Hot and humid again, with sunshine roasting the brain of anyone unfortunate enough to be out in it. Which is why I stayed in on Saturday. That and sloth. And a book being really good.
Didn’t get much done. I have a problem maintaining my forward momentum. That and I foolishly didn’t get enough sleep and wasn’t feeling well.
I’ll do better today. Pinky swear.
If all you can do is stack, then stack.
n
“Do something. It may not be the most optimal thing, but do something that moves you forward. “
KEEP MOVING FORWARD. NO MATTER WHAT.
I dropped my phone last night. It landed on a corner. On a tile floor. The glass is sharp. The screen is messed up on the left third.
I have a brand new spare. Now I’ll find out if the whole Google back-up routine actually works.
A day of firsts! Two days in a row.
Seems to be the season for phone changes.
n
87F and partly cloudy.
Up and moving, tea in the mug.
Couple of pickups today.
Kid wants to do some driving, so I will probably let her.
Let’s see what the intarwebs have to say today…
n
The year HAL was reactivated. That can’t be a coincidence.
A friend of ours left her phone on the top of her car. Naturally it fell off several miles from her home. We were able to locate the phone using the “Find Me” app on the phone. Some minor searching at that location, making the phone make a sound, and we found the phone.
The screen was destroyed with many cracks but the phone still worked. It is three versions old so not a big loss. We will take her to store to get a new phone today.
Well, that fart did not go well.
OMFG ray, i’m shaking my head and chortling.
n
Driving through the West Valley yesterday I noticed a shepherd and his flock out in a field, open range actually.
30 years ago this was common, and then it sort of disappeared, and now it’s back – probably for fire abatement.
Things change: the Shepherd was on a dirtbike, and things also stay the same: he had a 10 foot shepherd’s crook with him.
Another “IT” problem shutting down an airline.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14924021/Alaska-Airlines-requests-ground-stop-flights.html
n
She was cute?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14922813/summer-associate-fired-law-firm-biting-colleagues-newyork.html
n
Here is the original “Biglaw Biter” story.
https://abovethelaw.com/2025/07/summer-associates-naughty-toddler-impression-gets-her-bounced-from-biglaw/
I can think of a few clients and colleagues who really deserved to have a chunk taken out of them, but this is perhaps going too far… I suspect the person needs medical-professional help.
Sidley Austin is supposedly where Obama and Big Mike met when both were employed as summer associates at the firm’s Chicago office.
Chances are biting doesn‘t even move the needle in terms of weird kinks possessed by associates in that place.
Yes, but Lithgow hasn’t wired a kill switch into the monkey trick in real life. If it goes bad before Wall Street loses faith, we don’t have an escape plan.
Chances are that a partner was indulging a kink in making the hiring decision.
Having a lawyer with a smoking kink screwed us in a lawsuit involving my father in law’s estate.
Fancy Lad. Harvard.
Man, oh man, do I hate them Fancy Lads.
Protected (for a while) because Female + XYZ, or a favor owed, or maybe just old fashioned nepotism.
My criteria for a lawyer for my mother-in-law’s affairs was a female, non smoker without any Asian family background.
“Hunter Biden Threatens To ‘Invade’ El Salvador To Bring Illegals Back To The U.S.”
https://www.outkick.com/culture/hunter-biden-furious-trump-kicked-out-illegals-who-cleaned-his-hotel-rooms
“Hunter Biden sits down for a wild three-hour interview that goes off the rails”
I am guessing that his imaginary friends told him to run for prez.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“Latest Arctic Ice Measurements Are In! — Someone Get Al Gore A Tissue”
https://clashdaily.com/2025/07/latest-arctic-ice-measurements-are-in-someone-get-al-gore-a-tissue/
“Before that, Al Gore had confidently predicted that the sea ice would be gone in just a few years, both in his ‘documentary’ (the one that lost some court battles concerning its claims) and his ‘Day After Tomorrow’ cataclysm movie where the polar ice slid into the ocean, causing New York to freeze over.”
“Our allegedly ‘fragile’ planet needs to be saved from us, we are routinely told, as the environment is invoked again and again as the blunt instrument we are hit over the head with as a justification for increasingly draconian expectations curtailing the freedom of ordinary people.”
“But since they have been pretty consistent in their own alarmism about the loss of sea ice, it should be an important data point that current levels of sea ice exceed levels recorded in the very first year of tracking them — 1981.”
“Better still, there are only two years in the last 20 in which recorded levels of sea ice coverage were more than this year’s levels.”
“So, how will we POSSIBLY break the sad news to Al Gore?”
“It’s Just Stuff”
https://areaocho.com/its-just-stuff/
“People on social media are always saying that we shouldn’t be allowed to shoot people who break into our homes. It’s just stuff, after all, and we have insurance, they say. Until the burglar decides to murder everyone in the house, that is.”
Yup.
“Communism”
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2-DOE7h3LSpabgaiOSRnYTUNr3QYe633ET1NYKzbePYka__G6fIbDe7KwXeiSX6HZVX9h2_aFs-1vzKH7BsCH8rP406TBRtkz1BiORb_50rQN4pY5MTvxsvTSoUxt_HjIa0WFLTMMDULYrpqqjj44wH_GEs5cIvLWZmx8BusxooBN9NQYQAxInVlECto/s550/Meme%20-%20Communism.png
Hat tip to:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/07/memes-that-made-me-laugh-270.html
Chortling, yeh, you got it. That’s the sound I produced. It does sound different when coming from the other end.
I can put 1 in the win column today. My truck has had a misfire for some time, severe enough that I was essentially running a 7-cylinder engine. I was concerned because the last ongoing misfire was a prelude to replacing the cylinder head gasket. Today I had time to do the differential diagnoses (move the spark plug, plug wire and coil to different and separate cylinders) and the misfire followed the coil. Pick up the part and install, test drive, reconnect the plug wire to the coil (duh), test drive, and it’s fine now. That’s a 12.5% loss of fuel economy fixed. Still a V8 with a thirst, but not as bad as last week.
I thought Google backed up text messages like it does your calendar and contacts?
I was mistaken. It’s far from the end of the world but still annoying.
I think it backed up all contacts. I need to find another battery. I tried, the phone won’t power on without a battery installed. My spare battery is puffed up like a Chef Boyardee super stuff ravioli. Useful. Bless it’s heart.
I can’t find the pic I had for wallpaper on my PC or facebook. Now is the end of the world I’m telling you.
Tomorrow I’ll play the swap the battery game and see if I can back-up messages and save to desktop and then restore to new phone. And find my wallpaper. Double check my contacts, too.
With a third of the screen unusable, rotating the phone will be a great feature.
The new phone is another LG V20. Verizon…. Some stuff is different even though it says android 8.0. Shrug. I guess Google updated some stuff differently between the two phones.
SMS text messages require an app to transfer. Or, at least they did.
I don’t remember the process exactly, but we had to do it when my son’s old phone wouldn’t power on.
That was 4-5 years ago, however.
Oh. The phones are different. Nothing real obvious.
For instance, the NFC antenna is part of the back. New phone has the contacts. The new phone’s back has no antenna coil.
I think you need NFC for things like Google Pay at the grocery store. I really ought to get it together and try it for the days I remember to take the phone when I leave the house.
I had an app. I used it back in 2019 during the last phone switch. Since then I somehow thought Google was saving that stuff.
Heck, they give 15GB of storage for photos. I’m using almost a gig. What’s a picture worth of data for txt messages?
I found the app in my list of apps on Play. I’d forgotten all about it. Maybe I can connect the old phone via wi-fi and re-install it …. might work.
Allow me to explain, for the millionth time, the unwavering position of the people who elected Donald Trump regarding illegal immigration. It’s a very simple position. Not a lot of nuance. Not a lot of leeway, because we tried leeway and we got screwed over. Our position is to deport every single one of them. Moms, dads, grandpas, people with dogs, honor students, particle physicists, veterans (who inevitably have some criminal conviction in their background), and all the rest—every single one. No exceptions, no slack, get the hell out.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2025/07/21/read-our-lips-no-amnesty-ever-n2660661
Kurt and other columnists often act like they get paid by the word. I’m sure their agreements specify x words so often, but there are many times that nuance is dilution.
People who entered this country illegally committed a crime, and everything they did since flows from that crime.
Deport them.
Screw their “due process”–they have no expectation beyond “Here illegally?” “Yes” “Out on the next available.” Where’s the due process for the people they have victimized through lost jobs, lowered wages, stolen taxpayer funds for benefits they should not get, billions bestowed by morally bankrupt Democrat traitors for naked political gain, and out-and-out criminal acts preying on U.S. citizens and people here legally.
Yeah, W is starting to soften because “they sold it to the American people as the worst of the worst, not your baby sitter or lawn guy…” She’s also worried, not without merit, that ICE becomes jackbooted thugs.
n
I’m more convinced than ever that one of my auctioneers is really a front for something else. He never sells much of anything, just rerunning the same stuff endlessly. Prices are too high and almost never come down. I noticed last week that he dropped an EZGO golf cart part to $1 (and it went unsold previously) so I bid on it. Also some sheets for the bed at the lake… both bids were outbid by one increment, by the same user. That’s unusual enough, since at least the EZGO item has been listed again and again without any interest.
Then this week they were relisted. At $1… so no one actually bought them. He was either shill bidding, hoping I’d increase my bids, or outbid me because he really doesn’t have them.
I’ve half a mind to file a bounty report with IRS. I think you get 10% of any tax owed upon recovery.
n
Yes, and short of leaving and applying for amnesty (and having it granted) before trying to return, there is no mitigation. I think there should be that much consideration, but the essential is leaving.
I stopped following a friend on social media because her constant argument is “they haven’t commited a crime here”, and refuses to consider their arrival the crime.
SMS is a legal gray area so Google may not touch text messages for that reason.
Yeah. Somehow I’m a horrible racist for saying illegal aliens are not “migrants” but are criminals for walking across the border into my country.
And yet, they think it is sensible to lock your house doors so someone can’t just walk in.
“She’s also worried, not without merit, that ICE becomes jackbooted thugs.”
https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2025/07/17/a-look-at-airport-directors-killing-by-atf-agents-shows-nothings-changed-since-waco-n1229292
Dead on the floor of his home in the dark of night 46 seconds after “jackbooted thugs” broke down his front door.
Take a drive down I-69 from Victoria to Brownsville and you’ll see the the checkpoint, a legitimate reason to worry about ICE about midway between the two cities, far from any freeway exits.
Northbound is manned and … dogged (?) … while southbound is automated, which is even more worrying.
ICE has jurisdiction anywhere within 100 miles of the border or coastlines.
“Quote for the day:”
“I hate guns, personally. Can’t stand them. But I have several.” –Dave Chappelle
Hat tip to Tom Kratman:
https://www.facebook.com/tom.kratman
Working illegally, failing to pay taxes, identity theft, driving without a license, driving without insurance, are all crimes.
Illegally re-entering the U.S. after deportation is a felony.
And hardly a day goes by without a news report like this:
Illegal Alien ‘Scum of the Earth’ Charged With Shooting CBP Agent in the Face
https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2025/07/21/noem-gives-update-on-illegal-alien-scum-of-the-earth-charged-with-shooting-cbp-agent-in-the-face-n2191898
“they haven’t commited a crime here” is demonstrably false for a whole lot of “theys”.
I wonder how many ATF agents are collecting disability checks from the VA.
I imagine quite a few.
KEEP MOVING FORWARD. NO MATTER WHAT.
I have The Math Sorcerer’s Books.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/07/hunter_biden_crashes_out_over_connection_between_illegal_aliens_and_crime_says_white_men_are_bigger_perps.html
One more tidbit about OS slip streaming updates via Google or however it is done by Verizon.
All of the phones I’ve messed with, starting with a Samsung S2 and then an LG whatever (that I liked)(but StraighTalk) and now three different LG V20 phones. Er, I forget how the Blackberries worked.
But anyway. Turn on wi-fi and you have to pick what to connect to. Right?
Today Verizon was really slow for Google Play installing programs. I have a metal roof, sometimes I have 3 bars, usually a weak 2 bars of signal. Speed tests generally run about 4mb down on a good day.
So I turned wi-fi on. It just connected. No “choose” options, just connected. Just a message saying “connected to House”.
Ok, I have the UniFi flying saucers for wi-fi. There is House. No password. There is House660 with the stunningly brilliant password of 660house.
Only ever had one PC using wireless because someone (me!!!) is too lazy to crawl up into the attic and run a bit of Ethernet from switch to a wall plate in the back bedroom. That’s a moot point now. But it seemed to have a good connection. No complaints. The point of house660 was to make it harder for someone to get into the LAN. I can think this stuff, right?
Walk up the driveway. Or any direction. Once you are out of sight of the house there is no wi-fi. So, no password.
Anyway. I thought it was interesting the phone simply connected w/o the usual “pick the network” routine.
It’s time for the bedtime potty walk.
I hate that I spent most of the day effing with phone settings.
If you’re pretty white coed affiliated with Antifa or BLM, you’re “more likely” to be put in a position where you will become a martyr, shot dead by a cop while committing the crimes, everything done “for the cause” while camera phones roll.
And one more thing.
LG V20 phones are supposedly able to receive FM radio. The headphone wire is the antenna. Verizon deleted the LG app. Yeah, so you have to use your data plan to listen to the radio.
I found the LG app today. It seems to work. But maybe under this metal roof? It doesn’t work.
I’ll try it outside.
I just want the option to use everything my phone can do. Crazy and insane, right?
Android constantly collects WiFi data correlated with latitude/longitude to serve as an ad hoc backup to GPS and to improve precision in the Location Service.
Apple does the same thing.
Apple used to make the data freely available, but those days are long gone.
The military has carte blanche to play with jamming GPS without advance warning, and I always had problems with the location lock around Fort Lewis in WA State driving to/from Seattle.
Here in Texas, I had GPS go dark one day driving out to Fredericksburg on the back roads behind the LBJ Ranch, north of the runway.
Today was eaten by locusts, as Jerry used to say… I didn’t get to the computer stuff, so it will slide to tomorrow.
@jimb – you and me both.
I did take the kid and do a pickup.. Then we had In N out Burger on the way home. She was kinda ‘meh’. Because it was late afternoon, we just got cheeseburgers instead of the double double. The ratio of bun to flavor is quite different in the DD, and I should have started her with that. Also, very uncharacteristically, the fries were overdone.
Not the experience I hoped she’d have as I LOVE In N Out.
———-
@paul, I’ve noticed a lot more connecting without notification or explicit permission lately. When I saved the 70s Music CD’s to the kid’s car, the radio connected to Gracenote for album info. I don’t remember telling that vehicle it was ok to use my phone to get stuff off the internet, and it might have used something else for all I know. I have no real idea HOW it connected at all, which is troubling.
———-
The next IT project here is re-working the networking to get the kids OFF my network, at least at VLAN level. Part of that is hanging a couple ubiquiti WAPs, and part is config issues. Adding a Pi-hole will happen at that point too. At my client’s the cams are on their own hardwire network. Here, they are on my network with everything else. I don’t trust chinese firmware on cheap cams, and neither does the US .gov. I don’t want it on the same net as my pc with Quicken.
Inertia is real, and my time is limited, and the threat isn’t huge, so I’ve been putting it off. It needs to happen though.
n
Yeah. It tries. Dang thing is like having fleas. But to save battery time/life….
The “secret and hidden” setting in Location I mentioned several days ago? It’s all rearranged.
Now in settings / lock screen & security / location / scanning.
Same model of phone. Same OS version. What the heck?
Jeebus. It’s almost like going from W7 to W11 and W11 is updating all of the time and moving stuff.
FireAid Fallout: $100 Million for Wildfire Victims—But Where’s the Money?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2025/07/21/fireaid-raised-100m-for-la-fire-victims-but-many-say-they-havent-been-paid-n2660723
Anyone think this will just go away like it would have under Biden?
I’d like to see the CEO sweat some questions from a Senate committee, followed by tightening up the requirements to claim non-profit status.
I am in DLL Hell with Windows again. Microsoft in their infinite wisdom canceled looking up DLLs in Office Apps (Excel !) with a security patch two weeks ago. This means that my users who got the security patch are not able to tun DLLs in Excel anymore.
I suspect that the problem is this, “MS office macro not able to read dll files”:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/ms-office-macro-not-able-to-read-dll-files/1455eddb-d8aa-4700-ab40-ad3e22a3d5c1
“Here are a few approaches you can try:
1. Use Full Path in VBA Declare Statement
Update your Declare statement to include the full path to the DLL:
Declare PtrSafe Function MyFunc Lib “C:\Full\Path\To\xyz.dll” …
2. Set Working Directory via WScript.Shell
Instead of ChDir, use the following VBA code to set the working directory:
Set shell = CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)
shell.CurrentDirectory = ThisWorkbook.Path
3. Temporarily Roll Back Office Update
If the above workarounds are not feasible, you can roll back to a previous Office build (e.g., Version 2504) using Microsoft’s command-line tools. This has resolved the issue for other users.
4. Use AddDllDirectory API (Advanced)
For advanced users, calling the AddDllDirectory API in VBA can explicitly add the DLL folder to the search path at runtime.”
I am trying a fifth option, “Load a custom DLL programmatically from another path”:
https://www.mrexcel.com/board/threads/load-a-custom-dll-programmatically-from-another-path.1102770/
“Democrats’ all-electric USPS fleet sees each truck come with a $6.8 million price tag”
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/07/democrats_all_electric_usps_fleet_sees_each_truck_come_with_a_6_8_million_price_tag.html
“The Postal Service anticipates at least 60,000 Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV), of which at least 75% (45,000) will be battery electric.”
“But, like Buttigieg’s E.V. charging stations, which cost about a billion dollars each, or Kamala Harris’s $42 billion rural internet “flop” that connected a whopping zero rural Americans to the web, or her one-billion-dollar solar panel plan for Puerto Rico which resulted in “only a few” installations), Biden’s “green” USPS plan has been an absolute cluster.”
That is a lot of money for a postal van. I wonder if the A/C works ? Maybe they can mount the A/C in the old 1980s postal vans.
From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oshkosh_NGDV
Create a problem where none existed before. Make the problem onerous. Propose a solution that only you can provide. Give contracts to provide the solution to insiders and friends who will be appreciative. Make sure the solution providers suck up all the money and ask for more. Increase the funding available, while further ensuring that only the chosen friendly providers are allowed to provide the solutions. Make sure the providers kick back most of the money to you, while absorbing as much money as they can, without solving the problem. Rinse and repeat.
Money laundering deep state style.
See also a geek named Sam and his bug eyed girlfriend.
n
A tiny little fire, a can of imported ginger beer, a good book, and some time outdoors next to my water feature bubbling away… not as good as being at the BOL, but still a refreshing couple of hours.
———
Time to shower off the smoke and get to bed.
———–
@lynn, I feel your pain. It’s part of relying on someone else, MS in this case, to enable your livelihood. I’m not sure there is an answer as moving to linux has it’s own issues. I know from my time in the oil companies that they are not adverse to maintaining linux boxen to run critical business software. Maybe it’s time? With everything else going on, maybe it’s time for an exit plan? Or time to lock down the environment your stuff runs in?
n
I have seen several mail delivery vehicles on flat bed tow trucks this month. I can’t really recall ever seeing that before.
n
Added– I did some superficial research into NOT having a mail box when we bought this house. It’s not really possible. I haven’t looked in my business mailbox in a couple of years, and the last time I did it was more than 10 pounds of junk mail from Comcast flogging their expensive, slow, and unappealing business internet service.
n
Seems like the post office vehicles should cost LESS than a low end commercial van as they are SIGNIFICANTLY simpler, not subject to CAFE (are they?) and don’t change every year.
They are essentially very sturdy golf carts.
n
>>Yes, and short of leaving and applying for amnesty (and having it granted) before trying to return, there is no mitigation. I think there should be that much consideration, but the essential is leaving.
Who exactly would qualify for amnesty?
>>Seems like the post office vehicles should cost LESS than a low end commercial van as they are SIGNIFICANTLY simpler, not subject to CAFE (are they?) and don’t change every year
Are they also exempt from NHTSA requirements?
>>I’d like to see the CEO sweat some questions from a Senate committee, followed by tightening up the requirements to claim non-profit status.
No sweat…
“On advice of counsel… decline to answer…5th Amendment…”