. Even when stopped, the water beads and does not affect visibility much. Side windows don’t have wipers, and their coating greatly aids visibility. Clean and well aligned wiper blades do not chatter or squeak.
I never use windshield washers, because I have found it unnecessary. Also, the antifreeze probably is bad for the coating. There is a Rain-X windshield washer solution that is supposed to be compatible, but I have never tried it. If I drove around Houston as much as Nick, I probably would.
Application. If this the first time using the product on a piece of glass, thoroughly clean the glass. Don’t use glass cleaners because most of them leave a residue that could interfere with the product. I simply scrub the glass with an old damp cotton terrycloth hand towel and dry with a damp cotton shop rag. Test for cleanliness by applying some product sparingly using a 4” square of paper towel folded to 2” square. If the glass is clean enough, the product will immediately form a greasy haze. If the haze has small “fish-eyes” (clear spots,) the glass is not clean enough, so clean it better as described below. Finish applying the product with the dampened paper towel and scrub it on thoroughly. The instructions say to do this twice, with a little time between applications. I finish with straight strokes to reveal any missed spots. Let this dry for a few minutes, then wipe the glass thoroughly with a fresh damp cotton shop rag. Keep wiping until there are no hazy spots or streaks. This will take some time. The glass now has a one-molecule thick coating that repels rain for about a year. The coating also seems to hide very minor scratches and pits, which makes it seem very clear.
If you have trouble cleaning a new windshield so the product applies smoothly, here is a method I have used. Note that cleaning glass is somewhat of an art, and many people have good methods they use with success. Also, this is overkill except on a newly replaced windshield. The installers use a cleaner that is compatible with the sealant, and it leaves a tenacious film that seems to interfere with the product. It also leaves a residue that forms a haze on the inside of the glass. I clean it off by first scrubbing with a paper towel soaked with Berryman® B-12 Chemtool® carburetor cleaner. Change paper towels frequently. Then, I use a fresh paper towel soaked with ethyl or methyl alcohol, also changing the paper towels frequently. Finally, I wipe the glass vigorously with a water dampened cotton shop rag that I keep for window cleaning only. Try applying the product again.
If you ever find yourself on a trip with a deteriorated coating, here is a quick way to fix it, even when it is raining. Dampen the shop towel with water and wring it out. Put a few drops of product in a 1” circle of the folded towel and rub the glass. It will replace the deteriorated coating and leave the glass crystal clear. Takes less than a minute to wipe a whole windshield. I usually use this trick on side windows instead of a full treatment. The side windows seem to naturally repel water anyway. I don’t treat outside mirrors; their front surface reflective coating is delicate.
BTW, the product can be easily removed with a strong degreaser if necessary. I discovered this when removing bugs. Clear water on a terry cloth towel removes bugs easily with no need for the degreaser.
A word about towels and shop rags. I have tried everything I could find over the years. That includes a chamois and many kinds of microfiber cloths. I have found the best way to clean car windows is to use an old lint free terrycloth cotton towel. Dunk it in clear water and wring it out enough that water does not run down the glass. Before the glass dries, follow up with a cotton shop towel wrung out as much as possible. I even wave the unfolded shop towel around to dry it a little. The goal is to not leave any water droplets on the glass. That’s it! I learned this from a guy I knew who detailed cars as a retirement hobby. That takes LOVE!
Care for the above towels by never putting them in your home washer or dryer. These have various residues that can make the glass streak. Instead, make a solution of a teaspoon of hand dish detergent to a couple gallons of warm water. Drop your window cleaning towels in the solution and let soak for a few minutes. Agitate with your hand. Rinse well, preferably with a garden hose and nozzle. Keep rinsing until there is no foam in the water. Now the towels are clean enough for glass. I only need to do this about once a year. In between, I only use clean water to wet the towels. Bonus tip: I use the same towels to clean house windows, but I make a solution of a quarter teaspoon of hand dish detergent to a gallon of water for the terry towel. I scrub the windows with that, and dry with the shop towel wet with clear water. That slight detergent film seems to reduce dust attraction. Our air is dry enough that the dish detergent does not make a haze in six months.
I used to use car wax on windshields, but found Rain-X to be much better. There are some newer coatings that are not available at retail. These are meant for professional use, and a treatment is supposed to last a long time. The cost of professional installation is high.
Hope this is useful.
Update on the VA claim process for TDUI. I got a letter yesterday from the VA claims people asking for more information. I was told I only had to list full-time employment for the last five years. I had none. VA now wants “ALL” (their word) employment history which I am guessing includes part-time. I also have to have additional forms signed by the supervisor of the places I worked.
What I don’t know is if this is for five years as the form states, or for every year. With the exception of my last employer the others no longer exist until I go back to the USAF years. That would make getting someone to sign the forms impossible.
What has surprised me is that the response for more information took less than 30 days. I redid the initial form, got the employment forms signed, and sent the forms electronically to the VA evidence processing center.
I don’t know if this is good news, or bad. If the VA was going to outright reject the claim there would be no need for employment information. Or is the VA scrambling to find some additional reasons to reject the claim?
I have to pursue the process. The instructions were basically written by the judge that the case is remanded to the TDUI board. I have to follow the judge’s instructions. I don’t know if the judge’s decision carries any weight in the decision process of the board. Lot of uncharted territory for me. I have talked with some other veterans on VA disability and none of them had heard of TDUI.
What I do know is that with the VA a person has to file, no matter how trivial the issue. The VA is not going to volunteer any information about anything owed to a veteran. I am certainly not going to leave money on the table. It happened once, it will not happen again.
Fewings said she wanted a partner who was at or above her income level, driven, ambitious, and ready to get married.
She is looking for a millionaire husband. Not gonna happen. Most men are not millionaires until their 50s and they have a first wife to dump XXXX get rid off XXXX take all their stuff then. And why would they want a 40+ something when they can get a 20+ something ? It is like the old Eagles song, ‘Lying Eyes”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI_VgO-EPQw
The great Glenn Frey (RIP) backed up by the great Don Henley.
“Tucker Carlson: ‘You’re Going to Get Violence if You Keep This Sh*t Up, And That’s Just the Truth’”
https://rumble.com/v40wnd6-tucker-carlson-youre-going-to-get-violence-if-you-keep-this-sht-up-and-that.html
If they lock Trump up before the federal election in 2024, people are going to get upset.
“Is Shohei Ohtani contract model possible for Astros and Alex Bregman?”
https://www.chron.com/sports/astros/article/shohei-ohtani-contract-alex-bregman-18548109.php
“Shohei Ohtani made something of an expected choice when he agreed to a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday. His $700 million contract made shockwaves across the sports world. And on Monday, the unique structure of Ohtani’s reported contract took center stage.”
“Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million deal will include an unprecedented $680 million in deferrals, with Ohtani now slated to make just $2 million per year for each season of his Dodgers’ contract, according to The Athletic’s Fabain Ardaya. Ohtani will take home just $20 million total from 2024 through 2033, then earn $68 million per year from the Dodgers from 2034 through 2043. Such a structure is unheard of in modern sports, though as news broke Monday, an obvious question arose: Can this be replicated by other franchises? The Houston Astros may be a team of particular intrigue in that regard.”
$700 million is obscene. And most of it is deferred past his playing dates ? Crazy, just crazy. Makes no sense whatsoever.
“’America Is Going To Be The Poorest Country In The World’ Robert Kiyosaki Warns That ‘The Slums Of Mumbai Are Spreading Across America’ – Here Are His 3 Favorite Investments For Protecting Wealth”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/america-going-poorest-country-world-190502665.html
“Kiyosaki, the author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” did the podcast interview while he was in India for Growth Summit India 2023 in September. He explained his visit to Mumbai while on this trip, saying, “I always go to slums. So this time, I went to the slums of Mumbai. And I’m looking at, talking to people. But what shocks most people is America never had slums like that. Today slums are everywhere across America.””
““The slums of Mumbai are spreading across America,” he added.”
He ain’t wrong.
Insurance has gone wacky. The house policy renewal from USAA arrived yesterday. They’ve decided the house is worth $433,000 and the annual premium will be $2821.00. Just for the house. I expect Auto for two cars to be pushing $800 for six months real hard.
That’s not happening for two reasons.
First reason is no, I’m not paying almost an entire month of household income for the house and once you slap on the auto policy, I might maybe barely have enough left to cover the electric bills.
Second reason is that if the house IS totaled, we are not going to rebuild. At our age? Are you kidding? With all of our stuff gone? Nope. Not happening. Scrape off the ashes and splinters and we’ll have a double wide hauled in. The well and septic system will survive.
So hey, drop your valuation to about what the County says the place is worth, round down a little and call it $200,000. Get that annual premium back down to about $1200 or less.
Insurance is a gamble. You pay for “just in case”. Say you pay $1200 a year. Better to stick that $1200 a year into a savings account. Or into t-bills…. only need $100 to buy a t-bill.
It promises to be an interesting phone call.
“Future Fighter Jet: A Look At The F/A-XX Program”
https://simpleflying.com/future-fighter-jet-fa-xx-program-guide/
Expensive, very expensive. And difficult to get all of the features working. Gonna need a big AI machine too.
Very useful. Thank you.
So hey, drop your valuation to about what the County says the place is worth, round down a little and call it $200,000. Get that annual premium back down to about $1200 or less.
Replacement value and tax value are two different things. It used to be that replacement value was way below tax value. That is no longer the case with the labor and material costs skyrocketing in the construction industry.
Let us know what happens. I am reeling from the cost of insurance for all our properties.
For the defense contractors, it’s lucrative, very lucrative.
More R&D time, billed at cost-plus.
Bigger machines with the hardware specified, which will be almost obsolete by the time it’s actually built, and which will be obtained at a discount by the primary contractor and billed at cost-plus, and which will provide a nice revenue stream for the chip or board manufacturer to keep obsolete hardware in production.
My last active duty Army hitch was in development of “cutting edge” electronics and computer systems: an electronic warfare platform, an artillery guidance system, stuff like that. From what I understand, the procurement system hasn’t significantly changed in the past 35 years, at least not for the big-ticket items.
Wowsers. My homeowners (value $360K), auto (2), RV, rider for camera equipment, and umbrella for the entire year was $2188.00. I am maxed out on the auto coverage. House is for complete replacement plus 25% cost overrun. Liability is for $1 million. I do have a $1K deductible on the auto and home.
I had looked at USAA at one time for insurance, being ex-military and all, and their rates sucked. In my opinion the rates were completely non-competitive with other underwriters.
Of course there is the possibility that with my current carrier, in case of a claim, they will find an excuse to pay nothing or substantially less than the coverage amounts. I have heard that USAA is really good on paying claims.
I don’t think anyone currently watching the USN self-destruct into irrelevancy before our eyes believes in this program for a moment.
There will be a lot of money for big military contractors & the retired admirals on their boards though.
Our auto insurance is USAA. I can’t honestly say whether their rates are good or bad because my wife is such a bad driver, with many fender benders and wrecks, plus quite a few tickets. We’re locked in because no other normal insurance company will take her as a new customer. Or for that matter me, because we’re married.
Marriage: the gift that keeps on giving
I’ve heard that it’s possible to be in a marriage which is something other than a constant burden. This is not my experience.
One little feature about USAA saying the house is worth $433 grand is left out. Getting a mortgage.
We tried to get a home equity loan many many years ago. The rules may have changed. Frost Bank was like nope, it has to be a public road, aka a county road, no crossing easements across a few private properties.
I looked into that. The county was like “we want a 50 foot easement”. So… my driveway, well most of it, runs along the fence line. No way Old Man Ross was gonna give up 25 feet of his land. Never mind the cost of re-fencing. Never mind the rest of the neighbors on my side of the fence.
So saying the joint is worth $433 grand is just BS.
I have a big general liability rider, both business and personal. I used to work with projectors that cost $120K each, and I hung them, moved them, opened them up, etc, as well as doing construction work in big 5 oil company offices. The umbrella was required, and I think it’s a good idea anyway. It isn’t expensive in the grand scheme of things.
We don’t carry comprehensive coverage on the rent house. It’s a scrape off with negative value anyway, no matter what the tax man thinks. Real offers to purchase only cover the lot.
We have high deductibles and cash in the bank for them on the other policies, all of which are with one company. State Farm. They will do a bundle on the houses and cars as well as my business insurance. Everyone else wants the home and auto, but none of them will write the business policy so they don’t get my business.
We don’t have a lot of claims, although we did have the new roof from hail, we didn’t claim anything for the vehicles. They have dents, but you don’t notice them. Nothing I wanted to pay or claim for anyway. I had the claim when the ranger was rearended but IDK if it affected my rates or if that was just inflation. We both get good driver discounts, bundled discounts, and because we have more vehicles than drivers we get a discount for that too.
Adding a teen new driver will change that, I’m sure.
The adder for the BOL was originally crazy high, but they were valuing everything crazy high. Took the value of most of it down and got affordable coverage.
It’s cheaper than paying out of pocket.
My client is self insured on his house and property. The number they quoted him was 10% of valuation of the house, EVERY YEAR. He decided to skinny dip, so that’s why we didn’t just replace all the lightning damaged gear at once. He’s still ahead of the game.
n
Avoid using any product on the windshield area immediately in front of the camera(s) used for the safety features. The first time I did that, I received several camera failure messages from my 2018 Camry until the RainX started to wear a bit. I suspect the residue which causes the water to bead is opaque to infrared.
The camera module on the newer TNGA platform (Camry/Highlander/Rav4) is a $1200 part from Toyota, and that has to involve more than one sensor inside the case.
Good luck finding the C++ talent at anything approaching reasonable money. Think $200k minimum, salary and benefits.
Real project management ranks are also thin, something which, ostensibly, the Army is addressing at the Futures command in Downtown Austin, but I believe that is a boondoggle.
You’re paying for all the hail damage in Austin and Round Rock from the October storm. Beyond a lot of roofs, there were lots of damaged Teslas owned by the Subcontinent colonists moving to the west part of Georgetown and up Ronald Reagan to where the road meets I-35 again.
Yo. I’d even do it for less, if I could work remotely.
Of course, on a DoD project with probable security clearance requirement, the PRC citizens in the house might be a problem.
I suffered my first non-trivial storage-food loss this evening. I was putting some stuff on a free-standing shelf unit and pushed a pint bottle of olive oil off the back. By the time I got around to the back of the shelves, it was a puddle on the floor. Most was cleaned up with about a bazillion paper towels but some had soaked into the bottom of a 50 pound bag of sugar that I had not yet broken down into smaller containers. Grr. Got most of the bag stored but I left the bottom 10-15 pounds in case it was contaminated.
Aside from “dammit!” my first thought was to figure out what I’d done wrong and how to prevent a similar problem in the future. But then I realized that I’m an American and that my first thought should have been to find a scapegoat. Therefore: Why did Donald Trump cause me to lose ten pounds of sugar, a pint of olive oil, and an hour and a half of my time???
Why? Because of globul warmening…. that’s why. Oh, and systemic racism.
n
The Russians made him do it.
Ah DM, clickbait headlines, sloppy reporting, and Disney hate all in one article…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12855799/Mother-Disney-World-food-prices-breakfast-menu-cereal.html
TLDR- she paid for the “Cinderella Breakfast” which is in the castle restaurant, and the princesses come and interact with you and the kids. The buffet (where the cereal came from) has plenty of other choices, the kid chose not to eat. you are paying for the themed setting, and the Princess meet and greet, the food is beside the point.
FWIW, I’ve never been disappointed with quantity or quality of WDW food at any of the “character meals” we’ve had with the kids. The food at WDW is excellent in general, but it’s not what you are buying when you buy the character meal…
n
ADDED- if your kid wants to meet characters, the appropriate meal is a good way to do it. You can sit and eat, and enjoy relaxing with the kids, indoors. It’s a lot different than standing in line to meet a character in their special place, or outdoors as they move around.
added more – and she was VERY aware of the price as the character meals sell out quickly and you have to be pretty aggressive with your reservation strategy to get one when you want it. VERY rare to just ‘walk in’ to one (although my wife and I did just that, walked into the Cinderella Lunch at the castle. Yes, it was really cool.)
“$700 million is obscene. And most of it is deferred past his playing dates ? Crazy, just crazy. Makes no sense whatsoever.”
With talk about taxing unrealized gains, a deal like this that is primarily driven by tax laws and league salary caps would be vulnerable as hell. Be interesting to see the fine print. In the even that Cacafornia, with a $68 billion and mounting deficit, passes a law to get their “fair” share immediately, would it be the league or the individual or both filing the lawsuit to test the constitutionality?
I had passable Pibil at the Coronado’s Mexican restaurant in March. Sadly, it has been removed from the menu since then.
Maybe they were scared that Johnny Depp would reconcile with Disney management and drop in for dinner to celebrate his court victory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdBLrlv3YqA
If you think the Disney coverage is brutal now, wait until the execs start getting arrested and frog marched into Orange County courtrooms.
Good luck finding the C++ talent at anything approaching reasonable money. Think $200k minimum, salary and benefits.
Real project management ranks are also thin, something which, ostensibly, the Army is addressing at the Futures command in Downtown Austin, but I believe that is a boondoggle.
Not C++, Ada. All DOD projects are deliverable in Ada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_(programming_language)
In reality, the projects are coded in C++ and then converted to Ada at the end of a project. Nasty.
“$700 million is obscene. And most of it is deferred past his playing dates ? Crazy, just crazy. Makes no sense whatsoever.”
With talk about taxing unrealized gains, a deal like this that is primarily driven by tax laws and league salary caps would be vulnerable as hell. Be interesting to see the fine print. In the even that Cacafornia, with a $68 billion and mounting deficit, passes a law to get their “fair” share immediately, would it be the league or the individual or both filing the lawsuit to test the constitutionality?
SCOTUS is talking about this right now.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/12/oral-argument-suggests-narrow-ruling-to-uphold-disputed-tax/
“$700 million is obscene. And most of it is deferred past his playing dates ? Crazy, just crazy. Makes no sense whatsoever.”
With talk about taxing unrealized gains, a deal like this that is primarily driven by tax laws and league salary caps would be vulnerable as hell. Be interesting to see the fine print. In the even that Cacafornia, with a $68 billion and mounting deficit, passes a law to get their “fair” share immediately, would it be the league or the individual or both filing the lawsuit to test the constitutionality?
Here is another question. Will MLB allow the Dodgers (aptly named) to essentially defer Shotani’s salary until after he retires ? That gets around the concept that all teams are equal in composition due to salary caps.
The latest from James O’Keefe.
IBM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrfVIbXKqtg
Israel’s UN Ambassador: For a Good Time, Call Yahya
https://hotair.com/headlines/2023/12/12/israels-un-ambassador-for-a-good-time-call-yahya-n598670
What’s the current rate for international calls and texts?
“$700 million is obscene.
– why? pro athletes are entertainers. No one questions Paul McCartney’s 10 year earnings. The athletes get paid for their ability to fill stadium seats, and earn money for the owners thru advertising, merch, licensing deals, etc. If having a star athlete earns a franchise millions, why shouldn’t the athlete benefit? he’s the one doing the work and risking life and limb. Otherwise the relationship is hugely exploitive.
n
He’s playing in billion-dollar stadiums built by taxpayer money after the team owners successfully blackmailed, bribed and otherwise coerced enough elected representatives to vote for the steal.
The result is the guy on the street can’t afford to go to the game, while the guys in the skyboxes write off millions in entertainment expense.
There’s your hugely exploitive.
Substitute a softball and most of the million-dollar roster would be shopping for other people and living on tips, if they could afford a car.
ADDED:
I have no problem with people f***king off in their own little worlds playing their own little games–as long as I don’t have to pay for it. Unless and until I can opt out of the taxes these conspiracies have imposed on us, they’re the exploiters, from the front office to the field to the sky box to the parking lot owners. Every bleeding one of them is a parasite.
Sugar + oil + heat = toffee!
He’s playing in billion-dollar stadiums built by taxpayer money
– then the problem is with the politicians and the franchise owners, not him. Stealing taxpayer money, and paying him to be a dancing monkey are related but different things.
Minutemaid Park in Houston cost $250M to build, now $425M in today’s dollars. The argument isn’t whether someone’s performance over the next ten years is worth $700M to the company that comprises the team, it’s why that company doesn’t build their own stadium if they have that kind of money to spend.
The answer to that is partly that no local municipality would allow something like that to be built outside of their control. Given the safety and security issues, the access and traffic issues, and the massive amount of tax revenue to be skimmed and patronage jobs to be handed out, you’d end up like the current Reedy Creek Management District and Florida state, and Disney mess.
You own the stadium, but the Mayor wants more money so city workers are assigned to “upgrade” all the roads leading to your stadium, reducing them to one lane, and the project languishes for years as special interest groups sue the city, or you, or on behalf of the city, or a native american burial ground, or because you don’t use enough union labor… who the hell would finance a stadium when it could be held hostage like that? (this is what Walt tried to avoid when he got the state of Florida to create RCMD in the first place.)
You own the stadium but the cops think they should be providing security not the company you hired, so they set up speed traps on all your access roads, do random DWI stops on everyone leaving your game, and hassle fans until they won’t attend, won’t spend money on concessions, etc…
So instead the locals build it, and then rent it to the team. The wiki for Minute Maid didn’t have the rental amount in it, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t a sweetheart deal for the team, giving them most of the revenue and charging the city and county most of the costs. That’s what happened when they built the downtown stadium in San Diego that I fought against while I lived there. And I expect that is the sad state of affairs for all the teams, in all the stadiums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minute_Maid_Park has an interesting breakdown of how it came to be, which is similar to what I saw happen in San Diego, and is probably a template for how it happens most places.
Like any business, the cartels running sports seek to maximize their profits, and minimize their expenses. They shift their costs off to who ever will bear them, and squeeze every tenth of a cent out of anyone who they can. “Ordinary people” can’t afford tickets to games or concerts? Not their job, not their problem, as long as there are enough people who are willing to spend the money they are charging. Their business doesn’t exist to provide low cost entertainment for fans. It exists, like all businesses, to make money for the business owners. And really, what could be lower cost than watching the game for free on tv?
IF elections are honest, then the taxpayers are getting what they wanted. In Houston’s case, it was pretty freaking close.
That would be the same John Whitmire (D) that just won the run off election for Houston Mayor…
It’s a big club, and we ain’t in it.
n
And… McCartney and Taylor Swift, and the others are making millions playing in those very same stadiums, funded by the very same taxpayers, and yet, little outrage… people still have this idea that pro sports are some sort of noble conflict, when all they are now is spectacle for the masses and mass entertainment.
If I were the ball player in question, I’d be looking hard at how they intend to honor their end of the bargain. Trusts? Annuities? Who owns them, and what happens if one of the parties no longer exists? Deferring compensation is a risky business. Will it be tied up in shareholder lawsuits? Lost in bankruptcy? Taxed at a newly imposed confiscatory rate created especially for ball players with deferred income to recover the interest income lost to the state because they didn’t have the tax money for the last 10 years??? How will state income tax work for away games? Currently players are taxed by the authority where the game they earned the money in was played.
It’s a hairball of unanswered and probably unasked questions just waiting for lawyers to suck all the value they can from it…
n
Found a neat little BASIC interpreter online to bang out a quick little program to brute force the answer to a question in D1’s homework. I wasn’t getting an answer I liked just by examination, so I thought there might be something I was missing.
http://www.quitebasic.com/#
There are some differences from the BASIC I learned on the TRS 80 back in the day, but I figured it out. The one that surprised me was not having to increment the counter in the FOR – NEXT loop. My output was counting by twos… because I had LET i = i + 1 inside the loop, and the interpreter was also adding one to i because it was the increment counter of a FOR – NEXT loop.
And I probably didn’t need to declare and initialize my variables.
The addition of “LET” as a command makes it easier to see intention.
I ended up with 7 lines, and one is CLS and the other is END.
\
FWIW, I think the homework question was just poorly written, as there isn’t a single number answer as implied, without providing more information. you can answer the question with an equation, so that’s what I suggested she do.
and now to my long overdue bed…
n
The question asked for the supplemental angle to an angle defined as (5x + 20).
180 – (5x + 20) is the equation for that supplemental angle.
x can be from 0 to 32 and get a valid result (technically 31, because an angle can’t have a value 0, then it’s a line), but without more info, you can’t pick one value for x, or for the value of the supplemental angle.
n
I should add, that my initial approach was to find the angle of the slope of the line, because the definition was in the form of a slope, but she says they haven’t been doing that, and it involves an ARCTAN or some other trig, and was outside their experience.
Poorly written question.
n
Why do they want to control drones from a fighter? If you use manual control, the pilot will have too much to do. And anyway, using a fighter to carry drones – which are perfectly capable of flying by themselves – doesn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe it would make sense with a bomber or even cargo aircraft that could carry hundreds of drones.
Oh, right. That’s why they want to do it.
San Antonio built a new stadium many years ago, the Alamo Dome. One of the plans to help fund the stadium was to increase the fare on bus riders. My initial thought was that the city is charging those who will never be able to afford to attend a function in the stadium. I still feel that way.
Knoxville is building a new baseball stadium to house the Smokey’s minor league team. That team currently plays at a venue in Sevierville, the same exit as Buc-ee’s and a new tourist trap being built on land owned by some Indian tribe. Knoxville has never liked when the team moved out of Knoxville to Sevierville. So a new stadium is being built.
The mayor and other political hacks are touting the tax benefit to the city. Millions of dollars to the city from taxes on ticket sales, vendors and parking. Where the city gets those numbers is a mystery. I think the numbers are pulled from thin air. When the team plays in Sevierville there may be a couple thousand people in the stands. I don’t see that improving. The numbers the city is puffing in the wind are based on full capacity. That never happens.
The city is also stating it will be a multi-use stadium. Nope, never going to happen. The stadium is configured for baseball. Even the facility in Sevierville was supposed to be multi-use and nothing beyond baseball has ever been done in the stadium.
In my opinion the city will never recoup the cost of the construction and continuing maintenance of the stadium.
Here we have some large sports facilities because of the University of TN. The university pays for those. The vendors, and subsequently attendees, pay dearly in those facilities.
No one is allowed to bring in any food or water. Those items must be purchased from vendors. A small bottle of water is $6.00. The stadium has severely restricted the number of drinking fountains in the process. A hotdog, fries and a drink will set a person back about $25.00. The stadium also sells beer. A small cup is $10.00.
A ticket for a high stakes game, say UT vs Alabama, go for $400.00 and up. The place sells out. Parking is equally expensive and may require a one mile walk to the stadium. If a person arrives early.
I have better things on which to spend my money than paying close to a thousand dollars to stand for four hours, stand in a long line at the bathroom, peeing on a slate wall while bubba next to me is trying to show how off his powerful stream, where seats are allocated at 22″ requiring some to stand sideways, eating a hotdog that makes gas station hotdogs seem gourmet, fries that were fresh 6 hours ago, while being bombarded with “Rocky Top” and screaming fans that require me to have hearing protection.
Same for Alabama. One of the reasons I encouraged my son last year to get one of the student ticket packages, and actually use them. Alabama offers one of two packages to students for around $90. They divide the games in half and separate out the premium games. This year his package had the Tennessee game.
Football games (at the right school) are a big part of the college experience, and I’m glad he is taking advantage. It will be more difficult once he’s out…
Added: Yeah, spending additional money for football tickets is silly when you look at the total picture (all other sport tickets are “free” to students). I don’t mind, as I am sending no tuition money to Alabama for his time there.
Speaking of college. My son has his last exam today. Fall semester of sophomore year (he switched to Aerospace Engineering from Mechanical). This semester he had Statics, Thermo, Calc 3, Physics 2, and a business class (for his MBA track). I think he is ready for a break.