Cool. Warm. Hot. Sweaty throughout. Like most days in the Fall. Pretty much like yesterday. Until about 5pm when a front moved nearby and the dark clouds brought shade, and a 10 degree drop in temp. No rain for us though. And probably none today.
I messed around all morning, then did two pickups. The big item was two more solar panels. Freaking things are almost 4ft x 6ft. Took them to the shop, unloaded, cleared a path to the item I’m selling, and changed the locks on the door. It was a sorta productive day.
I hope today is more productive. I still haven’t made arrangements with the buyer for a real meeting time. I would like to get that taken care of. I could do two pickups today or put them off until tomorrow. I’m still pretty sore from all the bending and carrying… so not super motivated. We’ll see how the morning goes.
I’ve got plenty to do around the house. Not bidding on stuff is supposed to be freeing up time for me, and it has. I’m still working on it though. I need to be a little bit better during my mornings too.
The world is getting twitchier every day. Stuff could break loose anytime. There are typically some ‘fits and starts’ at the beginning, so you’ll know, but then it might be too late for real prepping. Get your stuff in order, like a hurricane was coming.
And big picture? Take a look at your easily searchable online history and see if you might be making yourself a target. Some of us, there isn’t anything we can do about it. Some of you might be better off without a target on your back. It’s all fun and games until the molotovs start flying.
Stack like you might not be able to next week.
nick
First!
74F and 99%RH
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Not sure what I did to cause the burning pinching sensation in my lower back but OH MY.
Time to get some people moving.
n
I hope your back improves quickly, Nick.
I had my fangs cleaned this morning. Minty fresh!
I might just be infatuated. All my previous dentists were gentlemen with the hands of rugby prop forwards – like frying pans.
My new lady dentist is really petite. Having her hands in my mouth was like fairies dancing on my gums, compared to the hams of the predecessors. Recommended!
Do dentists do cleanings over there?
On this side of the pond, dental hygienists do the cleaning, then the dentist comes in, pokes around for a minute, then leaves. That is if nothing is wrong, of course.
Every dental hygienist I’ve ever had has been female. At my current dentist, there are 8 of them. About half are young and cute, the other half not. I only dread one, and she just won’t stop talking. A cleaning with her takes twice as long.
I have never even seen a dental hygienist. My dentists have all done everything themselves, inspections, X-rays, descaling, polishing, fillings, extractions, crowns, implants, the whole lot. The only specialists of whom I have heard, but fortunately never needed, are the dentists who do only root canal work.
I love the Epic Buffalo & Cranberry. I have a box in the pantry for snacking.
Dentists in the US can’t make money doing the cleanings for what the insurance plans pay for the service. Most offices here have at least one hygienist, and, anymore, they hold Bachelor of Science degrees.
Since the pandemic, hygienists are in short supply.
Like almost every profession which doesn’t involve either sitting in front of a computer or schmoozing with no hard performance metrics.
A month or two ago I think I mentioned here that several of my wife’s friends are jealous of her because I’m able to fix cars and appliances and house problems, so she seldom needs to call a repair guy or buy replacements. What I didn’t mention were the inquiries about whether I might be available for car work and handyman work because it’s so hard to get someone to come over. Heck, it took me most of a month just to get my wife’s (now daughter’s) car inspected because they have only one inspector for three sites and he’s not here today, or because there’s already a line of six cars waiting and it’s only an hour until closing, or because the special printer is broken and the repair guy can’t come in for another three days, or other problem relating to a shortage of skilled or licensed workers.
(In short: No. I’m not interested in fixing your toilet which won’t stop running. Aside from the fact that I actively dislike most of my wife’s friends, I’ve dealt with similar requests in the past, regarding computers and other things. They’ll want to lowball the price or get the work for free “because it’s just a favor between friends”. They’ll never be satisfied and will have constant follow-up fixes only tangentially related to the first request, expected to be done for free. There’ll be “as long as you’re here” requests, expected to be done for free because I’m already there with my tools. I have no trouble saying No on the spot but it’s easier to say No up front and save myself the aggravation.)
I’ll do work for friends, if they help. Sorta supported teaching mode. Usually I explain that I don’t do odd jobs because I don’t want the responsibility if it goes wrong, and I’m just an amateur poking at most things.
I can usually just say “I don’t take jobs like that anymore because I have too many kid school commitments during the day.”
That said, I’ve jumped in to help people during the various disasters we’ve had.
n
Hygienists here as well. Some with fancy equipment, some still do the old-fashioned scraping by hand.
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Tired. After teaching in the morning, more chainsawing and hauling all afternoon. I had “help” in the form of one teen, who worked as long as I pushed him every 5 minutes. But hey, we got everything done that was planned, even if I did too much myself.
If I had friends, which I define as people with whom there’s a give and take, not just take, I’d help them.
I’ll help kin. (Most of them; some are takers.)
I’ll help people in a natural disaster and such, like digging out cars which got stuck while driving because the wind blew snow a foot deep across the road. (A couple times per decade I’ll scratch my head and ask myself why on earth I live here.) Or when snow took down power lines (see previous remark) and our house had a generator hookup so I’d go around and tell neighbors that they could sit in our living room if their houses got too cold. Or helping to cut up a tree which the wind took down and dropped on a neighbor’s driveway.
I’ll help kids and other people who are having problems through no fault of their own. From this group are explicitly excluded women in their 60s and 70s. They were children of women’s liberation and were told (and probably said) from infancy that they don’t need no man and they’ve had a lifetime to pick up the tools and the skills to take care of their own problems.
The woman down the way who had a good, handy husband but drove him away with her complaining? She can shovel her own driveway or pay someone to do it. She can figure out how to fix her own dryer or buy a new one or wait three weeks for a repair guy to be able to come over or buy a clothes rack and air dry her clothes.
In my experience, Asian households are loathe to pay for services in the US because Redneck might be good for something besides making babies with Hillbilly cousin.
Say it like the Toby Huss iteration of Khan on ”King of the Hill”.
The lady with the gentle fingers charged 70 bucks for about 30 minutes’ work. My insurance will reimburse me about 85% of that.
That wouldn’t keep the lights on in Austin or within an hour of a major metro in the US.
IIRC, the negotiated rate at my dentist is $110 for the same work, and insurance covers 100% of the charge. That still represents a loss for the dentist so she throttles the chairs handling routine procedures to the point that they are currently booked out nine months in advance.
Once a $240k floor went in for most single family homes which could pass inspection within reasonable commuting distance of the big cities, all bets were of in terms of containing costs.
My dentist was my wife’s dentist. He was a sound guy with The Grateful Dead for a while, once upon a time. He came in early, like 5 am, and was done before noon. He had a receptionist/account manager and at least one hygienist.
His daughter joined the practice a couple of years ago. We all go to the office , W and I seeing him, the kids seeing her. But about a year ago he had some sort of medical issue and retired.
She’s seeing all the patients now.
The office is on the fourth floor of a decent but quiet 10 story building in a nice part of town. It’s off a main street by a block or two.
AFAIK, no insurance is involved, and never has been at least for us. We pay with a check or card.
I think the daughter keeps more trad hours, but we always see her in the morning.
The money must work, he’d been my wife’s dentist for 20 years.
n
I’ve been binge watching S1 of The Flash on Netflix. Darker than expected.
When you are a cost, and there is pressure to reduce costs, you get reduced. And some genius turned a cost into a profit center.
n
We had our ‘Neighbors’ night Out’ tonight. It was pretty chill. Most of the active people on our block now have toddler or preschool age kids. They come with a built in timer.
The evening ended earlier than ever this time, as one by one the kids’ timed out.
Our deputy Constables stopped by. Of course I had to ask about the female deputy who went viral for posting that everyone was getting a ticket because she didn’t get ‘cracked’ last night (laid for those of us older than 20.) She got disciplinary action but it wasn’t career ending. We need people to do the job. We need them to be sane and conscientious though.
n
The irony is that Tom Cavanagh’s breakthrough role was the lead in “Ed”, a light dramedy from David Letterman’s production company.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_0P59l4oC8
Cavanagh definitely escaped the typecasting of the bowling alley lawyer.
John Wesley Shipp was “The Flash” on CBS in 1990.
And guests many times in the later Flash series.
That’s only half the story. Organ sales is a big business, if not one that gets a lot of air time. Where’s the money going?
In China it goes to the Red Army.
n
Well, here are the public filings for Houston Methodist Hospital. They have an active transplant unit. Remember, donors and their families get NOTHING from the process. All the money goes to the institutions and staff.
Executive Compensation $16,844,517. The CEO gets $6,000,000 of that. There’s an “other” column with a million more. I suspect he has a lot of benefits and allowances over and above his salary. Not to mention his drug money, likely a lot under the table. A lot of drug trials for Big Pharma are run through their research institute. IIRC, they bragged about one of the Pfizer trials during Covid. Since they fired me, I don’t have access to any of those memos.
And as a not-for-profit (snicker!) they had a year-over-year increase in assets of $700,000,000.
They’ve spent over a billion on capital projects in the last 5 years, and paid cash.
A decent F9 Starlink launch out of Vandenberg this evening, 8:54pm local.
Not bad. Too late for much of a jellyfish but we saw it from shortly after launch to disappearance in the southeast, and also the booster reentry burn a little bit east of south from here.
A nice clear mid 60s evening with a day past full moon in the east.
I’ve never seen a launch in person. I’d like to at some point. It’s kinda ‘peak tool using monkey’… and if we lose it in the future, I’d like to say I saw it with my own two eyes.
n
Time for bed. Stuff to do tomorrow.
n
I’ve been binge watching S1 of The Flash on Netflix. Darker than expected.
I am binge watching Hanna on Amazon Prime. Very dark.
https://www.amazon.com/Hanna/dp/B0875Q1ZPY?tag=ttgnet-20/
The USA CIA must hate this show. Makes them look incompetent and terroristic.
Oh wait, they are incompetent and terroristic.
I am home for two days. The hospital is suppose to release mum on Friday so I will be heading back Thursday night.
Turns out that my idiot brother, the idiot one, was bringing stuff from the 20 yard3 dumpster in the house to show to mom. Now mom has a strep infection on her arms. Coincidence, I think so. He is an idiot.
We were throwing the mildew covered stuff in the garage into the dumpster. It all smells horrible from the roof leak in the garage ceiling. The more intelligent of us were wearing face masks and gloves in the garage.
I have been trying to get the idiot brother to give me a list of stuff he brought into the house from his dumpster diving. He changes the subject at the time each time. So I have been throwing away anything that smells mildewy from inside the house.
My mother claims that she needs my grandfathers 60 year old business records and her mothers cancer records. I think not.
A decent F9 Starlink launch out of Vandenberg this evening, 8:54pm local.
Not bad. Too late for much of a jellyfish but we saw it from shortly after launch to disappearance in the southeast, and also the booster reentry burn a little bit east of south from here.
I would like to see a launch or three. Getting the wife there will not be easy.
Yeah, I don’t get that. If I ask for a professional service from a friend, I expect to pay. It’s their job.
If they choose to refuse, I’ll push. If they still insist it’s a gift, that’s really nice of them, and I’ll find some indirect way of compensating them.
Assisted suicide can certainly be abuse. OTOH I would support something else that is likely to raise blood pressure: putting down severely handicapped kids.
I have a colleague with a severely disabled kid. Physically, he’s fine. However, his brain suffered a severe lack of oxygen during birth. He can move around ok, but he cannot speak and has basically zero understanding of stuff around him. Their house is a high-security place, with locks to prevent him escaping and all breakable stuff out of reach.
Now, the kid is 13. He’s getting strong, hormones are kicking in, he is sometimes violent. The wife cannot handle him physically when he kicks off. Basically, the parents are living in a prison with a violent inmate. When I see the dad, he is just ever more depressed, because this is what the rest of their lives looks like.
I haven’t asked, but surely if it were possible to put the kid in some sort of home, they would do so. More to my point above: What possible reason is there, for this kid to exist?