Cooler, but wet. Rained yesterday and may rain again today. If not, the humidity is high and everything is dripping anyway. Parts of Houston even flooded, and some of the highway on the way up here was wet enough that cars were throwing up rooster tails.
It ended up actually being a ‘day of rest’ for me. Other than the drive up, I napped, ate, and read.
I don’t know what I’ll get done today, or when I’ll call it quits and head home. With the extra kid and using the minivan instead of my pickup, IDK how we’ll split up for the ride home. I may not be able to stay later, even if I have stuff to do. At least most of the yard doesn’t need mowing. The lack of rain and cutting it too short KEPT it short.
I did get to review my attempts at re-grading and reworking the road in the HOA lot and the boat ramp. I got one area a bit wrong and water isn’t quite flowing where I’d like. I think it can be corrected with a tractor and a box blade though, so that’s good. I will see if I can get one of the other guys to make the change.
I got some elevation wrong in my front yard too, and it’s not draining as well as I’d hoped. That will be a bit harder to fix. The easiest thing for now is to dig little trenches to drain the low spot, which I did.
There is always more to do. And more stuff to stack. I better get busy and do some of it.
nick
Today is indeed “labour” day for me. First day of work after the summer holidays. Wading through the Inbox. Joy.
Travel homewards was uneventful, except for an unpleasantly rough ferry crossing of St. George’s Channel, which unfortunately left me with residual motion sickness for the remainder of the driving… resulting in a few unscheduled roadside stops.
Sitting on the quay, waiting for the ferry, the wind was so bad, I thought the sailing would be postponed, but the captain preferred to go before the weather got worse.
A noticable number of St. George’s Crosses and Union Jacks were displayed on motorway overpasses in England. Didn’t pass through any urban areas, so don’t know how they looked.
“Jaws” in IMAX was pretty intense.
I’ve seen the movie dozens of times on home video but never on a big screen.
The shark is still working.
@Jenny – apologies if the kid was freaked out. The flick was always around on home video and HBO when I was her age, but BIG even worked on me.
“Back to the Future” gets IMAX and a general re-release for the 40th anniversary in October. The trailer ran in front of “Jaws”.
This isn’t the same trailer that ran in front of “Jaws” yesterday.
That trailer didn’t have Huey Lewis or as much of the mall/JC Penney logo.
Huey doesn’t perform live anymore and that Penny’s was long gone when they tore down the mall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez6WQ7IX72U
Jaws…no thanks. Maybe I’m a wimp, but I just don’t get horror flicks. Either they scare the sh!t out of you – why would I do that to myself? Or they are hilariously dumb – ok, with enough beer, and absolutely nothing better to do, maybe…
I did see Silence of the Lambs. Shudder.
Nice seats on the train from Essen to Munich. I reserved seats, but did not get to choose seats. I got assigned seats in a compartment with six seats. We are the only ones in the compartment the entire 6 hours journey.
Now for the 15 days in Munich.
Happy travels and enjoy München, Mr Ray!
Looks like you will leave just before Die Wies’n (Oktoberfest) begin.
If you are allowed time off from childminding duties, you might enjoy something at the Bergson Kunstkraftwerk https://bergson.com/
I intend to go and see the amazing Jazzrausch big band there at the earliest opportunity.
Rudy Giuliani Seriously Injured in Car Crash After Assisting Domestic Violence Victim
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2025/08/31/rudy-giuliani-seriously-injured-in-car-crash-after-assisting-domestic-violence-victim-n2662601
The car crash was not related to his assistance of the domestic violence victim.
Used to enjoy the Englischer Garten.
Still have two of their 1-liter glass steins. Yes, I paid for them.
Murder-suicide in my neighborhood last night.
Weather permitting, I have a route I use for walking/exercise. This is on my route.
Far enough away that I don’t know the people involved.
The young lady brandishing the knife and hatchet is well distributed visually on the parts of the ‘net I see. Plenty of meme’s too. Good for her. My question is, how does she conceal those items day to day?
British knife control policy is a ridiculous response to the success of banning guns. Buncha panty twisters.
I expect she doesn’t – they are way too big. I haven’t read where the three girls were going, but maybe she has a hiding place at her destination. If on the way to school, for example, she could put them in her locker.
What I just don’t get: reading a couple of UK subs, people are saying “oh, that’s in Dundee, it’s violent”. As if that excuses anything. I’ve lived in a pretty sketchy part of Scotland, but the danger was mostly the drunks bleeding on your doorstep, because they forgot where they lived.
This girl isn’t carrying weapons around just for kicks: clearly, obviously the girls were scared. Carrying weapons was their attempt to protect themselves.
@Greg
The shark is still working.
I love that movie and have been fortunate enough to see it on the big screen a couple times in the last couple years. I did NOT take my daughter because I remember it has its scary moments and the opening gore is gross And horrifying.
The first time I saw it was when it came out on HBO or similar. Snuck over, sans permission, I was quite young and it gave me nasty nightmares and an aversion to baths I couldn’t explain without fessing my disobedience.
@Brad
The opening scene is nasty. 90% of the film is well crafted suspense with a couple of brilliantly acted scenes. There are some good jump scares. Theres an obligatory bit of gore near the end. I am a wimp when it comes to scary movies, I find gore for gores sake low brow and gross. Jaws is far more suspense along the lines of The Birds than horror, though without the Hitchcock’s finesse.
I don’t think it’s a film everyone should see however it is a good piece of cinema.
I don’t see much MSM unless someone links to it. DM is the closest and I can’t remember if the story appeared there. It’s present across most of my other online stuff, including the original video.
Skinny girl in a baggy shirt can hide a lot underneath.
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Sunny, blue sky, 83F at the moment. Working on a coffee and have some bacon cooking. Wondering if there is enough demand for waffles. Dang girls used all the hot water last night so my shower was lukewarm. Enough that I didn’t get chilled, but I didn’t linger either.
List for today includes lawn care, if it dries up a bit. Stacking and putting away are high on the list too.
n
I have been told that is a good thing.
One of the smears that went around was that the girls are members of a gang and they were harassing the furriners, the poor innocents who dindu nuffin wrong.
Regarding the festering anger regarding rapey furriners and complicit government employees, remember this: When faced with an enemy and a traitor, go after the traitor first.
Travel homewards was uneventful, except for an unpleasantly rough ferry crossing of St. George’s Channel, which unfortunately left me with residual motion sickness for the remainder of the driving… resulting in a few unscheduled roadside stops.
I crossed the Channel once at 10pm in a 400 foot ferry with 20 to 30 foot seas. From France back to Dover where we had left our car for a day trip to Calais.
Never again for my wife who upchucked the entire trip. Me, I hung onto one of the columns in the ship the entire way. It was like a continous roller coaster with 50+ foot drops every minute or so. Not fun.
>>”It’s not High Finance. I’ll never be a millionaire. Might should buy a lottery ticket once in a while. What would I do with a million bucks? I have many ideas. “
@Paul, umm, the Powerball jackpot for tonight is $1.1 BILLION. Just have to spend a million bucks one thousand times. But don’t worry, we’ll be happy to help you spend it.
>>Dang girls used all the hot water last night so my shower was lukewarm. Enough that I didn’t get chilled, but I didn’t linger either.
@nick, I thought you had a tankless HW heater?
>>Wanted to finish the current stone wall, and clean up the extra rocks that were laying around. Sore back – just muscular, but still…one too many rocks lifted.
@Brad, did you ever resolve the property line(?} dispute with your neighbor?
The new print for IMAX made it clear that the actress was nude in the water during filming of the opening attack scene.
You don’t see it on VHS or DVD, and the last time we ran the BluRay was on our old Sony TV in the living room.
I saw a lot of things at 12-13 which I wasn’t supposed to see, but most were ‘R’ comedies of that time period.
I was 14 when I saw “Bachelor Party”, however, not 12 like Dante and Randall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNXMB5FwSUc
BTW, Smith got the scene through the MPAA with an ‘R’ rating.
>>Jaws…no thanks. Maybe I’m a wimp, but I just don’t get horror flicks. Either they scare the sh!t out of you – why would I do that to myself? Or they are hilariously dumb – ok, with enough beer, and absolutely nothing better to do, maybe…
W2’s granddaughter was visiting for the weekend and they were binge watching Wednesday Descent entertainment. Funny to see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Buscemi cast as the Principal in Season 2 after several gangster roles.
Joanna Lumley as Grandmama Frump is going against typecasting as well.
It isn’t a question of Lumley filling Margaret Hamilton’s pointy shoes adequately. The casting is genius.
I just don’t remember Lumley’s Patsy as ever being sober on “Absolutely Fabulous”.
@nick, I thought you had a tankless HW heater?
– at home. The 30 gallon heater here was only a year or so old, so no reason to replace.
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I don’t like Wednesday because of how they emasculated Gomez and completely changed the nature of his relationship with his wife. It was always one of the joys of watching Addams Family.
——
Mowed and trimmed. Most of the sunny part of the yard didn’t need it but the shaded areas all did. Looks better now. Two big spirals for the main part of the yard, a third for around the fire pit, and then run around the perimeter a couple of times. It’s so much easier than constant turning 90 or 180 degrees. Leaves a weird looking pattern though.
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Wife and the girls are headed home. I’ll stay at least a couple more hours and knock off some projects.
Need to cool down first.
n
https://www.amazon.com/HanRongDa-Portable-Shortwave-Traveling-HRD-605/dp/B0977FTG2C?tag=ttgnet-20
This is the little shortwave radio I was listening to last night. More about it later.
n
>>G2 (possibly G3) GMS expected Monday night: https://www.spaceweather.gov/news/g2-moderate-g3-strong-geo
https://www.google.com/search?q=cme+animals&oq=cme+animals&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTI0OTEzajBqNKgCALACAQ&client=ms-android-google&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Our pack has been acting a little strange today.
I don’t like Wednesday because of how they emasculated Gomez and completely changed the nature of his relationship with his wife. It was always one of the joys of watching Addams Family.
I like Wednesday because she is the only one allowed to torture her brother and she enforces that severely. She also hunts serial killers for fun.
I tried to fix moms ac units that are overflowing into the hallway but I could not find a drain cleanout that could go into three 90 degree 12 foot long 2 inch pipe that has the u section clogged. Both ac units in the old house drain to that common pipe. I wanted to cut it but could not figure out what to do with the water contained inside the pipe. The plumber should be back Tuesday.
Programs greenlit during the Woke era will take a while to exit the system.
“Wednesday” got approved shortly before the election in 2020, when Hollywood entertained thoughts of an Orange Man lynching on the Capitol steps with Hillary Clinton throwing the lever being the centerpiece of the 2025 Inauguration.
I feel for you. Since the old hovercraft went away, I have always taken the tunnel. Smooth. Recommend.
That is for the English Channel.
Crossing St. George’s Channel takes about three times as long as your trip. Not nice in bad weather.
Of course, my nephew, who did his merchant officer apprenticeship on oil rig support vessels in the North Sea, laughs at my idea of “rough”. His idea of bad weather is when the vessel is enough out of level that going barefoot in the cabin leads to carpet burns on the soles of one’s feet!
Brian Kernigan speaks. 83 and still teaching.
The Rust believers are not going to be happy with the answer to one question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEb_YL1K1Qg
At one point during the Q&A, his VPN fails. GlobalProtect. No further comment.
I read somewhere that you can set your phone to send all calls from folks not in your contacts directly to voice mail.
I can’t find the setting. But that’s ok. I don’t answer unknown numbers anyway… unless it’s like from the plumber, etc. and I’m expecting a call. From a local number.
I had never heard of the St. George’s Channel. I just figured it’s all “North Sea”.
I learned something today. 🙂
Sea channel between Ireland and Wales,
My BS theory that my phone loses signal because of some kind of voltage problem due to a failing battery is just that, BS.
I’d been thinking of buying a new battery. Amazon Vine popped up with the battery I wanted.
Yep, seems there are lots of LG V20 phones and a couple of other LG things that use this battery out in the world.
So I tried the new battery, it works, and I put the old battery back in the phone. Yeah, it’s down to 4 days between charging instead of 10 days. While stashing the new battery I re-discovered a brand new factory LG battery. So put it in my phone today.
It’s not the battery. I had no service half an hour later. Bummer. Verizon is being flaky.
On the plus side, if I have no service I get no calls from sales folks and spammers. I assume calls go to voice mail and text messages are delivered whenever.
I’m not going to worry about it.
I looked it up and I had no idea that bit of ocean between Ireland and Ol’ Blighty had a name.
Then again, the bit of water between Texas and Padre Island has a name. I forget and don’t care what it is.
Home safe and sound. W and the kids drove for an hour in heavy rain. I didn’t. I had a bit of sprinkle for a minute or two, then clear all the rest of the way.
Got the lawn mowed, trimmed, blew the debris off the hard surfaces. Poisoned the ants. Put everything but the mower away- I forgot about it. I didn’t want to put it away hot, and thought I’d remember before leaving. Should be fine, it’s between two sheds, and rain will wash the dust off. I hate forgetting stuff like that though.
My remaining client texted that he’s having some issues, so I’ll head over there tomorrow or Wednesday. Now it’s time for a snack and bed.
n
“Phillips 66 to begin winding down Los Angeles-area refinery next week”
https://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/news/2025/08/phillips-66-to-begin-winding-down-los-angeles-area-refinery-next-week/
“Phillips 66 will begin shuttering its 139,000-bpd Los Angeles, California (U.S.)-area refinery in September, people familiar with the matter said. The Los Angeles-area refinery will start winding down operations for permanent closure as early as next week, two sources said.”
“Phillips 66 announced last year that it would close the facility and begin winding down operations by October 2025.”
“”The refinery units will begin idling by Q4 2025 as planned… our timeline remains unchanged,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement on Thursday. The company did not provide a more detailed timeline but noted that the process of idling the facilities requires a complex, multi-phased approach.”
“The refiner is expected to lay off most workers at the refinery in December. The Los Angeles-area facility has about 600 employees and 300 contractors. Over half of the employees are hourly workers represented by the United Steelworkers Union.”
“The company declined to comment on the status of its employees.”
“Phillips 66’s exit will leave a void in motor fuel supply in California, the most populous U.S. state. The state consistently experiences some of the nation’s highest average gas prices, leading to an often tense relationship between the state and oil companies.”
“Valero Energy also announced its intention to close the 145,000-bpd Benicia refinery, one of its two remaining refineries in the state.”
“The two closing refineries produce roughly 20% of the state’s gasoline supply.”
Jerry Pournelle used to say that the Dark Ages were not the lack of certain things, the Dark Ages were when people forgot that they had certain things. California is running down that road as fast as they can.
Survived my first night in Munich. Our hosts have a really nice apartment. They gave up their bedroom for us and they are sleeping in the quest bedroom. Logistics or something to do with the kids. It makes sense. But I do feel uncomfortable displacing them for the next 14 days. It was their decision so I will live with their decision.
We will occupy the two kids today while their parents work. Both work from home today and we are here to eliminate the interruptions. The kids start school the last day of our visit.
The train ride was OK, although late, which is typical of DB. We had reserved seats that turned out to be in a compartment with six seats. The reservation system does not allow us to pick the seats. There were supposed to be two other people but they never showed up. We had the compartment to ourselves the entire 6.5 hour journey.
We started out at the back of the train until Frankfurt. The train pulled into Frankfurt with us at the back, then pulled out with us at the front, second car. Which turned out to be good as when we got to Munich we did not have to walk far. It was a long train, two of what I call regular trains.
Today is rain and cool weather. So not much activity outside. We had planned to go to a park. Going to the zoo is on the activity list for one of the days. The wife really wants to see the Munich zoo which is supposed to be quite good.
08:00 here, 02:00, or earlier for the rest of you uncivilized people. No civilized person is active online at Oh-Dark-Thirty.
Over The Hedge: Lizard People
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2025/08/31
Incontinent raccoons are not cool.
Does it make a difference?
Their normal mode is crap on everything.
Tree goes down and they can’t wait to crap on the trunk where they couldn’t get to before.