And it will be hot, wet, and sticky. Because HOUSTON! Cooler at the BOL, but I’ll be home this week and it will be Summer. Details mixed and variable.
Spent the day Sunday working on the window install and a couple of other things. W stayed to help a few hours longer than she originally thought she could. There are some things I just need help with. And she did those things. Then I did more work after she left.
Today I’ve got a very early kid taxi commitment, then possibly a pickup south of Houston. I won some stuff to sell at my upcoming hobby show, and pickup is this week. I’m sure I’ll find other stuff to do today, but I’m not sure what yet. Probably I’ll end up at my secondary location where I can put stuff in the dumpster because I’ve got a load of mixed debris in the truck. Then I’ll probably move some stuff to the shop.
I’m talking to a new auction company about doing a consignment of all the stuff I’d normally send to my buddy. I hope they will take it. Time to clear some space and make some money.
And all the usual stuff will be happening too.
Stack.
nick
Monday. Good morning!
Back at the grindstone today. Meh. Of course, I had great plans for all the cool things I would get done and off my list during my time off work last week. What I did mostly was sleep. Apparently, I was absolutely shattered from working on megaproject.
For the time being, my work radar is looking reasonably clear of incoming grief, so I might be able to work normal office hours for a while and try tackling the list outside work hours. That will be the plan, at least.
Yesterday was a nice relaxed day at the BOL. The local walking club had their summer party. I overslept and missed the walking part, but I woke in time for the oompah-band music, grilled meat and beer lunch, at which I met and chatted with plenty of my friends and got to know a few new-to-me locals, so that was a win. Knowing people is a multiplier, because friends introduce new acquaintances, who become friends, who introduce new acquaintances, and so on…
I socialised as much as I could, but I was back in bed, and asleep, by 6pm. I slept almost uninterrupted until 07:30 this morning. Did I mention I had been tired?
Wishing you all a good week!
Sometimes sleep is a prep.
Indeed it is. Unfortunately, storing it up in advance is not very successful…
Got up to take the kid to her thing and found out it was an hour later that she wanted to leave. I got another half hour of sleep, so I guess that was good. Time to get her out of the house in a few.
Tired, yeah, I got that.
—
78F and sunny so ‘hot’ is getting off to a good start.
Maybe I’ll nap when I get back.
n
Because of my memory problems (almost fully explained by lack of sleep) I keep a detailed daily log of what I’ve done and what needs to be done. If I need to go somewhere, I note both the time I need to be there and the time I need to leave, and if applicable the time I need to start getting ready or even the time I need to wake up. (Though that latter is rare because I get up so early for the chickens.) Most often, if I need to go anywhere, I’ll combine a number of errands, so I’ll work up an itinerary with required must-be-there points marked.
This level of planning for a trip involving three errands and one set point in time is probably not necessary for most people but, as noted, I have problems with short-term memory. I’m not worried about it, as the problems largely go away on the rare occasion that I get enough sleep that I don’t have a headache.
tRump doesn’t need to sign a proposed amnesty bill for farm workers. Activist judges will just keep issuing nation wide injunctions until there is a Dumbocrat President. Said commie judges will also interfere in the next Presidential election somehow. A Redumblicans is almost a shoo-in.
https://www.dailymail.com/yourmoney/article-16008207/cracker-barrel-ceo-julie-masino-quits.html
Guess it took some time to negotiate her golden parachute.
Yes, three years to almost destroy a brand into possible bankruptcy, then walk away with what I am guessing is going to be more than $100 million. What a racket. She will now get a CEO position at another company and repeat the process. Carly Fiorina pulled the same stunt with HP and made the company that was a leader in testing instruments, and top notch printers, into a third rate printer company and fourth rate laptops made for QVC and HSN.
Don‘t forget the Compaq merger on iCarly’s watch.
I watched the signs come down at the HP campus in Vantucky during our time there.
The inkjet printers were invented and manufactured there until 1999.
Taco Julie’s replacement is from Bloomin’ Brands. That resume entry doesnt exactly inspire confidence given the BLMN share price, but the new CEO is male.
CBRL has nearly zero retail holders at this point. I still believe that the institutions holding the stock are prepping the chain to sell to private equity to dismember for the real estate value.
I’ve seen two newly remodeled Outback Steakhouse restaurants closed within the last year in Austin and San Antonio. I doubt that they are the only closures in the country.
BLMN is Tampa’s last Fortune 500 HQ.
Steakhouse/BBQ restraraunts are under significant price pressure with the high cost of beef, and the effect of high prices of everything on consumer spending, including high cost of fuel (especially diesel, which affects shipping/trucking costs of just about everything).
I was in an independent steakhouse last weekend, and 8 ounce steak (with two small side dishes) was around $50. The bill for two of us was over $120. How many families can afford that? BBQ places are under extreme price pressure. Not just the big chains.
People are using their savings just for regular groceries. Sure, some abuse of SNAP/etc type benefits, but that has always been there. Current food prices are just nuts.
I don’t have an X account. But this, what is going to happen to Ukraine “feels right”. Yeah, I know. Feelings are not facts. But from what I’ve read of Russian history….
I’ve never understood why France and England and Germany have always treated Russia like retarded hillbilly white trash. I think it’s ignorance.
I have enough Spanish to ask where is the bathroom and order from a menu and call you the son of a raped woman. I don’t speak enough French or Italian or German to do any of that. But I can sort of read the stuff.
Hey, I managed to read Chaucer back in 9th grade well enough to think, wow, great story. I’m no linguistic genius.
But Russian is in Cyrillic, a different alphabet. And I think that’s the problem. The folks “running things” that are so “super smart” don’t have the brain power to learn the Cyrillic alphabet. Not even enough to be able to skim read anything in Russian. Or Greek for that matter.
So they just hate all of the folks that write funny. Because it’s a secret code.
I have a couple of Russian sci-fi movies. Aliens invading Earth stuff. Really good movies. I know maybe ten words of Russian beyond da and nyet and kopeck so I need the sub-titles on.
It’s interesting. Russian sounds almost right to my ear. The rhythm is different than English. It’s not Spanish or French. It’s not German.
Like listening to German… German sounds right but I don’t know the words. To my ear, Russian is almost like that. Better than Spanish or French. Hard to explain.
Sorry, OldGuy, but your entire comment was invalidated by the typo. (“restraraunts”) Don’t hate me for enforcing the rules.
As for the invalidated point you were making, I have some sympathy for restaurant managers and for other retailers and service providers, but that doesn’t mean I’m obligated to support them. I buy ribeye subprimals and typically get a dozen 16-oz steaks for under $150. Two steaks, a bag of tater tots, and a bag of frozen vegetables, steamed in the microwave, give the girls and me a good meal for $30. (If The Child is at school and Spare Kid isn’t here, it’s a steak and a home-made roll. The girls like rolls well enough but vote for tater tots 100% of the time.) Sure, there’s something to be said for “the restaurant experience”, but it’s not worth enough to me to pay for it more than once a year or so.
Much the same goes for most services. I do all of my own car work that I can, fix my own appliances, mow my own lawn. That’s partly for the money, partly for the ownership of what I use. Looking only at the money, though, the $150/hr that car shops typically charge now is after-tax dollars. That’s at least $250/hr of before-tax dollars. Even if I have to skip paying work to do my own repairs, I can miss an entire day to do something in the couple hours that a shop would bill. A job is going to have to require tools or expertise that I don’t have to make it worth taking my car to a shop. Similarly, I could pay a lawn service $80 (after-tax dollars, remember) or I could spend an hour of my time (and a dollar of gasoline) to do it myself, and get some exercise while I’m at it. I don’t use a leaf blower to clean the clippings off the driveway and sidewalk when I’m done. I just don’t see that as being worth the service’s fee.
I sympathize with the lawn services which have to raise their prices because of increased material costs and higher interest rates and higher salaries due to the shortage of people willing to work, but their problems are not my problem and I have enough of my own.
@SteveF – thanks for validating my comment.
You buy a dozen 16 oz steaks for $150. Which means that you don’t go to a steakhouse. Perhaps that was your habit before all the price increases. But since you (and many others) don’t go to the steakhouse because of their high prices, the steakhouse loses business. And perhaps closes.
You do a lot of your own work on vehicles. That’s great, if you have the time, knowledge, tools, etc to be able to do that. Not everyone has those skills. So they either have to pay to get it done, or defer maintenance. And aren’t the parts costs a lot more than last year?
Good on you for doing your own yard work. You have the skills, equipment, time, and physical ability to do that. Not everyone has that capability. So the yardwork gets deferred, or gets done by service workers. Who have to increase their pricing due to increases in their costs. Which may result in a reduced amount of customers.
So maybe the increases costs of groceries and fuel and services don’t affect you. Are you buying more store brands at the grocery store? Cutting back on purchases? Compare the things you were able to do a year ago with what you do now. Any difference? No ? – You’re a lucky guy.
Very little change. I’ve been living like I’m broke for years, because expenses have been higher than income for years. That’s partly an effect of the economy but more an effect of family issues – higher costs, more time consumed by “issues”, less available time for paying work (and often too brain-fried to work even when I nominally have time).
I hope that most people do not have the same issues that I do.
Too bad we all don’t have a sweet state gov pension and healthcare to live off of.
I’d agree with that. I am fortunate.
But I worked for it (23+ years), in a job that I knew would give me good retirement benefits.
Ok. A question that has bothered me forever. It’s not skills. It’s just being smart. Maybe? Clever? Not a bugger eater?
The folks I’ve known that don’t have the time sure seem to spend a lot time watching the TV.
I totally do not get it. My Mom taught me how to use the sewing machine when I was eight. Fancy stuff, like making a pillow case from an old bed sheet. Meanwhile, I’m still missing my favorite button up shirt Mom made me. Yeah, I out grew it. Still miss it.
Me being me, read the Singer owner manual. And my almost nine year old self wandered to the Singer Shop several blocks away. I bought a tube of Singer grease. Showed it to to mom. Showed her where the book says where to lube and all of that. Mom was like, ok.
I had that machine purring. So pretty to my ears.
Mom forgot about all of this. Next time she went to sew something she almost sewed her finger.
So I don’t get it. I know folks whose skill of auto maintenance 30 years age was changing a brake light bulb. And that was really really hard. Replacing a light bulb in a ceiling fixture was a big deal.
I knew a couple of folks (I seem to have outlived everyone) whose stove had a burner go wonky. Look for parts? Maybe $25 and an hour of time or go drop $900 for a brand new range. Yeah. Well. the new oven is clean!
I don’t get it. I just don’t. To me this is all like being able to wipe your butt.
Fauci the Butcher convicted by his own diaries:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/07/dear-diary.php
Not just lies, but damned lies all the way down.
Pardon by POTATUS may protect him from criminal charges, unless a case can be made for an ongoing coverup–which I would be in favor of even on the slenderest of grounds, just to drag him through the courts for the rest of his natural life before he spends the afterlife in hell–but even with a pardon the charge of malfeasance of office can be brought and proven and used as a basis to strip his pension and protection from civil suits.
“I don’t get it. I just don’t. To me this is all like being able to wipe your butt. ”
Being a wolf or a sheep takes place on more than one stage.
Walking down the street, buying a car, or doing maintenance on what you own, there are wolves and sheep.
My college roommate of several years was interested in splitting time and costs to build a bookshelf. He grew up in a family that did not own a power drill. Nineteen years old and never used a drill. Must have made an impression on me because more than half a century has passed and I can still remember trying–and failing–to understand.
Herr Docktor has to appear before Rand Paul’s committee under oath this week.
As long as the autopen-signed pardon holds, Fauci cannot invoke the fifth about the time period specified in the document.
Dragging my butt today. Not much getting done. Some auction stuff. It’s over 100F in the shade…
REALLY didn’t want to empty the trash out of my truck. I’ll combine trips and get it tomorrow.
n
If you drove a small dump truck, emptying it would be as easy as pulling a lever.
And it would hold so much more than a pickup!
And getting rid of annoying teenage daughters (redundancy alert) would be a piece of cake. “Hey, girls, want to ride in the back of the truck today?” #FollowMeForMoreParentingTips
Then I’d be a happy man in my dump truck…
https://i.etsystatic.com/6108496/r/il/cb5014/4150101717/il_570xN.4150101717_rnaz.jpg
n
Correct, but if he tells the truth, he could be punished. He is a member of the only minority group that can legally be discriminated against, working in a corporate world driven by DEI, and with management that hates America and Americans, being non-Americans all.
So a little PC fictive statement, and no one can use the truth against him.
Steakhouse/BBQ restraraunts are under significant price pressure with the high cost of beef, and the effect of high prices of everything on consumer spending, including high cost of fuel (especially diesel, which affects shipping/trucking costs of just about everything).
I just drove 250 miles today across south Texas. Diesel is $4.899 per US gallon at most places. Was up at $5.199 at one place. Regular unleaded gasoline is $3.599 per US gallon.
Diesel is the premier fuel of the world. Just anything that is worth anything runs on diesel. I suspect that we are shipping a LOT of diesel to Mexico, Europe, Asia, Caribbean, and other places, maybe 40 million gallons per day now. Plus, the idiots in California and Hawaii shut down the refineries there and that is putting pressure on our gasoline and diesel both.
I am wondering when the people of California will rise up and shoot all of the government officials. $12/US gallon of gasoline and diesel?
Gasoline and diesel are not high because of the price of crude oil. They are high because we have dropped from 250 refineries in the USA in 1980 to 90 refineries today. Pray that we do not close any more without replacing them.
I don’t have an X account. But this, what is going to happen to Ukraine “feels right”. Yeah, I know. Feelings are not facts. But from what I’ve read of Russian history….
I’ve never understood why France and England and Germany have always treated Russia like retarded hillbilly white trash. I think it’s ignorance.
There ain’t no windows in that room. I wonder how many hundreds of feet below the surface it is at?
Here’s the thing. Trump. I’m jus’ sayin’.
Correct, but if he tells the truth, he could be punished. He is a member of the only minority group that can legally be discriminated against, working in a corporate world driven by DEI, and with management that hates America and Americans, being non-Americans all.
So a little PC fictive statement, and no one can use the truth against him.
One wonders how long he can walk around with his male member tucked back between his butt cheeks without getting gangrene?
It felt like 100+ F in Port Lavaca today with the 80% humidity of being a sea port. I sweated quite a bit just examining the work I had done yesterday trimming all of the trees and bushes on the two acres and swearing at the murky swimming pool again. The pool guy told me that he can replace all of the pipes, the skimmers, and the plaster for $40K. I am very tempted but Mom will not get her money back at $675K. Plus the decking needs to be replaced but he does not do that. The 30,000 gallon pool was installed in 1965. My parents bought the house in 1986.
As long as it takes, Lynn. You’ve been family in a family-run business and then owner/operator of it forever. Those of us in the corporate world have to weigh the costs of every public statement. Tell the wrong joke, be in the wrong place, see the wrong thing, and your family goes hungry and you lose your retirement. If you complain about ill-treatment, you’re a whining pansy. If you sue, you’ll lose the case and your job.
I was not criticizing, I was explaining.
This is why commies need killed, not ridiculed. Democrats ruin everything.
And their funders. And their enablers. And their fellow-travelers. And the enforcers who are “just doing their jobs and following orders”.
The liner of the pool is probably chock full of asbestos if it is the original.
Federal Ban on Home Whiskey Distilleries Now Heading to Supreme Court
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/07/21/federal-ban-on-home-whiskey-distilleries-now-heading-to-supreme-court-n2204600
So the federal government has the power to ban something if they enact a tax on it?
That’s one hell of a penumbra you got there, Unca Sam. Must use a couple of mirrors and a lefthanded smoke shifter, too, ‘cuz I don’t see anything in the U.S. Constitution that suggests it.
https://ecosolutions.substack.com/p/the-forgotten-fuel-grown-by-farmers
I might just head to bed. I was next to worthless today and I’m falling asleep in my chair.
n
As long as it takes, Lynn. You’ve been family in a family-run business and then owner/operator of it forever. Those of us in the corporate world have to weigh the costs of every public statement. Tell the wrong joke, be in the wrong place, see the wrong thing, and your family goes hungry and you lose your retirement. If you complain about ill-treatment, you’re a whining pansy. If you sue, you’ll lose the case and your job.
I’ve been there, done that. I worked at a Fortune 100 company from 1982 to 1989. I got jumped by three union guys at our plant in Jacksonville, Texas in 1985 because they thought I was a scab. I refused to donate money to United Way in 1987 and got lectured by my boss, his boss, and three of the VPs. I told them that I donated a tenth of my salary to my church and they grudgingly accepted that with a few complaints since our President had promised 100% compliance.
I really hope that this place is tucked in a corner of the intertubes as I let it all hang out here. My competitors would broadcast anything I said to all of my customers if they could. Two of my competitors are Honeywell and Emerson Electric.
BTW, all three of my business partners have passed on. I am the only remaining partner.
The liner of the pool is probably chock full of asbestos if it is the original.
It is a gunite and plaster pool. No liner that I know of.
https://www.har.com/homedetail/1700-s-virginia-st-port-lavaca-tx-77979/8997990?lid=11031671
This is why commies need killed, not ridiculed. Democrats ruin everything.
RBT told me I was commie about ten years ago for being in favor of Medicare and Social Security. Or maybe because I was in favor of Medicare For All because Obamacare destroyed the private health insurance system. I do not remember.
Sloppy terminology.
The plaster applied over the gunnite is considered the waterproofing layer, hence “liner”. Not to be confused with a thick garbage bag dyed blue and printed to look like exposed aggregate plaster or tile, which it most certainly ain’t.
And if someone tries to sell you a fiberglass liner with a 50-year warranty, just ask them how long they’ve been in business.
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/07/21/federal-ban-on-home-whiskey-distilleries-now-heading-to-supreme-court-n2204600
So the federal government has the power to ban something if they enact a tax on it?
That’s one hell of a penumbra you got there, Unca Sam. Must use a couple of mirrors and a lefthanded smoke shifter, too, ‘cuz I don’t see anything in the U.S. Constitution that suggests it.
All you need is a judge like that idiot Jackson and they can find anything in the USA Constitution, usually the Interstate Commerce or the General Welfare statement.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
“Business Plan”
https://areaocho.com/business-plan/
“Mamdani says that NYC is going to open a city owned grocery store in each borough and sell products 30% less than retail stores do. Here is my plan.”
Mamdani’s people will show up and stick a knife in your ribs. And then go resell your stuff across the street.
As long as it takes, Lynn. You’ve been family in a family-run business and then owner/operator of it forever. Those of us in the corporate world have to weigh the costs of every public statement. Tell the wrong joke, be in the wrong place, see the wrong thing, and your family goes hungry and you lose your retirement. If you complain about ill-treatment, you’re a whining pansy. If you sue, you’ll lose the case and your job.
I was not criticizing, I was explaining.
This is why commies need killed, not ridiculed. Democrats ruin everything.
BTW, if I offended you with this, I am sorry. Or if I offended anyone else on this board. It was not my intent to offend anyone.
I saw an interview with a guy in a skintight mini dress being interviewed a couple of weeks ago. He had won a women’s swim meet in California??? He was obviously tucked back. It was unreal.
Mahalo from Oahu.
Kill the commies. Kill all the commies.
Questionable Content: Fuwa Fuwa Pretty Centaur Tentacle
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5881
Nope, ain’t gonna watch or play anything with tentacle in the name.
Yup, “banned in 40 countries and 11 orbital habitats” makes total sense.