But I won’t be getting up early on this bright beautiful day. I hope it’s a bright beautiful day anyway. Each day this week has had a bit more clouds, a bit more humidity, and a bit more heat in the afternoon. Yesterday was no exception, so today might be somewhat less than clear, if the pattern holds. Still, it’s been a very nice Spring so far.
I did my pickups yesterday. The big one was a great auction with tons of the kind of stuff I like. I won a Powermatic lathe, that looks complete although it didn’t come with a chuck. I’ve got at least one in storage though so if the motor runs I’m golden. It’s still on the truck because I didn’t want to unload it at the end of a long day. We loaded it with a forklift.
The welding machine needs a few things, like some new cabling, and the optional spot welder module is damaged, but there aren’t any signs of things that can’t be quickly and easily fixed. I have to replace the conductors that had the rubber rot off before I can fire it up, but the Millermatic 200 was possibly the best welding machine of its time (’80s and 90s) and is a rock solid design.
The other stuff I got included a set of welding cables I can use to make repairs, and I’ll scrap out the rest with damaged insulation; several hundred feet of heavy duty extension cords; and some vintage turntables. Nothing very valuable, but I’ll either fix and flip them or sell them for parts. Oh, and I got a Delta 12″ planer that doesn’t look like it was ever used. I’ve been trying to buy a planer for years. That was one of the last woodworking machines I needed to build out a full shop.
I’ve got a couple of auctions to pick up from today, all smalls, and mostly books. And I’ve got to unload the lathe. Then I’ll either keep working at the shop, or try to knock some more off the list here at home. We’ll be at the BOL next weekend, and the kids have stuff to do in town today and tomorrow.
Keep stacking stuff, especially stuff that lets you go your own way and reduces your dependence on others.
nick
Possibly not the best decision, if you were one old man in the middle of the night. If you’re regularly at the office at night, you might want to put up enough cameras to have full coverage around the building.
Not just hearing, any weakness, disability, or inability. I see it mostly with military veterans, and hear about many more through the network, but also men who get hurt on the job, cops or paramedics who show signs of stress fatigue, any man who has depression or cancer.
So far as I can tell, it’s a part of the species, not a cultural artifact. Western legal and social institutions certainly make it worse, though. Some women are understanding and will stay with her husband when he is sick or injured. They are in the minority, from what I see myself and from the statistics I see.
Saturday. Good morning!
Lots of domestic stuff to do at the BOL this morning, including a run to the recycling park. Time to get myself outside of some breakfast and get moving!
I spent yesterday afternoon making Biltong with friends, one of whom is a butcher. He contributed a professional dehydrator to the effort, so our trial batches – venison back strap and beef flatiron steaks – ought to be ready sometime tonight or tomorrow. I started off with a very basic spice mixture – equal parts salt, black pepper and coriander. The beef batch got the same mix, with the addition of some chili flakes, garlic powder, cloves and sugar. Looking forward to the taste testing!
Bad Daddy. Half of the US population has been working out its issues for nearly a decade.
I don’t think it will stop until Trump is dead.
Then what?
Yes, it probably would be helped with hearing aids. The technology is amazing. The devices can help with tinnitus. I felt like you did. But in the process of claiming tinnitus with the VA I was given a hearing test. It was determined that hearing aids would help because I had hearing loss. I did not think I had hearing loss that warranted hearing aids.
When I got the devices I was amazed at the sounds I was missing. I am fortunate that the VA covered the cost. The devices allow me to take phone calls hands free, stream from the TV, adjust for the noise environment. The hearing compensation is adjusted and programmed for the specific hearing loss. Amazing technology.
Seriously, both Nick and Lynn need to get tested. Costco has the best prices for custom hearing aids. The testing is at no charge I believe.
Hearing loss is not a failing any more than heart stents, fake knees, or zits.
Well, the truck software updated. The update fixed an issue where a connected trailer lights would stop working along with the trailer brakes. Significant since I tow a travel trailer. Good that update was done now as I have reservations at Cumberland Mountain State Park the third week of April. Lack of trailer brakes is not good.
I did have to adjust my load leveling hitch height as this truck is about 2″ taller from the ground than my prior truck. I had to turn the bracket upside down from what I had to get what I think is the proper height from the ground. That height is critical for the friction bars that control the sway.
I have had an alert on my prior truck about excessive sway, yeh it was scary. The truck actually applies the trailer brakes and reduces the throttle applied. It seemed effective. The truck did it before I could get to the trailer brake controller and apply the trailer brakes.
I just checked. I have 120 hearing aid batteries that I no longer need. I used to have battery powered hearing aids and those were replaced by rechargeable hearing aids. The old hearing aids were having problems. I had to have them repaired three times in the span of three years. No damage, just quit working. They had to be sent back to the manufacturer to be repaired. Four times I had to have the earpiece replaced. The VA finally decided to replace them. I had the option of battery or rechargeable.
The advantage of the batteries is that when a battery dies, it is just replaced. With rechargeable the hearing aid has to be recharged and that takes time. Spare batteries were easy to carry with me in a small carrier on the keychain. With rechargeable I would need to carry the recharging case, which is rechargeable battery powered, and good for about three full recharges on the hearing aids.
The batteries would typically last three days. The rechargeable hearing aids are good for about 18-20 hours between charges, less time if streaming is used a lot. Charging takes about three hours.
Given a choice, I would still stick with rechargeable hearing aids.
These units I have had for about two and a half years. About six months ago one of the units was no longer holding a normal charge and was dying after about 12 hours. I lived with that until one unit just quit. The units had to be sent off for repairs and the battery replaced. The firmware was also updated to the latest version. When the devices were returned the vendor had switched the left and right ear molds and they devices had to be returned again.
What I got with these hearing aids was an earmold rather than a dome. The dome does not seal the ear, are easily replaced when dirty. The earmold is a better seal and the receiver is larger so more strength than the ear domes. I like the molds as I generally don’t even know they are in the ear. There is a small hole in the old so that pressure can equalize.
Both types of units have wax filters. A small plug with a very fine screen that blocks ear wax from getting in the receiver. Those have to be replaced every so often. Sometimes they plug entirely and must be replaced to regain sound.
Back to the original paragraph. What do I do with the 120 batteries? Give them to Costco? I doubt they would accept them. Give them to the church? Maybe someone in the church uses that size battery. Give them to a local thrift store? They would lose them. The batteries are in the packages, but not the original box that contained multiple packages. They are size 312 if anyone here wants them.
Beautiful.
But a lot of maintenance for that lot, even retired that will keep you busy, or paying someone.
It is getting crazy out there.
I was talking to the lead septic pumping guy Thursday (while the younger guy dug) and he mentioned some excitement at his place in Palmdale last week.
He had been hearing weird banging noises lately, as if things were falling down in his shop. He looked and didn’t see anything and figured it was just mice or birds. Then a couple days later he heard a “bang” *inside* his house and started looking around – and found a bullet hole in his daughter’s bedroom window and the 22cal slug itself embedded in the door jam.
Looking out the window and over his fence he saw a neighbor with a rifle go back inside his house.
So he grabbed his pistol and called a friend who was a local sheriff – who warned him not to go outside (particularly with a weapon) because they were on their way – and in in 10 minutes they had the neighborhood locked down, and in 20m arrested and took the guy away.
Just a nut job, he didn’t even know the guy. No idea why.
A couple days later he happened to be out in the shop at sunrise. And discovered the source of the noise: there were nice pencil diameter rays of sun shining through from the multiple bullet holes in the metal siding, in one side and out the other side…
The guy had been shooting at his place for days.
The guy had been shooting at his place for days.
– holy crap. That’s a sphincter tightener.
@ray, I did the Costco test and he’s the one that said I wasn’t quite there yet. My losses are very ‘notch-y’. Throughout the range, I have freqs I just can’t hear in one ear or the other, and they are not the same. It means I don’t get any directionality on some sounds, and that under normal conditions my hearing seems fine, as I still have hearing across the range, for the most part.
It makes intelligibility suffer, especially with female and children’s voices. I can hear they are talking, but can’t make out what they are saying.
And the tinnitus is a problem. It sounds like an old CRT whining most of the time, but it manifests in other ways too. Occasionally, volume in an ear just drops suddenly and slowly returns. That’s weird.
And of course, noise HURTS. Restaurants are very bad with the clatter of forks on plates and all the voices echoing.
I feel like there should be some aphorism, like “We should all be lucky to live long enough to suffer for the folly of our youth” because complaining about living through all the stuff, and now being “old” and suffering from the things “old” people do is really a gift. It beats dying young.
———-
only 72F and the sun seems to be struggling.
I’ve got things to do so I better get busy.
n
Yesterday’s high temp was 83f. As the front passed the temps dropped and I closed the house when it was 75 inside and outside. Then told you about the chicken I grilled.
It was 53 this morning. Not horrible cold, just chilly. It’s up to 60. Cloudy with light gray flannel clouds. That’s what the sky looks like.
The t-stat is set to 70 for heat. It drops to 67 during the night. The setting goes to 70 at 6am. The t-stat anticipates and starts the heat before time to have the temp at setpoint. Er, it doesn’t wait to start the heat at 6am to make the house 70f.
I don’t know exactly how it works, just that it almost always does.
When I went to bed last night it was 66f outside and 75 inside. The heat first ran at 5:45 am for 10 minutes. Not the usual start at 4:30 time.
The system is cycling. Runs about 10 minutes, maybe 15, I look at the clock and don’t notice when the system turns off. It’s not a noisy system.
All of this noise to say “the foam insulation is great and we should have had it done years ago”.
It’s going to interesting to see how kWh usage changes.
@nick
Consider pulling the trigger and getting hearing aids “early.” What I learned from my grandmother’s and my Dad’s experience with hearing loss is that one’s brain loses audio processing ability of those weakening signals, and if you wait too long then although hearing aids can boost the signal strength, the brain can no long interpret them. Both my grandmother and my Dad found that they could hear people speaking normally again, but sometimes couldn’t figure out what they were saying. Dad compared it to “Charlie Brown’s teacher.”
Also worth noting, my Dad’s hearing aids came with a control app on his mobile phone which included a variety of sound/filter profiles, once of which was “crowded room or restaurant.” He said using that helped immensely.
Go to a real audiologist. One who tests beyond the tones and does word recognition. Then take the profile to Costco to get programmed devices.
All the high end hearing aids have apps to control the filters. Some, like mine, do the filters automatically. I can hear them change after about a minute in a restaurant.
Yep, that is what I hear all the time. The aids help as I now get sounds in that frequency range and it sort of masks the whine,
Wife’s brother has been diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia. 5-7 year survival. We don’t know how far along he is with the disease. He has been told he can no longer drive. We will probably be making an unplanned trip to Bryan, Round Rock, San Antonio and Brenham on Monday. We need to make some decisions and plans with the $250K his mother left in my wife’s custody for the son/brother’s care. It wasn’t in the will, but a verbal instruction. I want to give it to the oldest son and let him deal with it and get me out of the loop. The wife’s brother’s wife does not know the money exists. That will be, ummm, interesting.
That is an unfortunate reason for a trip to Texas, but you may get lucky and catch the tail end of blue bonnet season on the highways outside Brenham.
Below freezing this morning here. Didn’t think to check the temp but it felt 25-ish. This afternoon the temp got well above freezing. By “well above” I mean a couple degrees. Fair amount of blue sky, so not getting any sun wasn’t the problem.
Unrelated to that, he wind has been somewhat problematic. As expected for this location and time of year but still a nuisance. I’m glad I didn’t move the chicken coop out to the yard yet because the wind would have picked up the run a couple times in the past couple days.
Meanwhile, I’d better wrap this up and check on the birds. They’re looking in one direction and carrying on with the particular whine which usually means that one got out (usually because the wind blew the door partway open) and they’re stuck in the run and that’s not fair!
EDIT: Nope, they’re all there and the door is closed, but they were all looking at the neighbor’s garden. Possibly they saw some animal flouncing around, all free n stuff.
Ah, but the ‘free’ animals don’t get a house to keep the rain and wind off, or treeeaaaattttssss!!!11!! Or a pet human to keep the hawk away.
I’m sure the trade off is worth it.
n
Up here, most wild mammal and non-migratory bird species have a die-off rate of around 75% in the young animals’ first winter. I suspect that domestic chickens would be closer to 100% because they didn’t evolve in this climate. They know how to huddle together under bushes and they’re willing (if unhappy) to walk across snow and scratch for scraps of edible whatever, but I suspect that most or all of them would freeze or starve in our five months a year of nothing to eat, even if they weren’t caught by a raccoon, coyote, or wild dog.
And are the jerks grateful for the food* and warmth and clean straw**? No, they are not.
* Aside from the usual pellets and corn, they got a handful of raisins when I brought them to the yard run, a handful of dried black fly larvae when I brought them back to the patio run, and half a head of romaine lettuce*** just as a treat. I mean treeeeeeeaaaaat.
** I cleaned the poop out of the coop today, though not a full cleaning. I threw a few handsful of straw in to replace the removed part. When I brought the birds back in, one went straight up into the coop and, as expected, stopped in the doorway. “Something’s different! I don’t like it!”
*** As part of her rehab, Grandma cuts up lettuce and cabbage. I no longer need to buy lettuce for the birds because my wife is buying quite a lot for Grandma to cut up, more than she needs for cooking.
As long as you have the cabbage, I can recommend homemade sauerkraut. I have a dedicated crock for it with a kind of airlock lid. I make about 3 quarts at a time. All you need is salt, and it’s pretty good.
We mix it with (homemade) brown mustard and a little German beer, put it in a shallow pan, and cook bratwurst on the grill. Then a few minutes out of the pan to get grill marks.
Also good with slices of roast pork loin.
“Descent (The Palladium Wars #4)” by Marko Kloos
https://www.amazon.com/Descent-Palladium-Wars-Marko-Kloos/dp/1542036151?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number four of a four book military science fiction series. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback published by 47North in 2024 that I bought on Amazon in 2024. I suspect and hope that there will be more books in the series as there are eight books and several novellas in his Frontlines series.
The Gretians lost the system wide war to the Alliance of the Gaia system several years ago. With a half million dead and trillions of ags expended, feelings still run high even though it has been almost two decades since the armistice. And the fifteen percent of Gretia GDP being paid as war reparations and the Alliance occupation of Gretia are breeding continual resentment against the Alliance.
Aden Ragnar has been let out of the POW camp on the Oceana planet after six years in exchange for spying on his native planet, Gretia. Except he is hiding under the Robertson name since he does not want the Alliance to know that he is the heir to one of the first families on Gretia. His sister is still healing from being shot during a terrorist incident on Gretia.
And the spaceways in the Gaia system are being tormented by pirates. Alliance spaceships are looking for them but space is wide and deep and the pirates are few and far between.
BTW, the series reminds me a lot of the time period on Earth between WWI and WWII.
The author has a website at:
https://www.markokloos.com/
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (4,522 reviews)
Lynn
Yesterday’s chicken is almost as good today. As usual, not as spicy.
While replacing the skirting I found a Husky light fixture. Folded up, it’s about the size of a four foot long 4×4. It has fold out tripod legs. The post extends up, maybe seven feet? With two LED light heads that you can swivel as needed. Yeah. It’s not pretty. It has plenty of foam over-spray. But half an hour with a single edge razor will clean the chunks of foam off the lens. Maybe some some rubbing alcohol will clean the rest.
We had a similar thing a few years back. I don’t know where it went. It had a couple of 300 watt halogen fixtures. Maybe 500 watt. I forget. Nice on a cold day.
Anyway. I sent the guy a text. No reply yet. Since they are based in San Antonio, I doubt it’s worth their time to come get it. But now they know where it is.
“SpaceX President: Starlink Could Plateau at 15,000 or 20,000 Satellites”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-president-starlink-could-plateau-at-15000-or-20000-satellites
“The company is still planning other huge satellite constellations. But the broadband-focused Starlink might be nearing its ceiling, according to Gwynne Shotwell.”
“Read TIME’s Full Interview with SpaceX’s Gwynne Shotwell”
https://time.com/article/2026/03/26/spacex-gwynne-shotwell-full-interview/
“Elon just announced that the company is turning its focus away from Mars for a little while [in favor of the moon].”
“I wouldn’t say the focus; maybe more energy into the moon. We are not going to lose sight of our Mars vision in any way. But I think, again, the convergence of AI and SpaceX and what we’re doing—data centers in space, mass drivers on the moon, producing AI satellites on the moon. So I guess it’s a sort of shift in focus. But I don’t want people to think that we’re losing sight of Mars. The minute I met Elon, it was about settlements on Mars, it seemed so crazy. Now, it doesn’t seem crazy at all, right?”
“The Home-Grown Shahed Drone Threat to America” by Matt Bracken
https://steelcutter.substack.com/p/the-home-grown-shahed-drone-threat
“First, watch this very short video: “Launching Shahed-type drones from a moving pickup truck.” (So there is no need for rocket assisted launching)”
“Folks, we are going to see this attack vector spread around the world, including in the United States. The Iranians invented and developed the small attack drone niche, the Russians copied it with their Gerans, and now even the USA is belatedly copying it with the Lucas. ”
Say there boy, what you got in the back of that pickup ?
There was a German restaurant in Austin called Gunther’s. Great food. It was a block or so north of Braker Lane on the I-35 access road.
Tasted like home but we didn’t have anything my parents cooked when I was a kid. Mexican and Italian doesn’t taste like home.
Their sauerkraut did not agree with me. I puffed up and went to sleep face down on the sofa in the living room. Spent the rest of the night passing gas. Poot poot poot. I puffed up so much I had stretch marks. For real.
After that, yeah, just a couple of forks of sauerkraut. As seasoning, like cranberry sauce. Not an entire bowl.
I have about a dozen words of German. Asking where is the bath room is not in my words. But when I hear folks just talking, like the folks in the next booth in Denny’s, it just sounds right, I sort of know what they are saying but I don’t know the words. Someone at the table asked what are they talking about. And I told him. Roughly. They are here in Austin and heading towards the Grand Canyon after seeing Big Bend. I dunno. Maybe I’m just weird.
Best I know one set of great great grands came from Prussia and the other set from somewhere in Bavaria. Dad had about as much German as I have Spanish. His Mom was bi-lingual but mostly English. His Grandmother spoke mostly German but spoke English, too. That’s all I know,
So. Push the math. Rough numbers. Dad was born about 1923. So figure his mom was born about 1895. His grandmom, back another 25 years to 1870….. and I think her parents were from something something somewhere Germany. But they might have been born here, too. Which pushes that side of the family back another 25 years to 1845 or to 1820. I have no clue about the paternal line, I assume it’s about the same.
I’m American. Why German sounds normal to me, though I don’t know the words, is a mystery.
Oh. Had company once, a party. I cooked “stuff”. No name, just pork chops floured and fried a bit and then simmered in mushroom gravy and served with egg noodles. Just a thing I just know how to cook. like frying an egg. Nancy, she had been in the Army and in Germany said this is the best Jager Schitzel she had ever had, how did you do this? .. I just shrugged and said I just cooked it, no recipe.
Yeah. I’m rambling tonight. Talking to myself.
Ray,
If you are going to be in Round Rock, Burnet isn’t that far away. I have a couple of spare bedrooms. It would be great to meet you in person. Maybe we can burn some meat on the grill and have a few beers..
Talking to myself.
– talking to us, which is cool. Maybe you heard more German as a baby than you think.
My dad’s mom came over on a boat in 1903 iirc as a child. She spoke russian and lithuanian at home. School in Chicago was taught in Polish in the morning and English in the afternoon in her neighborhood. So she learned those too. Her kids spoke only english, except the curse words and pet names. Like rupūžė which is what grandpa called the kids, “toad”.
Some of the “family” staples and special meals turned out to be Polish.
There was a huge Lithuanian population in Chicago and even a daily newspaper in Lithuanian into the ‘80s. [turns out it’s still published! and is the oldest continuously published Lithuanian language newspaper anywhere in the world]
One of my best friends in high school grew up only speaking Lithuanian, and learned english in kindergarten. He still says some odd things, being mostly self taught. He will plug something in, but also ‘plugs it out.’ IE “Plug in the drill, and plug out the grinder.”
n
I stayed with Thunderbird 2.xxx what ever since forever. T-Bird 3 sucked. Changed the operating system to Mint and T-Bird is now at version 140 or so. It does stuff I don’t like that I haven’t found a way to fix.
But I have noticed a thing it does. It appears it downloads the subject lines of e-mail real fast…. then back-fills and down loads the bodies.. Kinda like it prefers IMAP but I’m doing POP.
Maybe I’m just seeing things.
No German as a baby. For whatever messed up family thing, my dad was told, while he was in the Marines in Korea, like, in ’53. that Mom had died. Well, so, why ever go back to Wisconsin?
Turned out later that she actually passed in ’66. And somehow he found out a few years later.
I have no idea what the problem was. The hate between siblings. I’ve never met any of my dad’s family.
I remember stuff, not all of course, back to when I was two. No German.
Yeah. I’ve caught that with Spanish speaking folk. I think it’s a confusion happening with gender tenses of words.
Like, in English you say “the”. Like “the dog”. Other languages have to me crazy stuff. Like, el doggo and la dogga.
No wonder we don’t get along.
9:25 my time. Penny is on the bed. Buddy the Beagle is stalking me…. like, … let’s go to bed already.
So. Good Night to all.
Thanks for the offer. Maybe just a stop for lunch. I don’t drink beer.
I am familiar with the area, especially Marble Falls. I used to live in San Antonio and would take the boat and camp at Inks Lake State Park.
I have met Lynn, Nick and Mr. Atoz. I did attend RBT’s memorial and met Barbara and her kin folk.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/secret-service-agent-assigned-jill-biden-shoots-himself-leg-philadelphia-airport
ND’d himself in his car, not in the airport.
n
“well trained LEOs are the only ones who should be able to have guns”
Tomorrow I leave Illinois and can go armed again.
I feel naked.
Hah, I AM naked.
.
.
.
.
not really. Getting ready for bed though.
n