Mid 70sF and probably damp. Maybe even wet. We apparently got almost 4 inches of rain on Thursday, and there was water on the garage floor when W arrived. It was mostly cloudy when I arrived, but the forecast is for rain. Lake is very high.
I did a bunch of things in the morning, including writing checks and going to the mailbox. I also did some ebay correspondence. Then I got the truck loaded, two new propane bottles filled, and headed out.
When I got here I did a quick and brutal mow of the front and side areas. It was pretty dark when I finished so I bet it looks bad. The grass was about 18″ on the side area and I mostly pushed it over with the mower. It has to look better than the overgrowth. If not, I’ll mow again. Weather permitting.
And if the weather is nice, I’ll do outdoor stuff, including hanging some cameras and pulling cat cable, as well as getting the mower serviced and put to good use. If it’s not nice, I’ll do inside stuff. There is plenty to do.
Too much really. I need to find some stuff to outsource. I can’t do it all, even if I could do the work. I just don’t have time.
I will do what I can in the mean time.
And stack.
nick
Well, it’s starting. The run-up to the Summer solstice, that is, and very early mornings.
I opened up the chicken cage right at 0600. The birds would have preferred to be let out earlier. Before I came out they were able to come down from the coop and get food but they were still caged up like animals. Unacceptable!
The last several years I was getting up around 0430 starting mid-June to let the chickens out before 0500.
For the most part, that doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t much matter if I lie down at 2300 and get up at 0430 or lie down at 2400 and get up at 0530. Buuuut… for the past year-plus, the household has been disrupted by the mother-in-law and the aides and I’m getting run down from the nightly interruptions and getting up at 0430 is going to be a challenge in a couple months. My wife is worse off. Her hearing isn’t nearly as good as mine so she’s not woken by thumps in the night but she needs much more sleep than I. Meh, I’ll live, probably.
The Child came here yesterday, mostly to see about car work. The car she inherited has smashed-up front body work, on account of her mother is a terrible driver, and I had told her that if she made it through the winter without driving into anything, I’d get it fixed. She also mooched several meals, better than the college cafeteria’s filling but cheap and greasy food, got some homework help, and talked with her grandmother, who was having a rare good day and recognized her and was able to speak a coherent sentence. Bad state of affairs that that counts as a good day, but there you have it. The Child left with a batch of chocolate chip cookies, which a couple hours later she claimed that she started sharing around as soon as she got to the dorm, but I’m reserving belief on that claim until I see notarized testimonials by recipients.
The zero turn mower threw the blade belt. A piece of debris somehow got flipped into a pulley and knocked the belt off. Two problems. I had to figure out the belt routing with the three blade pulleys and three idler pulleys and main drive pulley. Thanks google. Once that was done getting access to the space required some contortions that did not feel good while laying on the ground. Then getting the belt back on all the pulleys, the last being the most difficult because of a very tight belt and strong belt tensioner. It took me about an hour to resolve everything.
What? In a theater? I thought streaming on Netflix was the future.
IIRC, you missed “F1” with your family situation last year. Get a BluRay if you didn’t see it.
Anyone who is bored watching “F1” is trying.
Cold this morning in the high desert, 27F.
I didn’t actually believe the thermometer until I walked out and noticed that there was skim ice on top of the birdbath. I haven’t looked at my seedling tomatoes, they were covered in mesh to keep the moths away but that may not have been enough to save them.
Last official freeze day is April 15 … but it’s been warm enough that I didnt ckeck the forecast last night.
oh well.
73F and medium overcast here. Food is cooking and coffee is perking, so soon I’ll be in a good mood.
House is quiet. W and the girls are in bed, although probably reading rather than sleeping.
n
I, too, will see the movie in a theater today. We got free tickets from the casino, bizatches!
Another ICE win:
Niece and grand niece of infamous Iranian general are arrested by ICE after ‘celebrating deaths of US soldiers while living high life in LA’ – and now their green cards have been REVOKED
Keep up the good work and get rid of the sub-humans.
Light rain started while I was string trimming. Downpour started while I was blowing the debris.
Shoveling and cleaning up silt, while fixing drainage paths started while downpouring.
Lunch started after the big puddles cleared.
One sensor says 1 ¼ “ so far, the other says almost 1”. I feel like it’s probably more than that and it’s still coming down.
Time to get into some dry clothes, and maybe find a covered spot to sit and watch the rain while my lunch settles.
n
>>What? In a theater? I thought streaming on Netflix was the future.
I’ll consider a theater when they’ve figured out having pee breaks.
Was at Costco the other day and the first TV they have displayed when you walk in is a 98 inch model for $1,500. Now just need to figure out where to build the home theater room.
Remember the new, cutting edge $7000 50″ plasma displays?
Make sure you have a wall that will handle a 150-inch screen in five years.
Saturday bedtime.
I am shattered, but happy.
Brother in law, two nephews and I managed to replace mother in law’s fish pond. That involved draining the pond, catching the fish, hauling out the mud, spreading it on the flower beds, dragging out the defective liner, laying new underlay, fitting a new rubber liner, refilling with water, trimming the edges, finishing with stone and gravel and landscaping, plus planting some new bushes and border plants.
We worked from 10am to 8pm, with an hour’s break for afternoon coffee and cake.
The new-old pond looks fantastic. The fish and water plants go back in tomorrow.
I am ready for bed. Goodnight, and a very happy Easter to those who celebrate the Paschal feast tonight. Christos anesti!
BREAKING: Trump Posts Video, Claims Iran’s Military Leadership Just Went Up In Smoke
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2026/04/04/breaking-trump-posts-video-claims-irans-military-leadership-just-went-up-in-smoke-n3813573
“But Mr. President! You promised them 10 days!”
“No. I said they could have ten days. They got back to me early and said ”No deal.” And besides, this is only a partial Hell–so far.”
I wonder how much spyware will be loaded onto a 150 inch screen at a price palatable to Costco shoppers.
Planar is now ChiCom owned.
Another ICE win:
Niece and grand niece of infamous Iranian general are arrested by ICE after ‘celebrating deaths of US soldiers while living high life in LA’ – and now their green cards have been REVOKED
Keep up the good work and get rid of the sub-humans.
Strip them of all their assets pending a determination that they lied on their applications.
Confiscate their cell phone and force them to unlock them, so their texts and contacts can be examined–there’s probably another 100-1000 that can get the boot.
Do a forensic exam on their bank accounts and lock down anything accessible pending the efforts of the Iranian people to recover stolen funds after the government changes.
Fly them to Iran and let the Iranian people know where and when you are going to drop them off–they will take care of things from there.
So is it possible to over-write the transponders on French cargo ships and make them look American?
Asking for a friend who is darn sick of picking French knives out of our backs.
France kicked out US forces in 1967.
French perfidy is not new.
I had a co-worker, Army brat, who remembered the eviction.
“French perfidy is not new.”
And we have never made them pay the price.
First clothe them in “gay” clothes, you know, rainbow shirt(-r), and make certain there are some gay pride flags in their personal belongings. Along with a pound of bacon and some pickled pigs’ feet.
My brothers and I bought my father a 50 inch plasma for about $3000 back in the day. It was a Sony I believe, and he used it until he passed – and then my brother used it for another six or seven years, so probably a decade of life or more before something finally failed.
It put out a tremendous amount of heat, btw, and also developed a high-pitched mosquito-like whine that neither my father nor my brother could hear. Drove me crazy when I was around it.
Heh, mildly apropos of that I was watching some video of Iraqi Shia technicals rolling over the border into Iran, driving dozens (hundreds?) of those white Toyota Hilux pickups and wondering if the trucks were phoning home, and if the Israeli intelligence knew?
We bought a 50″ plasma TV when the price fell to ONLY $1500. From Amazon. It worked wonderfully for 15 years, but started acting squirrely last year, so we bought a 65″ LCD TV for $600. It’s for the wife; I almost never watch TV anymore.
Planar is now ChiCom owned.
– that’s not good news. Guess we’re down to NEC and Panasonic “signage” monitors now.
Plasma TV’s still have the best (most accurate) performance to CRT monitors, and that matters to some film afficianados. Stuff that was mastered for CRT will look great on a plasma.
Modern flatscreens play all sorts of games. Their color spectrum is much wider than film or TV, the refresh rate is too high. The “smoothing” makes everything move weirdly… you’ll notice that “cinema mode” is dim, with less of a contrast ratio, and decidedly different color gamut.
Our kids won’t notice, they didn’t grow up with NTSC or film. But we do and it doesn’t look “right”.
n
Plasmas were not approved for secure environments. Tempest and ‘van ech’ phreaking worked with them like it worked with CRTs.
The generals got exceptions to the policy so they could have sexy flat screens. Where they couldn’t get exceptions, you had rear projected cubes making a wall, since the projectors didn’t have the same radiated noise (RF) and were approved.
We still had to cut the IR physically out of them to prevent “side channel” info leakage…
n
My 55 inch Vizio has a great picture. 120 refresh rate. A better picture than the 32 inch Sony Trinitron it replaced. It was about $2000 with tax in November 2009.
Sure, a larger screen might be good. After the Vizio dies of old age.
Tonight’s movie was SISU Road to Revenge. Dang. That dude is one tough mofo.
I liked the movie.
I had a brain fart today. I started the movie and it didn’t seem to matter what stereo mode I selected, the sound didn’t change. The TV volume was set at 10. Volume on the stereo? No difference.
Hey, dummy. CHANGE THE INPUT SOURCE.
I’m like “duh”.
The TV has lots of HDMI inputs. So all that HDMI stuff is connected to the TV. The TV feeds optical audio to the stereo. The point of doing it this way is so you can watch anything but not need the stereo running. Not everything needs RumbleRama audio.
The Squeezebox also feeds optical audio to the stereo. But on a different input.
I forgot that detail. I’m embarrassed to say so.
Anyway. the Sisu movie is great. I really, really liked the ending.
I can’t log into my Discover card account. “something went wrong”. Like a fool, I called. She sent me a temporary password. Still can’t log in.
Sh wanted an e-mail address. So, paul@remsset dot com. Ok, ya want that instead of emupaul as a user name? Ok. Doesn’t work.
AdBlock Plus is disabled. PiHole is disabled. I’m kind of stumped.
It’s not the end of the world. Just annoying as heck.
I don’t have anyone to talk to anymore that has any interest in this. So, y’all get to suffer.
This time last night it was 77f in the house. The wind was picking up a bit as the front started coming in and the outside temp was down to 60. So I closed all of the windows except for a couple in the bedroom. Run-on sentence much? Keep the house warm, and if it gets cold in the bedroom I’ll close the windows.
Slept great last night. The dogs seemed to sleep great, too. Not cold, not hot. Lots of snoring.
It’s now 55f outside. 74 inside. It’s been cloudy and it rained this morning. Kind of chilly in the wind. I turned the heat on this morning. …… Usually it would have run by now. Several times. And be 70 inside the house.
But no. It’s 74 in the house and 55 outside. The heat has not run at all. I don’t need feet sweaters.
I haven’t even had a full electric bill cycle.
W and kids are watching “Life of Brian.” We colored a few eggs. Dinner was steaks, from 2021. I grilled one from 2018 but since it was only “select” quality, I will eat it as a sandwich or salad tomorrow.
Rain came back for a while. Now the dock sensor says 1.25″.
My back was spasming (which it does with regularity) and I’m getting some muscle cramping, so I’m taking some meds and going to bed early.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
n
@Paul, I’m surprised how much difference that insulating the floor makes. My rent house has no insulation under the floor and is 2 ft off the ground. The breeze under helps keep it cool in the summer, and cold in the winter, but I didn’t think it would be quite so dramatic.
The “Sisu” sequel didn’t do well at the box office, but it impressed the right people so the creative team behind the movies have the next “Rambo” flick, a “prequel”, with Stallone’s blessing.
That’s important because it appears that Stallone is going to finish his career bigger than he ever was in the past.
“Never Forsaken (The Kurtherian Gambit #5)” by Michael Anderle
https://www.amazon.com/Forsaken-Kurtherian-Gambit-Michael-Anderle/dp/B0CHL7R62W?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number five of a twenty-one science fiction and paranormal fantasy series. There is also an eleven book follow on series and several other books related to the The Kurtherian Gambit Universe, over 200 books in total. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2016 that I bought new on Amazon in 2026. I own the next three books in the series already. The related series are listed at:
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?46598
The series is a cross between science fiction and paranormal fantasy. A thousand plus years ago, an alien space ship crash landed in the Baltics. A man, Michael, found the space ship, went inside, and was forever changed into the first vampire using alien nanocytes. However, there were werewolves and werebears already existing on Earth and they still exist.
Michael has sired vampires and they have sired vampires. But only one of the vampire “children” is a daywalker like Michael. And Michael enforces strict rules among the vampires and the weres, no blood drinking, no letting humans know of them, etc. Violators of Michael’s rules face swift termination.
But it has been thousand years since Michael was changed and he now sleeps for years at a time. Michael’s helpers found a young woman named Bethany Anne working for the USA government who is dying of a rare blood disease. Michael took her to the alien space ship to become the second first generation vampire on Earth. Now Bethany Anne is cleaning Earth of the evil vampires and weres but, they are fighting back. And Bethany Anne is building her empire but it is complex and taking a lot of time.
This series is real pulp like old science fiction with lots of action and dialogue. I love it !
Warning: this series might be damaging to your savings account since there are so many books.
The author has a website at:
https://lmbpn.com/
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (4,455 reviews)
Lynn
“Houston leads America in population growth for 2025, Census states”
https://houston.culturemap.com/news/city-life/houston-harris-county-population-grown/
“New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show the 10-county Houston metro added 126,720 residents from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025. That’s just shy of Pearland’s roughly 133,000-resident tally.”
“On July 1, 2025, the Houston metro’s population hovered slightly above 7.9 million, up 1.6 percent from the same time in 2024. In the very near future, the region’s population should break the eight million mark.”
“This follows massive growth in the past 20 years. From 2005 to 2025, the region’s population soared by 39 percent. By comparison, the growth rate from 2021 to 2025 sat at nine percent.”
When is this going to stop ? I have had around 4,000 or so homes built within one mile of my house in the last couple of years with another 10,000 homes planned in the next couple of years. The traffic is going crazy.
“Nearly 10% of US Births Are Anchor Babies”
https://rumble.com/v782jfu-nearly-10-of-us-births-are-anchor-babies.html?mref=1wxk5&mc=ehuil
Anchor babies getting free citizenship has got to stop.