Hot and steamy. Yep. And yesterday was too. Maybe slightly less hot than Saturday, but you wouldn’t know it without a thermometer.
Did my event in the morning. Even made some last minute sales. Didn’t win a door prize. Loaded the trailer and was home early. Ate something and fell asleep for a bit, and then a bunch of stuff happened. See yesterday’s comments for details.
W and D2 made it home from the lake just about the time the power went out.
The upshot of yesterday is that I have to figure out what’s wrong with my freezer and fix it today, or replace it post haste. I’d rather fix it as there is a lot of stuff in the way of replacing it. I’ve also got to unload the trailer at my shop and return it. And it’s Monday, so school stuff too.
IF I’d found the freezer issue before it got down to fridge temps, I’d have loaded up coolers, and bought some time. Instead, I’ve loaded up fridges, a portable freezer, and all the free space in the other freezers. It’s a lot of meat.
Oh well, this is normal life. I’ll deal with it, I just don’t like the urgency or hassle. AND other stuff is falling farther down the list.
Stack it high. Hope for the best.
nick
Awake. Have been for a while. Grr. Not sure what’s been waking me but suspect it’s the m-i-l yelling.
Sympathy on your nested travails, Nick. With the lack of appreciation as salt on the wound or maybe grit in the gears.
My wife will rarely, as in less than once a year, express appreciation for the constant things I do to keep things running. I don’t think her ego and neuroses allow her to realize how badly and how quickly the household would degrade without me constantly taking care of things; she’s probably forgotten how bad things were when I was working out of state most of a decade ago. She doesn’t even know about half of the routine maintenance or small fix-it tasks which prevent large problems from happening. I’ve mentioned some of them but the fact that it’s been handled means that it’s not something that impacts her here and now, so it’s in one ear, out the other.
Good Monday morning y’all. Today is set to be 105F currently 76F and still dark at 5am. House cleaners today so time to pre-clean. Arggggg……
Yup, like having the gennies there ready to go. The honda I just turned on the gas bottle, hit prime a couple of times, and gave it a couple of pulls, and it started right up. The extension cord was right there too.
I’m up, but I hurt a lot more than usual. I really should have taken some meds before bed. I’m taking a tylenol and trying to nap for an hour or two, even though I will regret it later. I almost never get headaches but I woke up with one today.
—–
currently 79F and sopping wet.
—–
Or maybe I’ll just stretch and start the day.
n
Does Houston still have a lot of dead growth from the 2021 and 2023 freezes?
That wouldn’t surprise me the way this state plays kick the can.
Most of the lingering problems have been resolved in my neighborhood north of Austin, but we still get the occasional small outages from tree limbs.
It’s a matter of mind over matter. Your mind needs to tell your body that it is nothing but matter and can be replaced if it doesn’t act right. Show it who’s boss!
Should that be UP to fridge temps?
The coolth was decreasing every hour. That’s the scientific explanation.
@Nick: You probably already know, but something I discovered when I bought my little chest freezer was that some are rated for hot garages and some are not. Mine wasn’t, so I keep it inside where it is only rarely over 75F.
I assume it’s more motor horsepower to raise the working fluid well above the hotter ambient, more motor cooling and a longer rated duty cycle, and a bigger heat exchanger.
We are a dry climate so I could probably put a swamp cooler in my garage, but it doesn’t bother me having an indoor freezer, so I didn’t. Probably not something that would work in Houston.
—
In other more pleasant temperature news they’ve revised the prediction here for the next three days down from 106F to about 103°. It doesn’t sound like much but it actually makes a difference.
The warmth was increasing every hour. That’s the scientific explanation. Perspective.
Perspective, or definition?
Remember, electric current was arbitrarily defined as current flowing from positive to negative, before electron flow was discovered. They got it backwards, so forever we are doomed to say current flow is opposite to electron flow. That always bugged me.
That and electrical engineers using j for the square root of negative one.
i is the symbol for current. For, um, reasons.
(The reason is, i was the abbreviation for “intensity of current”, thanks to some brain-damaged French jackass whose name I either have forgotten or have repressed. Is there anything in the world that the stinkin French can’t screw up?)
They are reasonably competent at cheese and wine…
Old joke, dating back to a time when Europe was mostly Islam-free:
In Heaven, the police are English, the cooks are French, and the engineers are German.
In Hell, the cooks are English, the police are German, and the engineers are French.
If your sweating, or shivering, it’s perspective.
There was rain last night, maybe half an inch. No water in the house! Great Success!
Heil Hitler!
If you’re sweating, it’s perspiration, not perspective!
I remember my late uncle explaining to me on an unreasonably hot summer day as he suffered through wearing a formal jacket:
“Horses sweat, gentlemen perspire, and ladies feel the heat!”.
I will never stop making fun of French science, mensuration, or engineering, but I make exceptions for people like Ampere and Descartes and a few others.
Of course, it took a German like Ohm to put it all together mathematically.
I am fascinated by this early period. In the span of just a few years, we went from only knowing a bit about static electricity, to developing batteries, realizing current exists, learning how to measure current, and quantifying the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance.
Remember, Ohm did his experiments with no defined units for ohms, volts, or amps, and had to create his own very sensitive current measuring devices.
ladies feel the heat!”.
– I was told that ladies “glisten”. **
———-
went back to bed, got up. Discovered that the headache was most likely caffeine withdrawal as it went away after the coffee infusion. I had considered dehydration, but am peeing normally.
Spent about an hour stretching and nursing my lower back. Then did another hour. Still know I overdid it yesterday, and in fact this whole weekend, but I have more abuse to come and I have to get the trailer unloaded and returned by 3pm… and so I’ll call my current level of discomfort “mostly ignorable” and get to it.
n
** I was also told that ladies don’t fart. They ‘toot’.
Ladies don’t snore. They ‘purr’.
The French need cheese to give them the energy to run up the white flag. And they need wine to numb the shame of being cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
And you missed one: The French are also good at making strongly-flavored sauces to cover up the smell and taste of spoiled ingredients.
“Scout is Coming: Quick Look at Traveler SUV and Terra Truck!”
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/cars/news-blog/scout-is-coming-quick-look-at-traveler-suv-and-terra-truck-45135451
“Scout!!!!! Coming as an EREV first but BEV (fully EV) is still coming too. Side note: I’m 5’1” for reference. I got A LOT of comments on my social videos/shorts about how big these look next to me.”
“Yes, they do, they both have huge all-terrain tires on them as well! This is a quick walkaround of the two prototype Scouts: Traveler SUV and Terra pick-up. I love them both — which is your favorite? Personally, the bench seat doesn’t do for me!”
“Key specifications include:”
“Scout says both vehicles are expected to:”
Interesting. I like the 35 inch tires and wheels. And the EREV powertrain is very interesting, no complicated ten speed automatic or over horse powered twin turbo V6 that fails if the components have a single issue.
One of my friends in high school drove an International Scout, it was a brute.
It is telling that the most famous French military unit is the French Foreign Legion.
What a pain! My spam email is running about 50 a day now, it was 20 a day just six months ago. It is obvious that the spammers are using AI machines to generate spam now. I have no idea how to fight this as my MX record is sitting in gmail and they are reputedly the best.
The French paradox is having soldiers with such an excellent reputation for skill and bravery, and leaders who surrender at the drop of a hat.
I don’t care about the quantity of spam emails, as long as they are put in the spam folder and not the inbox.
If you are worried about the disk space used by messages that are in the spam folder, set up a short delete time to get rid of them. I don’t get a lot of spam messages, but check the spam folder daily to look for a false positive. A false positive (not really spam) doesn’t happen often.
I do find it interesting that most of the spam emails relate to ‘warnings’ that my cloud storage account has expired, and I must renew immediately. Of course, those spam messages get deleted.
Monday bedtime. A relaxed day. Leisurely breakfast and interesting chat with a relative of W1, then a gentle shopping stroll before a salad lunch.
Reading, and writing letters after lunch, followed by a swim in the lake and a sundowner beer at lakeside.
Minor panic back at the apartment – no hot water! Nothing for me to do other than inform the landlord, who will intervene tomorrow morning.
Goodnight!
Is anyone else getting odd behaviour in the comment editing box? The cursor is randomly jumping back uncommanded to the top of the current paragraph, so new text is appearing at the top of the paragraph rather than being appended at the end. Strange.
If you are working on a laptop with the track pad below the keyboard, I’d suspect errant touches (or near touches, depending on the trackpad sensitivity settings) of your fingers/hand on the trackpad. That’s been my experience when the cursor jumps while I am typing.
That and electrical engineers using j for the square root of negative one.
We had a gauge that showed imaginary power, square root of -1, on all of our steam and diesel generators. If you ventured in that realm for a very long time, the generator would start overheating as it produced that imaginary power.
This is why I believe that we do not understand the universe yet. And why we will have FTL drives some day.
Is anyone else getting odd behaviour in the comment editing box? The cursor is randomly jumping back uncommanded to the top of the current paragraph, so new text is appearing at the top of the paragraph rather than being appended at the end. Strange.
It happens on my phone a lot with the touch sensitive screen.
If you are worried about the disk space used by messages that are in the spam folder, set up a short delete time to get rid of them. I don’t get a lot of spam messages, but check the spam folder daily to look for a false positive. A false positive (not really spam) doesn’t happen often.
I do find it interesting that most of the spam emails relate to ‘warnings’ that my cloud storage account has expired, and I must renew immediately. Of course, those spam messages get deleted.
I get a false positive every day or two. Usually a customer using a lot of engineering terms.
Yup, like having the gennies there ready to go. The honda I just turned on the gas bottle, hit prime a couple of times, and gave it a couple of pulls, and it started right up. The extension cord was right there too.
This time of year, the hurricanes, and the extreme freezes are why I have a whole house generator. I want that dude starting as soon as needed within ten seconds. My daughter cannot control her body temperature due to the strokes and when it is 106 F, her body temperature will be 106 F.
Besides that, I really like having electricity at the house for my 7 tons of A/C and other stuff. I still think about a generator at the office but it will cost me about $35,000 and the wife vetoes every time I talk about it.
Does Houston still have a lot of dead growth from the 2021 and 2023 freezes?
Nope, we are having lots of new growth. With the abundant CO2 in the atmosphere and the 60+ inches of rain a year, the trees and bushes grow all the time like crazy. Centerpoint has several contractors roaming around cutting back the trees all the time.
Yesterday was interesting at my mother’s assisted living. One of the committed XXXXXXXX inhabitants had a spider in her food and called the health department a week ago. The health department showed up the next day and condemned the kitchen. There was spiders in the cooktop vent hood. So they are gutting the kitchen down to the studs and replacing everything. Everything is now being cooked on a $2,000 propane outside stove with about a dozen burners on it.
And yes, the food sucked yesterday for lunch, a mediocre Salisbury steak with “gravy” and cooked carrots and rice. And a small salad to start with dressing in a individual plastic squeeze thing.
Sudden thought: if you think that errant touches on the trackpad are causing problems – just coat the trackpad with super glue. That will help you determine the problem.
(See, it’s not just SteveF that has good lifestyle tips. #FollowMeForMoreTechHelp.)
(The reason is, i was the abbreviation for “intensity of current”, thanks to some brain-damaged French jackass whose name I either have forgotten or have repressed. Is there anything in the world that the stinkin French can’t screw up?)
Ask Madame Curie. Oh wait, she is dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie
It is 105 F outside at 4 pm according to Wunderground.
We are having an exciting day at the office. Six sheriff’s deputies showed up and blocked my main road past my warehouse where the neighbors drive back to their properties. Then a sheriff’s helicopter showed up and landed on my land next to the warehouse. That is when I decided to join the party as nobody had asked me about blocking my driveway or landing a large helicopter on my land. They are watching a boat on a trailer at my neighbors property. I did not ask for details.
They used the helicopter to get a video of the neighbor’s property. They did ask my permission to keep two vehicles on my driveway at the dumpster and I granted it. My son thinks it is drug runners as four of the sheriff’s deputies vehicle were unmarked.
VW needs to put down the crack pipe.
An awful lot of money from multiple layers of government is pouring into that section of the country to build EVs. This won’t end well.
It is now 107 F outside. The dew point is 70 F and the humidity is 40%.
Did anybody get fired? My Mom passed before I got her into an arranged assisted care place. One of a couple in Vegas that would take her SS when her funds ran out and supplement with a State program. One of my great concerns was abuse. Or non-care. Or lack of maintenance. Or, etc.
Their, they’re. Know kneed two get you’re pantees in a wad. I just maid a small mistake.
Did anybody get fired? My Mom passed before I got her into an arranged assisted care place. One of a couple in Vegas that would take her SS when her funds ran out and supplement with a State program. One of my great concerns was abuse. Or non-care. Or lack of maintenance. Or, etc.
I do not have a clue. The grapevine was more pissed about the meals quality or, lack thereof.
VW needs to put down the crack pipe.
An awful lot of money from multiple layers of government is pouring into that section of the country to build EVs. This won’t end well.
I was wondering who was the present owner of International Harvester, now Navistar, was.
VW is in serious trouble in Germany.
But I like the concept of a electric motor vehicle with a 100+ mile range and a motor – generator set that will get you 300+ miles down the road, we have nicknamed those as EREVs. We use them all the time for transportation, we call them diesel – electric locomotives.
I’m confused. I suppose I could read that as “
committedinhabitants” and it makes sense. But contra the connotation, there was, in fact, grounds for her complaint. Plenty of 8 legged grounds.Who knows how long that had been going on?
It’s a good idea to eat meals with your loved one who’s in care, to see the quality of food and staff. I never did that with my brother, although I sat with him a few times. I did get some good looks at the kitchen, and it seemed modern and clean.
I’d be encouraged by the instant response by the facility to address the situation. Although they have no choice, really.
Overall I was fortunate in my choice of facilities. Not too small, not too big, did their best during Covid hysteria. I had a couple of issues with billing and language, since neither I nor my brother spoke Spanish. Cheap enough he could afford it, once I got his finances straightened out.
“The Whole World Is Stockpiling Like It’s 1939”
https://www.schiffsovereign.com/investing/the-whole-world-is-stockpiling-like-its-1939-155699/
“On June 7, 1939, US President Franklin Roosevelt signed a new law authorizing $100 million (a lot of money back then) to buy rubber, tin, tungsten, etc., and put it all in storage.”
“The United States was still at peace at the time. World War II had not yet broken out, and global trade was still relatively seamless.”
“But anyone reading a newspaper could see what was coming. Hitler had annexed Austria the year before and swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakia that March. Japan had been at war in China for two years.”
“Every commodity on Roosevelt’s list had one thing in common: America produced next to none of it. Nearly all of the rubber used by US companies, for example, came from British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. A lot of tin came from Malaya as well.”
“Congress and Roosevelt were being appropriately cautious. And within a short time they had stockpiled hundreds of thousands of tons of these strategic assets.”
“Then came the War. Then Pearl Harbor. And then full-blown economic chaos.”
Dempanic
I’m confused. I suppose I could read that as “
committedinhabitants” and it makes sense. But contra the connotation, there was, in fact, grounds for her complaint. Plenty of 8 legged grounds.Even though the assisted facility calls their rooms apartments, they are not very easy to move on and out like a real apartment complex. Everyone there is what I call “walking wounded” and that is a generous term. The average age is somewhere around 85 SWAG, from 53 to 100. At least half of them are in wheelchairs. Most are incontinent and serious fall risks.
Basically, it is a place where the inhabitants cannot take of themselves. I really do not want to call it a warehouse. The basic cost is $4,800 per month and there is an ala carte menu that jumps that up. If you need meals brought into you then that is $100 per month. If you need your drugs brought to you daily then that is $100 per month. So on and so forth.
The inhabitants are not committed to the place but moving them is a big deal.
Yeah, they had a problem with the kitchen and the new owner was ignoring it. The new owner fired the old facility director the day they bought the place. The inhabitants are pissed off that the food quality has suddenly dropped off, I hope that rebuilt kitchen will fix that. But, moving mom would be a disaster and I have enough disasters right now.
Then came plugs The LastTM who drained the SPR.
I was curious about withdrawal percentages of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the last 20 years. Some basic research (from http://www.energy.gov and Wikipedia) came up with these values:
Interpretation
The withdrawals were concentrated in two terms:
So, withdrawals during Biden’s presidency were the largest percentage, but Trump’s second term is catching up. (Note that Trump 2 is less than two years of data, vs. Biden’s 4 years.). And most of Trump 2’s withdrawals are this year (so far).
…and this shows remaining SPR stock levels at the end of each presidential term (same sources):
Probably true, but every HAM knows the use of “i”; it’s used to calculate RF antenna radiation patterns, because the electric field and the magnetic field of the ELECTRO-MAGNETIC radiation move differently. It’s our mathematics that has gotten a bit sideways with reality.
$60k is not even remotely realistic, even for a rich person’s toy.
Well.
Spent two hours or more stretching my back, hips, pelvis, and legs. Finally got to a point where I could stand, walk, and lift things without real pain… which left me just enough time to rush and unload my trailer and return it.
Except… Expedition battery was dead. It had a couple of slow starts recently and I put it down to the dash cam not sleeping properly. Really it was the heat wave and a 2020 manufacture date. Snappy Something cheap no name battery lasted SIX YEARS. That’s double the Interstate batteries from Costco.
My spare “jumper” battery that I also use on the gennie was dead. The worn out battery I use for the diesel heater is dead. Had to pull the Ranger around and jumpstart the Expy, then never turn it off for the unload and return.
Came in after that and climbed behind the freezer to see what I could see. It was running, and frozen inside. Must have thermal’d out. Since I didn’t have to do anything with it, I jumped in the Ranger and got new batteries for the Expy and the gennie. Also stopped at the chiropractor since I was hurting and passing by.
Got home, started moving meat back to the freezer. I put the oldest in front this time. Also re-vac sealed any that even looked like they leaked or weren’t holding vac anymore. Changed my notation to “ +0 ” for how many days that they have left. There were a few pieces of meat from 2020, some from 2022, and a few from 2024. About the same proportion of 2026 packages.
Emptied the fridge in the kitchen. I’ll let that much cool to freezing before putting more back in the freezer. The portable freezer is still full and rock hard.
Long, task filled day. I’m not gonna skip the meds tonight. Even with having to time them to avoid being a bit ‘off’ in the morning, I’ll lose a lot less time than I did today. I am grateful that I can still manage the aftereffects of too much work.
Dinner was steak, USDA Prime, from 2020 and it was tender and delicious. MUCH better than the same grade I bought from the same HEB this year.
n
$60k is not even remotely realistic, even for a rich person’s toy.
A new F-150 for me is $75K. And that is without leather seats.
Temp dropped to 87F and now 85F so I sat out for a bit and read. Meds are kicking in, so it’s time for a shower and bed. And a snack.
n
And the freezer is still freezing.
And before I go, anyone know anything about “trump mystery meat” and that it’s his fault a national park is selling wild horses that are being turned into dinner?
Somehow this never crossed my awareness, but all three females in my house believe it to be true, damning, and irrefutable…
n
I really don’t want to even try googling it.
(is is something you are aware of as a story without googling it?)
I’ve seen several stories the last few days about wild horses being ‘harvested’ in Colorado and other western states. Animal rights peoples are a bit upset about that harvesting.
One Colorado news article is here: https://coloradosun.com/2026/08/24/wild-horses-blm-contracts-piceance-basin/ Another article here (seems to present a balanced view): https://www.npr.org/2026/08/21/nx-s1-5920407/colorado-wild-horses-federal-government-roundup
Yes, I am a Texas resident seeking !!!
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8K6lBq9pLkBbTzHHfVuIMtBFKcbj0SeJIkD57zru32OVWbfBEPbzIr-J1l2fqaPdaAjsynTH_weIySQjQLaz18Us7KeMtnR252HobHlwe3qHassMflxovYioXSOlEOa6ue2XnYBIWnSXIZD5Avx4V-ldaR20JJSgLKSR7Ecrynge2g8wku_HXjge8YWs/s664/Meme%20-%20TX%20resident.png
From:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2026/08/memes-that-made-me-laugh-325.html
“Heinlein’s Crazy Years”
https://areaocho.com/heinleins-crazy-years/
Yup, we have been living in Heinlein’s Crazy Years since 1963.
I am hoping that we are at least halfway through them.
“Election integrity: U.S. Supreme Court sides with Trump on mail-in ballot crackdown”
https://www.wnd.com/2026/08/election-integrity-u-s-supreme-court-sides-trump/
“The U.S. Supreme Court Monday ruled that President Donald Trump can implement parts of his executive order meant to tighten up mail-in balloting in the U.S. – this after a group of states sued the federal government to stop the administration’s plans, claiming they were unconstitutional.”
“In June, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts, a Barack Obama appointee, blocked Trump’s mail ballot order for the 23 states challenging the policy.”
“The one page ruling from the high court had the backing of the six conservative and moderate justices and allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to create lists of adult U.S. citizens in each state and to send those lists to states at least 60 days before a federal election as a means to ensure only citizens are sent ballots. The Trump order also directs the U.S. Postal Service, in states that have mail-in voting, to obtain lists of eligible voters and deliver mailed ballots only to those people.”
Me like.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/